Page 72 of Venomous Heart
“It’s like you said. Only he wasn’t just a step ahead, he had already won the race and we didn’t even know it.”
Ava felt buried under the weight of Knut’s deviousness. Was there even anything they could do against such a man? Was it even worth it?
“He’s already won,” she whispered as tears bloomed in her eyes. All she could do was clutch the Exo-Heart in its glass jar close to her chest. “Ben was right. All we can do now is run far, far away, and hide.”
“No.” Arlen’s fierce expression radiated pure rage. “He hasn’t won until he has the negative particle bomb. Until then, he’s just an outlaw.”
“No one can prevent them from getting the bomb now.” Ava looked around as more Ilarian guards slipped through the doors and the combat made its way inside the facility. “All we can do is run.”
“I won’t be the Commander who let Knut destroy the Ring.” Arlen bent over her, his eyes cold and pale. In that moment, she understood what it meant to be a warrior, to fight in the face of overwhelming odds. Arlen was that warrior, he was all the warriors who had ever been, and more. “I will alert Prime Councilor Aav so she can stop Knut before he gets away with the bomb.”
He didn’t give her time to respond. His mouth closed over hers, the kiss hard and quick, then he turned away. He grabbed her wrist and they ran, dodging human men armed with ionic guns, running toward the battle that was raging outside the walls of the facility.
Already, the Ilarian guards had breached the defenses and were pouring into the building, running in tight formation, disciplined and fearless in the face of death.
Corpses littered the ground as Ava followed Arlen’s long strides. Her mind was blank as she focused on not stumbling, barely holding her panic at bay. Then they were at the bottom of a long staircase leading up to the second story of the facility and Arlen turned to the other side.
She resisted, grabbing his arm. “We can’t leave yet.” When Arlen frowned, then aimed at and shot another man behind her, Ava cried out, but she still resisted his pull. “There’s a boy here. He’s sick, he’ll die if we don’t bring him with us.”
“We don’t have time to save one boy.” Arlen shook his head, his face unyielding. “There will be plenty of deaths before this day is over. One more does not matter.”
Ava stared at him, her emotions filling the space between her ribs as the fighting got more intense. Ilarian guards against humans, who were losing the fight fast. Humans fell victim to the ionic detonations with blood-curdling screams as their bodies were shattered, their organs spilled. And always, the Ilarian guards kept coming, stepping over the lifeless bodies of their fallen comrades without a glance, their cold eyes fixed on the next target.
Death surrounded them, its long arms reaching all the way to them like a sick caress. Ava shook the morbid fascination away. She wasn’t here to fight, she was here to heal, and heal she would.
“No. It’s not true. One life always matters.” She swallowed the fear that threatened to choke her. “You can go, save the other Eoks and alert Prime Councilor Aav, but I’m getting Derek out of here.”
Arlen growled in a sudden display of sheer violence and Ava let out a shriek. He leapt over her body, slashing with his talons before two Ilarian guards fell, blood spraying the walls and the ceiling as they writhed on the ground. When he turned back to her, his face was different, like violence was lighting something from within him. Something dark and evil, something that made her afraid.
Something he was fighting with everything he had.
“Let’s save that one life, then.” He rushed toward her, grabbing her again as they climbed the steps two by two until they ended up on the superior level of the building.
There, the silence was heavy, full of the promise of death and pain as they made their way up the stairs. Ava followed Arlen’s steps in the dim light, trusting him on some deep, subconscious level. He finally stood before a closed door, then pushed it open.
Moonlight shone on the frail body of the child lying in the narrow bed and he turned his head to see who was coming, wide eyes staring at them full of fear. He had woken up from the chemically induced sleep, but he was still weak. The nanites had done good work, but his breathing was still shallow and fast, and as Ava approached, she could feel the erratic, panicky speed of his heartbeat.
“Can he walk?” Arlen’s voice was harsh, but there was no cruelty in it. When Ava shook her head, his already grim face took on a warning expression. “You will have to carry him. I need my hands free to fight our way out. We don’t have much time, the humans will be overwhelmed soon.”
Silently, Ava nodded. The Exo-Heart was already weighing her down with its good twenty pounds, and she rummaged through the room to find something to put it in. Finally, she found a large bag, then shoved the glass jar inside, strapping it to her back. She rushed to Derek, lifting him in her arms, locking her hands under his backside. He was heavy—too heavy for her to carry for a long distance with the weight of the Exo-Heart already slowing her down—but she had no choice. She wasn’t leaving him behind, nor was she leaving the Exo-Heart. Derek stared, his small, round face full of fear.
“Hold on to me,” she whispered in his ear as she cradled the small body in her arms. He was small for his age, but he still weighed around forty pounds. Ava adjusted her hold on him, her arms under his bottom as he wrapped his legs around her waist and held on to her neck in that instinctive hold of small children. “Everything will be all right.”
As Ava whispered those words to him, a silhouette stepped into the light, pointing the gleaming metal of an ionic gun straight at her.
“No, it won’t.” In the faint moonlight, Will Harl’s crooked teeth shone like a predator’s fangs. “No one is going to be all right.”
* * *
Arlen
Arlen stared at the human male, hatred twisting his insides. The barrel of his ionic gun was pointed steadily at Ava, but every other second the pale blue eyes shot to Arlen.
“Drop the gun,” Will Harl ordered Arlen, motioning toward Ava as he stared at Arlen. “Or the abomination gets it.”
Ava opened her mouth to speak, but Arlen shot her a warning glance and she fell silent. He knew better than to try to reason with the likes of Will Harl. As Arlen put the ionic gun down, then got back to his feet, he studied the human male’s face.
There was a sickness in him, gleaming in his blue eyes, contorting his features into a mask of pure, distilled hatred. There was no reaching him, no negotiating. That male wanted to hurt, wanted to kill.
