Her sanctuary.
Briefly, she wondered if fleeing was the wrong move.With the kind of destructive ability Caius had just demonstrated, it was possible he could hold his ground against the army coming for them.
A part of her, a piece so deeply buried that she was barely aware of it, yearned to make these intruders pay for their trespass in blood and pain.To protect what she’d created with her own hands.
“The way is clear but I’m sure that won’t be the case for long,” Caius called from outside.
The brief inclination to stay and fight vanished without a trace.Stuffed deep into the corners of her heart where she no longer looked.
Pride.Stubbornness.Those were things reserved for others.
Not Gus.Never her.
Abandon the things precious to her or die a pointless death.Thatwas what Gus knew.That was how she survived.
Anandra’s hand slipped into hers.Its weight warm.Comforting.“Are you crying?”
“No.”
Tears weren’t something Gus was capable of anymore.Somewhere in those years she didn’t like to think about, they’d run dry.If she ever had them in the first place.
Gus tugged Anandra’s hood up to cover his head and face before doing the same with hers.“Caius is right.They’ll have heard that and will be coming.”
Anandra’s hand in hers, Gus walked out of the place she’d once considered home, uncertain if she’d ever return.
Six
Anotherexplosionfromthedirection of her living quarters meant the intruders had breached Gus’s last defense.
“Don’t look back,” Gus ordered as Anandra’s hand pulled against hers, his focus on what was behind rather than what was ahead.Seeing his hood had slid down, Gus adjusted it for him.“You never look back.”
That was how you survived.
Caius sent Gus a thoughtful glance that made her feel like she’d revealed something important.“Where to?”
Shaking off her reservations, Gus took the lead.“This way.”
Their enemies were coming from multiple directions.Through the greenhouse at their back, while another contingent was even now in the process of working their way around the container bank.It wouldn’t be long until this position was overrun.Luckily, it wasn’t far to one of the backup escape routes that Gus had seeded throughout the docks in case of emergency.
Anandra and Caius shadowed her as she turned away from the sounds of pursuit, heading for the opposite side of the container bank.
An overly eager human male barreled around the corner as Gus reached it, forcing her to dodge.
He was young.About twenty.Not even out of the pimply face phase and already with a soul as black as coal.
He was also inexperienced.
“They’re here!I found them!”he shouted over his shoulder.
Gustsked.
It would have been better for him to use the rifle he was holding before calling for backup.Maybe he would have lived longer.
She reached for him, her hand already primed with one of the fast acting poisons she kept on her knuckles.
A pair of garden shears flew past her face.
The human fell back with a surprised gurgle.The shears buried in his throat.
