Page 134 of Unhinged Omega

Or maybe...

Maybe he'll just disappear.

Like my nightmares always do when dawn comes.

The thought makes my chest tight in a way I don't want to examine too closely. I push it aside, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

For now, we just need to survive.

I glance at the Knight, watching as he scans our surroundings with predatory focus. His metal arm gleams in the sunlight filtering through the gray clouds, a constant reminder of what was done to him. What he is.

But also what he isn't.

He isn't a mindless beast anymore. He's something else. Something that chose to protect rather than destroy. Something that held me through my heat with a gentleness I never would have thought possible from hands made for killing.

Something that makes me feel safe in a world that's anything but.

I don't know what that means.

I'm not sure Iwantto know.

Chapter

Thirty-Three

AZAREL

Istand motionless as the wind whips around me, my military-issue gray scarf snapping in the bitter gusts that kick up clouds of reddish dust. The dying man at my feet clutches his stomach as his blood soaks into the parched earth, turning the dust a deeper crimson.

"Please," he begs, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. "I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anything! Just... let me live."

I study him with detached curiosity. This is the last one. The final Council loyalist that Arthur Maybrecht sent me to hunt down in the Outer Reaches.

The only thing standing between me and Cosima.

I've tracked him across three territories, following the trail of bodies and bribes he left in his wake. Now, as he bleeds out at my feet, I find myself oddly disappointed. For someone who managed to evade capture for so long, his end is remarkably... mundane.

"There is no more information needed," I say calmly, my voice carrying easily over the howling wind. "We already know everything."

And we do.

Every safehouse, every weapons cache, every dirty little secret the Council tried to hide. We've spent months dismantling their power structure, long before the Ghosts unwittingly did the rest of Maybrecht's dirty work, piece by piece.

This man is just the final loose end.

"There has to be something!" he protests, his voice rising with panic. "Money! I have access to weapons caches! Military-grade stuff, pre-war tech?—"

I continue staring at him blankly, utterly disinterested in his desperate offerings. My silence seems to unnerve him more than any threat could. I've found that people tend to fill silence with their own fears, their own guilt.

The wind picks up, carrying with it the stench of radiation and decay that permeates everything in the Outer Reaches. My coat whips around my legs as I watch him squirm, wondering if he knows just how thoroughly we've already stripped the Council of their power. How pointless it all was.

"You're working for that snake, Maybrecht, aren't you?" he spits suddenly, blood spraying from his lips. "He'll turn on you the moment you're no longer useful!"

A faint smile tugs at my lips. "Of course he will."

My gun fires before he can respond. His body slumps to the ground, a neat hole between his eyes. Another body for the wasteland to claim. Another piece removed from the chessboard.

I pull out a monogrammed handkerchief—a gift from another lifetime—and carefully wipe the blood spray from my face. The white silk is already stained with countless similar cleanings, but I maintain the ritual regardless. Some habits die harder than others.

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