Page 106 of Property of Scar

Why is his heart beating at all?

His eyes widen, his mouth gasping with pain as it ripples through him—a slow understanding of what comes next seeping through his eyes.

Then, I rip it free.

The motion is brutal, final, tearing his heart out of him in a spray of dark blood that hits the already broken concrete in heavy bursts. The rogue’s body jerks once, violently, whatever is left of the fight in him cutting out mid-motion as the connection severs completely.

I hold it in my palm for half a second, feeling its last stutter.

Then I drop it to the ground like a lifeless scrap.

The body collapses.

And I’m already turning…

Because behind him, everything keeps moving.

The station doesn’t descend into chaos. It detonates.

I pivot left as another rogue crashes into my shoulder. I take the hit and turn with it, using its momentum instead of fighting it, dragging the body through the motion and slamming its skull into a concrete pillar hard enough to crack bone on impact. It drops, but I don’t watch it fall. I’m already moving, already shifting toward the next threat before the first has even started to deflate, my body running on centuries of violence compressed into instinct. There is no thought in it anymore. There is only motion, and the damage that follows it.

Cali is already moving. Three feet to my right, she moves like she saw this before it happened, driving her blade into the chest of the first rogue in her path and pivoting on the same planted foot without breaking rhythm, her elbow snapping into the jaw of another that closes from her flank. She doesn’t reset between strikes. She flows through them, chaining one movement into the next with ruthless efficiency, her focus never splitting even as the fight tries to pull her in three different directions at once.

She doesn’t fight like someone trained.

She fights like someone built for it.

“Maul!” I call it across the platform as the second wave folds in, and I catch the shift in pressure at Roxy’s right flank, two rogues closing in with just enough coordination to be a problem.

He’s already moving before the sound reaches him.

The change rips through him fast and violent, bone and muscle rearranging under skin that tears through fabric like it doesn’t matter, like nothing about this form matters except what it can do. Then there’s two hundred and forty pounds of werewolf slamming into the line at Roxy’s side, the impact sending rogues scattering in every direction, bodies colliding, footing lost, formation breaking under the raw force.

Thorn’s arms extend slowly, and the ground answers him like it’s been waiting for the command.

Concrete splits with a deep, grinding crack that rolls through the station floor, the sound thick and structural, like something foundational giving way under pressure it can’t hold. Roots punch through the surface in violent bursts, tearing up through tile and steel as if none of it offers resistance at all.

They spread fast once they’re through, branching outward in snapping, whipping lines that coil around rogue ankles, legs, torsos, locking on with a grip that bites deep and doesn’t slip. Rogues are yanked off their feet, slammed into the ground hard enough to knock a breathless sound out of them… and then the screaming starts.

Not mindless.

Not empty.

Sharp and panicked.

They thrash against the hold, bodies twisting, clawing at the roots wrapped around them, nails tearing, muscles straining as they try to rip themselves free. The enhanced strength in them shows for a second and roots flex, shifting under the force of it, but it doesn’t last.

The roots tighten in response, adjusting, correcting, pulling harder, dragging limbs wider apart as the rogues fight against them. The resistance only makes it worse, tension building through their bodies while the hold becomes absolute, something that doesn’t get tired, doesn’t lose grip, doesn’t care how hard they fight back.

There’s a moment where it peaks.

Where everything strains against everything else.

The roots, bodies, and the force holding them in place.

The sound shifts, from screaming… to breaking.

Ligaments snap first, followed by the deeper, heavier crack of bone giving way under pressure that doesn’t release. The thrashing turns frantic and desperate, movements losing coordination as bodies stop responding as they should, while control slips and panic takes over completely.