Chapter 5

Corrie shoved violently through the panicked crowd of onlookers. Her shoulder slammed into a businessman, knocking him aside.

She dropped to her knees on the filthy concrete, the impact sending a sharp jolt up her shins.

She grabbed the thrashing boy's shoulders, pinning him flat. His skin was ice-cold and slick with a clammy sweat. His eyes were rolled back in his head, showing only the bloodshot whites.

His chest was locked. No air was moving. A horrific, high-pitched wheezing sound-like air being forced through a crushed straw-squeaked from his throat.

Corrie's fingers pressed hard into the side of his neck, hunting for the carotid artery. The pulse was erratic, racing at a terrifying speed before skipping beats entirely.

Her brain instantly categorized the symptoms. This wasn't a seizure. This wasn't a standard asthma attack. This was acute neurological airway spasms. The nerves controlling his trachea were misfiring, clamping his windpipe completely shut. CPR would do absolutely nothing. He was suffocating on dry land.

The sharp clicking of heels approached.

Kelly pushed her way to the front of the circle. She took one look at the boy thrashing in the dirt and violently recoiled, pressing a manicured hand over her nose.

"Corrie, what the hell are you doing?!" Kelly shrieked, her voice shrill and panicked. "Get away from him! He's probably a junkie! He's going to infect you with something, or sue us!"

Corrie didn't look up. She didn't stop moving.

She turned her head just enough to lock eyes with Kelly.

Corrie's eyes were pitch-black, devoid of any humanity. A wave of pure, concentrated killing intent radiated from her stare.

"Get the fuck back," Corrie snarled. Her voice was a low, guttural growl that vibrated in the air.

Kelly physically flinched. The color drained from her face. She stumbled backward, her heel catching on the curb, terrified by the monster she had just seen in her sister's eyes.

Corrie turned back to the boy. She had less than sixty seconds before brain death began.

She reached into the deep pocket of her oversized hoodie. Her fingers bypassed her phone and grabbed a small, sterilized metal tin she carried everywhere.

She flipped it open with her thumb.

The crowd gasped collectively as Corrie pulled out a gleaming, surgical-grade scalpel and a flexible, hollow medical tube.

"Oh my god, she has a knife!" a woman in the crowd screamed, pulling her phone out to dial 911.

Corrie drowned out the noise. Her focus tunneled. The world shrank down to the two inches of skin on the boy's throat.

Her hands, which had been perfectly still all day, moved with blinding, mechanical precision.

She ripped open a foil alcohol prep pad with her teeth. She aggressively swabbed the center of the boy's neck, locating the cricothyroid membrane with her index finger.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't shake.

She pressed the scalpel blade into the flesh and made a flawless, half-inch vertical incision.

Dark red blood instantly welled up, spilling over her fingers. She didn't flinch. She used her left thumb and forefinger to pinch the wound open, exposing the white cartilage beneath.

With a sharp thrust, she punctured the membrane.

A loud, wet hiss echoed in the quiet street as trapped air rushed out.

Corrie immediately jammed the hollow plastic tube into the bloody hole.

The boy's chest heaved violently. A massive, shuddering gasp of air sucked through the tube. His blue lips instantly began to flush with a faint, sickly pink.

"Holy shit," a man in scrubs standing in the crowd whispered, his eyes wide with absolute shock. "That's a perfect cricothyrotomy. I've seen trauma chiefs mess that up."

The boy was breathing, but his body was still twitching from the neurological misfires.

Corrie reached back into her tin. She pulled out a small glass vial filled with a clear blue liquid and a sterile syringe. There was no label on the vial. It was a proprietary neuro-stabilizer she had synthesized herself in an underground lab.

She jammed the needle into the vial, drew back the plunger, and found a vein in the boy's arm. She pushed the blue liquid directly into his bloodstream.

Within five seconds, the violent tremors stopped. The boy's muscles went completely slack. His breathing leveled out into a steady, rhythmic hiss through the tube in his neck.

His eyelids fluttered open. His pupils were blown wide, hazy and confused. He stared up at the girl in the gray hoodie, her face completely obscured by the shadow of the fabric.

Corrie quickly pulled a specialized hemostatic dressing from her pocket and taped it securely around the tube, stopping the bleeding completely.

In the distance, the wailing sirens of ambulances and police cruisers began to scream, rapidly growing louder.

Corrie's head snapped up.

She couldn't be here. The police would ask for ID. The paramedics would ask questions she couldn't answer. If her fingerprints ended up in a database, her life as Night God was over.

She wiped her bloody hands on the asphalt. She stood up, pulling the hood even further down over her face.

She walked back to where she had dropped the knockoff dress. She snatched the cheap fabric off the ground, shoved it under her arm, and turned away from the crowd.

She ducked into a narrow, trash-filled alleyway between two brick buildings and broke into a silent sprint.

Kelly, seeing the police cars turning the corner, panicked. She didn't want to be associated with a bloody street surgery. She ran to her Porsche, threw herself into the driver's seat, and slammed on the gas, peeling out of the parking lot.

Ten seconds later.

Three massive, black Rolls-Royce Phantoms tore around the corner, their tires screaming in protest. They slammed on their brakes, stopping diagonally across the street, blocking traffic completely.

The back door of the lead car was kicked open before the vehicle even fully stopped.

Barron Griffin erupted from the car. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. He shoved past two police officers who had just arrived, his massive frame clearing a path through the crowd.

He dropped to his knees beside Leo.

"Leo!" Barron roared, his voice cracking with a desperate agony that made the onlookers flinch.

A man in a tailored suit-the Griffin family's private physician-dropped down next to Barron. He immediately checked Leo's vitals and stared at the tube protruding from the boy's neck.

The doctor's jaw fell open.

"Mr. Griffin," the doctor breathed, his voice trembling with awe. "His airway was completely crushed by a neuro-spasm. Someone... someone performed a field cricothyrotomy. And they administered an unknown neuro-inhibitor. The cut is flawless. It's surgical perfection. Whoever did this saved his life with seconds to spare."

Barron's head snapped up. His chest heaved as he looked at the blood on the pavement.

He stood up, towering over the crowd. His eyes were wild, scanning the faces of the terrified onlookers.

"Who did this?" Barron demanded, his voice a lethal, booming command that silenced the sirens. "Who saved my brother?"

The man in scrubs pointed a shaking finger toward the alleyway.

"It was a girl," the man stammered. "Wearing a baggy gray hoodie. She had her face covered. She moved like a ghost, man. She just... cut him open and vanished into that alley."

Barron's heart slammed against his ribs. A violent, electric shock ripped through his nervous system.

He sprinted to the entrance of the alleyway. He stared down the dark, trash-filled corridor.

At the very end, just before the street turned, he saw a flash of gray fabric disappear around the brick corner.

Barron gripped the brick wall so hard his fingernails chipped. His breathing was ragged.

It was her. Night God. She was right here. She had just had her hands on his brother.

Barron turned back to Arthur, who was running up behind him.

"Buy this entire city block if you have to," Barron snarled, his eyes burning with a terrifying, obsessive fire. "I want every single frame of CCTV footage from every camera within a five-mile radius. I want her found tonight."