The anger on Menace’s face fades. “Idon’tlike it, but as long as you don’t pull any trick moves—”
“I won’t.” Sythius gently slips his hands from mine. “Promise.Stay here, all of you.”
Fracture lowers the ramp. Sythius walks down the flight deck to the cargo hold and waits for the edge to set down before walking down like it’s just another day at work. He draws a chipcard from his pocket and disappears down a hallway.
We stand just inside the BoltBurner, weapons trained on the surrounding rooms. For several long minutes, Sythius doesn’t come out.
“I don’t like it,” Menace growls, his red eyes scanning the rooftops.
Fracture glances back at the ship’s scanners. “The three bodies I saw are now missing. Sythius is alone.”
A piercing headache slams into me. I wince and hold my head. It pounds between my temples with pressure. Light floods in from the perimeter.
“Sefi?” Menace’s hand feels like hot coals against my arm.
“They’re everywhere,” I rasp.
“What?”
Red alerts fill the cabin.
“Shit.” Fracture taps something on a wristband he’s found. “Welvirs.”
“How many?” Menace demands. “And why aren’t they on my sensors?”
“They aren’t on mine either. Too much concrete in the perimeter?” Fracture suggests.
“How can she sense them?” Menace is freaking out beside me.
“I don’t know.” Fracture steadies himself at the other side of the open ramp. “Sythius! We need to go!”
Menace collects me and carries me into a room where he lays me on a bed. He kisses me tenderly. “I want you to stay here.”
“Where are you going?” I wheeze through the pain.
“To get your friend,” he says bitterly.
His voice leaves me, and all I feel is the cold clawing sensations in my mind as the hundred shimmering welvir shapes tighten the circle around the outpost. They begin climbing the walls, and dread fills me.
“Menace?” When he doesn’t respond, I call him again, the prickling sensation in my spine growing intolerable.
Get up, Sefina. They’re in trouble.I roll myself to the edge of the bed and get myself upright through the pulsing light rattling my brain. I don’t understand why it’s happening again after Rebel removed the tech from my head. But it is. I’ve got to fight through it. Use it.
Staggering out of the room, I find Fracture and Menace fighting welvirs in the yard, trying to get to Sythius, who’s climbed on top of a support pillar and hangs from the lattice structure of a watchtower.
They’re going to die if I don’t help!
I force my feet to move me down the deck toward the ramp. Every step sends a throbbing pulse through my skull. But I draw a gun with a shaking hand, point at the closest welvir, watch the igniter swell to life as my finger slides over the trigger, and fire.
The animal falls. Another takes its place, then another, until I am firing with no time between as I descend into the field.
The agony in my head from each added jolt from the gun makes my eyes water and tears streak down my face, but my team needs me. And in Sythius’ arm is the ghost-cloak device, looking like a dented thermoregulator just like Fracture said.
He came through on his promise. It’s up to me to fulfill mine.
I clear a path to Menace and Fracture and join their defensive circle.
“Move to Sythius,” Fracture calls out.
