Gomez moved quickly, tracking down the last target—Daniel Mendez, a career criminal with a rap sheet long enough to wrap the precinct. The guy had been involved in the robbery years ago, but unlike the others, he had never tried to clean up his act. He still ran scams, still shook people down, still acted like he was untouchable.
Despite that, Gomez did his job. He got Mendez into protective custody, moving him to a safe house locked down with police officers from top to bottom.
Mendez, of course, wasn’t grateful. Not even close.
“This is bullshit,” he scoffed, slumping onto the couch in the safe house’s main room. “All this for some psycho cop? I got rights.”
Gomez exhaled, gripping the bridge of his nose. He hated this guy. Every word out of his mouth made him question if he should even be wasting resources on him. But he wasn’t a dirty cop and that meant doing what was right—even for people who didn’t deserve it.
“Just stay put,” Gomez muttered. “You’ll be safe here.”
Mendez scoffed again. “Yeah? You pigs gonna babysit me all night?”
Gomez ignored him and turned to the officers stationed inside. “Nobody leaves the perimeter. If anything moves, you check it.”
The cops nodded, ready for anything. Or so they thought.
---
HOURS LATER – JOHN'S APARTMENT
John was still where Gomez had left him—slumped in his chair, his leg propped up, the deep gash in his calf still throbbing with pain. He had barely moved in hours, letting his body rest, letting the pain settle into something duller, something he could work through.
His phone rang.
He barely had time to pick it up before gunfire exploded on the other end.
“GOMEZ?”
There was screaming In the background. Gunshots. Shouting. Chaos.
“Damaged,” Gomez’s voice was breathless, panicked. “He found us. He’s inside the safe house!”
John sat up fast, gritting his teeth. “How the hell did he—”
“No time!” Gomez interrupted. “He’s cutting through the cops like nothing! I—shit— I can barricade the door, but I need help! We’re at the old Branning Street complex!”
A loud crash came through the line. Gomez yelled something before the phone cut to static.
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John stared at the dead phone, then looked down at his bleeding calf.
He sighed. “Fucking hell.”
No time for rest.
He grabbed a towel, wrapping it tightly around his calf, using his teeth to help knot it. It wasn’t enough. The wound was too deep—he needed to close it. Fast.
He reached for a stapler. No finesse, no care—just fast, brutal closure. He lined up the first staple above the wound and slammed it in, his body jerking from the pain. He did it again and again. Each staple bit through skin and muscle, sealing the gash shut in a crude, agonizing line.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, his breathing ragged. He grabbed duct tape next, wrapping it tight over the wound, reinforcing it as best he could. It would hold. It had to.
Then he grabbed the nearest bottle of painkillers, threw a few back dry, and stood up, his leg screaming in protest.
He didn’t have time to waste.
He grabbed his coat, limped toward the door, and stepped into the night.
The building was dark. Too dark. From the outside, there were no signs of life—no lights, no movement, nothing but an eerie silence hanging over the place like a funeral shroud.
John’s gut twisted. This wasn’t good.
He stepped inside, boots echoing against the cold floor of the lobby. The stench of blood hit him first. Then he saw the bodies.
A bloodbath.
Cops lay everywhere, their bodies carved apart, limbs strewn across the floor like discarded meat. The walls and floor were slashed, deep gouges marking every surface. Calloway hadn’t just killed these men—he had butchered them.
John’s jaw clenched. He moved forward, slow and careful, his heartbeat thudding in his ears. The deeper he went, the darker it became. The power was out. The only illumination came from dim emergency lights flickering weakly, casting long, jagged shadows.
Still no sound.
He pushed forward until he reached a door at the end of the hall. It had been barricaded, then sliced into.
John stepped through.
Inside, a man lay perfectly sliced in half—Mendez.
John scanned the room quickly, heart pounding. Where was Gomez?
His eyes landed on a crumpled form near the corner—Gomez. Not sliced apart like the others, but knocked out cold.
John rushed over, shaking his shoulder. “Gomez! Wake up.”
Gomez groaned, his head rolling to the side as his eyes fluttered open. He gasped for breath, his face pale, his lip split.
“Damaged,” he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s… still here.”
A voice cut through the darkness.
“You all deserve it. Protecting these killers, covering for them. You became my targets the moment you did.”
John turned sharply—just as Calloway slashed through the emergency lighting with his remaining blade.
The room plunged into pitch black.
John tensed. His ears strained, trying to pick up the slightest movement.
Then, a whisper from behind him. “Don’t worry,” Gomez muttered, voice low. “I’ll be your eyes.”
And then the fight began.
Calloway struck fast, his blade singing through the air, forcing John to dodge blindly. Every missed attack left deep slashes in the walls. He was relentless.
“Right!” Gomez called.
John pivoted, barely avoiding a strike, countering with a heavy elbow to Calloway’s ribs. Calloway snarled but didn’t falter.
“You don’t get it,” Calloway growled. “These people don’t deserve saving. You’re wasting yourself.”
John exhaled sharply, resetting his stance. “Neither do you, and yet here I am.”
Calloway lunged again. John caught his blade arm, forcing it down before driving his knee into the ex-cop’s gut. Calloway twisted free, slicing into John’s side—not deep, but enough to burn.
“Left!” Gomez yelled.
John rolled, avoiding a decapitating slash. He grabbed Calloway’s wrist, twisted hard—SNAP. The cybernetic blade broke with a sharp hiss.
Calloway’s breath hitched. He swung wildly with his remaining strength, but John ducked the attack and came up hard.
A bone-crunching knee to the face.
Calloway hit the ground. Unmoving.
John, panting, wiped blood from his face. He glanced at Gomez. “Told you I just needed a minute.”
John stood over Calloway’s unconscious body, his breath ragged, his muscles burning. His body ached, his wounds screaming at him, but he was still standing. He won.
But it didn’t feel like a victory.
Gomez groaned as he sat up, wiping blood from his face. He looked around the ruined safe house, at the piles of butchered officers, at the walls slick with red. His expression darkened. Too many had died for this.
“We failed,” Gomez muttered, shaking his head. “All these men… dead. Protecting a piece of shit that didn’t even make it.”
John exhaled sharply, rubbing his bruised knuckles. Yeah. They failed.
This wasn’t justice. This was just more death.
“At least that psychopath won’t see the light again,” John muttered, glancing at Calloway’s limp form. “He’s done.”
Gomez ran a hand down his face, exhausted. He reached for the radio of a dead officer, clicking it on. “This is Detective Gomez. Branning Street safe house is compromised. Multiple officers down. Suspect in custody. Send everyone.”
A static-filled response came through. “Copy that, Detective. Units en route.”
Gomez sighed, dropping the radio onto the floor before turning to John. “Go. I’ll handle the mess.”
John didn’t argue. He didn’t want to be here anymore.
He stepped out of the safe house and into the cold night, the weight of what had happened sinking into him. Too much death. Too many bodies just so one more killer could rot in a cell.
And yet, he knew it wouldn’t be the last time. It never was.