Tòumíng launched forward.
The first guard barely had time to raise his AK before Tòumíng's fist connected with his jaw. The impact cracked through the air like a gunshot(pun intended), snapping the man's head to the side with enough force to make his teeth clatter. Blood sprayed from his split lip as he stumbled backward, his finger tightening on the trigger instinctively.
BANG BANG BANG BANG.
The shots went wild, bullets tearing into the pavement, the lake water, the wooden railing behind them. Tòumíng didn't stop. He grabbed the barrel of the AK with one hand and wrenched it upward, the metal groaning under the pressure, and drove his forehead directly into the guard's nose.
Cartilage crunched. Blood poured. The guard screamed, his grip on the weapon loosening.
Tòumíng ripped the AK from his hands and threw it into the lake. It splashed somewhere behind him, but he wasn't paying attention. His focus had narrowed to a tunnel, just the two guards, just the fight, just the violence.
The second guard had circled around and was firing now, shots punching into Tòumíng's back. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.
Tòumíng felt each impact like a punch, the bullets tearing through muscle, ricocheting off ribs, embedding in organs. Blood sprayed from the wounds, soaking through his shirt, dripping down his legs. But Schrödinger's Heart kept him upright, kept him moving, kept him alive in that quantum space between life and death where bullets couldn't quite finish the job.
Cupid was screaming something in his chest, but Tòumíng couldn't hear the words. Couldn't process anything except the red haze filling his vision and the desperate need to make them stop.
He turned toward the second guard, still firing, the AK's magazine almost empty. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. Thirty bullets total. Thirty holes in Tòumíng's body. Blood poured from wounds in his chest, his stomach, his arms, his legs. He looked like a walking corpse, like something that should have collapsed ten shots ago.
But he kept walking.
The guard's eyes went wide with terror. His finger pulled the trigger again but the AK just clicked empty. The magazine was done.
Tòumíng reached him, grabbed his collar with both hands, and drove a throat punch directly into his larynx.
The sound was wet, crushing, the cartilage giving way under the force. The guard's eyes bulged. His mouth opened but no air came out, just a choked, gagging wheeze. His hands flew to his throat, trying to protect what was already destroyed.
Tòumíng didn't stop. His knee came up, hard and fast, directly into the guard's groin. The impact lifted the man off his feet, his body folding around Tòumíng's leg, his face turning purple from the dual agony of crushed throat and crushed testicles.
The first guard had recovered enough to charge, his fists raised, his face a mask of rage and fear. Tòumíng grabbed the second guard by the back of his collar, spun, and shoved him directly into his partner. They collided in a tangle of limbs and curses, both stumbling, both falling.
Tòumíng climbed onto the wooden collection table and jumped.
His feet came down on the second guard's head in a perfect curb stomp, the impact driving the man's face into the concrete floor. Teeth shattered. Nose flattened. Blood sprayed across the pavement in a crimson fan.
The first guard tried to crawl away, his hands scraping against the blood-slick ground, his legs kicking uselessly. Tòumíng grabbed him by the back of the neck, his fingers digging into the soft tissue, and lifted.
The guard's feet left the ground. His hands clawed at Tòumíng's grip, his nails leaving scratches on the skin, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. His face was going purple, then blue, the blood flow to his brain cutting off as Tòumíng's fingers crushed his windpipe.
Tòumíng was crying.
He didn't realize it at first. Didn't notice the tears streaming down his cheeks, mixing with the blood from his own split lip and broken nose, dripping onto the guard's face below. But they were there, hot and steady, pouring from his eyes like he'd been holding them back for three years and the dam had finally broken.
"I hate this," he choked out, his voice raw, broken, barely audible over the guard's gurgling gasps. "I hate all of this. I hate the debt. I hate the payments. I hate that I can't even die right. I hate that no matter what I do, it's never enough. I hate that my parents left me this. I hate that I'm still here, still fighting, still bleeding, still ALIVE when everyone else gets to just... stop."
His grip tightened. The guard's struggles were weakening, his kicks becoming twitches, his hands falling away from Tòumíng's wrists. His face had gone from blue to gray, his eyes rolling back in his skull.
"I hate that I have to keep going," Tòumíng sobbed. "I hate that I can't just give up. I hate that every time I try to end this, something pulls me back. Someone needs me. Someone wants me. And I can't just... I can't just LET GO."
The guard's body went limp. His chest stopped moving. His eyes were open but unseeing, fixed on nothing, fixed on everything.
A hand landed on Tòumíng's shoulder.
"Tòumíng." Ghost Claw's voice was quiet, firm, carrying through the fog of rage and grief. "Stop."
His grip loosened. The guard's body sagged, hanging from Tòumíng's hand like a broken doll, but still breathing, still alive. Barely.
"He's done," Ghost Claw said. "You're done. Let him go."
Tòumíng blinked. The red haze was fading, the tunnel vision expanding, the world coming back into focus around him. The lake. The boat rental shop. The blood. The bodies.
His own hands, wrapped around a man's throat, squeezing the life out of him.
"Oh." Tòumíng's voice was small, surprised, like he'd just woken up from a nightmare and realized the nightmare was real. "Oh, shit."
He released the guard. The man crumpled to the ground, gasping, coughing, clawing at his throat, but alive. Definitely alive.
Tòumíng looked at his hands. They were covered in blood. His blood, the guard's blood, someone else's blood. He couldn't tell anymore.
Then he looked at Ghost Claw, standing beside him in her tactical gear, her gas mask hiding whatever expression she was making, and gave her a sheepish smile. The kind of smile a kid gives when they've been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and know they're in trouble but are hoping charm will save them.
"Hehe... I might have overreacted a little."
Ghost Claw didn't respond. She just grabbed him by the collar of his blood-soaked shirt and dragged him toward the van parked at the edge of the lot.
"Hey! I can walk! My legs work! Mostly!"
She ignored him. Her grip was iron, unyielding, pulling him across the pavement with the kind of efficiency that came from years of dragging unconscious bodies out of crime scenes. Tòumíng's heels left tracks in the blood as he went, his protests ignored, his sheepish grin fading into genuine embarrassment.
She reached the van, opened the back doors, and threw him inside. He landed on the metal floor with a clang, his body protesting the impact, his wounds sending fresh spikes of pain through his nervous system.
"Stay," Ghost Claw said, pointing at him like he was a misbehaving dog.
"I'm not a—"
She slammed the doors.
The drive back to base was quiet. Tòumíng lay in the back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the engine and the occasional sound of Ghost Claw sighing from the front seat. His wounds were already healing, the bullet holes closing, the bruises fading, the pain dulling to a manageable ache.
When they arrived, Ghost Claw opened the doors, grabbed him by the collar again, and dragged him through the building to the recreation room where Svetlana was watching wrestling videos on her phone.
"Find a way to make him happy," Ghost Claw said, tossing Tòumíng onto the couch like a sack of potatoes. "He's been moping around killing people and crying about his feelings. Fix it."
Svetlana looked up from her phone, her eyes tracking over Tòumíng's blood-soaked, tear-stained, bullet-riddled form. A slow grin spread across her face, predatory and knowing.
She set her phone aside, stood up, and walked toward him with the kind of deliberate, hip-swaying stride that made his brain short-circuit. She leaned down, close, too close, her face inches from his, her breath warm against his skin.
"I can think of one or two vays," she purred, her accent thickening with intent, her hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. "Maybe three. Maybe more. Depending on how... creative... you vant to get."