My blood freezes. This isn't part of the plan. If he pulls off this mask, everything falls apart. They'll see my face, and everything goes kaput in an instant. All the planning, the frenzied rehearsals, every inch of our goals - it's gone for good, we'll have wasted our time, and everyone here will probably die.

  Shit. How did I not see this coming? Of course they'd need to confirm their intel. Fuck. Fuck!

  That can't happen. I'm three seconds from just snapping and swinging, fuck the plan, and then the siren that rips through the night air is deafening - close enough to make everyone jump, impossibly loud and sudden. It sounds like it's right on top of us, though there's no flashing lights, no squad car visible. The Kingdom operatives whirl toward the sound, weapons appearing in hands that were empty seconds before. The Washes immediately square up, shifting into defensive stances.

  "Did you set us up?" Mr. Retribution roars, his massive frame tensed like a coiled spring. His gun is out, aimed squarely at Brainwash's chest. Boxy. A very traditional looking pistol, all black, with a weird round protrusion from the barrel. "Was this a trap?"

  "What? No!" Mouthwash protests, frost crystallizing around her in a defensive pattern. "This isn't our doing!"

  Mr. Nothing and Mr. Polygraph draw their weapons too, creating a standoff that's rapidly spiraling out of control. I recognize Mr. Polygraph's instantly - that's the one James Bond uses, but the exact name escapes me. Mr. Nothing's is almost cute, rounded off, snub-nosed, almost toyetic. And while I'm thinking about guns, nobody is thinking about me, their attention all thoroughly taken away for that split second. But I'm still here, still kneeling on the concrete, blood trickling from my nose, Brainwash's "command" having leaked off of me. I feel everything unwind from around my limbs and lurch forward, mostly just from the momentum of straining my muscles forwards, away from the bridge.

  A familiar voice crackles in my ear – soft, calm, centering. "You have to smoke them out now, or someone's going to get shot. The wrong someone."

  I don't hesitate. My hands clench into fists, and instantly a thick plume of noxious smoke bursts from my sleeves, mixed with pepper spray from the canisters hidden under my wrists. Some clever little doohickey, where clenching my fingers a certain way presses a little lever that presses the nozzle, or whatever, I wasn't paying attention. All I know is that I have to flare my wrist outward, so the canister is visible, so the hiss is hidden. The cloud billows outward, catching the riverside breeze and drifting toward the clustered figures.

  "Everyone, STOP!" Brainwash commands, his voice taking on that strange resonance again, electronically filtered through his mask.

  I watch as Mrs. Quiet's arms jerk slightly, followed by Mr. Nothing, Mr. Polygraph, and finally Mr. Retribution. Their limbs tremble with the strain of fighting against invisible restraints, their weapons wavering from their targets. But it's only a partial effect – they can still move, still advance, though their aim is compromised, and their ability to move far is minimal. Almost nonexistent, really. The three guys struggle, struggle, struggle forward, but Mrs. Quiet is testing something, standing back, letting her body almost relax. She's not fighting it.

  Mouthwash slams her metal rail against the ground, the sound cracking through the air like a gunshot, sending a spray of dry ice smoke outwards. "This isn't a setup," she insists, her voice tight with controlled panic. "But I think we all agree we have to get out of here." She extends her hand toward Mrs. Quiet, frost creeping along her fingers. "Give me your gun and I'll do the job myself."

  My gas continues to leak downward, creating a thickening barrier between us all. The smoke and pepper spray combination is already making everyone's eyes water, throats tighten. I can see the Kingdom operatives wavering, torn between completing their mission and avoiding unnecessary complications. Too much heat. This was supposed to be a simple interrogation, not a standoff with police sirens wailing in the background. Mrs. Quiet, turned sideways, glances between me and them. The Washes.

  She laughs at a private little joke. "Yeah, I guess it's a wash. Fuck it,"

  Then, without warning, she turns a little further. She slips out of her jacket - which flutters oddly behind her as if being pulled backward by invisible hands - and in one fluid motion, brings her gun up. There's no sound, just the faintest metallic click, and then water splashes near the dock's edge.

  The impact comes a split second later. Something punches through my abdomen with white-hot intensity, and I look down to see crimson blooming across the front of my costume. The pain doesn't register immediately - just a distant realization that I've been shot, that Mrs. Quiet's perfectly silenced weapon has found its target.

  Then it hurts.

  It doesn’t feel like fire, not at first. It feels like pressure—like someone reached into my gut with both hands and twisted, hard, without asking. My knees don’t give out so much as they forget how to work, and my fingers twitch open like they’re trying to unpeel the pain before it settles. It’s not sharp, not immediately. It’s wet, blooming and low and wrong, like the core of me has gone soft and hot and unmade. The silence makes it worse. No bang, no flash, no theater. Just the thump of something hitting bone and then tearing through everything on its way out.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Then the real pain hits—delayed by adrenaline and shock, but no less brutal when it arrives. It spreads out from the wound in waves, like a ripple turning into a flood. Every breath feels like dragging barbed wire across the inside of my ribs. The pain is deep, sunk in, like a second heart has started beating behind my navel, pulsing with heat and panic. I can’t tell if it’s blood or bile in my mouth. Probably both. My hands find the source, pressing down like they’re trying to keep something sacred from spilling out—and failing.

  Mrs. Quiet trains her gun on Brainwash next, her aim steady despite the smoke. "If the next word out of your mouth is telling me to stop, I'm shooting you before I hear it," she says, voice flat and emotionless. "That first syllable better be 'you' as in 'you can all move again.' I've got my finger on the trigger."

  Brainwash hesitates for only a second. "You can all move again," he says quickly, the resonance dropping from his voice.

  The effect is immediate. Mr. Retribution, freed from the invisible restraints, becomes a human wrecking ball. He crosses the distance to Brainwash in two massive strides and swats him to the ground with a single open-handed blow. The impact is brutal, like watching someone spike a football into concrete. Brainwash crumples, the spiral-patterned mask cracking against the pavement, complete with the voice changer, now visible as cracked circuitry and exposed wires wrapped around Amelia's face. The artifice collapses

  Mouthwash releases a cloud of freezing vapor, but Mr. Retribution wades through it with barely a flinch, seemingly unbothered by the sub-zero temperatures. He winces, and so does Mouthwash, frost growing on both of their skin, and then a moment later, the impact. He grabs her by both the hair and costume collar, lifting her as if she weighs nothing before slamming her bodily into Powerwash. The two of them collapse in a tangle of limbs, neither having a chance to mount any effective resistance.

  The smoke continues to thicken, and everyone is starting to gag and cough. Visibility drops rapidly as the cloud expands, carried by the river breeze.

  "You got her?" Mr. Polygraph asks through a coughing fit, eyes streaming from the pepper spray.

  "Lean left an inch, no more," comes the voice in my head.

  Mrs. Quiet doesn't respond verbally. Instead, her gun speaks for her - twice more in rapid succession. Her hands are visibly shaking, affected by a combination of the muscle strain from resisting Brainwash's commands, the disorienting smoke, and the general chaos of the situation. The first additional shot still manages to puncture through my side, ripping near damaged tissue, cutting a hole in my hoodie. This time, I had the reaction time to armor up beforehand, but it turns out against a bullet, that doesn't mean much.

  The second goes wider, ripping a gash across my cheek and shattering part of my gas mask. Blood sprays into the air, warm and metallic against my skin. From the outside, it must look remarkably like I've just been shot in the head.

  Lucky me.

  "Survive that," she says, voice barely audible over the wailing sirens and my own ragged breathing.

  Mr. Polygraph seems satisfied with the damage. He grabs Powerwash by the scruff of her neck, hauling her to her feet while Mr. Nothing does the same with Mouthwash. Brainwash remains where she fell, unmoving but still breathing.

  "Well?" Mr. Retribution demands, gesturing toward me. "You said you'd execute her. Do it."

  The two Washes are shoved toward me, stumbling to where I'm kneeling in a rapidly expanding pool of my own blood. The front of my costume is soaked through, crimson and slick. Each breath sends fresh waves of agony through my torso. The wound in my cheek pulses with its own rhythm of pain, hot blood running down my neck and under my collar.

  Powerwash's face is only visible to me as she bends down. Behind Lily's mask, I can see genuine sorrow in her eyes. She knows this was part of the plan, but the reality of my injuries clearly troubles her. With gentle hands that belie her strength, she grasps me under the arms, lifting me as if I weigh nothing.

  For a moment, we lock eyes. Then, with Powerwash's own strength augmented by some unseen force, she hurls me through the air toward the Delaware River. I sail a good twenty feet before gravity reclaims me, strings cut, my body arcing down toward the dark water below.

  The impact drives what little air remains from my lungs. Cold immediately closes around me like a fist, the polluted water of the Delaware rushing in through the broken sections of my mask. Pain radiates from my gunshot wounds, sharp and insistent, as the river's current begins to pull me downstream.

  Water fills my mouth, my nose, my lungs. My limbs feel leaden, unresponsive. The current tugs at my costume, dragging me deeper, away from the lights, away from the voices, away from air and life and everything.

  Two gunshot wounds to the abdomen. A torn face. Possible concussion. All while drowning in one of the most polluted rivers on the East Coast. Not looking great!

  The current continues to pull me, tumbling my body like a ragdoll, deeper into the darkness. My consciousness begins to fade, blackness creeping in around the edges of my vision. Something bumps against my hip - the Hypeman autoinjector secured in a waterproof pouch inside my costume. My last resort. Just in case things went south.

  Things have definitely gone south.

  With fingers numbing from cold and blood loss, I fumble for the injector. My lungs scream for oxygen, my body starting to convulse with the need to breathe. The current carries me further downstream, away from the dock, away from the park, away from any hope of rescue.

  I press the Hypeman vial to my belly under my soaked costume, and press the injection trigger, feeling the needle punch into flesh. A new, different kind of burning joins the symphony of pain as the chemical cocktail enters my bloodstream. A last, desperate gamble.

  The darkness at the edges of my vision expands, consuming everything. My final thought as consciousness slips away isn't of heroism or sacrifice or justice.

  It's just: please work.

  Then nothing but the river, carrying my limp form downstream.