Page 81 of Veil of Secrets

Mine too.

Then it happens.

A second body rises behind the dumpster.

Same height. Same weight class. Different kind of stupid.

This one’s quieter. No yell when he moves. No dramatic charge. Just steel in hand and murder in his eyes.

But his mouth opens anyway.

“You’re both dead!” he growls.

I turn before he finishes the sentence.

He lunges. Blade angled too wide.

I twist and slam my elbow into his cheek.

The sound is thick—wet and wrong.

Bone breaks.

He screams.

Blood sprays across my collarbone. Warm. Close.

He crumples forward onto one knee, disoriented, arm hanging dead at his side. The knife clatters to the ground.

He looks up at me with one wild, broken eye.

And that’s all the time he gets.

Nico moves.

One step. One swing.

The blade cuts across the man’s chest like it’s slicing cloth.

It’s not.

It’s skin. Bone. Meat.

He gurgles. Staggers. Then drops fully to the concrete, one hand twitching against the pavement before going still.

His chest splits with the wound, steaming in the cold as his body starts to lose heat.

It stinks like blood and rust and whatever last breath he never finished.

I wipe my cheek with the back of my arm.

The alley stills.

Again.

Only sound now is mine and Nico’s breathing.

I straighten.

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