With a nod, she took off running.
Xander pushed up and followed. His shoulders were screaming from the strain, but nothing was damaged. And Malin was fine. He had to focus on getting her out of here.
Then something clamped onto his right leg, pain seared through him and he fell to his knees.
Dammit!He studied the trap. A giant claw, like a large-predator trap, was attached to his calf. Blood flowed freely. He blocked the pain and worked on prying the trap apart.
“Xander.”
He looked up. Malin had stopped and turned back toward him.
“Keep going,” he yelled.
She hesitated.
The vibration came again.
Heading in Malin’s direction.
“Malin!” he yelled.
She ran, but the monster was faster. It had almost reached her.
Xander’s breath caught in his lungs. He fought the trap, putting all his force into it, struggling like a wild man.
The metal monster shot up from beneath Malin and swallowed her whole.
It leaped into the air and its massive jaws snapped closed. Then it plummeted back into the scrap pile and disappeared.
Xander’s brain just stopped. “No!” he roared.
He didn’t remember tearing free of the trap, or scrambling over to where he’d last seen Malin. He was just there, clawing at the junk, ripping it up and throwing it aside. But no matter how much steel he moved, more fell into the hole he’d created.
He kept going. Until the skin on his hands ripped and blood ran down his elbows.
There was no sound, no movement, no Malin.
She was gone.
He waited for the monster to reappear. Time ticked by and he sat there, poised, ready.
“Come on!” he yelled.
It never came back.
Desolation tore through Xander. It was a painful, empty feeling that tore at his insides. Left him bleeding and raw like his hands.
He dropped to his knees, and let out a cry that echoed out across the maze.
Gone.She was gone.
He wouldn’t get the chance to tell her of the bright, confusing feelings he had inside for her. He wouldn’t ever get to say that he was a CenSec who’d fallen in love.
Xander dropped his head in his hands, his body shaking with the force of his sobs.
He thought of the Antikythera, but realized it just didn’t matter to him right now.
Nothing did.
