49. Chapter 49
Chapter forty-nine
-Bryce-
I t looked like I wasn’t quite done with falling off stuff just yet.
The world spun sickeningly. Sky, jungle, sky, jungle, sky, jungle. My limbs flailed uselessly as I attempted to find any kind of purchase on the sheer rock wall and thin air.
Maybe I would actually die this time—third time’s the charm.
Or was this the fourth?
What air remained in my lungs burst out as I slammed into something hard and kept on falling. My body bounced, slammed into something again, and rolled. It hurt, but at least it slowed me down a bit.
When I finally rolled to a stop, my brain was still rattling around in my head, and everything was spinning so much I didn’t realize straight away. Soft, squishy moss pressed against my cheek and forehead, filling my nose with its damp, earthy smell.
I was still alive; guess luck was still on my side, after all. I opened my eyes to a heavily-laden glade. Sun slanted through the leaves in dappled little patches, and the trees hung heavy with huge pink and yellow flowers. It felt oddly calm, although something about the view rang alarm bells in the back of my head. I couldn’t stop it from spinning long enough to grasp what it was, like a kite in a tornado being whipped from my hands. My chest felt impossibly tight, and I struggled to draw breath in.
Where was Chief? I tried to move my limbs and pain shot up my left side and through my chest. I stiffened and groaned, probably some cracked ribs. Hopefully not a punctured lung, although I wouldn’t be surprised.
I heard groaning, and managed to raise my head enough to see Chief on the ground a short distance away from me. He was moving, trying to roll over onto all fours.
And on the ground between us, O’Neill’s weapon.
Our eyes met. We both moved.
I tried to roll over, to get my hands and knees under me. Every movement sent stabbing pain radiating through my chest.
Come on, get up. Get up.
Chief was already crawling towards the weapon. He was still wearing his body armor, which must have protected him on the way down. I, on the other hand, felt the echo of every single jolt and branch still ringing through my body. My limbs were sore and numb, my head was pounding, I couldn’t catch my breath. My stomach flipped over.
Chief got there first. He snatched up the weapon and managed to struggle to his feet. He swayed, blood trickling down his face and leaking from under his armor. It dripped from his fingers, but the blaster was steady as a rock. I stopped moving and just breathed into the moss.
“I’m disappointed in you Gunner,” Chief said, and even after everything—the betrayal, the lies, the hurt he’d caused me—my heart still sank. Like a dog being told off by his abusive owner. I’d wanted him to be proud of me for such a long time, it was ingrained in my very being; the need to please him, and everyone around me. Disapproval meant death.
“You had the potential to be a great soldier, but you let me down. You let everyone down.” He moved towards me, his heavy boots crushing and bruising the thin purple flowers underneath. I managed to drag myself an inch across the ground. My eyes caught on a series of scratch marks on the nearest tree trunk, the bark splintered and oozing.
“You’ve ruined this entire mission because you can’t follow a simple fucking order. Keep your dick in your pants and don’t have sex with the fucking aliens. How hard is that to fucking do? I wouldn’t have put it past that fucking moron, Rand, but you seemed at least able to not fuck everything that moved. Only it turned out your brains are even smaller than his, and now look what you’ve done!”
At the base of the tree, almost impossible to distinguish in a tuft of tall grass, were round, greenish mounds.
The alarm bell finally made sense. Kitari had shown me all the danger signs, the signs I could now see clear as day, shouting the warning to anyone who wasn’t entirely clueless, to anyone who had learned even a little about this land and its inhabitants. Unlike Chief.
I dragged myself across the ground, inch by gruelling inch, as Chief stood over me watching me struggle. Every moment was like hauling myself over broken glass. My bones rasped against each other in my chest
“Now you’ve left me no option. I should still be able to get some use out of you, but I’m going to have to kill you first.”
I swallowed the lump of ash and stones in my throat. He could kill me and cut my corpse apart, but he wouldn’t find what he was looking for. It was impossible to locate love in the human body.
I didn’t know what happened when the one you were bound to died, but I hoped it would be gentle for Kitari.
I dragged myself forward, arm over arm as my body screamed at me. The wall of vines ahead of me swayed slightly, only enough to see if you were looking for it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, my voice like sandpaper.
He barked a short, blunt laugh. “I bet you are. But it’s too late, son.”
A low, rumbling growl, like the warming of a ship engine, was the only warning. Chief had enough time to look at the vines behind me before the ahk-bkèlearino launched itself from its hidden lair. The monster sailed over my head, a horrible bulk of slick fur and claws. It landed on Chief before he had a chance to react, knocking him over backwards.
I ducked my head, covering it with my arms as the weapon went off. The blast went through the trees over my head, exploding in a shower of leaves and petals.
I didn’t need to see what happened next, I could hear it perfectly well. The Chief was shouting rage-twisted curses as the monster growled and snarled.
I dragged myself away, arm over arm, willing my body to keep going forward, away from the savagery. Even long after my limbs lost all feeling, after my body had been drained of its very last drop of energy, I kept on going, clawing across the ground. One thought was driving me on.
Kitari wants me. I have to survive.
Finally, I rolled behind an outcrop of stones, into the safety of a dense patch of plants, as Chief’s distant shouts turned to screams. Then, with dreadful finality, they cut off altogether.