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Steven recoiled, and Marc's chest and stomach tightened, spasming as he watched you take another slug to the face. Your head snapped back, eyes rolling up into the back of your head.
"Why isn't he protecting her?" Steven cried, frantically trying to push forward.
Marc held him at bay, maintaining control with both hands clutching the reins. The thing in the back of their mind prowled, a guttural growl echoing through their skull. Ignoring the stab of fear in his guts, Marc zeroed in on you.
You sat slumped in the chair, a string of blood-coated drool dripping from your mouth and into your lap. Marc strained to see signs of breathing. Panic crept up his neck and into his throat as your attacker stepped back, wiping his bloodied hands on a handkerchief the second man handed to him.
"Lights out," he laughed, though his mouth pulled into a grimace as he struggled to wipe the last traces of blood from his hands. "Didn't go down as quickly as she should've."
"You haven't met Hermes before," the other man stated, his tone clipped. "He pushes until there's nothing left to push."
A phone buzzed in the intervening silence. Marc's heart knocked against his ribs, his hand reaching for his pocket.
The other man procured a cellphone from his jacket and pressed it to his ear. Marc breathed a sigh of relief through gritted teeth, then silently cursed as the man stepped out of view off to the left. Your attacker remained where he stood, scrubbing at his hands with the soiled handkerchief.
"Yeah," the other man said somewhere further in the room, "we caught him at Apollo Corp."
"See? The house was never Hermes's destination," Steven muttered.
