Feral Empires: First Spark

by Stephen L. Hadley

  “Fuck you,” Liam said.

  And then, the pistol exploded.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Liam knew that he was dying. Even with the pain in its muted state, what remained was sufficient to leave him fading in and out of consciousness.

  Fortunately, Nora’s explosion hadn’t knocked him far. He managed to open his eyes and was rewarded for his efforts by the sight of Zhao. The woman lay opposite him, shuddering as her eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. One of her legs was simply gone, the other in tatters.

  He glanced down and, unsurprisingly, found that his own had suffered a similar fate. Worse, really. In addition to a pair of stumps where his knees had been, there were nauseating burns that stretched up to his ribs.

  Breathing out a sigh, Liam settled back and closed his eyes. There’d be no running now.

  Liam!

  He didn’t hear the word. His ears didn’t seem to be working, presently. But somehow, he knew that it had been said, nevertheless. Cracking open one eye, he saw Jenn rushing toward him.

  Somehow, even knowing his own death was approaching, Liam had time enough to grieve her wounds. In addition to a dozen scrapes covering the rest of her, Jenn’s face had borne the worst. One of Wuyong’s claws had obviously caught her, and there were great gouges torn from temple to chin. That side of her cheek was bathed in blood and its eye was closed tight.

  Wordlessly, Liam waved her over. It was only then that he realized he’d also lost several fingers from his hand. Frowning, he didn’t pause to consider it. He fumbled awkwardly with his abdomen, scooping up blood on his remaining fingers and reaching for her wounded brow.

  Jenn caught his wrist, shaking her head violently. She said something he couldn’t hear.

  Irritated, Liam pulled free of her grasp and resumed his work. He’d only managed to dab at the topmost portion of one of Jenn’s wounds when she shrugged away and grasped his and again.

  Suddenly furious, Liam thrashed free, again. Didn’t she understand he was beyond recovering? He had no idea if his enhancement would work after his death and he wanted—needed—to accomplish as much healing as he could before that happened. If Jenn didn’t want it, he’d turn his attention elsewhere.

  “Kathryn,” he murmured, uncertain if he’d actually spoken.

  Liam found that he couldn’t lift his head and so lolled it from side to side, searching for the girl. There was no sight of her. Perhaps he’d been thrown further than he thought, or perhaps he was simply too disoriented to recognize her.

  Instead, he managed to spot Nora. She was kneeling amid the hostages, pulling off gags and blindfolds.

  Well, at least they’d accomplished something. Liam was too tired to feel pride in the work, but trusted Jenn would do it for him. Right now, he just wanted to close his eyes. Sleep would be nice. He’d earned it, after all.

  ***

  When Liam awoke, he knew he was dead. Or, rather, that he would be soon.

  Someone had forgotten to notify his heart, though. It raced as he sat up and took in his surroundings He was alone, naked, and staring up at the all-too-familiar concrete walls of an Institute cell. Only the bed beneath him was new.

  And the window.

  Liam lunged for it, only to discover his legs no longer worked. Or, more precisely, they weren’t there. The stumps had healed, though, as had the burns that had marred his side. Ordinarily, he would have been grateful. Under the circumstances, he cursed the fact that they had healed at all.

  Better to have died than wound up back here.

  Liam scooted for the window, noting along the way that his missing fingers had regrown. Their flesh was still tender and pink. They managed to hold his weight anyway as he hauled himself up onto the narrow windowsill.

  The sight visible through the window was less encouraging. It was morning, but several buildings were still ablaze. There were uniformed Occs stationed in the sole guard tower he could see. And, perhaps most troubling of all, he was on the third floor.

  As much as Liam wanted to simply throw himself out the window, he knew it would be a terrible idea. He’d somehow survived being blown up, so the odds of a broken neck doing him in seemed long. Still, better long odds than none at all. If he stayed here, he’d have nothing but a fate worse than death awaiting him.

  Hopefully, Jenn had managed to avoid such a thing. Presumably, she’d mistaken his unconsciousness for death and had fled with Nora.

  Liam just hoped they’d had enough time to heal Kathryn, too.

  Taking a deep breath, Liam drew back and slammed his fist against the glass. It cracked, along with several of his fingers. Mouthing a stream of curses, he clutched his wrist and waited for them to heal before trying again.

  Then, even that luxury was taken from him. Shouts erupted beyond the door, followed soon after by the sound of someone fiddling with the locks.

  Fueled by adrenaline, Liam slammed his elbow against the glass and grinned as it shattered appropriately. Knocking the last shards free of the frame, he doubled over and prepared to squeeze through.

  “Who the hell decided to lock it? Idiots! Liam!”

  The sound of the voice, muffled though it was, gave him pause. Liam frowned, maneuvering until he could pass through the window at a moment’s notice. Then he waited. Again, came the fiddling of the locks. Then the door swung open.

  Liam almost didn’t recognize him. Clean shaven and wearing a uniform, Scott looked like a different person. In fact, until the man spoke, a part of Liam couldn’t quite believe it wasn’t all a ruse.

  “What the hell you do that for?” Scott asked, glancing at the shattered window.

  Liam was so shocked he nearly fell through anyway. A million thoughts poured through his mind: answers, questions, and accusations. In the end, he merely shrugged.

  “It was too hot,” he said. “I wanted a breeze.”

  Scott grinned, broadly enough it made him squint.

  “Of course you did,” he said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “Sure you didn’t just want to flash your ass at my men?”

  “Your men?”

  “What, you thought they were Occs?” Scott moved to join him at the window, then frowned. “Damn, I guess they do look like it. Sorry. I’ll tell the bastards to quit slouching.”

  “They’re not… you’re… What is going on?” Liam demanded, as his thoughts threatened to overwhelm him.

  Scott chuckled, then gestured back toward the bed. “I’ll explain,” he said. “We should probably get you back in bed, though.”

  “I’m fine. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’re not fine,” Scott growled, a hint of his usual gruffness returning. “You got your damn legs blown off and I don’t feel like staring at your balls while we talk.”

  That was a fair point. Liam thought about pressing the issue, but decided he cared more about getting answers than whatever small entertainment needling Scott might provide. He climbed down from the window, relying more on his arms than the stumps of his legs, and similarly managed to haul himself back into bed. Once there, he made a show of arranging the blankets to cover his lower half and folded his arms.

  “Better,” Scott said. “Might be the only advice of mine you’ve ever followed.”

  Liam scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “I said I’d be back soon. I told you and the girl to track the convoys.”

  “We did!” Liam protested.

  Scott didn’t even blink. “And not to do anything stupid! Then, when I get back here, I find you two have burned half the Institute to the ground!”

  “It wasn’t just us—” Liam began, then cursed. In his shock and delight at being reunited with Scott, he’d forgotten all about more important things. He leaned forward, ignoring Scott’s scowl as the blanket fell away.

  “Where’s Jenn?” he demanded. “Is she okay? What about Kathryn? Where are they? What happened to—?”
>
  “Relax!” Scott ordered, holding up his hands in a placating fashion. “Your girls are fine.”

  “You’re sure? Kathryn was st—”

  “Where Liam?” Scott exclaimed suddenly, adopting a falsetto voice and a very Kathryn-like frown. “Hurt Liam, Kathryn feed! Fast and strong. Can show!”

  He sighed, leaning against the wall and studying Liam with an exasperated look. “That the one you mean?”

  Liam had never equaled the sigh of relief he gave then. Settling back against the pillow, he stared up at the ceiling and allowed his smile to return at its own pace.

  “She’s alive,” he whispered. Somehow, speaking the words allowed seemed to make the facts feel truer than simply thinking them. “They’re both safe.”

  The bed shifted suddenly and he sat up to find Scott seated at the foot of it. The man’s expression was unreadable as he grabbed a handful of blanket and threw it up over Liam’s newly exposed nethers.

  “It was a near thing, but yeah,” Scott said, voice soft. “You did good, son. Scared me to death, finding you like that. But it’s thanks to what you three did that we were able to take this place.”

  “What do you mean?” Liam asked.

  “All of it,” Scott said, unhelpfully. He smiled faintly, staring out the broken window. “Your girl—er, Jenn, that is—told me what you’ve been up to. Attacking the convoy, rescuing the blonde one, raising hell in Abernathy. All—”

  “Abernathy?”

  “That village west of here. Where, um, Julie lives. It’s called Abernathy. Or used to be.” Scott gave himself a shake, then continued. “Anyway, I guess you lot made quite a stir. Then, when you got inside the Institute and started blowing stuff up, my men decided to move in. You actually found more of them than I did. Anyway, there were only a handful of guards left and we managed to repel the reinforcements from ‘Nathy. The rest pulled back to another outpost ten miles south of here.”

  “So… it’s over?”

  “Over?” Scott barked a laugh, finally turning from the window to look at him. “Not by a longshot, Liam. We’re fifty miles from the DMZ. This isn’t just a border skirmish. A week from now, this place is going to have troops from all over the Occupied States bearing down on it. Hunters, drones, hunter drones, you name it.”

  The bulk of Liam’s joy and relief evaporated in an instant. He drew the blanket higher, suddenly quite cold.

  “What do we do?” he asked, quietly.

  Scott shrugged and turned back to the window.

  “That’s up to you,” he said, after a moment’s pause. He spoke hesitantly, choosing his words carefully. “Ideally, I’d like to take you three east of the DMZ. Then, we can—“

  “Yes,” Liam said.

  Scott flinched slightly, glancing at him.

  “Just like that?” he said.

  Liam nodded, feeling oddly as though Scott had been expecting him to refuse. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why, though.

  “Of course,” he said. “We’re free now. I trust you to keep us that way.”

  “That’s…” Scott studied him for a moment, and then flashed a gentle smile. “Fair enough. I’m no expert, but I’d guess your legs should be healed in about a day, maybe a day and a half. We can leave then. Should still be relatively safe.”

  Liam stared at the man, lifted the blanket to examine at his missing legs, and then back again.

  “What do you mean they’ll be healed?” he asked.

  For a second, Scott met his eyes, looking equally confused. “I assume they will be?” he said, hesitantly. “You’ve got knees again.”

  Taken aback, Liam lifted the blanket, yet again. He did indeed have knees. Had those been missing before? Everything had happened so fast, his recollection was practically a blur.

  “Huh,” he said.

  Scott rose from the bed, cast one last look at the shattered window, and then headed for the door. He paused just in front of it. Turning, he fixed Liam with a stern look.

  “Get some rest,” he ordered. “You’ll heal faster. The girls are sleeping too. I’m sure they’ll want to see you later.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Liam didn’t remember falling asleep. In fact, he quite distinctly remembered thinking he would never be able to. So much had happened, and despite the answers Scott provided, there were still so many things he needed to find out.

  And yet, sometime later, he found himself stirring to pain—actual pain!—somewhere around the middle of his shinbones. The first thing he realized upon waking was that, once again, he had actual shinbones.

  The second was that he was no longer alone.

  “Quiet!” Jenn’s voice hissed, practically in his ear. “You’ll wake him up.”

  Struggling to keep the grin off of his face, Liam did not open his eyes. He mumbled a sound, shifting slightly where he lay to feign as if he had not really woken.

  “Plant-girl fault,” Kathryn muttered. The bed on the other side of him shifted slightly as she spoke. “Big. Heavy. Kathryn small.”

  Even as he lay there, Liam prepared to intervene. The last thing he wanted was to be caught between the two women as they fought. That was an almost certain way to die.

  “You’re just jealous,” Jenn said, obviously relishing the fact.

  “Jealous?”

  “That’s right.” Jenn’s hand ghosted along the surface of the blanket as she whispered, coming to rest just below Liam’s waist. “If you were bigger, he might have actually chosen you.”

  “Chosen?”

  Liam didn’t need to open his eyes to hear the understanding creep into Kathryn’s voice. He could perfectly envision her expression, the way comprehension brightened her golden eyes and smugness curled the corner of her mouth.

  “Plant-girl not chosen,” she said. “Plant-girl first. Kathryn second. Soon. Kathryn chosen.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Can show.” Another hand drifted over Liam’s leg and displaced Jenn’s with some difficulty. The pressure of Kathryn’s small, slender fingers made it virtually impossible not to react, but he did his best. “Small better. Fast and strong. Liam choose.”

  Jenn sighed and Liam prepared himself to stir. As enjoyable and stimulating as the eavesdropping was, he didn’t plan to be caught. That, too, seemed like an efficient way of tempting fate.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jenn said, finally. “Even if he ‘chooses’ you, it won’t be the same. It’d just be sex, not love. Not choosing. I’ll always have his heart.”

  Kathryn laughed. “Heart fine. Plant-girl choose heart. Kathryn choose…” she struggled for a minute to find the right word. Then she growled, fingers squeezing Liam through the sheets as she mimed an explicit gesture.

  Liam expected Jenn to lash out and, again, prepared to intervene. What he did not expect was for her to laugh.

  “That Hunter was right,” she said, sounding amused even as she grumbled the words. “It’s turning into a damn harem.”

  That seemed as good a time to wake as any. Liam inhaled sharply and opened his eyes. He’d prepared himself to act surprised at seeing the two women, but as he laid eyes upon them, his surprised expression became honest.

  Both Jenn and Kathryn were bandaged so extensively he would hardly have recognized either one of them. The left side of Jenn’s face was entirely encompassed with gauze, almost shocking in its whiteness. Kathryn on the other hand, had been wrapped from ribcage to hips, so extensively that she wore her same, torn dress without any hint of immodesty.

  “They didn’t use my blood?” he gasped, swiveling between the two of them. Suddenly furious, he tilted his head to offer up his neck. “Here, Kathryn. Just break the skin.”

  The girl started to lean in, but Jenn held her back with a hand.

  “We used some,” she explained. Staring into Liam’s eyes, her smile widened until it contrasted utterly with the words she spoke. “Just enough to keep us alive. You needed it m
ore.”

  “But, Kathryn—” he protested.

  “—Is alive, thanks to you,” Jenn continued. Her expression turned petulant as she met the girl’s eyes. “And thanks to me.”

  Kathryn made a face, but did not argue the point. Somehow, seeing her wear such an expression settled some deep-seated part of Liam’s soul. Things were as they should be. They were together again, wounded, but on the mend.

  Gently, careful to avoid their bandaged wounds, Liam reached out and wrapped an arm around both women. He drew them closer, pulling both into tender embraces before settling back onto the pillow. He expected the close proximity to prove unbearable for one or both of them, but apparently his company was too precious at the moment. Both Jenn and Kathryn settled against his chest, snuggling close until their brows very nearly touched.

  “Wuyong escaped,” Jenn whispered. She tensed against him.

  Liam didn’t speak. He’d assumed as much, after seeing her wounds. The idea that the Hunter was out there, somewhere, was troubling. But such things could be worried about another time. For now, he was out of reach—and so were they.

  “How is Nora?” he asked, canting his head to kiss the top of Jenn’s. She sighed pleasantly at the brush of his lips.

  “Fine,” she said, relaxing. “Not physically hurt, at least. Same with the others. They all just need time to adjust.”

  “What about you two?”

  Silence answered him. After a moment, Jenn stirred and nuzzled his chest with her uninjured cheek.

  “It’ll be good to leave this place,” she said, softly.

  “Fast,” Kathryn agreed.

  Liam nodded. He could understand the feeling. Hell, he’d almost thrown himself out a window to accomplish just that.

  “We’ll leave soon,” he promised.

  Kathryn perked up at that. Lifting her head from Liam’s chest, she stared at him with wide eyes. “When soon?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Waiting on my legs. Hopefully by morning.”

  Apparently satisfied by his answer, Kathryn smiled and dropped her head back down to his chest. No sooner had she done so, than Jenn lifted hers. She wore her usual smirk, eyes twinkling mischievously. Rather than speak, however, she merely met his gaze and slipped a hand beneath the blanket. Her fingers were slightly cool, but smooth as she trailed her hand upward along his thigh. The higher she went, the harder it became for Liam to maintain his composure and the more ravenous her smile became.