Page 51 of Kian

The other woman popped up from the ground with a big smile on her face and blood dripping from her left cheek.

She had shoved a knife into the machine’s treads, grinding it to a halt.

But not before it cut her face.

Avril dropped her head backward and howled with joy, as if to celebrate her win.

“What’s the matter?” she rasped at Kinsley, tipping her head back up to face her.

“Y-your cheek,” Kinsley stammered. “You’re bleeding.”

“I am?” Avril asked, looking as if she had just been handed the Bhimani Prize for Life-saving Technology.

But the machine was grinding back to life at their feet.

“Now what?” Kinsley asked her friend. “Can you stop it?”

“Probably,” Avril said. “Let’s back up a little, see how it moves.”

Avril got into a fighting stance, a sword in one hand, and what looked like a small plastic cube in the other.

Searching the ground frantically, all Kinsley could come up with for a weapon was a fist-sized rock.

“Nice,” Avril praised her. “Don’t be afraid to use that, especially if you see the sheriff.”

The sheriff?

That didn’t make any sense, but Kinsley didn’t really have time to think much about it.

The machine lurched forward and suddenly it was moving even faster, too fast for them to analyze its weaknesses, and there was nowhere to go but straight back.

Kinsley lobbed the rock at the treads, hoping to get lucky a second time. But it only careened off and flew to the side.

She stole a glance behind them and could see they were heading for a ridge. When they reached it, the thing would have them pinned. There wasn’t much time left.

“Kian,” she screamed.

Where was he?

She caught movement in her periphery, but it was only the dogs, running for her in the sled as if to protect her.

“No,” she screamed, knowing they would be only killed by the machine.

But they kept coming.

Lyslee was emerging from the warehouse now, whistling for her bear, which ran at her so fast it looked like it would knock her off her feet.

They approached the machine from the back, as Kinsley and Avril continued to back up, the dogs yapping helplessly beside them.

Every blow from Alloo looked strong enough to take a man’s head clean off his shoulders. But even with all that power behind its massive paws, the bear couldn’t knock the thing off course.

“It’strainedon you,” Lyslee screamed in frustration. “We can’t even distract it.”

Kinsley and Avril were in the shade of the ridge now. Any second, they would hit the wall, and then she and Avril and the baby would be killed before her little one even had a proper name.

“Can you get her out of here?” she screamed to Lyslee, indicating the baby.

Lyslee flung herself from the bear and limped toward Kinsley, her face a study in pain, her arms out.

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