Chapter 34 #2
Now was my chance. It was distracted. I could run. Was I supposed to wait for Sky? Or was it every woman and alien for themselves?
I took too long to decide.
The Enil’s sickly green gaze landed on me.
To be fair, I was hard to miss. Even with the flashing and smoke, the pure white light radiating from my palm was pretty damn obvious.
Slowly, the thing turned to face me, the single, working set of its sharp, grabby chest-fingers opening and closing. Its step in my direction crushed a fluorescent bulb that’d fallen from the ceiling beneath one gleaming, knife-blade talon.
My knees locked up. The empty hallway seemed to contract between us. My stomach dropped out.
It was coming for me.
I stumbled backward, toward the hall’s exit, too afraid to tear my gaze away, like if I took my eyes off it, the Enil would pounce. My soles slid on the dust-coated floor. Sweat rolled down my temples.
Sky hadn’t reappeared.
The creature moved slowly at first, careful, stalking steps. Then faster. And faster. Until it was loping like a cheetah—straight for me. That crunch-creak-whir of shifting gears rent the air.
Nope.
“Shiiiiiit!” I turned and took off. I didn’t stand a chance, not with this stupid mark glowing and the alien mech-wolf thing at my back. It was so much faster—
Sky materialized beside me and lunged past, intercepting the robot monster on my heels. By the time I’d reeled around, he’d fired a thick bolt of blue straight into the Enil’s chest. Crackling light streamed between his hands and the creature’s scrap-heap body.
The Enil’s distorted roar sounded desperate. Furious. Its foreleg collapsed, but it snapped vicious jaws Sky’s way, trying to fight through it.
He didn’t let up. He poured a steady stream of light into the creature’s shuddering body. I gasped as he bore down, straining, like he pushed everything he had into that power.
The air was on fire. Electricity arced everywhere, stinging and hot, and my teeth chattered. I stumbled, nearly tripping as pins and needles swept down my legs. But it was working.
The Enil’s spine arched, limbs juddering.
It opened its mouth, and another garbled whine poured out along with billowing smoke.
The energy Sky forced into it shone through cracks in its body, lighting it up.
Frying it from the inside out. The bitter smoke stung my nose, my lungs, bringing tears to my eyes.
And still Sky advanced, the stream of electricity pouring from him undulating and bleeding sparks.
My lungs ached. It was too bright—much too bright to look at. Turning my head, one hand raised to block the glare, I shuffled back another handful of steps as the storm went on and on—
The Enil loosed a keening, garbled cry, one that sounded like a death shriek, just before the blue glow winked out, throwing the hallway into sudden murky dark lit only by gloomy sunlight and my hand.
My chest heaved as I came to a wary stop. The alarm still shrieked, strobes pulsing like a heartbeat. Blinking through the black spots crowding my vision, I looked up just in time to see Sky sag. He caught himself on the wall and hung his head, breathing hard.
But it wasn’t done. Movement stirred in the dark.
Somehow, impossibly, the Enil was still going. Scorch marks covered its metal parts, but its internal mechanisms whirred back to life. It lurched upright, mismatched limbs bending and wobbling before it gained its footing. It faced us once more.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, inching back. Why wouldn’t this thing just die already? It was worse than a cockroach.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. I’d almost made it out of the hallway. The common area was right there. We were so close.
But Sky wasn’t running.
No, he pushed off the wall, and electricity ignited and slithered along his arms again, those blue sparks rippling out until he was encased in it.
Stray bolts lashed out, striking the walls.
The remaining strobe lights and alarms in the hallway erupted with tiny pops, dying in a shower of fading sparks.
Then, before I could blink, he’d leapt straight for the Enil.
Metal shrieked as the creature spun, jaw opening, those teeth and claws gleaming. Sky flung his arm out, and I was deaf to everything but the screech of gears and claws on linoleum and my own strangled scream—
His blast of electricity went right down the Enil’s mechanical throat. Ropes of energy snaked across the floor, crawling along the walls and ceiling. A strand arced down and struck the ground next to me, scorching tile. Narrowly missing my toes.
I backpedaled, but my eyes were locked on Sky, on the glow swelling around him. From him. Terrifying and awe-inspiring, all at once. I needed to run, but I couldn’t seem to make myself turn—
The light burst, flaring white. Heat slammed into me like a truck, lifting my feet from the tile. Limbs flailing, I hit the ground hard enough that I nearly bit my tongue off. My tailbone took the brunt of the impact, and the jolt reverberated in every vertebra.
Swearing, I rolled once and came to a stop on my side. The books in my bag jammed into my ribs and spine. I lay there, too stunned to move, facing the hallway.
The air tasted thick and gritty. I couldn’t see a damn thing. A chunk of ceiling crashed down as the structure shuddered ominously. Like it was going to cave any second.
Silence fell, though, filled only by my panting, the distant, still-blaring alarm somewhere in the building’s recesses, and the high-pitched ringing in my ears. In the murky dark, everything was painted in chalky gray, cluttered with drywall pieces and debris.
Nothing moved. No mechanical wolf thing. No Pladian. Nothing.
“Sky?” I called, pushing up onto my elbow.
Smoke shifted, and then…I saw him.
He looked like some kind of avenging angel. Like something otherworldly and dangerous and powerful—which was fitting. It’s exactly what he was. Goosebumps broke out as I slowly sat up, unable to stop from gaping.
He stood over the fallen Enil, breathing hard, his hands at his sides. His shirt was torn across his broad chest, revealing a thin gash beneath, and a fine layer of dust coated his shoulders and tousled hair. But he was standing. Somehow he was still standing.
He swiped the back of his hand over his forehead, shook off dust, and then looked up.
Our eyes met.
Only then did I notice he held something small and metal in his other hand. Orange sparks dripped from it like blood. A piece of the Enil. He’d ripped something out of it. The creature lay in a heap, dark and motionless. The green glow had vanished from its eyes.
He’d done it.
I couldn’t seem to look away. Sky had just taken down an entire alien robot by himself. And he barely seemed ruffled.
I, however, shook like a leaf in a tornado as I pushed to my feet. My knees somehow held. Sky tossed aside the part he held and began to make his way toward me. As he got closer, I realized he was moving slower than normal. Like he was running on empty.
Understandably. It was still impressive that he was still standing—
Another mechanical roar echoed in the distance.
Sky froze. I stiffened, clutching at my middle. Dread iced my veins.
No. No way. There was another one?
Then a second sound, another garbled howl. Distorted and unmistakable.
Oh God—two. Those were two distinct noises. Two Enil.
The cracked floor vibrated beneath my shoes. The air began to hum again, that same, telltale charge skittering over my skin. My hand’s glow intensified.
I felt them before I saw them, but I turned anyway, shuddering.
Past Sky, two sets of green orbs appeared at the far end of the hallway.
“Go!” he yelled, breaking into a sprint.
I was already whirling, darting for the exit into the common area. Hauling ass as fast as possible because there was no freaking way I was sticking around for another round of that—
I’d only made it two steps before something warm and hard slammed into me. I shrieked as strong arms clamped around my waist and yanked me tight against a solid chest. Sky snatched me to him, and we hit the wall.
Just in time.
A searing pink beam sliced through the space where I’d been a second before.
I knew that light. That was the same weapon from the lab. The Enil had just shot at me with that laser beam.
As if robot claws and teeth weren’t enough.
“Run!” Sky shouted, bodily spinning me and giving me a solid push toward the hall. “Go, Raven! I’m right behind you!”
And so I ran.
My shoes slapped tile, but it felt like wading through molasses, like one of those dreams where you couldn’t move fast enough to escape.
The floor lurched, and the ceiling groaned above me. The creak and squeal of mechanical joints cut through my gasping and the distant alarm. The Enil were giving chase.
Meanwhile, my palm glowed like a miniature sun.
I didn’t look back.
The common area loomed ahead. Almost there.
Faster.
I rounded the corner and hurtled into the open space. As soon as I did, I risked it, throwing a glance over my shoulder, checking to make sure Sky was there—
Bad move. My foot caught the leg of a fallen chair. With a cry, I pitched forward and slammed into a table. Pain lanced through my thighs as I hit the edge, and I barely caught myself on my palms.
I cursed, shoved free, and struggled through a tangle of fallen chairs. Too slow. I was moving too slowly.
But I was almost there. The exit was ahead. Sunlight shone through the wall of windows. I was so close, I could make out the trees, buildings, and concrete sidewalk beyond. People. There were people out there, though I could see them scattering as the building gave another mighty quake.
The Enil—this fight—was going to bring the whole thing down. We had to get out of here.
“Rae!”
My name. Sky was shouting it, just like he had that day in the lab. Heart stopping, I stumbled and twisted in time to see it.
His body tumbling from the hall.