Revant's shirt hung in tatters, dark crimson blooming across the white fabric like twisted flowers. Blood traced lines down his face from a gash above his eyebrow, and his breathing came in ragged bursts that misted in the frigid air. His left arm dangled at an unnatural angle—dislocated, perhaps broken.
Yet his grin remained.
It was wrong, that grin. Manic. Like a man who'd discovered the punchline to a cosmic joke no one else could hear.
Koll stood twenty meters away, his pale skin marred by dozens of shallow cuts—paper-thin lines that wept droplets of blood like morning dew.
Superficial wounds, really. Nothing that would slow him down. Nothing that mattered.
He tilted his head, studying the broken man before him.
"Why are you still standing?"
Revant's laugh came out wet, bubbling. He spat blood onto the ice.
"Rent's due."
Koll's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"I said—"
Revant lurched forward, his mangled arm swinging uselessly at his side.
