by Anna Argent
A short section of tree branch about as thick as her leg rolled through. It was covered in papery gray bark she’d never seen before.
A Loriahan tree, just like Zoe had said.
The weapon was in there.
The Cytur’s head moved to follow the motion of the branch. It pulled back its hard black claws on its two forelegs and slammed them into the glass.
The whole pane erupted in a shower of shards. One of them struck the creature, pissing it off enough that it let out a shrill series of angry clicks.
Ava didn’t wait to see if it was going to come in here and steal her only means of saving Mom and Emily. While the Cytur was distracted, she darted to the branch, scooped it up, and headed straight for the back of the store.
The Cytur saw her before she’d cleared the back door and charged.
Fear exploded in Ava’s chest, giving her a burst of speed. She slammed through the door, branch under one arm, golf club in the opposite hand. She didn’t know if either of them would be enough of a weapon to keep the alien at bay, but she was almost certain she was going to find out.
There was a series of dimly lit hallways back here, linking the stores together. Whether for employee entrances or to receive deliveries, she wasn’t sure, but if she was going to make it out of here without being skewered by those claws, this was the way it was going to happen.
She heard a scraping noise behind her and knew that thing was on her trail. With all of those legs, she had no doubt it could run faster than she could.
She took a left turn up ahead, hoping to throw it off. But rather than leading her to an exit or dumping her back into the mall, she ended up at a door labeled MAINTENANCE.
It was a dead end. The door was locked.
Ava turned around to run out the way she’d come, but before she could, the shiny black claw of the Cytur slid into sight.
She was trapped.
Chapter Twenty-six
Radek ran as fast as he could, but the Cyturs were gaining on him.
Their claws scraped across the concrete floor, sending up a horrendous screeching noise that was almost as loud as their furious clicking language. Their spindly shadows cast by the mall’s security lights engulfed him, telling him just how close he was to being overrun.
He passed a popcorn shop, then took a hard left toward the railing. The level below was farther down than he would have liked, but he had no choice. If he didn’t jump, the Cyturs were going to catch him, and there were too many for him to fight out in the open like this.
He jumped over the railing, aiming for the soft fabric roof of a kiosk below. A fall like this might have killed him on Loriah, but here, he was light enough to survive.
He hoped.
The fabric structure gave way. The frame supporting it collapsed, and he landed hard on a glass case filled with glittering barrettes and hair clips. Shards of glass sliced through his jeans and grazed his ribs. Sharp, crystal-encrusted metal bits punctured his skin.
Radek absorbed the pain gratefully as proof of life and rolled onto the hard floor.
On the level above, Cyturs scrambled near the railing as if trying to figure out the quickest way down to him.
He didn’t wait to see what solution they came up with. Instead, he headed toward the food court, searching for a defensible position where he could funnel the horde down and take them on in smaller numbers.
Thoughts of Ava hovered in his mind. Was she safe? Had she found a way out? Would he ever see her again?
There was only one way for him to find out, and that was to survive.
Radek raced past an ice cream shop and rounded the corner. Up ahead was the makeshift skate park the teens had set up out of tables and chairs. Two skateboards lay abandoned nearby.
He risked a quick glance behind him. The Cyturs had split into two groups. One had jumped over the railing. They had landed in a pile, their slick claws slipping on the tile floor. The second group opted to go around and were now scurrying down a pair of escalators that were out of service.
If he didn’t find a good place to confront them, both groups were going to pin him down and outflank him.
The mall wasn’t designed with defense against alien invaders in mind. The best spot he could find was the restroom area at the far end of the food court. The doors were wide enough they wouldn’t impede his maulst, but narrow enough that none of the Cyturs could slip past him and attack from the rear—unless he was going down anyway.
He was almost there, when a cagey Cytur appeared from its hiding spot, blocking his path. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he did know there wasn’t time to kill it before the rest of its kind reached him.
With a quick glance around for options, he saw only one.
Radek grabbed up a fallen skateboard as he passed, flung it onto its wheels, and hopped aboard for a ride. With his weapon glowing and reshaping itself into a sharp blade, he launched himself up the ramp and flew over the insectoid body of his enemy. One hard swipe of his maulst, and the creature’s head was severed. It flew off and hit a sign listing the mall’s rules of etiquette.
Being new to the whole skateboarding scene, he wasn’t able to stay on his wheels through the flight. When he landed, it was a clumsy, ugly thing that left him skidding across the tile at the bathroom entrance.
One of the sparkly hair clips that had lodged itself into his skin flew off and hit the wall, splintering into a rainbow of glittering pink crystals.
Radek watched the tiny bits of glass roll away. So pretty, just like Ava.
He knew it was time to get back on his feet, but his body refused to cooperate. All he could do was lie there and stare, too stunned to move.
That’s when he felt the pain in his head. It exploded behind his eyes, as if his nerves had just now shaken themselves off and remembered they had a job to do: make him suffer.
He realized then that he must have hit his head hard enough to momentarily paralyze him. Even in his dulled state, he had a vague memory of going through this kind of injury once or twice before.
But he’d never before had to shake it off with a group of Cyturs charging him.
His vision was too fuzzy to see very far, but he could hear them scratching and clawing their way toward him.
Get up! Get up! Get up!
The last bit of smart he had in his rattled brain screamed at him, over and over again. He wanted to tell it to shut up, but the cries were far too frantic to be ignored.
His maulst lay in front of him. It had gone dark now that it had run out of fuel from his cells to power it, but if he could reach it, maybe he could use it like a crutch to push himself up.
The sound of Cyturs clicking grew louder. His fingers fumbled for the mop handle, missing twice before he hit the mark. Even then, his grip was limp and weak—nowhere near what it should have been.
How was he going to protect Ava if he couldn’t even hold a weapon?
You’re not going to survive long enough to see her again if you don’t get the hell up!
Finally, the frenetic shouting of his brain got through. There was no way anyone—Cytur, human or Loriahan—was going to keep him from her. She was his, and he was going to find his way back to her. No matter what.
That thought gave him the strength he needed to stand. His legs were wobbly and he had to lean heavily on his weapon, but he was on his feet.
Radek gave his aching head a shake. The fog over his vision started to clear just enough that he could see what was charging right for him.
His maulst sparked and lit in eagerness, shaping itself to kill, but it didn’t matter. There was no way Radek was going to be able to fight if he couldn’t even lift his weapon.
He was screwed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Ava slammed her body into the locked door hard enough to make her regret it.
The tree branch holding the weapon fell to the floor. Pain marched up her arm and had a parade in her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat as she st
ifled a scream.
The Cytur was almost within claws’ reach of her.
She flung herself at the door again, and this time it popped open and slammed against the inside wall.
She wasted no time looking around. Instead, she scooped up the branch, jumped into the room, shut the door, and jammed her golf club through the handle. She wedged it behind a heavy metal shelf loaded with cleaning supplies, but even as she did, she knew her makeshift bar wasn’t going to hold long.
Seconds later, the Cytur rammed into the door. The whole shelf shook. Bottles of soap fell to the floor, shattering and leaving a slippery mess.
The alien ran into the door again, and this time, it managed to push it open a couple of inches.
Two thick claws tried to work their way through the crack, but it wasn’t quite wide enough.
Yet.
She scanned the room. It was stocked with floor buffers and tools, paper towels and off-season decorations stored in boxes.
There were plenty of places to hide, but no other doors. No way out.
It was only a matter of time before that thing shoved its way in here and cornered her.
What she needed was another door.
She spied a circular saw on a shelf next to a workbench. She didn’t know if it could cut a hole through the wall or not, but she was going to find out.
But first she needed to buy some time.
Ava grabbed a jug of soap, ripped it open and poured it under the door. She didn’t know much about aliens, but she knew that those sharp, pointed claws were going to have a hard time finding a way to gain traction on a concrete floor covered in slippery soap.
The next blow to the door was followed by a thump, like the thing had fallen. The claws in the door disappeared, but she knew it was still out there. She could hear it scrambling around as it regained its footing.
She doubted she had much time. With all those legs, it would soon figure out how to claw into the nearby walls or ceiling for leverage.
Ava grabbed up the circular saw and plugged it into an extension cord on the workbench. She didn’t bother cutting through the outside wall, figuring that it would be concrete. Instead, she went to the wall adjacent to the hall and fired up the saw.
It ate through drywall within seconds, but came to a dead stop as it hit a metal beam. No wood here. Apparently, this place had been built with metal studs.
Great. Now what?
The pounding at the door grew louder again. The shelf shimmied as the golf club moved more with every blow.
She looked longingly at the wall, wishing for a door to appear.
Then she realized the metal studs might be placed far enough apart that she could squeeze between them.
With her bare hands, she grabbed the cut edge of the drywall and pried it open.
She could fit between the metal studs, assuming she could knock through whatever was covering the other side of the wall.
The pounding at the door grew louder and harder again. Somehow the thing had figured out how to work around the slippery-floor obstacle.
With fear strengthening her, she used her heel to bash against the wall.
Her whole foot went through, throwing her off balance. She caught herself and kicked again.
Light streamed in through the hole.
Sunlight.
Ava kicked hard, using every bit of her strength to gouge out a hole big enough for her to crawl through. She’d almost made it when the shelf wedging the golf club against the wall fell over. Supplies flew everywhere. The golf club fell out of place, leaving nothing holding the door shut.
She didn’t wait to see what happened next. Instead, she shoved the tree branch out through the hole she’d made, then forced herself to squeeze through, ignoring the skin she’d lost in the process.
She tumbled out into a hallway leading to the side of the mall. There was an employee entrance here, and sunlight was flooding in through the window, beckoning her.
The creature let out a shrill, clicking sound as it realized its prey was gone.
Black claws thrust through the hole, nearly stabbing her calf.
Ava swallowed a scream of fear and bolted for the door. The panic bar collapsed under her weight, and the door flew open.
She scurried backward, away from the mall. At any second, she was certain the Cytur was going to come busting out of that door to chase her.
Rather than wait to see if she was right, she turned and ran to the coffee shop across the street. The truck was on the far side of the mall, and she wasn’t about to make that trip, knowing how many of those things were inside.
With Radek.
With every hurried stride, she prayed he would be waiting for her outside of the coffee shop, just like they’d planned. But when she reached it, he wasn’t there.
She scanned the area for him while she caught her breath. As the sweat on her body cooled, she started to shiver.
There was no one around. The streets were empty, the parking lots barren. Shops everywhere were closed, their signs saying they’d stay that way until the national state of emergency was lifted.
Ava didn’t know what to do. If Radek needed her, she owed it to him to go back in the mall and help. But if someone as strong as him couldn’t survive, then she stood no chance. She’d barely managed to outmaneuver one of those things.
Radek had drawn away at least a dozen of them.
If she died too, what would happen to her family?
As the minutes slipped by, her heart sank lower and lower and the truth set in.
She couldn’t let him die. She cared about him too much—enough to scare her, and not just because this whole world and everyone she loved was going to go up in flames if he wasn’t there to work the weapon.
He’d saved her life. Again. She couldn’t repay that by abandoning him.
She loved Mom and Emily. She needed them to live, but no one was going to live without Radek.
She had to find a way to save everyone.
*****
Radek backed into the restroom as fast as his wobbly legs would allow.
His vision was still blurry, and weakness plagued him. He had just enough sense left in his rattled head to know that he wasn’t thinking right. His thought processes were too slow, almost sluggish.
He was in no shape to fight, but he could run away with the best of them. So that’s what he did.
There was no sign of Ava anywhere. He’d given her enough time to flee. Now it was his turn.
He jumped up onto one of the toilets and shoved his way up through a ceiling tile. It was dark and dusty up here, but the structure was stable enough to support his weight.
The clicking of the Cyturs grew louder as they flowed into the men’s room. They hadn’t yet figured out where he’d gone, but it wouldn’t take long for them to hear him up here once they quieted down.
Stealth wasn’t on his side. What he needed now was speed, and lots of it.
With little room to maneuver, he crawled toward the women’s restroom, dragging his maulst along with him. The pale blue glow showed him where to go.
But he wasn’t fast enough.
Sharp, black spikes stabbed up through the ceiling tiles, barely missing him. He picked up the pace, but it still wasn’t fast enough.
One of his enemies hit the mark, impaling his arm with a sharp claw.
He bit back a roar of pain and used that fury to spur him forward.
As soon as he was past what looked like a wall, he punched a tile out and fell down into the next room.
It was a family restroom with a proper door, rather than a wide, door-less opening. The only light in here was that of his weapon, but it was enough for him to make out a stall, sink and diaper changing table.
As carefully as he could, he cracked the door open and peeked out to see what his odds of running were.
Most of the Cyturs were in the men’s room, but a few were unable to shove their way in. They lingered outside, pacing like caged animals smelli
ng fresh meat.
Above him, he heard the sound of Cyturs trying to make their way into the ceiling in order to chase after him.
If even one of them caught him here, in this tight space, he was dead. He’d never be able to dodge their sharp claws without room to maneuver.
Blood seeped down his arm, dripping onto the floor. The pain wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t sure how much damage was really done or how it might interfere with his ability to fight.
And this was not the time to find out.
What he needed was a distraction—something to take all those eyes off of him long enough for him to make a run for it.
He shut the door softly, and ripped the roll of toilet paper from its holder. He eased the door open again just enough to toss the roll, and then pulled heat from his core to light it on fire.
The fireball flew through the air, heading right toward a display of fake potted plants.
The plants went up in an impressive whoosh of burning plastic, drawing the attention of the Cyturs not inside the bathroom.
Radek didn’t wait to see how well his distraction worked. He just ran.
He’d made it to the stairs leading up out of the food court when he knew he’d been spotted. The furious screech of an enraged Cytur was a very distinct noise. Several of them screeching at the same time was nearly deafening.
“Radek, behind you!” Ava shouted.
She was here, not outside like she was supposed to be.
And now every enraged Cytur was looking right at her.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Radek’s heart stopped beating as fear took hold.
“Run!” he screamed as he headed toward Ava.
Her eyes widened as she saw his injuries. Then her gaze moved past him, and the look of fear on her face told him that she had suddenly realized just how much danger they were in.
“Run!” he said again, making a beeline for her.
Something in her eyes changed, shifted. Her fear disappeared, and all that was left was a strange kind of calm calculation. It lasted only a second, but it was so striking that he saw it even several yards away.
