Panic seared through Dee; she had been watching the homunculi, and not the—
The burrower fell upon her and James with the force of a charging bull. The strap of the duffel bag slipped from her hand.
She felt it slam into her, and she fell, staggering as she hit one of the tables. Her head clipped the edge and stars burned through her eyes. She tried to kick, to writhe like she had been taught in all her self-defense classes—but the lesson on what to do if she was pinned became a lot more complicated when the attacker had eight legs.
She screamed, heard someone else screaming, too, and she struggled to get her arm up, to ward its claws away from her face. She was dimly aware of James trying to pummel the creature with his fists, but it seemed to be doing little good.
She kicked again and again, and she must have gotten lucky, because suddenly her shoe punched through something. A joint, perhaps, or a weakness in the burrower’s armor. It paused, staggered, and that was all the time Dee needed. She threw the backpack beneath the creature, lit the cocktail in her hand, and threw it down into the backpack. She crawled backward, clumsy with haste.
The backpack lit—and the rest of the cocktails went up in one fiery burst.
The creature burned. Dee felt the heat of the flames on her face, but James’s hands were on her shoulders, dragging her upright. She tried to catch her breath, but sand stung her lungs and her face was too hot, as if she’d been sunburned.
And then Dee saw it—the center of the void. It was where things seemed most solid, where the metal scent was harshest. Her eyes stung with grit and she tried to blink the world back into focus.
At that center, something tore through. Another burrower. It pushed through the center of the void, found its equilibrium, and joined the fray. And then another followed. This was where the burrowers came from—from wherever that center led.
Her stomach caved in on itself; there were not enough homunculi to counter all of them. Even with their inhuman strength and determination, they would be overrun.
They weren’t going to make it out again. They might destroy this place, but there simply wouldn’t be time to get past all these creatures. Twenty seconds wasn’t nearly enough.
Something inside of her hardened.
Fine, then.
They would do this. They would save the world and all it would cost was two heartless teenagers.
“Come on,” said James, and they rushed ahead.
It was rough going—a headlong sprint into the chaos. Dee barely managed to avoid being stepped on by a homunculus, and then James was sliced by one of the burrower’s claws. A shallow cut opened up on his forearm before James kicked at the creature, and it scurried backward into the reach of a homunculus. The cobbled-together monster wrapped its fingers around it and squeezed. Dee looked away.
The center of the void was firmer beneath her feet, and suddenly the wind quieted. The eye of the storm, she thought. James set the duffel bag down, tore the zipper open. He fumbled for the remote, for the detonator and timer. Dee stood over, taking comfort in his nearness.
And then he went still.
His trembling fingers held something up and Dee drew in a sharp breath.
In his palm was a mess of shattered plastic and wires.
“What—what is that?” she said.
James looked up. “The timer.”
It must have happened when that last burrower attacked them, when its leg struck the duffel bag.
Broken.
Dee’s last hope slipped from her.
“It’s broken,” he said. “We can’t—we can’t—” The wind swallowed up his words. “There’s no timer to set.” His gaze settled on Dee and his face hardened. But even so, his fingers were trembling as he pulled the duffel bag open. “Manually,” he said, his voice shaking. “We can set off the C-4 manually.”
She knelt beside him and his arms went around her.
This—this would be all right.
Her hand pressed to the place where his heart should have been. “It’s okay,” she said. “I knew—I knew this might happen. I knew what being heartless might cost me.” The words came in little fits and starts, but she said them. And she meant them.
He had been right, the first time they met. After she lost her heart, she had lived. Not simply existed, butlived. She couldn’t regret that; she was only sad it had not lasted longer.
