Rise of the belittled: MARCUS HALE

Chapter 7

His pants were still torn and soaked with blood. But underneath, through the rips in the fabric, he could see his skin. Intact. Unbroken. He reached down and touched his left shin the place where Elena had brought the bat down again and again.

Smooth. No swelling. No deformity. The bone was whole.

"What..." Marcus whispered, his voice hoarse. "What the hell is going on?"

But even as he said it, he knew. The knowledge was there now, sitting in his mind like it had always been there. The dragon mark. The bloodline awakening. The accumulated power of a thousand generations activating all at once in response to mortal danger.

He was healed.

Not completely he could feel that his body was still weak, still recovering. The qi flowing through him was powerful but his meridians were new, untrained, like muscles that had never been used before. Every movement took conscious effort.

But he was alive, and more than alive.

Marcus pushed himself up further, getting his legs beneath him. His body protested not with pain, but with exhaustion. Everything felt heavy. Difficult.

But the rage burning in his chest made it possible.

Ryan, Elena.

Their faces flashed through his mind. Ryan taking Elena's hand. Elena smoothing her dress after shattering his leg. Both of them walking away without looking back.

The fury moved through him like a current, hot and sharp and absolute.

He stood.

It took effort. His legs shook. His whole body trembled with the strain. But he stood, pulling himself up out of the garbage pile, his torn clothes hanging off his frame.

He looked around, getting his bearings. Mountains of waste surrounded him on all sides. In the distance, maybe fifty yards away, he could see the fence. Beyond it, the faint glow of streetlights.

Marcus took a step. Then another.

His legs were unsteady, like he was learning to walk for the first time. The martial arts knowledge in his head told him exactly how he should be moving perfect balance, perfect posture but his body couldn't execute it yet. Too weak. Too new to all of this.

But he kept moving.

One step at a time, he made his way through the waste facility. Past industrial drums and construction debris and things that had been thrown away and forgotten.

At that moment he easily reached the edge of the garbage pile and stopped, looking at the path ahead. The fence was closer now. Maybe thirty yards.

Then he saw them.

Two figures standing beside a black van, parked about twenty yards from the waste facility entrance. The same van that had brought him here. The same guards who had dragged him from Ryan's office, who had thrown him into this garbage heap to die.

They were leaning against the van, smoking cigarettes. Waiting.

Waiting to confirm he was dead before they left.

Immediately Marcus's hands clenched into fists at his sides.

They had beaten him. Broken him. Injected poison into his veins. Thrown him away like trash.

And now they were standing there, casual and relaxed, waiting to make sure the job was done.

Something cold and final settled in Marcus's chest.

He started walking toward them.

His steps were unsteady at first, his body still adjusting to the qi flowing through it. But with each step, he felt stronger. The meridians were opening wider. The energy was flowing more freely.

By the time he cleared the last pile of garbage and stepped onto the cracked pavement of the access road, he was moving steadily.

The guards didn't notice him at first. They were facing away, talking in low voices, checking their phones.

"How long's it been?" one of them asked.

"Hour and ten minutes," the other replied, checking his watch. "Heart should've stopped by now. Give it another twenty, then we'll go confirm and get out of here."

"Think the machines will get him completely?"

"The crusher? Yeah. Those things compact cars into cubes. A body? Won't even leave DNA."

"Boss really wanted him gone."

"Can't blame him. Guy was a liability. Too smart, too angry. Better to—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

They had both turned around at the same time, some instinct making them look back toward the waste facility.

There was someone walking toward them through the darkness.

A figure, silhouetted against the distant glow of the facility lights, moving slowly but steadily down the access road.

"Who the hell—" The first guard squinted, his hand moving toward the weapon at his belt. "Is that—"

"It can't be," the second one whispered.

But it was.

Marcus walked toward them, his torn clothes hanging off his frame, his face visible now in the faint moonlight.

Intact, Whole.

The guards stared, their cigarettes forgotten, their hands frozen halfway to their weapons.

"What the..." the first guard breathed, his voice climbing higher. "How are you we broke your legs. Both of them. Your ribs. Your face. I saw it. I heard it."

Marcus kept walking, his steps steady now, his eyes locked on them.

"You're not supposed to be moving," the second guard said, his voice shaking. "The injection your heart should've stopped. You should be dead. You should be—"

He didn't finish the sentence.

Because Marcus was close enough now for them to see his face clearly.

And something about the way he looked at them something about the cold, absolute certainty in his eyes made both guards take an involuntary step backward.

"You're all going to pay for what you did tonight," Marcus said quietly. His voice was calm. Completely level. "Every single one of you."

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then the first guard lunged, pulling a baton from his belt and swinging it at Marcus's head with all his strength.

Marcus caught it.

He didn't block it or dodge it. His hand simply came up and closed around the metal rod mid-swing, stopping it cold. The impact should have broken his fingers, should have at least made him flinch.

He didn't even blink.

The guard's eyes went wide.

“How—”