Page 75 of Diamond

He brays and pushes his nose against the female argila to get her to move faster before running off behind her.

I exhale, grab the gun, and jump down from the cart, crawling forward on my stomach in hopes to stay hidden. I'm beside the cart and in the path of the crack in the ridgeline. And I lookinside it, gasping in relief when I see the green-haired woman's chamber not too far from me.

Then I watch in horror as the shale shifts again, nothing about it looking natural. With nothing to hold her chamber from falling down the ridgeline, the chamber tips, crashing against rocks and flipping before disappearing from view.

I crawl forward on my forearms and try to take a better look, my heart sinking when I see part of her body hanging out of the container.

It means that it is broken, and she's officially in enough danger I can't just leave her there while we fight.

My mind starts to race at all the complications of her being out of the chamber, but a bullet buzzes past my head, and brings me back to the fact that a battle is happening around me. I hear Kuret cry out, but it's not one of pain, so I focus my energies on the green-haired woman.

Another bullet buzzes past and nearly hits me, but I roll out of the way and get on my feet. I try to find a tree to hide behind, but all of them are too far away. So I grip the braceaaer's weapon and hold it out in front of me. Fear fills my heart as I hold it up and shoot into the void. Hopefully, I don't mistakenly hit Kuret.

A honking laugh and another shot follow, but thankfully I am able to hear the direction it is coming from and start moving. I'm not fast enough as a searing pain shoots up my side while I roll away and my back hits against the side of the cart.

The wind is knocked out of me, but I hold in the cough that threatens to come out and lay still. The pain is extreme, and I hear a wheeze escape my lips. I hope nothing is too severely damaged; the pain is nearly blinding. From the corner of my eye, I can see a genali hunter starting to make his way toward the crack in the ridge, so I push myself onto my stomach and start dragging myself toward the green-haired woman.

There is a shot and two wet screeches followed by a familiar grunting and the genali moves to a different location. Kuret must have taken one of their guns and figured out how to use it.

While the genali are distracted, I shift quietly, biting my bottom lip to suppress the pain, trying to get my body into the trench that the shale made as it slid down. I hope to use it as cover as I make my way down to the broken chamber.

There are more screams and the genali runs to hide beside the cart and I push myself deeper inside the trench.

My hands shake as I raise the gun, everything in me screaming that what I'm about to do is wrong, but I ignore it. The slime raises its own gun, probably in Kuret's direction, and I stop thinking about it and pull the trigger three times.

Two of them hit, and the genali lets out a scream that pierces right down to my soul before sinking down into a puddle.

Tears blur my eyes, but I hiss at myself. "Stop it."

My need to protect the woman far outweighs questions of morality. Kuret is doing what he can, but it's up to me to save her.

I'm pushing myself up to look for other targets when the ground suddenly gives way beneath me. A scream escapes as I fall, the breath knocked out of me when I hit the hard ground. Shale tumbles down, covering me for a moment before I roll away from it.

I keep rolling until rocks start hitting me, then force my eyes open, choking on dust as I try to clear my lungs. When the air clears, I can see that I am in a long passage. From the tug of gravity, I can tell it descends. The walls of the tunnel have odd striations, like the stone has been cut with something. I must have fallen deep enough into it that it's solid instead of shifting shale.

My throat starts to tighten from the small space, but I force myself to stay calm—this isn't the time to panic.

Then I notice a light down the long tunnel and catch a glimpse of green hair. I don't know how, but she's down here with me. I hear a few screams coming from behind me and work to get breath back in my lungs so I can get to the trapped woman.

38

Rin

I hate small spaces.

They pull me right back to being a little kid, with only fragments of the memory left in my mind. But I still remember the fear in mymaman'seyes as she pushed me inside our two-foot pantry, where mybabalocked us in to keep us safe.

There were always threats of violence, but we lived in a relatively safe area. So we had gotten complacent, and the crisis took us by surprise.

As I finally pull a breath in, and cough it back out, I'm hearingmaman'swhispered prayers and the sounds of violence. I can't move into a fetal position and cry right now like I did then.

A honking laugh in close proximity to where I am brings my mind snapping back to the situation. A genali is leering down at me, and my arm is raising the gun without any thought.

A moment later, there's a hole under his left eye and he's falling. I roll to the side, eyes screwing shut as I wait for him to fall on me.

I hear a wet thud and open them again.

A few inches from me lies a genali corpse—a gray and pink, mushy mess that turns my stomach. Seeing this, brings my deep-seated rage bubbling from within, and I spit at the corpse in defiance.

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