Through the shattered window, she saw the smoking ruin of the tech on the operative’s belt.
The psychic static crushing her skull vanished in an instant.
The three other heavily armored men adjusted their aim, fingers tightening on their triggers.
Emma threw her hand out, her eyes flashing.
The operatives froze.
The deafening roar of the gunfire and rain vanished, replaced by absolute, suffocating silence.
Not a single muscle twitched beneath their heavy armor.
In the smoke, the red laser sights locked dead still.
All four men went entirely rigid at the exact same millisecond.
Like puppets with their strings violently severed, they collapsed forward, their assault rifles clattering uselessly against the wet asphalt.
Silence crashed back over the alley, broken only by the crackle of the burning cars.
With Marie keeping a firm grip on her arm to steady her, Emma pushed herself out of the ruined cabin.
She stood up in the downpour, completely ignoring the mud on her ruined designer clothes and the blood trickling from her hairline.
Her jaw was set, and her eyes burned with a cold, lethal fury.
The ice queen had taken more than enough hits for one night.
Seeing the threat neutralized, Marcus released his chokehold, shoving Sitwell forward.
The bald agent hit the wet pavement hard, landing on his hands and knees.
He gasped and coughed, clawing at his bruised throat, his expensive glasses lying cracked in a puddle beside him.
Marcus casually lowered the 9mm, shaking his head as he looked down at the shivering handler.
“Budget cuts, Jasper?” Marcus mocked, his tone dripping with absolute condescension.
“You only issued one dampener for the entire strike team?”
Sitwell looked up, coughing up rainwater, completely humiliated.
Sitwell scrambled backward on the slick asphalt, one hand clutching his bruised throat, the other reaching blindly for his cracked glasses.
A white designer heel came down hard on his wrist, pinning him to the pavement.
Emma looked down at the bald agent.
Rain washed a streak of blood and plaster dust across her pale cheek.
Her face was a mask of aristocratic indifference, but her eyes were diamond-hard.
She shifted her weight, twisting her stiletto heel brutally into the back of Sitwell’s pinned hand.
He let out a choked, agonized gasp, but Emma didn’t even blink.
This pathetic little bureaucrat had just ordered the slaughter of her entire security detail, and she was currently hovering on the absolute razor’s edge of a violent, psychic explosion.
“Marcus,” Emma ordered.
Her voice didn’t rise, but it vibrated with a dark, suffocating rage, completely stripped of its usual purr.
“Find whatever blocking device he is wearing and remove it.”
Marcus didn’t waste a single second.
He knew better than to stand in the blast radius of a pissed-off telepath.
He dropped into a crouch beside the whimpering S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, careful to avoid the vicious point of Emma’s heel.
He patted Sitwell down, his fingers catching on a bulky, modified smartwatch strapped tightly to Sitwell’s free wrist.
Marcus ripped it off, snapping the leather band, and crushed it under his boot.
Just to be safe, he yanked a sleek black comms earpiece out of Sitwell’s ear and tossed it into a puddle.
“He’s clear,” Marcus said.
He immediately stood up and took two long steps backward.
He shot a glance toward the flipped SUV.
She looked terrified, staring wide-eyed at the bodies of Emma’s security detail.
“Come here, Marie,” Marcus said softly, holding out a hand.
“Don’t look at them. Close your eyes.”
She swallowed hard, nodding jerkily as she walked toward him.
She closed the distance and slowly wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest as her eyes squeezed shut on their own accord.
Marcus let out a quiet breath, wrapping one arm firmly around her shoulders to anchor her against the chaos of the alley.
“Frost—wait—you don’t understand the jurisdiction here—” Sitwell choked out, true panic finally breaking through his bureaucratic mask.
Emma didn’t say a word.
She simply grabbed him by the jaw, her manicured nails digging violently into his cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eyes.
Sitwell convulsed.
His back arched violently off the pavement, a choked, wet gasp tearing out of his throat as Emma shattered his mental defenses and invaded his mind.
Rogue flinched violently.
Even without telepathy, the sheer, oppressive weight of Emma’s fury was suffocating.
Rogue took a hesitant step back, her gloved hands gripping her own forearms.
She hated her mutation, hated the hunger in her skin, but seeing what Emma was doing to that man’s brain terrified her on a completely different level.
Marcus gently placed his hand over her trembling fingers, his thumb brushing against the wet leather of her glove.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured, his voice a steady, grounding anchor against the rain.
“I’m right here.”
Rogue swallowed hard, giving a small, jerky nod.
She let out a shaky breath and sank further into his chest, squeezing her eyes shut to block out the violence of the alley, letting the steady rhythm of his heartbeat ground her.
A few feet away, Emma went entirely rigid.
She ripped her hand away from Sitwell’s face like she’d touched something rotting.