Save for the gentle snoring of patients, the room was silent as Zoe’s audacious plan and Anton’s accusation warred within the minds of the three humans. She wanted to build a world-ending weapon. What better way to fight in a world that had ended?

“I’m not insane,” she said. “I’ve never been more sane. You weren’t in purgatory, but you were in the dungeon. You know what I’m talking about. In this new world, strength rules absolutely.”

“I have to agree with Anton,” Bella said as she placed her sword on the table. “This thing, in its ultimate form, can destroy planets. I’ve seen glimpses… that kind of power isn’t something we should play with. You saw what happens when you burn away the future… How can you want anything to do with that?”

Zoe stared at them both. How could they ask these questions? The future was already burned away. Should they just let the gods walk all over them?

She recalled how small she felt on Rue’s table. The gaze of the aliens pressed upon her soul like a moon crushing her flesh.

“This is my plan,” she stood straight as she spoke. “I won’t be reckless, but I will follow through. If you don’t want any part of this, then I suggest we go in separate directions. This highway can be our crossroads.”

“I’ll follow you,” Anton said, and there was no doubt in his voice. “Just don’t blow up the planet.”

“It’s already blown up,” she replied. “And I want the people responsible to know what they did.”

Bella gripped her sword.

“Would you really leave us out in the middle of nowhere?”

“If you’re not with me, Bella. I’ll leave you here. You’re close to the town. You have a powerful sword that eats souls. You’ll make it to civilization. But my road won’t end at that town. I need to find other dungeons. I need to grow powerful. I need to challenge the heavens. If that’s not for you, then I won’t drag you along.”

Bella looked down at the sword on the table.

“Zoe… I’m not built like you. Even with this sword whispering into my heart, I can’t fight like you. I can’t… hate… like you can, and I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to,” Zoe said softly as she placed her hand over Bella’s. “I don’t want you to. I just want your help, and your loyalty.”

“It’s yours,” Bella choked as she spoke. “It’s been yours all along.”

Zoe embraced the blonde woman, held her close, and ignored the tears falling against her shoulder. She released Bella and stood.

“So, if we agree then?” The others nodded. “We’ll head to the town?”

“Can’t hang here,” Anton said. “Mantis will probably swarm before the end of the day.”

Zoe nodded.

“I saw a station wagon out the back of the gas station. If we load up the passengers, I can haul it toward town without worrying about their injuries.”

After a meal of sword-cooked breakfast sandwiches, they spent a couple of hours prepping and planning to load up the wagon in question. The two demonic goons laid out in the back beside the hellbound chest, still strapped tight to prevent any last-minute surprises, while Oriz slept in the reclined passenger seat. Anton sat at the driver’s wheel and Bella sat on top with a guitar she found in one of the truck cabs.

While the others were searching and scavenging, Zoe took a moment to open Gool’s gift. The fish scale wrappings fell away and sublimated into the cool morning air. What remained in her hands was a needle, a length of line, and a note.

“To my friend in another world,

Let this soak up the light of your sky for a full day before you use it. I still recall the tatters you wore when we met. May you never again be so undistinguished. Say my name three times and let the needle work. I shall see you in locket-bound dreams.

Gool”

She smiled and tucked away his gift as Bella called to her.

They found some towing chains in another truck beside some sun-faded pornos. Zoe hooked the chains to the wagon before linking them with her Blackstar links. It felt like shaking hands with a mannequin.

“You sure nobody wants to help me pull?” she joked.

Bella plucked and tuned the guitar.

“We’d just slow you down, wouldn’t we?”

Zoe grinned, and heaved, reveling in her strength as she dragged the wagon out from behind the gas station and out onto the snow-covered highway. They took a moment to collect the metallic mantis parts they abandoned the day before, and then they continued.

Sweat shone on Zoe’s brow, her breath steamed, and her strides were strong as Bella played The House of the Rising Sun. Her voice was ethereal, even as she growled out the lyrics. Natural talent, or the effects of her Skein? Certainly, an elemental darkness lined her words. Zoe didn’t question as Bella slipped into another blues song. The rhythm helped her stride as the winter landscape passed.

The road continued through the trees. There were a few hills, and Zoe lost all sense of the world as her legs burned and she pulled them higher and higher. Anton’s eyes flickered about to keep them safe.

It was at the top of the second hill, as they rested before they slid down in the car, that the delicately featured patient awoke.

###

He came to in the back and immediately struggled against his bindings. Anton reported to Zoe through his eyes, and she opened the wagon’s backdoor to check on the young man.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Easy,” she said as he flexed against the ratchet straps. “Don’t want you opening your stitches.”

“What’s going on?” he said. “Where are we?”

“You passed out after the surgery. I’ve stitched you up, and your Vitality has been healing you. You’ll be fine, but we couldn’t leave you behind. We’re heading toward the town,” Zoe paused. “If you promise not to be violent, I’ll let you out.”

He calmed his breathing.

“You saved my life?”

She smiled.

“You’re alive, right?”

His heartbeat spiked. Not dangerously, and so she let it ride within the grip of her technique. The light caught his features as he smiled back.

“Yeah, thank you.”

Without the coating of blood, he seemed less emaciated and dirty and more of a high cheek-boned, austere, and alternative model. Even with her surgeon’s eye, she couldn’t see any potential work. Terrible client, but he would have made a good frontman for an alternative rock band. She unstrapped him and helped him from the car. When her hands gripped him, his heartbeat rose again.

“Are you feeling alright? Any pain in your wrist, your abdomen?”

“It hurts, a lot. You weren’t lying about that, but I feel lighter. That demonic core was like a coal inside me. I got used to the heat, but it still burned.”

“I’m glad we could help. I’m Zoe, by the way.”

He grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah, introductions weren’t Roman’s top priority… He’s our, was, our leader.”

“He’s dead now.”

“I think that’s for the best.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what’s your name?”

His heartbeat spiked.

“Oh! Um, I’m Jack.”

“Lift your shirt for me, Jack,”

He blushed and obliged, wincing slightly at the motion as he lifted the bright blue truck stop shop. The picture of a pineapple with sunglasses didn’t diminish the aesthetic he cultivated with his undercut and black fingernails. The six-pack didn’t hurt things either. Zoe gingerly applied pressure around his abdomen, asking questions, and ignoring the way Bella stood behind him mouthing the words “hot” and “bone him”.

She found out he was twenty-three, working a temp job filing for the store the others worked at, and taking his time traveling around the country. He also mentioned he was single, to which Bella waggled her eyebrows.

Zoe couldn’t understand how she could act this way after the man had tried to kill them.

“Where did you four come from?” he asked as he lowered his shirt.

“We came from a dungeon,” Zoe said. “Tell me, what were you planning on doing with the four of us?”

He fell silent.

“We were going to kill you and feed your bodies to the One-Eyed Crow. I want to say they compelled me, and I was… the demonic core is like a second brain, a second heart, you want what it wants. Do you know what I mean?”

Zoe’s scarred lips twitched into a smirk.

“I know exactly what you mean. But influence is no excuse for actions. When we get to the town we’re going to part ways, do you understand?”

“I never wanted any… When the System came…” He looked at her, heartbeat rising. “It was wrong, but thank you for saving my life. You didn’t need to do that.”

Zoe nodded and raised Trinch’s thighbone. Her smirk grew as Jack flinched.

“Do you know where this came from?”

“Yes.”

“Can you show us?”

He paled.

“It’s a horrific place. We barely escaped with our lives. Even Roman said he only got that bone because it wanted him to.”

“What do you mean ‘it’?”

One of Anton’s silver eyes floated overhead to eavesdrop.

“Yeah,” said Bella as she walked over and placed her arm around Zoe’s shoulder. “What do you mean by ‘it’, pretty boy?”

His heart rate spiked at the aggressive compliment as his eyes darted between the two women. Zoe contemplated removing the effect of her technique, but having his heart in her grip was comforting. She didn’t love that aspect of herself, but that didn’t make it untrue.

Or impractical.

A flutter like moth wings across her heart, fingers soft against her cheek, she could almost feel the cool mirrored touch, the whisper of supportive words…

“You’ve seen the giant bugs?” Jack asked. “They’re laying their eggs like fruit in the trees. Crawling through the forest and hunting humans for food. They’ve invaded the town. When we left, everyone else had holed up in a few buildings behind barricades and counting cans of food.”

“Why did you leave?”

“The whole town, both halves of it, were occupied with this Polyp Ques —”

“Polyp Quest?”

“Yeah,” his eyes widened. “Wildest thing I’ve seen, this gigantic golden baby sitting in the middle of town. Eyes burning. It says it wants a mayor.”

Zoe squeezed a fist with anticipation. Things were sliding into place. This was almost too easy… except for the deaths. She hoped the System wasn’t paying attention to her thoughts.

“So, why’d you leave?”

“Nobody was eligible. While the others were arguing, the One-Eyed Crow reached out to Roman. He said we were special, hunters, destined to survive where the town would become bug food. I mean, I was just a temp. They brought me along, even if they never liked me much.”

“You seem fine to me,” Bella said. “Except for the fact you followed a bunch of assholes around and killed — tried to kill my friends.”

“Yeah,” Jack hung his head low. “Yeah… I’m sorry. To your question, there’s a queen mantis. It’s larger, and more powerful than the rest. Way more powerful. You see this winter wonderland?” he held his hand to catch a falling snowflake. “It’s all her effect. When we got the bone, we saw her collecting —”

“Speak of the devil,” Anton interrupted.

Zoe looked up at the floating eye.

“Incoming?”

“They’re trying to be sneaky. Four of them coming in at angles. Not as large as… they’re sprinting. Nine wings each. What’s the plan?”

“Jack, get in the car,” Zoe said. “Bella, we’ll defend together. I’ll lead, you support. Keep the car at our backs. Anton, shoot them.”

“If they’re metal, bullets won’t matter.”

“Let’s hope they’re not.”

She slammed the wagon’s hatch door and gripped Trinch’s thighbone. The club felt heavy, solid in her hand. Her Blackstar chain wrapped down around her other arm, coiled like a serpent ready to strike. She thanked her boost in Dexterity for the confidence she felt fighting ambidextrously.

The metal bug parts on the rooftop glinted in the light. Her hunger growled. Soon, she would have more. She forced a breath.

Precision over pandemonium.

She adopted the stance of the Grasping Vine as the first mantis broke from the trees. Taller than her, and longer as it bent to run, arms outstretched with barbed scythes ready. Scarlet armor bedecked it, and flames spat and hissed from the membranous joints.

Gunfire cracked out. Two shots shattered the fire mantis’s eyes. It stumbled and wheeled about, hacking at the air, before it ran in another direction. Anton calmly reloaded.

“I want that one,” Zoe said. “First time we’ve encountered living fire.”

“Later,” Anton responded.

“Of course.”

The remaining three emerged. Two flowed across the ground. Their armored hides the deep blue of the open ocean. Grace in their silent steps as they moved in harmony even as they sprinted from opposite directions toward the car and the defending humans.

The third was huge. Half again as tall as the others. Its armor bulged with absurd muscle. Dirt fell from its hide as its blocky head sighted Zoe. Mandibles opened in a silent shriek as it leaped high into the air.

Zoe felt the pulse of Skein as the creature struck the frozen highway with its claws outstretched. It sank into the earth like a diver in a pool. Her aura could no longer perceive it, but the tremors in the ground only grew stronger. It was heading their way.