The Burning Hand by Jodi Meadows

every injury I’d taken on in the last week was a faint, distant pain. None of it mattered now. Just this: ducking and stabbing and the certainty that these creatures were no longer human, just monsters twisted by the wraith and chemicals.
    And they needed to die.
    In a strange place between hyperfocus and instinct, I cut my way through another glowman. Then another. Then another.
    Finally, I stood in a warehouse full of bodies, only one more glowman alive, and it fought two Nightmares. The rest of the group was either dead or had fled, like Hensley. That coward.
    The Nightmares had knives and rusted pipes, and they fought ferociously. But they were going to lose.
    The glowman had talon-like claws that left deep gouges on the Nightmares’ faces and chests. They had no hope of winning this battle.
    One of the Nightmares noticed me. “Help us!” He spit the last word; blood dribbled down his chin.
    â€œNo.”
    I lowered my sword and watched the Nightmares lose. I wouldn’t kill them. They were still human—a generous classification, considering what they’d brought here. I wouldn’t kill them, but I wouldn’t prevent the glowman from taking their lives.
    They’d aligned themselves with Hensley and sold shine.
    They’d come to ambush me.
    They’d brought the glowmen.
    They’d lost control of the glowmen.
    They’d die here.
    A quiet thought in the back of my head suggested maybe letting the glowman kill the Nightmares was no better than murdering them myself. But then I caught Romily’s motionless form on the far side of the warehouse and I didn’t care if this made me an awful person, too. I hated the glowmen. I hated the Nightmare gang. I hated Lord Hensley and every flasher who used their magic, contributing to the wraith. Without them, there’d be no shine or firefly and then there’d be no glowmen. Mercush would still be a boy and Romily would be alive. Professor Knight would still be alive.
    I hardly registered the hot tracks of tears on my cheeks as the glowman slashed the throat of one Nightmare grunt, and then the other. While the glowman was distracted with murder, I shoved my sword into the base of his skull and into his brain.
    The glowman fell lifeless, rattling the floor.
    I’d killed them. Glowmen. Monsters.
    Romily’s brother.
    They weren’t human anymore, but no matter how much I reminded myself of that fact, a hole opened inside me until it felt as though my soul were being sucked away. I’d done something awful. Something hideous.
    My life would never be the same.
    The rest was automatic: I cleaned my blade using a dead man’s shirt; I stepped around the fallen and knelt in front of Romily; I checked for a pulse I knew I wouldn’t find.
    Everything drained out of me. The adrenaline from the fight. The certainty I’d felt. Even the pride that I’d won this battle. It was empty.
    Carefully, as though she might wake up, I covered Romily in a blood-splattered jacket off one of the dead men. I cradled her in my arms and bit back a fresh wave of tears.
    â€œI don’t blame you,” I whispered, even though she couldn’t hear me. Even though she’d been gone for . . . I didn’t know how long. I didn’t know what time it was now. “You were desperate. You took the opportunities you were given. And I failed you. We were going to help your brother, and now—”
    A raw sob choked out of me. Romily. Knight. All of this.
    It was too much.
    There was nothing else to do. I covered her face and stood. Part of me thought I should bring her to her mother, but I didn’t know where she lived. And how cruel would that be, bringing a mother her dead daughter? And what about Mercush? I couldn’t explain what happened.
    So I left the warehouse.
    Outside, the air was cooler. Wind drove a small, black object across the dirt. My mask. I seized it just as I heard footfalls on pavement and