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With an effortless duck and a simple turn to change his clumsy momentum, she dropped him on his back. Her fist in his short hair, she used the edge of the wooden platform to sever his brainstem. With a twist for good measure, he was dead and Elena was jumping into the hornet’s nest below.

She was death made manifest, her children a black cloak splayed out behind her. They advanced, as unstoppable as the night. While they screamed and cursed, Elena was silent.

Ending only those stupid enough to approach her, Elena hunted for Baylor through the chaos. Around her, her children move through Baylor’s forces like a storm, each strike precise, every movement deadly. It was pathetic, really. Baylor’s men were weak and desperate and uncoordinated. How had they come so close to taking her life? This couldn’t be all of them.

As she expected, cowards ran for the doors only to be met with more of her sons. Without tricks to weaken them, not a one could stand against them.

A bearded vampire, tall and muscular and almost handsome if he hadn’t been vibrating with hatred, broke ranks and ran.Not toward the doors, but to the side of the hall where cots were stacked three high in rows lining one long brick wall. A pathetic makeshift barracks for infants playing at war.

Every instinct told Elena he was Baylor. He moved like a man in charge. Like he still hadn’t accepted that he’d lost. Avoiding the lunging bodies and knowing that Sofia and Librada were right behind her, she darted after him.

He’d made it to one of the chests at the base of the cots, but Elena didn’t let him do more than reach for the black firearm. It was different from the one that had fired the shot into her body that nearly killed her, but Elena was sure that it would contain the same poison.

“That gimmick won’t work twice,” she said with casual delight, gripping the man’s wrist so hard that he involuntarily dropped the gun onto the small bed when his bones snapped.

Before he could reach for it with his other hand, Elena grabbed him by the neck and forced him to his knees. “Lib,” she called over the sound of curses and pleas filling the hall with unusual prayers. Prayers that would land uselessly on unsympathetic ears.

Librada’s eyes were as red as the blood sprayed over her face and chest and dripping down her fingers. With the shift of her gaze, Elena told her to take the gun and keep it secure.

Librada took the weapon and unloaded it in a blur.

“Don’t touch the bullets,” Elena warned when the magazine was visible. “We can’t be sure that merely touching the substance will not produce some weakness.”

Lib nodded, secured the bullets and rejoined the nearly finished fight. Turning Baylor’s head to make sure he saw everything he thought he’d built crumble, Elena relished the flicker of despair that breached his anger.

With his unbroken hand, he reached back in a weak attempt to get a hold on her. Elena laughed.

“You know what I love about insects like you?” She tilted his head back so he was looking at her, albeit upside down. “You never seem to know how insignificant you are.” She turned his head back to the melee. “But I’m very happy to remind you. I want you to see it all end before you die.”

He struggled against her grasp until she used her free hand to press the nerve that would interrupt his upper body’s communication with his brain. With her thumb keeping him partially paralyzed, he had no choice but to watch and listen. If it wasn’t enough to show him how futile it had all become, she’d break his legs.

“I’m not just going to kill you. I’m going to erase you,” she promised against the shell of his ear. “Gods, I wish you could control your mouth so I could ask you how that feels. To know it was all meaningless.” She shrugged and stood upright again. “But some things can’t be helped, I suppose.”

Wishing she could join them, but not risking Baylor being killed prematurely, Elena watched along with her captive audience. Her daughters fought with enviable grace while her sons moved with the wild fury of grief.

When they were finished and the blood pooled at their feet, Librada turned to Elena. Some of her sons had been injured, but would heal. Not a single one had been lost—a fact she knew would taste like acid on Baylor’s tongue. He’d never stood a chance. Not ever. He’d only marshaled forces to slaughter.

“I wish we could scar,” Sofia said while evaluating the gash across her pretty cheek in her phone’s reflection.

Elena laughed and released Baylor with a kick to the back. It was several annoying minutes before his nerves healed enough for him to stand. He looked around at the insurmountable odds like he might do something incredibly stupid before he glared at Elena.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked like he was spitting out a loose tooth.

“Oh my darling mutant, you’re not asking a single question here.” Elena wasn’t going to waste time with theater, but at the very least a little torment was in order. “Although, I have to admit your commitment to delusion is… Something.” She punched him hard enough to tear open his lip, her knuckles immediately covered in his blood. “Tell me, when you were planning your great attack in this stinking hovel, how did you imagine it would end?”

Baylor sneered through swollen lips. “With my boot on your?—”

Librada’s stiletto nails were in his throat, cutting off his ability to speak and spraying his blood onto Elena’s chest.

“Don’t tear it out,” Elena warned before Lib could show him a part of his body he’d never seen before. “We’re not done yet.”

Lib let him go, but not before forcing him back to his knees. Baylor grimaced in pain but didn’t cry out, his unsteady gaze still fixed on Elena.

“You might kill me—” he choked out.

“Oh, most definitely,” Elena agreed.

“But you’ll never suffocate the truth.”