Chapter 67
KALI
His fist flew toward my chin—
I crouched down, catching a pole for balance as my foot connected with Arlo’s ankle. Zion and Eli had drilled one rule into my head: to always aim for the weakest parts of a human body. Or in other words, the joints.
A pained grunt slipped past Arlo’s teeth as he staggered back, reaching for one of the plastic seats to avoid sprawling out on his ass.
Utilizing his shock as an opportunity, I slammed my heel into his ankle again, but he was too far, and I only grazed his limb.
But it was enough for him to hiss.
Yes.
Between curses, he gritted out, “How do you know about the sickness?”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid, Arlo.” I stood back up, the hollow metal rod slippery from the clamminess coating my palms. “You didn’t block all the entrance and exit points in the catacombs. Our people got through.”
Sure, maybe not as many as we’d planned, but Eli and Eislyn had obviously managed to sneak in, find our contact who worked in the water plant, and poison the military’s water supply.
“Fucking rats.” Arlo tried to put his weight on the injured ankle—
It gave out, and his face contorted. “Like the rodents you are, you belong below our feet,” he spat out. Grabbing a random seat’s backrest for support, he launched at me.
But his attempt to tackle me failed as I twisted aside, using his body’s momentum to shove him forward.
He collapsed on all fours, and without a second thought, I struck his back with my elbow. My bones smashed into his vertebrae—
The nerve running through my elbow exploded.
Tears sprang to my eyes as agony mixed with numbness climbed up my arm, my fingers tingling, pricked by a thousand needles.
Pushing past the throbbing ache, I didn’t give Arlo a chance to get up. I stomped on his lower back, earning a gasp as he flattened on the floor, his limbs unable to hold him up and provide defense simultaneously.
I wanted to use the knife he’d murdered Tarri with to carve her name into his back, turn him into a tombstone, an altar for her, build the foundation for her temple out of his skeleton but, unfortunately, time wasn’t on my side.
So I straddled him. Repulsive heat emanated from his body pinned underneath mine, and it took me a moment to compose myself enough to stay put and not scramble away.
I didn’t want him touching me anywhere.
“Heed my promise, Arlo.” The metal floor abraded my knees as I gripped the edge of his helmet and yanked his head back. “You will become food for worms.”
My knife cut through his throat like butter. Warmth sprayed my fingers, colored my blade, dripped to the floor to join the rapidly enlarging puddle of crimson.
Releasing his head, I sneered, “Say hello to your masters for me.” The appendage struck the pool of his blood, the splash of scarlet coating the seats, immortalizing the end of his life in a painting.
He grew motionless, his death equal to what he’d graced Tarri with.
Returning my knife to its sheath on my bicep, I wiped the sweat off my hairline. Or, more like, diluted it with Arlo’s blood coating my hands and smeared the blend all over my skin.
But if the universe wished for me to wear my kills, I’d gladly do it.
Kicking Arlo’s body one last time for good measure, I savored the crunch of his ribs.
If only I’d had the time… I would’ve brought Gedeon here, asked him to extract Arlo’s bones, and then used the jagged ends to stab every single joint the man had.
But war didn’t wait for you. It kept going on.
Like the noise outside: the clatter of a weapon as someone disarmed their opponent, the muffled thunder of a bullet leaving the chamber, the ring as it struck a vehicle, a scream, a grunt, the cycle a closed loop, no beginning or an end, a continuation without a break.
I hopped out of the bus, now a silver shrine for Tarri and a catacomb-above-the-ground for Arlo.
As I landed on the asphalt, a whiff of iron knocked into me, the cloying stench of death penetrating the sourness of sweat and mold creeping up the walls of endless apartment buildings, all a copy of each other, the streets full of them serving as a labyrinth without a path out.
Across the road, the doors to a nutritional bar shop dangled on broken hinges, and a poster from my nightmares hung on a cracked window, the paper glued from the inside of the store.
The spiderweb of fractures weaving through the glass distorted the picture, but I’d been subjected to the broadcasted speeches and announcements enough times to recognize the man leading our city.
No. Not our city.
Mine had become Gedeon’s compound and the freedom it stood for.
Ignoring the mayhem ruling in the street, I strode toward the shop boasting the image of our enemy.
A bullet zipped past my ear, so close, the heat burned the shell, but I pushed on.
A wounded soldier grinned at me, a river of red streaming down his chin, but I snapped his neck.
Bodies littered the asphalt, mangled and mutilated, but I jumped over their crooked limbs as if they were tree roots.
As a string of lead cylinders rushed past me, the nutritional bar shop’s door shattered. The wood fragments flew in all directions—a shower of needles. The sharpest of them sliced my exposed neck, and a scorching liquid dribbled down to my collarbone.
Shouts, yells, and bellows followed me as I made my way to the window possessing a poster of the Head of Ilasall, the man not many knew as Peter—the self-made god who’d embedded himself into the top of the government, as immovable as a rock.
As I traced the features of the person who dictated your worth in the city, the spiderweb in the glass carved my fingertip.
Peter didn’t merely determine whether you held value or not based on the state of your genitalia, but controlled everything, from the size of your apartment and how many cockroaches it came with to how quickly you could get assistance at a hospital. It all depended on the color of your wristband.
The poster’s maroon background emphasized his jaw, so stony it reminded me of Gedeon clenching his whenever Zion and I would shred his patience.
But even then, with Gedeon, I’d always felt safe, while the thin set of Peter’s lips, his wavy blond hair slicked back, and his pale complexion coaxed a shiver to skate down my spine.
The posters hung in half the places in the city: grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, offices, apartments. Dressed in a white button-up shirt, his shoulders set back, his chest puffed out in an overt display of power, Ilasall’s leader looked at you from above wherever you went.
His deep brown eyes would track you even to the bathroom sometimes. Nothing could compare to taking a shit while staring at the boss responsible for deciding how many layers your toilet paper had.
Not a sparkle of sunshine blessed the image of the Head of Ilasall—a drab sky loomed above the widespread destruction running rampant in the streets.
But if I had that invisible leash Arlo had mentioned, something, someone tugged, and I complied, stepping away from the poster, my attention snagging on the highest structure in the city.
Forged purely out of glass, the Spire twisted around itself and narrowed at the top, like a spear set on puncturing the heavy clouds obscuring the sun.
The place where our government, the Heads of the six divisions and the city resided, their offices and homes situated in the one dwelling that towered over the neighborhoods like a throne.
Brushing aside the cries for help, I sprinted toward my target.
I knew if I hesitated, if I stopped to help, if I looked at the tear-streaked faces, I wouldn’t be able to continue.
Gedeon had told me repeatedly that war would test a person, would scar them inside out, tear them at the seams, but I hadn’t listened.
Now my seams creaked, about to burst, but I shoved everything down, so deep into the abyss of my emotions that they vanished. Dissipated like wisps of smoke and cold breath.
The wails descended on me like a veil of death, but serenity took the front seat in my mind. As I ran to the Spire, faster and faster, a laugh bubbled out of me.
Finally, finally, I was going to have the head of the man reigning over Ilasall in my palm.