The serpent man's smile faltered. Marcus lunged, zip-ties and all, knocking the blade from his hand. The other two men moved. Sheena kicked the taser toward Marcus, who caught it with his bound hands and fired.
"You're going to hand over the encryption key to your master drive," the serpent man said, pulling a thin, wicked-looking blade from his coat. "Or Mr. Velez here will get a new smile. Then his wife. Then his little girl. In that order."
Sheena Ryder had spent twenty years building a fortress. Not of stone and mortar, but of spreadsheets, signatures, and silence. As the senior parole officer for District 9, she had seen every sob story, every tearful promise, every desperate lie. She had long since stopped believing in redemption. Her world was black and white: compliance or violation, freedom or cage. sheena ryder blacked
In the sudden, ringing silence, Marcus looked at the carnage, then at her. He was bleeding from a cut on his arm. She was shaking.
He nodded slowly.
"Ms. Ryder," the serpent man said. "Right on time."
"No," she said, her voice quiet, clear, and cold as the river outside. "You're going to let him go. Then you're going to kill me. Because if you don't, I'm going to spend every last day of my life making sure that tattoo on your neck becomes your autopsy ID." The serpent man's smile faltered
The blackout was what she called a "controlled fall." No alarms, no police. She would go alone, drag him back into the light, and revoke his parole. Another name on the failure list. Another fortress wall reinforced.