Eve Silver - Push

Them or me.

There’s a commotion to my left. I can’t see what it is.

“Reinforcements!” Luka yells, but I’m shorter than him and I can’t see what he sees.

Jackson leaps forward and cuts a Drau in this freaky underhand sideways maneuver that leaves the Drau’s throat slit open, head lolling back. I catch a glimpse of white bone and very dark blood, and then the Drau’s gone, digested by the surge from Jackson’s weapon cylinder.

That Drau was inches from me.

“Focus,” Jackson snarls.

I yank my cylinder up and fire over his shoulder, taking out the Drau that was coming at his back.

“Focus,” I snarl back.

I lunge, thrust, making up moves as I go because this sure as hell isn’t anything I ever learned in kendo. This is a miserable, wretched slaughterhouse where I hack at limbs and chests and heads, stab at torsos—anything to hold them off.

Sweat trickles along my spine. My arm feels like a thousand-pound weight is dragging it down. I can’t stop. I can’t rest. I lift my sword. I pull everything I’ve ever learned and funnel it into each move. I time my strikes, taking advantage of the Drau’s forward movement, using its momentary focus on its own attack against it.

But I’m tiring. Fading. We all are.

How long have we been down here? How long can we go on?

“Now would be a great time for a plan,” Luka yells.

A plan. We can’t go in either direction along the hall. The Drau are coming at us from both sides like converging swarms of locusts. The only place we can go is back into the room with the boilers.

I shoot a split-second glance in that direction. No chance. They’ve herded us away from the door and we’re stuck here against the wall, a tiny island of three in a churning sea of Drau.

“The reinforcements . . . is it Tyrone?”

Luka shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Can’t be sure. I caught sight of a human head, but I can’t say whose.”

So another team’s here. Maybe we can coordinate somehow, strengthen our position.

“Can you still see them?” Jackson asks, which means that even though he has height advantage, he hasn’t caught sight of them, either.

Luka shakes his head again, dashing my hope for a coordinated team effort.

Jackson steps and turns so he’s at ninety degrees to the wall as he shoots a Drau dead ahead, while at the same time flipping his knife blade up and jacking his fist back over his shoulder like he’s throwing salt, slamming a Drau right between the eyes.

His expression is set in grim lines. He seems leaner and harder than I’ve ever seen him, his cheeks hollowed, his jaw taut. His lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl as he turns his body and takes a spray of Drau fire across his back, sheltering me from the worst of it.

“Every man for himself,” I remind him as I lunge and hack at his attacker.

Jackson doesn’t say anything back. I don’t really expect him to.

We fight until my brain is numb. My entire being is comprised of my hands, my sword, my weapon cylinder.

The Drau keep coming, wedging us apart. Every move we make to try to stay together, they counter. Exposed, outnumbered, we don’t stand much chance. Then I think of my friends, my teachers . . . and not just them. The whole community’s at risk if we don’t stop the Drau here. The whole damn world.

It seems ridiculous, a handful of teens against a monster invasion.

And thinking like that might get me killed.

So I don’t think. I just lean against the wall, not bothering with footwork anymore; my rubbery legs aren’t up to the challenge. My whole body feels like it’s on fire, pinpricks of pain bursting bright as the Drau shower droplets of light—droplets of agony—on us. I’m breathing too fast, too hard, and I can’t slow it down. My movements are growing sluggish, sweat dripping in my eyes, blurring my vision. I don’t dare look at my con.

I don’t know where Jackson is. He was separated from us. I can’t see him. But I know he’s alive. He has to be alive.

Luka grunts and jerks. He presses right up against me. At first, I think it’s because he’s trying to protect me. Then I realize it’s because I’m helping to hold up his weight.

He’s in bad shape.

We’re in trouble.

I hack at bodies.

There’s movement to my left and I turn, aim, shift my weapon at the last second as I see a human head bob up beyond the sea of Drau.

Too short to be Jackson. Someone else. The reinforcements Luka saw earlier. They must have been fighting one end of the mass of Drau while we tackled the other.

I almost shout in relief.

There’s a spray of light so bright it makes me see spots. Pinpoints of pain erupt on the side of my face, my neck, my shoulder. Luka’s body jerks against mine; then he stumbles, almost falling. Almost taking me down with him.

I get my shoulder under his, panic biting at me.

“Got him,” Jackson says, coming up on Luka’s other side. Before he can take Luka’s weight, he spins to the left, throws his knife.

It plants solidly between a Drau’s eyes.

Jackson leaps forward and pulls the blade free, then comes back and gets his shoulder under Luka’s.

“The boiler room,” he says, and I realize that somewhere in the past few minutes, we’ve worked our way back toward that room.

“We’ll be trapped.”

“We can pick them off as they come through the door.”

He half drags, half carries Luka backward through the door. I stay in front of him, offering cover, shooting, hacking, one step back and another until we’re all in the room.

Trapped.

I check Luka’s con. Dark orange tinged with red. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow. Where’s he hit? Where’s he bleeding?

Everywhere.

Jackson stands in front of us and covers me as I unzip Luka’s vest, check his chest, his abdomen. Wounds, but nothing that’s bleeding too much. Then I see the shine on his black pants at the very top of his thigh.

“There’s an artery there,” Jackson says, tossing me his knife, hilt up. “Cut his pants. If the blood’s spurting, we’re in deep shit. If it’s oozing, it’s not as bad.”

I slash Luka’s pants, terrified of what I’ll find, expecting a spray of blood.

Instead, I find a trickle.

I exhale sharply. Then I set about slicing off a piece of his shirt, forming a pad, slicing off a second length, and tying it all down.

Luka’s lids flutter. His gaze sharpens. He glances down at the location of my hands.

“Hey,” he says. “If you wanted me that badly, all you had to do was ask.”

I snort.

He lifts his hand and shoots, taking out a Drau that was charging the doorway.

“Any closer and that shot would have hit my hip,” Jackson says.

“You’re welcome,” Luka says, trying to pull himself up to a sitting position against the pile of ratty cushions. Third try’s the charm. Panting, he sends me a pained grimace.

I leave him there and move to Jackson’s side, my weapon cylinder humming as we take down any Drau that fill the doorframe. We may be trapped in here, but it’s a pretty good bet we can hold them off out there, at least for a while.

Stalemate. I’ll take it, for now.

“We need a location on the other team,” Jackson says. “It’d be nice if I knew how many there are and exactly where our backup’s positioned.”

“The Committee’s not telling you anything?”

“No.”

I cover Jackson as he peers around the doorjamb, then steps through, motioning me to move forward.

There’s a girl just to the right of the door. Her back is to us, light brown hair falling over her shoulders. She takes out a Drau with a spray of light, the weapon in her hand smooth and metallic and jellylike.