No, no,no.
Backsack in one hand and the other raised, Gemma slid to Christian’s side, casting a solid shield around them.
“Don’t,” he said, reaching for her arm as he winced. “You might hurt yourself.”
“I don’t care.” She dropped her hand, but the shield remained.
She shoved the hand he held against his bullet wound out of the way and tore open his vest before slicing through his uniform. Christian’s lower abdomen was soaked with blood, but at least the bullet had entered where there were no major organs.
Gemma pressed clean gauze against the wound and felt his back for an exit wound.
There wasn’t one.
Her hands shook. She couldn’t use the nanobot injection until the bullet was out, but she also couldn’t take it out until she had the right amount of time and space to stop the bleeding that would follow. She wouldn’t be able to assess how much damage it had done until she had the right lighting and equipment—
Christian wiped the back of a knuckle along her upper lip. Purple blood stained his skin. “Gemma, stop.”
“No.” She reached into her backsack for a local anesthetic and hemostatic gel, her shield still holding. If anything, she could try to keep his bleeding to a minimum until the battle was over.
“That’s her. Nadine wants her. Grab her!” a familiar voice shouted from nearby, and Gemma bristled.
Reymond.
Rage burned through her from her toes to her scalp until she was boiling. It filled her every pore, her every molecule. In seconds, she injected the anesthetic into Christian’s stomach and squirted the gel into his wound.
She held his cheek in her hand. “I love you.”
A tear fell from his eyes. “I love you more.”
Gemma tried to smile. “Not possible.”
Pressing her lips together, she sucked in a deep breath through her nose—and gave in to the fury that clawed at the back of her mind.
It fractured, the alien DNA filling the cracks like the gold in a piece of kintsugi pottery.
Every muscle in her body buzzed, as if her molecules themselves had become energized. She could hear every dissonant gunshot, smell every salty drop of sweat. The details of her surroundings focused as time seemed to slow, just as it had in her fight with Colton.
She’d becomemore, and death was her virtue.
In a snap, Gemma’s daggers were in her hands. She sprinted at the nearest Dissent member, slicing through their gut and neck with finesse. Nearby enemies took notice of her and, with war cries, attacked.
Gemma threw her blade between the eyes of the closest one then ripped it from their skull.
She slid between the legs of another, severing his groin in half. He cried out in pain, gripping himself as he fell to the ground. A split second passed, and she was back on her feet.
Dissent soldiers rushed her, but she chopped through them without a single bullet or scratch touching her body. The feel of flesh and sinew tearing with each shear filled the alien part of her with so much joy. It giggled as she kept running, slashing, and ripping apart any enemy that got in her way.
She was Darkness and Annihilation.
“That’s enough, Gemma!” that familiar voice shouted again.
She spun around, her blades dripping with blood. Reymond pointed a rifle at her.
Gemma tilted her head, a wicked sneer spreading across her face. “You,” she seethed in a voice unlike her own. “You’re going to pay for what you did.”
Eyes wide, Reymond pulled his trigger. Gemma spun out of the way.
The old man stepped back, his weak leg almost giving out. “Please...What can I give you to make up for lying to you?”
