CHAPTER THREE
REFRAIN
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“HQ, this is Corporal Wallace, requesting evac from our last known location. Half of my squad is dead, including Sergeant Vasquez and Corporal Dugger, and one of my Privates… Yes! We dispersed the Redcoat cell, but they led us straight into a trap. A bomb, but that’s not important right now! One of our own, Private Rosenthal, is a demon! She survived the blast and escaped—what? Yes, fine, I’ll hold… Hello? Oh, Colonel! Yes! Yes, I understand… Affirmative… Wilco. Corporal Wallace, out!”
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I bet you forgot about the bloodhound lurking in the alleyway. Maybe even the one I’d nearly lost my head to, before it crashed into a pile of charred wreckage.
What? No?
Just me, then.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
At some point, the last spark of warmth I had spent flickered back to life. Bullets fly, and in a flash of speed, I drop and roll aside. Right into a pair of bloodsoaked corpses.
Carried by the momentum, I rise and brace myself on one knee, wrenching the rifle from Darling’s cold, dead hands and shouldering it in one fluid motion, instinctively aiming its sights at Wallace’s head while my finger brushes the safety—confirming it’s off—on its way to the trigger.
As I do, time briefly seems to move slower. A side effect of my Rose Rush?
It lasts no longer than a breath, but that’s just enough to save the Corporal’s life.
While he sprays a bloodhound three feet behind where I’d been standing a moment ago, a second bloodhound looms behind him, mouth stretching unnaturally large and fangs brandished like daggers.
Wallace isn’t even looking at me. I hadn’t expected him to actively save me. Not after he ignored Darling’s screams for a chance to kill me.
BANG—BANG!
I lift the barrel an inch and unload a controlled pair right into the bloodhound’s open throat. A splash of glowing blood and brain matter erupts from the back of its head. Kill shots. It stumbles back on its feet, but it’s already dead.
Wallace finally looks at me, and so does his R18.
I meet his gaze and lower Darling’s rifle an inch.
When the body collapses behind him, he flinches.
I stoke the dying ember in my chest.
Two fingers caress a pair of triggers.
After a long pause, Wallace slowly glances over his shoulder, careful not to move his rifle and lose his leverage.
As soon as he looks back at me again, I tilt my head at his kill. It hadn’t been as clean as mine, but no less effective.
We lower our guns at the same time, having come to an understanding. “You tell everyone. Whatever I’ve become, I’m not the enemy.”
“Private,” he begins, mouth open and tongue twisting, as if struggling to find the right words to say. “It’s not that simple. Colonel Estrada—”
BANG!
My ember ignites. The Rose Zone spreads no more than an inch around my skin, but for a breath, time slows again.
I dodge right. A finger-long bullet chunks my left ear, briefly freezing mid-air before my ‘bubble’ immediately collapses—
And it hits Corporal Wallace straight between his eyes. His proverbial watermelon… well, let’s just say it bursts like one.
BANG!
My heart sputters. As cold as ice.
No bubble, no speed boost. Nothing.
But I’m not ready to die. Not yet.
I’m sorry for doing this, Darling.
I grab my best friend’s limp wrist and yank her dead weight with all my strength as I roll over her killer’s corpse, hoping to drag them both on top of me like a bulletproof blanket.
If only I could move a little bit faster.
The wind gets knocked out of me twice. The first when a 50 caliber bullet turns my left shoulder into confetti. The second when my body spins around, hits the pavement, and gets hit by something really fucking heavy.
Pinned to the ground, my vision blackens. No pain. Just… numbness.
BANG!
The crushing weight on my chest flinches. Knocking out a third wind.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Again and again, the weight grinds against me. Digging a deeper grave.
BANG!
That last one rings out with a tone of finality. Maybe it’s the long silence.
“HQ, this is Lieutenant Strider. I believe I have eliminated the demon, but I’ll need to put boots on the ground to confirm. Target is currently bleeding out underneath one of my soldiers. Looks like the poor girl got her face ripped off by a bloodhound. I count a four-pack. All already dead. Yes, the Corporal is dead too. Fucking demon. Is that a go, then? Do I have permission to approach the target? Affirmative. Lieutenant Strider, out!”
Of all the things to listen to while dying, Lieutenant Strider’s haughty voice felt like the equivalent of rubbing salt in an open wound.
And of course he would be the one to kill me. Though I’d never figured out why our Platoon Commander hates me so much, it only makes sense.
After all, I despise him too.
Barnaby. My older brother.
He’d gotten him killed too.
Ever since I arrived from Arlington and learned what happened from my mother, I’ve wished I could avenge him.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Maybe this is my chance.
CRASH!
I open my eyes. All I see?
Red.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
The bloodhound’s blood?
It’s warm. Tastes like fire.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH.
In my chest, a fire blossoms.
CRUNCH!
I scream and my lights go out.
CRASH!
BANG! BANG—BANG! BANG!
BANG-BANG-BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
CRASH!
BANG!
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
“L—tenant Stri—Can you re—me? Lieute—ider! Repor—!”
CRUNCH!
“…einforc…are now…the way!”
CRUNCH!
“…shh—khh…”
CRUNCH!
“…”
“…”
“…”
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here disassociating, but it must’ve been awhile. The sun is much higher now. Even through the dense clouds of ash, its hateful light bleeds through, turning the sky into a sea of molten slag. It’s horrifying. Also beautiful.
I’m shivering. Not because I’m cold, even though I know I should be. I’m incredibly hot, if anything. Feverish. The heat is burning within my veins as much as it’s melting over my skin. My heart pounds against my sternum like a combustion engine.
I don’t want to look at the mangled body slumped at my feet. I turn away from it, but wherever I look, there’s another corpse a few steps away. Corporal Wallace with his melon popped. PFC Hackett with her face half devoured. Three bloodhounds riddled with bullet wounds and one that’s little more than a crispy black skeleton—
No. What?
This can’t be right.
“Didn’t…expect that. Did…you?”
A mix of sweltering rage and soothing relief intermingles within me.
Even so, I don’t turn to look the Lieutenant in his remaining good eye. I’d already caught a glimpse of his shattered legs. The strength it would require to break an officer’s double-tempered armor… just thinking about it makes me wish I could vomit.
What have I become?
The bloodhounds are no longer bloodhounds. None of them regrew their hair, but it’s clear that two of them are seemingly ordinary human males, while the one that killed Darling is female. At least, genitals wise. They’re as naked as I am, which still hasn’t once bothered me.
Well. I suppose now it bothers me that it doesn’t.
That, or I can finally see myself in these… in these…
Demons.
It doesn’t help that of all the people here—dead or otherwise—I’m drenched in the most blood. Not just by an inch, but a mile.
And that said a lot, considering I’d managed to rip Lieutenant Strider’s R50 out of his twice-tempered grip and used it to blast his shoulder into ribbons. Repaying a debt.
But unlike him, my shoulder is fully healed. I can still taste the female demon’s blood on my lips. Maybe she’d reverted to a regular woman by then, but I can vividly remember the warm feeling of power surging down my throat.
“You’re…fully gone, aren’t…you? Not one of the…smart ones?”
I turn my head and spit on the Lieutenant’s swollen face. “Why?”
He tries to laugh, only to start coughing up blood. “Why…what?”
I temper my appreciatively clawless hands into fists, resisting the urge to shut him up for good.
“Why did you order him to die? How could you do that to Barny, of all people? After everything?”
His mouth hangs open and his tongue twists. It reminds me too much of Wallace, just before Lieutenant Strider brained him.
He closes it to let us soak in the quiet.
“I heard you pin Corporal Wallace’s death on me. Do you feel any guilt at all? About anything?”
The Lieutenant forces another chuckle, then hacks out a lump of red phlegm. “I didn’t…kill him. You did when…you dodged the…bullet.”
My fists tighten, but that’s as far as I let my anger rule me. I’ve already done enough to inspire a lifetime of nightmares.
Besides, the bastard is paralyzed anyway. He deserves to live on with all the mistakes that he’s made. Y’know, real suffering.
“Funny,” he says, not a hint of amusement in his raspy voice. “Thought that would… get you to…finish me.”
Ignoring him, I bend down and pick up the Lieutenant’s R50; a sleek, recoil-operated, semi-automatic anti-material rifle with a four foot long barrel designed for long range engagements. 32.7 pounds in total, but right now, it feels as light as a feather.
With a grunt, I snap the barrel in half against my knee.
The Lieutenant chuckle-coughs. “Aren’t you…strong.”
I am. He could probably do the same in his twice-tempered, onyx black suit of armor, but in case you forgot, I’m butt ass—
Yeah, sorry. You get it.
I drop the broken R50 and bend over to pick up Darling’s R18, tempted to give it the same treatment. Then I check the mag and replace it with a full one strapped on Wallace’s hip.
“So what’s your…plan? You going to…kill everyone? Even your own…mother?”
I sigh. “You think you’re so clever. I know what you're doing. Don’t waste your breath. I’m waiting on purpose.”
I’d heard the reinforcements a while ago. Our entire Company had been activated while I beat the Lietuentant to a pulp—over a hundred Martial Troops, even with half my squad dead—and they’re already nearly in position to surround me, pouring out from shadowy alleyways or around the corners of nearby intersections. Based on proximity to Base, I’d guess twenty minutes if they moved urgently? Thirty at most, assuming major delays? It's too hard to read time from the sky these days, but either way, our emergency response time is commendable.
I’m more surprised the Lieutenant hasn’t bled out yet, though I’m also grateful of that fact.
“I haven’t killed anyone, and that’s not going to change. You want to know my plan? It’s to put an end to this madness.”
I shove the fully-loaded R18 into the Lieutenant’s mouth, just far enough to trigger his gag reflex, and a few of my spectators gulp down a breath.
More than a few do too when I begin shouting. My voice booms louder than a normal eighteen-year-old girl’s should.
“Bring me my mother, Colonel Estrada! This is all a huge misunderstanding! Tell her I want to explain and negotiate!”
Even while choking on my weapon, Lieutenant Strider finds the mind to laugh.
I pull the muzzle out and press it against his bruised forehead. Unfortunately for me, I need him alive.
“Please!” I shout. “I don’t want to kill him, but I will if you force my hand! Just bring me my mother and we can talk this out!”
No one answers. I can practically hear everyone holding their breath.
Well, everyone but Lieutenant Strider, who still has the audacity to laugh.
“How quickly you…forget. Even Barny…knew better…in the end. We don’t…negotiate with…demons!”
From every direction at once, multiple guns start firing.
BANG! BANG—BANG! BANG!
BANG-BANG-BANG!
BANG!—BANG!—BANG!—BANG!—BANG!
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
BANG!—BANG—BANG!
BANG!