This time he grabbed hold of the raw edge of the wound. Her hand grabbed his wrist, tight, fingers digging in.

Have to get far enough away to do it without interruption.

He dragged her, mind numb, the fighting happening only paces away. As the growls rose in volume, he gripped harder, his thoughts dipping into even more gruesome extremes and end cases. Things he could do, based on things he’d seen.

Get through that doorway, take her to pieces. Quadruple amputee.

Stick her in a barrel.

The words became a refrain, against a background of Rain’s hollering and screams. A prolonged cry of rage, matching the beast’s howl.

The boy was hurt, scrambling back, practically frothing at the mouth. He was bleeding openly now, ribs at his side exposed.

Gilpatrick watched as he toppled.

Execute. Stomp his head in. Let him bleed.

The angry thoughts were almost melancholic.

Rain screamed his rage at the monster, rough-voiced, like every bit of pain that had started with a ‘spare the child’ paddle and ended with a furious scrap against a monster twenty times his size in an alien dream could be uttered at once.

The scream became the latter half of a word. “—UUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!”

The red-haired woman came sprinting out of the back room. Toward the beast and the boy.

“I’ll come!” Colt said.

“No!” was the replying bark.

Gilpatrick kept trudging forward, dragging Marcial, who had lost consciousness.

Wake her up and hurt her so badly she passes out again. The thoughts were ugly, sad.

Let the villain get chewed up.

Let the boy get trampled.

There’s work to do.

He wanted that catharsis, craved it. That rage-filled scream, except hands-in-a-wound violence, instead.

Colt backed off, scared, as he approached, teeth grit. Other Patrol members did too. Fucking Cox, Valentin, who had run off, unscathed.

Let the villain get chewed up.

Let the boy—

—die quickly, if he has to die.

The sudden rubberbanding of his emotions left him reeling, swaying on the spot. The blood filled him with disgust, the thoughts he’d had with horror.

He scrambled away from Marcial, in case those emotions returned.

It had been a rise and fall, gentle and subtle, or at least noticeable degrees of change while he was in the room. Now—that change just now had been night and day.

When he’d passed through the door.

“Is she dead?” Gilpatrick asked.

“No. She’s breathing. That means there’s a way,” Colt said. “This way. Gotta get her out of this intermediary room. I’ve never done this, but I saw it.”

“I’ll help,” Diaz said. “Tell me what to do.”

Trying to get his thoughts in order, Gilpatrick turned back toward the room.

Love Lost was fighting, having taken hold of one of the spikes. Rain lay there, bleeding.