Page 69 of The Godhead Complex
“Dom!” Sadina cried, but her voice shook and it was too late. She watched Dominic’s expression change as he realized what was grabbing him. Fear paled his features and a struggle ensued. Miyoko cried out. Trish stepped forward as if to help Dom, then hesitated, then stepped back with a wash of shame swept across her features. And just as panic impaled itself within Sadina, she remembered the gun. She knew next to nothing about shooting the damned things, except the sniper breathing routine Orange and Minho had taught her. “Dom, don’t move!” She sucked a long breath into her nose, deep into her lungs, and then she put every fear and all the terror into the exhale, blowing it out through her mouth.
Fear of Cranks.
Fear of Dominic dying. Trish dying. All of them dying.
Fear of every last thing in the world.
She steadied the gun in both hands then blew a bullet through the Crank’s head.
Far to the south, where she finally couldn’t smell the smoke any longer, she stopped to catch her breath. The Goddess’ feet and lungs had never been so spent, so exhausted. She had never run so far, so fast. Alexandra could still hear the explosions and gunshots and the cries of war in her mind, haunting replays of the sounds that had shattered her heart. A ratchetyBOOMin the distance shook her, reminded her it was all too real. Flint, her Evolutionary Guard, gone. The Pilgrims. The shops. All overtaken.
Her feet sank into the soft swampy ground, and she tried to remember where Mannus had beached the little boat. It was near a string of birch trees, she peeled the bark while he’d gathered their things. She should have forced Mannus to flee the city with her,why didn’t she?
Nicholas.He’d looked too much like Nicholas.
She’d figure it out, recover what she could, perhaps even live on the remote island with the three scientists for a while. Once she told them of the surprise attack, they’d surely understand the raised importance of Culminating the Evolution.
Her shoes and feet were soaking wet, her hands trembled. She shoved them in her cloak pockets.Some Goddess. In her right pocket she felt the spikey bog rosemary that she’d used to poison the rogue Pilgrim. Alexandra pulled out the stems and threw them to the ground. The last thing she needed was to accidentally poison herself. She slapped her hands clean of the spiked leaves and returned them to the warmth of her cloak, only to feel something else. The letter from Nicholas she’d stashed away in stubbornness and spite. Avoidance, not wanting to hear hisI told you so’sfrom beyond or whatever the letter held. But she pulled it out now.
She needed to know whathesaw that she could not.
What were his last words to her? Had he predicted the war? Had this been a part of his emergency shutdown plan?She took a breath and slowly reached into the envelope that had her name scribbled in Nicholas’ handwriting. His penmanship was sloppy as hell—he’d always explained it as his mind moving far more quickly than his hands were able. She thought it showed his lack of control. Her heart raced as she unfolded the letter. She had to remind herself that she didn’t need to control her own thoughts anymore—even so, it felt like Nicholas was right there, lording over her. Something rustled in the woods and caused her heart to quicken even more. Her palms squeezed the letter.
A squirrel. Just a squirrel.
Alexandra sighed.
The attack from the skies had heightened her fight or flight senses and there wasn’t enough tea in Alaska to calm her nervous system, now. Of course, she’d try with the Flaring Discipline all the same. She returned to the letter, and upon unfolding it saw how short it was. Not even a full page.Did she want a dead man to say more?She was embarrassed by her misplaced disappointment.
The squirrel, the culprit, ran toward her and disappeared up an oak tree.
But behind the squirrel was a man.
He walked with a dreadful, pained scowl worse than any of the faces of death Alexandra had just witnessed in the streets of New Petersburg. Some faces were indeed worse than death. Cranks.
The man emerged from the line of trees and held its arm up, missing a chunk of wrist and two fingers. Alexandra crinkled the letter and shoved it deep into her pocket again. She backed up, looking for a stick on the ground, something, anything, to defend herself with, but it was mostly marsh. Not even a rock to throw. Nicholas was surely taunting her from the beyond.
She walked as quickly as she could between the maze of trees and brush, no choice now but to put her back to the Crank and get out of there. Her foot twisted on a jutting root, but she dodged a swinging punch from the oncoming Crank. She pushed him away and ran, toward a thicker part of the forest, despite the pain lancing up her leg.
She yelled the digits out loud as if to amplify their power.
“1, 2, 3, 5, 8!”
The Flaring Discipline was her only weapon.
“13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 . . .”
Someone in the distance shouted, kept shouting, almost melodic against the distant sounds of battle. It took him a few moments to place in his mind that the voice coming from the trees ahead was reciting numbers.Counting down cannon fire?
He motioned Orange to walk farther west. They didn’t have enough ammo for another ambush and needed to conserve energy.
“Trish!” Sadina was next to him and pointed toward the strange voice, almost a chant, now.
Trish stopped walking and listened for a moment. “The numbers.” She had a weird look on her face. Something like relief.
Minho glared at them both. They certainly didn’t have time for island games. “No. we’re going that way.” He pointed to the right, west of the noise, but Sadina ignored him and walked in the other direction.
“The Book of Newthad these numbers circled,” she said. “Whoever that is, she’s chanting the exact same numbers! You’re telling me that’s a coincidence?”
