Awareness cedes to the thin, separating fog of roaring epinephrine. The guard is disturbingly motionless as Rush shifts back, away from the unnerving stillness, breath hissing out rapid and heavy between clenched teeth. Asadi has dealt with hers accordingly, charging Fring without consideration, a tactic Rush does not need to see to its conclusion to know it will not end well, and he wastes no further time on the floor and he rises immediately from knees to feet in a fluid, unraveling defiance to Fring's curt demand before he has even completed it. The man's hands are occupied, pinning Asadi to the wall in a manner chillingly reminiscent of his deft handling of Rush. He hurls himself at Fring because he is optionless and because he has to and because Asadi is straining in his grip and because there are scars looped around his wrists in emblazoned white and because he is trembling subtly and because all rationality has been drowned in the dull shriek of unmitigated ferocity, cutting coldly to his core.

He lacks a strategy; he lacks anything concrete, any sort of tangible plan and he lacks everything save the searing recollection of Simeon flaring behind closed eyelids and the fingers that reach for the man's throat and the mindless slamming of Rush's body against his that prefaces their tangled, uncoordinated decline to the floor, his teeth bared, his assault wordless and noiseless, his expression stony and locked.