Chapter 21: Sefina
I’m ready to heat up some guns and get off this rock, but Menace is oddly quiet as Chaos opens a door in the hangar and lets us out. Thruster is apparently still charging, so we’re on our own to get to the ship via an exposed mountain road. I don’t like it.
Fracture hovers our lift out of the doors.
I smile with confidence at Aniah and Celeste as the door closes between us, hoping it’s not goodbye.
“Everyone hang on.” Fracture speeds up the lift. “Modified it so it would get us there faster. Less time for Solcrue to track us.”
Menace snorts and sits down beside me. “Rogues always know how to maximize engine output or efficiency. I wish we’d been taught that, but we all sort of have one purpose.”
“I thought I hadnopurpose,” Sythius remarks as he trains his rifle off the side of the lift. He and Menace have sandwiched me in the middle while Fracture pilots. “But Leah spoke with me again. Fighting for humanity is my purpose now.”
I rest a hand on his arm, relief filling me. “Finally found some others like you?”
He nods and looks at me with hesitation as if I’ll lash out. “I’m sorry, Sef. I was selfish. I hurt you. And I’m so sorry.”
“Promise you won’t punch me in the face, and I promise not to give you a reason for augmented nuts.” I lift a fist.
Sythius chuckles and bumps my fist. “Deal.”
We soar down the side of the mountain and soon head off the dirt road and through the hills, weaving and threading ourselves deeper into them toward the place where we hid the ship. Of course, because we aren’t cloaked, we set down in a cluster of trees, grab our things, and have to hike the rest of the way.
It’s unusual how quiet the trees are and how empty my mind is of combatants in the surrounding area. We make it within visual range of the BoltBurner before I get my first hint of movement.
“Welvir, northeast ridge,” I whisper.
We cluster together and hustle through the grass toward the ship. As we get closer, another welvir appears.
“Looks like just one pack with one very big mutant,” Menace says as Fracture lowers the ramp. “But they’re approaching fast.”
Fracture and Sythius climb onboard as I close my eyes and pull up my visuals, focusing on the light ringing in my temples.
“No. Not this time.” Menace kisses me, picks me up by the waist, and tosses me onto the ramp as the ship lifts into the air. “Close it Fracture!”
“What? No!” I run to the edge. “Menace!”
I whip around and look at Fracture. “What the hell is he doing?”
Fracture closes the ramp, glances back at me, shakes his head, and returns his focus to the ship as if he isn’t worried about Menace.
“Fracture, open this damned ramp! He could’ve just joined us! Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t know. He has orders I don’t.” Fracture’s not helping, and I don’t know why.
“Orders?”
I close my eyes to watch. Two packs approach Menace, then a third. He charges them as Fracture cloaks the ship, and my vision of Menace and the others fades out.
“Damn it!”
I look helplessly at Sythius, wondering if he knows anything. But he shrugs.
“Circling back.” The ship tilts, and several agonizing minutes later, Fracture brings us down again. The ramp drops as we land. What I see is terrifying.
Menace is covered in fizzling blood, and his new Titan armor is scratched up. But the hundred welvirs before him are all lying down. He’s panting when he turns to look back at us.
Blood drains from his teeth. At his feet lies the biggest welvir I’ve ever seen. It’s not dead like I hope. It looks up at him like Menace has suddenly made himself the alpha of the pack.
