Page 57 of Fated in A Time of War
For a moment, it’s just noise and heat and blood. Then silence.
The twisted man is gone. Vanished into the upper shadows.
I’m panting, knife still in my hand, the weight of it foreign but too familiar all at once. My fingers ache to let it go, but I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.
Krall’s chest heaves. His scales are spattered with gore, claws dripping. He looks at me—not like a prisoner. Not like a liability. But like someone who just stood her ground beside him, unflinching.
My stomach knots. My hands won’t stop shaking.
“We keep the box,” I say hoarsely, voice rough with grit and blood. “Wekeepit.”
Krall doesn’t answer with words. He just nods once, slow and solemn, his eyes burning with something I can’t name.
The silence after Krall’s nod doesn’t last. The scuttling scrape of boots on concrete rattles through the broken shopping complex. Shadows move above, behind, all around. The twisted one isn’t gone—he’s regrouping. Calling the rest.
And I know what that means.
If we lose this box, if we die here, the refugees will die too. That child—the one with lungs drowning in his own breath—he’ll never see another sunrise. Every second we falter is another second stolen from him.
Something cold and sharp clicks into place inside me.
I draw my blade. The metal catches the faintest bit of fractured light and looks alive in my grip, a shard of steel trembling with my pulse.
Krall doesn’t argue. Doesn’t growl or scold me for stepping into the fray. He just… accepts it. His shoulders roll back, claws flexing, rifle snapping up into his hands. He moves like a storm uncoiling, fast and inevitable.
“Stay close,” he mutters.
“I wasn’t planning on running,” I whisper back, throat raw.
And then they’re on us.
The scavengers don’t come as a wave—they come like a tide of teeth and desperation, shrieking, half-mad. Rusted machetes. Wrenches. Welding torches repurposed into weapons. All hunger and rage.
Krall’s rifle barks once, twice, dropping two before they get close. Then the chamber clicks dry. He hurls the gun aside, claws flashing, tail lashing like a whip. The sound he makes—deep, guttural—isn’t human. It isn’t meant to be. It tears through the air, through me.
I don’t have time to watch. One rushes me, breath sour, eyes wild. I sidestep, blade low. His momentum carries him past me, and I slash up across his ribs. Hot spray hits my cheek, metallic, copper, choking. I don’t stop to think. I pivot, drive my elbow into his spine, and he drops screaming.
Another grabs me from behind—arms like iron bars around my ribs, squeezing the air from me. I gasp, vision blurring. My knife is pinned. Panic claws my throat.
Then training—not mine, but Krall’s voice, echoing from hours of watching him fight—sparks in me. Don’t fight the hold. Break it.
I slam my heel into the scavenger’s shin. He jerks, loosening just enough. I drive my elbow back, sharp into his nose. Something crunches wetly. His grip falters. I twist, wrench the blade free, and slash across his throat. His blood pours hot over my hand, sticky, slick. He collapses.
I stagger forward, lungs burning, heart hammering like it’ll shatter my ribs. Krall is a whirlwind beside me. He takes a knife in the thigh—steel glints, sinks deep. He snarls, twists, and instead of faltering, he uses the pain like fuel. His claws sink into his attacker’s chest, ripping. The scream is cut short, swallowed by blood.
I want to scream too. Not in fear—never that—but in fury. Fury that we’re still here, still fighting scavengers when the real enemy marches somewhere out there, polished and armored. Fury that survival always tastes like iron and smoke.
Another lunges at me with a torch, flames sputtering blue. Heat sears my arm as it skims past. I duck low, jam my blade into his gut, push until I feel resistance give. He drops, gurgling, fire guttering out.
And then—quiet.
Not peace. Never peace. Just the kind of quiet that smells like blood and dust, thick enough to choke on.
I’m panting, drenched in sweat, arms shaking so bad I nearly drop the blade. My hair sticks to my face, plastered with grime and blood that isn’t all mine. My chest heaves like a bellows, and every breath tastes like copper.
Krall leans against a cracked pillar, his leg bleeding dark, his claws slick. His chest rises and falls in brutal, uneven bursts. Alive. Barely, but alive.
“Krall,” I rasp, my voice nothing but smoke.
