The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Hush, baby…” Victoria’s voice was gentle, soothing, loving.

I murmured numbly and twitched.

“That’s right…” She had relaxed after I stopped struggling, and now she traced a fingertip down the side of my face.

All I could see were the lights: the twirling, flashing, spinning, mesmerizing lights. And colors. And shapes. They fractured like a kaleidoscope on the screen and they fractured my thoughts, blanketing my emotions with the dullness of trance layered on top of post-orgasmic bliss.

“Just relax and let go… It will all be over soon.”

But even though my physical body was limp, my mind was a battlefield. I felt like there was a cage being built around me. No, a web. A sticky, tightening web that entangled me even as I fought to free myself. But still I fought.

I had been surprised. Caught off guard, because I thought I’d protected myself against betrayal. Now, I just had to hang on with bitter determination and struggle against the foggy embrace of the words that wrapped their tendrils around me. I could hear them now, in the music. Or maybe I was reading them through the shapes.

Relax.

Let go.

Stop thinking.

Stop fighting.

Stop worrying.

And I had only one thought, one shield, to turn them away.

No!

But my silent ‘No’ grew weaker with every blow that rained down upon it.

Protected by the shield, what small part of my mind and will remained was desperately trying to figure out a plan. It clung to a single idea — Daisy managed to resist the TRANCE conditioning. And if she could do it, then so could I. It was a small beacon of light in the fog, but it gave me hope.

The only problem was that I had no idea how she’d done it. Still, a fledgling sense of grit and determination flexed in my mind. It’s possible, I thought. I cannot give up.

“You belong to Landon now,” Victoria’s murmured words slid into my mind. She sounded so pleasant. Relaxed.

Relax.

Let go.

“Just like me…” Her tone was satisfied. It shivered with a sensual groan. Far away, I felt her lean down over me. The brush of hair across my chest was distant.

No!

There was a wolverine in my chest. A wild animal trapped and clawing for escape. It felt as if it had awakened suddenly and realized it was under assault. That it was being caged. And it wanted out.

No!

The silent, shouted word was no longer a shield. It was an attack.

“Kiss me, and surrender…” Victoria’s lips were on the corner of my mouth, teasing me. Her scent was in my nose: the scent of sex and submission and desire and satisfaction. It was almost enough to overcome me. I knew that all I had to do was turn my mouth and give in. It would all be over qui—

No!

There was no way I was letting Landon Shrike turn my Victoria into his mindless puppet. There was no way I was letting Seth Torrance keep my Daisy and my Carmen as his obedient bimbo playthings. And there was no way I was letting this Clayton fucker take my Amber away from me.

With all of my mental strength, I shoved the massive weight off my mind and focused all my effort on a single movement. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t smooth and lightning quick and masterfully balanced. My form was terrible, and if Terra had seen me she would have wondered what kind of grotesque monster she’d created.

But it worked.

My hand clumsily twisted, wrapping Victoria’s supporting arm in the crook of my elbow and tugging it out from under her. My hips awkwardly wriggled and lifted, pushing the woman’s weight over sideways. The fingers of the other hand wrapped around the screen in front of me and, with what felt like the last of my energy, turned it to one side.

Victoria’s weight bounced on the mattress beside me. She gasped in shock. Her eyes widened instinctively. And then latched onto the screen I’d pointed at her face.

She stood no chance. She’d been triggered by this video too many times before. Her mental defenses stood in ruins. “Oh…” she whispered, and I felt a little shudder of pleasure run through the mattress as she gave in.

I lay on my back until my wrist grew tired and my hand slowly dropped to my chest. When my eyes cracked open again and I looked over, Victoria’s hand was still in the air. The screen in her hand had been directed toward her face, and flickering colors reflected in her eyes and danced across her cheeks.

I realized the music was still pounding in my ears. I felt like I’d been underwater and only just surfaced. With effort, I rolled my naked body over and pushed myself up onto my knees. Then, groaning, I swung my legs off the bed and shoved off the mattress. The music was still blasting when I left the bedroom, but I didn’t figure it would bother the neighbors. I was realizing that the abruptness of the mental invasion had made everything seem heightened, even volume.

Groggily, I staggered into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. I felt like I’d just woken up from a poor night of sleep, and that meant I needed two things.

A plan, and a big cup of coffee.

The music had stopped, I realized. There was silence from the bedroom down the hall.

I was staring at the table with a warm mug between my palms. The grain of the wood looked like rippling lines and twisting spirals. The problem in my mind was like a lock, chaining me in place as strongly as the invisible shackles I’d just resisted.

I knew that there had to be a way to save my lovers, to once and for all break them free from the hold TRANCE had on their lives. But even though I had resisted the control of the company’s sinister mind control program, I knew that throwing off previously entrenched programming from their minds would be an even more difficult struggle. Still, I tried not to focus on the impossibility of the task as I ran through what I knew. I resisted it, I thought. And Daisy overcame it…

The mug was empty, and my brain was buzzing with caffeine.

Then, at last, the third tumbler turned over. Lassiter overcame it, too. I was scrambling back into the bedroom for my phone, taking in the shadowy figure of Victoria as I searched for my pants in the dark.

The woman lay quietly on her back, spread-eagled across the bed. Her big, round tits rose and fell with her breaths. One hand lazily parted her outer folds while her thumb played with her clit. She was quietly murmuring something, over and over, and I couldn’t help the flush of heat that spread all the way down into my cock when I heard her words.

“Listen and obey… Cannot resist…”

I steeled myself and stacked the three phones that had been in my pants — mine, Daisy’s and Amber’s. Clambering up to the head of the bed, I sat against the wall and set them on the sheets beside me. I took a deep breath, then raised my device and unlocked it.

I made a call. On the other end of the line, a phone rang.

Bringgg. The first one went unanswered.

Bringgg. And the second.

I clutched the phone harder. Please pick up… I thought. Please pick up…

Brin—

Click.

“Hello?” The voice sounded rough with sleep.

“Mike? It’s me, Chance. Listen, I know it’s late but I need your help with something. Right now. It couldn’t wait.”

A pause. Then, “Hold on a sec.” I heard the click of a lamp being turned on.

“You don’t need to say anything yet, just listen.” My words were tumbling over each other. I had the sense that I was onto something, like the curtains were pulling back. “Yesterday you said that at the meeting you had to resist the urge to obey when Shrike used the trigger phrase. How did you do that?”

Another pause. “Sir?” Lassiter sounded confused.

“How did you do it?” I repeated. “When Shrike used the trigger on Victoria you said she dropped right down into a trance and did whatever he wanted. But you also said that you had to resist the urge to do the same. How did you resist it?”

“Oh. Hmm…”

I waited, my skin practically tingling with anticipation. I almost flinched when I felt a touch on my leg, but when I glanced down I saw it was just Victoria. She continued to stare up at the ceiling, but her hand slowly slid across my thigh and brushed against my thickening length.

I swallowed. Her mantra was quiet, but it shivered through me.

“Listen and obey… Cannot resist…”

Lassiter spoke. “I just knew that I couldn’t give in. It was similar to how you feel when you’re way too tired but you know you have to keep working. So you shake off the exhaustion and refocus. I knew that in order to continue to serve as your spy, I couldn’t reveal myself as being under the power of the trigger. And…” The man cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “I knew there was no way I was going to crawl across the table on my hands and knees to blow another man.”

“Listen and obey…” Victoria’s fingers circled around my girth and gently began to stroke. “Cannot resist…”

I swallowed down my lust and nodded, even though Mike couldn’t see me. It fit. I knew that I had implanted his status as my spy deep into his consciousness. And I could assume, based on the man’s tone, that being straight was also a part of his identity. Mike had reached deep down inside of himself and drawn up the necessary strength to resist his programming. He had used his core beliefs to give him the certainty he needed to take back his will.

I had done the same, in the moment when I decided that no one and no thing could take my loved ones away from me. That was my new identity, the one I’d forged in recent weeks. And it had allowed me to turn aside the invasive power of TRANCE’s hypnotic attack.

Daisy, whether or not she intended to, must have pulled from the same well of strength to regain control of her mind.

I had an odd sense of déjà vu, remembering Terra’s words. A part of you, a part of your mind, is stuck, anchored, wrapped in the chains of the things you’ve done and thought and learned. I nodded to myself. “But we can break those chains,” I murmured. “By remembering who we are. And who we want to become.”

“Listen and obey… Cannot resist…” Victoria’s mantra now a double-edged sword. Her hand stroked languidly, expertly, up and down my shaft, and the words fanned a fire of lust in my chest. But I also knew that every time she repeated them she was hammering them further into her mind, building a new version of herself who was trapped deeper and deeper in TRANCE’s web.

“What’s that, Sir?” Mike sounded more attentive now, more awake, and his voice reminded me that I still had the phone up to my ear.

“No, sorry, nothing. I just figured something out. Something big.” My words were a rush. My pulse was racing, with arousal but also with genuine excitement. I wanted to end the call, knew that I needed to help Victoria. She would be the test subject, the one to prove or disprove my theory.

Bang.

A loud noise startled me, and it took me a second to realize that it had come through the phone.

“What the hell?” Lassiter’s voice was a harsh rasp, and I thought I could catch a grating edge of fear. “Who could that possibly be, this late?”

I felt a cold shiver down my back. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “Mike,” I said. “I don’t think you should go to the door.”

Bang.

Abruptly, I realized that there was something I hadn’t told him. “Landon Shrike knows,” I said desperately. “He knows that I’ve been following Amber. He knows that we started to dig into Platinum Services. He knew that I wasn’t going to stop until I freed my girls from his power.”

Ice spread through my chest. It didn’t matter that I was telling him now. I was telling him too late.

Lassiter cursed quietly, harshly. “Then he has to have figured out that someone was helping you put the pieces together.” The man must have put his phone down, because were rustling noises from the other end of the line, the sound of doors or drawers sliding open and closed. Like I was on speakerphone listening to Lassiter go through a nightstand or a closet.

I stood, pulling away from Victoria’s hand and standing in the dark with my rock hard length swaying in front of me. Cold ran down my spine. A distant memory resurfaced, a silly idea I’d once had about a porn production company sending hitmen to my apartment as retribution for stealing their actresses.

No… I thought. That wasn’t possible.

“There you are, slugger,” Lassiter muttered, and there was the quick, gentle rapping sound of wood on wood.

Then, a third almighty bang sounded in my ear. It had a tearing, crashing quality. I gripped the phone harder.

“Fuck,” Lassiter swore. “That was the front door.”

Silence. It seemed like a long time. It could have been seconds, really. Or minutes. My fingers squeezed and relaxed on the phone, and I imagined Lassiter’s doing the same on the grip of his baseball bat.

This isn’t happening, I told myself. Things like this don’t actually happen. It’s just in video games and movies.

A rattling noise broke the silence. “He’s locked the door.” A new voice, loud and nearby, but a bit muffled.

“Who the hell are you?” Lassiter was obviously trying to sound aggressive and in control. “What do you want? Get out of my house. I already called the police!”

Good, I thought, relieved, before realizing that Mike was bluffing. He still hadn’t hung up on me, which meant he hadn’t contacted the police, or anyone else.

A moment of quiet.

Then, there was a crash and Lassiter yelled. Another yell answered him like a roar and there was a second loud crash and the sound of splintering wood. The phone had probably been knocked to the floor, because there was a quiet thump and when I could hear again the only sound was a low, quiet groaning.

“Hello, Mr. Lassiter.”

I heard Lassiter’s sudden intake of breath. He must have been on the floor, as well, because his voice was close. It sounded harsh with pain. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“The Gwennen send their regards,” a voice rasped. “They don’t appreciate spies. Or traitors.”

“Who the hell are the G—?” But Lassiter never had the chance to finish his astonished question.

There was a sound. And I wanted to believe it wasn’t real, that none of this was happening, because I’d only ever heard that sound in video games and action films. It was the loud crack of a gun going off.

My blood froze.

“Come on…” I muttered. “Come on.” I didn’t know what I was hoping for so fervently, but there was a deafening silence that cut through me like a knife.

Nothing.

Then, the voice again. It was closer now, like the speaker was kneeling close over the businessman’s body. “No pulse.”

No… I thought. No no no…

Further away, like the speaker had gotten back to his feet and turned away. “We fix all this up. Quick. If Shrike hasn’t heard from his woman in half an hour, it’ll be time to deal with Mr. Laurenzi.”

I hung up before I was aware I’d done it, before whoever was on the other side could find Lassiter’s phone and see that I was listening. Numb, barely able to stand, I stumbled back to the bed and fell onto the mattress. I crawled towards Victoria, the focus of fear driving me forward with desperation.

“Alright, Vi,” I muttered, kneeling beside the woman. “It’s now or never.”

And it was.

I am Mr. Laurenzi.

Victoria’s hand slipped across the sheets toward me, up onto my knee. I had to take her hand and interlace our fingers to prevent her instinctive, programmed desire to reach out and start pleasuring my cock with her body.

“Alright, Victoria,” I told her, speaking as much to myself as to the entranced brunette. “It’s time to remember who you really are.”

I had no idea if my plan would work. But it was all I could think of, and that had to be better than nothing. If my insight was wrong, then there would be no way for me to talk Victoria into breaking this trance herself. I would be at a loss, too, to save Carmen, Daisy and Amber. And at that point, I might as well sit here and wait for the goddamn deathsquad that had just…

I forced my thoughts away from what had just happened to Lassiter. I knew it would probably hit me later. But now I had to focus.

The stakes had just been raised.

Beside me, Victoria’s lips were still moving. Her eyes were glazed, rarely blinking. “Listen and obey… Cannot resist…”

On my knees, I held the beautiful woman’s hand in both of my own and squeezed. “You’ve got to resist, Vi,” I ordered. I didn’t know if she could hear me, but I had to believe that some part of it was getting through. “You’ve got to. Not just for you, but for me. And for Daisy and Carmen and Amber, too. Because that’s what you do. You do things for others, even when it’s hard and inconvenient. You take care of people even when you probably don’t want to, or when they should be the ones taking responsibility.”

I couldn’t tell if my words were penetrating into her mind, but at least she’d fallen silent.

“Remember when I took us out to dinner and you saved my ass by getting us that reservation? Or when you showed up at Starside to tell me that I needed to fix things with Daisy? That’s who you are. Not this mindless sexbot programmed by Landon fucking Shrike.”

Victoria’s lips twitched when I said Shrike’s name, but her eyelids had drifted closed. Her eyes were darting back and forth behind them, like she was deep in a vivid dream.

I paused, watching her, then went on.

“We trust you, Vi, because you know how to take care of us. And sometimes, maybe, we take you for granted. But usually it’s just because you’re so good at it that we forget someone is behind the scenes making it all possible. You’re that woman. You’re the one who takes care of things, who takes care of us. You do it even when we don’t remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ And you can do it right now, by breaking free of this thing.”

I was quiet for a moment, hoping that my encouraging tone would reach her, but Victoria lay silent, her chest rising and falling. I wondered how much time I had taken to throw off the hypnotic video that had tried to trap me. Certainly not this long, right?

“You took the right step yesterday, standing up for yourself in that boardroom. And you didn’t get what you deserved. You deserved to be listened to and instead you were disrespected and used wantonly. But if you, right now, can stand up and take back control of yourself, then you will be proving that you are that woman. You’re the one who takes care of others and is finally learning to take care of herself. And you can take another step. And then another. Until you are right here with me, right now, yourself. The woman who is going to help me save our family. Because that is who you are.”

Victoria made a quiet sound then, and turned her head. There was a furrow between her sculpted eyebrows, like she was concentrating. Her face twisted, like her dream had turned into a nightmare. “No…” she murmured, so quiet I could barely hear. “Stop it…”

Is she really…? I wondered, and couldn’t stop a brief flutter of hope. I lifted our entwined hands and kissed her knuckles. “Come on, Vi…” I muttered, staring into her face.

Her eyes opened. Behind fluttering lashes, I could see that they were clear.

“Chance…?” she whispered. The dark orbs eyes widened in surprise when, instead of answering, I simply bent my head and kissed her passionately. “Oh…” she murmured into my lips. I felt one of her hands rise up to run through my hair, to pull me closer.

I squeezed my eyes closed, fell into the moment. I fell into the profound relief, into the knowledge that there was something we could do to escape TRANCE’s dangerous maze. But, even as my anxiety receded, I knew it was just a wave going back out to sea before the next one washed ashore. There was still too much to do. There was so much at stake. And, beneath it all, beneath my fear for my family and my desire to see them safe, flowed a single haunting question.

If I helped my companions to free themselves from TRANCE, for good, would they even want to stay?

“We don’t have much time,” I told Victoria, once I’d pulled back and given her a chance to collect herself. I explained what had I’d just heard over the phone, and what I had figured out about breaking free from TRANCE programming.

The woman was furious that she’d been the one to turn against me.

“I thought I was helping you…” Victoria muttered, rubbing her temples. Her mouth was a hard line. “And I was betraying you. For him.” She didn’t even have to use Shrike’s name. The venom in her voice was enough for me to know who she was talking about.

But I shook my head. “It’s not your fault,” I told her sternly, flipping the light switch and stooping to seize my clothes from the floor. I started to get dressed. “Besides, right now we don’t need to worry about what’s done. We can’t. All we can do is get the hell out of here as fast as possible and come up with a plan. This is the first place Shrike’s guys will look for us.”

The brunette steeled herself, then nodded. “I’ll make a go-bag,” she said. “Cash. Electronics. Anything useful. And we should expect that anything we leave behind is going to be gone for good.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t think these guys plan on being gentle with the place.”

While Victoria went out into the hallway closet to grab a duffel, I grabbed my wallet, as much cash as I had on hand, and the snarl of interconnected charging cables at the foot of the bed. These last I simply yanked out of the wall and coiled into a fist-sized bundle. I could worry about untangling that knot when it came to it. In college, I used to take hours to pack for a weekend trip with my small friend group. Tonight, I was ready in five minutes flat.

Victoria and I stood in the entry, cold air blowing down the front hallway through the open door. I looked back into my darkened apartment.

So long, I thought.

Then, we were gone.

Victoria drove, and I didn’t need to give her directions for her to take the quickest, more direct route away from my place. We passed the turnoff towards Downing Street, and I wondered if we’d ever be back at Daphne Park, all together, like we had been only a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving.

“Chance,” Victoria said finally. She was only a few feet away, but her face was in shadow. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. “I know you’re trying to come up with a plan, but where exactly am I going?”

I frowned. I had no idea. And I had other things on my mind.

“We need to get Carmen separated from Seth,” I said, not yet answering her question. “So that we can talk to her without him confusing matters and muddying the water. And in order to do that, we’re going to need something to distract him.”

Victoria took a turn, and something slid across the passenger side floorspace and bumped into my foot. “So what’s big enough to distract that self-centered, arrogant little prick? As much as I hate to say it, he seemed pretty goddamn self-assured.”

Bending down, I stretched against the seatbelt and snagged the object up into my hands. It had a clunky heft to it, and as I stared at it several things clicked together in my mind. A dozen complaints, conversations and stories, swirling and rearranging themselves from one shape into another.

What if they’re wrong? I wondered. What if, the whole time…

“What have you got there?” Victoria asked, not looking over.

“Just a hunch,” I said, digging in my pocket. But it might be the only card I could play that would be guaranteed to put Seth off balance.

I slid Daisy’s phone from my pants and hesitated before I started to type a new message. Then, my fingers froze. I needed an immediate response. The stakes were too high for me to leave anything to luck.

The phone at the other end picked up after the second ring.

“Hello?” The voice was groggy, but urgent. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Good morning,” I said, forcing myself to speak past the ball of nervous tension in my chest. “My name is Chance Laurenzi. How soon can you be in the City?”

We ended up where I always seemed to end up — back at the Black Dragon Dojo. It was the first time Victoria had visited, but along the way I filled her in with the relevant details.

“So,” she commented as we eased into the deserted strip mall parking lot. “This is the place you come every day to learn combat techniques from a mysterious, drug-dealing ninja.”

I huffed a laugh, then realized that the description was only half a joke. I shrugged. “Well, so far it’s usually more cardio stuff than combat techniques, but… yeah. It sounds stranger when you say it your way.”

“Hmm…” Victoria answered, parking. Then, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to judge. I just worry. Now more than ever. And it worries me that you have such complete trust in someone I’ve never met.” The woman bent forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “I’m not usually so overprotective. Or suspicious. But…” She made an exasperated noise.

I reached out and softly rubbed her upper back. “I get it,” I agreed. “If anyone has an excuse to be jaded and suspicious it’s you. But Terra is a good person, a genuinely solid human being. At first, I was skeptical as well. She seemed hard to get along with. But I think she’s just lonely and used to a hard life. Besides, I trusted her enough to tell her about us, and she was more than understanding. She was helpful.”

I squeezed the brunette’s shoulder gently, then added, “That’s why I’m willing to ask her help again. And that’s why I trust her to have my back when I go looking for Landon Shrike.”

Victoria sat up very suddenly. “What?” she asked, turning my way.

I nodded, my features grim. Before tonight I would never have considered this kind of idea. Now, I knew the only way to win was to go on offense. “We can’t deal with the Seth situation until morning. And we won’t be able to save Amber until we can confront this Clayton guy with all the odds in our favor. If I don’t get to Shrike now, his fucking murder squad is going to be at our backs hounding us until they get what he wants. And what he wants is probably my head on a stick and your head as empty as a blowup doll. You’ve met the guy. Am I wrong?”

A pause.

“He wants power, and to be in control,” Victoria looked down. “And he doesn’t let anything or anyone get in his way.”

I nodded. “Alright then,” I rested my hand lightly on her forearm. “I know that both of us have good cause to be worried. But we can’t let it consume us. I need you to drop me at Terra’s place and then get down to the airport. The flight should be arriving in a couple hours, but I need you to be ready when it lands. You let me know immediately, and we can meet up to rescue the twins. If all goes according to plan, Terra and I will have dealt with the Landon Shrike problem by then. If not…” I blew out a breath. Then, I stared into Victoria’s face.

For the first time since I’d known her, Victoria seemed completely at a loss.

“I trust you,” I told her. “If I can’t be there, you’ll get the twins away from Seth. Together, you’ll find a way to get Amber away from the academy.” I nodded, but couldn’t go on.

Victoria bit her bottom lip, but then steeled herself. She knew we didn’t have time to whine about what had happened or what might happen. I needed to get moving. So, she gripped the wheel and pulled us away from the curb.

“Alright,” she said. “Where does this ninja master of yours live?”

As we turned the corner past the iron-fenced churchyard, I felt my heartbeat quicken in my chest. We pulled up in front of Terra’s small house, and I unbuckled my seatbelt without looking over. However, when I turned to say goodbye I heard Victoria’s own belt click.

“You’re not thinking of coming with me?” I asked, frowning.

The woman’s door thunked open and she stepped out into the night. “I’ll wait at the airport,” she agreed, bending down to speak to me across the front seat. “But first, I’m meeting this Terra woman. I’m going to make sure she’s badass enough to keep my man alive. And, I’m going to make sure you two have a plan that’s going to end with all of us walking away safe.” Then, with a firm nod, she closed her door and strode around the front of the car.

I watched her for only a split second before I untangled myself from the seatbelt and followed. Together, we strode up to Terra’s front porch, and I didn’t try to stop her. I couldn’t say no to a woman like that.

“You are back.”

Terra had been sitting quietly on the porch swing, sitting so still that the thing wasn’t even swaying back and forth.

“I am.” I hurried up the steps after Victoria, lifting up a hand in greeting. “Terra, this is Victoria. And I hate to be a bother, but we need your help.”

My martial arts instructor took in the whole story with surprising grace.

Despite my speed, and the convoluted narrative, she simply watched me and nodded along. I’d known Terra was hardcore. That’s why I’d been willing to come to her with this, to open up and trust her with everything. But her response was almost underwhelming.

“Do you remember exactly what you heard them say?” she asked. “On the other end of the line, after they killed your spy.” It was her only question.

I blinked. “Something about… The Gwennen doesn’t appreciate traitors,” I shrugged and massaged my temples. “I didn’t get it. And Lassiter wasn’t some spy, okay? He was my friend.”

Sure, DC commented dryly. A “friend” who was forced to help you, who has been paying your bills off his credit card, and who died because you got him involved with—

“And you don’t wish to inform the police?” Terra’s voice was quiet, but it cut through my internal diatribe.

I hesitated, then shook my head firmly again. “No. Even if we got them involved, what would they do? One man is already dead, but I have no proof to connect it to Shrike or to TRANCE, Inc.” Not for the first time, I wished I had been more prepared. If only I’d thought about the future, instead of just trying to put out fires in the present, I might have been ready for these bizarre and dangerous curveballs.

“Besides,” I added. “TRANCE is a rich and powerful corporation. How am I supposed to know who to trust? Until now, I wasn’t even able to trust the people closest to me.” I shook my head. “Maybe I’ve seen too many movies about corrupt politicians and dirty cops, but we have to keep this between us.”

What I didn’t say out loud was that I knew if we got some outside authority involved then I would be out of the picture, powerless. There was no guarantee that I could put things back together again, but I didn’t trust the job to any hands but my own.

Terra didn’t disagree. In fact, she nodded along. “This is wise. It doesn’t sound like these mercenaries or their organization would appreciate outside interference. So, what do you need me to do?”

I took a breath, then rolled my shoulders. “Victoria is going to go pick up our guest from the airport. You and I, meanwhile, are going to find Landon Shrike. If we can break into the TRANCE offices, I bet we can search the HR database or something and find out where he lives. Then—”

“I know his address.”

Victoria’s tone was low when she interrupted, but I stopped speaking immediately. “You do?”

“I do,” she said. “A lot of things are still fuzzy in my mind, but I know he told me that I should come by his place after work sometime. After we finished our lunch yesterday, he told me that he wanted to get to know me better.” The woman shuddered.

“Alright,” I nodded. “Then that bastard gave us just what we needed to nail him.” I punched my palm to emphasize the point. “You get on to the airport, Terra and I will track down Shrike. I’ll call you as soon as I can, and we’ll meet back at Seth’s.”

Victoria nodded, and then I turned to Terra. “I know this is a lot,” I said, spreading my hands. “But right now you’re one of the only people I can trust. And, as luck would have it, you’re also uniquely suited to help me. I know you have things from the past that you don’t want to think about, but those things turned you into exactly the person who can help me tonight. Will you?”

“Of course.” The woman didn’t hesitate for a second. “The enemies of my friend are my enemies.”

“Thank you.” By now, I hardly noticed the fact that she spoke like someone out of a high fantasy novel.

“If you will excuse me,” Terra said. “I have one or two things I need to fetch from inside.” Walking quickly past us, she opened the front door and slipped into the house.

Victoria and I stood outside in the chill air for a moment before the woman turned away. “I should get going,” she said.

“Hey,” I said, following and grabbing her arm as she started down the steps. “Wait.”

“What?” The woman paused, not looking back. “If we’re going to get through tonight then we need everything to go as smooth as possible. If I leave now, I can be at the airport in forty-five minutes. Maybe half an hour. I should be there in plenty of time. But what if the flight comes in early? I’ve got to be prepared. You’re about to take enough risk, for all of us.” She turned back toward me, but didn’t look up into my face. “I won’t be the weak link, babe.”

It felt stupid and cliché and it was the wrong time. But I couldn’t let her go without saying it. “I love you, Vi.” My eyes searched for hers but she still didn’t look up. “I love you and I didn’t want you to go out there tonight not knowing it.”

A momentary pause.

Thud thud thud went my heart.

Then, Victoria laughed softly. Her smile flashed in the darkness as she lifted her head. I could see the frown of worry that she had been trying to hide, but it melted away. “You would say it right now, of all times,” she teased, and for a second there was a sense of levity. Then, the gorgeous brunette pulled me down toward her for a quick, searing kiss.

It made my head spin, and by the time it was over I swayed back against one of the wooden porch columns. Wow. By the time I stopped seeing stars, Victoria was striding confidently away toward the sidewalk and tossing the final words over her shoulder. “If you return from Landon’s in one piece, I’ll even say it back.”

The car door shut, and she pulled away from the curb with a crunch of gravel. As I watched her drive away, Terra stepped up beside me. I glanced over, and saw that she’d thrown a big, bulky parka over her all-black workout attire.

“You never said what you planned to do to Landon Shrike.” She wasn’t asking me, just stating a fact.

The bright, warm feeling of affection in my chest turned hot, and a bold, righteous self-confidence burned in its place. I turned toward my teacher and gave her a long, hard look. Her dark hair looked jet black, framed by the grey-and-white fur-lined hood. Her face was coolly composed.

“He’s never going to hurt me or mine again.”

It must have been the first time in history that someone used a rideshare app to drive himself and his karate master to the home of his real-life nemesis.

I had given Terra a blank look when she asked how we would get to Shrike’s address. “I figured we could take your car,” I said.

“I do not drive.” Terra frowned. “I have not needed to drive anywhere in a while.”

Damn it. With a sigh, I pulled out my phone.

Now, as our Uber driver took the tight turns of the twisting road on the headland, Terra was watching me carefully across the backseat.

“And have you felt anything since the tea you drank earlier? Anything out of the ordinary?”

I shook my head, wondering why she’d been grilling me for the past five minutes. Wasn’t there something more important we should be focused on? “No,” I answered. “Nothing else. No aftershocks, or whatever they’re called. Nothing.” I felt like this was the kind of thing she should have worried about before giving me strange, mind-altering beverages rather than after.

Of course, what I said wasn’t strictly true. I had felt something, several times. It was the fledgling power that had awakened in my core, the spark of vitality and self-confidence. The coal of anger that flared up when I pronounced my judgement against Landon Shrike. But that wasn’t some drug. That was just the new me. And I liked him.

“Is this the place?”

Our Uber had come to a halt at an imposing front gate. The road continued up around a bend in the hillside, but beyond the wrought-iron entrance I could see a long, winding driveway that curled up past some trees. Beyond them, I could just make out the shadowy roof of a large building.

“Yeah,” I agreed, pulling up the map application on my phone and checking our location against the marker I’d placed on Shrike’s address. “This is it. Thanks.”

Terra and I clambered out of the car, my instructor looking unusually bulky in her oversized parka. The furry lining of her hood looked bright in the moonlight. I wondered if the fur was real. It was cold out, I supposed, but something told me there was more hidden up those sleeves than a layer of synthetic down. I didn’t know much about Terra’s past, but I knew that she certainly wouldn’t show up to a fight emptyhanded.

“We must move quickly,” Terra ordered. “There will be cameras. We may already have been seen.” She took the same commanding tone she used during workouts, and I felt myself relax a fraction.

I nodded. “What do we do?” For some reason, I felt absolutely confident that Terra knew how to stage a midnight break-in.

“Over the wall,” the woman said curtly. She gestured downhill, where the tall stone wall extended out on one side of the gate. “You check downhill for a way over. I’ll do the same.”

I obeyed, stumbling down the ditch along the side of the road and looking up at the nine-foot wall. I wondered why someone living in this neighborhood felt the need for so much security. I hadn’t spent any time here in the past, had only driven through a couple times on the way to one of the nearby beaches, but I knew that this was where the wealthy lived. The headlands were a bit outside city limits, true, but they were prime real estate. They commanded a view down over the bay and the City, and I could only imagine the tranquility of being beyond the bustle.

“Chance!”

Terra’s quiet call reeled me back in from my thoughts. When I hastily returned to the front gate, I was surprised to find the dark-haired woman on the other side of it.

“There was a tree,” she hissed in response to my astonished expression. “Up around the bend. I climbed it and jumped over. But you won’t have to. Look.” She walked half a dozen paces into the shadows up to the vague shape of a control box. Evidently Terra had no issue reading the keypad in the darkness, because I heard the soft click and beep of a button being punched.

The gate creaked and slowly began to swing open. The sound seemed loud, and I got the strange feeling that the scattered trees beyond the wall were swaying in closer to examine us.

The woman beckoned to me with both hands. “Let’s go. Quickly!”

Following the woman in the parka, I sprinted up the asphalt driveway and into the shadow of the trees.

Landon Shrike was living large.

Once we got through the wall of trees and I could see his home clearly, my eyes widened. So this is what you get for being the world’s biggest bag of dicks, I thought. There was something screwed up about that.

The building wasn’t the biggest mansion I’d ever seen, but it expanded languidly outward and gave the impression of self-indulgence. It had the kind of classy older style that made me feel like the home might have been here for a long time, sitting on the hillside and looking out over the trees beneath it, surveying the land below. The driveway swooped up into a circular turnaround in front of the main entrance, which was well-lit by several old-timey streetlamps.

As soon as the front door was in sight, Terra stopped and pulled me off to the side in the trees. A chill breeze rustled the leaves above us, and the woman’s fingers were cold around my wrist. She stared into my face with those dark, ember-lit eyes of hers.

“Stay here,” she ordered. “I will go ahead quickly to scout.”

My eyebrows came together. “But—” I started to protest.

Terra squeezed my wrist in her icy grip. “I know that you are angry. And you will have your retribution. But this is your first hunt. You are still inexperienced. Let me make sure the way is clear.”

“Inexperienced at breaking into people’s houses to fucking assault them?” I hissed. I could feel the cool air on my skin but felt the flush of adrenaline in my body. “Obviously! Shouldn’t everyone be inexperienced?”

The woman gave me a stony look.

“Fine,” I said. I scowled. Sure, maybe I didn’t know what I was doing. But it was my family that was at risk, damnit.

Terra relented a little, and dropped her hand from my forearm. “I would not want something to happen to you,” she said quietly. For a moment, her accent seemed a little stronger. “That is all.”

I thought I caught a flicker of something else in her face, but it was dark and she was already turning away, pulling the hood closer. Then, crouching low, my teacher crept through the trees. She slipped like a ghost into the shadows, disappearing behind the tree trunks and then reappearing as the flash of a shadow between them. In a minute or two, she was lost from view.

I blinked and tried to listen for her, but I could hear nothing. Her scent lingered in the air, though, which was odd because I didn’t remember Terra ever wearing a perfume before. It was a light scent, but heady and a little sweet. I shook my head to dislodge the distracting thoughts that wanted to edge in.

“Focus,” I muttered. I was in enough danger tonight without letting my imagination take me down that road. Instead, I thought about the importance of Terra’s last words. Did I get the impression that she was… worried about me? The thought warmed my heart for a moment because I could still clearly remember her displeasure when I first arrived in her studio.

The idea that my teacher and I were inching towards friendship was encouraging, but after another minute or two in the cold I shuffled my feet and frowned. I could see nothing from my position in the trees, could hear nothing. The downhill side of Landon Shrike’s mansion was probably only thirty yards away, a little uphill, and I didn’t imagine it would be difficult to break in.

I felt anger flare in my chest, then a stirring of something deeper. It was an emotional yearning, a hunger, a need to find the man responsible for my misfortune and to make him pay. What am I here for, I frowned, if I’m just going to tag along after Terra and not do anything useful?

I realized I’d been stalking uphill without thinking, and part of me tried to hold back. It recalled Terra’s command to stay put. It reminded me that I had no experience, said that I would be a liability to my teacher and a danger to myself. But I shook it off. My blood was up, and there was no time to waste. Besides, how much experience do you need to stop a man hellbent on shattering your life? Not much.

For that, a whole lot of rage will do just fine.

Edging around the corner of the mansion as I crept out of the trees and up a stretch of bare lawn, I scanned back and forth for a potential point of entry. My plan, at this point, was simple: Find Landon Shrike. Make him sorry. Get him to call off his hired guns.

There was a side door that looked promising, and nearby windows showed no movement in the room beyond. Slipping into the shadow of the house, I glanced in through the windows and took in what appeared to be a large, modern kitchen. The door was probably locked, but I tried it anyway and found it open.

Hmm, I thought, turning the knob but hesitating before I entered. Could this be some sort of trap?

But the fear in my mind was no match for the growing hunger in my center. The heat in my chest intensified, a sense of satisfaction and triumph. Maybe the man was just absentminded. Or maybe he overconfident and trusted in the security of his walls.

I stepped through the door, and I felt a stretch and a tear and a break as I left something behind me. Something invisible and immaterial, some part of the old me who would never have done any of this, who would have sat back and let someone else take care of things. I left behind my apathy and my willingness to be coddled. I left behind my hesitation and my doubt.

No more.

I would make it through tonight transformed, or not at all. There was no going back. For the first time, I really was putting everything on the line.

I had thought I was on edge, but the instant I crossed the threshold into Landon’s home I felt my senses redouble. My heartbeat raced, my eyes widened and my ears were pricked for any hint of a sound. My knees were bent and I crossed the room on the balls of my feet, ready to spring in any direction.

The room had high ceilings and an open concept. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a granite-topped island, and I crept along the back of a long, leather sofa. There was a neat row of fruit sitting on the island next to a gleaming blender, the makings of tomorrow morning’s smoothie. The only light was a yellow bulb over the stove, but I had no trouble picking my way around furniture and heading for through the tall, arched doorway into the next room.

BANG.

The sound slashed through the house, punching the air loud enough that it probably resonated off the hill and through the neighborhood. I flinched sideways instinctively, crouching down against one wall. Gun. Upstairs.

Then, the realization hit me. Terra.

Heart pounding, I shoved off the wall and sprang into the next room. No longer with any regard for stealth, I took the curved staircase three steps at a time. My hand gripped the railing and pulled me higher. I sprinted down the long hallway and to the open doorway at the far end, sliding to a halt on the smooth, hardwood floor.

The room beyond was bathed in moonlight. A huge, king-sized bed dominated the center of the space. On the far wall, a pair of tall double doors had been thrown open and dark, floor-to-ceiling curtains billowed in the cold, gusting air. Beyond the doors was a stone balcony, where Terra stood outlined in the soft radiance of a low moon. The hood of her parka had fallen back and she was standing very still. Her hands were at her sides, but I could see a desire to attack in every line of her figure.

Between Terra and I stood a silhouette, framed by the dark curtains. It was a man, and even from behind I could tell he had a gun in his hands.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” he was demanding in a harsh, imperious voice. “Don’t get one step closer! That last one was a warning shot. What the fuck do you want from me?”

I must have made a sound as I stepped into the room, because in a fraction of a second several things happened very quickly. The man’s head spun around and registered my intrusion. Over his shoulder I could see Terra tense as she prepared to fling herself forward. Landon Shrike’s mouth twitched open in a grunt of surprise. Then, across the darkened room, I could see the decision on his face.

No… I started forward. No!

Shrike’s gaze flicked back around and his finger twitched on the trigger.

The sound hit my entire body like a whipcrack.

Terra’s eyes widened as the bullet punched her in the chest, burrowing through her parka and spinning her halfway around. The woman staggered back. One of her hands rose up, and I swore she was reaching out towards me. Then, her knees hit the edge of the balcony and her body tipped over limply.

I was halfway across the room when she fell, and I came up short like I’d run into a brick wall. No… no no no…

Shrike whipped around, leveling the pistol right at me. “Stop right there!” he yelled.

But I had already stopped, my mind drawing a blank in the moment when I needed to act. Just like that, I had lost my friend, my ally and the element of surprise.

And you thought you were ready…

Landon Shrike was wearing a pair of expensive men’s pajamas and the kind of circular glasses that can either look hip or try-hard. From across the room they made his eyes look like big white eggs glued into his face. His pupils were beady little dots in the center.

He adjusted his grip on the weapon. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” His voice was hard, and he seemed completely unfazed by the fact that he’d just shot someone.

The moment of shock was passing, and fear was quickly being supplanted by anger. I must not have been thinking rationally, because I ignored the gun and felt my body flush with heat. “My name is Chance Laurenzi,” I growled, resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to charge forward, firearm be damned. “You ruined my night. So I came to ruin yours.”

The line would have felt badass if I hadn’t just watched him kill my friend.

“You’re Chance?” The man’s eyes widened, then he shook his head and took several steps back into the room. “Well who would have thought it…” he mused, creeping sideways toward the bed. Without taking his eyes off me, he scrabbled on the bedside table and seized a cell phone.

My eyes bored into the man as he lifted it to his mouth. Landon Shrike was shorter than I’d expected. He had dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail and a goatee that made him look like a fledgling samurai. He blinked rapidly, and loose hair made a wispy frame around his face.

I heard the soft chime of voice activation, and then Shrike said clearly, “Call Boris Lunari.”

“Calling Boris Lunari…”

The quiet sound of ringing on the other end of the line as I tried to wrestle my thoughts into the shape of some sort of plan. I came up blank. I wasn’t trained for this! What had I been thinking?

“Boris?... No, don’t you What are you doing up at this hour me! I thought you were a goddamn pro! And instead of taking care of things like you promised, one of the targets shows up at my house along with some sort of ninja!” Shrike’s voice sounded oddly petulant, like a child throwing a tantrum. “Sometimes I wonder why I even work with you people.”

I started to take a slow, measured step back, but the gun barrel twitched and Shrike shook his head silently.

“No,” he said dismissively into the phone. “I shot her, what did you think? … I’ll be waiting for you. With the other one. Get here soon… I don’t know, that’s why I called you to deal with this whole fucking issue. You’ll take care of it. That’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it? … Whatever. Why aren’t you driving already? I should hear car noises!”

The man hung up and there was a moment of silence.

“Now what?” I demanded. I was flush with anger, with bottled-up fear and pain. I couldn’t believe I was so unable to do anything. The primal, righteous rage that had fueled me was still twisting in my chest, curling and clenching and urging me to act. But I had to swallow it down. I was no good to anyone if Landon Shrike shot me in the head.

“Now,” the man said, and he gave me a twisted little grin as he walked closer. “Chance Laurenzi. We are going to sit together and wait for the people who will get you out of my life for good.”

Shrike marched me downstairs. He had me sit on the cold marble floor of the entry hall while he lounged on the staircase, pistol resting on his knee but always pointed in my general direction.

Off to one side was the archway into the room I’d entered through, and behind me another corridor extended towards the rest of the house — whatever was beneath Shrike’s bedroom. I wondered whether, if I followed that dark hallway, I would end up beneath the man’s balcony, where Terra’s body doubtless lay in a pool of blood. The thought made me shudder with revulsion.

“So,” Shrike commented, snapping me from my morbid thoughts. “I guess it’s no wonder I haven’t heard from Victoria. That useless bitch…” He said it offhand, without malice, but the word bitch was like a pinprick, jabbing into the pulsing anger that lurked just beneath the surface.

I measured the distance between us. It was just a couple of long strides, but it felt like miles.

“Gives great head though, as I’m sure you can attest. And those knockers on her…” Gun still in hand, Shrike made a motion like he was feeling up an invisible pair of breasts.

I wanted to gag, but the man prattled on like we were old buddies.

“Would you believe I’ve never shot anyone before?” he asked. He ran one finger down the barrel of the gun, and the expression on his face was a frightening mixture of reverence and pleasure. “It felt good. Powerful. To take a life… I mean, Wow.”

This is the guy who has been puppet mastering things from the start? I wondered. What a goddamn psycho.

Shrike aimed the gun casually at me and then pretended to fire, blowing quiet explosions out between his lips. Then, in an instant, his face turned pensive and serious. “You know,” he said, “The funny thing is that I would have let you live.” He widened his eyes, nodding. “No, it’s true! I would have taken back everything you tried to steal from me, of course. Amber, Victoria, and those delightful redheads, but that’s business. You can’t just let someone cut in and capitalize on your investments. But I would have let you live…” He trailed off, looking at the gun, turning it this way and that. He seemed to be admiring the play of moonlight on the metal.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t say anything.

It felt like an eternity before I heard a car pull up the driveway, but despite all that time I was no closer to coming up with an escape plan.

You should have tried to take him earlier! my mind raged. Now he has backup! But I knew that if I’d tried anything I would have ended up like Terra.

My only hope was that there would be an instant of distraction that I could capitalize on. When that happened, I would be ready. I was prepared to let loose the beast that was crawling around in my core and begging for this man’s blood.

The slam of car doors outside. Then, the front door swung open and three figures strode into the entry.

Shrike came to his feet, gun hanging loose in one hand. “Where’s Boris?” he asked, surveying the group.

Now? Part of me asked.

Wait… Another part replied.

The woman in front answered. She had a dark pixie cut and a wore a long black coat over some sort of tactical vest. “Boris is checking the perimeter,” she said. “You mentioned two hostiles. There could be more.” Her eyes roamed from Shrike to me, her face expressionless.

I stared back. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties and had an air of hardened competence about her. She was still examining me when I looked away. Now was not the time for a staring match.

Shrike scowled. “Didn’t I tell you? I shot the other one. Right in the chest. She probably broke her neck anyway, falling onto the back patio.”

The woman shrugged. “We were sent to clean up your mess,” she told him bluntly. “Don’t complain if we’re more thorough than you’ve been, to date.”

I could tell her tone rankled Shrike, who squinted and worked his mouth. The short man’s wide, unsettling eyes seemed to bounce from me to the woman to her two companions and back. His fingers twitched on the grip of his pistol, but he seemed to decide that there was no need to overreact.

Strange… I thought. Their working dynamic clearly wasn’t as straightforward as I’d assumed.

“Forgive me,” the man said, inclining his head. His tone oozed all the sincerity of a snake oil salesman. “I’m not used to this whole… wake up and murder people thing.”

The female soldier was about to respond, but then she cocked her head and frowned. Behind her, one of the men shifted his weight. He had some sort of submachine gun hanging from a sling, and his hands curled around the grip.

Shrike didn’t seem to notice. “You’ve done excellent work… Miss Lunari, is it? First with that traitor Lassiter and now helping me clean this up.” He gestured vaguely in my direction. “I’m sure your superiors will be pleased. I can put in a word with them, if you like. You know that we enjoy a special working relationsh—”

“Boris?” The woman’s voice was wary as she cut in, ignoring Lassiter completely. Her hand rested on the butt of the pistol that was holstered at her hip and she took a step toward me, peering into the shadowed corridor beyond.

That’s when I heard it, too. The sound of footsteps, coming down the dark hallway. I turned, my eyes seeking through the shadows. In the darkness I could make out a figure, padding slowly closer.

Terra? My breath caught. That’s not possible. I saw you die… Then, my eyes traced down her body and caught sight of what she held in her hands.

There was a sword in one fist. It was little more than a shadow, but I could tell from its shape. The blade was only two or three feet long, but it was dark along one edge and I swear I could hear the soft tap-tap-tap of blood dripping down onto the floor behind her. Still, it was what she held in her other hand that made me mumble incoherently as my throat closed in shock.

In the other hand swung a severed head.

What the fuck…?

No one in the entry hall moved as the dark-haired woman stalked into the light. The front of her parka was smeared dark red and she stooped like she was carrying a heavy weight. For a moment, on the edge of the room, she stood stock still.

Tap-tap-tap.

Terra’s arm swung forward. The head flipped once and landed on the floor in front of the contract killers with a thud and a wet squelch. It belonged to a bald, bearded man. Tattoos covered his bare scalp.

Then, my teacher straightened. “Go,” she said, staring into the other woman’s face. “Or I swear by blood that you’ll end up like your friend.”

A split second that balanced on the edge of a blade. The taut, twisting force in my core coiled back, ready. Shrike’s hired gun tensed, jaw tight and eyes glinting. Her men fingered their weapons. Only Shrike, himself, showed no hint of restraint or uncertainty.

“You should be dead,” he declared, and everyone’s eyes twitched to watch. He was standing on the bottom step, only two strides away from me, and there was a ring of disappointment in his voice. “You fuckers are hard to kill, but I’ll make sure this time.”

Time slowed as he lifted his hand, the muzzle swinging toward Terra, and I knew I had only a second to act. Once, I would have teetered on the edge of indecision. I would have hesitated, questioned myself, and ultimately been a useless viewer on the sidelines. Now, though, there was only one way forward.

Was I prepared? No.

Qualified? Probably not.

Ready to do whatever it took? Yes.

It felt like I was finally stepping into the role I was born to play.

As I sprang, my hand swept out and latched onto Landon Shrike’s wrist, wrenching it down as his finger tightened on the trigger. There was the massive crack of a gunshot and somewhere nearby the stone tiling of the floor splintered.

I didn’t care. My blood was up, and I could feel power surging in my limbs. We slammed into the wall, the gun between us, and I could feel Shrike’s sudden fear with all my senses. I saw it in the whites of his eyes and could hear it in his pounding pulse. I could smell it in the instinctive, cold sweat that bathed his body and I could feel it in the flinch of his body as we struggled.

Behind me, someone shouted.

Shrike and I wrestled for the gun. I was bigger, taller, stronger, but Shrike fought like a madman. He twisted, his foot slipping off the step, and then our legs tangled and we were falling. I fell on top of him, all of my focus on getting between the man and my mentor.

I was going to protect my friend.

Shrike kneed me in the stomach. Somewhere, another gunshot split the air. My head swung forward, my skull cracking Shrike in the face and stunning both of us for an instant. My stomach and side burned where he’d kneed me and I wondered vaguely if I had a broken rib. But there was no time to wonder as I reared back and wrenched the gun from his limp hand.

I struggled to my feet as the man groaned and writhed, pulling himself up onto the stairs. I was aware of several presences behind me but none of them mattered. What mattered was the man in front of me, the man who had tried to take away everything that mattered.

There was blood on Shrike’s face and down his front.

Did I break his nose? I thought woozily. My thoughts felt disjointed. I pointed the gun at him, but wasn’t sure quite what I meant to do with it. Finish him! A voice seemed to demand, while another whispered, All that blood…

I swayed. Then, I looked down. The front of my shirt was soaked, and it took the sight of a spreading red stain for me to realize that it wasn’t my enemy’s blood.

It was mine.

“You shot me,” I said. The words came out dull and distant, an oddly toneless accusation.

Shrike blinked several times and seemed to focus. His eyes wandered to my midsection as my knees wobbled. Then, they glued themselves to the gun clenched in my fist. Feeling like I was in some sort of dream, I lifted my arm. The pistol was heavy at the end of it, the muzzle only a foot away from Landon Shrike’s face.

Sounds warped around me. I got the impression that there were distant voices begging for my attention, but I was sure none of it concerned me. All that mattered was my enemy, and his expression was frozen in a mask of horror. This was the only thing that mattered, the face of the man whose schemes had ripped my family in half.

Too late, Shrike seemed to realize how far he’d pushed me. His hands came up, palms out. “Hey, now, take it easy,” he wheedled. He pulled himself backwards and up, one step further away.

The barrel followed.

His glasses flashed. His eyes were desperate. His voice was a babble of sound. “Put the gun down and I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll tell you everything. Want to know how I did it? How I put all this together? I’ll tell you all about it. There are secrets you can use, forces you’d never believe were possible. All of it, yours. I’ll even give you everything I have on the Gwen—”

A final gunshot.

More blood.

And then I dropped to my knees and I felt the ground rush up to catch me.

“Stay with me, Chance…”

Everything was a blur, out of focus.

“Just keep your eyes open…”

I tried to force my lids wider apart, but instead they were drooping lower. There was a heaviness in my whole body. My muscles didn’t want to move.

“Don’t give in. Stay awake for me now…”

It was Terra’s voice, I realized. Which meant she was safe. That was good. But I was so tired I could barely…

“Shit.”

Darkness, and the sound of my pulse in my head like a drum.

Ba-dum... Ba-dum... Ba-dum…

Still, I had done what I needed to do. I didn’t run. I didn’t hide.

Ba-dum… Ba-dum…

I stopped the bad guy. I did. Me.

Ba-dum…

That’s all I wanted.

...

..