Taken by Force

by Anna Argent

  The mental inventory went on for days, years. She lived a dozen lifetimes of battle and blood, experiencing the horror and thrill of war over and over. As soon as the machine had taken by force whatever it was Dimas demanded of it, she felt hollow. Empty. It was as though someone had reached inside her and scraped out everything of value, leaving only dust.

  A deep, aching loss settled over her, and all she wanted to do was crawl into a dark hole and lick her wounds.

  But the machine wasn’t done with her yet. It wanted more.

  Her consciousness split into seven different pieces. Each piece went in a different direction, worming its way through a shimmering portal no thicker than a pencil.

  Armies stood before her. Seven of them, each filled with thousands of young, frightened Dregorgs standing in rows. Flanking them were hundreds of Cyturs, ruling over the child army without mercy. They used their claws to stab at Dregorgs who fell out of line. Nearby, mothers wept and even younger children clung tightly, as if they knew that would one day be their fate too.

  The sky was blazing orange, and all around was flat and barren. She could see evidence that trees had once stood here. Water had once flowed. Plants had once grown. But those were gone now. All that was left was the bleak devastation of war.

  This was what the machine wanted to do to Earth—what Dimas had programmed it for.

  And she was going to help make it happen.

  “No!” The sound of her voice shocked her back into her physical self. She felt like she hadn’t been in her body for years, and yet it was still standing, holding her hand in the machine.

  She tried to pull it out, but the metal pocket tightened around her fingers. Sharp spurs dug into her skin to hold her in place. Pain slid along her nerves until she was screaming, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t let the machine have her.

  She couldn’t let it use her to kill.

  Her skin split as she ripped it free. Blood dripped onto the concrete.

  Distantly, she heard crying and people screaming her name. Mom. Emily.

  It didn’t matter what she did—whether she helped Dimas or not—her family was dead. She couldn’t save them from what was going to happen on Earth if she cooperated, and Dimas would kill them if she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” she told them, her voice a mix of grief and fear. “I’m so sorry.”

  Dimas grabbed her to shove her hand back where he wanted it. He was incredibly strong, but his hand was slick with his blood. So was hers. She was able to slip out of his grasp.

  There was nowhere to run. All the exits were blocked by Dregorgs or Cyturs. And even if she did run, she was leaving her mother and sister here to die by alien hands.

  Dimas charged her with murderous intent.

  That familiar premonition of danger sounded between her ears, louder than she’d ever heard before.

  She screamed.

  In that moment she realized that this was how she was going to die.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Ava’s screams spurred Radek on despite his dizziness. He propelled himself up the ladder, his vision swimming. The flashlight bounced over something metallic, and instincts forced him to an abrupt stop.

  There, right behind the rung he had just grabbed, was the second trap. A quick glance at the mechanism told him that if he let go, the device would be triggered, and he’d be scattered into a hundred squishy pieces at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

  He had no choice but to stop and hope he was able to disarm it with only one hand.

  Every second that passed was filled with Ava’s screams of pain. He didn’t know what was happening to her, but he knew he had to stop it.

  His vision blurred as he reached for the thin, clear filament that activated the device. All he had to do now was hold steady long enough to burn through it with his fingertip.

  His hand trembled like an earthquake had possessed him. One finger split into two in his double vision, making it hard for him to figure out which one was real and on target.

  He shook his head to try to clear it, but all that did was make his dizziness worse.

  Sweat dripped down his forehead, stinging his eyes. When he closed them to ease the sting, a huge wave of sleepiness washed over him, whispering to him to let go. Give in.

  Ava’s next scream jerked him from the edge of passing out and hardened his resolve.

  He was going to die tonight, but not until he knew she was safe.

  His fingertip landed on a filament. He didn’t know if it was the right one, but it was time to start taking some chances. At least if he made a mistake now, he would be the only one to suffer. It was the only comfort he could find.

  Radek gathered heat from his core and commanded it to slide through him, into his finger. The answering warmth winding through him felt good. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and enjoy it, but the second he did, he knew he’d pass out and fall to his death. Assuming the explosion didn’t kill him first.

  The filament cracked as it heated, then liquefied. As the remnants of it dripped down to the steel beam below, he lifted his hand.

  Nothing happened. No boom. No hiss of gas. No projectile weapons.

  He’d done it. He’d disarmed the trap.

  Now all he had to do was climb up the last few feet to the twentieth floor and hope that Arut was waiting for him as he’d promised. Because if he wasn’t there, as weak and dizzy as Radek was now, he stood no chance of prying those doors open while still holding onto the ladder.

  Ava screamed again, but this time it was different. More terrified. More urgent.

  It was the scream of a woman who knew she was about to die.

  *****

  Ava had only one play left to make: The weapon.

  She dove for it, narrowly avoiding Dimas’s grasp.

  Her fingers grazed the duffel bag that held the weapon as she slid right into the thick, fleshy legs of a Dregorg. He picked her up by the back of her jeans, but she managed to pinch just enough of the bag’s canvas to drag it with her.

  The Dregorg dangled her there by her pants, making it hard to breathe.

  Ava didn’t care. She only needed a few seconds.

  Dimas’s pale orange blood was all over her, mixed with her darker red blood. All she had to do was smear some of that inside the DNA sample slot, and activate the weapon. He’d be killed, along with his asshole son.

  Of course, so would she.

  “Set her down,” Dimas ordered.

  She scrambled to free the weapon from the bag while the Dregorg complied. By the time she was on her feet, she had the thing loaded with blood and ready to fire.

  Dimas took a step toward her, his expression murderous.

  “Don’t,” she said, holding her finger over the button. “If you take one more step, you’re dead.”

  His gaze narrowed. “What is that?”

  “It’s the way you die. I’ve loaded it with your blood. The range is planet wide. There’s nowhere you can run or hide.”

  “Your blood is mixed in with mine. What will happen to you?”

  Behind Dimas, she saw the Dregorg move to the elevator doors nearby and pry them open. She had no idea what he was doing, but she had to keep her focus on the monster in front of her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she told him. Blood dripped from her shredded hand. “All that matters is that you get put down like the rabid dog you are.”

  “How do you know it will even work if the DNA sample is mixed? I bet it doesn’t kill me at all.”

  Ava hesitated. What if he was right? What if mixing her blood in had somehow ruined the machine’s ability to distinguish who he even was. Zoe had said that Raide, human and Loriahan DNA were too similar to just wipe out one species. It was an all-or-nothing deal.

  “Korlayan,” Dimas said without looking away. “The door is open. Take her family to the Dregorg world. If you don’t hear from me, kill them.”

  “With pleasure, Father.”

  Mom and Emily were huddl
ed together, holding each other for comfort where there was none to be found. They were weeping openly, helpless to do anything but watch what played out.

  Korlayan deactivated the wire holding them caged, grabbed them each in a gloved hand, and hauled them across the room.

  The whole time, Ava was wondering how long it would take the weapon to activate, how long it would take Dimas to die. What if it wasn’t instantaneous? What if it took minutes, or even hours? What would happen to Mom and Emily on some alien planet?

  Ava’s hesitation cost her the chance to find out just how fast the weapon worked. Before she could push the button, her sobbing family was shoved through the shimmering door and onto another world.

  “Now what?” Dimas asked. “Which do you want more? Your family alive, or me dead?”

  She’d been so busy watching her family disappear that she hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on behind Dimas. It wasn’t until the Cyturs became agitated that she realized that something had happened.

  The Dregorg had opened the elevator doors and was pulling something up, out of the shaft.

  A loud, frantic clicking noise filled the room as Cyturs scurried forward. Dimas turned just in time to see Radek appear, dangling from the beefy hand of a Dregorg. His feet had barely landed on solid ground before he scooped up his maulst and charged.

  He was alive!

  The joy of that news had barely set in before it crumbled.

  Something was wrong. He wobbled on his feet, and the tip of his weapon was too low to do more than leave a scorch mark in the floor. His eyes were an angry red, and blood was seeping out like tears.

  The poison. It was killing him.

  As the horror of her realization rushed through her, so did her denial. She would not lose him now. She loved him too much to let him go without a fight.

  Cyturs closed in on the center of the room where Radek ineffectively swiped at the enemy. He held them back, but that was all. There was no way he could kill them in his condition.

  Dregorgs shifted anxiously, but held back, their fear obvious. They wanted to help Radek, but the risks to their families were too high.

  Ava had seen just how many Cyturs were on their home world. There was no way the Dregorgs could rise up in rebellion against that many enemies. They were strong and loyal, but they were not the fierce, aggressive warriors the Cyturs were. For as long as there were that many of the spiderlike creatures on the Dregorg planet, controlling them, they would always be forced to obey the Raide.

  Even if she killed Dimas, the Cyturs wouldn’t stop. Her time connected to the Raide machine had given her clear insight into how the different troops operated. Unlike the Dregorgs, the Cyturs needed no motivation to fight. They were aggressive, violent. They served not because they were forced, but because they loved to kill. And the Raide gave them plenty of opportunity to do so.

  Even if Ava killed Dimas, there were too many Cyturs here and on the Dregorg planet. Without the Raide to direct their violent tendencies, they would be unleashed—freed to do as they pleased.

  Without the Raide, Cyturs were even more deadly.

  Radek jabbed his maulst at Dimas, who dodged easily. The momentum of the swing sent Radek spilling forward onto the hard floor. He tried to catch himself, but he was too clumsy and slow. The poison was having its way with him, leaving him vulnerable to attack.

  A Cytur stomped one of its claws down, impaling Radek’s leg on it.

  He cried out in pain and tried to wriggle away, but it was no use. He was pinned.

  Ava screamed, but there was nothing she could do. Even if her weapons hadn’t been stripped away, she was no match for so many deadly creatures.

  As soon as the other Cyturs smelled blood, they frenzied. The clicking noise rose to deafening levels, and soon, she couldn’t see Radek at all through the forest of black limbs.

  Radek cried out again in pain over and over. Ava became frantic.

  Dimas had moved around to the command console and was doing something she knew couldn’t be good.

  Even if she killed him, the Cyturs were going to slay Radek where he lay. She couldn’t let that happen. She needed the Dregorgs to fight.

  And there was only one way that was going to happen.

  Ava turned the knob on Zoe’s weapon, set it to kill all Cyturs, and held it in the shimmering doorway, half in, half out.

  The machine heated and vibrated. Within less than two seconds, the Cyturs’ clicking stopped. They fell over in a clatter of hard shells on concrete, convulsing.

  Dimas turned to her, and she made the mistake of looking into his furious eyes.

  Pain wrapped around her and squeezed until she screamed. It wormed its way into her, shoving between her bones until she was sure they were all going to be ejected from her body.

  Dimly, she felt herself being moved, but it didn’t matter. There was nowhere to escape this much pain.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Radek slipped in his own blood.

  He couldn’t regain his feet, but he heard Ava’s screams and knew he had to reach her.

  Something painful and heavy pulled his leg, and he realized that one of the dying Cyturs had skewered its claw all the way through his calf.

  A painful convulsion racked his body. He vomited uncontrollably, nearly choking on his own bile. His vision faded, but he could hear Ava screaming and smell Dregorgs nearby, over the stench of his own vomit.

  “Help her!” he called to them. “Arut, Orac, any of you. Please. Help her.”

  Dregorgs moved in and began pounding the quivering Cyturs with their bare fists. The sheer force of the blows rocked Radek’s body.

  His head weighed a hundred pounds, but he managed to lift it up enough to see Dimas shove Ava’s hand into a machine. As soon as he did, her screaming stopped, but there was no life in her. Her body sagged on the floor as Dimas let her go. The only thing holding her up was her hand in the control module.

  Radek’s legs no longer worked, but he pushed himself toward her with his arms, sliding along in the trail of his own blood.

  The weary weight of sleep called to him. All he had to do was close his eyes for a second and all of this would be over. No more pain, no more fear, no more grief.

  He’d be free.

  But what about Ava? Radek couldn’t leave her in the hands of that Raide asshole. He knew he wasn’t going to make it out of this, but she had to.

  “What are you doing to her?” Radek asked, his voice weak.

  Dimas’s voice was filled with fury as she spoke. “She refused to cooperate and lead my army, so I’ll just have to take from her whatever knowledge I can siphon off. I would have rather kept her alive for future use, but she’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

  Radek was still too far away, and his vision was dimming fast. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “You can have her when I’m done—when I’ve stripped from her everything that makes her useful.”

  Numbness swept up his spine. He couldn’t feel his arms anymore. He couldn’t even crawl. He could barely speak. “Love you, Ava.”

  He didn’t know if she heard him or not, but at least he would die knowing he’d said the words.

  *****

  Ava heard Radek’s whispered offer of love and knew she had to find some way to survive—some way to save him.

  She was weak, tired. Whatever this machine was doing to her seemed to suck all her energy away. She could feel it siphoning off thoughts, memories from past lives she’d never lived.

  Those were her memories—gifts from her ancestors—and she wasn’t going to let them go without a fight.

  She tried to pull her hand out, but like before, it was stuck. The second she tugged hard, sharp barbs tore into her skin. And this time, there was some kind of clamp around her wrist. No matter how hard she pulled, she couldn’t get away—as if the machine had learned from its last mistake.

  But she had more trick up her sleeve.

  Ava did as Radek had
taught her and gathered heat from her core. She shoved it down her arm, into her hand. The barbs around her grew hot. The band around her wrist became soft as it melted.

  With a huge burst of effort, she ripped her hand free. It was covered in liquid metal, glowing red hot.

  Dimas grabbed her around the throat and squeezed. The armor over his hand must have made him stronger, because her air was completely cut off.

  She tried to claw at his fingers, but it was no use. His grip was solid enough that she was sure he was going to decapitate her.

  Those fucking eyes of his tried to lure her into his gaze and incapacitate her again.

  Like hell.

  As her vision started to fade behind explosions of light, she used every bit of strength she had to attack the only unarmored part of him.

  With her hand covered in molten metal, she turned up the heat going to her fingers and jabbed them into his eyes. When she was done with him, he was never going to be able to use them to hurt anyone again.

  Dimas screamed and tried to fling her away. But she wasn’t done with him yet.

  Ava curled her superheated fingers, hooking them just inside his eye sockets. His screams ramped up in pitch, then cut off as a seizure gripped him. He thrashed against her, involuntarily shoving himself against her.

  Her fingers slid deeper, and as he went limp, she realized that she must have hit brain.

  Disgust hovered over her, too distant for her to really feel. There was too much adrenaline coursing through her system—too much pain and fear and fury for her to feel something as petty as disgust.

  Dimas slid from her limp grasp. Every Dregorg in the room closed in on him, stomping him to death with their huge, powerful legs.

  If the creature who’d held their entire race enslaved hadn’t been dead before, he was now.

  One of the Dregorgs turned to her, his orange eyes filled with gratitude. “Mine report all Cyturs are dead. Korlayan is dead. Mine thank you and will return those you love here.”