Page 25 of Ravaged By the Reaper
I’ve never known peace before this moment. Not among blood, not on burning fronts, not beneath the distant lull of the Void.
But this, this is what peace feels like.
Fury shared with a partner who doesn’t break under war’s weight.
I grip Bloodfont tighter. My body hums.
I’m home.
The world explodes around us—but I catch it all in a crimson slow-motion surge. A blue-white bolt of plasma tears into Amara’s shoulder. Her blade slips from her fingers. She staggers. The world tilts—gravity bending, the corridor tilting, everything bleeding into every other second.
I don’t even think. Instinct floods me like molten iron.
Iroar—a guttural sound that rattles ribs and reverberates off blood-slick walls—as I throw my body between her and the blast. Flesh and bone armor smolder and fuse where flame sears across my back. I taste burnt hair and ozone. The flames crackle—hungry, roaring.
Every step is agony, every heartbeat reverberating more than the blast just was.
“I—that—” I gasp, breath ragged. Words are wasted beneath the heat.
Outside, soldiers falter. Four of them charge blindly through the light, and I swing Bloodfont. The chain arcs wide. The blade rips through the first, shimmering in the hazy red lights as armor and bone fracture.
I drag her backwards, pressing her closer. Even wounded, she breathes steel. Her blood, still warm, drips onto my forearm. The scent is copper-heavy and scented with iron—a corporal jolt to my senses.
She meets my gaze. Pain is carved into her features, but she doesn’t wilt. She doesn’t falter. If anything, her eyes snap steel. The cut across her shoulder bleeds and smoke curls where plasma ignited the clothed flesh, but she stands. Whole.
I realize how much Ineedthat sight.
We move together again—less dance, more natural reckoning. She wields her blade like a living thing, sharp precision honed in the fire. When a Coalition trooper raises a guard dog at us, she wrenches left and slashes. The dog shrieks, gushing black bile as its legs buckle. We pivot around the shriek, armor slamming, concrete shuddering beneath our feet.
I backtrack through debris—wires, sparks, the heavy scent of burn oil. Everything I step on seems to hiss.
An offhand grunt of surprise reaches me—another squad trying to regroup. I snarl. My blood hammers in my ears, every nerve on edge—alive.
I shove the girl behind me—still bloody, still deadly. Her breathing is ragged. Her blade hums. The buzz of electricity lingers in the air—a suspended charge.
“Tell me your name,” I rasp, kneeling beside her and catching her gaze. The corridor’s red light paints her face scarlet—her wild, frustrated fury scattering across her cheeks.
She simply angles her jaw at me. No words—just a locked glare of pride and pain stitched together with resilience.
I nod—like that’s all I need.
A corner busts open. Rebel engineers emerge—terrified, halfway toward surrender. I raise my blade at them. Instinct says, kill them. But another thought—softer, deeper—hammers inside.
I lower Bloodfont.
But keep it drawn.
They scuttle back—the scream of shattered metal behind them. We continue.
The corridor opens into a junction. Panels flicker. Ventilation systems choke in soot. Pressurized ducts gush steam. Heat pours out—it’s like standing inside a star.
The roar behind us returns—amplified. Not just alarms. Not failures. Something else.
The station’s center is collapsing.
This hallway is moving, effervescing, burning.
I gather Amara’s arm. “This way.” I can’t tell where ‘this way’ actually is, but that fire behind us is relentless.
