Cutscene: Tangent

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  Tangent saw it coming.

  Just barely.

  The light shifted in a way it shouldn't have—too fast, too hot, the wrong shade of orange. Reflex over analysis. He glanced up from his perch, caught the flicker through the upper warehouse window. Fire. Wide as a wave, rolling hard and fast toward the building, already eating up the air.

  No time.

  His body moved before his brain caught up, pushing off the back of his chair, boot hitting the crate stack in a perfect angle, a launch point, a clean rebound. His power wasn't teleportation. He didn't blink out and land somewhere safe. No neat vanishing trick. He had to work for it. Velocity, trajectory, impact. The right physics to snap himself from here to anywhere else in one fluid move.

  One second too slow and he'd be gone like the rest of them.

  Instead, he was airborne, body twisting as he ricocheted off an unseen angle, snapping forward through the collapsing warehouse frame and landing two rooftops away, shoulder rolling to disperse the force. The heat washed over his back a fraction of a second later, fire blooming outward as the whole place went up. Glass, metal, bodies.

  Five in.

  One out.

  He exhaled through his nose, slow and even, adjusting his balance as the shockwave rumbled underfoot. There was supposed to be a plan. A setup. His target was a kid—fifteen, maybe sixteen, just barely over five and a half feet, lean. The job had been about control. They were going to go after the mother first. Use her as leverage. Rattle him, get him sloppy. Make him feel the fear before they finished it.

  But the kid hadn't played along. Hadn't hesitated. Hadn't spoken.

  He'd just killed them.

  It hadn't been a fight. A fight meant some back and forth, some effort. This was something else.

  Tangent exhaled again, rolling the tension out of his shoulders, checking the way his hands sat steady at his sides.

  Slique had called it his gig. The guy was an idiot. Already fucked the job twice over, burned intel, burned resources, left loose ends. This wasn't his gig. It was Tangent's. He was the only one with the range to do it right, and now he was the only one left to see it through.

  That wasn't a kid, though.

  Kids didn't have that much conviction.

  Weren't that heartless.

  That was a decision, already made. A straight line from start to finish, no hesitation, no detours. The kind of thing that stayed in your head long after the job was done.

  So yeah. He wasn't leaving it undone.

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  Tangent exhaled slow, even. Adjusted his grip on the pistol. Weight familiar, solid in his palm. The second the trigger broke, he knew.

  Hit.

  Clean.

  Through and through.

  A perfect shot. High-caliber, precision round, straight through the skull. Wind resistance, bullet drop, distance—none of it mattered. He'd lined it up, waited, and squeezed. No wasted motion. No hesitation. No need for a second shot.

  His body had done what it was trained to do.

  He slung the rifle over his back, let it snap into the magnetic holster, and pulled out his phone. The warehouse doors were still shut. He switched the scope to camera mode, zoomed in. Took the shot.

  The kid's head was a wreck. Blood, skull fragments, brain matter, all splattered out in a mess on the concrete. Good resolution. No distortion. Tangent sent the confirmation image. Thumb hovered over the screen for half a second before he pocketed the phone.

  That was it. Done.

  Except.

  Something was wrong.

  The sensation hit him before thought. Before logic. Before anything else. A full-body scream, primal and sharp, spine-deep in a way nothing should've been.

  Tangent listened to that feeling. Always had. Always would. It kept him alive.

  And right now, it was clawing at him, gnashing its teeth.

  Move.

  He did.

  Angle Shift. Pivot, push, bounce. He hit the rooftop's edge, kicked off the gravel, snapped back midair. Landed on the next roof just as the warehouse doors slammed open.

  Something came out.

  Something wrong.

  Something that should be dead.

  Tangent skidded, eyes locking onto the figure below.

  The target. Standing. Moving.

  Bleeding.

  Blood soaked the right side of his head, a deep, viscous red trailing thick from the hole above his ear. Face painted in it, smeared down his jaw, soaking the collar of his shirt. His eyes—glazed, unfocused. Empty.

  Not human.

  Tangent's stomach went cold.

  He gritted his teeth, ripped the pistol from his holster, turned, ran. His boots hit the rooftop hard, wind cutting past his face, dragging at his jacket. The dockside air was thick, carrying the brine and rot of the waterfront, mixing with the copper bite of blood.

  Behind him, a sound. A growl, low and rough.

  The fucker was chasing him.

  Not just running. Hunting.

  Tangent didn't slow. Didn't hesitate. Vaulted over a rooftop ledge, hit the gravel rolling, came up on his feet with his arms locked and kept moving. The sniper flicked his wrist, snapped the sights in place.

  Breathe in.

  Squeeze.

  pop-pop-pop!

  Three shots, tight grouping, center mass.

  And the fucker didn't even flinch.

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  Tangent's gut twisted. No stagger. No recoil.

  The bullets punched through fabric, through skin, but the damage didn't stick. Each shot ripped into the kid like tearing through wet paper, only for the holes to do jack shit in slowing him down.

  Not good.

  Not fucking good.

  Tangent gritted his teeth, shoving forward. Boots hit gravel, pushing hard, the docks a blur of rusting metal, weather-worn concrete, the sharp yellow glare of a busted streetlamp throwing his shadow long against the rooftop. Breath steady. Too steady. Shouldn't be this fast, shouldn't be this easy to stay on rhythm when every alarm in his body was screaming at him to get the fuck out.

  He'd made the shot. Had felt it. Same way a pitcher knew the second a fastball was clean. Same way a hunter knew before the deer dropped.

  Except now he was the one being hunted.

  Tangent forced his focus forward, flicked through every escape route in his head. Ahead, a vent. Rusted, half-collapsed. Good enough.

  He adjusted, bent his knees, and—

  —jumped.

  Angle shift snapped him midair. No straight lines, no wasted motion, no dumb fucking mistakes. His body obeyed the physics, let the force carry him. Vent to ledge to pipe to rooftop. Fast. Practiced. Perfect.

  Except—

  Pain.

  Jagged and real, searing up his ribs like a hot knife ripping through fabric and muscle.

  Tangent hit the gravel, rolled tight, came up fast, instinct firing on autopilot. Gun raised, eyes scanning. Didn't need to check to know the damage. Something had clipped him. Deep enough to tear, shallow enough to keep moving.

  Claws?

  His mind latched onto the detail even as he moved, muscles shifting in the way only a man trained to ignore pain could. The injury meant jack shit. The real problem was behind him.

  It wasn't moving right.

  Fast, yeah. Superhuman, sure. But the movements were still wrong. Too jerky. Too mechanical. Like a puppet with half the strings cut.

  Or half its skull popped.

  Tangent fired.

  Quick, sharp motions. Flicked his wrist, pulled the trigger, three shots tight to center mass—

  No reaction.

  Again.

  His stomach twisted even as he kicked off.

  Angle shift. He let the momentum snap him forward, ricochet off a powerline pole, let the weight of the turn drive another bullet home.

  Hit.

  Still moving. Fuck.

  Another ricochet. Another twist of his body. Another bullet in the chamber.

  The thing was still on him.

  Legs burned, lungs worked in overdrive, but it didn't matter. The fucker was still coming. Chasing. Hunting. There wasn't hesitation, wasn't thought behind it—just pure, raw instinct, a predator acting on something deeper than reason.

  Tangent clenched his jaw. Okay. Fine. You wanna play? Let's fucking play.

  Tangent hit the rooftop, boots skidding against gravel, his body twisting on reflex. His pistol was already raised, already lined up, and the second the kid leapt—sloppy, uneven, but still too fucking fast—Tangent fired.

  Twice.

  A graze.

  Not a miss.

  The bullet clipped its shoulder, ripped through skin, sent a spray of blood across the rooftop. No reaction. No stagger. Just a slight wobble in the trajectory, barely enough to matter.

  Tangent gritted his teeth, let his body move before his brain caught up. Angle shift. A sharp pivot, a twist, a push off the rooftop ledge, and he rebounded midair—

  CRASH.

  A dull, meaty impact.

  Tangent landed, tucked into a tight roll, and turned just in time to see the blond hit the concrete of the roof hard. Messy landing. Too fast, too uncoordinated. He collapsed in a heap, limbs sprawled, the weight of his own force working against him.

  And he didn't get up.

  Tangent exhaled, slow, deliberate. His ribs screamed. His side throbbed. He barely noticed. His eyes stayed locked on the heap of bloodied limbs, his pistol steady as he raised it again, this time with no rush, no hesitation.

  It was still moving. Sluggish. Disoriented. Not the same feral, wild thing from earlier.

  Something else.

  The kid's head lifted, eyes unfocused, something slow and confused shifting across his face.

  Dazed. Almost... childlike.

  Tangent didn't give a shit.

  He reloaded, the sharp click-click of the magazine snapping into place a dull comfort against the distant ringing in his ears. This job had gone to hell and back, but it didn't matter. He was still walking away rich.

  He adjusted his grip, steadied his breathing, lined up the shot. This time, no mistakes. No interruptions. Just one last pull of the trigger.

  His finger curled—

  CRACK.

  A sound like a sledgehammer to his chest.

  Tangent stumbled, breath hitching, something hot and wrong bursting behind his ribs. The world tilted. Vision swam. He made a sound—raw, startled, barely human—before his legs locked beneath him.

  Another shot.

  Another impact.

  He turned, body jerky, movements sluggish, eyes struggling to focus—

  A girl.

  Blond. Purple suit. Newsboy cap tilted just so. Standing in front of what looked like a doorway in space, the edges flickering like static.

  Gun raised.

  "Sorry about this," she said, tone breezy and unbothered, like she hadn't just put two fucking bullets in his chest. "Nothing personal. But he's useful."

  She clicked her tongue, lips twitching into something not quite a smirk, not quite an apology. "You? Not so much."

  Tangent tried to move.

  Didn't have time.

  The last thing he saw was the muzzle flash.