The snow swirled through the ruins, dancing with the wind as if the town were breathing on its own.
Lucas slipped behind a collapsed wall and watched the field with a hunter's patience.
Harlan stood beside Naomi; his body hummed with electricity that crackled through the folds of his coat.
Lucas studied him calmly. He already sensed the shape of the power: electricity held in the body, lethal at close range. Would he throw bolts? It didn't look like it—more a contact discharge, deadly in clinches.
Across from him stood the woman. Quiet, a thin smile that never reached her eyes. Her stance was relaxed, but her hands kept hovering near her mouth, as if she were holding something in or getting it ready.
"She has a weapon on her back," Lucas told himself. "Why keep her hands by her mouth instead of using it? The ability must come out there."
First learn what she can do, he thought, sharpening his focus.
His eyes swept the scene: a fallen metal sign half-buried in snow, and a broken window on his left flank. Perfect.
He checked the wind, gauged its pull, picked a sliver of glass off the ground, and flicked it toward the opposite side.
The sound was subtle—a dry tink against metal—barely there, but enough.
Rhea turned at once, pure reflex. In that motion, a faint green haze slipped from her lips and thinned into the cold air.
Lucas saw the vapor and understood at once: toxin or acid, exhaled. Rhea covered her mouth with a gloved hand—clear caution, rationing the release.
Potent but unstable, then. Lethal up close and, with the wind wrong, hard to steer.
He smiled to himself. That was the weakness he needed.
He looked back to Harlan. The man was impatient, his gaze burning. Current snapped over his skin, pooling in arms and legs, hissing where it kissed the snow. Each burst lifted a thread of steam.
A pattern: he routes power into the limbs; hit center mass and the discharge bleeds off. Reinforced body, not invulnerable. And the woman—danger at range.
His thoughts ran as clean as breath. Terrain, wind, air density, distance.
Five meters between Harlan and Rhea. Two more to Naomi. The tracker's body lay half-hidden beside a gutted car.
Harlan raised his voice again, fraying.
"Last chance," he roared. "If you don't come out, I kill her right here."
Lucas didn't move. His hand slid to the katana's guard; the cold steel under his palm brought the world into one hard point.
The storm howled and masked his breathing. He had a plan. He knew who had to fall first. And he knew this: when pioneers fight, the one who shows his power first pays for it.
Patience. Watch. Take the seams.
With that honed calm, he set the next move.
Snow kicked up in a small cyclone when Lucas moved.
He came out without a sound, a shadow taking shape inside the flurry. The first strike was clean and exact: a side kick into Harlan's back before the man could turn. Harlan hit the snow with a hollow thud.
He spun at once, electricity crackling around him. "Contact!" he barked, the snow hissing under his boots.
Lucas didn't answer. He was already in motion. He drew the katana and the blade cut a bright arc that kissed Harlan's coat. Harlan rocked back—fast, faster than Lucas expected. Not a brawler's flinch, a trained fighter's read.
A blue spark ran down Harlan's arm and the counterpunch landed before Lucas could reset. The fist crushed into his ribs, a dry impact followed by a jolt that rattled him to the bone. His back arched, muscles clamping in an electric spasm.
He slid away on the snow, gasping.
"Temporary lock from the current. Contact activates it… I can't let him touch me."
Harlan came on hard, a bottled lightning strike. "You're not as fast as you think," he growled, throwing another shot.
Lucas twisted, shaving past by inches; the katana met forearm, a surge buzzing down the grip into his hand. The air smelled of ozone and burnt metal.
He clenched his teeth. "He runs the charge through his limbs. Every hit costs me seconds. Break the rhythm."
He sank his weight and loosed three brisk cuts. The first met an arm, the second a shin, the third scored Harlan's coat and drew a thin line of blood across the abdomen.
Harlan grunted—more fury than pain. The current climbed, snapping harder. "That was a mistake."
He blurred forward, speed doubling. One blow, then another. The shocks needled Lucas, each touch slowing him further.
He dropped to a knee, breath ragged, the blade trembling in his hand. Harlan loomed, chest heaving, wearing a small, superior smile.
"Good try," he said. "But you're not ready to play at my level."
A few meters away, Rhea stayed out of it. She had moved to Naomi, who was trying to push herself up from the ground. "Easy, pretty thing," she whispered, voice like a coil. "We're only going to talk."
She took Naomi by the neck and pinned her to the wall. A small drift of green vapor slipped from her lips. Naomi coughed, air burning on the way in.
Lucas looked up. Rage mixed with the leftover current shaking his body. "Damn it… Naomi."
Something shifted. His focus went needle-sharp, his breathing dropped into a smooth, flat line. Fear burned off. Only aim remained.
He moved.
Pain turned to thrust. He closed in at a different speed, more instinct than form. The crunch of snow underfoot vanished into the wind.
Harlan tried to meet him, but Lucas was already inside the guard. The first hit drove the pommel into Harlan's chin. The second—a diagonal cut—forced the cover. Current snapped, but Lucas rolled his torso, took the jolt into motion, and slipped the contact.
The fight became a brutal dance.
Harlan hit hard; Lucas answered clean. Every move was a read, every strike, an answer.
Exchange after exchange, snow flung up around them as if the wind itself stepped back. Lucas used the ground, the wreckage, the shadows. Hit and vanish, appear at a new angle. Harlan roared, frustrated, throwing charges at air, scorching pocks into the drift, lighting the ruins with blue flashes.
For the first time, the balance tilted. Lucas wasn't fleeing pain now; he was timing it.
Harlan drove a charged hook; Lucas shaved it off the blade, rolled through, and kicked him square in the chest, slamming him into a rusted post.
The impact detonated a halo of sparks.
They broke apart, panting, rimed with frost and steam. Both understood it at once: they were even.
Silence held for a beat, broken by their breath. The storm roared overhead, as if the world were holding its lungs.
Lucas firmed his grip on the katana, eyes set.
Harlan smiled through a ribbon of blood at his lip. "Not bad at all."
"You either," Lucas said—quiet, dangerous.
They launched together, and the clash lit the snow in blue and silver.
Naomi sucked air in a ragged gasp. Rhea had her by the neck, fingers clawed into her coat. The woman's breath stank of chemicals and rot.
"I told you not to move," Rhea purred. "But tough girls always want to test it."
Naomi caught a sliver of slack—drove a knee into Rhea's midsection.
Again, this time catching the jaw, then rolled away, dragging breath. "Don't—underestimate me," she growled, dragging a knife free.
Rhea wiped her mouth; the sarcasm fell off her face and left plain hate. "Brave," she said. "And foolish."
Naomi rushed. The blade flashed; Rhea slipped it, caught her wrist, and twisted—breaking the base. The knife hit snow.
Rhea paid her back with a driving knee to the ribs and slung her into a wall. Air rushed out of Naomi in a sharp cry, but she forced herself upright, wavering, teeth set. "I'm not dying here."
"That's not up to you, sweetheart." Rhea inhaled. Her throat darkened. Before Naomi could move, a green cloud poured from her mouth—thick, bright, hanging in the cold.
Naomi tried to slip aside, but the poison brushed her skin, seared her lungs. She dropped to her knees, coughing, vision swimming.
Rhea closed in, smoke still leaking from her lips. "Sleep. It hurts less if you don't fight." A sharp kick to the face, and Naomi folded, shivering faintly in the snow.
—
Lucas saw all of it. The green hiss, Naomi collapsing, Rhea's pleased tilt of the chin.
The world went dark for a heartbeat.
Then it burned.
His breath changed—deep, animal. His pupils tightened; his pulse hammered. A low sound rumbled in his chest. Snow lifted around him like dust.
Harlan stiffened, reading the shift. "What the hell—?"
Lucas didn't answer. He simply vanished.
He appeared an instant later in front of Harlan. The first blow hit like a mallet to the gut, throwing the man back yards. Current blasted at the contact, but Lucas didn't slow; he advanced, eyes lit with a clean, hard fury.
Every move was instinct now. No form, no leash. A string of strikes and cuts that tore the air.
Harlan covered the first few with forearms, sparks throwing wild light, but Lucas's pressure broke through.
A second strike smashed him into a wall. A third stole his breath. Harlan roared and threw everything he had; electricity raged around him, a storm gone blue.
"You're not the only monster here," he shouted, and his body became a human lightning bolt.
The meeting was savage. They hit together, blow for blow, shock for rage. Each collision lifted plumes of snow and firefly flashes; metal and bone rang off the dead facades.
Lucas spun a kick and shoved him wide; Harlan answered with a charged punch to the chest that skidded Lucas back, another jolt biting through.
Lucas hit, bounced to his feet, blade thrumming, breath fogging thick. Both bled. Both smiled.
Two predators weighing each other.
Rhea watched from the edge, smoke still curling from her lips, pleased to see them chew each other apart. "Idiots," she murmured. "None of you walks out."
The ground shook when Lucas surged again. Steel sliced air, nicked Harlan's coat; Harlan paid him with a head-butt and a knee wired with current. Lucas caught the next punch, rolled off it, and laid a clean cut along Harlan's arm.
Harlan grinned, jaw tight. "Not bad, kid. But you already lost."
Something in his tone made Lucas glance—just instinct. Too late.
Down the street, a shape pushed up from the snow: Eli. The tracker, face pale, blood frozen across his brow, braced a long rifle. His eye still glowed with thermal sight. He aimed.
Lucas felt it more than heard it. The shot's whine was almost nothing.
The round punched through his arm, tore the katana from his grip. Steel fell into the drift with a dull ring, already red.
Lucas staggered, breath burning, blood coursing into his sleeve. Pain didn't stop him, but it pulled him back to the hard math.
Harlan straightened, laughing rough. "See, kid? In this world even the hunter gets hunted."
Lucas ground his teeth, the wounded arm trembling. His eyes slid to Naomi—still and pale in the snow.
And for the first time that night, he hesitated.
The snow kept falling, soft, like the world refused to look.
Lucas sank to one knee, spent. His left arm hung deadweight; blood soaked his sleeve and dripped in dark lines onto the white. Every breath felt like fire in his chest. A meter away, the katana lay half-buried—so close and so far.
Cold air met the iron stink of blood. Harlan still sparked in fading bursts, breathing hard but standing sure, in control.
Eli held the aim from a distance, brow split and iced, that bright eye locked on target.
Behind them, Rhea tended a small vial, tongue stained green, lips marked by her own poison.
Lucas clenched his jaw, his body shivering. "If I hadn't split from Naomi… if I hadn't hesitated. If I'd finished him when I could…"
Each thought cut him. Despair pressed down. Naomi lay only a few steps away, chest barely lifting. The toxin was eating her time. "I have to get her out…" But he couldn't move. The arm was dead, his legs were stone. The blade was close enough to hurt to look at it.
"See, kid?" Harlan's voice pulled him back. He walked toward Lucas, snow crunching. "That's your problem." He didn't raise his voice. "You still think this is a fair game. That you get to choose when to kill and when to hold back."
He crouched in front of him, eyes bright with anger and colorless amusement. "In this world the best doesn't win… the one who does what the others won't, does."
Lucas lifted his gaze, eyes boiling with fury and exhaustion. "You don't know me."
Harlan smiled and kicked the wounded shoulder. Pain flared through Lucas in a white sheet.
"I knew you didn't kill the kid," he said, tipping his chin at Eli. "That was your mistake. The weak always think mercy makes them human…"
He held Lucas's stare. "It makes them dead men."
Eli, breath hitching, adjusted the rifle, eyeing his leader. "Can I finish it, boss?" he asked, voice rough, blood dripping into his eye.
"One shot. Quick. No one will know." He set the sights on Lucas's chest. "Let's end it."
Harlan raised a hand without looking. "Not yet."
He stepped between Lucas and Naomi. "First we decide which of you is worth more alive." He sounded almost like a teacher. "The strong man who wouldn't kill… or the woman who might talk if the pain gets her there."
Lucas tried to move, but the arm wouldn't answer. Fear punched through his ribs as Rhea walked to Naomi with a hacked-together syringe.
"Almost have the antidote," Rhea said calmly, watching the green liquid simmer in the glass. "If I push it now, she lives. If I don't… ten minutes, maybe less."
Harlan folded his arms, interested. "Then we have a choice." He looked back to Lucas. "One dies… one lives."
He leaned closer. "Which will it be, hero?"
A knot rose in Lucas's throat. Pain, guilt, powerlessness—all of it mashed together until it was too much.
Wind pushed through, dragging snow and the reek of poison while Harlan waited, smiling with the easy cruelty of someone who loves control.
For the first time since the world froze, Lucas didn't think about fighting. He thought about what he could lose.
Megan. Naomi. The promise to come back.
And for the first time, he was afraid he wouldn't keep it.