"With pleasure," she hissed, knives whining with fresh hunger as she vaulted a column—boots scraping stone, leaping alcove-to-alcove like a shadowed predator closing in on wounded prey.
I charged the wall—fingers digging into marble handholds, crumbling chunks raining dust as I scaled fifty feet in heartbeats.
Bullets chased me in drumfire on my back: thuds blooming welts, one cracking my helmet visor into a spiderweb, vision tinting red haze.
"Keep shooting, boys—I'm collecting bruises for my scrapbook!"
Top alcove—first sniper prone, scope glinting, bolt racking slow as he tried to track my impossible speed. I blurred in before he could squeeze. Boot stomped his rifle, barrel bending into a U-shape with a metallic scrape. The backfire bloomed orange, flash-melting his face into charred meat.
