The creature realized the physical trap was total.
Under the laws governing Rookvale’s sky shield, a double whose body was permanently locked still couldn’t fulfill its directive to hunt and confirm the death of its original. If it remained pinned beneath the five-ton gate, it would linger as an inert lump of captured flesh. That left the living Len Vey free to climb the ridge and map point the final release with the coalition.
It didn’t hesitate. It didn’t experience the human instinct of self-preservation.
With a cold, deliberate contraction of its uninjured shoulder muscles, the hunter reached up with both hands, locked its fingers into the granite doorstep with the full, terrifying torque of Hookhold, and pulled.
It didn’t pull to free its crushed pelvis. It pulled to tear its upper torso fully away from its pinned lower spine.
The sound that filled the chamber made the hair on Len’s arms stand rigid: the wet, stringy tearing of deep lower-back muscles. It was followed by the sickening, clockwork pop of spine bones separating under five thousand pounds of lateral strain. The creature’s face remained fully smooth, its jaw set in an expression of rigorous office focus, as it deliberately ripped its own torso in two.
