Jagger clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked. His fingers tightened until the knuckles turned pale, then relaxed again. He slowly rolled both shoulders, feeling the stiffness in the joints where his body had not fully healed. The muscles protested with dull aches as he pulled his shoulder blades back and forth. After that, he stretched his neck, tilting it from side to side until the vertebrae cracked faintly. He kept moving, forcing one foot in front of the other.
The alley smelled of damp rot and stagnant decay. Water pooled between cracked tiles and broken concrete, and every puddle he stepped through rippled with reflections of distant lights bleeding weakly into the darkness. His boots scraped across scattered debris and shattered glass. The crunch of it echoed far louder than it should have inside the narrow corridor of brick and metal.
Not yet.
He did not slow down.
