This life as Darius.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monika
I shouldn’t have canceled on Darius. That’s all I can think to myself as I lunge, falling hard on my forearms.
“Run!” The word is ripped from the lungs of the heavily armed, heavily tatted COE officer who’s been assigned to me. Unlike the SDD jerks I met at Old Sundale Station, this COE officer is cool. The whole group of twenty-six tactical officers has been really kind and helpful, leading me to believe that the problem either lies with the SDD or with Taranis. He may just be unpopular enough that he was assigned the biggest dickheads on purpose, or only dickheads volunteered to team up with him. Whatever the case, I’m grateful for the non-dickhead officers with me now. They’re keeping me breathing.
Officer Ortiz grabs me by the strap of my bulletproof vest, the one withPresshalf burned off the front after the Wyvern got flung off his feet and his flames went wild, lashing into me like a whip. It was either that or be burned by acid. And the acid’s still coming.
Ortiz grunts as she pushes me out in front of her, likely taking the hits that seem to have been intended forme.The creature chasing us is spitting acid, and even more alarmingly, I don’t know who he is. He’s a lean creature with dark-brown skin and locs that travel all the waydown his back. But his locs look like they might’ve been floating from the little of him I glimpsed before all hell broke out.
His face isn’t among those I’ve photographed, and I’ve taken pictures of almost every single member of the Forty-Eight—the good, the unaffiliated, and the bad. It makes me think of what the Wyvern and Mr. Singkham told me in that very first meeting. There may be more than forty-eight. There may be as many as sixty-nine of them ... And out of the ten—possibly up to fifteen—aliens attacking us, I don’t recognize anybody.
We’re down at the old Sundale ports. When Sundale won the bid for the relocation of the COE headquarters fifteen years ago, industry in the city—on the entire East Coast—went up a hundredfold. The ports were revamped and moved just south of the city where there’s more available coastline. These ports have been in disuse ever since. There was talk of building a boardwalk here with parks and shops, but there were issues with land stability, so the project was tabled, never to be revisited again.
Now we’re inside the smallest of the six warehouses, the one where Cynthia was potentially tortured, fighting for our lives as we race back up the ramp to reach the main level. The COE was right to follow Cynthia’s lead: The villainsareusing this space as an evil lair. The problem with that? They were prepared. It makes me wonder if Cynthia wasn’t taken and released for this exact reason ...
I was led here. We all were.
Some sort of signal we didn’t discern must have been activated, because by the time our team descended the ramp from the ground level to this watery, half-submerged basement, there was a crew of villains lying in wait. Our team, meanwhile, is composed of the Wyvern, two dozen humans with guns, andme.We may not be outnumbered, but we are outmatched significantly.
I feel a burn on the back of my left calf and miss my next step. Ortiz hooks her elbow under my arm, spins around my body so that I’m moving forward while she’s moving backward—running, mostlycarrying me—her gun drawn and blazing. She fires and the sound is explosive. I close my eyes on every bang, even as I try to keep filming.
A wave of heat assaults my front, and I know that the Wyvern is doing his best to wield his fire to protect us, but it’s so wet down here, and one of the beings must have power over water, because the fire hits the water and dies instantly. And thenwhoosh. I try to glance over my shoulder, snapping pics like a social media star desperate to catch a glimpse of just anything, when the Wyvern roars, “Everybody Drop!”
I hit the ground, dragged there by Ortiz, whose body half covers mine. My forehead scrapes the concrete underneath me. I can feel another body drop to the ground next to me, warming my right side before pain skewers the back of my calf, like a knife lodged there in a spot I can’t reach.
I scream and that’s when I realize it’s a collective scream of all the humans close to me. A huge roar sounds and I look up, panicked, my heart beating like a snare drum. I whip my camera around and manage to capture a shot of the Wyvern throwing a metal barrel at the acid spitter advancing up the concrete ramp. It hits him in the face and chest, sending him flying backward.
Another two aliens step forward. Water rises around a male with tanned skin and straight black hair. He throws a fist forward and water pummels the Wyvern.
“Ortiz!” I shout, pointing at the Wyvern.
She’s already up, though it looks like it costs her great effort. The man on her other side is up, too, moving a little faster. Both of them fire. I take their pictures with steady hands, adrenaline keeping me steady even through my injuries. My left leg is dragging on the ground, so I lift my right into a crouch for better stabilization and watch a female with light-brown hair and freckles step up between the two male aliens, a smile on her face that’s absolutely terrifying. And suddenly a wall of smoke appears, making my vision hazy. I can’t see through or past it.
“Fuck off, number Thirty-Eight!” the Wyvern roars.
“You attackedus,number Sixty-Two,” the female calls back. “You may have fangs now, but don’t be disappointed that we bite back.”
Out of the hazy wall that may be real or imagined, a figure darts in a blur, launching itself at the Wyvern. The Wyvern throws up a wall of flame, and the blur vanishes. I switch my Nikon to record, even though the lighting is terrible, and sweep my lens around the cloudy space.
There’s a scream to my right. I glance up, but I can’t see anything besides COE team members dressed all in black, pointing their weapons down the ramp but not firing. If they’re seeing only the same gray haze that I’m seeing, there’s nothing to fire at.
A grunt to my immediate right has me swinging my camera around. The sticky, wet world clings to my skin. My hands may be steady, but my legs are shaking. The guy that was next to me, kneeling right there with his gun at the ready, isgone. Just—poof!—disappeared. And in his place kneels an alien with white, tan skin. They’re looking at me. Smiling at me. Right at me.
My fingers move on autopilot. I switch to stills. I take their picture. It’s a perfect shot. They look perfect in it. Short dark hair, looking styled in the humidity rather than watered down. Their arms are exposed in their black T-shirt. They have on black pants. Lots of heavy silver jewelry. They look like they could be Mediterranean—Greek, even—and I know instantly that this is the other villain who was involved in hurting Cynthia. I suck a breath in through my teeth.
“You seem important,” they whisper to me, their lips a dark pink, almost burgundy. “I think I’m going to kill you. Gotta cover my bases, after all.” They reach for me and almost touch my cheek and this deep, primordial instinct way down within me, coming from places my ancestors drew on for their own survival, tells me that if they touch me, it’ll be the last thing that ever happens to me.
My secondary identical Nikon Z9 camera hangs on a strap around my neck. It has a 50mm lens—so a little heavier than the 24mm I’m using now. I rear back, tumbling ass over foot, removing the strap asI fall. I swing my camera at the being as hard as I can. My camera connects with their cheek. At the same time, I feel something heavy drop onto my shoulder.
“Hold still!” Ortiz shouts in my ear. And then I see the barrel of her long gun thrust out before me. She aims at the being’s chest and pulls the trigger.
The ringing in my ear is sensational. It lasts long after the bullets pass straight through the empty place where the terrifying teleporter once was. They’re gone now, no trace left, my camera gone with them. I don’t think I have many pictures on it, but I don’t like that they took it.
“Look Out!” Another member of the COE team. “Run!” I look up to see that the cloudy atmosphere has shifted. Instead of fog, I see a wall of water—and it looks very real as it rips toward us.
