Elsewhere and earlier that same evening…

Liv glanced at her laptop. Another email from the fox—short, careful: she had a lead, would circle back if it went solid. Liv nodded once, erased it, and went back to the notes Vulpes had already fed her. White pickup. Older. Cash buyer. Canvas. Farm-kid vibe out of Wellington/Guelph. She wrote it again in her own hand to make it stick.

She turned to a different thread: sealed youth cases that might point to a juvenile start. For a second she envied the mask—no paperwork, no committees—then let it go.

As if on cue, a knock. Dr. Shawna Lexington stood in the doorway, hair in a tight bun, light grey suit, all business. Liv wasn’t fond of Lexington’s habit of talking like a memo, but the woman did her homework.

“What can I do for you, Doctor?” Liv asked.

“I require your personal input on our growing super-villain problem,” Lexington said, stepping in and perching on the chair edge. “Two major incidents—Dr. Sinclair and Alice Little—clustered so closely is statistically notable and may correlate with vigilante activity. Your insights would be—”

“First things first,” Liv cut in, raising a hand. “You help me on my case, then I’ll give you my two cents.”

A small nod. “Quid pro quo. Reasonable. What’s your inquiry, Detective?”

Liv weighed the leverage and went formal. “Do you see precedent for violent adult behavior beginning with juvenile conduct? Specifically: cruelty to animals, coercive bullying, early fascination with blood and blades.”

Lexington tipped her head, considering. “There’s precedent, yes—with caveats. We don’t predict the future, but clusters matter. Persistent animal cruelty, fire-setting, coercive aggression, voyeuristic stalking—those, combined with rigid ritualization, are robust risk markers. If you have a specific incident you might treat that as a primary node. It can anchor a trajectory into adulthood, particularly if the subject later affiliates with environments that normalize control.”

Liv didn’t let her face change. “Then I want your recommendation to open sealed juvenile files tied to such an incident. Narrow band: time, school, location. I’m chasing a series—imminent risk.”

Lexington folded her hands. “Under the Youth Court framework you’ll need a demonstrable public-safety interest. I can provide a clinical letter supporting narrowly tailored access for pattern analysis—no fishing expedition, clear scope, in-camera review.”

“That’ll do,” Liv said. “Today.”

Lexington produced a legal pad. “Names?”

“None,” Liv said. “Parameters.” She gave them: town, year range, school board, the cat, the retaliatory beating. “I’ll attach your letter to a request through the Crown.”

“Understood.” Lexington rose. “My memo for Council still needs your perspective.”

“You’ll get it,” Liv said. “Two cents, right now: masks don’t cause villains; they agitate the surface. Our problem is old—fear, ego, power. Vigilantes add noise. Sometimes they also pull a victim out of a car before I arrive. That’s the whole messy truth.”

Doctor Lexington paused, considering. “Not exactly what I was looking for. If I may be more specific—I wanted your take on Doctors Lyra Sinclair and Alice Little. It’s a curiosity to me that both are highly intelligent women who underwent trauma that induced a severe mental break and behavior consistent with supervillain patterns.”

Liv leaned back, laced her fingers, and gave Lexington the version with teeth.

“Lyra Sinclair first. Brilliant, ambitious, and the kind of clinician who talks about ‘opening the mind’ while she’s testing limits on other people’s bodies. She didn’t just study psychoactives—she engineered leverage with them, groomed students, and built a lab culture where a student became both glove and fall guy. She even pre-loaded the inhaler of some poor kid named Chester as a failsafe; that’s not curiosity, that’s control.”

“She escalated to spectacle—Disco Queen’s Court—then went down hard and got hauled for evaluation. ‘Contained… for tonight’ was the line, which is cop-speak for a revolving door we can’t bolt. I don’t kid myself: we don’t have a stable box for Sinclair.”

“Alice Little is the opposite case. Equally brilliant, but her break reads as protective, not predatory. What happened at Macentyre Systems? Tragic, yes. Calculated malice? No. Wonderland is a trauma response—you put her equipment in a locker and you treat the woman, you don’t disappear her into Site 404.”

“You want the pattern? Sinclair weaponizes agency; Little loses it. I’ll argue treatment over punishment for Alice every day of the week. For Lyra, my recommendation is tight medical containment plus criminal charges where the evidence runs clean. And before you ask, no—the masks didn’t ‘create’ either woman. They agitate the surface. The engine underneath has nothing to do with the Vulpes or people like her.”

“As for your vigilante thesis: two people are breathing because a woman in a cape got between Bloodletter and a cop, then triaged both victims before EMS made the curb. That’s not myth—that’s a coroner’s counterfactual we avoided.”

“And since we’re trading candor—our labs are two budget cycles behind, our politics are six ahead, and if Ottawa wants fewer ‘unaccountable masks,’ they can start by giving me the tools to keep predators off the street the first time. Until then, I’ll juggle the messy middle and keep people vertical.”

Lexington’s eyebrow climbed a notch. She hadn’t expected that much candor.

“Not precisely the sound bite I was looking for,” she said, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt. “But—useful. On Dr. Sinclair and Ms. Little: your distinction tracks with my data. Sinclair externalizes power—instrumentalizes people. Little’s presentation reads as trauma-forward, EPS-DID consistent, treatable under secure care.”

“And one of them,” Liv said, dry, “is not in anything I’d call custody.”

A beat. Lexington understood the target. “Psychedelic remains… unaccounted for.”

“You can put that in your memo as a line item under ‘ongoing risk.’” Liv capped her pen. “And under ‘mitigations,’ you can write: ‘fund labs, hire analysts, stop pretending press conferences are a tactic.’”

Lexington’s mouth almost twitched. “I’ll draft the clinical letter for Youth Court—narrow scope, public-safety need—faxed by seven.”

“Good,” Liv said. “You’ll get my two cents in writing before end of day. The same thing I told you: masks don’t make villains. They just make them visible.”

“Duly noted.” Lexington stood, paused in the doorway. “For what it’s worth, Detective—your reputation for plain speech is deserved.”

“Comes cheaper than consultants,” Liv said dryly.

The door clicked shut. Liv exhaled, rolled a fresh sheet onto her clipboard, and started the chain her night would live or die on: Youth Court clerk → Crown intake → school board counsel → yearbooks. She underlined the first two, circled WSIB hand-injury claims, and wrote ambidextrous? in the margin.

Her pager buzzed once—unknown number—then went quiet. Outside, a streetcar hissed past. She stacked her files, killed the desk lamp, and grabbed her coat.

If the letter landed by seven, she could run it to the Crown on her way home, make food, and keep pushing the board until midnight.

She locked her office, checked the stairwell out of habit, and headed for the street—another night, another promise to keep.

Liv made her way home, more worn down by the bull than the paperwork—though the universe seemed happy to bundle both. She shouldered into her building and took the stairs, officially for the exercise, really to walk off the static under her skin.

The stairwell was the same old concrete-and-steel echo chamber. Her shoes ticked on the metal treads, sound climbing ahead of her. Halfway up she paused, head canted—sure she’d heard… something. She held her breath. Nothing but the thin hum of the exit light and the far-off cough of a pipe. The kind of quiet that makes you feel listened to.

She kept going, slower now, one hand resting on the rail, the other near the weight on her hip. On her landing the motion light flickered once, steadied. The hall smelled faintly of cleaner and cold air. Her door waited at the end, neat as always, the little brass numbers catching a sliver of light. She checked the corners out of habit—the fire extinguisher box, the sagging ficus—then stepped up to the peephole and looked.

Nothing. Coast looked clear. She shook her head and scolded herself for being jumpy—too much cheap coffee, too many long shifts.

She slid the key, popped the deadbolt, and slipped inside. Chain on. Habit. Shoes off by the mat, coat to the hook, lamp to a low glow. The apartment answered with its usual comforts: kettle on the stove, files squared on the table, the map on the wall with its quiet geometry of pins. She set her sidearm within easy reach on the buffet, not dramatic—just practical—then exhaled and rolled her shoulders until something clicked back into place.

“Paranoid,” she muttered, and let the word pass through her like a stretch.

She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it by the door, thumbed the snap on her shoulder rig—then thought better of it. Ten more minutes, then bed; the weight of the gun could stay where it was.

The kettle began its soft pre-whistle. She crossed to the window, checked the street out of reflex, and drew the blind halfway. The hall outside was still empty when she rechecked the peephole; only the hum of the exit light and the faint draft under the door kept her company.

Why so jumpy? She asked herself. Hunger, probably. Her stomach voted for salty and unapologetic to amend the situation.

She opened the fridge and hauled out a slab of thick-cut smoked bacon. Breakfast for dinner. Rebel, she thought, smirking as she set a cutting board and reached for a knife. The cast-iron came down from its hook with a friendly heft. Her mother’s voice lived in it—a good cast iron pan is all anyone really needs—and, as usual, her mother wasn’t wrong. The heavy black pan had gotten her through college and half a career.

Burner on. Pan heating. She trimmed the bacon into broad ribbons and laid the first strips down. Sizzle bloomed; the kitchen filled with smokehouse and salt. She flicked on the over-stove fan, nudged her files farther from splatter range, and set her sidearm within reach on the buffet—habit, not drama.

A pop of grease kissed her wrist. She hissed, shook it off, and listened past the noise. The stairwell door thumped somewhere below—ordinary building sounds—but the hair at the back of her neck stayed up. The motion light outside her door clicked, buzzed, and steadied. Nothing in the peephole but the fisheye smear of hallway and the aloof stare of a dying ficus.

She flipped the bacon; the edges curled and went mahogany. The kettle tipped from murmur to keen. For a second, under the pan’s chatter, she thought she heard a soft scuff—rubber on tile, slow and careful. She killed the burner, slid the skillet off the heat, and let the kettle scream another beat while she moved to the door, quiet as she could, one hand light on the chain, the other close to steel.

The peephole went dark for a heartbeat, then clear again. Only the exit light’s hum, only the draft under the door.

“Paranoid,” she told herself, low.

She tried to shake it off—stress, cheap coffee, nerves—and reached for the mason jar by the stove. Her mother had drilled the habit in: save the bacon fat. Her father had added the sin: spread it on toast or whip it into mayo.

She paused a moment, delaying the tea—set the kettle aside unpoured, the mug beside the plate—and ate standing at the counter. Salt, smoke, heat. The cast-iron still hissed softly; she’d left a shallow slick of bacon fat in the bottom to finish the edges. Her eyes kept drifting to the the thin blade of light under the door.

The peephole had gone dark for a heartbeat. Then clear again. Only the hum of the exit light, only the little draft that always found its way under the threshold.

She set the plate down, slower than she meant to. The apartment felt arranged, watched—even by her. She wiped her hands and listened past the low fan and the steady, patient pop of hot oil in the pan.

A whisper of fabric on the other side of the door. Or imagination. The light at the threshold narrowed, widened—shadow passing and gone.

She took another bite, chewed, and kept her gaze on that line of light that shouldn’t mean anything at all—until, very softly, she thought she heard something touch the doorknob and let go. A polite test. Nothing more.

Liv set her fork down, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and stepped toward the door, every muscle quiet. The chain stayed on. The eye to the peephole found only the fisheye smear of empty hall and the aloof stare of the dying ficus.

Empty. And not.

She turned toward the sink with a sigh—and every hair on her neck stood up. Once could be nerves. Twice was training. The scuff behind her wasn’t imagination; a shadow slid across the wall and time thinned.

She pivoted on her heel as the figure came in—matte grey body armor, a blank mask, a butcher’s cleaver arcing down in a decisive overhead chop.

Her hands were up before fear could catch. She snapped out a hand—a short slap to redirect the blade line—then she stepped inside his reach, shoulder to chest, letting the cleaver skid past her ear and bite the cutting board instead of skull. Bong sao to ride his forearm, palm strike to the throat—

Thud! 

Useless. A hard gorget under fabric turned the shot to nothing but a jolt in her own wrist.

Armor wins fights, she thought, clinical even as adrenaline hit, Shame real armor isnt just costume dressing like in the movies..

She chained punches into the sternum plate anyway—Wing Chun machine-gun—then cut low, heel to knee. He rocked a fraction, heavier than she’d budgeted, then corrected with farm-strong balance that said work, not gym. His free hand came in like a post, back of the knuckles smashing at her temple; she covered, rolled with it, clipped his wrist, tried to catch the thumb and peel—

He switched hands mid-clinch. The cleaver broke free and reversed to his other side with a clean, practiced efficiency.

“Of course” she hissed, not sure if he heard.

She drove an elbow into the brachial bundle—armor absorbed the strike—and followed with a low oblique kick to the shin guard. He gave ground half a step, then surged forward, using what he had that she didn’t: reach, mass, and a slab of polymer between her and anything vital.

He slammed her back into the kitchen wall, pinning her with his left forearm across the collarbone, weight behind it. Air went narrow. Her fingers scrabbled for leverage, found only slick paint and tile. Over his shoulder she saw the cast-iron still hissing on the stove, fat spitting in tiny stars.

His right arm drew back, cleaver rising again, the mask close enough for her to see her own face reflected in the dull steel.

Bloodletter exhaled, drinking in the sight of his quarry pinned. The cleaver rose. Liv’s left hand shot up, clamping his wrist. She could slow the descent—not stop it. One hand wasn’t enough.

The other hand was.

Her right closed around the cast-iron’s handle and she whipped the pan up. It wasn’t the force—though iron has a language of its own—it was what rode inside. The rim rang off his faceplate like a dull bell and the pan tipped, flinging a fan of sizzling bacon grease across his mask.

Armor shrugged off the blow; but not the heat. The grease hit steel and composite with a vicious hiss, coursed into vent slits and seams, sizzling as it went. His lenses fogged white in an instant. A scorched-fat stink punched the air. Instinct beat training—his head snapped away, shoulders hunching, grip flinching on her collarbone.

Liv felt the pressure lighten a fraction. That’s right. Armor wins fistfights. Fire wins wars.

She ripped her left hand free, jerked his cleaver arm off kilter, and shoved off the wall. Hot oil pattered his gorget and the tender skin at the jaw seal; he made a sound—short, animal—and staggered half a step. The pan’s remaining grease sheeted across the tile, turning the kitchen floor treacherous.

For the first time since the door swung, the pin had broke. His right arm chopped blind, cleaver carving air instead of bone. His left scrabbled for purchase on a counter gone slick.

Opening made.

Bloodletter didn’t howl—pain like that didn’t get the dignity of his voice. He let out a deep, hateful breath, adjusted, and tore off his mask. It didn’t matter if Benoit saw his face. She was dying tonight, locked in here with him. By morning she’d be his next headline.

Liv registered the face—blue eyes, raw splash of heat-bloom on the cheek where grease had kissed skin—but her focus stayed on the next move. Good thing she’d been too lazy when she got home to take her shoulder rig off. She rolled off the wall and went for her pistol.

Halfway clear—and white fire stabbed her forearm. The gun slipped uselessly to the floor, skittering under the buffet. A slim throwing blade had sunk to the hilt just below her biceps.

He’d done it without looking. Right hand still gripping the cleaver. Left hand flick—clean as a metronome.

Bloodletter’s blue eyes widened, then narrowed, a small, twisted smile tugging one corner of his mouth as Liv’s sleeve darkened. The grease-scorched skin at his jaw twitched; he refused to give the pain a sound and came on.

He walked across the grease-spattered floor with the slow inevitability of something dreadful and certain.

Liv went for the pistol on the floor in a desperate lunge. She needed distance, an end—anything before he was close enough for his size, reach, and steel to make the rest of the decisions.

Punishment landed first: a steel-toed boot stamped her wrist just as her fingers brushed the grip of her gun. The crunch came up her arm like lightning—bright, sick, absolute. The gun skittered under the buffet.

The sound of bone giving drew a sharp, delighted breath from him and a small, elated laugh. The detective was fun. But not for long. People heard. People called. He reminded himself. He couldn't waste all night playing when there was work to do.

Pain tried to narrow her world; training pushed it back. Tuck it. Move. She rolled with the stomp, dragging the pinned arm tight to her ribs to save what she could, vision tunneling and then widening again. The cleaver’s shadow rose at the edge of her sightline; his bare face—blue eyes, grease-burn blooming along his jaw—leaned in.

The kitchen answered her before her brain finished the math. The cast-iron still hissed; the floor was splattered with oil; the kettle was not yet poured and just shy of a scream.

She shifted her weight, left hand free, eyes cutting from his raised right arm to the kettle’s handle—close enough if she committed. The throwing knife throbbed hot and mean in her right biceps; she ignored it.

He planted for the cut, boot sliding a fraction on the grease. His left pinned her shoulder, his right drew back for the finish.

Liv bared her teeth against the pain, coiled, and reached.

The kettle—and its payload of near-boiling water—whipped up in a silver arc. This time he was ready. He slipped his head aside almost lazily; the scalding sheet lashed the wall and hissed down the cupboard face.

It bought her two steps. She took them, sliding around the galley island to make space—gun under the buffet, spare in the bedroom, door beyond him. He read the angles and stayed between her and every exit, moving with the slow, dreadful certainty of someone who plans rooms like puzzles.

Neighbours will call—but response will be glacial compared to the urgency of the here and now. Not nearly fast enough.

The floor fought both of them—grease making every step a question. She made it an answer, heel striking the skillet’s handle to jolt another lick of oil across the tile. His boot slid half a foot. She used the micro-stumble to angle toward the direction of the bedroom, shoulder skimming the doorframe.

He recovered with brute economy, cutting her off again, herding her deeper into the apartment, always between her and the hallway, cleaver hand tracking, left forearm ready to pin. Pain knifed up her right arm from the buried thrower; her wrist screamed where the stomp had landed. She switched fully to her left, compact, guard tight, Wing Chun footwork keeping her inside his hips as long as she dared.

She feinted for the hallway; he shaded that line, cleaver low. She went the other way, snapping a quick strike to check his weapon hand as she snatched for the drawer where she kept a utility knife. He slammed the drawer shut with his forearm, wood biting her fingers; she yanked back before he could pin them.

He pressed the advantage—reach, weight, armor—closing the gap to smother her speed. His left arm came down to pin; his right rose, cleaver lifted for the finish.

He’d never wasted breath on his “works.” The detective had earned an exception. In a voice flat and eerily calm, he said, “Prepare to be immortalized.”

His left forearm locked her to the wall; his right drew the cleaver high. Heat from the spattered grease rose between them, bacon smoke and scorched composite. Liv’s wrist screamed. The throwing blade in her biceps burned like a brand. Armor wins fists. Reach wins walls. Use what’s left.

Her gaze cut the room in shards: the sidearm lost under the buffet; the floor slick as ice; the cast-iron cooling; the mason jar of fat within her left hand’s line; a chipped plate on the counter’s edge.

The cleaver started down.

Liv shifted her weight off the pin—or tried to. The agony in her arm and wrist, coupled with his raw, immovable strength, made it impossible, no matter how hard she bared her teeth and fought.

His forearm crushed across her collarbone, the wall biting her shoulder blades. The cleaver’s edge hung above, steady as a clock hand. Her left fingers scrabbled for anything—jar, plate, hope—and found only slick tile and air. The right arm was a live wire of pain, the thrown blade burning in the muscle. Her vision salted at the edges. A voice quietly spoke in the back of her mind: This is what it feels like to lose.

His breath washed bleach and scorched fat through the narrow space between them. Blue eyes, unblinking. The burn on his jaw had gone angry red—courtesy of her pan. No quip. No sound. Only intent.

She tried a knee; it slid off shin-guard. She tried to turn her head; the pin didn’t allow it. The apartment felt far away, reduced to a map she wouldn’t be adding to anymore—pins she wouldn’t move, names she wouldn’t say—and her city, Toronto, holding its breath.

The cleaver began to fall.

Liv pushed once more—spent, futile—breath leaving her in a sound that wasn’t a word, wasn’t a prayer, wasn’t anything but refusal swallowed by steel.