My previous transgressions against Cherry, I feel, should be ignored. I had acted in self-defense and wasn’t actually going to cave his skull in with the heel of my boot. Gods, I’m not some monster who went around killing things just because they look a little bit different to me. That night on the docks had been long, exhausting, and tempers had ramped up the longer it went on. A supervillain? No, Cherry was just a guy made from patches of different colored flesh, with more eyes than I remembered bulging from his sagging face, and a rib cage that was partially outside of his body—don’t discriminate, kids, it’s wrong. But…Cherry looked a lot larger than last time. Has he always been this big? Domineering, leering, with a mouth that, when it opened, hung loose, and was held together by tight strips of stringy muscle connecting his razor tooth filled jaws. I wanted to puke at the sight of him, at the smell that all those bits of skin oozed as he got closer to me.

Larger arms. Larger fists. The muscles underneath his flesh bulged and pressed against their stitched seams, threatening to tear open. I could see the mess of his guts pressing against his torso, bulging against his skin, as if whoever had made him—oh, right, I did know who made this thing—had just stuffed them all inside of him without a second thought. His breath reeked of…of something painfully sweet, something just like Wraith and those packets of golden-brown powder had on the night at the docks. Some of those Kaiju on 12th Avenue had smelt like Cherry, too.

But being so close that I could smell him was as good of an idea as shooting myself.

He remained standing in the haze, a shady, malformed figure breathing through a mouth that gurgled and coughed and grunted. He didn’t make a move toward me, and I didn’t either. I stayed where I was, weight on my good leg, my hands were up because of reflex, but I didn’t really know what I was going to do with them if he came my way. He put me through a train and half of a shipping yard when I was limiting myself—I’d only beaten him because of my powers.

And if tiny little carnivorous maggots could chew right through my skin, then Cherry would put his fist clean through my body just as easily as fingers going through a wet paper towel.

“Listen,” I said to him, my voice dampened by the haze, the walls, maybe both, but I couldn’t tell. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, but how’s about I talk to your boss instead?”

Cherry didn’t move, and predictably said nothing. He stepped closer, making the tiles shudder underneath my one good foot. My heartbeat quickened slightly, and blood sang in my ears. I had two options, and I really didn’t like either of them—I could either run away and hope to the gods that he didn’t follow me because I knew damn well he would very easily catch up to me.

Or I could stand my ground and try and fight him, which would be bad for my health.

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For the first time in years, something cold and heavy settled deep in my gut as I stared into those empty pits in his skull, breathed in his stenches, and watched as his large meaty fingers twitched. I might actually die this time. The words sprung into my mind so quickly, from so deep in my psyche that they momentarily knocked me off my unsteady balance. My veins were filled with ice, the kind that made you tense with frigid nerves. I had been reckless for so long, rolling with punches that would have killed any other superhuman on the planet. I had shrugged off point blank explosions. Shouldered the weight of a collapsing shopping center. Hell, I had moved so fast that everything around me had seemed like it had frozen in place for nearly a minute straight.

I always figured that it would be…fuck, I don’t know—somewhere meaningful.

For something meaningful. Or, who knows, for someone, too.

But I was just going to be another collection of bones like the ones scattered all over the floor. Indistinguishable from the rest. A few more dashed across the tiles, freaking forgotten.

That didn’t sit right with me, and usually, I would fly right in and hit him hard now.

Instead, all I could do was watch as he stepped forward, muscles bunching, tensing—

—I was on the floor before I knew it, with pain so blazing, so consuming, burning so brightly, so furiously in my gut that I couldn’t even hear myself cry out. I choked on my own scream of agony, choked on the limp piece of meat stuck in my throat. I had been in the air, then the floor, but I couldn’t remember flying backward and smacking my skull against the tiles. I tried to stop my body from shuddering. Nothing. I lay flat on my gut, face pressed to the floor. My head whined. Blood raged in my ears. Warmth spread underneath me, smelling like iron, shining like blood, but…no, that wasn’t my blood, was it? Where was it coming from? Get up. What hurt so much that I couldn’t move? Get. Up. Gods, it hurt—it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. I wanted to move, but all I could manage were weak, wet coughs that sent shards of pain lancing through my entire body.

A shadow over me. Smells cascading over me. Cherry towered above my body. Move. He crouched, his knee close to my face. Rylee, dammit, get up. The world moved in frames, stopping, starting, his hand curling around my hair, yanking up my head. Pain tore down my spine. Eyes not opening long enough to look at him. Head not strong enough to stay upright. He pulled me off the floor by my hair, held me at arm’s length. My body remained limp, useless, feeling like a dozen pounds of wet flour and cement. I tried to speak, to spit, but all that came out of my mouth was a slew of warm red dribble that bubbled through my lips and poured right down my chin and chest.

Darkness ebbed at the corners of my vision. His face winked in and out of view. The last I saw before I gave in were the shadows behind him, how they quickly vanished behind Cherry.

“Not so tough now, are you?” a distant voice said. “Put her in the cage with the rest of them.”