The green haired girl flinched, closed her eyes—and unleashed another sonic blast.
It ripped through the air, tearing through the shadows like a buzzsaw.
Tendrils evaporated. Tila staggered, covering her ears.
Lila dropped to a knee, blood running from her nose.
The light pierced the dark for one brutal second.
Then Tila’s eyes opened.
The blast was still going—but the green haired girl’s aim shifted slightly.
The scream curved—missing Tila’s chest by inches.
The shockwave hit her shoulder instead, knocking her back, but not out.
She looked up, eyes burning.
Kitty’s eyes t hers. And for just a second—Lila saw it.
Hesitation.
Regret.
rcy.
Tila didn’t care.
"You tried to kill ," she snarled.
Tila’s blade-arm glead, a jagged crescent of pure shadow, humming with unnatural life.
It was raised high over Kitty’s head—just inches from the green-haired girl’s sweat-slicked skin.
The girl didn’t move.
Didn’t scream.
She just closed her eyes and let out a slow, shallow breath.
Her mouth trembled as she braced for the end.
Tila’s face twisted with rage and glee.
"Now I kill you."
And just as the blade ca down—
BOOM.
Gunfire cracked the silence.
A flash from the corner.
Then another.
Raiders had regrouped.
Two of them were flanking the entrance now, assault rifles prid, firing in short, controlled bursts toward the twins.
Bullets sliced through the charred air.
Tila snarled and dove back behind a car, her blade dispersing into vapor as she dropped to the pavent, rolling once.
She growled. "Fucking cockroaches..."
Lila was already moving.
Her tendrils slid across the ground like liquid snakes, avoiding fire, weaving between tal and cent.
One of them slipped behind a raider’s knee—tightened—and yanked.
The man scread as his leg bent backward at an unnatural angle and he crumpled.
His partner turned too late.
A second tendril shot up and coiled around his neck, dragging him into the side of a rusted-out van hard enough to dent the tal.
Crack.
Silence.
Then movent.
"Eyes up!" shouted a woman with a cybernetic visor, perched atop the raider’s vehicle.
"They’re moving through the shadows! Infrared only!"
Lights snapped on—sickly red and orange—cutting through the darkness with heat-seeking clarity.
Thermal floodlights bathed the street, and the Haven’s warped shadows danced like smoke under scrutiny.
One raider raised a fla-tipped gauntlet and swept it in a wide arc, burning away the growing wall of darkness between them and the twins.
"Try hiding in that!" he sneered.
Tila rose from the ground, grinning ferally.
"Oh, honey," she said.
And vanished.
From behind the man, a shadow erupted—Tila, propelled by her own darkness like a cannonball.
She slamd into him, her knee driving into his spine.
He dropped his weapon and shrieked, flailing, but her hands were already forming a dozen sharp shadow-knives.
She stabbed once—twice—then a third ti into his chest.
Blood sprayed across her face.
Another turned, aiming his thermal weapon, but Lila’s shadow zipped up the barrel of his rifle and exploded it in his hands.
He scread, staggering back, fingers torn and bleeding.
A second raider tried to backpedal toward the van—only to find the tires wrapped in pitch-black tendrils.
One of them lifted the van’s back end off the ground by several inches and slamd it down again.
A wheel rolled off, bouncing once before being swallowed by the darkness.
Kitty sat curled near the Haven’s broken doorway, watching the massacre unfold.
Her teeth chattered, not from the cold, but from the sheer force of destruction playing out in front of her.
These weren’t just "the girls with collars."
They weren’t sidekicks or interns.
They were monsters.
BOOM.
A shotgun roared again—Radric.
He’d erged from cover and was unloading slug after slug at any twitch of shadow he saw.
One burst hit the pavent near Tila’s foot, showering her in sparks and rock chips.
She turned, her lip bleeding from a grazing shot, and glared at him with a look so intense it made even the hardened man hesitate.
"Ti to die, blondie," she hissed.
Radric didn’t run this ti.
He grinned, cocky and cornered.
"You first, freak."
He fired—
Tila dived low, shadows catching her mid-roll and launching her skyward like a catapult.
She ca down hard on him, slamming him into the ground.
His shotgun clattered away, and he raised his arms in defense.
"Okay! Okay! I surrender!"
Tila didn’t pause.
She raised her shadow-arm, which now looked more like a serrated cleaver.
"I’ll do anything! I an it!"
"You talk too much," she growled.
He cried out, "I’ll give you information!"
She paused mid-strike.
"Go on."
Radric swallowed hard. "We were hired to clear this place out. That’s all. It looked abandoned—until we saw that car out front. Zephyr X9. Those cost a fucking fortune. So we thought—loot it. Maybe kill whoever was squatting. No one said anything about monsters."
Tila tilted her head. "So you were hired?"
"Contracted freelance asset," he said quickly.
"Freelance my ass." Her blade hovered above his throat.
He whimpered. "Just let walk."
Tila lowered her blade a fraction.
"Crawl, maybe."
Radric tried to stand, but she kicked him back down with a heel to his ribs.
"Lick my boot."
"What?"
"You heard ."
Radric’s mouth worked soundlessly.
Tila grinned. "Do it, and I’ll consider sparing your useless tongue."
His hands trembled as he leaned in.
His tongue touched the blackened tip of her boot.
She raised her blade.
"No—WAIT—"
Shhhhick.
Blood sprayed up in a sickening arc.
His body twitched once.
Then stilled.
His head dropped to the pavent with a dull thud.
Tila turned, soaked in red, shadows curling around her in wisps.
Her gaze locked on the green-haired girl.
Kitty.
She was still there—barely upright, wobbling, her hoodie torn and soaked in blood. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide—but no words ca out.
Just a choked, rasping sound.
"Don’t even try," Tila snapped, stalking forward. "You don’t get to talk."
Kitty coughed.
Blood hit the ground at her feet.
She opened her mouth again—nothing.
Just wet breath and a guttural, broken noise.
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