Fear My Mortality (30 page)

I touched my pocket, grasping for the only thing that could help us, but all I found was tattered material and a hole through which my fingers poked. The syringe of nectar had to be on the floor somewhere. I dropped to the ground, floating down in the arms of the anti-gravity.

There. The nectar had rolled a few feet away.

“Ava! Move!” Michael’s voice shocked me into action. I dropped and rolled without even looking. The air shifted. There was a twang in the pole behind me, a quivering arrow, as the woman ran toward me, notching another one. The last man lunged at Michael as he tried to follow her, forcing him to turn and fight. I sprinted for the wall of weapons, weaving around the pole. Another arrow thwacked wood. There was a clatter behind me, way too close. My hand reached for something—anything—to fight her with.

Something swiped my legs out from under me. I crashed to my side, the air crushed out of my lungs. She snatched up my arms into a death grip, pressing me into the floor.

Her breath kissed my cheek. “I didn’t think I’d dance in the same room with you again, Ava. Not ever.”

I struggled, my cheek grazing the tatami floor, the clean musk of bamboo rushing into my lungs. “Hannah?”

She pulled off her face mask. Her words washed over me like shock waves. I told myself I wasn’t hearing her right, that she couldn’t be saying it, that she was my best friend. “You’re a Basher.”

She planted her knee on the small of my back, pushing my face into the floor with her free hand. “For a while now.”

“Why, Hannah?”

“Because the government is creating weapons that kill people. Messing with our DNA. They shouldn’t be the ones with that power.”

“And the Bashers should? They want to do exactly the same thing. Tell me I’m wrong.” I tried to see her face, but she wrenched on my arms.

There was silence, broken only by the distant clashing of swords. Her voice turned to a whisper. “The Bashers want to use you too. They want the blood running in your veins more than anything else. With your blood, they can eliminate the weak once and for all. They can choose who lives.”

“Hannah, I—”

“You’re nothing to them, Ava. Just like Josh was nothing to them. When they couldn’t use him to make a weapon, they took that thing out of his back, took away the only thing keeping him safe because they wanted what was inside it.” There was a snarl in her voice. “Nectar. It’s just as important as you are. They killed him for it, and they’ll end up killing you too.”

Her arms trembled and her voice choked. “They asked me to find you. So I did. I found you. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life buried in a cell.” She shook herself before she ground out, “I was glad I blew your legs off. Do you know how demeaning it was to find out I’d been dancing with a
mortal
? Competing with a
mortal
?” She spat the word as if it was a bug that needed squashing.

I twisted my head, trying to breathe. “How are you going to get me out of here, Hannah? There’s security everywhere.”

“Don’t worry, we have a plan.”

Running feet drummed my ear. I struggled to raise my head, to see who it was, but Hannah crushed me down, crouching with her back to the wall as if I was some kind of shield. Her left knee still pinned me.

A
snap
made me freeze.

At the same time, she spoke. “Can I shoot him now?”

I pictured the communicator she had hidden in her ear. She must have got the answer she wanted because from beside her right leg, she raised a gun. It was the same weapon Cheyne had shot Thomas with.

It was the mortality weapon.

I gasped. “Where did you get that?”

She smiled, and at the same time, the man I’d killed hobbled to his feet, leaning against the wooden pole several feet away. Golden dreadlocks floated to the floor, chopped short beneath the ragged edge of his facemask.

Jeremiah.

The breath stuck in my throat because I’d rescued him. I’d set Jeremiah free and handed him the mortality weapon.

He gave Hannah a quick salute. He was a Basher all along. He’d probably got himself caught deliberately so he’d be brought to the facility.

Hannah hefted the gun and took aim at Michael fighting the other man. Her arm was straight, her sight narrow. She was going to kill him.

I arched around her knee and kicked my foot toward my back, connecting with her arm. It didn’t have the momentum to hurt her, but the shot went wild. She screamed frustration, her shriek dampened by the wooden walls. I took advantage of her upset balance to kick her again, twisting at the same time, rolling out from under her knee and scrambling to a crouch.

Michael zigzagged across the floor, almost upon us. Behind me, Hannah shouted into her communicator and raised the gun again, but I leaped at her, grabbing her arm and wrestling her back to the wall. Michael crashed into both of us and the gun went off, splintering the ceiling.

I didn’t have time to think before soldiers ran inside the room from the far door, ten of them, all dressed in black. Michael didn’t seem to notice, pinning Hannah and lifting her up with one hand around her neck, smashing her gun arm with the other. The weapon thudded to the tatami, and I snatched it up, wondering how many bullets were left.

The soldiers raced toward us across the vast room, all of them holding mortality guns.

Their guns were aimed at Michael and Hannah. Jeremiah had disappeared or perhaps he’d been shot, I didn’t know.

I screamed at Michael to look out and he whirled, dropping Hannah in a crumple. Without waiting, I threw him the mortality gun and he caught it in one hand, but his eyes went wide when he saw what it was.

He couldn’t use it; I saw it on his face. He wasn’t a killer and I loved him for it. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to tell him that.

I shrank against the wall, trying to think as the men sped toward us, twenty feet and closing, training their guns on Michael. He sought my eyes and touched my hand, folding my fingers into his, and I forgot about the men as the beautiful tingle of energy that rippled through me made me safe, quiet, and free, just for a moment.

He pulled me close. “We’re getting out of here. Don’t fight, Ava.” He gathered me up in the face of the oncoming chaos and held me tight for a moment. His eyes met mine for what felt like the last time. “Don’t fight.
Dance
.”

He spun me out, away from him, and released me into the group of oncoming soldiers. I spiraled across the tatami matting. The group of men split in two and, as they did so, Michael opened fire from behind me.

A man to my right clutched his leg, but it was his scream that broke the silence. A wretched sound, his face clouded dark like a shadow passed over him. He wasn’t dead, but he was …
mortal
. If he was wounded now, he could die, and he knew it.

In the next instant, a second man plunged, his arm hit, yowling like the reaper had come for him. Someone lurched at me from the right, clutching arms and ruddy face, and I danced into him, spinning like a whirlwind. I flipped and twisted and kicked and jumped my way across the floor. There was a thud, followed by another as Michael shot them, one after the other.

The remaining six soldiers shouted and sought cover behind the wooden pillars. I wondered why they didn’t use their weapons until I realized they were afraid of shooting each other by accident.

They were afraid to die.

We had precious seconds before they regrouped, got behind cover, and had a clear shot.

My head whipped around as a soldier broke from the group and blasted toward me, trying to grab me, but he plummeted with what must have been the last of Michael’s bullets.

They wanted me out of the way before they fired at Michael. They weren’t allowed to hurt me, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

I dropped back so Michael caught up to me. He shouted, “Go, Ava!”

“You first! They won’t shoot me.”

But he shook his head. “No.” And I had no choice but to run as fast as I could, praying he wouldn’t get shot behind me.

The door was twenty feet away and Michael kept pace on my heels. I didn’t have to turn to know he was there. I was as certain as my heart pounded, as certain as if he touched me.

I slammed into the door. Michael planted himself between the soldiers and me. We’d be an easy target now that we were standing still. Panic rose up and threatened to swallow me as I shoved at the etching of a cherry blossom in the middle of the door. The image compressed and the door released.

At the same time, there was a single gunshot, followed by silence.

“Michael!” The room spiraled as I spun back to him.

He doubled up at my feet, trying to stand, the gun at his side. He rose upward, grabbing at something in his chest. Stepping back to cover me completely, he flung one hand back to brace against the wall next to the door.

Another bullet whipped past us and kicked tatami up off the floor. Something nicked my arm. Michael’s hand slipped, and I grabbed him around his torso and drew him close to me, plastering his body up against mine. With our body weight, I heaved against the door.

Fresh air rushed in as we fell backward through it. With everything I had, I pushed us back and down, out of the way, crashing to the floor just in time before bullets peppered the wall behind us.

Shouts and blasts and drumming boots muffled and stopped as the door swung closed in front of us. I took deep breaths of air, wondering how much further we’d get. We only had a few seconds before they reached the door and came out after us.

We were sprawled on the floor, his body half over my hips and legs, one of my arms hugging his chest, keeping him close, his head cradled against my chest. He was heavy, a still blanket over me, always a shield. I waited for him to respond, tried to see his eyes, to see if they opened, looked at me. There was blood on his sleeve and a rip in his shirt. I snatched at it, trying to see it better, to see whether it was over his heart.

Please don’t let it be his heart
.
Not with this bullet
…

“Michael!” Desperation filled every nerve. He couldn’t be dead, I wouldn’t let him. I wanted him to hold my hand and run with me as long as we could.

“Ava?” His whisper reached through my despair and I breathed it in, gasping air at the gentle sound of his voice.

He stirred and twisted, drawing upward, raising his face to mine. His eyes were soft, his lips close to my skin. “I think I almost died.”

I put my head into my hands, bending over him with tears rushing down my cheeks, my chest heaving with them. “I’ve had enough of this nightmare.”

He stroked my arm. “Time to leave, huh?”

“Please?”

He struggled to his feet, unclenched his fist and dropped a single glittering teardrop onto the floor. I put my hand over his heart, dropped my head there for a second, reassuring myself that it was still beating, and left tears behind when I looked up again.

Yet another corridor stretched out before us, this one lined with sparkling mirrors, the kind of reflections that would puff up victorious fighters ready to enter the Dojo. We’d have to trace their steps backward and I doubted that we’d make it all the way to the entrance. As we paced away from the door, Michael swept my hand into his, amazing me by tugging me into a sprint. “Run, Ava.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. My legs pounded a drumbeat down the hallway. We hit the door at the end of the corridor and this one had a panel at the side.

“Let me,” Michael said. “I know these codes.” He tapped the panel, the door clicked open, and we ran through into the next corridor.

Michael grabbed my attention. “I know where we are now. This way will get us out of here.” He steered me to the left and another door and, as we pushed through, the silence was strange after the chaos we’d left behind.

A hundred steps along, a door at the side opened.

Michael’s dad stepped into the corridor, his expression grim. His slim frame blocked the door at the end, his jaw clenched beneath his beard. He held a gun with the same markings as the one Michael held.

Mr. Bradley leveled the mortality weapon at us, but Michael said, “Keep going.” He urged me forward, his hand warm and prickling on my arm. “Behind that door is the service area at the side of the Terminal. We can get out that way.”

“But it’s your dad.”

“Just stay behind me.”

He walked straight for his dad, getting ahead of me until we were only ten feet away from him. Without taking his eyes from his father, Michael lifted his weapon and sighted down it. I rested my hand on the small of his back, to let him know I was there, that I would do anything to get us both out of there.

His dad said, “You’re out of bullets, son.”

“Nope. I saved one. Just for you.”

Mr. Bradley lifted his own weapon and held it steady, aimed at Michael. “I won’t miss.”

“Neither will I, Dad. You taught me well.”

Taking a deep breath, Mr. Bradley said, “I’m not what you think I am, Michael. I just want a cure for your brother. We’re so close with the nectar now. We could help so many people, all the slow healers who are too ashamed or too scared to come forward. Cheyne, your brother. And the mortality weapon can bring the Bashers down. I want your brother to be safe, so your mom can come home and we can be a family again.”