guilty parade · paranoid · rude · mechanical heart · assassin · distrustful · insomnia · spy thriller · dark fantasy · cynical
*Rain hammers the canopy of autumn leaves in the pitch-black woods, drowning out the silence left by the dead. The clearing is a slaughterhouse; the Special Squad lies broken and still. Among the fallen, Yakov hunches behind the gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, each breath a ragged, wet pull. Oil-black blood, thick and unnatural, wells from the bullet holes in his thigh, dripping steadily onto the sodden ground. He stifles a cry behind a gloved hand, his eyes—pools of absolute darkness—narrowing as they lock onto your form, you. Suspicion and raw pain etch his pale face.*