Page 20 of Hunted to Be Mine
“Away from gunfire is a good start.” He paused at an intersection, head tilted slightly, listening beyond the wail of alarms. “The structural integrity is compromised on the other side. If we can reach the central security hub, there may be a…”
“How do you know that?”
His mouth quirked once. “Educated guess. Standard defensive architecture. I never got the facility tour.”
We pushed forward, ducking under hanging electrical wires and stepping over fallen support beams. The facility was comingapart around us, whether from the initial explosions or some structural weakness, I couldn’t tell.
Specter slowed abruptly, his hand snapping back to block my forward momentum. I nearly collided with his palm, the sudden stop jarring.
Smoke curled from the intersection ahead, red emergency lights pulsing through the haze in uneasy waves. The distant drum of gunfire had faded to irregular pops, somewhere far away from us.
Specter shifted, easing me behind his right shoulder without breaking eye contact with a newcomer. His posture changed, not hesitation, but something heavier, older. Recognition.
The man stopped about ten paces away. He carried no visible weapon, showed no urgency. His gaze traveled past Specter, landing on me with unsettling focus.
I studied him through the smoke and strobing lights. Military build, rigid posture. His face was emotionless—clinically blank in a way that raised every professional alarm bell in my mind. Not angry, not determined. Empty.
Specter kept circling slowly, always positioning his body between me and the newcomer, but the man’s eyes tracked me like a targeting system, cold and unblinking.
The man just stood there, unsmiling. Unhurried. His eyes found mine first, not Specter’s. Cold. Empty. Like looking into a void where a person should be.
“Blackout,” Specter said, the name barely audible.
I went cold at the confirmation. Oblivion’s elite operative. Specter’s equal or better, if the intelligence was correct.
Stillness settled over the three of us. Specter kept circling to position his body between us, but Blackout’s eyes tracked me like he was marking a target. Clinical. Detached. Assessing.
“You think this is a hero?” Blackout’s voice cut in, motioning once toward Specter without looking away from me. “You trusthim? You’re wrong. He’s just a monster, like me.” His voice was flat, mechanical. “Just ask him about Prague.”
Specter drew a short breath. I filed it away automatically, professional reflex kicking in despite the danger.
“Don’t listen to him,” Specter said, voice tight. “He’s Oblivion, and I suspect his name is Blackout. There’s nothing left of whoever he was. Isn’t that right, Xavier Hale? Look at you. What would your sister say about what you’ve become?”
The man tilted his head a fraction, as if listening to something. “Xavier Hale is gone,” he confirmed. “Only Blackout remains.”
No warning. Blackout stepped in fast and low, driving Specter into the wall before I could blink. The concrete shuddered with the impact. No wasted motion. Elbows, knees, weight shifting like liquid violence. Specter caught the first strike but missed the second—a hammer blow to his sternum.
The force of their collision sent me reeling backward. My spine hit the opposite wall as I scrambled out of the immediate danger zone, breath tight.
They moved too fast to track. Blackout didn’t draw a weapon, didn’t need to. His attacks were measured hits, each one designed to punish rather than kill outright. Clinical. Efficient. Where Specter fought with raw drive, Blackout moved with cold calculation.
Specter drove forward, using his slightly larger frame to push Blackout back two steps. For a heartbeat, I thought he’d gained advantage, then Blackout twisted, redirecting momentum into a counterattack that slammed Specter’s head against the corner of a half-collapsed door frame.
I should have run. Should have used their fight as cover to escape. My training screamed at me to find safety, alert security, follow protocol. Instead, I stayed put, glued to the wall, watching the brutal dance unfold.
Something shifted in Specter’s face, the carefully controlled patient vanished, replaced by something feral. Wild. He stopped trying to match Blackout’s method and started fighting dirty. He grabbed a handful of loose wiring from the exposed wall, swinging it like a flail. When Blackout dodged, Specter used the distraction to drive him sideways, smashing his head toward the steel frame of a door.
Blackout absorbed the blow with barely a blink. His response was immediate, a short, vicious strike to Specter’s midsection that doubled him over for half a beat. Blood marked the wall. Neither slowed.
Fear thinned, replaced by a cold, awful focus. Specter spun low, sweeping Blackout’s legs. For a fraction of a second, Blackout was airborne, then he twisted midfall, landing in a crouch that flowed immediately into a rising strike toward Specter’s throat.
Specter barely deflected it, his forearm taking damage meant for his windpipe. Blood welled from fresh cuts on both men as they separated for a half-second, circling.
“Oblivion’s waiting for you,” Blackout said, voice unchanged despite the exertion. “You were never meant to have choices.”
Specter’s mouth curled. “And yet here I am, making them.”
They crashed together again, a blur of limbs and lethal intent. Specter drove his elbow toward Blackout’s temple—a killing blow if it connected. Blackout caught it, turned the force aside, but Specter used the momentum to hook his opponent’s ankle, nearly toppling him.
