He had planned for an escape.

There were always contingencies—routes mapped, tools prepared, exits memorized. But the moment he realized the Vulpes had gone for a kill shot with that piton driver, escape became imperative.

Her reaction had been predictable… but not entirely expected.

She was supposed to be black and white—the self-righteous heroine, bound by codes and ideals. He’d assumed she would pull away the instant he turned his gun on the bystander. That she would flinch. That she would save, not strike.

But she hadn’t.

She had aimed to end his life.

Lethal. Pragmatic. Decisive.  

It unsettled him.

He muttered under his breath as he moved through the alleys, the words low and venomous.

“She’s not playing the role…”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to unfold. In his mind, he had already choreographed the narrative—the noble vigilante forced into a moral crucible, into a corner where she had to choose: kill him… or let others die.

That was the scene. That was the performance. And when she finally crossed that line, when she broke, he would be the instrument of her ruin. The moment would be beautiful.

But she hadn’t broken. She hadn’t hesitated.

She had chosen.

And that infuriated him.

“She’s not supposed to want it…” he whispered, more to the shadows than himself. “Not so easily…”

He could feel it—the fragile scaffolding of his imagined story cracking beneath the weight of reality.

She wasn’t the naïve idealist he’d expected. She wasn’t conforming to the role he’d written.

And that… was unacceptable.

Because he was the outsider. He was the artist. The disruptor. The one who shattered roles—not the one forced to rewrite them. The world was full of dull, gray people sleepwalking through their roles, but he was vibrant, dangerous, true.

He couldn’t allow his masterpiece to be altered by someone else’s hand.

No. He would adapt.

And next time… he would make her choose.

His arm throbbed.

The one the piton had pierced—now a pulsing source of heat and pain that cut through the fog of his spiraling thoughts. The adrenaline was beginning to ebb, and with it came the bruises, the muscle strain, the stabbing fire lancing through torn flesh.

Reality reasserted itself. Reluctantly, he let it in.

He had fled into the alleys under cover of smoke, his escape driven by reflex, rage, and calculation. But the fight had left its mark. Every step now carried weight. Every breath reminded him that his body was not invincible—that even he could bleed.

He hissed between clenched teeth, steadying himself with one good hand as he ducked behind a recycling bin, cloaked in the murky silence of a side street.

Focus. Breathe. Control.

The pain was a problem. But not the problem.

Getting to the car—that was paramount. Reaching his sanctuary before the perimeter was locked down. He knew how long it would take for the police to respond, how quickly they’d cast the net. An APB would be issued within minutes. Checkpoints. Canvasses. Helicopters if the Vulpes had given them anything solid to work with.

They’ll try to cut off escape routes. Especially south and east. Can’t risk the Gardiner. Too obvious. Too slow.

He recalculated his exit path, adjusting for speed, light exposure, surveillance density. Already, his route was changing, diverting through blind spots and pedestrian tunnels, keeping to alleys and shadows.

And he could not—must not—be seen.

Not injured. Not vulnerable. Not like this.

He moved like a phantom through side alleys and shadowed passageways, slipping between dumpsters, back fences, and chain-link gaps. Every step was calculated. Every second counted.

He couldn’t afford to stumble. Not now.

Pain pulsed in waves beneath his skin, but he kept his mind clear—focused. He’d survived worse. He just had to stay moving. Stay sharp.

As he ducked beneath a crumbling fire escape, he took quick stock of the damage Vulpes had dealt.

The throwing stars were still embedded in his forearm—shuriken, small and precise, the kind favored by stylized martial arts vigilantes. Her aim had been annoyingly good. One buried near his thumb, another lodged above the wrist, and the third raked across muscle, tugging with every twitch.

They'd need removal. But not here. Not now.

The strikes to his temple had left his skull throbbing like a war drum. Even through the reinforced mask, the kinetic shock had rattled him. He felt the dull ache of bruises forming beneath his armor—chest, ribs, kidneys. Her gloves must have been reinforced. No ordinary blows could’ve landed that deep.

But the worst of it—

He looked down at the piton still lodged in his arm. A thick, steel spike, punched clean through muscle and flesh. If it had struck bone, it would’ve shattered it. Crippled him. But by some perverse grace of fate, it had passed between radius and ulna, carving its way out the other side without snapping anything critical.

Pure luck, he admitted, lips curling bitterly beneath his mask.

He hated luck.

Luck didn’t belong in art.

His car was still a distance away.

It always was.

He never parked near his work—never so close that it could be traced, connected, contaminated. That was part of the method. Always distance. Always separation.

It made the journey back longer, more painful now with blood trailing down his side and steel jutting from his arm—but he accepted that.

Art requires suffering.

This was the price of discipline.

He wasn’t some wild brute, lashing out in fits of anger. He didn’t rage. He planned. Every detail. Every escape route. Every forensic blind spot. He didn’t just kill—he composed.

That’s why they couldn’t catch him. They weren’t allowed to catch him.

He wasn’t meant for a mugshot or a courtroom.

He was meant for legend.

Like the Chainsaw Massacre Killer. Like the Zodiac Killer. Like the Ripper.

They had never been found.

Their names endured.

His would, too.

And when the world finally understood the depth of his artistry, they would speak of the Bloodletter in the same hushed tones, the same breathless awe. Not as a monster, no—but as a myth. An expression of truth carved into flesh.

He limped on, clutching his wounded arm as the city pulsed around him.

Tonight hadn’t gone according to plan. But that only meant the next masterpiece had to be better.

Sharper. Crueler. More precise.

He had to send a message.

A true message—one that would cement his art among the greats. The next kill couldn’t be random. It had to mean something. It had to strike fear, ignite headlines, burn itself into the collective imagination.

No more improvisation. No more distractions.

The next canvas had to be perfect.

Because now the Vulpes was part of the narrative.

She had stolen the spotlight.

That could not stand.

The world needs to see that she can’t save them. That behind the mask and symbols and swagger, she was no more effective than the uniformed fools scrambling through alleyways too late to stop the blood from spilling.

He would prove it.

But first—he needed to stop his hands from shaking.

He spotted his car at last: a drab little hatchback tucked into the shadow of a rusting shipping container. Nothing about it stood out. That was by design. The model was painfully common. The paint color—factory default. The tags clean. Every inch of it forgettable.

He slid inside with a grunt, pain lancing up his wounded arm. His breath hissed through clenched teeth as he reached across to jam the keys into the ignition with his good hand.

The engine turned over with a soft, dutiful purr.

Not too loud. No sudden movements.

Much as his instincts screamed to floor it and vanish into the city’s depths, he knew better. Speed meant noise. Noise drew eyes. Eyes became threats.

He eased the car out onto the road, merging with traffic like any other nameless commuter navigating the late-night lull.

Just another shadow in the city’s bloodstream.

No sirens. No tail. No flashes of red and blue.

But he knew the clock was ticking.

He had minutes—maybe—before they widened the perimeter. Before a cruiser got lucky. Before a camera caught something it wasn’t supposed to.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe more than necessary.

He just drove.

He needed to get to the garage. Then down into the basement.

Where he could remove the stars from his arm. Cut away the ruined pieces of his suit. Get the piton out. Suture. Sterilize.

And plan.

Because the next masterpiece would be more than just blood on pavement.

It would be a reckoning.

He made it home.

Barely—but he did.

Because he forced himself to stay calm. To breathe. To think.

Panic was for prey. He wasn’t prey.

The spike still lodged in his arm was a crude blessing—it stemmed the bleeding, kept pressure against the torn vessels. It bought him time. Enough to get through the city. Enough to disappear before the net closed.

Pain? Pain was familiar.

Pain had always been with him.

The farm had been a hard place. Cold winters. Calloused hands. Bleeding knuckles. But the true agony had come from them—the other children, the dull-eyed adults. The ones who saw his differences and hated them. Who beat him not to punish, but to correct. To drive the creativity out of him.

They never understood.

But pain? Pain had.

Pain never lied. Pain sharpened the mind.

It was the currency he paid for control.

Now, down in the dim concrete shell of his basement sanctuary, he moved with ritualistic precision. He locked the door behind him, bolted it, then stumbled toward the metal cabinet beside his workbench.

The first aid kit came down. So did a leather strip. A heavy-bladed field knife. A blowtorch. And finally—steel pliers.

The torch hissed to life, its blue flame casting dancing shadows across the stained walls.

He held the pliers in the flame, sterilizing them. Then the knife. The steel glowed faintly as heat kissed the edge.

He moved without trembling. Without hesitation.

This wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this.

He placed the leather strip between his teeth. Thick enough not to tear. Wide enough to keep from biting through his own tongue.

Then he sat. Laid his arm across the steel workbench. Blood already beginning to bead at the entry wound.

This is just maintenance, he told himself. Like tuning a piano. Like sharpening a brush.

With a deep breath, he clamped the pliers around the protruding piton.

And pulled.

The spike came out slowly.

Steel scraped against flesh. Torn muscle shivered and protested. His breath hitched in his chest, eyes widening behind bloodshot lids as he dragged the piton inch by inch through his own arm. The pain bloomed—sharp, electric, red-hot.

Then it was free.

It clattered onto the metal workbench with a sound that echoed through the concrete chamber like a gavel. A judgment. A reminder.

His vision swam, but he didn’t falter.

There was no time for relief. No luxury for weakness.

The next step was already waiting.

The field knife—its blade now glowing faint orange from the blowtorch—rested beside him. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t flinch. He only bit down harder on the leather strap clenched between his teeth, bracing for the worst.

He pressed the flat of the heated blade to the wound.

Hiss.

The smell hit first—burning blood, scorched meat, the sterile stink of cauterization. Then came the pain, white-hot and absolute. Nerve endings screamed. Muscles locked. Every instinct in his body told him to pull away, to scream, to thrash.

But he didn’t.

He wouldn’t.

That was another thing he’d taught himself—never to scream.

Not when the belt struck. Not when the boots came down. Not when they tied him to the fence and laughed as they took turns.

Pain didn’t get the dignity of his voice.

So he burned in silence.

The task was done.

Blood still oozed faintly from the charred edges of the wound, but it would hold. The bleeding had stopped. The damage was contained.

His breath came hard and heavy now, ragged from exertion and restraint. He wanted to rest—his body screamed for it—but the ritual wasn’t over yet.

First came the antiseptic. Then gauze. Then compression bandages layered over burned skin. His hands moved with careful precision, movements practiced and clinical. Every cut deserved closure. Every tear needed sealing.

Then—last, and worst of all—came the painkillers.

He hated them.

He had ever since he was young. Since that first time.

When the other children had found out what he’d done to the cat—ripped it open, carefully, lovingly, to see what was inside—and dragged him behind the barn.

He’d been eleven.

The beating was merciless. The names they called him, the way they glared as they tied him to the fence with barbed wire, the bat across his knees, the belt that cracked across his cheekbone. They’d wanted to punish a monster.

He never screamed.

Not once.

Later, when his parents found him, they’d taken him to the hospital. The doctors had spoken in hushed voices. Diagnoses were whispered. Pills were prescribed. The kind that dulled the pain—and everything else.

That was the real punishment.

Not the bruises or broken cartilage.

But the numbness.

They made him feel dead. Empty. They smothered his clarity, blurred the edges of his thoughts. Made his hands feel like someone else’s.

I need my hands, he’d whispered once, alone in bed. They understand what I’m trying to say.

Still… the pills were necessary now.

He couldn’t afford infection. He couldn’t afford fever or delirium. The Vulpes had nearly ended him tonight.

If he wanted to make his next masterpiece, he needed to mend.

With bitter resolve, he swallowed a handful of pills dry. They clawed down his throat like gravel.

Then he leaned back in the old steel chair by the workbench. His vision swam. The edges of the room bled softly into shadow.

He wasn’t dragging himself to bed. Not tonight. This chair would do.

As the narcotics took hold, his mind wandered—back to that moment, seared forever into his memory.

The blood. The belt. The bat. The eyes of the boys who didn’t understand.

He hadn't blamed them.

They were small-minded. Like everyone else.

Like his parents. Like the teachers. Like the therapists.

Like her.

The Vulpes.

She had seen his art and spat on it. Tried to end him because she couldn’t comprehend it.

Just like the rest.

But this time, he would not be silent.

This time, he would speak through his work.

And the world would listen.

He shut his eyes.

Let the darkness creep in.

It welcomed him like an old friend—cool, silent, absolute.

Soon the pain would dull. Soon the haze would settle. And when he recovered, when the bruises faded and the wounds closed…

He would outdo himself.

He would create a piece so exquisite, so unforgettable, it would eclipse every work before it.

It would redefine what fear looked like.

And the Vulpes would be forced to see it.

To understand.