Salvation

by Caryn Lix

  She smiled softly, although a touch of her spirit was gone. “My point is, every time we top ourselves, we come out ahead. This won’t be any different.”

  Well, you had to admire her confidence. Even Cage relaxed a bit, his face sinking into the affectionate smile he reserved solely for his twin. “I’m most worried about you, meimei. You’re the one who’s going to have to power those explosives. Are you sure you can handle it?”

  For just a second Rune’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, and something sparked in her expression, a fierce determination that would have been unthinkable in her just a few weeks ago. “I’m stronger than you think,” she informed her brother.

  “I’m not calling you weak, for the love of God. I’m worried. I’m still allowed to be that, right?”

  “Yes, you are. Just like I have been every time you charged into danger to protect me, or Kenzie, or any one of us.” Rune twisted in her seat, and now that momentary resolution was gone, leaving only her calm, gentle smile. “I love you, Cage. So much. You too, Kenzie. And I’ll do what it takes to protect you.”

  What did she mean by that? I narrowed my gaze at her suspiciously, and she ducked her head, avoiding my eyes. Something was up. But before I could question her further, Cage sighed. “I love you too, meimei,” he said, almost teasingly. “And since there’s apparently no way to stop you, I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

  “We’re here,” Matt announced, steering the jeep around the edge of the facility. The headlights of the other vehicles shifted over us in sliding shadows as they passed. “Kenzie, you have no idea where those things are?”

  I frowned, setting aside my concerns about Rune for the time being. I had to trust that she knew what she was doing. “They’re close. I know that. But I can’t be more specific. It’s hard to tell when they’re underground, and …” And something else, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Not yet. I’d been almost there when they woke me up. “I’m sorry,” I finished helplessly.

  “Don’t be.” Cage gave me a quick half hug. “You’re doing great. This isn’t easy.”

  Priya’s voice crackled in my ear. “Okay, everyone. Grab your gear and let’s regroup outside. If we’re going to breach this facility, we’re going to have to do it fast and careful.”

  “On our way,” I said, and relayed her instructions to the others.

  As we got out of the vehicle, the cold desert night instantly swept over my skin, raising goose bumps. I pulled my flak jacket more tightly around myself and zipped it shut. The others were spilling from the jeeps, and we started toward them, weapons clutched in the pitch-black, utterly silent night.

  Suddenly, a sharp, familiar howl split the air from somewhere in the distance.

  We pivoted as one.

  Barely twenty feet away from us the sand erupted in a spray of stone and dirt as one of the creatures launched itself to the surface. As if on cue, more eruptions triggered on our left, on our right, behind us, until we were standing in a circle of maybe twenty aliens, all of them curling and writhing and sniffing the air, chirping to one another in their horrible sharp voices.

  My heart sank.

  We were surrounded.

  FORTY-ONE

  THIS WAS WHAT I’D MISSED. The reason the aliens had stopped. They weren’t chasing us. They’d known exactly where we were headed, exactly what we planned to do, and they’d cut us off, waiting for us at the facility.

  And the only place they could have gotten that information?

  The creatures enclosed us in a vicious, snarling mass, and with sudden clarity, I knew exactly what I’d missed every time I connected to them. “It’s a trap,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “They were using me as I was using them. They knew we were connected. They read our plans in my mind, and they waited for us here.”

  One of the creatures’ heads swiveled at my voice, snarling, and Cage raised a warning finger in my direction. I didn’t see Karoch. These things were still blind, our one—perhaps only—advantage.

  By unspoken and mutual consent, we withdrew slowly until we’d formed a tight circle, our backs pressed together, our weapons at the ready. I inspected my pistol with shaking hands. I honestly didn’t even know if it would work against the creatures. Had they had time to adapt? My flak jacket would provide some protection from their claws, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

  “Kenz,” said Cage, so softly you could barely hear him, “can you tell how many?”

  I hated to close my eyes with the creatures right in front of me, but I did, focusing on the collective. Now I sensed it vividly, an almost taunting beckoning, daring me to come closer. Shuddering, I pried my lids apart. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Dozens. Maybe hundreds. They’re beneath the surface. They’re everywhere.”

  “Then why the hell aren’t they attacking?” Mia snarled. She was on my left, her bare arm flexed against my shoulder since she’d refused any armor or protection whatsoever.

  I shook my head as the creatures shifted and stirred. Why weren’t they attacking? We were right here, and they obviously knew it. No, they couldn’t see us, but they sensed us, and they could rip us to shreds if they tried.

  And then all at once it hit me, and whether I knew because of my connection to the hive mind or simply because it slapped me in the face, I was for the first time in a long while 100 percent certain. “They want to absorb us if they can,” I gasped. “They’re waiting for Karoch to make sure they can subdue us without killing us. They learn our powers more easily if they transform us into them instead of studying us after we die. That’s why they’re not attacking.” I reached a bit further and shivered. “I think … they’re on the verge of some kind of sight. They absorbed Finn’s cybernetics. They really want the rest of Legion. But they’ll take any and all of us they can get. It’s why Karoch’s willing to risk coming here—that and to stop us from escaping. They hate us. Hate us more than anyone. They hate us, and they want us.”

  “Screw that.” Mia’s arm quivered. “I’ll die before I go into their pit of goo, and I’ll take every one of them down with me.”

  “How long do we have?” asked Priya at the same time, and much more practically.

  Again, I shook my head helplessly. My connection to the collective was proving singularly unhelpful at the moment. “Karoch is stronger than them but also bigger and slower. It has to tunnel through behind them. We have maybe minutes. Not much more.”

  “Why doesn’t it just use the surface? It’s nighttime.”

  I closed my eyes again and shuddered as awareness tore through me. Somewhere, not here but not far, the great beast slouched toward me. “It doesn’t need to,” I whispered, my mouth suddenly dry. “It’s not in a hurry. It knows we can’t escape. It thinks our plan is doomed to fail.”

  “Perfect.”

  Jasper almost dropped his gun. He actually twisted in the circle to gape at Priya. “Please explain exactly how, in the name of anything and everything you hold holy, this situation is perfect.”

  “Because if Karoch is on its way, and these things don’t want to kill us, then our plan still holds.” Priya jerked her chin at the dark facility just beyond the ring of hunters. “All we need to do is get past them and find our way inside. It’ll be easier to hide there. We can finish the job we came to do, and Kenzie can draw on Karoch’s power to take us home.”

  It sounded so simple. So confident. A tiny stir of optimism flared to life, and I twisted to Cage on my right, praying I’d see my own reluctant hope mirrored there.

  He bit his lip, looking from me to Rune to Mia and back again, the agony of indecision stenciled across his face. For once Cage was at a loss. I could see it inside him, shining through his eyes, the desperate desire to make a decision and the terrifying, paralyzing sense that no matter what he said, he’d lose someone.

  I knew that feeling. I’d experienced it myself after I shot Matt, after losing my family.

  I didn’t have time to counsel Cage right now, so I did w
hat I could. I leaned in and brushed my lips over his jawline. He turned to me, startled, his eyes flaring wide, and I forced myself to smile. Once upon a time I wouldn’t have been able to take on a decision like this. Not by myself. I’d have passed it through Omnistellar, through my mom, through Cage. But I understood what leadership meant now. I understood it didn’t mean always knowing the right course of action. That was why Cage put on the smile, forced the cheer in his voice. It was how he’d held his friends together through years of imprisonment.

  And it was how I’d hold us together too. “It’s okay,” I murmured so only Cage heard me. He met my gaze, an agony of indecision lurking behind his eyes. “I’ve got this one.”

  I didn’t know what to do, but we had to do something. So I forced a rod of steel into my spine, aiming at the creature in front of me. “On the count of three, open fire,” I said in a quiet but strong voice completely belying my skittering heart and twisting stomach. “Hopefully we’ll punch a hole through their line. The second we do, everyone run as fast as you can. Make for the facility. Cage, Legion, and I will bring up the rear. We can move the fastest. The rest of you get inside.”

  I waited for argument, for dissent, but none came. Instead, muscles shifted against me as people reassembled, facing the creatures in front of us, lowering their weapons.

  I swallowed. “One.”

  The gun bucking in my hand. Matt’s open, sightless eyes. Tyler, raised high above an alien head. Alexei, his arms spread wide, his jaw locked in determination.

  “Two.”

  My mom, soaked in the alien slime that killed her. My father’s face, twisted in agony as the creature gored him. Rita, slumped against a wall, dangling from chains.

  No more.

  “Three.”

  I squeezed the trigger, and an alien screamed. Agony ricocheted through my skull, the shared death of the creature hollowing my insides, leaving behind rage and fear and the desperate need to attack. To survive. I channeled the emotion, pulling the trigger again and again and again, and then I tossed the gun aside and yanked another free from the armory at my waist and across my back. Time for a new weapon.

  Mia was already on the move, shoving Rune ahead of her. Jasper, Reed, and Imani followed, leaving me, Cage, Matt, Priya, and Hallam to cover their escape. We did our best, shooting at random as a sea of the creatures erupted from the sand, their mouths open in furious howls. My own cheeks burned to echo their screams, the line between me and them blurring as they lost control in their torment and fury.

  I bit my tongue hard enough that I saw stars and tasted blood, but the pain refocused me, drawing the figures around me into sharp focus. “Time for you to go!” I shouted at Priya. “We’ll be right behind you!”

  She hesitated barely a second, then nodded and flashed across the sand, so fast she seemed to reappear a short distance away, almost as fast as Cage himself. Matt and Hallam chased after her, and the creatures pivoted, following the noise. In the reflected moonlight, their skin glistened, their sightless eyes like pits of cataracts. Their claws twitched, and every muscle protruded in reptilian agility. “Hey!” I shouted. I pulled the trigger of my third and final gun, blasting one of the creatures, its reflected anguish tearing through me. But the ploy worked; the creatures snarled and spun on us, circling with a sinister grace.

  Cage caught my hand. “We’ve done it before,” he reminded me.

  I nod. “And we’ll do it again.”

  He caught me and dragged me to him, his mouth burning against mine in a split-second kiss so furious it felt like it lasted hours, like time froze in its wake.

  And then he shoved me forward, and together we raced into the night.

  Cage’s power stood out in vivid shades of orange and green, a dragon coiled around itself to match his tattoo, a phoenix in the final bursts of flame. I bent my head, and we charged through the creatures. This time they didn’t tear at us, didn’t even slow us. Protected in each other, we bolted through the sand, the wind raging against our flesh, and I remembered the first time Cage held me in his arms and rocketed me away from the harvesters on Sanctuary.

  We’d been apart then. Separate. Now we were together, one, our unity protecting me from the draw of the collective, the hive. Our hands linked, we skidded to a halt in the doorway, kicking up a cloud of sand.

  “Inside!” Priya screamed. She and Hallam were crouched at the doors. I checked behind me to see the creatures charging on all fours, barely ten feet away, moving almost as fast as Cage and I. Was this something new they’d learned from us, or an ability they’d always had, one they hadn’t been able to exercise in the confined corridors of Sanctuary and Obsidian?

  I didn’t have time to consider it as Cage jerked me forward. We landed on our hands and knees in the dark corridor, and Priya and Hallam slammed their weight into the doors. They jolted shut just as the creatures smashed against them on the other side.

  “Hold them!” Jasper bellowed. A moment later an assortment of random items slammed themselves over the door, binding it in twists of metal and wood as he essentially welded the entrance shut.

  Priya and Hallam backed away, and we all watched with bated breath. The doors bucked against the creatures’ assault, but Jasper’s barricade held. “That won’t keep them out forever,” Imani gasped, trying to catch her breath.

  “Then we’d better find what we’re looking for fast.” I turned to the others. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Not even a scratch,” said Reed, sounding disappointed. “Nothing for me to heal. You guys trying to make me useless?”

  “I’m sure there will be plenty of injuries before the night’s over.” Mia rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Let’s go.”

  I glanced at Cage, and he nodded. Still hand in hand, we advanced into the depths of the facility. And at least I drew this much consolation from the current situation: win or lose, it was likely the last time I’d have to creep around hiding from those creatures ever again.

  FORTY-TWO

  WE HADN’T GONE MORE THAN ten steps when the lights flickered and came on around us. I gasped, recoiling as if the presence of light indicated some sort of attack. But nothing happened—nothing except the revelation of a cold metal hallway caked in sand and dust, and Rune, beaming proudly. “I found the power,” she said, her right eye twitching with the desire to close, to focus her energy. “Didn’t even need to touch more than the walls to flip the switch.”

  “Good job, meimei,” said Cage with genuine gratitude in his voice. I knew exactly how he felt. Until Karoch showed up, the light was our friend, not the aliens’. It helped us make the most of what little advantage we had.

  “You’re getting more powerful,” I observed. “You didn’t even need my help this time.”

  Rune nodded. “I think I’ve been able to do these things for a while. I was holding myself back. Scared, maybe.”

  The door continued to shudder behind us. “And now?” I asked softly.

  Rune’s gentle face broke into a smile. “Now I’m not afraid at all. I know what has to be done, and I’m ready to do it.”

  We were standing in a dusty hall, sand pooling around our feet, a decade of misuse rendering the place a gritty, dull mess. You’d never look at it and think secret government weapons facility. Rune pressed her hand to the wall, her eyes screwed shut in determination. Sweat trickled along her brow, and I turned to Cage, my own worry reflected in his expression. Rune always exerted a lot of effort when she merged with machines, but lately, with her developing powers, she hadn’t seemed to require as much focus. Now she seemed on the verge of collapse. “Meimei?” Cage asked hesitantly.

  She nodded, waving her free hand as if to brush him away, and the rest of us exchanged helpless looks. “We have to keep moving,” said Hallam, more gently than he usually spoke.

  “Leave her alone,” Mia countered sharply. “Rune knows what she’s doing.”

  Strangely, Mia’s words settled me. Rune did know what she was doing. If thin
gs became too much for her, she’d tell us. Beside me, Cage relaxed too, and I smiled at him without quite meaning to. He’d come so far since I’d first met him. He might think he hadn’t changed, but I remembered how little trust he’d placed in his sister, his desperate drive to protect her. That was still there, but he’d withdrawn some, allowing her the freedom to find her own place in the world. It was the one thing lacking in their twin relationship, and somewhere along the way he’d found it. I itched to tell him, to turn to him and take him in my arms. This wasn’t the time or place, though, so I only slid my hand over the small of his back, moving a step closer.

  Suddenly the aliens thudding against the door behind us ceased. We all pivoted, bringing what weapons remained to bear against our shoulders. Cage, Jasper, and I surged to the front—Jasper could still throw things at them, and Cage and I clutched some sort of machetes we’d picked up. With our speed, they might cause some damage before the creatures adapted.

  But then Rune’s eyes flew open just as the sound of gunfire echoed outside. “Okay,” she gasped. “I’ve got the computer system semifunctional, along with the power. I activated external security, which includes some automated defenses. They’re firing on the creatures right now, but I can’t promise how long it’ll be effective, given … Well, you know. We should get moving.”

  Priya’s jaw dropped. “Girl,” she said, “that is some power.”

  Rune flushed. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Hallam swatted her arm as he stalked by. “It’s not nothing.”

  Cage nodded. “That’s my sister. Always saving our butts.”

  Unbidden, Rune flashed him a big, sweet smile brimming with genuine joy even now, even here, and I realized how very much I’d come to love her. She was as much my sister as Cage’s. After all the grief and despair of the last few weeks, it was a welcome change.

  Back on Obsidian, Rune had called me her best friend. She was mine, too. But she was more than that. Somewhere between the first gentle smile she’d given me on Sanctuary and this moment, when she’d saved us all yet again, I’d come to love her with all my heart. She caught me observing her and raised an eyebrow, and I had to resist the urge to hug her hard. I only nodded and smiled, and she gave me a wink as she rolled her shoulders, shaking off the lingering tension of her feat of strength. She seemed calmer now, lighter, as if she’d come to terms with something—her powers, maybe, or her own inner strength. She was almost a beacon of confidence, and she drew all of us with her, raising our spirits and hopes without speaking a word.