FORTY-EIGHT #2
Fletcher reacts first, but he has to turn around Maine. Kaito is blocked by a falling guard. Ewan is at the panel with the radio. Xeon is in the doorway, dropping another soldier before he can raise his weapon.
The leader grabs me by the throat and yanks me against him. A pistol ends up pressed under my jaw and everything stops. Just like that.
Vector guards in the hall freeze.
My pack freezes.
The infected don’t. Beyond the door, Zeds are snarling and groaning, chains scraping against the concrete. Somewhere deeper in the building, a Runner screeches and a man screams even louder.
The leader’s breath brushes hot against my ear. “Enough.”
Fletcher lifts his gun, the barrel pointed at the leader’s face. His hands don’t shake, steady as a wall and just as strong.
The leader digs the pistol harder into my skin. “Drop it.”
Fletcher’s eyes meet mine, blue and furious and waiting.
He’ll shoot if I tell him to.
He’ll lower the gun if I tell him to.
He will stand exactly where I place him.
A shield, not a cage.
I blink once.
Not yet.
Fletcher doesn’t drop the gun but he doesn’t fire it either. Smart man.
The leader’s grip tightens. “You have no idea what she’s worth. None.”
Ewan laughs softly, but nothing about it is funny. “Swear down, if one more greasy little grave-dodger says that, I’m going to start plucking teeth out as payment.”
“Shut up.”
“Hard to do, mate. I’m Welsh.”
“Kneel,” the leader demands, the word barked with an Alpha tone that works on quite literally no one. “All of you. Now.”
No one moves and the leader drags me tighter against him.
My throat burns under his arm and the pistol scrapes my jaw harshly enough that I know it’ll leave a mark. My body trembles with exhaustion, pain, drugs, rage, and the awful pressure of NOVAC just waiting under my skin for its time to shine.
“Do you understand what she could be?” he snaps, spittle flying everywhere. Fucking gross. Say it, don’t spray it, am I right? “Do any of you? Omegas are the future. A cure. A womb. A stabilizing factor. A genetic answer. Humanity does not survive because one girl wants to belong to a pack.”
I wheeze, partly because he is squeezing too hard and partly because I can’t actually believe men like this one keep getting dumber and louder at the same time. It’s honestly baffling to me. It’s a talent. Someone should study it.
“Cargo,” he says near my ear. “Cure. Womb. Asset. Future. Pick a word. They all end the same.”
Something in me goes still. Not NOVAC. Just me this time. The bonds tighten around me in reaction, three points of warmth and wrath that keep me grounded and stable enough that I don’t lose my mind straight away.
Ewan.
Kaito.
Fletcher.
Close and mine because I chose them, not because the world chose for me.
Across the room, Xeon’s eyes lock on mine. There isn’t a bond or thread or chemical miracle between us. It’s just him, and that is more than enough. He gives the smallest nod, not permission but understanding.
He found me without the biology.
He came without needing a tether.
He chose me in all the places instinct couldn’t reach.
My chest aches so badly I almost forget the gun under my jaw. Almost.
The leader shifts his footing badly. His first mistake is assuming the drugs made me harmless. His second mistake is assuming leverage works best when held close. It doesn’t.
I let my body sag just a little and his arm tightens automatically, trying to keep me upright.
So I drop my weight fully, my throat dragging painfully against his forearm.
But the angle changes and the pistol slips half an inch from beneath my jaw, screwing with his little human blackmail attempt.
After all, half an inch is a whole world apart when you’re desperate.
My hand snaps up without speed or grace, but it’s fast and accurate enough to do the job. I grab his wrist with both hands and shove the gun away as it fires. The bullet cracks into the ceiling with a bone-rattling explosion, my ears ringing with the sound of it just as Fletcher fires.
His bullet hits the leader’s shoulder, spinning him away from me.
I drop and Kaito moves.
The leader tries to recover.
Xeon’s stolen gun fires once from the doorway, taking out the guard behind him before the man can interfere. Ewan slams the panel again, and every alarm outside shrieks higher, louder, and uglier.
Maine storms forward with a sound I have never heard from him before. Not a shout or a sob, but a promise lined with rage. He drives the butt of the shotgun into the leader’s knee and the joint breaks sideways. The leader screams as he drops to the floor.
I land on one hand and one knee, pain bursting so bright I nearly vomit. The knife is still in my grip, though. Somehow, wonderfully and horrifyingly and beautifully, it’s still in my hand.
The leader reaches for the fallen pistol so I slam the knife through his hand.
He screams again, a shrill sound that rivals a Runner’s shriek.
I lean over him, breathing hard, hair falling around my face, drugs making the edges of him blur.
Then I rasp, “A bit of advice for you? You should think about not touching things that don’t belong to you. ”
His face twists. “You stupid girl. You think killing me changes what you are?”
“Nope,” I say, my voice shaking with the effort it’s taking me to stay upright. I hate that, but I keep going anyway. “But you know what it does change? You. It changes you.”
He laughs, breathless and haggard and ruined. “I’m necessary for the survival of humanity.”
“You are a wrinkled old man with clean gloves standing in a warehouse full of cages,” I counter.
A Zed slams against the hallway barrier beyond the open door and the metal bows. Another alarm dies, then another. Looks like the building has started chewing on itself now.
Vector’s weapon.
Vector’s walls.
Vector’s dead.
All turning inward.
The leader sees it and, for the first time, real and honest fear finally crosses his face. Then he mutters harshly, “You’re nothing without what’s in your blood.”
I smile. It hurts but seriously, what doesn’t hurt right now?
My knee hurts, my arm hurts, my face hurts.
Hell, even my hair follicles are hurting.
Literally everything hurts, but I try not to show it on my face as I grin down at the bag of bones who thinks he’s so much more than what he is.
An old man in a world that doesn’t need him.
“You know, that’s actually really funny,” I whisper, voice laced with a danger I’m sure is showing in my eyes as I stare down at the man. “I was always something before anyone cared about my blood.”
Kaito appears at my side, blade in hand.
Not taking over. Not moving me aside. Just beside me.
Fletcher covers the hall and Ewan works the radio, voice low and vicious as he sends guards in circles straight toward their own released Runners.
Maine stands behind me, breathing like he is holding himself together by sheer force alone.
Xeon watches the leader, then me. Waiting. All of them are waiting. Not for NOVAC or the bonds, simply waiting for me.
The cold at the edge of my mind offers a clean ending.
Distance.
Pulse.
Threat.
Remove.
I breathe.
No.
Not distance.
Not gone.
Here.
I. Am. Here.
I lift the knife and the leader’s eyes widen.
“You need me alive,” he says, almost like a warning.
“Nah,” I mutter, brushing him off. “I mean, your files might be pretty useful, but you? You’re nothing. And I don’t think there’s a soul left on this earth who’s in need of nothing.”
And I drive the knife down. Not into his heart, though.
I slam that fucker right into the thick flesh of his thigh, blade sinking in deep as it slices through muscle and flesh.
I make sure to stab away from the artery because, unfortunately, I am trying to make strategic choices rather than plainly decorate the floor with his innards.