novelraw Chapter 469: Do Not Engage
Chapter 469: Do Not Engage
A runner broke from the line, trying to flee downslope, in a desperate attempt to keep living.
Psycho could only shake his head at the human’s stupidity. It didn’t matter how fast he ran or didn’t. it didn’t matter where he went or where he didn’t. He was dead the moment he followed the command to go after Sera.
Ever so slowly, Psycho walked toward him, his movements slow and graceful as if this was a slow dance on a cold winter’s night.
With a swipe of his hand, he simply made the world stop where the man’s feet would land. Ice flashed across the ground in an instant, a sheet so smooth it looked like polished glass.
The man hit it and went down hard. His face smashed against rock causing his teeth to click together with a wet crack. He tried to scramble to his feet, his palms sliding, his boots skidding, and his brain screaming at him to move.
Psycho stepped into his space and crouched down so he could study the human up close and personal.
The man looked up at him, his eyes wide as he looked at Psycho’s pale blue skin. Psycho could practically pinpoint the moment when the man when from expecting him to have mercy because humans always did, and when he saw his own death.
It was that split second of hope that Psycho loved the most. It always seemed like humans expected pity as if it was a natural law. But only when they were the ones not holding the gun.
Psycho placed a hand against the man’s cheek and let cold pour in.
It wasn’t numbness. It wasn’t a gentle sleep. It was stillness forced into the lungs, into the blood, into the heart.
Frost blossomed over lips and lashes as his breath locked mid-gasp into his lungs. The terror in his eyes froze there, preserved perfectly.
Psycho lifted two fingers and with a satisfied smile on his face, he flicked the ice statue in front of him.
The frozen head shattered like glass, shards spraying outward and catching the light.
He didn’t bother to look away from the mess.
He liked the mess.
Behind him, Zubair was moving, heat flaring in controlled bursts as he dropped the flankers. Lachlan’s lightning snapped across a drone and sent it spinning down in pieces. Aerenyx walked through the smoke and bodies fell around him like he was a sickness the world couldn’t fight.
Psycho felt the count the way a predator felt the size of a rival pack.
Aerenyx had been too efficient lately, his body count had been too high. Psycho did not like sharing the spotlight, even if the only eyes that mattered belonged to Sera.
He reached outward, not with effort so much as with ownership. These men had come after what was his. Alexei went into the great abyss demanding a promise from him to protect Sera.
And Psycho was a creature of his word.
Cold rolled across the ridge in a wide wave and human fingers began to stiffen on triggers. Several operators dropped their weapons with startled curses as metal burned their palms through gloves.
They didn’t understand that cold could burn. They didn’t understand what cold really meant to such a fragile species.
Sera caught one of the Black-Badge and slammed him backward into her chest, pinning his spine there so he couldn’t twist away. She pressed her mouth to his neck and tore, eating with steady patience while he made choking sounds that turned into bubbling silence.
Psycho watched her chew and felt hunger rise in him—not for meat, not like her, but for the moment her eyes would slide his way again.
The man’s hands clawed at Sera’s forearm.
His fingers slipped on blood as he went weak.
Sera tossed what was left of him aside and moved for the next one without breaking her pace.
A voice shouted from behind cover, amplified and strained. "You four! You’re not under arrest! You’re not being targeted! We can extract you! Move toward us!"
There was that rescue narrative again.
Psycho turned his head slowly and looked at the speaker.
He could feel the man’s belief like a taste in the air, thick and ridiculous. The idea that Zubair, Lachlan, Aerenyx, and Psycho were victims. The idea that Sera was controlling them. The idea that safety was a gift a human could offer.
Psycho smiled.
It wasn’t wide. It wasn’t friendly. It was the small expression that showed he understood exactly how stupid the prey was.
He started walking toward the voice.
The man saw him coming and fired when he saw his blue skin, his hands shaking so badly the shots went wide at first. The ones that hit struck Psycho’s chest and shoulder and fell out again as ice shoved them free with a sharp, cracking sound.
The man’s eyes widened when he saw it happen, his shaking fingers trying to desperately reload his gun.
Psycho stopped two paces away and crouched, bringing himself level with the man’s eyes behind the cover. The man was panting hard, breath fogging in thick bursts that looked wrong in the Region T heat. He stared at Psycho like he was looking at something he hadn’t been taught to name.
"You don’t understand," the man choked. "She—she isn’t—"
"She is," Psycho said softly.
The man shook his head, frantic. "She will eat you!"
Psycho’s mouth twitched, almost amused. "I could only dream."
The man blinked, confused by the lack of fear.
Psycho leaned closer, voice quiet and intimate. "And?"
The man’s face collapsed. His brain visibly reached for a story that would make sense and found none.
Psycho exhaled into his space.
The breath was cold enough to frost the man’s lashes instantly. The man’s mouth opened for a scream that never formed properly because his lungs locked mid-inhale.
Psycho stood and flicked his fingers again.
The man shattered into ice fragments that sprayed across the dirt like thrown knives.
Across the ridge, the Black-Badge leader barked again through his mic, voice raw. "All units! Keep distance! Do not engage hand-to-hand! Heavy strike incoming!"