“I think you can tell your master to shove it,” I called. “And meanwhile, I’d suggest you clear out of here before all of Haven finishes with your friends and comes raining vengeance on your asses.”
“Fool.” The word came from all around us, as if hissed by the darkness itself.
It had been worth a shot, at least.
In the silence that followed, a small voice pleaded with me to move—to make a mad dash for the lab building while we could. But we were pinned, I knew that. At least out in the middle of the lot, we’d have time for a few shots when they inevitably grew impatient and came for us.
The legionnaires must’ve agreed with my conclusion, because they all held their ground. We were tense as suspension wires, sure. No amount of training in the world could have changed that as we waited there for clawed death to descend upon us. But we were ready. For what felt like an hour but might have been a minute, we were ready.
Was it my imagination, or were the sounds of fighting growing louder now? Heading our way?
Depending on how the next few minutes went, that probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it at least made me hope we might have reinforcement soon. Whether the hybrids noticed the same thing or simply grew bored, I’m not exactly sure. But I swore I felt the change in the air when something set them off.
They came with shrieks and growls. More than ten of them.
I caught sight of four dropping from the closest rooftop, raised my sidearm, then ducked back behind the skimmer with a curse as the ones on Therese’s building opened fire. The legionnaires responded in kind, and within seconds the lot went from dead silent to thunderous cacophony.
Two hybrids slammed down to the skimmer behind me with bone-shattering force and a pair of thick roars. Reflexively, I reached to blast them away with telekinesis, only registering after they sailed away that I’d only cleared the line of sight for the shooters on the roof. I cursed again, and turned to fire on another charging hybrid, hunkering down as best I could.
Things fell apart quickly after that.
The hybrids were fast, relentless, and entirely too resilient to our slugs. I emptied half my feeder on a single enemy, missing the charging beast as much as not. It hit the pavement only to be trampled by the two charging behind it. A few stray slugs punched into my armor skin like miniature raknoth fists. I tried to raise a barrier. Turned to jam my booted heel into a charging hybrid’s knee just as the leg planted. It hyperextended with a wet cracking sound, but the hybrid was sturdier than I’d expected. It crashed into me, shrieking.
I silenced it with a dagger to the under chin, pivoting past—and straight into its charging companion. My dagger leapt for its eye by almost subconscious telekinesis, but the hybrid tucked its head, took the blade to the scalp instead, and caught my wrist with frightening strength. Something popped, liquid fire coursing up my arm. With a wordless cry, I jammed my sidearm into the hybrid’s eye and pulled the trigger three times.
I turned from the falling hybrid, arm on fire and head ringing. Less than a dozen rifles remained at my back, firing steadily into the night. The rest were already dead. I saw one wounded legionnaire on the ground beside them, feebly trying to draw his sidearm. Then a hybrid slammed down on him from one of the rooftops and tore into the group until there were only eight standing. And more hybrids were coming.
We weren’t making it out of there.
I sighted on the closest hybrid anyway. Fired once, twice, and—
My senses screamed a warning. I spun, too late. A hybrid slammed into my back, driving me to the pavement. Something smacked against my shoulder—its helmet, I realized. So excited for its first bite that it’d forgotten to lift its faceplate.
I reached out and caught its head with telekinesis as it yanked the helmet loose, aiming to try again. I twisted, pointing my nearly empty sidearm far too close to my own head, and was about to shoot the bastard off my back when it gave a jerk, went limp, and was promptly rolled off my back. A second later, strong, slender arms yanked me to my feet, and I found myself face to face with Talia.
There were only five of us left between the cargo transports. And even more hybrids around the lot. Dozens of them. But there were legionnaires too, now, sweeping in from multiple directions, driving the hybrids before them.
“I’m going in,” I cried to Talia, trying not to think about the number of bodies I left behind as I whirled for the lab.
Talia shoved me from behind before I could take a step. I thudded into the side of the skimmer just as a hybrid landed right where I’d been standing. Talia shot it neatly in the forehead. I drew my remaining dagger and caught it in the underjaw as it staggered into my range. Then I turned and ran for the lab.
The lot was pure chaos—full scale war between multiple squads of legionnaires and what must’ve been all the hybrids left on base at that point. My senses were too muddled from panic and exhaustion to make sense of it all. And as I rounded the transport and saw the lab doors bursting open and the pack of hybrids darting out, everything else ceased to matter.
They had Elise.
I screamed her name, reaching out and smashing two of her assailants into the side of the building with telekinesis. At that range, it cost me. But Elise was fighting too, twisting free of one hybrid, driving a brutal kick into another’s head. I reached out to yank another away from her—
And cried out as something bit into my neck and arced through my body with electric fury. The next I knew, I was hitting the pavement, and someone was laying a hand on my shoulder. Sliding it down the front.
Plucking the cloaking pendant from my chest.
“I’m sorry, Haldin,” came a voice as the pendant floated past my face on thin air, its chain sliding free of my helmet and neck.
Siren.
I shakily tried to look around, but I could barely move my head. There was nothing. For a brief second, I managed to focus enough to feel her there, but then she vanished from my senses, and the electric bite was back at my neck, digging in longer this time, ripping through my rigid muscles until the world receded to a dull, distant buzz I couldn’t seem to make any sense of.
Shouts and gunfire were all around me now. Curses and heavy boots stomping past. I was going to be sick.
“Get her back!” someone was screaming. “Stop them!”
Elise.
The world wavered, pulling closer into focus, just enough for me to vaguely register Phineas staggering out of the lab building and thudding to his knees, his chest soaked with blood. He shot the nearest hybrid. Tried to aim at the next and collapsed. James and Franco came after him, screaming Elise’s name.
Elise.
I tried to turn my head and look for her, but my body barely responded. I tried harder, and my head twitched around just in time for one last glimpse.
Elise was fighting furiously, bleeding from multiple wounds, clothes torn, and barely slowing for any of it. But the hybrids kept coming. Dropping down. Sweeping in. Carrying her away in a tide of dark armor and green hides until two managed to catch her in a secure grip and haul her around the corner and out of sight.
I howled her name, but barely managed more than a mournful groan. I tried to roll over and stand, but my muscles and nerves were too fried to listen. I flopped weakly on the ground, nausea sweeping through me, helpless panic clamping at my chest.
The need to follow after her burned so deeply that I found myself hoping when a hybrid rose from a nearby legionnaire, licking the blood from its lips and fixing its crimson eyes on me. If the hybrid came for me… if it took me with Elise…
I didn’t care anymore. Didn’t care about anything but Elise being dragged off on a writhing mass of hybrids. But a hail of gunfire cut the hybrid down to ribbons before it could lunge.
I pushed to my knees on shaky, spasmodic limbs, my head spinning wildly with the motion, and my stomach threatening to void its contents. It was more than exhaustion and the shock, I realized. Siren must’ve hit me with some of the stun rod’
s sedative too. Warm honey crept through my limbs, begging me to lay back down.
It’s already too late, it whispered.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the thought of Elise, thinking of the time Carlisle had given me some kind of arcane stim to keep me moving, forming everything I had left behind a single prayer.
“Lise…”
I couldn’t feel her out there. Alpha, why was it so hard to reach out? I let the panic fuel me, welcomed the adrenaline pulsing through veins. I drew energy without clear thought or form—only willing myself to get the scud up.
Odd tingles washed through me, and I was almost surprised when I opened my eyes to find myself standing on shaky feet. I lurched forward and almost fell over. I reached out with my drunken senses, desperate to feel a glimpse of her presence, to know there was still hope.
But she was gone. And I was empty, drifting in a dull sea of shouts and screams and gunfire, all unimportant, all miles away from my mind. I started forward again and tripped. Found myself falling. Someone caught me, but I hardly cared.
“…okay, buddy. Just take it easy.”
Johnny’s voice.
“We’re gonna… We’re gonna get her b—”
Explosions rocked the night, chaining across the distant reaches of Haven in a string of flashing infernos and deep booms I felt right in my heart.
“Scud,” Johnny whispered beside me.
Like a buzzing insect in my ear, the reports came in on the main battle channel. Serious damage had been dealt at almost every major landing pad in Haven. Entire fleets of transports and skimmers wrecked in the space of seconds. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about that either. Couldn’t bring myself to care about anything but the only thing that mattered.
She was gone.
“Find her,” I croaked. “Get her back, Johnny. Please.”
He was already steering me down to the ground. Kneeling beside me to give me a quick once over.
“Just stay here, Hal. Don’t move.”
Then he was gone too.
35
Low
I sat there, rocking on the pavement, numbly watching legionnaires rush by. All I could do was cling to the image of Johnny running off in the direction they’d taken Elise. That, and to pray that he would manage where I’d failed. And to curse my own battered body for giving up.
I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just get to my worthless feet and keep moving. My brain felt stewed, like it had reached some agreement with the desperation and the sedatives and whatever else was pumping through my system, and like I wasn’t really conscious at all so much as simply passed out with my eyes still open and my brain still receiving the meaningless inputs.
A few legionnaires stopped to check me for major wounds. I hardly noticed. It was only when one of them took my wrists—particularly the one that was still throbbing from the hybrid’s iron grip—that my attention actually stirred.
When I saw that they’d fitted me with shackles, I came fully back to reality.
“Did you hear me, Citizen Raish?”
I looked up and into the severe frown of an ordo I didn’t recognize. Haga Company, my mind dully noted. 323rd.
“I said you need to come with us,” said the ordo—Ordo Silvers, according to my helmet—as he gestured to the men beside him.
They stepped forward, hauled me to my feet, and only begrudgingly held on when my legs buckled beneath me. Ordo Silvers gave me a disgusted look and beckoned his men to bring me along.
I didn’t understand what was happening. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to care. My feet moved along mechanically as they half-dragged, half-carried me from the place of my failure and on to Alpha knew what.
“Hey!” someone was calling sharply behind us.
Johnny.
A shot of awareness sparked through me, and I jerked my head around, much to the startlement of the legionnaires dragging me along. Awareness spiked to tremulous hope as I saw Johnny wasn’t alone… and deflated completely when I realized it wasn’t Elise beside him, but Talia of the 122nd Wolves.
I sagged against my escorts as Johnny and Talia jogged up to Ordo Silvers of the 323rd Hagas, both looking ready for a fight.
“Where is she?” I tried to ask Johnny, but I didn’t manage more than a hoarse, burning whisper. And Johnny was too occupied with Silvers.
“Hey!” he snapped again. “What the scud do you think you’re doing?”
“Step aside, servitor.”
“Where are you taking my charge, sir?” Talia asked, her tone decidedly calmer than Johnny’s.
“Your charge?” Silvers sneered. “You mean the prisoner whom you and your squad allowed to escape during the incursion? He’s—”
“Where is she, Johnny?” My voice was louder this time, enough to draw their attention. It sounded awful. Broken. But far, far worse, was the look on Johnny’s face. That look was all the answer I needed.
That look broke something in me.
“Let go of me,” I whispered, jerking my arms free of the legionnaires’ grips. They caught roughly back on, another stepping forward to help.
“I SAID LET GO!” I screamed, lashing blindly out as the rage took over.
A low boom shook the air, jarring my brain, and the next I knew, I was staring at a ring of dazed legionnaires sprawled out all around me, my head was spinning, and every member of the 323rd Hagas who was still standing had their rifles leveled in my direction.
“Don’t!” Johnny yelled, stepping in front of me, arms splayed wide as he faced the shooters. I was surprised to feel Talia likewise covering my back.
“Don’t you gropping dare,” Johnny growled.
But I saw the look on Ordo Silver’s face. He wasn’t going to listen. I gathered more energy, preparing to hurl that sneering face through the closest permacrete wall. Then Johnny spun to me, arms still held wide, and the pain in his voice stopped me dead.
“Hal…”
His eyes were brimming with tears.
I don’t think I’d ever seen Johnny cry.
“Just… just breathe, buddy. Just think for a second.”
Behind him, Silvers hesitated. He wasn’t sneering anymore.
I let some of the energy trickle off.
“She’s still alive,” Johnny said. “She has to be. They carried her over the wall with them. Just her. No one else.”
I looked that way as if I expected I might see them right there. My head was starting to clear a little now. If they’d gone over the wall… if they’d tried to carry her off on foot…
My shackles fell off without me hardly even having to think about releasing the mechanisms. Legionnaires cursed all around us.
Johnny grabbed me by the shoulders. “Hal…”
“I’m going after them.”
He shook his head. “She’s gone. They blew our rides and scattered.”
“Then I’ll follow them on foot.”
“And what? Storm Oasis by yourself?”
“If I have to,” I growled, reaching to knock his hands away only to be reminded of my injured wrist by a blinding lance of pain.
“You’re hurt.” His grip loosened on my shoulders.
“I have to get her back, Johnny.”
“We will, buddy. Together. You can bet Alpha’s shiny ass on that.”
I looked around and realized we were drawing a crowd now. Legionnaires looked on from all sides, Haga trigger fingers tensing wherever my gaze landed. They were watching me like I was a wild animal.
“How?” I asked quietly.
“We’ll take back Oasis,” Johnny said, equally quietly. “You’re close on…” He stopped himself before he said the cloaks for anyone in the crowd to hear. “I know you are. We’ll find a way, man. But first, we need to get you patched up.”
Something shifted in me, desperation and anger giving way to exhaustion and a deep, sickened despair that settled firmly in my stomach. I couldn’t think about the cloaks and how much I wasn’t even close to cracking
them, or about how strong the hybrids were growing, and what they might be doing to Elise right then. I could barely even stand on my own two feet.
I nodded.
Johnny let out a heavy breath, nodding to himself and giving Talia a pointed look before he turned to the watching ordo of the 323rd Hagas.
“We’ll see him to the medica, sir,” Johnny said, his tone adding a heavily implied you gropping beardsplitter to the promise. “And back to his quarters after that.”
His words brought forth another swell of guilt and shame. For me to be alive and standing there and even thinking about allowing myself to lay down in a medica bed when she was out there… It was almost more than I could take.
But it turned out not to matter. Because none of the legionnaires moved from our path when Johnny started us forward.
“He’s to be taken to the brig,” Ordo Silvers said, “to await proper trial.”
Somehow, I wasn’t all that surprised by the statement—or to realize the slick bastard had only been waiting for Johnny to talk me down. Johnny, on the other hand, was clearly as surprised as he was unhappy.
“Like scud he is,” he spat. “Trial for what? And on whose authority?”
It was Silvers’ turn to look confused, whether it was genuine or not. “Citizen Raish staged a violent escape from his house arrest.”
“That’s not true,” Talia said beside me. “The hybrids attacked us at the barracks. Citizen Raish merely suggested our chances of survival were better if we relocated. Given that our own ordo had just been killed in the ambush, we agreed.”
The flicker of hesitation in Silvers’ expression was the first suggestion I’d seen that maybe he wasn’t a sadistic bastard. “All the same, I have my orders,” he said, turning to me. “You’re going to have to come with us, Citizen Raish.”
Honestly, I barely even cared if they wanted to lock me up. Unless they’d somehow found the scorcher pendant I’d had Franco hide after the White Tower, there wasn’t a brig on Enochia that would hold me when I was ready to leave. All I cared about was getting at Oasis. That meant figuring out the Alpha-damned runes, and I was ready to do that whether it was in my quarters or with a stick in the dirt.
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