Chapter 7: Ophelia's POV

Crack—

The sharp sound of bone breaking exploded through the private room.

The hand Carter had clamped on me was seized by that man in one grip and bent backward at an angle that shouldn't have been possible.

"AAAAAH—!!!"

Carter let out a scream that tore his throat raw, his whole body collapsing to his knees like a heap of wet mud.

But the man didn't stop.

Without a flicker of hesitation, he snatched up the unopened bottle of vodka from the coffee table, and brought it down on Carter's skull with everything he had.

Bang!

The glass shattered against Carter's head. Liquor mixed with bright red blood burst outward in an instant, splattering across the leather sofa and across my calves.

Carter's screaming cut off mid-cry. He lay on the floor like a discarded rag, twitched twice, and went still—no telling whether he was alive or dead.

"AAAAH!! He's killing him!!" Harper and a few of the other girls shrieked in terror, shrinking into the corner, trembling.

Lucas, mostly sober now, grabbed a bottle and charged forward. "What the hell are you doing?!"

The man didn't even acknowledge him.

He straddled Carter's body and kept driving his fist down, again and again.

Carter wasn't moving anymore. The smell of blood had drowned out the alcohol and perfume in the room.

I stared at the man's taut back—broad shoulders, narrow waist—every flex of muscle carrying something sexual in it. A phrase surfaced in my mind: the aesthetics of violence.

Lucas's bottle slipped from his hand and hit the floor. He looked at Carter, then at the man in black, and backed away, face ashen.

No one dared step forward to pull Carter off the floor.

These rich kids had never seen anything like this. This wasn't a fight. This was a one-sided slaughter.

"Run! Run!" The faint-hearted ones scrambled and stumbled out the door of the private room.

The rest of them froze where they were, huddled in the corner like a flock of quail, shaking.

"Security! Call security!" someone shouted.

I stayed curled in the corner of the sofa.

I didn't run. I didn't scream.

I just watched him, quietly.

Though... if he kept going, Carter's brains were going to mess up my shoes.

"That," I said, lowering the hand I'd been holding over my mouth.

The room was full of screams and shouts; my voice was barely a whisper.

But the man heard it.

His fist, raised high, stopped dead in midair.

"He looks pretty dead," I murmured.

The man's back went rigid as a bar of iron.

He turned his head slowly.

The strobe lights flickered across him. His black hood was pulled low, and the lower half of his face was hidden behind a black mask.

I couldn't see what he looked like.

Only those brutal eyes, in the shadow beneath the hood's brim.

In the flashing light, they seemed to catch a faint, dark-gold gleam—like the vertical pupils of a beast.

I could hear his breathing, thick and ragged.

Then he whipped his head back around.

His chest heaved violently. I saw his hands—blood-soaked hands—shaking, out of his control.

Huh? He hadn't been breathing like that when he was beating the man half to death. So why, after one look at me—

Was it the adrenaline spike, or something else?

The noise outside was closing in. Finally came the clatter of footsteps and the crackle of security radios.

Two seconds before the guards kicked the door open, he slipped sideways into the writhing crowd outside.

"What the hell do we pay you for?!" Lucas was screaming at the security team. "A maniac walked in here and tried to kill someone and you had no idea?! Call an ambulance!"

The room dissolved into chaos.

I sat in the corner, staring at the pool of blood on the carpet, and licked the back of my teeth in regret.

I hadn't had to do it myself—saved the last trace of neurotoxin under my fingernails.

Why does this freak keep doing my work for me? The pawnshop owner last time, too.

...

The ambulance tore through the streets of Night City.

I sat beside the stretcher, eyes red-rimmed, both hands clutching Lucas's hand.

When the man in black had swung the bottle at Carter, the shards seemed to have cut Lucas's arm.

"Does it hurt?" My voice was full of self-blame and worry.

Lucas was sweating from the pain, but when he met my eyes, he swallowed the cry back down.

"It's nothing. Lia, don't be scared. I'm here."

I nodded hard, and tears dropped onto the back of his hand. Useless stupid dog. That mouth is all you've got.

The corridor of the clinic stank of antiseptic.

Lucas had just been wheeled in for stitches—the shard must have gone in deep. What was that man in black? His strength was barely human.

At the far end of the corridor came the sharp clack of high heels.

Arthur and Sylvia hurried over.

"Where's Lucas? Where's my son?!" Sylvia, on ten-centimeter heels, came charging over like a madwoman.

Arthur's face was dark as storm clouds too.

In this family, they only cared about the heir.

I leaned against the wall outside the exam room, arms folded, head down, playing the part of a frightened girl.

Sylvia whipped her head around, her venomous eyes pinning me where I stood.

"You're the one who took him to that filthy place?!"

She rushed over and seized my shoulder, her long nails nearly digging into my flesh.

"He's never been hurt like this in his whole life! You jinx—the moment you come back, he runs into this at a bar. What kind of filthy people have you dragged in with you?!"

I flinched, and tears flooded out at once.

"Sylvia, I didn't... I don't know why this happened." I shook my head, swaying on my feet.

"It wasn't her. I took her there."

The exam room door opened. Lucas came out with his arm in a sling and bandages, pale as death, positioning himself in front of me.

"Mom, stop biting at everyone like a madwoman. The maniac who came in was after Carter. Ophelia hid behind the sofa the whole time."

Sylvia laughed in fury, her chest heaving.

"I'm biting at people? If she'd behaved herself, how would this have happened? I've said all along—she's got the gutter filth of the lower city in her bones!"

"That's enough!"

Arthur cut Sylvia off coldly.

He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping over my face for two seconds.

"This is your first week back in the Hayes family, Ophelia." Arthur's voice gave away nothing. "You've disappointed me. You haven't learned how to be a proper young lady—instead you've brought the lower city's trouble back with you."

I hunched my shoulders inward, tears rolling down in big drops.

"I'm sorry, Father. I really want to fit into this family. I just wanted to make friends with Lucas and the others..." I choked on the words.

"Save your tears. The Hayes family has no use for anything that cheap." Arthur cut me off, indifferent.

He turned and took Lucas by his uninjured shoulder.

"Starting tomorrow, all her supplementary cards are frozen. Until she's learned the Hayes family's rules, you won't need any spending money."

He waved a hand, as if shooing off a stray dog.

"Get back to your room and reflect on this."

Arthur supported Lucas, Sylvia fussing at his side, and the family of three headed for the VIP ward.

The corridor fell silent again.

I stood where I was, head down.

The tears had already stopped.

No money, then.

I rubbed my fingers together. My stock of the high-grade compounds the godfather gave me was running dry.

I had to go to the black market and buy raw materials to refine my own. But I'd spent every last coin on materials to investigate my mother's death—I didn't even have taxi fare now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Sylvia and Arthur's backs as they walked away.

I followed two silent steps.

As I passed them, playing the part of a forlorn girl slinking off—

my right thumb and forefinger rubbed together, lightly.

The last bit of colorless, odorless powder under my fingernails drifted with the cold draft of the corridor, landing precisely on Arthur's and Sylvia's collars.

A little cheap hallucinogen.

Not lethal.

It would just give them a few nights of extremely vivid nightmares about being torn apart by wild animals.

Better than nothing.

I walked out the hospital's front doors. The rain over Night City had stopped.

I stepped through the puddles and started back on foot.

When I passed that street, I stopped.

Across the road stood the club, "Abyss." The understated, luxurious neon still flickered, as if the bloody violence inside a few hours ago had never happened.

The playgrounds of the powerful always clean up the blood remarkably fast.

I stared at the club's entrance, and that back appeared in my mind again.

Those sickly, hungry eyes...

Maybe he could be trained into a mad dog—useful, and obedient.

I licked my lips, a trace of a smile sliding through my eyes.

Ah. I really want to buy him a collar.