Not going to let that stop me. My fingers close around her throat, and I squeeze, channeling power into my grip.
Her eyes bulge even as her fists hammer my ribs in sharp jabs that steal my breath but not my focus.
She is losing her grip on consciousness.
I know it.
She knows it.
Her eyes burn with desperate fury. She tries to claw, to twist, to drive a knee up, but she’s sluggish now.
Numbness creeps into my legs as I force more blood and energy to my arms, hands, and grip.
Her eyes flutter, and her body goes slack. Unconscious but not dead.
I heave breaths that make my battered ribs scream and sweat pop up across my skin. But I haul her from the floor, wrap one arm around her throat, put my other hand to the side of her head.
Snap.
Dead eyes stare up at me as I drop her to the floor and push up to my feet.
“Wake up from that, bitch.”
It’s done. I open the door and quickly haul the two downed guards into the room. There’s a streak of blood on the floor in the corridor, but it’s dark. I doubt anyone will pay any attention, and this part of the ship is quiet, thank fuck.
At some point, they’re going to realize what’s happened. But hopefully, I’ll be off the ship and it will already be in space by then.
I take a weapon—it’s useless to me, but good for show—then step back into the corridor. I just need to fake being one of their soldiers until I’m off.
The thrumming sound has ramped up, and an alarm is blaring, the amber lights in the ceiling flashing in time—I’ve probably got minutes before they take off. I pick up my pace to a jog. People are rushing in every direction, and nobody pays attention to me.
I reach the ramp where a steady stream of people is surging onto the spaceship.
“Where are you going, trooper?” an Uncorrupted soldier steps up to me, getting right in my face.
My eyes drop to the ranking signature on his breastplate—an officer. I need to answer him. Only I don’t have a good excuse for going in the wrong direction. I punch him in the solar plexus, fist his uniform, and make it look like we’re having a chat as I drag him to the side of the ramp.
“I need medical assistance!” A couple of green-looking soldiers hustle over. “On your radio, quickly! Mine is broken!”
And I’m gone—out of there, down the ramp, and into the dead zone filled with rubble, craters, wasted cars, torn-up metal, and bodies. The fight is still ongoing, but without urgency. Both sides know it’s over. No one wants to waste more lives or ammo.
A fallen Empire soldier is sprawled out ahead of me, twisted and grotesque in the manner of his death. The price we pay for saving our people. I doubt he’s the only one. Maybe it’s my existential crisis creeping up again, but every death feels like one too many. There’s an Uncorrupted alpha lying next to him with a hole in his chest—they probably died killing each other. His eyes are open, a bright summer-sky blue. I catalog his features with detachment in less than a second. A habit now.
I don’t hate him. He’s just a man who was born on the wrong side of a line, one who might have gone on to be a regular alpha if someone would’ve just given him the pure version of the Copper Virus.
I snatch the helmet off the Empire soldier. Underneath, his face is likewise unblemished. He looks so fucking young.
“Sorry, buddy,” I say. “You did good. We got a lot of our people out. What you did helped me take out that bitch who was experimenting on our brothers and sisters. You made a difference.”
My words feel empty. What are words when a young man is dead?
I drop his helmet onto my head and press my finger to the ID plate. The visor display crackles to life, showing a map of the area and our positions. I tap to open up a direct comm line to Ethan Black.
“I’m done. I’m out.”
“Fuck! Zeb,” he says, two words that manage to instill a sense of dread. “You need to get back on the ship.”
“What the hell?! Why?” My head whips toward the ship. The ramp on the right is already closing. A stream of people now converges on the ramp on the left.
