Chapter 17
Saint is somewhere below me, sprinting through the factory with a nerd who looks like he’s about to piss himself. A real catch. Meanwhile I’m up here dragging Skippy’s corpse-on-wheels through a battlefield.
Helpful.
So helpful.
The factory layout is a goddamn maze—machines, conveyor belts, metal railings, blind corners. I get funneled up a ramp and onto a set of catwalks high over the factory floor, the stroller rattling like it’s trying to shake itself apart.
Gunfire cracks behind me.
Perfect.
They’re coming from everywhere.
And Skippy is… well… Skippy.
“We’re going this way,” I mutter to him like he’s capable of caring, swerving left along a narrow catwalk.
The frame wobbles. One wheel locks. Another squeals. The whole stroller shimmies like it’s seconds from spontaneous combustion.
“Hold it together,” I hiss. “We’re almost—”
A shot hits the railing behind me, sparks spitting. I duck, push forward, but something catches—the stroller jerks sideways, tips, and Skippy’s body slumps halfway over the railing.
“Shit.”
I drop my rifle to one hand and lunge.
I catch him by the wrist. Barely. A swollen, waterlogged, unholy wrist that feels like it’s made of gelatinous doom.
He dangles there.
Dead weight.
Literally.
The skin around his elbow begins to stretch.
Then tear.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!”
Another attacker barrels toward me on the catwalk. I kick him square in the chest, send him smashing into a rail pillar. My gun fires once—center mass—but I can’t spare a second to watch him fall.
I’m holding Skippy.
I’m fighting.
I’m slipping.
And Skippy’s goddamn arm is coming apart.
“SAINT!” I bellow. “A little help! Preferably now!”
The fight below stutters—the chaos freezing for a split second—as everyone looks up.
Saint spots me.
Eyes widen in absolute horror.
Because Skippy…
lets go.
Or more accurately—
his arm detaches at the elbow. His body drops like a sandbag straight into a massive open tank of meat chunks on the factory floor.
There’s a bone-rattling splash.
A ripple of silence.
Then—
BZZZT
A factory buzzer blares.
The grinder kicks on.
The tank churns.
The blades spin.
Skippy’s body is dragged under, sucked into the machinery like a sacrifice to the gods of processed sausages.
We watch—
all of us, enemies, and allies and Nerdy McNerdykins—
as the tank grinds him into a bubbling pink slurry.
Shoes.
Suit.
Rotting flesh.
Bits of swollen anatomy I refuse to identify.
And—just to make this the worst possible reality—Saint’s sunglasses go in too.
The mix funnels down a chute and slides through a quality-inspection scanner.
A cheerful ping sounds.
A green light flashes as a sign lights up:
PASSED.
I look down at Saint.
She looks up at me.
Shared disgust.
Shared trauma.
Shared what-the-actual-fuck.
We don’t even get a chance to breathe.
Because the world snaps back into motion—
attackers screaming, weapons firing—
and the fight explodes into full throttle all over again.
All I’ve got left in my hand is Skippy’s forearm—fat, swollen, hand still attached.
Perfect.
It’s the one with the chip, too. Maybe Chicago’s shadiest gremlin can salvage something before everything goes straight to hell.
An attacker charges me, screaming like he’s the main character.
I don’t have patience for main characters.
I swing Skippy’s disembodied arm and bitch slap him across the face. Hard.
Something wet and disturbingly chunky splatters onto him, but I absolutely do not investigate.
He recoils, gagging. I pull my knife, and drive the blade straight into his skull. His eyes cross like a broken cartoon before he topples off the catwalk.
I don’t watch him fall because two more men and a woman rush me next, thinking numbers will help.
They won’t.
I grab Skippy’s empty stroller by the twisted frame, spin once, and hurl it with everything I’ve got.
It becomes a projectile.
A metal rocket of Walmart engineering.
It slams into all three of them. One man flies backward over the railing—
—straight into a conveyor belt lined with chopping blades.
The machine doesn’t even break rhythm. Knife-like teeth shred through whatever hits them, including the guy who made the mistake of fighting me today.
I don’t slow.
Saint is somewhere ahead, yelling and firing shots like the battlefield owes her rent. She takes on one hand-to-hand before pulling her blade and jabbing lightning fast into his throat. I run full sprint toward her.
“We need to go!” I shout.
“I KNOW THAT!” she screams back.
I reach her just in time to see a shooter raise their weapon and instinct takes over.
I grab Saint, yank her into my chest, and pivot so my back faces the threat.
The shot cracks.
White-hot pain rips through my shoulder, burning deep, dropping fire along my nerves. I grit my teeth and refuse to let go.
Saint looks up at me from the circle of my arms.
Her green eyes are wide—bright, furious, alive with the adrenaline of battle. Her breath comes fast against my throat. Sweat beads on her brow. She’s still gripping her gun, ready to kill the next idiot who tries us.
“Thanks,” she breathes.
My gaze drops to her mouth.
She licks her lips.
And my stomach does something irritating and warm.
I force myself to meet her eyes again. “Anytime.”
Her chest rises and falls against mine.
The gunfire around us fades for half a second before we both come to our senses.
“Now… can we get the fuck out of here?” I mutter, gripping my shoulder with my good hand. “Before anything else leaks, pops, or tries to kill us.”
Saint clocks the severed arm in my hand and grimaces, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.
We crouch beside her newest recruit—the trembling factory worker. He nods at me like we’re old comrades in war.
“I’m Mark,” he squeaks, holding out a hand.
“Alejandro,” I reply—and hand him Skippy’s detached limb, palm-first.
He shakes it before he realizes what he’s holding.
The sound he makes is… not flattering.
I grab a clear plastic bag off the floor, shake the dust from it, and hold it open. “Put it in here.”
Mark drops the arm inside like it’s radioactive. Saint joins as I tie the bag tight, cinching the knot hard.
“I just need one clear shot once we get outside,” she announces, adjusting the last component on her improvised launcher.
“What the fuck do you need that for?”
“Tex is here,” she snaps. “The hemorrhoid of the Guild.”
“You haven’t killed him yet?”
“Rule number one. No kill without contract.”
“Such a rule follower,” I mutter. “And look where that got you.”
She ignores me and turns to the factory worker.
“Kevin—”
Mark blinks. I blink.
Who the fuck is Kevin?
She doesn’t break stride. “When I say the word—”
“It’s Mark.” I correct her and at the same time Mark says, “It’s Mark.”
Saint actually gets pissed like we’re the ones that are wrong. “It’s whatever the fuck I say it is. When I say the word, I want you to run as fast as your little legs can go and get the fuck out of here.”
Mark nods furiously. “Okay. Which way—”
“Go!”
He bolts, scrambling between machinery, his terrified scurrying echoing behind us. Hopefully he makes it out. And not in the form of a hot dog.
Rest in peace, Skippy.
Saint and I move together, fluid and synced, sprinting toward the loading-bay exit. We’re ten feet from the doors when they explode inward and five attackers’ storm in, guns raised.
I fire first—drop one clean and hear the dreaded hollow click of an empty magazine.
Saint steps up beside me.
She lifts her absurd, stainless-steel, OSHA-violating rocket launcher to her shoulder, sights down the length of the tube, and says—
“I’m about tired of these fuckers.”
Then she pulls the trigger.