The pinching sensation of a needle being jabbed into my arm jolted me awake. Fire ran through my veins, and I could feel my eyes dilating. Strength surged through my body, and I pulled the beam off my crushed legs with ease. Felix stood over me, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet. 

“What did you…”

Felix pocketed the empty needle, dusting himself off. 

“Adrenaline. The soldiers carry it. My gear is stolen.”

I twisted my head feral, cracking my knuckles. 

“Where is Barracuda?”

Felix gestured to the door Clover was just pulled through. 

“She is escaping. You must stop her.”

I bolted forward, anger searing my features into a harsh scowl. 

“Way ahead of you.”

Barracuda reached for her quiver of spears, but it was already too late. I palmed the back of her head, my fingers settling into her ratted nest of hair. 

I crouched, bringing my arm down in one swift lever movement, smashing her face as hard as I could into the cold floor. 

She screamed, a combination of fear and pain twisting her face into a bloody mess. 

I released her head, letting her rise to her feet, dazed. I let her drink in my malice. 

As she regained her composure, she went for a right hook, which I swiftly sidestepped, following up with a knee to her chest. She doubled over, once again reaching for her spears. 

I hit her again with a side kick to her arm, slapping her hands away from her weapons. I ripped the quiver off her form, tossing it aside. 

Her face grew white. 

“Why would you work for a monster like Mantis? Kidnapping kids? Killing innocent civilians. You’re disgusting.”

She coughed up blood, the liquid seeping into her absorbent dive suit, which was becoming slicker and damper by the minute. 

“He was the only one to accept me for who I was. He didn’t care that I used to be a man. He didn’t care I grew up poor, off the coast of Melbourne, with just my pa to look after me. He saw my skill. And that was everything.”

I clenched my teeth, letting her talk, as much as it took every ounce of my self-restraint not to strike her with everything I had. 

“He saw my grit —The years of belittlement I faced in the Aussie military. The years of experience I had hunting and diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Those people are my only friends. Mantis… Gator… Nautilus… I’ll be damned if you take them away from me.”

I had heard enough. Wordlessly, I launched a barrage of kicks into her trembling body. 

She tried to guard, holding her forearms up to her face, spreading her legs as far apart as she could for stability, but I couldn’t be contained. 

My legs were a blur. I shifted stance, spinning them around in an untraceable spiral, shifting position over and over as I changed the target my foot and shin would hit next. I struck her head and body over and over, a different piece of her body shriveling and convulsing every time. I needed her to feel it. Feel it everywhere. 

I collapsed to my knees, huffing. Her body was a bloodied mess, unrecognizable, her features scrambled with an abundance of welts, gashes, and bloodstains. 

I beat her to the brink, but stopped myself before I could go any further. The man who taught me how to fight, to be a detective, wherever he was, I knew he was sorely disappointed in me. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to go back and hit her any more, but his face flashed into my mind every time I got up to approach her. 

I remembered. As clear as day. My father, dead in the kitchen, slumped over a chair. The wind howling outside, a cold breeze ushering itself into our shelter through the broken windows. Our safe was cracked, all of our valuables stolen, the assailant nowhere to be found. My mother, screaming, sobbing. I wanted to go out and find the burglar myself, and shoot him full of holes. But I was too young. I couldn’t have been 

And there he was. The man with bright green eyes in the brown trenchcoat, a cigar dangling from his bottom lip, his jet-black hair ragged and unruly, a thin goatee clinging to his chin. But his eyes were soft. Determined. A private dick. He had come to help us. And help us he did. 

I wanted more than anything to be like him. To be him. I clung to him like a lost puppy. He began to teach me how to fight. How the tools of his trade worked. I hardly used them now, but when he showed me his fingerprinting machine or his magnifying glass, I felt like I was part of something. Like I was finding the man who had ripped my father away from me. Bringing him to justice. I was the law. 

And when I saw his face, the man who had given me everything, I couldn’t hit her anymore. He showed me that real change came through the system, and drastic action would cause me to lose myself. All these years later, he was still a thorn in my side. 

My head became woozy. The adrenaline was wearing off, and sleep was overtaking my body once again. I cautiously backed against a broken tank, easing into a sitting position as I waited for unconsciousness to take me. 

And I thought about Clover. Why was I so attached to her? Why did her capture anger me so? It wasn’t my principles, my will to not let a child die under my watch, like it was when I first met her. It was something more. 

She saved my life. Over and over. She was, in many ways, just like the detective. But she was younger. Unsure of herself. Unaware of her place in the world. 

And I had failed her. She was counting on me to show her the way. But all I did was rely on her like I did the detective. I never took into account how she relied on me. And the fact that I didn’t see that until she was ripped away from me hit me harder than any punch ever had. 

Kishibe was gone. So was Felix. I hoped they had left to go after Clover. Erin was still in the room, but with my vision getting hazier and hazier, I could not see her. 

And for the first time since I was a little boy, loneliness crept into my heart.