“Well, that’s creepy,” Layla whispered.
Creepytimes twenty-seven.
“I killed one of you,” I insisted.
The Magnums’ smiles held steady. “Only because he didn’t anticipate it. You won’t get the advantage over us again.”
The words scraped, like rough cement against tender fingertips, sounding like they might contain truth. Still, I had to at least try, eliminate all possibilities.
Hands curled like claws, I launched myself at the nearest fucker. Surprise etched across the one’s face, distinguishing him from the rest of them, before I jabbed him in the throat as hard as I could.
My friends, realizing it was all-out brawl time, ran at other Magnums.
When mine bent over, gasping and choking for breath, I slammed my hands to his shoulders, pushing him down. With a fast strike to my inner elbows I recognized as a standard self-defense move—which meant he actually knew how to fight, dammit, at least some—he attempted to dislodge them. But by then I was jerking my knee up into his balls with the totality of my might and fury.
It was considerable.
My knee squashed his scrotum far up where it never wanted to go. He wheezed and sputtered. His face reddened. His eyes watered. He pitched forward, cupping his junk tenderly, and landed with asmackhalf on an expensive-looking area rug, half on hardwood floor.
Griffin told our crew.
Brady exclaimed.
Sure, despite our aspirations, we were no true ninjas. But our fighting skills weren’t too shabby either. We’d dedicated many thousands of hours to becoming stronger, faster, sharper, and more skilled.
The Magnums must have also realized we posed a real threat. The entire mass of them began to vibrate even while they fought back.
I snatched a Magnum, hooked an index finger in each of his ear canals, gripped the shell of his ears with my middle fingers, tugged, and jammed my thumbs into his eyeballs. He screamed and clutched my wrists, working to bend them the wrong way.
Without a single morsel of mercy, I pressed on his eyeballs with all my strength until the tissue gave way under the force. Like squishy pulp.Yuck.
He flung both hands blindly out at me, trying to grab me. I backed away, straight into the arms of another Magnum. A third came at me from one side, a fourth from the opposite. With morepops, less noticeable now with the noise of the scuffles, two new Magnums emerged from each one already standing.
Floor and walls rattled. Another thunderclap boomed outside the building. And more gunfire punctuated its rise and fall.
My braids bouncing, I thrashed, attacking savagely, not keeping still for a moment so they wouldn’t latch on to me. If it was a Magnum body part entering my frame of view, I was striking or grabbing, scratching and clawing, twisting or breaking.
It was a damnable frenzy of Magnums, so much so that I lost sight of my friends—my family. The immediacy of danger was too great to use our telepathic link to keep tabs on one another.
I threw one of my last knives at a Magnum. Surprise widening his eyes, he twisted his torso with annoying agility, dodging at the last possible moment. The knife flew past him to nick the shoulder of another with his back turned.
A blow landed.Greatand all, but far from serious enough to really even slow him down.
My final blade, at least, proved worthwhile. I faced a pair of Magnums. While they came at me, I leapt out of their way, slammed into another Magnum. When that one turned my way, I managed to drag my blade deep across his throat.
His eyes gawping, he clutched his throat uselessly while he dropped to his knees.
Even dying, with anotherpop, the fucker managed to expand into two more of him. They appeared on either side of him, on their knees, clutching their annoyingly intact throats. The lethal injury didn’t cross over to the newbies.
A Magnum yanked my arms behind me, clamping them back like steel bands. He tugged so hard my shoulders screamed, the ligaments one wrong pull from tearing.
“Submit,” he snarled beside an ear.
The office was now replete with Magnums, most of whom were vibrating, preparing to spawn even more nasty-ass copies.Pops could be heard every few seconds. The mass of swarming, fighting bodies kept growing.
Shouts, grunts, and the smacking of flesh felt as loud as the gunfire still heard from outside. Every minute or so now, the floor and walls rumbled, rattling whatever fixtures still remained intact.
Ours wasn’t the only battle raging at the institute.
