Chapter 49
CASSIE
The beam of red light hit the Infected nearest Ravik with a sound like thunder and vaporized its head.
The headless body staggered for half a second, then toppled backward off the platform, taking three other Infected with it.
Cassie screamed, but it was more from shock than fear.
Another red beam lanced down from above, striking the ladder, and a cluster of Infected burst apart in a spray of black blood and gray-green limbs.
Ravik grabbed Cassie and shoved her down behind him.
Severin dropped beside her at the same time, throwing one arm over her shoulders as another blast hit the platform rail where an Infected had been climbing. The air filled with the stink of burned flesh and superheated metal.
“What is that?” Cassie shouted.
Severin looked up and pure relief broke across his face.
“The Mother Ship,” he said. “They sent someone for us.”
Cassie looked up too.
At first, all she saw were the bruise-colored clouds and the red flashes cutting through them.
Then something silver emerged from the mist—a sleek Kindred shuttle descending through the filthy sky like a blade of light.
Its hull gleamed despite the gloom—smooth and shining and utterly beautiful.
Red targeting beams swept over the tower, and every time one locked on, another Infected was blasted away.
It was the most gorgeous thing Cassie had ever seen—a beacon of hope—a silver spaceship coming to their rescue.
“Thank you, Goddess,” she breathed.
Ravik looked up too, still holding his shock blade in one hand and Cassie’s shoulder with the other. His face was tight, but for the first time since the fight with Severin, some of the hopelessness had eased from his eyes.
Severin’s long pulse had worked—he had saved them again.
An amplified voice boomed from the shuttle, distorted but clear.
“Survivors, get down! We need to clear the structure before extraction!”
“Down!” Ravik barked.
He and Severin moved at the same time. Ravik threw his body over Cassie from one side, Severin from the other, and between one breath and the next she was pinned beneath two huge Kindred warriors while the sky exploded above them.
Under other circumstances, being pressed between them like that might have triggered one of her humiliating viral responses. But right then all Cassie could think about was the screaming.
The Infected shrieked as the shuttle’s weapons swept the tower, red beams cutting through bodies and metal and mist. The platform shook violently under them as heat washed over her face.
Ravik’s chest pressed hard against her back, Severin’s arm covered her head, and both males held her as though their own bodies could shield her from a world ending around them.
Cassie squeezed her eyes shut and just tried to breathe through it.
For several long seconds, there was nothing but light and noise and the smell of rotting flesh burning.
Then, gradually, the blasts slowed…the shrieking faded…and the platform stopped shaking.
“Survivors, remain down,” the amplified voice ordered. “Extraction beam deploying.”
Cassie opened one eye and dared to look.
The platform around them was a horror show. Blackened bodies lay tangled on the grating and several places in the railing had been blasted clean away. The ladder was gone completely, cut off by the shuttle’s weapons fire, and smoke rose in thin, stinking streams from the metal below.
But the Infected were no longer on the platform.
Below them, the herd had scattered or been reduced to twitching pieces across the ravine floor. Some were still moving, but more red beams swept down and struck them before they could regroup.
Cassie swallowed hard.
“I’m going to have nightmares forever,” she whispered.
“Probably,” Severin said from beside her, still breathing hard.
“Thanks but you’re supposed to say, ‘no you won’t,’ or something comforting like that,” she told him. “Not affirm the fact that I’m going to be seeing freaking lizard-zombies in my dreams for the rest of my natural life.”
“Sorry—it’s hard to be comforting under the circumstances,” he remarked, but one corner of his mouth twitched up.
Ravik shifted off her first, careful despite the urgency.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his deep voice filled with worry.
Cassie shook her head.
“Not more than I was before,” she said, which seemed to be the most honest answer available.
Severin sat up and looked toward the shuttle. A circular blue-white beam was lowering from its underside, shimmering through the smoke. He rose to his knees and waved one arm, then pointed to Cassie.
“Her first!” he shouted.
“Of course me first,” Cassie muttered. “The short human always gets hauled around like luggage.”
Ravik looked at her sharply.
“You are not luggage,” he rumbled.
“I know, big guy. I’m making a joke because I’m freaking terrified. What even is that?” she asked, nodding at the blue-white beam which was so bright she had to squint when she looked at it.
“A transport beam,” Severin answered. “Don’t worry—it won’t harm you. It’s just going to latch onto you and bring you into the ship.”
As he spoke, the beam settled over her and a tingling sensation rushed over her skin. Cassie yelped as her feet lifted off the platform. Oh God—it was exactly like the old sci-fi trope of the person being drawn up into the alien vessel with a bright beam of light!
“Oh! Okay,” she said and her voice came out all thin and high. This… this feels really weird.”
“Don’t struggle,” Severin ordered. “Let the beam take you.”
“I wasn’t planning to fight the alien sky elevator!” she shouted back, clutching the charge baton against her chest even though she had no idea if she was allowed to bring weapons into the rescue ship.
As she rose, she looked down and saw both males below her.
Ravik stood with his shock blade in one hand, broad shoulders covered in black blood, his face turned up toward her.
Severin stood beside him, battered and pale, broken oculars gone, one hand pressed to his side where he must have been hurt during the fighting.
They were bruised, bloody, furious with each other, and still standing together.
Cassie’s heart fisted in her chest. They were alive—both of them.
All three of us, she thought and sent another silent prayer of thanks to the Kindred Goddess. If she hadn’t believed before, she certainly did now. The rescue shuttle had come in the literal nick of time.
The beam drew her into the shuttle’s open hatch and deposited her onto a metal floor with surprising gentleness. Two Kindred warriors in protective gear that covered their heads and faces caught her by the arms and pulled her away from the opening.
“Ma’am, are you injured?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” Cassie said breathlessly. “No. Maybe. Honestly, I have no idea anymore.”
The warrior exchanged a glance with his partner.
Before either of them could ask another question, Severin came up through the beam. He landed on his feet like he did this sort of thing all the time, which maybe he did. The moment he saw Cassie, he came toward her.
Then he stopped.
Not because he wanted to, she thought—because a third warrior stepped between them and raised a scanner.
“Stand apart,” the warrior ordered. “Possible biological contamination detected.”
Severin’s expression went cold at once.
“She is infected but stable,” he said. “I need to stay near her. I need to give her the cure. Didn’t you get any of the information I sent?”
The warrior’s posture shifted slightly.
“We have containment orders. I can’t go against contamination protocol.”
Ravik came up through the beam next and landed with a growl, his shock blade still in hand. Every weapon in the shuttle immediately pointed at him.
“Drop the blade!” someone barked.
Ravik glared at them, obviously ready to argue.
“Ravik,” Cassie said quickly. “Please—drop it.”
His jaw clenched, but he dropped the blade—it clanged loudly on the shuttle floor.
The hatch sealed a second later, cutting off the sight of the tower, the mist, and the scattered Infected below. For one breathless second, Cassie thought they were safe.
Then a cool mechanical voice filled the cabin.
“Biological contamination detected. Quarantine lockdown initiated.”
Red lights flashed overhead and a transparent containment barrier snapped down between Cassie and the two males. It was like a smooth, elongated glass dome and she immediately felt claustrophobic.
“What? No!” She lunged toward the barrier and hit it with both palms. It was solid, warm, and faintly humming. “Wait—my guys need to stay with me! Please, don’t separate us!” she begged.
“Cassandra,” Severin said quickly from the other side. “It’s going to be okay—don’t panic.”
“Too late,” she snapped, pressing one hand against the clear dome wall. “I am very much already panicking.”
Ravik moved toward the barrier too, but two armored Kindred stepped in front of him.
“Stand down,” one ordered.
Ravik bared his teeth in a silent snarl.
“Move.”
“Ravik, don’t,” Severin said. “They’re only trying to help us.”
“They’re frightening her! Frightening our—”
He stopped abruptly and Cassie wondered what he had almost said. For a moment she was afraid he might say something awful—might reopen the fight right there in the middle of the shuttle while rescue warriors and red quarantine lights surrounded them.
But he didn’t. He only looked back at Cassie through the barrier and then he lifted his hand and pressed it to the clear wall containing her.
“I’m here, baby,” he said. “Not gonna let them hurt you—I swear it.”
Something in Cassie’s chest loosened a little.
Severin stepped up beside him, though he kept careful distance from Ravik now. His pale blue eyes held hers through the barrier, bruised and tired and full of things he wasn’t saying. He put a hand on the clear wall too.
“We’ll get this sorted out,” he told her. “We won’t be separated from each other for long.”
Cassie wanted desperately to believe him.
“I hope you’re right,” she said and her voice came out small and uncertain, which wasn’t good. Also, for once in her life, she couldn’t think of anything sarcastic or snarky to say.
The shuttle lurched as it lifted away from Visslick Prime, and the force of it made her knees wobble.
She was watching Ravik and Severin on the other side of the containment barrier—the two males who had fought each other, saved each other, pleasured her, protected her, and now stood separated from her by a clear quarantine wall.
And now she couldn’t reach either of them—couldn’t touch either of them when all she wanted was to be held between them and wrapped in their arms.
Well, at least they were off Visslick Prime and they were alive, she remined herself.
But as Ravik dropped his hand from the barrier and turned his face away from Severin, Cassie knew the worst of the danger wasn’t over.
It had only changed shape.