Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“Help us!” Sissy slammed into the gates, arm reaching through the bars toward me.
I grabbed her hand. “Open it, Jamie, open the damn gates!”
“The mechanism is locked.” His cry was almost lost over the cacophony of horror on the other side of the gate.
Sissy sobbed, pressing her body to the bars.
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” The lie was bitter and sharp on my tongue because this was not okay.
The monsters had somehow breached our walls.
I gripped Sissy’s hand, trying not to watch the horror unfolding behind her, and focused on Jamie at the gate station. He was fiddling with the control panel, but if the generator that provided power to the gate house was down, then there was no opening the gates.
“All guard personnel move away from the gates,” my father’s voice boomed over the speakers. “The threat will be contained.”
What? What was he saying?
Wait, were the bars vibrating? My gaze flicked over Sissy’s head to see a ripper skittering toward us. I yanked her toward me with a bellow, as if I could somehow pull her through the bars to safety.
She pressed herself to the metal, her gaze locked with mine, dark with the knowledge that she was going to die.
“It’s okay.” I pushed the words past the lump in my throat. “I’m here. I’m here with you.”
The ripper rushed toward us, and a scream locked in my throat, rage and grief ready to be vented.
The gates lit up with runes, sending a blast of energy outward. The ripper screamed, twisting away from the blast of power, and landed on another civi whose screams were cut off quickly as the monster devoured him.
The gate was repelling the monsters. Not at the kind of radius the wall had, but it was something.
It was a safe spot.
“Get to the gate!” Javier yelled at the civilians, having come to the same realization as me. “Everyone, get to the gates!”
I squeezed Sissy’s hand. “Do not move. You’re safe here.”
She nodded, bloodless lips pressed tightly together, eyes heavy with tears.
I ran along the gate, calling out to the civies still alive. “Get to the gate. Come on!”
I caught sight of Bastian running into the gate house with a set of huge bolt cutters. Jamie ducked out as several sweepers ran up to meet him. Someone handed him a sword.
The blade glowed when it made contact with his hand, and the tattoos on his body lit up silver through his shirt.
He looked over at me and our gazes locked for a moment. He was going in. But how, the gate was—
Something clanged, and then a sharp snapping sound filled the air, followed by the clatter of a chain.
The gates slid open.
Shit! Bastian must have cut the chain loose from the release mechanism.
Several civies pushed through the growing gap, falling into the barracks quad. The gates stopped moving, leaving enough room for people to get through, but rippers were blocking the civies’ path, almost as if they were herding them away from safety.
Four, no, five rippers.
So many dead people.
Don’t look at the dead people.
“Rue!” Sissy threw herself into my arms and I hugged her to me, my attention on the sweepers as they barreled into the civi quad, blades swinging and leaving trails of light in the night air.
The rippers screamed as the celestial blades cut into their flesh. Tendrils of smoke rose from the wounds inflicted. Jamie and Bastian fought back-to-back like a well-oiled machine, attacking as one entity.
I’d heard about Bastian’s skill in the field, but this was my first time seeing him in action. He moved fast for such a muscular guy, at one with his weapon, confident in every strike.
The rippers fought back, spitting toxins that the sweepers dodged expertly.
“They’ve got this,” Javier said wistfully from beside me. “Fuck it, I wish I wasn’t on sabbatical.”
He didn’t have access to a blade while on leave. He couldn’t help, and I could tell from his expression, from the way his hands were fisted at his sides, how it was affecting him.
I touched his arm lightly. “They’ve got this. The gate will keep us safe on this side of the base.” More people ran through the gap in the gate, sobbing, screaming, and spattered with blood that wasn’t necessarily their own. “Take a head count. Get them to the radio tower.”
Javier nodded and began rounding up the survivors.
Sissy clung to me, but I extricated myself. “Go with Javier. I have to find my dad.”
With a final glance at the battling sweepers, I turned and ran toward the control tower.
I made it to the tower doors just as my dad ran out followed by several senior guards.
“Rue!” He pulled me into a hug, chest heaving with restrained sobs. “Thank God. Thank God you’re okay.”
I pulled away. “What’s happening? How did they get in?”
“The quake fractured the wall and disrupted the pattern of runes that keep us safe. The gates are only a temporary fix; the resonance isn’t strong enough to protect the base and the fractures in the wall are too many.
The denizens who made it in were the ones closest to base, but more will come. We evacuate now!”
“General Keller, we need to leave now.”
My father nodded. “Rue, come with me. We’re taking the chopper.”
The chopper was an emergency transport outfitted to carry essential personnel only, the senior officials and high-ups on the guard, most of whom had held positions on the old land army before the monsters came. There was limited fuel for a one-way trip to our evacuation point.
“I’m not essential personnel.”
“We can make an exception,” Lieutenant General Peters said.
“The sweeper leaders know the protocol,” my dad added. “They’ll get as many civies into ground vehicles as they can and meet us at base sixteen.”
“Good, then I’ll travel with them.” I backed away from him. “I’m a scout, I know the terrain better than anyone. I can help.”
“Rue, no!” He made a grab for me and there was no disguising the terror in his eyes because…because he didn’t expect the others to make it.
Oh, God.
“Rue, you have to come with me,” he ordered.
I shook my head. “I can’t. I won’t leave them to die.”
“General, we have to go,” my father’s second urged.
My dad closed his eyes and exhaled. “I’m staying with my daughter. Peters, you’re in charge now.”
I stared at him in shock. “What? No, you have to go.”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m not leaving you.”
Behind me the screams of the rippers had died down, and all the gut-rending sobs of people who’d lost loved ones filled the air.
“Go!” My dad shrugged off his blazer and handed it to Peters. “Get to base sixteen and tell them to expect us.”
“Dad, what are you—”
But he was already jogging toward the civi gates.
I followed.
Sweepers poured into the barracks quad that was now filled with civies.
“Get the civies onto the evacuation buses now,” my dad shouted.
Sweepers began herding people across the quad. I caught a glimpse of Jamie’s bloody face in the crowd.
“Get to the bus.” Bastian appeared by my side, his hand on my back, steering me. “Go.”
I looked up into his stern face speckled with blood, painting a picture of the horror he’d just experienced. “How many did we lose?”
“Too many.”
“Rue, come on.” My dad grabbed my hand, tugging me toward the barracks garages where scouts were loading people onto the brightly lit buses.
Finley, another scout team leader, hurried over to us and handed us each a firearm. Our escape if cornered by a monster. Mercy.
I tucked mine into the back of my jeans.
The first bus was almost loaded, each able to carry around thirty people. Sweepers made a perimeter, backs to the garage, watching the base for more threats.
I watched with them, scanning the top of the moonlit wall. How long before the denizens realized the hum that had kept them away was gone?
The fuckers moved fast.
We had minutes, if that.
“Three o’ clock!” someone yelled.
“Twelve.”
“Ten.”
The top of the wall on the barracks side heaved and then rippers scuttled down into the base.
The sweepers surged forward to attack.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention a moment before a barrage of rippers leapt off the garage building, over our heads, and into the quad, landing on the people still waiting to board.
Screams rent the air.
I ran forward, cupping my mouth and screaming at the sweepers. “Watch your six!”
“They’re coming from behind the garages!” Dad shouted. “Get onto the bus, Rue, dammit!”
He grabbed my arm, hauling me away from danger, and as much as I wanted to resist, there was nothing I could do to help the sweepers, not without a celestial blade.
I allowed him to propel me toward the bus, the image of limbs being torn from bodies seared into my mind.
Behind us the rippers tore through the crowd. Too many for the sweepers to take down.
We clambered onto the bus and the doors closed.
“Hold on!” Javier ordered from the driver’s seat.
I had enough time to grab a pole before the bus lurched into motion.
“The main gates!” Dad shouted. “I have to get to the main gates to open them.”
He slammed his palm onto the door release, intent on jumping out. I shoved him out of the way and leapt out in his place, then hit the ground, rolled to my feet, and sprinted for the gates.
Rippers attacked left and right, talon-tipped legs stabbing and jabbing at whatever human was in their path. There was no helping these people, but I could save the people on the bus. I could save my father.
I ran, weaving between the monsters’ bodies, skidded beneath a hairy torso, scrambled to my feet, and sprinted for the main doors.
The release was in the guard booth to the left. I ducked inside, scanning the controls. Fuck, fuck, which one?
A large hand slammed down on a huge green button and another arm shot out to my left to pull a lever.
Bastian and Jamie.
“Guys…” Relief stole my words.
The rumble of the main doors shook the base and the bus roared toward them.
“Now!” Bastian tugged me out of the booth. “Run!”
We sprinted out of the gates after the blazing bus. It slowed, doors swinging open for us to leap onboard.
I made it on first, followed by Jamie, then Bastian. The doors closed and we fell into the nearest seats, chests heaving.
The base was gone.
And the ragtag group of survivors on the bus was all that was left of our home.