Page 56 of Fated in A Time of War
My mouth is dry. I force myself to swallow, then set the case behind me, careful, reverent, like it’s a child itself. The scavengers see the motion, and for a heartbeat, they think I’m surrendering. Let them.
I straighten my spine, step forward. My voice feels foreign, scraped raw, but it comes out steady.
“We don’t want a fight,” I call. My words echo off the scorched walls, caught in the dead air. “We just want to leave.”
The one with the twisted spine—the one who laughed—leans forward, teeth bared in a grin too wide, too hungry. He’s gaunt, face sunken, but his eyes glitter sharp and mean. He hefts a weapon, a jagged length of steel wired to a cracked power cell, humming faintly with static discharge. A mining cutter. Repurposed into a guillotine.
“Then leave the box,” he says. His voice rattles, high and sharp, like glass about to splinter.
Behind him, the others shift—five, maybe six. I smell sweat, grime, desperation. They’re not soldiers. No insignias, no discipline. Just starved wolves in human skin. But hunger makes people dangerous. Hunger kills faster than bullets.
My chest tightens. My fingers twitch at my sides. Krall’s growl is low, a sound more felt in my bones than heard in my ears. He wants to strike. I can feel it radiating off him. But if he does, if he tears into them, we’ll both drown in bodies before we see daylight.
So I hold his gaze. Just a fraction of a second, but it’s enough.
Trust me,I try to say without speaking.Just this once.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. But I see the battle in him—rage warring with restraint, the soldier in him snarling while something softer, quieter, maybe weaker, holds him back. For me.
I take another step forward. My boots crunch glass. The scavengers’ weapons rise a little higher, jittering in dirty hands. I can see their fear, and it’s tangled with greed.
“You don’t want what’s in that box,” I say. My voice shakes now, but I push through it. “It’s not food. Not fuel. Just needles. Medicine. Stuff you don’t even know how to use.”
The twisted man tilts his head, birdlike, eyes narrowing. “Needles keep you alive. Needles make you strong. Don’t play me for a fool, Ataxian.”
The word stings more than I expect. I taste bile. My people’s symbol burned into my chest like a brand. Enemy. Always enemy.
Krall shifts behind me, the scrape of his claws on ferrocrete like thunder. I know he’s a breath away from tearing this gaunt bastard in two. I don’t let him.
I raise my chin. “If you want it that bad, you’ll have to kill me first.”
Silence. Thick. Heavy. Even the ash in the rafters seems to hang still.
The scavenger’s grin falters. He wasn’t expecting defiance. Not from me. He was expecting begging, maybe tears. But not this.
Behind him, a woman with half her hair burned off lowers her makeshift rifle just a fraction. Another man, younger, chewing something bitter, glances sidewise like he’s not so sure anymore.
The twisted one sees it too. His eyes flare wide, angry. He bares teeth at his own pack, then spits on the ground.
“Fine,” he hisses. He jerks his chin toward me, then at Krall. “But the lizard dies first.”
That does it.
Krall’s snarl rips the air like lightning. My heart lodges in my throat as he moves—not reckless, not wild, but fast, precise, like a blade loosed from its sheath. The scavengers stagger, weapons flaring. The hallway bursts into chaos.
I drop low, shove the case behind me, shielding it with my body as the first shots crack and the smell of burnt ozone fills my nose. Sparks dance across the cracked tile. One bolt glances off the wall near my head, spraying grit into my face.
Krall is everywhere at once. His rifle barks, sharp and controlled, each burst a surgical cut. One scavenger goes down screaming, his weapon clattering. Another tries to flank, butKrall’s tail whips, catching him across the skull with a sound like splitting fruit.
Still, there are too many.
A blade whistles past my cheek. I twist, slam my shoulder into the attacker’s ribs, and he goes sprawling. My boot pins his wrist. Without thinking, I wrench the jagged knife from his grip and slam the butt of it across his temple. He crumples. My breath tears out of me in ragged gasps.
This isn’t me. This isn’t what I do. But it is now.
“Behind you!” I shout, voice cracking.
Krall spins, claws flashing. Blood arcs across the wall in a wide, wet spray. The scavenger who’d been charging him drops without a sound, body folding like paper.
