Page 123 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

Her.

Furious, alive, breathing hard, eyes bright with terror she has not had time to process.

“You absolute catastrophic mountain,” she says.

I cough blood onto the dusty floor. “Did it work?”

“Define work.”

“The leash broke.”

“Yes.” She tightens her grip on my arm. “The machine also screamed down every tunnel it had left.”

“Then the City knows, but they listen to you.”

Her mouth trembles once before anger smothers it.

“Do not make me feel things at a tactical moment.”

I want to tell her there may be no other kind of moment left. I want to tell her the command used her name and failed because she taught me the difference between obedience and choice. I want to tell her that home is a terrifying word and she has made me want it.

The damaged receiver screams again, and a crack races across the chamber floor toward the wall.

Syin hauls Renn back from the crack. Kessa keeps her grip on me, not gentle, not forgiving, but real.

Far beyond the buried chamber, beneath the City, the answering pulse becomes a roar.

This time, it is not a call for proof.

It is a call to war.

29

Kessa

The floor splits between me and Rhazek.

A black crack races away from the ruined receiver and cuts across the chamber with a grinding snap. Green light flashes once inside it, then dies.

It’s over. I take a breath, turn to Rhazek, then another tremor comes from deeper down.

Renn stares at the floor. “That is not the machine.”

My stomach clamps into a tight knot. I know that vibration.

“No,” I say, my mouth dry.

Syin looks toward the passage we entered. Dust sifts from the ceiling in thin streams.

Blood runs down Rhazek from the hook at his throat and down his chest. The restraint on his damaged wing has gone dark. So has the line that trapped my ankle.

The leash is broken, but the building is trying to kill us anyway.

The crack widens another finger. The floor shakes as something moves below us.

“Shit, zemlja,” I say.

As if on command, the chamber jumps and I’m knocked off my feet. I hit the floor hard. Syin catches Renn before he falls into the widening crack. The damaged receiver tears sideways. A guard near the outer passage loses his footing. Gray slams both hands against the console.