by Kyla Stone
Nguyen still stood there, in the middle of the battlefield, stunned and frozen.
“Nguyen!” he shouted, gesturing wildly. “Duck!”
Gunshots cracked through the air.
Nguyen’s head snapped back. He dropped to the ground, a bullet drilled into his forehead.
Nguyen lay awkwardly, one leg bent beneath him, the other thrust out at a strange angle, his mouth agape, a trail of blood trickling bright red and slick down his chin.
Gabriel didn’t have time to mourn, to even feel anything but dull despair throbbing at the back of his skull. Amelia needed him. If he didn’t get out of here, he’d be next.
He released a volley of firepower, driving the enemy soldiers back behind a concrete barrier. They ducked their heads, seeking cover. It was his chance.
Adrenaline shot through him. He took off running, moving deeper into the interior, toward the square.
He dashed past the bodies crumpled on the ground. A civilian in his twenties writhed in agony, his femur broken, the white shard of bone puncturing through his thigh from the inside. A soldier slumped forward, groaning and clutching her face, a four-inch gash over the bridge of her nose, slashing across her cheek and eye.
He didn’t let his gaze land for more than an instant on anything. If he allowed the true horror of it all to sink in, it would overwhelm him. He’d be done for.
Finally, the marble steps of BioGen’s headquarters appeared, the building rising out of the eerie mix of swirling smoke and falling snow.
Gabriel sprinted up the steps and slammed through the glass doors. He raced through the expansive lobby and into the stairwell, taking the stairs three at a time instead of wasting time with the elevator.
He was already forced to waste precious seconds as he paused at each floor, opening the stairwell’s steel-reinforced door, edging around the corner and straining for sound over the thrumming of the blood in his ears, searching for any sign of Amelia. He didn’t know what floor she’d be on. He wasn’t even entirely sure she was here.
On the sixth floor, he caught the sound of distant voices. Not Amelia’s, but close enough. Odds were, if he found President Sloane, he’d find her.
He closed the stairwell door silently behind him and crept down the sterile white corridor. He paused at a holomap on the wall. There were several labs, patient rooms, and private offices. Too many to try and figure out the correct one from a map. He’d just have to play it by ear.
Gun in the ready position, he approached the first set of doors to his right. He did a quick visual search, clearing each room before moving on. He turned a corner, passing windows looking into a lab—he glimpsed steel counters filled with glass tubes and vials and instruments he didn’t know the names of.
A noise to his right drew his attention.
An opened office door, Declan Black’s name emblazoned on a gold placard. As he drew closer, a pair of feet sprawled on the floor appeared in the gap between the door and the wall. Both feet bare, nails painted a glittery crimson, blood crusting the big toe. Scarlet fabric shimmered over slim, pale white shins.
Amelia.
He inched forward, moving carefully, silently, even as every cell in his body screamed at him to race blindly inside and save her.
Amelia’s legs were moving, frantically scrabbling for purchase against the smooth tile floor. A figure hunched over her, straddling her torso with huge, tree-trunk thighs. A man with a massive back and muscled shoulders. Even facing away, Gabriel knew he would be a formidable opponent.
“The girl is no longer an asset.” President Sloane’s voice came from inside the office. “Kill her.”
Adrenaline shot through his veins. He had no choice. A second could mean the difference between life and death. He lunged forward.
He glimpsed bare white walls, a mahogany conference table surrounded by high-backed chairs, an integrated computer desk, a half-dozen holoports and screens. President Sloane froze in midstride. Her head jerked up as he burst into the room, her eyes wide and startled.
The man kneeling over Amelia wore a black tuxedo—one of the president’s security detail. His meaty hands were wrapped around Amelia’s throat.
“Bale!” President Sloane screamed.
Gabriel didn’t have time to aim. Using his considerable momentum, he lowered his shoulder like a battering ram and crashed into Amelia’s attacker. The surprise assault was enough to knock the man sideways, off Amelia.
Bale was on his feet, his pulse gun already drawn before Gabriel had fully regained his balance. The man was a beast. Massive, hulking, oozing malevolence, his eyes glacial cold. The man had fifty pounds of solid muscle on him, maybe more.
He was bigger, stronger, and likely better trained than Gabriel. Speed, timing, and luck were Gabriel’s only assets now.
The president ran for the doorway. “Kill him!”
“Run!” Gabriel screamed at Amelia as he threw himself behind the mahogany table. Amelia scrambled to her hands and knees, clutching her throat with one hand, coughing violently. She crawled for the doorway, for safety.
Bale aimed at Gabriel and fired the pulse gun three times in rapid succession. Holes the size of fists appeared in the wall behind Gabriel, spraying him with fine dust. The acrid stench of burnt gypsum filled his nostrils.
Gabriel dropped to the floor and fired beneath the table. A potted plant exploded a foot to the right of Bale’s thigh. He shot again, but Bale had already ducked behind the desk. Gabriel got off a short blast of five shots. But the desk was rock solid. It was made of a diamondglass polymer, as tough as bullet-proof armor.
His own barrier offered much less protection. A pulse blast pulverized an office chair a few feet from Gabriel’s face. Heat from the pulse of white-hot energy scalded his skin.
Amelia was somewhere in the hallway, wounded and defenseless. President Sloane could order any of her minions to take Amelia out. They would do it without a moment’s hesitation. He had to neutralize this guy fast and get to her.
On his knees, keeping his head low, he edged around the table. Five yards from where he hid to the office doorway. No one to cover him but himself.
He peered between two chairs to get another look at the desk. The muzzle of Bale’s pulse gun appeared. Gabriel shot twice more, forcing Bale back behind cover.
He checked his ammo. Empty. He dropped the rifle and drew his handgun from its holster. It was also empty, but he had one more mag. He ejected the clip, grabbed the last spare from his tactical vest, and slapped it in.
Here goes nothing. With a sharp intake of breath, he launched himself at the doorway, right arm angled across his body as he shot wildly in Bale’s direction.
Gabriel hurtled through the door just as a pulse blast punched the wall above the door frame. He skidded to a halt, turned swiftly, and grasped the door handle. As Bale came running behind him, Gabriel threw himself against the door with all his might, slamming the reinforced steel into the man’s face.
The door met Bale’s skull with a sickening thud. Bale staggered back. The gun clattered to the floor.
Gabriel ran out the door. Thirty yards down the hallway to the right, Amelia leaned against the wall just before the door to the stairwell, her head back, gasping for breath. He dashed toward her.
“Go!” he shouted.
She looked at him, glassy eyes widening in fear. Her gaze flicked over his shoulder.
Gabriel twisted just as a blur of motion collided into him. Bale struck him like a battering ram, sending them both crashing against the door opposite Amelia’s cowering form.
The door gave way. They toppled into the lab, sprawled half on top of each other. Gabriel’s gun sailed out of his hands.
Gabriel rolled to his feet in an instant, but so did Bale. They crouched, circling each other, fists raised, sizing each other up.
Gabriel’s vision spun, disorienting him for a moment. Where was his gun? He glimpsed rows of pristine, stainless steel counters. Glass cabinets filled with vials and tubes, bottles of pills,
powders, injectors, and containers of sludgy, strangely-colored liquids. Against the far wall stood shelves of glass cages full of mice.
The opened door was directly to his left. Beyond it, the hallway, the right leading to the stairwell, the left to the balcony overlooking the lobby. He didn’t see the gun anywhere. It must have slid across the floor behind one of the counters, out of sight.
A med-bot whirred at a counter next to him, inserting vials into a centrifuge. It beeped at him. Gabriel seized the thing, lifted it high over his head, and hurled it at Bale.
Bale dodged it with surprisingly fluid grace for his massive size. The bot struck the wall and bounced off. It spun awkwardly, emitting a harsh, mechanical buzz, and drifted in a haphazard zigzag pattern out into the hallway.
Bale came at Gabriel in a furious assault, driving him back against the counter, pummeling him with his fists, landing kicks and punches that Gabriel could barely see, let alone dodge.
Gabriel flung up his arm to deflect the blows, pain exploding in a half-dozen places. A fist smashed the right side of his face. Another collided with what felt like his liver.
Bale smashed and hammered with his fists, attacking him like a hurricane. Gabriel landed a few blows. It felt like punching a mountain. His knuckles split, bruised and bleeding.
He stumbled, blood blurring his vision. His pulse throbbed in his temple, roared in his ears.
Bale’s expression remained grim, cold, clinical. He didn’t speak. He didn’t curse. He simply fought. He was better than Gabriel. Stronger. Faster. Gabriel couldn’t beat him in hand-to-hand combat.
His gut twisted as the terrible realization sank in. There was no way he could win this fight. He was already losing, and badly. He needed the gun.
He managed to land a solid blow to Bale’s kidneys. Bale stepped back, grunting.
Gabriel took his opening and raced around the counter, searching for the gun. There it was. Near the wall of mice. It was his only chance. He ran for it.
A vice-like grip wrapped around his neck from behind, cutting off the blood flow to his brain. Bale was strangling him with fingers strong as steel, cutting off his breath, slowly crushing his larynx. He tried to throw his head back, to elbow and kick his way free, but Bale was simply too strong.
Blood rushed in Gabriel’s ears. Darkness wavering at the corners of his vision. A cold numbness descended over him. He fought it with every ounce of strength he had. He didn’t fear death. He feared failing to protect the ones he loved.
Amelia wasn’t safe. He couldn’t let himself die. He didn’t want to die.
28
Micah
Silas flashed Micah the finger before slipping inside the tower.
He’d made it. They were really going to do this. They were going to win this thing, they were going to change everything—
But Micah’s joy was short-lived.
Three soldiers in blood-stained gray uniforms appeared from behind a tank near the plasma wall. They gestured at the tower and the door Silas had just entered with their fully-functional pulse guns.
Micah managed to shoot one. He aimed and fired again. His rifle clicked. His ammo was out. He patted his tactical vest frantically and grabbed his last mag, the one Logan had given him.
It was too late. Two enemy soldiers had already entered the tower. The metal door slammed shut, trapping Silas inside.
“Micah!” a voice called from behind him. Logan hobbled toward him, his arm slung across Kadek’s shoulder.
“He said he was on our side,” Kadek said.
“He is. He protected Amelia on the platform.” He narrowed his eyes at Kadek. “There was an explosion! It was supposed to be a smoke bomb. Amelia could’ve been killed! What the heck happened?”
Kadek blanched. “It was our best chance to get the Sanctuary leadership—to get Sloane. I had to do it.”
A hot spark of rage ignited inside Micah. “You lied to us, to Theo! Amelia could have died!”
Kadek’s expression went pinched and wary. “I didn’t think they’d actually put Amelia on the platform.”
‘But you took the risk!”
“I had orders from General Reaver herself,” he said testily. “I had no choice.”
“Was Fiona in on it?”
Kadek shook his head. “She wouldn’t have agreed. I didn’t tell her anything.”
“This is not the time,” Logan wheezed. “We have to get out of here. They’re coming.”
Micah reigned in his anger. Logan was right. First, they had to stay alive. Then they had to win. Everything else was secondary. He risked a glance around the edge of the Humvee. At least thirty soldiers were crouched low, darting across the expanse of open ground between them.
“I won’t leave Silas!” Micah slammed in the magazine with fumbling fingers. Several bullets whizzed over his head. A pulse blast gouged a chunk in the wall of the building five yards to his right.
“I’m out of ammo,” Kadek said. “You can’t help him now. Come on, or we’re—” Kadek crumpled, Logan falling with him.
Micah stared, stunned.
Kadek lay unmoving, one eye closed, the other half-lidded, his mouth hinged open, as if he were getting ready to speak again. Only he never would.
Two seconds ago, he’d been talking. Now a fist-sized hole in his chest steamed in the cold air.
“Micah!” Logan shouted. He pulled himself to a seated position, his bum leg straightened in front of him, oozing blood. “Snap out of it!”
Micah tore his gaze from Kadek’s body.
“I’ll cover you as long as I can.” Logan gave a pained grunt as he crawled to a cover position at Micah’s exposed left side. “Let’s get this done.”
Micah peered through his scope, blinking sweat from his eyes, willing his hands to steady, his aim to be true. Doubt gripped him. He wasn’t a crack shot like Silas, wasn’t a trained fighter like Gabriel. He was a poet, a philosopher, a thinker, not a warrior.
Silas dies if you don’t do this. Everyone you love dies if you fail.
He prayed harder than he ever had in his life. Every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for the door atop the rampart to open.
The door burst open. Micah’s finger twitched on the trigger.
It was Silas—alive, lurching for the cannon even as his upper body twisted and he aimed his gun at the doorway he’d just exited. The first soldier crashed through the door. Silas slammed three bullets into his chest, a fourth into his neck. Red blood sprayed—bright crimson against the falling snow.
Out of bullets, Silas hurled his gun at the soldier barreling over his fallen comrade. The soldier batted it away. Micah glimpsed only a bearded face. Brown hair. Gray uniform.
Micah shot. Missed. Sucked in a breath. If he fired too wide, he’d hit Silas.
Next to him, Logan swore as he fired a dozen shots, desperate to keep the enemy at bay. Three nighthawks shot over their heads, so low the wind from the lifting blades buffeted their heads and shoulders, blowing hair into Micah’s face.
The nighthawks banked and came gliding back toward them.
“They’re coming in hot!” Logan hollered.
Fear knifed Micah’s gut. There was nothing he could do now. There was nowhere to run or hide. Silas was depending on him. Everything depended on getting that last cannon down.
It took a supreme act of will, but Micah kept his rifle trained on the cannon, not the deadly threat about to open fire on his exposed body.
His world narrowed to a single thought, a single mission. He had to take out the soldier before the drones killed him.
In the zoomed glass of his scope, he watched Silas turn back for the cannon. Knife in one hand, Silas groped its metallic underbelly, searching for the kill switch.
Behind Silas, the enemy soldier planted his feet. Aimed.
Micah muttered a prayer and fired another short burst. Blood sprayed from the soldier’s right bicep. His body jerked, twisted. He fell against the rampart wall, wounded but not dead. The gun st
ill in his hand.
Before the soldier went down, he got off one final shot.
Silas lurched.
Through his rifle’s scope, Micah watched in horror as Silas crumpled, a gaping hole between his shoulder blades.
“NO!” Micah screamed.
Panic roared through him. He surged to his feet, about to race to the tower to reach Silas, battlefield be damned.
Someone grasped his upper arm. “Micah, stop!”
Micah tried to jerk free. “I’m going after him. I have to save him. I have to—”
Logan tightened his grip and yanked Micah down behind the safety of the Humvee. A spray of bullets whizzed over their heads.
“He’s gone!” Logan shouted into his face, shaking his shoulders. “Don’t get yourself killed, too!”
Micah only shook his head, fighting off the dread and despair twisting his guts. Grief strangled his throat. His eyes burned. The ground was opening up beneath his feet and he had nothing to hold onto, nothing to keep himself from free-falling. “You don’t know him. He’s tough. If we can get to him—”
“He’s dead. I saw it. I saw what happened. That pulse blast put a hole all the way through him. No one lives through that. No one.”
Micah stared dully at Logan, at his rigid features, his green eyes so bright in his dirt-streaked, blood-speckled face. Micah longed to call the man a liar, to scream at him, to hate him.
But he knew, in the deepest, darkest part of himself—Silas was dead.
Micah had no time to grieve, no time for the horror to sink in.
Logan shook him again. “There’s a battalion of soldiers sneaking up on our northwest side,” he hissed. “I spotted at least a dozen more to our six. We have to go right now. We have to—”
Three nighthawks streaked over their heads. Their huge gun turrets whirred, swiveling to point directly at Micah and Logan.
“Put your hands up.” Logan’s voice was raw, defeated. “We’re surrounded. It’s over for us.”
“What? No! I’m not giving up. We’re not surrendering—”
“We are if we want to live.” Logan winced as he staggered to his feet. The six-inch shard of shrapnel still jutted from his thigh. Blood leaked in slow streams down his pant leg. He raised both of his arms in the air.
