Page 108 of Property of Scar

Not aggression.

But fear.

Raw and unfiltered, dragged out of them in sounds that don’t match the things they have been up until now. One of them claws at its own throat like it’s trying to rip something out, another shakes its head violently, eyes wide, teeth bared in something that isn’t a snarl anymore but a panicked reaction to something it can’t escape.

Wreck keeps walking.

He doesn’t speed up.

He doesn’t need to.

Because whatever he’s showing them is already doing the work for him.

I don’t see it the way they do, but I feel the edges of it.

A cold that doesn’t belong to temperature, something vast and empty pressing just outside of perception, the sense of being watched by something that doesn’t see you as a threat, or even an opponent, just… something that will eventually be gone.

The rogues see more.

Their reactions tell me that much.

They are not just afraid.

They are breaking.

One of them starts pleading, the words slurring, like the rogue’s mouth can’t keep up with the panic driving them out. Another tries to crawl backward, hands slipping in blood and dust as it drags itself away from something that isn’t physically touching it, yet still can’t create distance.

Wreck tilts his head slightly as he reaches the first one, like he’s listening to something only he can hear, and he is deciding which of them ends first.

Then his jaw shifts. Bone pushes forward beneath skin, structure reshaping with a low, grinding tension as his mouth widens beyond what it should, teeth lengthening into something massive and uneven, built to tear rather than bite.

The rogue beneath him doesn’t even try to fight anymore. It just stares up at him, frozen and shaking. Whatever it sees reflected in its eyes, it turns it into something that doesn’t remember how to move.

Wreck’s hand closes around the back of its skull, steady, controlled, holding it in place, and then he leans down. The bite lands high on the neck, and for a single second, there is resistance, a brief, futile tension as flesh and bone try to hold, then it gives.

The sound is sharp and final, bone snapping clean as his teeth tear through, separating head from body in one violent motion that sends blood arcing out in a wide, heavy spray. The body drops immediately, collapsing where it kneels as though whatever was holding it upright has simply been removed.

Wreck straightens slowly, releasing what’s left without looking at it.

Another rogue is already on its knees in front of him… screaming and shaking, begging for something that doesn’t exist here.

Wreck steps forward.

And the fight doesn’t reach him anymore.

It ends when it gets close.

The rogue comes out of the stairwell on Ruckus’ blind side, and I know before it fully clears the shadow that this one is different. It is bigger and faster. Its pupils are blown black, its movement carrying that unstable, stuttering edge of something running beyond what its body should be able to sustain.

Ruckus doesn’t adjust in time.

The hit lands clean and hard.

He goes down with a sound that doesn’t belong in a fight like this, and he doesn’t get back up.

“Ruckus!” I scream out, but Flux is already there.

He shifts mid-run, his body folding into something broader, built for impact, and slams himself between the rogue and Ruckus’ body with a commitment that doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t calculate, just acts.