Chapter 69: Signs of Progression
The moment I hurled myself at Vincent, the world ruptured into motion—my body coiling low, boots cleaving through the air with predatory grace. Momentum didn’t follow thought; it devoured it, poured itself into my limbs until every breath, every twist of muscle, was an act of violence made flesh. There was no time to think. I was fueled by instinct—raw, burning, and bladed at the edges.
Vincent didn’t even flinch. His lips curled into that half-dead smile of his as he peeled back the ragged bandages from his crippled hand, unveiling the jagged gaps where fingers should have been—wet crimson pooling between the exposed sinew like broken promises. With a savage flick, he sent the blood from his wound spraying into my face, a scarlet mist that scalded my eyes.
It wasn’t just blood. It was venom, a toxic blend of spite and power, and gods did it burn.
How clever.
I staggered back, momentarily blinded, a wash of molten fury tearing through my senses. My fingers clawed desperately at my face, smearing streaks of hot iron across my cheeks, blood weeping into my vision as Vincent’s silhouette warped and shimmered like a nightmare dancing behind glass.
I didn’t even have time to finish blinking before he was there—behind me, sudden and silent as a curse—driving a vicious kick into the base of my spine. Pain exploded through me as my body crashed against the unyielding stone, ribs colliding with the floor in a thunder-crack of flesh and bone. The breath tore from my lungs in a fractured, ragged grunt, and I rolled, palms scrambling across the floor in a frantic search for something—anything—that felt like control.
I came to a crouch, breath sharp, muscles braced—just in time to see him standing above me, arm raised, and in his hand... he was holding it.
The stopwatch.
He pressed it once—
And then the world fractured.
It didn’t stop. No, rather it slipped sideways, like a painting tilting in slow motion, one half smearing off the canvas. I was still moving, still breathing, but my body, split by the effects of the attack, had become two layers out of sync with one another, my motions bleeding through the seams of time, repeating themselves a breath too soon or a heartbeat too late.
I drove forward anyway.