Page 35 of Nocturne
I raise my hand, the cold biting to the bone, and start firing at the ones coming down the hill, silent like predators. The guys behind Damon move quick, ghostlike, faces hidden, not a word spoken.
I hit one in the leg — he falls groaning, scarlet exploding on the white snow like a stained canvas.
Hot blood drips, sprays, burning the ice.
“Where the fuck did these assholes come from?” Damon shouts, rough, full of adrenaline and rage.
“I’m asking myself the same.” I answer, breathing hard, heart pounding. “Move the fuck, we already got something from that panel.”
But the impossible happens. While we’re talking, they reach Damon.
The first lands a brutal kick to his knee — the impact echoes in the frozen silence. Damon staggers and hits the ground with a heavy thud. He spins fast, pain fueling the fire in his eyes.
A punch straight to the attacker’s gut makes the guy moan, but another man appears, a knife gleaming like an ice blade under the heavy gray sky.
The blow rips through Damon’s belly — hot, dark blood spills out, staining the snow, drops falling like cruel fate. He stumbles back, fighting the urge to collapse.
But Damon doesn’t give up, with a trembling hand, he pulls a spiked brass knuckle from his pocket.
His fingers grip the iron fist with fierce strength, and he rises. In one savage strike, the brass knuckles smash into the man’s face — skin tears, blood bursts out, spraying the cold air, staining the ice red.
Damon pushes forward, lands a brutal kick, knocking the guy down — face mangled by steel and fury.
We walk toward the car, eyes scanning everything around us.
The sound of footsteps multiplies.
They keep coming down.
Getting closer.
When we’re right near the car, some fucked-up shit happens — and I freeze, mind racing a thousand miles a minute, no time to think of a better plan, no backup, no way out to stay alive, nowhere but the middle of nowhere.
Our car explodes.
The light is brutal.
A blast rips through the air like a dry thunderclap that shakes the ground beneath my feet. The pressure slams into my chest like a punch, and I stagger, ears ringing, vision blurred for a moment. The fireball swallows the whole car, flames roaring violently against the white, heavy sky, twisting the air around.
The snow around us steams up in dirty vapor, black smoke rising fast — like the earth itself is spitting hell back at us. The world crumbles in reds and oranges before me and Damon. Fragments from the car — glowing chunks of metal, shards of windshield — fly everywhere, buzzing through the air with a sharp whistle.
One hits the ground near me, tearing up a piece ofice. The smell... The smell is the worst: burnt gasoline, melting rubber, and something else I don’t want to place.
I can’t move. Just stand frozen, eyes wide, chest heaving. My heart pounds so fast it feels like it’s trying to tear through my ribs.
My hand flies to my mouth, instinctive — like I can hold back the nausea, the shock, the fucking panic growing inside me.
Because that car was everything we had.
Our one chance to get out, to disappear.
And now it’s just there, turning to ash in the middle of the snow.
No plan left. No way back.
And everything inside me screams — but on the outside, I just tremble, caught tight between horror and reality.
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