Page 118 of Cage of Starlight
Sena’s heart staggers, stabs at him with a spike of whole-body pain. He shudders, knees giving out, and grips the back of the truck.He makes a noise, he thinks—a whimper of reflexive fear he swallows before it can escape him.
Sound flees. He’sfreezing—dunked underwater, the rush of a mad river all around him. He’s drowning, hauling mud into his lungs with every failed breath. His vision wavers.
“Soldier, report.”
Irritation, knife-sharp, from miles away, from somewhere above the water.
Water everywhere and his lips are bone-dry.
“My pa— . . . nce is limi—”
Crackling. Fragmentation.
Blissful silence.
Rust flecks floating away on the current, blood red.
“Shit!”
The earphones tear away from his head, and the world floods back in. The soldier stares wide-eyed at Sena, somewhere between horrified and lost. “What did youdo?”
Beneath his hand, the massive communications rig has aged, polished chrome dials flaked away, metal body rusted through and pocked with holes. Its exposed innards share the same fate, tarnished and wrinkled and rusted-out in turns. Something fails, spits sparks over Sena’s skin. They hiss out on the still-wet blood on his sleeve.
Sena tears his gloved hand away and stumbles back. “I . . .”
Iri and Niela burst from the woods at the commotion, and the soldier raises his gun and swings wide.
“Don’t!” Sena manages, just as Niela yells, “Willsomeonetell me what’s going on?”
The soldier grips his rifle, but he can’t seem to decide where to point it.
Niela, still blood-smeared from front to feet, glares at him. Iri, glancing narrow-eyed between the soldiers, rolls a little ball of flame from palm to palm.
It’s almost funny. It should be funny.
Fear hollows Sena out, and the laugh that escapes him is hysterical and hollow.
Going back to the Compound means going back to Kirlov, with the watch that could still kill Sena, with brutal expectations he can never live up to. Breath whistles in and out of him. Pain crashes cymbal-loud and all-consuming in his chest.
But Tory’s at the Compound, too.
“I need . . .” He finds his way around to the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Keys on the dash. He snatches them. “I need to take this.”
Part of his training was learning how to operate one of these back when the first ones were manufactured. It’s been a long time, but he’ll make do.
The soldier’s expression goes from slack shock to belligerence in an instant, grip on his rifle tightening. “Can’t let you do that.”
Niela stalks up behind him. “Don’t think you can stop him.”
The engine growls to life, too loud, like nettles on his skin. His vision fizzes gray and he swallows a surge of sickness. Niela pushes him out of the driver’s seat. “Gimme the keys, Vantaras. You’re in no condition to drive.”
“Have you used one of these?”
“Nope. But I saw someone else do it, once.”
Obligingly, Sena shifts the gear that will allow the vehicle to move forward.
Niela wiggles the steering wheel and shifts her feet until she finds the acceleration pedal. “Ah, yes, this’ll be easy. Iri? Get the med kit. This boy needs help.”
