Damian's figure blurred a second time.
The laugh died mid breath.
The second body hit the floor before the sound of the first had fully faded, and the room became the kind of quiet that had weight to it.
"Anyone else." It wasn't phrased as a question.
Twenty faces. Now eighteen. Every one of them stared at him with eyes that held fear. He could see it in the tension of their shoulders, the knuckle grip of their hands, but not a single person moved. Not toward him. Not away. No one screamed. No one lunged for the weapons stacked against the walls.
They just stood there, trembling and silent, like marionettes waiting for a pull on the string that wasn't coming.
Damian held still.
Something was wrong.
He had killed two of them and the rest hadn't reacted with anything besides a laugh. Fear was present, the body knew fear before the mind caught up, but they weren't reacting to it. As if that fear was contained, held down by something he couldn't see.
