novelraw Chapter 465: Stop Caring About Neat
Chapter 465: Stop Caring About Neat
Alexei watched the new drones come in and did the math without moving his lips.
The formation was tighter than the last one, and the spacing of the drones told him that these ones weren’t built for warnings. Their housings, the shells around them, were thicker while their undersides carried heavier mounts. Not even the hum was the same. Now it was lower and layered, the kind of sound that meant the machine was balancing power draw across multiple systems.
This thing was built for war, was built to take bullets and keep on ticking.
He didn’t need to know the exact model name to understand the intent of the drone pilots. They had stopped trying to corral the five of them and decided to change tactics.
Now they were simply going to erase them.
Or at least, that was what they thought.
Finally, Psycho purred. They’re done pretending. Now you can be done pretending too.
Alexei kept his face neutral as another cluster of rounds slapped into his chest. The impact was solid enough to kill a normal man, but they only seemed to tickle him.
The bullets sank into his chest and body, slowing down as the cold took them, and then dropped out of his wounds with dull little clicks. His skin stitched shut before the shooters even adjusted their aim.
He could feel the panic of this ’high military team’ sharpen when they saw it happen.
They think you’re the easy one, Psycho said, amused. They think she’s the monster and you’re just one more hostage with a gun. Let me show them how wrong they are. Let me out.
Alexei didn’t answer Psycho out loud. He didn’t need to.
Psycho lived in his bones and heard every refusal before it formed into words. The creature liked to pretend Alexei was still the gatekeeper, still the calm hand on the leash, but the leash had never been real.
Not since Country S. Not since the first time Alexei had frozen someone and felt how simple it was.
He shifted his stance and looked across the ridge.
Sera had stopped in the middle of the killing like she was deciding what she wanted next. Blood slicked her hands and forearms and a fresh body lay at her feet in pieces. It was clear that she had abandoned the body simply because something else had caught her attention.
Her eyes tracked the drone line, and her expression brightened the way it did when she found a new game.
Alexei felt his own attention lock onto her with the same inevitability.
He didn’t want her safe.
He wanted her satisfied.
There it is, Psycho whispered. Say it properly. You don’t want to just protect her. You want to belong to her.
Alexei inhaled slowly through his nose. He tasted dust, burned metal, and the copper-heavy air of fresh death. He did not taste fear in himself. He had passed fear a long time ago, back when he still believed there was such a thing as going back.
Zubair was already moving on the left flank, his fire cutting a clean path through the broken rock as he forced the Black-Badge units out of cover.
Lachlan stayed loose and mobile, his movements weren’t frantic, just constantly shifting his position so the enemy couldn’t lock onto him. Lightning snapped in short, brutal bursts, and each time it hit metal the smell changed.
Aerenyx walked through the center like the mess was beneath him.
Alexei watched two men try to rush Aerenyx from opposite sides. They moved fast, trained, and confident enough to attempt a coordinated takedown. However, Aerenyx didn’t even turn his head to track them. He simply kept walking, and they began to cough before they reached striking distance.
They didn’t cough once or twice.
They coughed until something tore out from inside of them.
They collapsed and lay twitching, hands clawing at their own throats as blood bubbled out between their fingers.
He’s showing off, Psycho snarled, more than a little irritated. He thinks he owns the body count because he doesn’t have to touch them. Let me out. I’ll outdo him in a minute.
Alexei’s mouth twitched once, almost a smile. ’You’re jealous,’ he thought. ’I never thought I would see the day.’
I am competitive, Psycho corrected. Jealousy is for humans. Competitiveness is for predators. And I do not like losing to the Fae disease god thing wearing Elias’s skin.
Alexei watched Sera move again.
She didn’t sprint. She didn’t charge. She simply chose a direction and closed the distance with a speed that made the Black-Badge line falter.
One man raised his rifle too late. She caught the barrel, yanked him forward, and drove her knee into his abdomen hard enough to fold him. Then she grabbed him by the back of his armor and hauled him upright, pinning his spine against her front.
She fed like he was a demonstration.
She tore into his neck and shoulder with steady bites, chewing as he thrashed and screamed. When he tried to twist away, she tightened her grip and kept eating.
She wasn’t frantic. She wasn’t desperate. She was hungry and she was making sure the rest of them understood what hunger looked like when it wasn’t human.
Several men stopped firing because they didn’t know where to put the bullets.
They were afraid of hitting their own.
They were afraid of wasting rounds.
They were afraid of the fact that nothing they did mattered.
That’s the part I like, Psycho said, voice slipping toward something that sounded almost pleased. When the mind breaks before the body does. When they still have muscles but they don’t have answers.
Alexei stepped forward and ended two of them cleanly. He didn’t do it dramatically. He did it the way he did everything, with precision. He froze the first man from the ankles up until the joints locked. Then he shattered the torso so the pieces fell in a heap that no one could mistake for survivable.
The second man tried to run.
Alexei froze the ground under him instead, slicking it into a glassy sheet. The man slipped, slammed his head into rock, and lay stunned for half a second. Alexei walked up to the man, crouched down, and froze the man’s lungs through the ribcage until the breathing stopped.
He rose without looking down again.
You’re still being polite, Psycho grumbled, not impressed. You’re still choosing the neat kills. You’re still pretending you’re one of the civilized ones. Let me out and I’ll show you what this ridge is supposed to look like...when we stop caring about neat.