Page 64 of Vicious
“What do youmean?”
Another platform branched to the right up ahead. The hissing grew louder from all around us, coupled with thunderousfootsteps.
The iron in Don’s mouth flashed inside my head. And I was covered in his and my blood and drenched inparasites.
Hybrids. Hybrids were coming, andfast.
The metal hummed under my feet, urging me faster. In front of us, the door to the platform opened. A wave poured out, its individual parts human-shaped with glowing green eyes. Growling, spitting, and mad withhunger.
Behind us, the door the Saelis had disappeared through crashed open. A fresh wave of hybrids surged through. Coming in from both sides and crushing my lungstogether.
Poh shoved me onto the platform that led right. But she didn’t come with me. She heldback.
I didn’t think. I ran for mylife.
All the way across the length of the room was another door. Feet nipped at my heels. Hot breaths hit my arms. But parasites still bounced through me, more than maybe I should have, and carried my high even higher as my blood pumped through my veins. I charged through the door ahead and slammed it shut on a hybrid with spit strings hanging off hischin.
I had a half second to collect my bearings enough to realize I was above the main hallway with the rings hanging from the ceiling. I had another half second to lift my foot over a one-hundred-foot drop, or a clear platform like the one that crossed to the other side over the tops of the rings. I prayed for thelatter.
I set my foot down. It landed on a solid surface, and just as the door burst open behind me, I poured onspeed.
Below, glowing green eyes tracked my movements. Some swept along the hallway with me as I made it to the other side and turned right. Towering above them all were hundreds of Saelis. They plowed in the same direction as me, a race to reach the rest of humanityfirst.
But behind them, somehow, was Poh. She cleared a path right through the center of the hallway, both arms swinging shards of glass. Blood sprayed the walls in great arcs. The smell of it thickened the air and rolled my stomach into a deadlyspin.
No sign ofCrispin.
Iron pegs attached to the wall zipped by as I ran. Clear hanging wire secured the rings to the pegs. I glanced ahead and across the hallway to the broken doors below, then zipped my gaze to the ring hanging directly in front of them. Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed that this plan wouldwork.
When I was ten feet away from the final iron peg, I finally spotted Crispin. He’d dragged an ice cream cart into the corner by the doors and huddled on top of the colorful umbrella with his golfclub.
The hybrids chasing me down the platform surged faster. I did too. I would only have a second to unplug the peg, and I hoped it was as simple asthat.
I skidded to a stop just past it. Turned. Stared down a redhead just feet away whose teeth were bared. Andyanked.
It slid out easily, and the iron ring began to swing toward the exit doors. I whirled back around andran.
Crispin’s jaw dropped as he leaped off the umbrella out of theway.
The iron ring slammed through, effectively opening the doors in a great explosion of metal, hybrids, and white walldust.
I followed the same path I’d seen the bot take to the glass spiral staircase that led behind the information desk, then leaped off the final few steps to the floor below. “Poh!”
She was there in an instant. The two information desk employees’ eyes glowed green, their chins tucked to their chests, and a growl curling theirmouths.
“Police are to theleft!” Poh snapped their necks, first one and then the other, with the speed of a trainedkiller.
Their flesh bent grotesquely toward the direction she’d just come, the green faded from their eyes, and they slumped to thefloor.
Before the dust settled, the three of usran.
18
My stomach coiledinto knots as Parker’s ship closed in on theVicious. I crossed my arms to help keep me together in preparation for what we might find. The fabric of my fresh shirt—a loaner from Crispin—felt rough against my skin, especially the scales. My chains sighed against my damp hair, but it hardlyregistered.
After I’d washed away all the blood and gore with a shower, Poh and I had helped each other clean and dress our wounds in Parker’s infirmary. Most of mine had been teeth marks buried under several layers of bruises and gashes. Poh had been cut in several places and stabbed in the shoulder by me, but most of her injuries were dents to her metal parts. Both of her upper arms and shoulders were made of blue titanium, as well as one whole leg and half of theother.
“I’m literally what I eat,” she’d told me when she’d caught me looking. “Since I often did repairs in zero gravity, I decided the only upgrade I could afford when I got these parts was automatic magnetization. But I’ve been saving up because these limbs fit terribly, they hurt, and I would like to sit downsomeday.”
