Phantom laughs.
It’s punch and dodge, punch and dodge, over and over.
“Blair, you don’t actually know this guy, do you?” Michelle whispers under her breath.
“It’s complicated.”
Phantom slips up, Riley’s knuckles grazing his chin and setting him off-kilter. He goes in for another strike, taking advantage of the misstep, but Phantom drops low, leg kicking out and sending Riley to the ground.
“How the mighty fall,” he taunts, giving him another kick while he’s down.
He’s so focused on Riley, he doesn’t notice he’s got his back to Brett until it’s too late.
Brett hooks him with a wicked punch right to the oblique, and it takes him out. Phantom skids across the hard dirt, and I can’t help but cry out as I watch. My body jerks in his direction, but Michelle latches onto my bicep.
When I look back at her, she has the strangest look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Her gaze narrows, and it unsettles me. “Something’s off.”
Brett stomps his boot on Phantom’s chest and digs in his heel. In a flash, the balisong is unsheathed and the blade sings against Brett’s calf. He lets out a curse, pulling his foot back. Phantom jerks away and uses the delay to jump up.
Instead of attacking again, Brett pauses. A quiet threat pulses into the air. He tilts his head to the side, studying his prey until he lets out a snarl.
It seems to unsettle Phantom. He shifts from foot to foot, swinging the balisong over his knuckles in rhythm. “Come on. Is that all you assholes got?”
Brett launches into action, lunging forward at full speed and tackling Phantom back to the ground. He doesn’t seem to pay the blade any mind as he wrestles him, pinning him to the dirt. Something’s changed. Brett’s a man on a mission.
It’s not until a second later, as Phantom’s mask is ripped off, that I realize what that mission is.
“Evil,” Brett growls.
This time, the blood doesn’t just drain from my face, it drains from my entire body.
I feel faint, the world going into a numb haze.
Maybe I heard it wrong. Maybe Brett was referring to someone or something else. Except it looks like Brett is chokingwhoever is pinned beneath him with no intention of letting go. People start backing away, the fight having turned a corner they no longer want to be liable for. The balisong glints, blade sailing until it stabs right through the side of Brett’s thigh.
There are grunts and pained struggles, but Phantom scrambles free, Brett clutching his weeping thigh.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Riley charges back into the fight.
It’s the two of them against Phantom now.
No.
Not Phantom.
Oh, God.
Oh, my fucking God.
It’s—
“Eli Cross?” Riley swings back around, disgust and disbelief painted all over his face. “You gave Evil a fucking blow job? What the fuck is wrong with you, Blair? Did you inhale paint or some shit?”
I’m going to be sick.
