“We can’t just leave him!” I practically shouted. Normally that’d be a bad thing, but it was so loud in there that it went unnoticed.
“We’ll be shot, Jeremy.” Wes’s voice was firm, but not without passion. “If we try to get to him, we’ll both die.”
“I’m not leaving Cal.” I started heading toward my friend, but Wes put an arm across my chest, stopping me. “Let go of me!” I yelled through clenched teeth. “We need to get him, Wesley. He would never leave us!”
Wes grabbed my uniform and got right in my face. “The best thing we can do is sneak out and find a way to attack the Legion up there from behind.” He pointed up to the balconies, then pushed my chest a little. “That is how we help him. That’s how we save everyone.”
I looked around at the chaos, at the dead bodies and the people screaming in pain, and I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to leave my best friend out there in the middle of all of that. I looked back at Cal and he made a shooing motion at me, telling me to get the hell out of there. I shook my head and he rolled his eyes, but immediately had to duck and cover his head as some bullets flew over him. When he looked at me again, he yelled, “Go! Get outta here,” but I couldn’t hear his voice over the sound of flying bullets and dying men.
Wes grabbed onto me and pulled me along. When we got to the door, I looked back at my best friend and watched in horror as he got shot in the chest. No! I saw him scream in pain. No! There’s so much blood. I saw Sanjha grab him, trying to stop the bleeding. There’s too much blood. How can there be that much? Wes pulled me through the door before I could tell whether or not Cal was going to be okay, but his pale face and bleeding body were etched into my brain.
The door slammed shut, the big metal door cutting out the sounds of people fighting for their lives. I tried to get it back open, but my asshole brother was leaning against it, blocking it from me.
“Let me through! Get the fuck outta my way, Wes. I need to heal him!”
“He’s going to be okay,” Wes said.
“We need to go back in there, Wesley.”
“He’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that!” I screamed as Wes continued to block the door.
“I know,” he said quietly. I finally took a look at him and could see that he was struggling to keep it together, that he was having just as hard of a time with this as I was. He was just handling it differently. “His best chance is for us to get up there and start taking these bastards out, okay? The only way he’ll make it is if we can stop them from shooting at them.”
“He’s dying, Wes… Cal’s…”
Wes pushed my shoulder. “Hey. You need to snap out of it. Stop feeling and think. We need to help our people, Jeremy. Get your shit together.”
I knew he was right, so I took a shaky breath, angrily wiped the moisture from my cheek, then nodded. Wes pushed off the door and I followed my brother, who acted as if he’d been here before and knew exactly where he was going. My shoulder was bleeding and felt like it was on fire, but I guess I had enough adrenaline in my system to ignore it for the moment. As we walked, I tried to stop the blood flow with an angi—an emergency bandage that slowed blood loss when you couldn’t perform surgery on the field, since a juhere couldn’t heal with a bullet still inside you—but I whispered, “Did you… did you see Nolan? Or Orrean?”
He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t find them.”
When the first door Wes opened was the stairwell leading upstairs, I asked, “How do you know where you’re going?”
“I… don’t know. It’s like I’ve been here before…” he said, his voice quiet, “but almost like I… dreamed it.”
I stopped in my tracks. “You dreamed about this place?”
He nodded. “More than once.”
What the actual fuck? “Was there anyone here with you?”
He started up the steps. “What do you mean?”
I followed. “When you dream about this place, is there someone here with you?”
“Uh… I’m not sure?” he said it like it was a question. He thought for a moment, then said, “I usually feel like there’s someone watching me, but I’ve never seen anyone.” He waved me off when he reached the door that I assumed led out to that balcony. “I’m going to crack this open and look so we can formulate a plan, okay? I want to take out as many of those bastards as possible before…”
When he didn’t finish, I supplied, “Before they kill us.”
He frowned, but nodded.
It was a weird thing, letting my brother take charge like this. But I knew he was perfectly capable. He was a better fighter than me, even if I’d never admit that to him out loud. He’d always been better at all the athletic, physical stuff, something I was loath to admit. I’d always been the artist while he was the athlete.
After he spent maybe fifteen seconds inspecting whatever was on the other side of that door—though from the sounds drifting in, we were definitely in the right place—he shut it and whispered to me, “There’s three directly in front of the door, then another off to the left. The rest are more than twenty feet away, so we’ll have worry about them after we take down these four. I can’t see very far to the right.” He pointed as he counted out, “One, two, three, four.” I knew he was referring to where our enemies were on the other side of the door. “You take one and three, I’ll take two and four. You’re taller, so you go high, I’m low.”
“Got it,” I said as I stood behind him with my reelians ready.
“Once we take down those four, we can let the rest come to us since this metal door makes a nice shield.”
“Okay,” I agreed easily, since that made sense and was part of our training, anyway.
“Alright… one… two… three.” Wes threw the door open enough that we could each fit two reelians through it.
I fired a head shot at Legion One and the force made him hit the rail, but his body slid down to the ground, dead. Legion Three had a little more warning, so my first shot only grazed the side of his head. He moved quickly, but I got another shot off before I had to duck behind the door, using it to block the bullets he’d sent flying at me.
“He’s down,” Wes said, still kneeling in the doorway.
I nodded—not that he saw since he was concentrating on shooting—then I moved back over top of him and prepared to take down as many of those nasty bastards as possible. I aimed, ignoring my shoulder even though it was slowing me down, and fired a shot at a Legion guy that was maybe twenty feet away. It hit him in the arm rather than the chest, so I shot him again, making sure to get him in his heart. A reelian was not a good weapon for distance, so aiming for a larger target—like his chest—was a far better option than trying for a head shot. We really needed to start carrying reelianosiz, which were basically reelian rifles. They were heavy as shit, though, so we never had them on us.
The Legion guy went down slowly, but I could tell that he wouldn’t be getting back up.
I shot another Legion Taoree that had started heading our way, firing at us. It took me three shots to get him down, but he did go down. I scanned the area and realized that Wes had killed five more Legions in the time I’d taken down two.
Dude was kinda badass.
“We’re going to have to open the door and aim the other way,” he said. “The rest are smart enough not to come within range.”
“We won’t have a shield that way,” I reminded him.
He nodded, then stood up and shut the door to examine it. After a moment, he asked, “Do you think there’s a way to pull these hinges out?”
I looked at them. “Uh… maybe we can use a spear? The tip might be able to break through that metal since it looks like it’s made of nzok.” Wes gave me a blank look, so I elaborated, “The metal the bug-bots are made of. Our spears are made to penetrate it.”
“Good idea,” he said, grabbing one of his spears and pushing it against the hinge.
It took about two minutes—we stopped every thir
ty seconds to open the door and make sure no Legions were sneaking up on us—but we got the door off the hinges.
“Okay, one more check to the left, then we’ll push the door out and use it as a shield so we can take out some Legion on the right,” Wes said.
“Alright, I have the door.” I nodded three times, then held the door open a little so Wes could check and shoot anyone coming close.
He shot his reelian three times while I struggled with the heavy-ass door, my shoulder making the task even more difficult. It was bleeding through the angi bandage, which was a seriously bad sign since those things typically stopped all but the most severe bleeding. I’d lost a lot of blood already, too. I really needed to pull out the bullet so I could heal the wound with my juhere.
Wes moved and pushed the door back in place. I was out of breath, but he said, “You ready?”
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
He stood and the two of us pulled the door back toward us, tilted and turned it on its side, then pushed it out the doorway with us ducking behind it. The bottom end was still against the doorframe, helping to keep the door up on its side. Reelian bullets started hitting the door immediately. I held one of my reelians out, aiming it toward anyone that dared to come too close to our unprotected side.
“You cover our backs, I’ll pop up and shoot the bastards on the other side,” Wes said.
I didn’t really like the idea of him putting himself in danger like that, but I knew we had a better shot of taking more Legion down if he was the one aiming, so I said, “Be careful.”
“I will.” Wes’s voice was a little softer than it’d been the entire time we’d been fighting. Wes leaned up and shot his reelian twice before sinking back down, with a “Shit” on his lips.
“What’s wrong?” I asked before taking a shot and missing—normally my aim was a lot better than this, but shit, my shoulder was screwing me right now—a Legion that kept ducking behind the rails perpendicular to us. The bastard kept shooting at us, but luckily his aim didn’t seem any better than mine. Though I saw a couple more Taoree join him over there. Freaking great.
“There’s at least ten of them and when they’re not shooting at us, they’re still shooting down into the first floor. Some of our guys are still trapped down there.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. I glanced over the rail, but had to look away. It looked like a slaughterhouse. I didn’t want to look too close for fear of seeing all the people I’d come to know over the past eight months, so I looked away and thought for a moment. “Do you want to tag team?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. Four shots at a time, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay, I’m going in,” he muttered before looking up and shooting his reelian four times—I waited, but none of the assholes came at us from the other side—then he sat back down.
I immediately took my turn, popping up over the door and shooting at the Legions that were slaughtering my people down below. I had to rely on my right arm doing most of the work since my left was slowly losing more and more strength. I shot one in the neck—dammit—then shot another in the chest—he went down—and my next bullet grazed a guy’s shoulder. I shot another time, but ducked back down because several of them started shooting at me. Wes started to go back up for his next turn, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him down, shaking my head.
Luckily, he didn’t protest.
The Legion perpendicular from us started shooting at us too, so I switched to my other reelian—my first needed a chance to reload itself—and started shooting at them. Wes got one in the head and they paused their shooting. Lucky for us.
But unluckily, I heard loud footsteps coming from the stairwell.
Fucking hell, we were about to be surrounded… and probably dead.
“You know I love you, right?” I whispered to Wes.
He rolled his eyes at me, then flicked me really fucking hard in the nose. “Don’t do that, you asshole. It’s just Orr and Bek coming… how do you not pay the fuck attention to your senses?” And with that he looked back over the door and started shooting again.
I didn’t say anything because he had a point, though I didn’t understand how he could tell it was them. God, when did my little brother grow up and become so wise?
As soon as I saw Orrean’s face as he walked up the stairs, I breathed a sigh of relief, and saw him breathe out too. Even though I’d known deep down that he was alive, it wasn’t the same as being able to see him in person.
He had blood on his cheek, hand, and stomach, though I didn’t know if it was his or someone else’s. But he smiled, just a tiny bit, at me and I felt my light sing. I shot him a small smile back before turning and shooting my reelian.
I’d hardly even noticed Bek with him, but the huge Taoree somehow managed to move in front of me and sit beside me, all the while shooting at those stupid assholes behind the rail that wouldn’t die. Orrean was now on the other side of Wes, helping him shoot at the bastards on the other side of the door.
When the two of them sat down, I asked, “Anyone seen Cal or Nolan?”
“No,” both Orr and Bek said, but Bek added, “Haven’t seen anyone but Orr when he pulled me out from behind the trashcan I was using as a shield.”
Fuck. Fuckity fucking fuck.
Bek interrupted my mental freak-out. “I’m going to crawl a little closer and try to take those guys out.” He pointed to the railing crew, so I nodded. “I got your backs, you three take down the others.”
We agreed, so Bek started army-crawling and the three of us popped up at the same time, trying to shoot the others. I got one in the head with my first—lucky—shot, then I shot three more times before I had to duck down and switch my reelians again.
When Wes plopped beside me, I heard this booming laughter, like it was being played over a loudspeaker. Wes and I exchanged terrified looks. I had no clue who in the hell that voice belonged to. I only knew that whoever it was, was absolute, no-doubt-in-my-mind, complete and utter evil. Fucking. Pure. Evil. I didn’t know how I knew that, I didn’t know why some guy’s laughter would send chills down my spine, and I didn’t know why my thoughts were reflected back to me in my brother’s face. But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he felt the exact same way.
“Thelonious,” Orrean whispered.
I looked at my Balu, and he glanced at me for a second before taking off at a run into the stairwell and down the steps. I looked at my brother and before I knew it, he was running after Orrean too. What the fucking fuck!
“Damn assholes,” I muttered. Of course it’d be those two trying to play hero or some shit. I wasn’t even surprised. Idiots! I started to get up, but I couldn’t. Not with Bek still up here. “Bek!” I yelled. He was too far away to hear me, so I did the only thing I could do. I stood up and started shooting the guys on the other side of the door. There were only four of them left. If Bek was going to have my back, I’d have his. I’d just have to pray that Wes and Orr could take care of each other until I could catch up to them.
And when this whole thing was over, I’d kick both their asses for running off like that. Stupid bitches.
I was able to kill another Legion on the other side of the door, but I had to duck back down. My shoulder was starting to burn worse with every passing second, but I tried to ignore it.
Bek was firing shot after shot, so I switched out my reelians and stood back up. It took two more reelian switches to kill the other three Legions. When I slumped back on the door, I gasped because Bek was lying facedown with blood pouring out of his head. “Bek?” He didn’t answer. “Bek?” He still didn’t answer and I didn’t see his chest moving.
God dammit. Not Bek… not another friend.
I had to push down my feelings so I could find the rest of my family. I couldn’t dwell on this. After this shit was over, I’d mourn my fallen comrades and friends, but right now, I had a job to do. And we were dropping like flies.
The guys on the other side of the bal
cony started running toward me, shooting, so I had no choice but to pull up my linhu and run into the stairwell. I didn’t even think twice. Bek was dead and I couldn’t hold off that many Legion by myself, so I ran… away from them, but toward my Balu and brother… wherever the fuck they’d gone.
I didn’t know what was leading me, but I ran as fast as I could through a series of hallways. I was still losing blood, but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind. My Balu needed me. I could feel it. He needed me and I was going to get to him. I’d get to him and help him. I didn’t care what I had to do. I could see the doorway I needed to go through, but suddenly I felt something hit me in the back and an electrical pulse shot through my body, making my muscles freeze and forcing me to fall to one knee.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I was shot with an enkpi?
“Ultoka Renum demano,” I heard snarled behind me. Stupid human.
“Fuck… you,” I breathed out as soon as the pulse stopped.
I heard more than one person laughing, but before I could turn around, the pulse went through me again and one of the bastards hit me in the back of the head, making me fall forward onto my stomach. When the pain from the pulse stopped, it took all of my energy to flip onto my back, though I lost my hat in the process.
Oh fucking fuck! There were three Taoree Legion staring down at me… laughing.
I am so gonna die.
One of them started speaking in Taoree, oblivious of my ability to understand him. “This scrawny little runt is the one that killed twenty men?”
“Yes, but he had help,” another answered.
“The others went where?” the third asked.
As they discussed where my ‘helpers’ went, I started moving my hands to my reelians. My body was still jolting from being electrocuted, but I knew if I didn’t get my hands on my weapons, I was going to die, probably painfully, and if I was dead, I couldn’t help the rest of my people.
They were arguing about how they wanted to kill me, so I used the distraction to my advantage. I gripped a reelian in each of my hands, then lifted them and pulled the triggers. I hit one Legion in the head, but the other bullet missed, hitting the wall behind the guy because my hand jerked from the freaking electricity.
Independents: Taoree Trilogy #2 Page 28