059: In fury
Do remember, before reading this chapter, that action is not my forte.
Smut is. Ignore this chapter if you want.
~~
**Chapter 59**
Betty lay against the raised hospital bed covered in scrapes and bruises. Most of the damage looked like road rash, long, raw patches where skin had been torn away by asphalt. The left side of her face was the worst of it: a wide abrasion that had taken the outer layer of skin and left the area shiny and angry red. She was conscious, breathing steadily, but every small movement made her wince.
I stepped closer.
Steve watched me with narrowed eyes. Sara and Mira had already reached the bed and were holding Betty’s hands, tears running freely. I barely registered any of them.
“Betty.”
My voice came out flatter than I expected. She looked up at me, eyes glassy with residual shock and pain medication.
“I need a name.”
“Tyl—” she started.
“Not mine,” I cut in. “The ones who did this. I need a name. Now.”
Anger was climbing fast, thick and hot behind my ribs. I needed a target that actually deserved it.
Steve answered instead. He held out a tablet. “They were from the local biker crew. We have the footage. My people are already hunting them.”
I took the tablet. The grainy black-and-white clip showed four men on motorcycles boxing in a smaller car, forcing it off the road. I recognized two of the faces from the files I had pulled out of Tom’s business records—the same crew he sometimes used for dirty work. I handed the tablet back without a word, took one last look at the raw skin on Betty’s face, and turned for the door.
“Tyler!”
Betty’s voice followed me into the hallway. I didn’t stop.
Outside, I scanned the street until I found what I needed: a man in a dark jacket standing beside a black sedan, phone pressed to his ear, back half-turned. I parked my own car a block away, pulled on thin gloves, and approached on foot. While he was still talking, I slipped into the driver’s seat, found the keys still in the ignition, and pulled away cleanly. His shouts faded behind me.
Gloves. Balaclava from a costume shop purchase months ago. No prints, no easy facial ID. A careful investigator might still connect dots later, but physical evidence would be scarce.
The first stop was a small gun store on the edge of the industrial district. I waited until the street looked empty, then stepped inside. The owner—middle-aged, thick-armed—saw the mask and went for the shotgun under the counter in one smooth motion. The barrel came up.
I was already moving.
At forty, in every physical stat, the world slowed just enough. I sidestepped the first blast; pellets shredded the doorframe and wall behind me. A few still caught the outside of my left thigh in a tight, burning spray. The pain was immediate and white-hot, far worse than movies ever showed. It only sharpened the focus.
I closed the distance before he could rack another shell, ripped the shotgun out of his hands, and drove a single punch into his solar plexus. The air left him in a wet, choking sound. He folded and stayed down. I checked the thigh wound—through-and-through, messy, but already clotting faster than it should. Blood on the floor was unavoidable. Fingerprints were not.
I worked quickly, dumping every long gun, pistol, box of ammunition, and spare magazine I could reach straight into the inventory. When the racks were half-empty, I left the same way I had come, abandoned the stolen sedan several blocks later, and changed clothes in an alley after downing a health potion. The thigh wound closed cleanly; even the soreness faded. Fresh clothes, no visible blood, no obvious link.
Then I went hunting.
~~
The biker hideout was a two-story brick building behind a chain-link fence on the far side of the rail yards. Lights burned in the lower windows. Four motorcycles and a battered van sat in the gravel lot. I circled once on foot, counting cameras and exits, then went in through the side door after snapping the lock.
The first man never saw me. He was standing at a stained counter loading a magazine. I put two rounds through the side of his neck before the slide on my borrowed pistol had fully cycled. He dropped without a scream. The second came around the corner at the sound of the bodies hitting the floor, shotgun already rising. I put him down with a double-tap to the upper chest; the force of the impacts lifted him off his feet and threw him into a stack of crates.
Gunfire from the upper floor answered immediately—sharp, overlapping cracks that chewed plaster and wood around the stairwell. I moved under the covering noise, inventory flashing open just long enough to swap to a short-barreled rifle. Three men on the landing. I put the first one down with a burst that stitched him from hip to collarbone. The second managed to fire; a round punched into my left shoulder and spun me half around. The pain arrived a fraction of a second later—deep, grinding, accompanied by the hot flood of blood under my shirt. I ignored it, braced against the wall, and finished him with a controlled pair to the face. The third tried to fall back into a bedroom. I followed, caught him trying to reload, and put the rifle aside in favor of closing the distance. One hand locked on his wrist, the other drove a combat knife up under the sternum. He died looking surprised.
More movement downstairs. I had miscounted.
Two additional men had been in the garage bay. They came in firing, rounds cracking past my head and punching holes in the drywall. One bullet took me high in the right thigh; another grazed my ribs. I dropped behind an overturned table, swapped magazines, and returned fire in short, deliberate bursts. The first of the new arrivals caught three rounds center-mass and went down hard. The last one tried to flank. I heard the floorboard creak, rolled out of cover, and shot him through both knees before finishing him with a single round to the head while he screamed.
Silence settled, broken only by the drip of something wet and the fading ring in my ears.
I stood slowly. Four confirmed from the footage, plus extras who had simply been in the wrong place. Blood ran freely down my leg and arm; every heartbeat pushed more of it out. I braced against the wall, pulled a dagger from inventory, and began digging the remaining bullets out of the meat of my shoulder and thigh. The pain was bright and nauseating, but at these stats it stayed just short of debilitating. Once the metal was out I drank a second health potion and felt the wounds knit closed with an itchy, crawling heat.
Evidence was the real problem now. I had walked into the hospital in a visible rage, left in the same state, and then a biker hideout full of the exact men responsible for Betty’s injuries had been wiped out the same night. Steve was not stupid. The girls might stay quiet for my sake. Steve would not.
I stripped the blood-soaked clothes into the inventory, changed into the clean jogging set I had stored earlier, and used Cleanse until no trace of gunshot residue remained on skin or fabric. Then I left on foot through the rail yard, staying off cameras as much as possible, and circled back to my own car.
~~
Two hours after I had first walked out of the hospital, I walked back in.
The new pair of guards at Betty’s door recognized me and stepped aside without a word. Steve had apparently decided he could not afford to keep losing men tonight. Inside, Betty looked small against the pillows. Sara and Mira sat on either side of the bed. All three of them turned when I entered.
Betty’s face eased the moment she saw me.
I crossed to her, rested a careful hand on her uninjured shoulder, and stayed there until some of the tension left her frame. Mira was the one who finally asked the question.
“Where were you?”
“Cooling down,” I said.
They could build whatever theories they wanted. I doubted any of them would push hard enough to make me answer.
I looked at Betty again and made my voice light even though the residual anger still sat under the surface.
“From now on, wherever you want to go, you’re taking me with you. Understood?”
She nodded, then gave a weak, crooked smile. “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon.”
“You will be,” I told her. “Very soon.”