by D. N. Hoxa
But before I could do that, the ground beneath us shook.
The first sound of explosion made us all turn around and look at where it was coming from.
The second one was so close, it threw us all against the wall. I hit the ground with my back, my heart already pounding in my chest. Adrenaline made me forget about how tired I was, and I jumped up to my feet.
A cry escaped my lips as I watched the wall across from us, and the huge hole in it.
That wasn’t even the rest of it. The bridge that was right above that wall groaned loudly. Somebody pushed me until my back hit the wall. I didn’t dare blink, or even breathe while I waited, but I didn’t need to wait long.
Right in front of my eyes, the bridge fell from the ceiling.
The ground shook again, this time harder. I held into the wall with all my strength. Pieces of glass were coming straight for us, but then Aiden stepped in front of me. My instinct was telling me to start running already but where the hell could I go?
A minute went by and the dust began to settle. The ground stood still. Nobody seemed to even be breathing. Only a handful of lights worked, but those closest to the hole in the wall and the pieces of the broken bridge were dead. We could see very little. At first.
When the silhouette became clearer and clearer, and Pixie and Lucian jumped in front of us, I realized that whoever was coming was not a friend. The four men that were walking through the hole in the wall like they owned the place were all smiling.
When light fell onto them, I was thrown back to the night before, and to the club.
These people…I knew them. I’d seen them before—or at least their friends. I recognized their suits, and I recognized the way they held themselves.
They looked like copies of Red Tie’s servants.
My legs threatened to let go of me, but I gritted my teeth and stood still. Passing out was not an option now, because they didn’t look like they were there to chat. And what if Red Tie was with them? What if I could get to him right now? Then all of this would be over before it even had the chance to properly begin.
No, I had to stand. And I had to fight if needed. This was all I’d asked for.
“You’re not welcome here, servants,” Pixie hissed when the men stopped walking.
“We don’t mean no harm,” one of the four said. The look on his face definitely said: we mean harm. “All we want is the girl. Give her to us and we’ll leave you in peace.”
My heart skipped a beat as Aiden turned to look at me, his eyes wide.
What did that look mean? Was the girl me?
Holy shit, the girl was me!
Before Pixie or anyone else could reply, the glass wall through which we’d come in broke, but the shards didn’t fly everywhere like they did from the bridge. They simple fell to the floor, almost in slow motion, hitting the floor as if it weighed no more than a feather.
Ross and Terrin, and eleven other people ran inside with guns in their hands and lined themselves in front of Pixie and Lucian. I could no longer see the devamp servants, or their grins, and that gave me enough time to get my shit together and think.
Weapon. I needed a weapon.
“Aiden, I need something to fight with,” I said when he took a step back, but he didn’t even turn to look at me. “Aiden, I need—” I started to shout, but then a black gun was right in front of my face.
“Take it,” Kitty said. She wasn’t looking at me, either, but at least she’d heard.
The gun was much heavier than it looked. I’d never held one before, and I’d always had the feeling that I wouldn’t know what to do with it because of all the movies I’d watched, but that was bullshit. My hands were too small for it. I barely managed to wrap my hands around the handle and put my finger on the trigger. All I had to do was aim. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
“Thank y—” but I got cut off again, this time from an explosion and an actual body falling on top of me.
The back of my head hit the wall behind me and darkness filled my vision. Someone screamed. Another shouted.
“Shoot!”
I blinked fast to chase the darkness away, and when vision returned to me, all I could see was the face of the unconscious man on my lap. I didn’t recognize him. His eyes were closed but I thought I could see his chest moving. Pushing him off me was hard because he was twice my size, and by the time I made it to my feet, my legs were numb.
Chaos in front of me. Fire, light, gunshots, body parts, blood—you name it. It was all there around me and on the floor. The four devamp servants were still standing, but they all had blood somewhere on their bodies. About half of us were already on the ground. I could barely see Ross and Terrin on the front line together with Pixie. She jumped in the air like gravity didn’t apply to her, and she was fighting one of the servants single handedly.
But the servants—and Aiden—weren’t interested in swords and guns. Why would they, when they could make light appear in their hands out of thin air?
Common sense said not to believe in my own eyes at first, but Aiden was close to me, not four feet away. I could clearly see the way he moved his hands in circles of all shapes, and then the white light that gathered between his palms. When that happened, he threw the light ball at the servants, and they did the same to us, their light balls of all different colors.
It was like an explosion of fireworks, except when they hit someone I didn’t recognize on the chest, he flew back, hit the wall behind us, and fell to the floor unconscious. I immediately took note: do not get hit by a light ball.
My heart beat like mad and my whole body was covered in goosebumps, but I raised my gun and pointed it at the servant closest to me. He was waving his hands in front of him when I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger.
The strength of the gun threw my hands back and I almost hit my face. I’d had no idea it would feel that way, but when I opened my eyes and saw that the servant I’d shot at had taken a step back—no light in his hands—it gave me courage to try again. This time, I put some distance between my feet and I expected to be pushed back when I pulled the trigger. It didn’t move a single inch back, so I pulled it again. And again.
White light left Aiden’s hands and it fell on the floor, right in the middle of the devamp servants.
The ground shook and they all fell back. Black smoke in front of us. Something began to fall from the ceiling, and it looked terribly similar to the wall. Was the building going to cave in?
Before I could even get properly scared of that idea, something moved fast in front of Ross and Terrin. My brain just couldn’t connect a thought to the view in front of me, so I took a few steps forward to get a better look.
It was a fox. A very large fox, with white and orange fur and a huge tail, not to mention the paws. And it jumped forward and disappeared into the smoke.
“Get her out of here, now!” Ross called, and without hesitation, Terrin turned around and looked right at me.
Oh, no. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I was going to say so had he made it in front of me, but green light came from the smoke and fell in front of Ross’s feet. The explosion threw us all back against the walls.
It felt like all my bones broke. Pain sliced every part of my body and air refused to get to my lungs. Moving was out of the question for a long second. Kitty’s gun was no longer in my hand, but while I struggled to breathe, that didn’t concern me that much.
Someone grabbed me by the hand and pulled me up before I could blink. As if by magic, air made it down my throat and my senses came back to me in a rush. Aiden’s face was in front of me, and he was saying something but my ears were still ringing and I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t read his lips like I could Luke’s, either.
The ground began to shake again. The ringing in my ears began to fade, and before Aiden turned away, I thought I heard him say get outside.
But I wasn’t going to get outside. They were all running toward the hole in the wall. The smoke wa
s gone and all I could see were pieces of broken concrete and glass. Ignoring the pain in my body, I took in a deep breath and I followed.
Only after I made it to the ruins did it occur to me that I should have looked for the gun. Now, I was defenseless, but for whatever reason, that didn’t stop me. I could be very unreasonable sometimes, but death was the last thing on my mind when I jumped over the concrete and found myself in the other training hall.
This one was a bit bigger than the one we’d left behind, and also almost completely ruined. The four devamp servants were still standing. They were still fighting with those light balls, and Ross and Terrin were doing the same. It looked like they’d dropped their guns and were now working with their hands only.
I ran toward Kitty, who was standing on one knee with two guns in her hands, shooting without stop. For some reason, her bullets kept missing the servants. Before I made it to her, I saw the orange fox jump forward and fall right on top of one of the servants. In the same second, Pixie jumped up in the air with two katanas in her hands, but the second her feet touched the ground, the servant she was after threw a red light ball at her chest, and she flew right back.
“Kitty, I need another gun!” I shouted, when someone hit me on the shoulder and nearly knocked me to the ground. It was Aiden.
Seeing him slide with his back on the floor, his eyes closed and his body limp was horrifying. Before I realized it, I ran to him, took his head on my lap and called for him to wake up. When that didn’t happen, I slapped him so hard, my fingers burned.
“Nova!” someone called from behind me.
Aiden blinked. He was okay. There was no time to sit and wait for him to get back to his feet, so I left him there and stood up.
Terrin called my name again. He was running toward me, half his face covered in blood. I saw the white ball of light coming for him a second too, late.
“Terrin, no!” I shouted and I began to run. The light hit him on his back and he flew forward, hitting the floor face first.
“Catch!” Kitty called before I could even think about going to Terrin, and when I looked up, a gun was flying toward me. I caught it before it hit my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Terrin. He was going to have to wake up all by himself. With the gun aimed at the servants, I ran forward and fired until my finger went numb. I had no idea what I was aiming at, but if the bullets served as a distraction, that would have been enough. When the orange fox flew back, right above my head, my heart sank.
One of Pixie’s katanas was on the floor in front of me. I couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Nova, get down!” Ross called, and I fell to my knees without even breathing. Blue light made me squeeze my eyes tightly as it passed right by me, missing me by an inch.
Jumping to my feet, I continued to squeeze the trigger three more times, until there were no more bullets left to shoot.
“Kitty, I—” but when I turned around to look for Kitty, she was nowhere to be seen. Ross and three other guys I’d never seen before were the only ones left standing. One of them kept shooting at the servants, while Ross and the others used their fire balls.
But it wasn’t enough. The devamp servants were stronger, though there were only three of them left standing.
And Red Tie was nowhere.
I realized I’d put myself in the worst position imaginable when I’d run in front of them, thinking the gun would fire bullets forever and never run out of them. I realized it too late.
Ross and the other three men were already flying backward. Aiden sat up, and so did the others, but they were too wounded to stand up and continue to fight. The terrified look on their faces did something to me, something that inspired a healthy dose of fake courage in my chest.
I turned around and faced the three devamp servants, my empty gun aiming at them. Or at the wall—I wasn’t exactly sure.
They were wounded, too, but they were still standing, save for one who was on the floor and it didn’t look like he was breathing.
“Run, Nova! Run!” Terrin called from behind me. He was alive.
Good enough for me. The servants were after me, it seemed, so I was just going to put an end to this right now. After seeing what they could do, I didn’t have much hope of ever finding—and/or killing Red Tie, so living no longer sounded tempting.
“If you don’t leave right now, I’ll shoot you,” I said, my voice calm and cold, as if coming from a different person.
But the devamps didn’t buy my bluff. Wasn’t sure why I bothered, but I guess it was easier to say something then just watch them eating me with their eyes.
When the one in the middle, a guy with blonde hair and a missing front tooth, began to work his hands, I instinctively squeezed the trigger. Nothing. No sound, no bullet. But yellow light was already shining brightly between the servant’s hands. I looked back at the others one more time. Less than half of them were awake, breathing heavily, looking at me like they knew exactly what I knew.
That’s when my body decided that it wanted to run. Instinct took over. If I could go back to the other training hall then maybe…
I took a step backward, and another.
The servant threw his yellow ball flame at me. Someone behind me screamed.
That’s when I knew for certain that I was going to die.
Chapter Twelve
Yellow light enveloped me from head to toe. It stuck to my skin much like my wet clothes from earlier. I felt the heat almost like there were invisible flames all over my body.
But…I was still standing.
Opening my eyes was hard but I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t dead yet, or at least unconscious. At first, I could see nothing but the blinding light.
I was wrong, it hadn’t wrapped around me like I thought it had. Instead, the light ball had stopped right in front of my chest.
And my chest…there was something in there, something I’d never felt before. It was like a vibration that went all the way down to my stomach. As I tried to see through the light and to where the devamp servants had been standing just now, the vibrating turned into something like a growl. A low growl coming from somewhere deep inside me, my very center, a place I had never even known existed before.
It all happened so fast, I could have easily missed the details, but from somewhere below the bright yellow ball of light in front of me, blood began to flow upwards. Maybe it wasn’t blood, but it was definitely red, and it created some sort of a net around the light, the same time the growl inside of me turned into a full out roar.
My knees shook when something pushed me backward, and the light was no longer in front of me.
I watched it fall back the way it had come from, more orange than yellow now, but instead of stopping in front of the servant’s chest like it had done with me, it went through him.
No, it went through them.
The light faded completely and the ground shook. My knees hit the floor when the walls around us began to groan. Pieces of the ceiling fell around us, but I couldn’t be bothered to even look up, because I couldn’t tear my eyes off the devamp servants.
The servants that were now on the floor, completely motionless.
It made no sense to me that they weren’t moving while I was still there, breathing heavily, hurting everywhere—but alive. My eyes refused to blink from fear of missing the split second it would take them to get up and come after me again.
But that never happened. Instead, somebody grabbed my shoulders from behind. They pulled me to my feet and dragged me back. A small piece of concrete fell on top of my head but I barely felt it. I couldn’t look away from the dead servants until I could no longer see them.
People were shouting and running. My body was on autopilot, so whoever was dragging me had to hold at least half of my weight, but they didn’t seem to mind. The set of stairs we took leading down were a real challenge, but while my arm was linked to the man in front of me, it was impossible to fall, though I kept tripping every few stairs
.
An alarm had gone off somewhere, but with every step we took, it faded more and more, until a door slid shut somewhere behind us and we could no longer hear a thing.
No more footsteps. No more shouts. Just a grey wall behind a large screen with blue lights in front of me. I didn’t feel it when I hit the ground. All I felt was my consciousness leaving me like a blanket taken off my body.
Chapter Thirteen
It felt like I’d been away from my body for a lifetime, but that must have been wrong, because when my eyes opened, the large screen with small blue dots all over it was still in front of me. I was sitting on a chair, my head against my left shoulder, my neck completely numb.
At first, I thought I was alone, but the more time passed, the more I could hear the voices of the people behind me. Moving took a lot of work, especially when my right arm felt like a truck had driven right over it, and the left side of my chest felt broken. Maybe I’d cracked a rib or something, because it hurt the most when I breathed.
Just the thought of Luke all alone and in a coma in the room…somewhere in the building, though, and all the pain flew out the window. I jumped to my feet so fast, the whole room spun around.
“Whoa, whoa, Nova, take it easy,” Terrin said as he came to stand beside me.
“Luke,” I breathed. “I have to get to Luke.”
When Terrin stepped in front of me, I saw that half his face was still covered in blood. With his hands on my shoulders he pushed me back toward the chair. He didn’t even have to use that much strength. My legs gave up on me all by themselves.
“Luke is fine,” Terrin said.
“No, the building is about to crash. We have to get to him, right now!” I cried. Just the thought of something happening to him now made the physical pain seem sweet.
“The building isn’t going to crash,” Terrin said, shaking his head and speaking slowly, as if I were a kid. “We’ve isolated the training rooms. The rest of the building is fine.”
I still didn’t dare allow myself to feel the relief. “Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”
