I can almost feel the knife inside me; a throbbing bar of white hot agony digging into my back as Bloody Mary pushes it down to the hilt, and pushes me to the ground with it. I feel her hand running across my back – barely a nudge among the pain – as she dips her fingers in the gushing black blood. I can see her clearly in the mirrors opposite as she uses her legs to weigh me down even further. She looks up, meeting my inhuman gaze with her monstrous but all-too-human eyes as she brings her bloody fingers up to her mouth, savouring the taste of my blood with her tongue.

“And what” – she asks, her tone leisured and aristocratic – “are you supposed to be?”

With one hand kept firmly on the knife, she grips my lower jaw and starts to pull my head up. She’s not strong – definitely not as strong as Ember or Jaeger – but I don’t weight all that much.

“A little Watchdog, sent scampering off into the night with the scent of blood to guide you? Or just Jaeger’s rebound… thing?”

Her eyes travel lazily up and down my body, before meeting my gaze again and smiling mockingly.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I wonder what you look like beneath all that skin?”

I start to flail, but that just has the knife wiggling on my back. Bloody Mary laughs at my struggles… she throws back her head and laughs like a lunatic! My eyes are frantically moving from mirror to mirror, desperately seeking some way I can escape, before they settle on the vanity behind me.

I flick out my tail, running it briefly along the side of Bloody Mary’s leg before drifting it into the shadows beneath the vanity. In a second, I’ve disappeared and hidden in the shadows, the sudden loss of my weight sending the woman sprawling to the floor.

I’m out of the shadows just as quickly, clambering over the woman’s body as I rush for the exit – ignoring the throbbing and bleeding wound in my back that re-emerged the moment I left the shadows.

I almost make it, too, until Bloody Mary flows like mist out of one of the mirrors, already mid-kick. She sends me sprawling into the side of her bed, so I slip beneath its sides and hide in the space underneath.

I don’t even have two seconds before Bloody Mary curls her fingers around the bed and flips it. She struggles against the weight of the mattress – and I think if the bed were made of wood she wouldn’t be able to lift it at all – but the light spills in all the same.

Just like I knew it would.

I don’t wait for it to force me out, instead shrugging off every instinct I have and pouncing out of my hiding spot, throwing my weight against the monster. I knock the breath out of her, sending her a half-step back before her legs fall out from under her and she crashes to the ground. I try to bite her, but she brings up her arm just in time and all I get is a mouthful of some of her stupid belts.

Giving up on the attack, I punch her in the face with one of my forelimbs and pounce towards the exit again, this time managing to just make it through the door before she makes it to the closest mirror and teleports to me.

Which means she needs to touch a mirror to travel through it. I can use that.

I sprint across the corridor, with her hot on my heels.

I’m not foolish enough to think she’ll leave me alone if I can give her the slip. It would be the sensible thing to do; to run off and tell all about the spy she’s found, to expose this whole operation to the Triad and make everything I’ve achieved absolutely meaningless.

But she won’t do it. Because she’s a monster.

She’ll kill me first.

She steps out of the bathroom, bursting into the corridor with her knife out and an angry look on her face. Her nose looks a little lopsided, and her mad rush has sent droplets of blood scattering down her cheeks, mixing with her white make-up and leaving a spattering of tiny pink stains. Guess I broke it.

She swings at me, and I narrowly twist my body around the blow by hugging the ground and darting between her legs – aiming a kick at her as I go, but it doesn’t connect. I haven’t done much hand-to-hand practice, but Ember made sure that Jaarsveld and his men took me through the basics. It’s clear that Bloody Mary hasn’t even had that. She’s fast – with a singular viciousness to her movements – but there’s none of the coordination of the people I trained with.

Mind you, I’m not much better. Neither of us are fighters. I like to hide in the shadows, while she likes to pop out of people’s mirrors and cut their throats while they’re asleep.

Still, if there’s one advantage I do have, it’s that you can’t fight me like you would anyone else. Moving on all fours comes naturally to me, but it means she has to swipe downwards rather than ahead of her. That slows her down; she manages to drag her knife along my back, but the cut is shallower than it could have been and it doesn’t stop me from pouncing on top of the banister and leaping down the stairs to the first floor.

When I hit the carpet, she’s already there, standing next to a mirror in the hall and cutting me off from the exit. She starts to edge forwards, keeping herself in-between me and the exit, as I creep deeper into the living room. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the gun next to the stack of books and a plan starts to form in my head.

“You know you can’t win, right?” she mocks, as I slowly start to creep towards the gun. I don’t think she can see it from where she’s standing, but I can’t be sure.

“What, nothing to say?” Her mocking smile falters, slipping into an angry sneer. “How incredibly boring.”

She takes half-step forward, so I hiss at her to keep her back. It’s degrading, I know, but it’ll keep her back as I edge closer and closer to the table. About three feet from salvation, she catches on to what I’m doing and leaps forwards with a snarl, her knife held out in front of her.

I pounce, scattering the books and hurriedly wrapping my hand around the grip of the pistol. The moment Bloody Mary spots the glint of black metal in my hand, she starts to desperately fumble with a pouch on her hip.

I pull the trigger, holding the gun as far away from me as possible and looking away from the muzzle flash, but nothing happens. I panic, trying desperately to remember how to work the slide, like I’ve seen some of the guards do before they go on their shift, but it’s already too late.

The panic has left the monster’s eyes, replaced by a psychopathic gleam as she pounces with the knife.

My tail drifts under the couch, pulling me into the shadows and leaving the gun behind as it falls to the floor of the lounge. Rather than wait for her to expose me again, I slip out on the other side of the sofa just in time to jump out of the way as she kicks it over with a frustrated snarl, leaving me without any cover at all.

I can’t beat her here. This is her space, her home turf. It’s well-lit, with enough mirrors around that she can slip in and out of them with ease. It takes away every advantage I have and gives them to her. If I’m going to beat her, or even just survive this, I need to draw her somewhere her advantages don’t mean anything. The garage, maybe, or…

The basement!

I sprint down the corridor, heading towards the front door. It’s dark outside, but there’s enough ambient light and standing water around that every pothole and sinkhole has become a perfect mirror pool. I’d have my advantages back, but she’d still have hers. And I’m not a killer, while she is. On an equal footing, I’d lose.

Not that she gives me the chance to flee through the front door; the moment I get near it, a flat rectangular object flies over my head before depositing Bloody Mary in front of me in a puff of white mist.

That pouch on her hip must be full of mirrors she can use to slip away, or to throw across a room!

I’ll have to get rid of it.

I throw my weight against the door to the kitchen, grateful that I didn’t properly close it on my way out, and wince as the monster manages to drag her knife down my thigh as I pass her. My cuts are throbbing – each spasm spilling black blood and viscous ichor onto the kitchen tiles – but I fight through the agonising pain. Another mirror sails overhead – a flat rectangular shape that flickers and glints in the kitchen lights – but this time I’m ready for it.

Stamping down the instincts that are screaming at me to run, I pounce forwards the moment the first mist slips from the mirror. An instant later she’s fully formed, her knife held out defensively in front of her, and my jaws are already closing on her hip, taking a chunk out of her costume, her belt and leaving the pouch full of mirrors gripped in my mouth.

She screams – half in anger and half in pain – as she kicks out reflexively with a leg, knocking me down to the ground and almost managing to loosen my grip on the pouch. I roll out of the way of a stab, using my tail to push myself along before springing back onto all fours and slamming my back into the door to the basement.

I tumble down the stairs in an agonising mess of twisted limbs, only feeling relief when I hit the shadows at the base and all my cuts and scrapes fade away, as my body vanishes into nothing. Without a mouth to hold it, the pouch of mirrors falls to the floor. Only sheer luck stops the small stack of rectangular glass from spilling out all over the place, and I form an arm to drag it away as fast as I can.

Bloody Mary practically leaps down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time even with one hand clutching her bleeding thigh. On her second step, there’s a horrific crunch as the old wood, rotted through by years of damp air, gives way beneath her feet and sends her sprawling, rolling down the last few steps as they disintegrate around her.

I ignore the stairs, pulling the pouch of mirrors away and forming just a single hand to haul it upwards agonisingly slowly as she gathers her wits on the concrete floor. I reform my body as fast as I can, just about managing to scrabble up onto the floor of the kitchen and tossing the pouch as far as it’ll go, spilling half a dozen gleaming rectangular mirrors across the tiled floor. I wrap a fist around the sole lamp in the kitchen, dashing it against the wall and plunging the room into darkness with the tinkle of a smashed bulb, before leaping back into the basement, curling my tail around the doorhandle to slam it shut behind me.

And with that, the last sliver of light disappears from the basement, leaving me with a perfect view of Bloody Mary staggering to her feet, her eyes darting around as wildly as the knife clutches protectively in her grasp, no longer stretched out to strike at an enemy but held in against her chest to guard against an attacker she can’t see.

We’ve moved from her world, to mine.

I circle her in the shadows, drifting freely through the basement as she slowly staggers over to one wall, flinching back in shock as her foot catches on an old can. I drift up close enough to see her eyes widening in fear – her pupils like saucers as they hunt for any scrap of light. I form fingers just long enough to brush them against her neck, sending her flinching back with her knife wildly flailing at where she thinks I am.

But I’m already moving, pouncing out of the shadows and hitting her chest with the full force of my weight, sending her sprawling to the ground. I drive a foot into her wrist, her grip on the knife immediately scattering as the straight-edge blade skitters away from her along the floor. A quick slip into the shadows followed by a flick of my tail is enough to keep it out of her reach but well in my sight.

She tries to stand, so I knock her down again. All her bravado has fled her now – every bit of poise and cocky pride stripped away to reveal the cringing monster they concealed. She’s not spoken a word since she fell down here, just breathing faster and faster as she slowly loses her mind to panic. So happy to tear the wings off flies for her own amusement, but so scared to find herself in my hands.

She shuffles backwards, giving up her efforts to haul herself to her feet in favour of pressing herself against the wall. I don’t give her the chance, forming myself fully and pulling her underneath me, with my legs holding hers down and my forelimbs pressed against her arms.

Her head bucks as she panics, but I pay her no mind as I reach across and grab the handle of the knife. It feels heavy in my hands – even though it’s just a small thing – and heavier still as I press it against her throat. She stills – completely. Her panicked breathing halts, her eyes freeze in place as tears stream down her cheeks, ruining her mascara. Her mouth is hanging wide open in a wordless plea, though I don’t know if she’s staying silent out of fear or because she knows pleas wouldn’t work if our positions were reversed.

I tighten my grip on the knife, and…

And I can’t. I just can’t.

Because I’m not her. Because I’m not a monster, not like she is. Not like I look.

Black blood is pouring out of my wounds, running down the sleek leather lines of her costume, but I don’t want to do the same to her. I just… don’t. I have to hide away from the city, from everyone, because they look at me and they see a monster. But I’m not. I know I’m not. I have to be better than that.

I throw the knife aside and disappear back into the shadows. The breath Bloody Mary had been holding in comes out in a long, agonised gasp as her whole body jolts at the sudden absence of weight. She rolls over, scrabbing onto her hands and knees and wincing as she puts weight on her wounded thigh, but I pay her no mind.

I float to the top of the destroyed staircase, slipping underneath the door and into the darkened kitchen, forming myself at the hallway and practically throwing open the door to the safehouse, leaving the monster trapped in the basement as I stagger out under the overcast night sky.

The aches and pains I’d been pushing aside during the fight come back with a vengeance, and my leg starts to tremble and shake where the monster cut it. I slip into the shadows, creeping through the streets of the city and spending as little time corporeal as possible, to keep as much of my blood inside my body as I can.

I head south, following the distant glow of the city as I leave the flooded ruins behind. The city I know doesn’t come all at once. It starts small, with a few isolated patches of streetlights like islands in the darkness, before growing into isolated villages, then whole estates, before emerging into the sprawl of tenements and suburban homes I’m familiar with.

Even then, there are still new sights. An immense fortification rises out of the north end of my city – an imposing glow I’ve only ever seen at a distance. It’s a collection of rectangular buildings, mismatched in size but all similarly shaped. Like the security station in the Red Light district, in that it looks like the buildings once served one purpose but have since been turned into a fortress.

Behind chain-link fences tipped with razor wire, a military encampment squats in the middle of the city, lit from end to end by floodlights and filled with the sound of engines purring. As I watch, a boxy armoured truck pulls out of a gate, green and white lights flashing on top of its squat silhouette.

There’s a sign by the gate, with white letters on a black backdrop lit from beneath by a purple glow. ‘Parahuman Response Team. Department 20. Northgate Precinct.”

I don’t spend long watching it. It’s too bright for me to get close, and I’m not comfortable being so near to a faction that rivals the Elite. Ember says there’s nothing they could arrest me or her for, but I know that isn’t true about all the Elite, and I don’t want to risk it. Instead I slink back into the alleyways of Seattle and leap from rooftop to rooftop until I land on all fours just outside Jaeger’s van.

My fist has barely hit the side before I’m bathed in the red glow of the van’s interior, as one of Jaeger’s men pulls it open with a rifle clutched in the other hand, pointed not at me but at the chest height of a normal person. The moment he spots me, the rifle is raised up and safely out of harm’s way as he turns back into the van and shouts for bandages.

In an instant, his colleague is by my side, helping me up into the van and kneeling next to me on the floor as he throws open a first aid kit. I shake him off at first, looking up at Jaeger and desperately signing ‘I found her.’

Jaeger takes my meaning immediately, his stone cold composure cracking for the briefest moment before he practically shoves his medic aside.

“What happened?” he asks, kneeling down in front of me. I just point behind him at the map.

In a single move he reaches back and rips it off the wall, setting it down in front of me. I take a bloody finger and mark the monster’s house with a black spot, reaching back to gather more before scrawling out ‘trapped’ on the pristine map.

As Jaeger’s medic wraps my wounds tightly in bandages – working with hurried yet professional movements – the man himself gives directions to his driver, and suddenly we’re lurching back through the city streets. I slip in and out of consciousness, losing track of time and the feeling of cloth wrapped tight against my skin. I force myself out of the funk, pulling at Jaeger’s pant leg until he looks down again.

‘She’s in basement,’ I sign. ‘Phone in bedroom.’

“Thank you,” he replies, though his mind is still clearly focused on his rifle. The road has got worse, the van lurching more and occasionally shaking in a horrible, bone-rattling way as we pass over uneven ground. That’s how I know we’re getting close.

The medic ignores me once I’m safely bandaged up, going over his own preparations as the three of them wait by the door. The moment the van slams to a stop they’re moving, throwing open the door to reveal a familiar view of that ruined house in the suburbs. I watch them as they sprint up the drive to the doorway, and all my worries fade away. They’ll take Bloody Mary away, make sure she can’t hurt anyone anymore and that she can’t escape and tell the Triad about me… or hunt me down.

A brief flash of blinding lights appears through the cracks in the boarded-up kitchen window, alongside a deafening burst of gunshots that almost stop my heart again. For a second I think something must have gone wrong, but then Jaeger and the two soldiers step out the front door, looking completely unharmed. Jaeger is even holding the monster… Bloody Mary’s phone in his left hand.

They’re relaxed as they get back into the van, leisurely pulling the door shut like they haven’t just shot someone. Jaeger sets the phone aside and puts his rifle back on its rack, before speaking into a radio set.

“This is Jaeger. Requesting a clean-up crew at a house in the marshes. Require body disposal and renovation; I don’t want anyone knowing there was a fight. Address is as follows.”

He rattles off the location for the house, before slumping into his chair and eyeing Bloody Mary’s phone. It doesn’t take him long to notice the three pairs of eyes staring up at him from the floor, and he tilts his head a little in acknowledgement.

‘Why?’ I sign.

It takes him a few seconds to answer, though I’m not sure if that’s because he’s thinking it over or he just wasn’t expecting the question.

“We couldn’t contain her long-term. Her power’s too versatile. I couldn’t trust the PRT to contain her either; if they could, they’d have caught her by now. She broke away from us before, which means we can’t use her as a recruit. The only option left was to end the threat she represented to the Seattle Elite.”

I fall silent, looking down at the ground. Maybe he’s right, and she was a monster, but it still feels wrong. He… executed her.

I only look up again once I hear Jaeger reaching over and picking up the phone. I look up at him again, his eyes shaded by the brow of his helmet as he looks down at the screen.

‘It’s locked,’ I sign, only to tilt my head quizzically as a wry grin creeps across his face.

“I have a lesson for you,” he says, his eyes meeting my own.

I don’t say anything in response. I just sit on the floor, my limbs coated by white bandages slowly staining black, and look up at him.

“You have a power that makes you superior to any human,” he begins, “but that isn’t enough. Bloody Mary’s powers made her an excellent infiltrator, and she thought they made her an excellent killer, but that’s all she ever did. She sat back and relied on her power for everything. She didn’t study to improve her mind, and she only exercised to keep her looks intact, rather than to improve her body.”

He turns the phone over in his hands, tossing it in the air and catching it.

“She had the niche her power gave her, and she thought that was enough. She was good at it, to be sure, but in all other areas she was distinctly… lacking.”

He peels back a rubber case from the back of the phone, smiling in triumph as it reveals a small scrap of paper with a few numbers scribbled on it in pen. With a few taps on the screen, he unlocks the phone.

“The weakest part of any Parahuman is their humanity, and if you don’t work to overcome it then it will be your downfall.”