I pressed my sleeve against my scalp, feeling warm wetness immediately soak through the fabric. The room tilted alarmingly. I needed to help. I needed to stand. And most importantly, I needed to get my hands on that gun.
Brock recovered with unexpected agility, drawing a knife from his boot. “You think I don’t know how to put you down?” he snarled. “I made you.”
Ronan blocked the first slash but moved too slowly for the second. The blade opened a line across his forearm, adding fresh blood to the spatters already marking the floor.
They collided again—Ronan’s trained movements fought against Brock’s desperate attacks and his own damaged neural pathways. Glass crunched beneath their feet as they slammed into furniture.
“I made you,” Brock said. “I can unmake you.”
Ronan landed three devastating blows in rapid succession—stomach, throat, temple. Brock staggered but didn’t fall.
“You’re right,” Ronan rasped. “You created Reaper.”
He drove his knee into Brock’s midsection with brutal force.
“But I was Ronan first, you fucker.”
Something shifted in the battle. Brock’s eyes narrowed with calculated malice. He stopped trying to match Ronan’s strength and began fighting differently—targeting specific points on Ronan’s body, exploiting weaknesses only a handler would know.
When his fingers jabbed into a spot behind Ronan’s ear, Ronan collapsed to one knee with a strangled cry.
I forced myself to move through the swimming darkness at the edges of my vision. My legs felt disconnected from my body as I struggled to stand.
Brock kicked Ronan’s legs from under him, slamming him onto his back with sickening force. He pinned Ronan down with a knee to his chest.
“Anchor,” he spat, watching Ronan’s body convulse beneath him. “Vessel.”
“No!” I screamed. In my condition, the gun seemed miles away, but I couldn’t just give up. I started crawling toward it. Blood dripped steadily from my head wound onto the floor, marking my path like morbid breadcrumbs. Each movement sent lightning through my skull, but I dragged myself forward on trembling elbows.
“Marionette,” Brock continued, completely focused on destroying Ronan’s mind.
Ronan’s screams tore through me, fueling my desperate crawl. My vision blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again. I focused only on the gun—getting closer, closer with each excruciating inch.
“Compliance,” Brock said, voice rising with triumph.
My fingers closed around cold metal at last. The weight of the gun was both foreign and reassuring. I rolled onto my back, raising the weapon with hands that shook violently.
Brock loomed over Ronan, speaking the words that tore his mind apart. I’d never shot anyone before. The gun trembled between my blood-slicked palms.
“Submit to me,” Brock continued. “Submit to me!”
Ronan’s body arched in agony, a sound escaping him that wasn’t human. His eyes found mine across the room—pleading, desperate.
“Submit to...” I squeezed the trigger.
The explosion was deafening in the enclosed space. The recoil slammed the gun back into my face with stunning force. Through ringing ears, I watched Brock jerk forward, shockspreading across his features as he touched the spot where the bullet entered his back. Blood gushed down the expensive fabric, painting him crimson.
He turned toward me slowly, disbelief etched into every line of his face. The gun slipped from my numb fingers in shock, clattering to the floor as Brock fell to his knees.
The explosion of the gun still reverberated through my skull. My hands shook uncontrollably, the bruised flesh of my palms evidence of the recoil.
Strong arms encircled me, pulling me against a familiar chest. Ronan’s heartbeat drummed against my ear, fast but steady. Grounding me when everything else seemed to be spinning out of control.
Ronan’s fingers brushed blood-matted hair from my forehead with impossible tenderness. Behind us, Brock began to laugh—a wet, ragged sound despite the bullet wound leaking his life away.
The laugh started low, then built into something manic and chilling. Blood bubbled at the corner of Brock’s mouth as he dragged himself to a sitting position against the desk, one hand pressed to the wound in his back.
“You think this is over?” Brock wheezed, fumbling in his pocket. His fingers closed around his phone, tapping at the screen with bloody fingerprints. “The Director will not let you go. He will not let anybody go.” His eyes fixed on Ronan with feverish intensity. “They’ll send others. Better than you. Newer models without your defects. They’ll take her from you like I took Sofia.”
