The Girl Who Dared to Fight

by Bella Forrest

  “C’mon, Leo,” Sage continued in a singsong voice. “If you tell me, I won’t have to shoot him again.”

  Grey was groaning in pain, and I had to fight back every impulse I had to go to him. Please, I begged. Just keep your mouth shut for a few moments. Let him think you’re in agony, anything. Just don’t be a smartass.

  “Awww… but I like being shot. Just one more time, please? I—” Grey’s act of bravado was cut off by another gunshot, and I clenched my hand tighter around my own gun pommel, struggling to breathe. I was losing this battle of will. I was too emotionally compromised. I loved Grey, would do anything to protect him, but here I was, slinking behind these machines and trying to get the drop on Sage.

  And it was taking too long. Grey was going to die.

  I looked over at Eric, who was continuing forward, oblivious to the fact that I had stopped, and swallowed. Tony, do you understand? I asked, needing the AI’s permission before I did something as foolish as what I was about to do.

  Get out there and shoot that son of a bitch, the AI declared, giving me his permission, and I quickly looked around, searching for a space that would let me out. We had passed one a few machines back, and after a moment’s hesitation, I made for it.

  “Liana,” Eric whispered harshly a few seconds later, but it was too late. I was already moving. I heard him try to reach for me, his uniform scraping against the wall, but I was too far away. Grey gave another pained cry, and I used the anger and fear to fuel my actions, aiming for the gap between two machines, which was just wide enough for me to squeeze through. I shifted the gun to my left hand, knowing Tony could compensate for my lack of proficiency with it, and then shoved myself into the tight space.

  I froze a moment later, right down to holding my breath, as the sentinel’s shadow filled the gap a heartbeat before it entered into view. The urge to curl back and hide was strong, but it was already too late—any movement would only further give me away. My heart threatened to explode in terror, my brain certain that it had already seen me, but two agonizing seconds later, it was past. I released a trembling breath, trying to be as quiet as possible, and then seized the opportunity the sentinel had presented me with: it was heading away from Sage, which meant its back would be to me for a few seconds. The other one would be circling around toward Sage, but I had time to get out and act before it was on me.

  I carefully slid farther into the gap, taking great pains not to make any noise, and then stuck my head out, looking first at where Sage and Sadie were standing, to make sure their backs were to me, and then at the sentinel that was heading away. It was disappearing around the large curve of the dome, and I quickly stepped into the aisle, shifting my gun to my other hand and looking back at Sage and Sadie. The area they were standing in was slightly different than the rest of the room, in that the walls curved outward to form a small, square alcove, lined by large machines the likes of which I’d never seen before. The bottom half of them looked normal, I guessed, but they were topped by glass balls, not unlike light bulbs, with beams of electricity curling around inside, spilling out from a fountain. Each machine held a different color of light—purple, orange, yellow, green, blue—and it didn’t take me long to figure out that each one was housing one of the AI fragments. Sage and Sadie were standing at the mouth of the room, and between their legs, I could see Grey sitting just beyond them.

  Sage was bent over him, and Sadie’s position behind him made it difficult to get a shot. I grated my teeth together as Grey made another choked sound, telling me Sage was continuing to probe the bullet wound he had left in Grey’s abdomen, and I raised my arm, setting my sights on Sadie. In my mind, it played out as simply as this: I would shoot Sadie, then shoot Sage when he looked up in surprise. My only concern was the distance. If I miscalculated the angle of the bullet when I hit Sage, it could shoot through him and hit Grey. And he’d been shot enough for the day.

  Blowing out a steady breath, knowing I was beyond exposed, I took several creeping steps forward, trying to get a better angle. My nerves tingled with awareness as Sage began speaking again, and I tightened my grip on my gun, searching for my moment.

  “You see how painful it is, Leo?” Sage crooned, and the question was punctuated by Grey’s agonized cry. “Imagine this over and over again, and you’ll know the kind of torment your copy has been enduring for the last two hundred years. Only, you don’t have his protections to spare you the pain, do you? Should I get a new host and infect them with Whispers? I had such fun designing that particular virus to torment Scipio, but I have no idea how it actually feels, so having you endure it would be fascinating. For science, of course. And why stop there? I have always wanted to try flaying someone alive. We should start a list with all sorts of painful deaths on it. Let’s see, there’s disembowelment, setting you on fire… I mean, I’ve been working in the Medica for a hundred years, so I know all sorts of ways to kill. I’ll march in those innocent humans your idiotic creator made you so protective of, shove you inside them, and then tear them apart piece by piece, until you give me that code. It’s your decision. How many more are going to die before you see reason and give me that damn code?”

  His patience was clearly at an end, and his speech grew rapidly angrier and angrier the longer he talked, until it seemed he was spitting. I still couldn’t get a good angle on him, and I knew my time was running out. Any second, the other sentinel would be rounding the corner, and I’d be caught. I had to fire at Sadie if I wanted to create an opportunity to kill Sage. He could get out of the way before I could get him, but it was worth the risk.

  I was tightening my finger on the trigger, aiming directly for Sadie’s head, when Sage suddenly stood back up, his face contorted into an angry mask. My eyes flicked to the sudden movement, and my gaze met his clear blue one. His eyes widened, and I quickly adjusted my aim for his head, my finger pulling the trigger.

  The gun jerked in my hand, the gun casing ejecting from the slot at the top, and I felt like time slowed down, my every hope and prayer for the future inside that small bullet.

  Sage was already throwing himself behind Sadie with more speed and agility than a man in his third century of life should have, and there was a spark against the far wall where the bullet had ricocheted, missing him. I gritted my teeth together. Tony was already readjusting our aim for Sadie. The redheaded woman was turning, and my shot was hurried, but I hit her. Her slim form went down in a spinning fall and a spray of blood. Sage was still moving in a low crouch, racing away from Sadie’s falling form toward where I could now see Grey sitting. I fired two more shots, then had to stop when Sage hunkered down behind Grey, using him for cover.

  Grey’s head was down, his blond-brown hair partially covering his face, but I could see blood dripping from his chin into his lap, mingling with the blood that was oozing out of two holes in his stomach. I aimed my gun toward him, waiting for Sage to move so I could shoot the asshole in the same places he had shot Grey before adding one to the head. I knew that Kurt was still inside Sage’s net, but at this point, I didn’t care. Kurt had been letting Sage get away with this sort of behavior for long enough. He could die with the man.

  “Come out here!” I shouted, knowing Sage was just buying time for the sentinels to get there. I darted a quick glance behind me to make sure the coast was still clear, and then took a few steps forward, now on guard. “I’ll make it painless,” I added. “One right in the head. You deserve worse, but I’m eager to get this done!”

  “I admire your bravery, Liana. If I’d had even one child with your mettle, I might’ve let him or her breed instead of sterilizing them. But I’m not going down today. I have Alice to protect me.”

  I took another glance behind me and saw the gleaming hulk of the sentinel striding confidently around the curve of the dome, heading right toward me, golden eyes blazing. I quickly shifted targets and fired at one of her eyes, scoring a hit, but she continued to lumber on. I was starting to dance back, ready to throw a lash to someho
w get behind Sage, when a sudden volley of crimson lancer fire erupted from overhead, tearing into the back of the sentinel. I ducked down on impulse and then looked up to see Maddox dangling from her lashes in the center of the ceiling above the dome, firing down on the sentinel. There was a sharp spray of sparks from the sentinel, arcing down across the floor and toward me, and it went slack, its eyes going black. For a second, I stared at it, stunned that we had managed to take it down so easily.

  And then the room exploded into chaos.

  42

  “Get to Leo!” Maddox shouted before twisting around to fire at something down on the other side of the dome, and I moved, taking a few steps backward and then spinning around to follow Maddox’s instructions. She was undoubtedly firing at one of the other two sentinels in the room, but the third remained unaccounted for.

  A sentinel rounded the corner just as I was spinning a lash bead in my hand, as if an echo of my fears and nightmares manifesting into reality, but Tony kept me from panicking, throwing my line for me and hitting the ceiling overhead. We ran straight for the sentinel, but at the last minute, retracted the line and flew upward, using the momentum to start running along the side of the dome. I took three steps at an angle heading up, aware that the sentinel was reaching to grab me from the movement in the corner of my eye, and then pushed off the dome, flipping myself backward. I disconnected the line as I somersaulted through the air, and landed heavily on my boots, dropping to one knee. My gun hand was already thrusting out, my aim for the shape of the black box seated between the sentinel’s shoulders, but the machine twisted, one arm whipping toward me. I squeezed the trigger just as it slammed into my forearm, and the shot sparked off one of the machines.

  The pain in my arm was explosive, but I still had a grip on my gun, so the arm couldn’t be broken. I threw myself back as the sentinel’s other hand came around to grab me, barely avoiding the grasping metal fingers, and brought my gun back up, aiming for an eye. It ducked back, one hand going up to shield the orbs from the bullet, and I cursed. Alice had learned my little trick.

  Still, her flinch gave me a moment to carve out a few more feet between us, and at that moment, a blur of movement leapt from a gap in the machine, attaching himself to the sentinel’s back. It was Eric—and he was giving me a chance. He had a baton in his hand, already charged, and I knew he was trying to buy me time to get to Leo. I spun around, intent on shouting the New Day protocol at Leo and shooting Sage at the same time.

  He was still behind Grey, but he wasn’t crouching anymore, and I quickly came to a stop when I saw the flat, matte-black nose of the pistol pressed against Grey’s vulnerable throat—below where the net sat in the back of his skull, ensuring Leo would survive. One gnarled finger curled around the trigger. I stared at it for a second, and then up at Sage, my hand tightening on my gun.

  “Do it,” Grey said hoarsely, his brown eyes finding mine. “Shoot him. Don’t worry about me.”

  I pressed my lips together against the wave of emotion his statement generated in me, and started to lift the gun up, intent on following his orders. I knew I was risking his life, but he knew what was at stake and what he was asking. Hell, he’d been taunting Sage to try to get him to lose control and kill them both, to prevent Sage from getting the codes. I couldn’t let that be in vain.

  Sage’s eyes widened as I brought the gun up to sight on him, and then he rolled his eyes and shook his head, looking utterly irritated with my reaction. I grated my teeth together at the man’s arrogance right up to the end and started to squeeze the trigger.

  A flash of movement from my right was the only warning I had that I had been flanked. Pain erupted from my wrists as a metal bar was brought down on them, and my hands suddenly went numb, the gun slipping from nerveless fingers. I looked up to see Sadie’s slim figure emerge from a gap between the machines, her green eyes blazing with malice as she drew back for another strike with the pipe.

  I got my arms over my head, but part of the bar hit my forehead, and I stumbled back, the blow to my skull enough to break through the drug cocktail Quess had fed me earlier to keep the concussion at bay. Immediately my balance faltered, the sickly sensation in my stomach telling me that gravity was shifting to the left, and I slammed against the dome before going down.

  My vision went dark and pain exploded into my skull, threatening to render me unconscious, but I fought against it. I felt Tony helping me, but it wasn’t easy. I became aware of reality in patches, and in an oddly disconnected way, like I was blinking at a picture without really seeing it. The sentinel was dragging me across the floor by my foot; Maddox was firing at the other one as it climbed up the side of the dome to get her. Then flashing back to my sentinel as my head lolled to one side, only to see Eric tucked neatly under its arm. His face was red, and he was looking at me—shouting at me—but I couldn’t hear him, and within seconds, the blackness had swallowed me again.

  I wasn’t sure when we stopped moving, but I grew aware again when something grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled, and the feeling was like shards of glass being jammed into my brain. Something cold splashed in my face just as soon as the pain became too much, and I felt water invading my mouth and nostrils, threatening to drown me. It shocked me out of the darkness, and I began to cough it out, already catching some in my windpipe.

  “That’s it,” Sage said from overhead, and I slid open my eyes enough to see the floor and a pair of white boots in my field of vision. “Wake up.”

  I groaned, the searing pain in my skull only increasing as my head was pulled back to face his. I winced at the bright light surrounding his face, making him a dark and ominous silhouette, and then groaned when it sank in that he had caught me. I rolled my eyes around as far as I could to the right and left, and saw that it was Sadie gripping my hair, and that Eric and Maddox were being restrained by sentinels, metal hands covering their mouths to silence them. The effort cost me, and my vision grew more and more blurred, until it was doubling while the world started to spin the wrong way, sliding to the left and away. Black spots blossomed and danced across my vision, telling me I was about to black out again, and I almost gave in to it, not wanting to see my friends butchered before my eyes.

  A soft slap on the side of my cheek snapped my eyes back to Sage, and I inhaled a shuddering breath, trying to think of something pithy to say to him before he killed us.

  “Stay with me, Liana. Here, let me give you something for that pain.” There was a sharp sting at my neck, and seconds later the intense throbbing faded some. I could see straight without feeling like I was going to puke, and my thoughts felt more ordered and cohesive. “That’s better,” Sage said with a sigh, straightening up. “I am so very glad to see you! Tell me, do you know where Tony is? I’m betting you do. I think you had something to do with getting him out of that server in Cogstown. Where is he, Liana?”

  I stared at him, having zero intention of telling him anything. “In the words of Grey,” I wheezed, smiling against the lingering pain in my head. “Go to hell.” Then I spat at him for good measure, tearing several chunks of my hair against Sadie’s grip in the process. She jerked me back, but a glob of my bloody spit had already struck his pristine uniform.

  Sage made a face of disgust and turned to grab something from behind him. “Really, Liana,” he said in a patronizing tone. “I’m sorry you lost, but do you have to be so immature about it?”

  I curled my hands up into fists but froze when I felt something cold pressing into the back of my neck. I recognized it immediately as a gun and wanted to gnash my teeth in frustration. This was it. We were done. Sage was only keeping me around to get Tony, and after that…

  I’d messed up. Missed my chance. If I had just waited a fraction of a second longer to get a better shot at him, I would’ve at least killed the bastard.

  It was becoming the story of my life, really. I made plans, and the bad guys always came out on top. My litany of mistakes was longer than my arm and had cost me so much.
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  “Go to hell,” I wheezed. I was defeated, but I’d be damned if I gave him anything at this point. Call me a spiteful girl, but that bastard could rot in hell. Inside, I thought, Tony, can you send your program somewhere to keep out of his hands?

  It doesn’t really work like that, he replied.

  I wasn’t happy with the answer, because that meant I had to resort to plan two. Then can you delete yourself? I knew I was basically asking the program to commit suicide, but I couldn’t let him fall into Sage’s hands.

  There was a pause. From your net? I… I don’t know. I’ve never tried. But look, he’s not going to kill you yet. He needs you. He knows you’re Leo’s weakness. There’s an opportunity here if you can just wait for it.

  I shook my head against the thought. Sage had given me something for the pain, and it was making me sluggish and heavy. It wasn’t full sedation, but it was definitely slowing my reflexes down. I appreciated Tony’s advice, but I had to be practical. I couldn’t fight Sage like this. I promise I will, but… we can’t let you fall into his hands. Can you try?

  “You’re talking to him right now, aren’t you?” Sage asked, and I blinked my eyes up at him to see that he had squatted down in front of me and was studying my face. “He’s in your net! Of course! It’s clever, and also great for me. Sadie?”

  Sadie shoved me forward, and I wasn’t prepared for the action. I tried to get my arms under me, to break my fall, but I was only able to get one up before I slammed into the floor. The angle of my arm caused the impact to translate into that shoulder in a loud, crunching noise that I both heard and felt, and I gasped at the pain, rolling over to my side and grabbing at it. The thing felt damn near dislocated.

  I held it for several seconds, breathing through the pain, only to have it erupt anew as something pressed down on it. I opened my eyes to see Sadie standing over me, her hand cupping her arm where I had apparently shot her, her foot planted on my shoulder, and a sudden surge of anger had me lashing out with my own foot, trying to catch her leg with my own.