Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (40 page)

"I'm sorry, China. I doesn't look like we're going to be getting Chanelle today," I said in a low voice, knowing her Perception was high enough to pick up my words.
 

"She's strong. She'll survive until we find a way to come back for her and Blaine's family." She clenched her jaw, as if to deny the possibility of any other outcome. And then she looked at me and nodded, as if I was the one who'd suggested such an unlikely happy ending.
 

I turned my attention to the others, unable to face her optimism and the reflection of that idealized version of me in her eyes.
 

Jacky faced off with the snake warily, making no move to attack. Her gaze flicked to mine, and I jerked my head to the broken window.
 

China threw the shards of glass at him, two at a time. Three quick volleys, quicker than even my eyes could see.
 

The snake's mouth twisted in surprise, but he smashed them out of the air, actually disintegrating them into fragments that exploded away from him. The little crystal dust pieces mixed with the wind and pouring water and whipped around.
 

Not a piece reached him. But they did distract him, and then China, Jacky, and Adam shot in all at once from three different directions, moving in low to the ground and aiming for his legs, while Sam threw a decorative plant at his head. They took him down, and his forehead smashed against the edge of a splintered coffee table.
 

"Hurry!" China screamed, pointing out the window.
 

They didn't hesitate or try to finish him while he was down, instead running or limping toward me as quickly as they could.
 

Sam made it first, jumping even before my nod and quickly disappearing into the darkness below.
 

Jacky was next, though she waited a few seconds to hear Sam's splash in the water below, and jumped far out into the empty air to ensure she didn't have an unfortunate meeting with the cliff or rocks at the edge of the water below.
 

China waited to jump next, but I saw that Adam was limping badly and moved to go help him.
 

I'd wrapped his arm around my neck and almost made it to the window.
 

China was about to jump, leaving only Adam and me in the room, but she froze, and then turned around to look behind us.
 

I turned my head to see what had made her stop.
 

The thin man had risen, and was walking toward us. His face seemed to almost glow from within. Not with actual light, just a terrible power.
 

Behind him, the soldiers had their guns out and pointing at us, but for some reason weren't firing. Instead, there was again a general scrambling as they all tried to back up into the ones behind them.
 

He raised his fingers to his forehead and took them away bloody, then looked at me.
 

I flinched.
 

Adam grabbed my arm, as if to protect me, and pulled me closer to the edge. "Jump, China!" he snapped.

The snake raised a hand, and the hair on the back of my neck rose in a burning instant, screaming at me to run.
 

Adam's other hand snapped out to grab China, but she'd stepped forward out of his reach, screaming, "NO!" at the top of her lungs.
 

Then Adam's arms were wrapped around me, and he was pushing me backward, jumping out of the window and taking me with him, his body a shield between me and the thin snake of a man.
 

But China.
 

China's body crumbled and twisted and fell apart, wringing her head around to me as Adam and I launched outward through the air. Even the air and water around her contorted, an instant twister mixed with squirts of blood.
 

Her eyes met mine, and held for a long, long time. And then her broken, mangled body was falling, taking her face with it.
 

The man grimaced in distaste at the mess of her corpse, and I heard his murmured, "What a waste," through the rushing wind and now distant seeming sirens.
 

I vaguely noticed a commotion from one of the groups of guards, as the rumpled man who’d run up earlier strained forward and they held him back.

But we were falling, too, downwards. I was surprised that my stomach could still protest at the plunge, trying to rise through my mouth in vertigo, even with what I'd just seen. Or maybe it was trying to leave
because
of it. I didn't know.
 

I stared up at the stars as we fell, our sky with only one moon floating through the heavens, and tried to figure out if she'd still been alive when her eyes had met mine, or if he'd already killed her, and she was just still on her feet for that last second.
 

Then I smashed into something hard and cold, and Adam's body above mine pushed me down into the blackness.

Chapter 28

God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately … for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves.

— Anne Rice

Adam dragged my half-senseless body out of the water downstream, then bent me upside down over a boulder, like a kid about to get whipped over their father's knee, except he pushed hard on my back instead.
 

Water spewed out of me, and he did it again.
 

Once the water was mostly gone, I gasped for air, and spewed some more on my own, throwing up a bit in the process. I shuddered and coughed, crawling off the rock and retching into the pebbly sand until he helped me to my feet. We started to run toward the nearest escape point.
 

Behind us, spotlights were pointing from the compound and scanning the river and the bank, so we hurried. If we were to be caught…I shuddered.
 

We made it to a motorcycle stashed in the woods earlier, and he helped me on behind him, then navigated away through the darkness, clear-headed enough to remember not to turn the vehicle's lights on.
 

Jacky had warned us of that, along with suggesting the muffling pads around the engine.

I held on tight, my mind too dazed to thank Adam for saving me, not once, but twice.
 

In my head, the gruesome scene replayed itself over and over. I whispered, “No, no, no,” pressing my head into Adam’s back and closing my eyes. But my mind wouldn’t listen to me, and I was unable to stop seeing it—her eyes, her body, and the man’s little grimace of distaste. Her body crumpling limply to the ground, no longer in the right shape to support itself. Her eyes.
 

Adam drove for a long time, till we were out of the woods and into town, and then took a long, circuitous route, which we'd laid out beforehand to make sure we weren't followed.
 

We arrived at the base last, and when we entered Blaine's lab, everyone's eyes swiveled to look at us.
 

Blaine looked drawn out and weary, so I knew he'd been told of our failure to save his family.

Jacky let out a relieved breath and stood up. "You took so long, we were worried." She leaned to the side to try and look around us. "Where’s China? Didn’t she come with you?"
 

I choked.
 

After a few moments of silence, she asked again. "Where is China?" But this time, her voice had lost the higher pitch of excitement and relief.

"She's dead," I managed, stripping my claw-concealing gloves off. "That man…" My throat convulsed, and I couldn't force any more words out. My knees threatened to buckle beneath me, and I forced them to straighten and hold. I couldn't let the team see me so weak. They needed someone strong, especially now.
 

Blaine flattened his palms on the table, and stood. "What is she saying?"

Adam stepped forward. "China…was killed. He was able to do things, inhuman things. Skill-type things." He pulled up his shirt and fake uniform jacket, showing us the skin of his back. It lay swollen and dark purplish-red in artistically strewn swaths, where the membranes of skin and blood vessel had been pulverized. The edges of that twisting force had just licked at his back. "I was lucky," he said, his voice rough. He cleared his throat and clenched his jaw, blinking back tears.
 

The snake had been a Player, a powerful one. I’d known NIX had Players, but I’d thought they were more like captives or test subjects. He’d been on their side.
 

Sam shook his head, staring at the marks. "No, no, that doesn't make any sense. Why would he kill her? China was just…a kid. Completely innocent."
 

The full force of my emotions turned on him and started to spew out of my mouth. "But he did! He was too strong for all of us, and he killed her. While she was trying to protect us, protect me. He reached out his hand, and she turned into an ice cream swirl. He. Killed. Her!" I was screaming by the end, my voice hoarse and something of a half-growled warning shriek, like one of the Trial monsters.
 

They all leaned back with wide eyes, and I realized that my teeth were bared and my claws out in an explicit threat. I closed my mouth, and willed the swirling burn inside me back down.
 

There was silence then, and Jacky opened and closed her mouth, then started to cry. Her tears lasted only a few moments, and then she turned on Sam. "You shoulda stopped him," she snarled. "You’re the only one who could, and the only one who refused to try."
 

He paled and stepped back as if she'd hit him, but didn't rebut her words.
 

"Did the mission work? Do they know it was you?" Blaine asked. What he meant was 'Are they coming after you? Is my family in danger?'

"Adam did his job," I said, "There's no record of us or anything relating to us, and we shorted the GPS chips. But they've got her body. They still have her body,” I repeated. “And they've still got Chanelle, and your niece and nephew."
 

"What does that mean?" Jacky asked.
 

"It means we're all in danger," Blaine said. "Eventually, they'll figure out who China was. And they've got people imprisoned, but with the wrong information. They're going to notice, and they're going to realize what we did. Somehow, they're going to connect this to us. Maybe through Bunny. Just because you don't have any records in their system doesn't mean you're safe. We're not safe."

"How long do we have until they figure it out?" Sam asked.

"My program had an ouroboros clean up code. There aren't traces of tampering in the system, other than the empirical evidence of those three with all the wrong information. The computers won't give us away. Our downfall will be some person, someone who remembers their real information, and knows who Blaine is," Adam said.
 

"So we just have to go back and get them, right? If we can finish the plan, and take away any evidence that connects to us, we'll be safe, right?" Sam perked up a bit, with a kind of desperate plea in his eyes.
 

Jacky snorted. "China won’t be safe. It’s too late for her. And how the hell do you think we’re gonna get back in, after what just happened?"

"We might make it in, but we'd never leave again. Especially not with Chanelle and the other two," Adam said.
 

Sam deflated, and returned to staring at his hands.
 

"Their names are Kris and Zeke," Blaine said, low.
 

Adam paused, then nodded. "Sorry. Kris and Zeke. But it's only a matter of time before they connect all this to us. It's not like they're just going to let it go and write it off as bad luck. If there's something to find, they'll find it. And us."
 

"So what do we do?" Jacky looked to me.
 

"We run," I said. "And we hide. If they don't know where we are, they can't use teleportation to take us to the Trials. So at least there's that." It was a small victory, considering. Why didn't I feel better about it?

I smelled our defeat in the air, saw it in the curve of our spines, bowing under the weight of fear and loss.
 

Sam clenched his fists, and muttered, "We were so close."
 

"Blaine already had a more fugitive-style escape plan, since we wouldn't have been able to make NIX forget about him just because his information disappeared. None of us were planning to stay in this city anyway,” I said. “We were already going to run. We’ll just have to do it a little more…seriously." Desperately. My voice felt dead, and I steeled myself to get through the next few hours of planning. I was shaking, shivering. I didn't feel cold, but maybe I was, because I was still damp from the river, and I couldn't feel my fingers.
 

"I'm not running," Blaine said. "I can't just leave the kids to NIX's mercy, especially if they were to think the reason for keeping them alive as hostages just ran away."

Adam sighed. "You don't know what they'll do to you."

"But I have to take responsibility for my actions. I helped you because I wanted to save the kids and hurt NIX any way I could. Well, we failed. I can't just run away from that burden."
 

"That's your choice to make, Blaine. And I think you're a good man for making it. But the rest of us aren't in your situation. I'd rather not face NIX ever again, and I'm definitely not going to wait for them to come to me," I said.

He smiled. "I wouldn't expect you to. And I'll still help you to get away. I just won't be coming with you."

I sat down at one of the tables, and called for a blanket, some coffee, and Sam's Skill to help my re-wounded shoulder. I was settling in for a long night. I couldn't be weak, couldn't let my body or my mind fail me and the team again.
 

* * *

A few hours of planning and discussion later, I'd grown even more frustrated and irritable, and every second I half expected agents from NIX to break down the door to Blaine's lab and take us all. Either that or call us up to tell us they'd taken our families, too, and were holding them hostage. I could only be grateful I’d had the foresight to move them to safety, away from any memories those at NIX might have of them. I hoped desperately it had worked. But now I had put them into more danger.