I was already moving before the gun finished rising.

Still comfortable on the couch, my hand came up in a smooth arc, the knife settling into my palm as if it had always been there. There was no hesitation, no adjustment. Just a clean release.

The blade spun once before it buried itself in Baby’s shoulder with a wet, solid impact that carried further than it should have in the quiet.

The fact that it was the same spot that I had knifed him before was not lost on me.

His arm dropped immediately.

The gun wavered, then slipped from his grip as his muscles seized. His mouth opened, but the sound that came out was wrong—too sharp to be controlled, too short to be a scream.

Shock hit before pain.

It always did.

The second knife was already in my hand.

I didn’t stand. Didn’t shift. I threw it from where I sat, the motion just as clean, just as precise.

The blade crossed the space between us in a straight line and caught him across the neck. Not deep enough to kill him, but deep enough to make my point. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Blood surfaced instantly.

The cut opened a clean thin line that widened as his pulse pushed against it. The knife didn’t stop. It drove past him and embedded into the wall behind him with a hard, final sound that echoed through the room and then disappeared.

The gun hit the floor.

It landed without bouncing, the sound dull against the carpet, almost insignificant compared to everything else.

He reached for his neck first, his fingers pressing hard against the cut as if pressure alone would fix it. When he pulled his hand away, it came back wet. He stared at it for half a second, not understanding, before pressing it back again, harder this time.

His breathing changed.

Fast. Shallow. Uneven.

The first knife was still in his shoulder.

Blood spread through his shirt in slow, dark patterns, soaking into the fabric and dragging downward with gravity. Each breath shifted the handle slightly, the movement small but constant, a reminder of exactly where it was lodged.

He tried to steady himself.

It didn’t work.

His back hit the wall, his weight leaning into it as if it could hold him upright, as if the structure of the house could compensate for the failure of his body. His legs didn’t agree. They shifted, adjusted, tried to find balance that wasn’t there.

No one moved.

Scar Face stood by the doorway, completely still. His eyes were on the man, but he didn’t step forward. Didn’t reach for the gun. Didn’t speak. His body had locked in place, like he had already chosen not to interfere.

The others followed his lead.

One step back.

Then another.

Hands visible. Empty. Away from anything that could be mistaken for a weapon. No one offering help. No one making a sound beyond what they couldn’t control.

The only thing left in the room was breathing.

His.

And the soft, steady drip of blood hitting the carpet.

I stood.

The motion was slow, deliberate, the kind that didn’t invite reaction. I didn’t rush toward him. I didn’t close the distance with urgency. I moved because I chose to, not because I needed to.

That difference mattered.

I walked to the table and picked up another knife, smaller this time, the blade thinner, sharper. It fit my hand differently, lighter, easier to control with smaller movements. I turned it once between my fingers, testing the balance without needing to look.

The man against the wall watched me.

Not blinking.

Not speaking.

Just watching.

His eyes tracked every movement, every shift of my hand, every angle of the blade. His breathing was louder now, harder to control, each inhale catching slightly before it could settle.

"I know people say not to bring a knife to a gunfight," I murmured and my voice carried easily in the silence.

I glanced at the blade, then back at him.

"That’s only because you don’t know how to use either one."

I set the knife down on the coffee table.

The sound was soft but it still carried. Then I turned to look at the rest of the room. "Let me make this simple." No one spoke. No one so much as opened their mouths. "You make too much noise, you die."

The words didn’t need emphasis. They landed exactly where they were meant to. "You touch food that isn’t yours, you die."

Fuck Face nodded once, slow and immediate, like his body understood before his mind caught up.

"You pull a weapon on me, you die," I continued. Scar Face didn’t react. He didn’t need to. He had already understood my point.

"You try to escape—"

"You die?"

The voice came from the hallway. I looked over and saw a boy. He had stepped forward just enough to be seen, his attention fixed on me instead of the blood, instead of the man still trying to hold himself together against the wall.

There was no panic in his voice.

Just curiosity.

"Exactly."

I smiled.

Not because it was amusing.

Because he understood.

"He gets it," I said. "Do you?"

No one answered.

They didn’t need to.

The room had already shifted.

Scar Face’s shoulders lowered slightly, his stance settling into something quieter, more controlled. The second man adjusted his position against the wall, his arms no longer defensive, just present. Even the injured one stopped trying to speak, his breathing still uneven but contained, his attention fixed where it belonged.

On me.

Good.

I picked up my glass and sat back down.

The cushions sank slightly under my weight, familiar, unchanged. The water was still cold. I drank slowly, not looking away from them as I did.

No one moved.

Not even him.

The blood continued to drip onto the carpet, slower now, thicker, each drop landing with a soft, steady rhythm that filled the silence without breaking it.

The boy remained where he was, watching.

I met his eyes for a moment.

He didn’t look away.

He didn’t need to.

He had already chosen correctly.

I turned my attention back to the television.

The voices were still there. Background noise. Something to fill space, nothing to focus on. The same scene played out without interruption, unaware of what had just changed inside the room.

The house had settled again.

But it wasn’t the same quiet as before.

The kind of silence that came from understanding instead of absence. The kind that didn’t need to be enforced twice. I leaned back into the couch, letting the room fall into place around me.

Baby was pressed against the wall, still alive, still breathing, and very much learning.

And he would keep learning. They all would.

The house was mine again.

And this time...

no one would forget it.