CHAPTER 32: FINALS DAY 2
"You look like hell."
Willie's voice cut through the fog in Marcus's head. He'd found the barricaded classroom on the second floor — the one Willie had mentioned during their Finals Eve planning session. The door was reinforced with desks and chairs, creating a makeshift fortress that would slow any hunter's entry.
"Handled something," Marcus said.
He didn't elaborate. Willie didn't ask.
The classroom was dim, lit only by emergency lights that cast everything in sick yellow. Willie sat against the far wall with a fire extinguisher in his lap — improvised weapon, heavy enough to do real damage. He looked tired but unhurt, which was more than Marcus could say for himself.
"Your arm," Willie said, nodding at the wound Marcus had been trying to ignore. "That needs wrapping."
"It'll keep."
"No, it won't." Willie pushed himself up and crossed to where Marcus stood. His hands were gentle as he examined the cut — deeper than Marcus had realized, still seeping blood despite the hours that had passed. "What the hell did this? That's not a student blade."
"Prison knife." The words came out before Marcus could stop them. "Carbon fiber. Doesn't set off metal detectors."
Willie went very still. "How do you know that?"
Because Chester showed me. Because I watched him forge it through his own memories, felt the satisfaction of creating a weapon that couldn't be traced.
"Saw it before," Marcus said instead. "Street stuff."
Willie didn't believe him. Marcus could see it in his eyes — the careful assessment, the questions being filed away for later. But he didn't push. That was the thing about Willie: he knew when to let things go.
He started wrapping Marcus's arm with strips torn from a classroom curtain. The pressure hurt, but it was the good kind of hurt. Grounding. Real.
"Torres?" Marcus asked.
"Haven't seen him since the scatter. Petra might know."
"Petra?"
"She came through here about an hour ago. Said she was mapping escape routes." Willie tied off the bandage with practiced efficiency. "That girl is weird, man. Good weird, but weird."
Marcus almost smiled. The expression felt foreign on his face.
---
Petra appeared twenty minutes later, sliding through a gap in the barricade like smoke through a keyhole.
"Torres is alive," she said without preamble. "Hiding in the kitchen cold storage. Soto Vatos hunter almost found him twice, but he's got a good spot."
"Lex?"
"Killed his hunter." Petra's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "Viktor assigned some second-rate Dixie Mob soldier. Lex cut his throat with that razor blade you told him to carry."
Good, Marcus thought. And then, from somewhere deeper: Sloppy. Razor kills leave too much blood. Should have used something cleaner.
Chester's critique, not his. The dead man's instincts bleeding through like ink through paper.
"We're surviving," Petra concluded. She studied Marcus with those unreadable eyes. "You look different."
"Long night."
"That's not what I mean."
The observation hung in the air between them. Marcus said nothing.
A sound from the corridor — footsteps, multiple sets, moving fast. Willie reached for his fire extinguisher. Petra melted into the shadows by the window.
Marcus felt himself shift into Chester's hunting stance before he consciously decided to move.
The door shook as someone tested it from outside. A Dixie Mob accent filtered through the barricade: "Someone's in there. Break it down."
Three hunters. Marcus could hear it in the footsteps, the breathing, the way they distributed their weight. Two were confident, aggressive. One was hanging back, nervous.
Take the nervous one first, Chester suggested. Fear makes people stupid. Stupid people make mistakes.
Marcus found the gap in the barricade before the hunters broke through. His body moved without his permission — Shadow Monk speed, Crimson Hands precision, Chester's predatory instincts.
The nervous hunter died first.
The other two followed in quick succession. Professional, efficient, utterly without the hesitation that had marked Marcus's earlier fights.
When it was over, Marcus stood in the corridor with three bodies at his feet and blood on his hands again.
Willie stared at him from the classroom doorway.
"What the fuck," Willie breathed, "was that?"
Marcus didn't have an answer.
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