Chapter 21 - Bella
BELLA
The beacon turns into reality—a wide evac pad scarred with burn marks, barely holding its shape against the jagged cliff.
The pulse of light overhead sharpens into a gunship, its spotlights slicing through smoke like knives.
My throat tears as I scream into the comm still clipped to my vest, blood drying sticky against my collar.
“Friendlies on approach! Hold fire, goddammit—friendlies!”
The lights stutter, hesitate. Then the ship dips, nose angling. A hand waves from the cockpit glass, a silhouette signaling us forward.
Kage doesn’t slow. His grip on me tightens as he barrels across the ash and rubble, every step rattling my ribs. I can hear his breath, ragged but steady, vibrating through his chest. The gunship’s ramp clunks open, light spilling across the pad like salvation.
We’re almost there.
And then the ridge opposite us collapses.
Stone fractures with a scream. A shape pours out like liquid metal finding its body—shattered drones lashed into a serpentine nightmare, scaffolds snapping into place with each movement. Nulegion crashes onto the pad with a howl that makes my teeth ache, its red sensors flaring like coals.
“Shit!” I scream, pointing. “Open fire!”
The gunship obeys, autocannons spitting hot metal.
The smell of ozone and burning lubricant fills the air as shells rip chunks from Nulegion’s body.
But the thing doesn’t stop. It laughs, sound warping, almost human.
Then the nanites leap—like tendrils of liquid lightning, lashing up, wrapping around the hull.
The gunship jerks midair, groaning. Sparks rain from its engines. The rotors scream as the tendrils pull it down, screeching against the pad’s steel.
My stomach drops. “We’re not getting on that.”
Kage sees it too. His body slams against mine, dragging me back behind a buckled section of wall. His scales scrape stone, silver patterns flashing as he shields me again. His voice is low, guttural. “Stay behind me.”
The air changes.
Nulegion shifts, its bulk rippling, streamlining. Less monster now. More weapon. Its body slims into blades, spines gleaming wet in the gunship’s firelight. Its red eyes swivel and lock. On me.
It’s not here for him. It’s here for me.
My hands fumble for my pistol. My breath is shallow, lungs scraping. “Come on, you bastard—”
I fire. Bolts spark off silver hide, useless.
Then the nanites lash out, faster than I can move.
They wrap my left arm, slithering cold and burning hot all at once.
Like acid poured straight into my veins.
I scream, thrashing, but the silver climbs—vines wrapping tight, crawling under my skin.
I feel them sliding inside me, into bone, into marrow.
“Kage!” My voice shatters. “It’s in me!”
He roars, claws hacking, tail whipping. Shards of silver fly, but for every tendril he severs, more burrow deeper. My hand locks against my will, twitching. My bones burn like firecrackers.
Panic claws my throat. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Only feel it. Crawling. Claiming.
“I can’t let it take me,” I gasp, the words raw. My pistol is still in my right hand, shaking so bad I can barely hold it. “Kage—I’m sorry.”
His silver eyes snap to mine, wild, desperate. “No. No!” His claws rip harder, but it’s too late.
I lift the pistol, press it hard against my shoulder, just above the joint. My breath hitches once.
I pull the trigger.
The world detonates.
The explosion of pain is blinding, white-hot, every nerve screaming fire. For a second, I don’t even know if I still exist. Then the shock rolls through me—blood spraying, nerves torn raw, bone cracking. My arm is gone. Just gone.
The nanites shriek, the vines flailing wild, the connection severed. Silver splashes the dirt like mercury, writhing before collapsing into slag.
I sag forward, vision tunneling, black at the edges.
Kage’s roar splits the sky. He grabs me, lifting me like I weigh nothing, his claws slick with my blood. His face is pure fury, grief tearing out of him like a storm. “No—no, stay with me, stay—”
I choke a laugh, wet and bitter. “Bossy bastard…”
He stumbles forward, dragging us toward the wreck of the gunship, its hull half-pinned under Nulegion’s broken tendrils. Smoke pours from the engines, but one escape pod gleams red in the firelight.
The ground groans. The hillside is caving in, the pad shattering under the weight of the fight.
Kage hauls me higher against his chest, his frills slick with my blood. His voice is a promise and a plea. “I’ve got you. I’m not leaving you.”
I twist weakly in his arms, kick at the pod’s control panel with my boot. My blood smears across the steel.
“No,” I rasp. “You go.”
His silver eyes blaze. “What?”
“Get your parents.” My throat burns with every word. “GO!”
He snarls, shaking his head. “Not without you.”
I slam my hand against the pod’s launch lever, the metal slick and sticky under my palm. The hatch slams shut on his stunned face, his claws pounding against the glass.
“Go,” I whisper, though he can’t hear it now.
The pod ejects, engines flaring, shooting out into the dark. His face is the last thing I see—shocked, furious, broken.
Then the ground tilts. My knees buckle. My blood runs hot down my ribs. The hillside splits open under me.
And the darkness swallows me whole.