Page 55 of Knot Shattered
“Jesus,” I muttered, panting, wiping the blood from my face with the back of my hand. My arm was shaking, but my gripon the knife stayed firm. “Blunt force trauma apparently is your kink.”
She blows me a kiss.
Fallon kicked a door open, peering into another corridor. “They’re sending more.”
Good. Let them.
I stepped up beside her, my voice steady despite the storm rising in my chest. “Then let’s give them something to remember.” I’m hoping like hell the pack that got me is in this building somewhere. I still don’t even know their names.
Another guard tried to rush us. I ducked low, slashing across his hamstring. He howled, falling forward, and Fallon ended him with a quick thrust to the neck.
Everything slowed. Then sped up again.
We were a blur of violence, of blood and blades and righteous fury. For every guard that came at us, another body dropped. Our bodies moved in a rhythm that made no sense and all the sense in the world. Best friends born of fire, broken pieces reforged into weapons. This wasn’t panic anymore.
This waspower.
And I wasn’t the same girl who’d been dragged into a basement. Not anymore.
We cleared the last of the corridor. My chest heaved as I leaned against the wall, knife still slick in my hand. My arms ached. My knuckles were scraped raw. But gods, I’d never felt more alive.
Fallon glanced down at one of the bodies, then up at me. “How many’s that for you?”
“Four,” I said, grinning darkly.
“Damn. I’m at five.”
Violet twirled the nightstick. “Six and a half. One of mine only got knocked out.”
“You counted a half?” I asked, incredulous.
She just shrugged, lips twitching. “He might get up later. Let’s keep moving before he does.”
There was shouting up ahead, more guards, or maybe one of ours.
I raised my knife and met Fallon’s eyes.
“We finish this,” I said.
She grinned.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she purred, stepping over a corpse. “We haven’t even started.”
The hallway stank of blood and sweat, the kind of scent that lingered in the back of your throat and burned. My hand tightened around the hilt of my knife, slick with gore, my breathing shallow as we rounded the next corner. We moved fast and silently, the three of us gliding over the bodies we’d left behind. The guards hadn’t stood a chance. Violet’s nightstick cracked skulls with brutal efficiency, Fallon’s stolen blade moved like it was part of her damn arm, and I, well, my knife had found every soft spot it needed to.
We paused at a crossroads in the corridor, the low ceiling pressing down like the air itself was holding its breath. I could still feel the vibration from our last kill in my forearm. That guard hadn’t seen me coming. I’d buried the blade in his ribs and twisted, something in me had cracked wide open with thatmotion. Not in a bad way. In the kind of way that says: I’m not a victim anymore.
“We go left,” Fallon whispered, yanking her knife free of her latest casualty.
“No,” Violet said, crouching beside the dead guard and wiping her blade off on his pants. “Right. That way leads toward the control room. I saw the map back in the hall.”
I nodded, adrenaline thrumming under my skin. “Control room sounds fun.”
But just as we started forward, we heard it—faint voices, distant but echoing off the concrete walls.
“Where the fuck are they?” a familiar voice barked. Fox.
“Oh gods,” Fallon muttered, eyes gleaming. “They found the bodies.”
