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CHAPTER FIVE
RETREAT
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“This is the way heroes are made.”
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Okay. So maybe I was lying about the whole ‘escaping unscathed’ part. It sounded cooler in the moment, alright? You can’t blame a girl for embellishing her horrifying, heartbreaking backstory to make her look a teensy bit better, can you? No. No! You can’t.
Anyway, what actually happened…
For a lack of words I can stomach…
It’s bloodier.
But I’m sure you guessed that too.
A four-pack of bloodhounds push a Martian fire team out of an alley, trampling a pair of them and driving the other two onto the sidewalk. I recognize them immediately by their armor ornaments: McCall, Kirkland, Alkins, and Two Bull’s cousin. For the life of me, I still can’t remember his name. The bloodhounds seem to coordinate their prey instinctually, pouncing on each one simultaneously. McCall and Kirkland, having lost their footing, are the first to go—one from getting his throat clawed out to the point of near decapitation and the other from getting his head twisted 180 degrees. Alkins, at least, manages to spin around and unload a burst of tempered steel. Each bullet but the last misses, and by that point, the bloodhound is already ripping his weapon out of his hands. Meanwhile, Whitney’s cousin attempts a similar maneuver. Instead, he trips on his own feet and falls on his back, losing his R18 in the process. The last demon leaps on him in seconds, repeatedly slamming its claws against his helmet while he attempts to wrestle it off him, but it’s stronger, and eventually the tempered glass shatters. I can see his eyes pleading for help, too busy gasping for air to shout. Alas, Alkins is having just as much trouble against his opponent.
Echo Company isn’t doing much better, for that matter. The stench of death is starting to overpower the faint rotten egg aroma that constantly drifts on the wind, but not all of that is coming from the Martians. Just as many bloodhound corpses litter the ground, and for the first time, I witness the oldest corpses transforming—their limbs shortening, claws retracting, faces molding, and bones snapping back into place as bright scarlet blood pours onto the streets, gradually paling their skin and withering their flesh. More bloodhounds are still arriving—from where I don’t know; usually in packs of four and three packs at a time—and they’re all frothing red foam from their mouths at the sight of freshly spilled blood and recently aired organs. It’s as if they’d all been stirred into a frenzy. Many of the survivors had abandoned their positions to regroup in the middle of Broad Street, where they formed a protective ring around the Colonel and faced outward, guns raised to engage threats from any direction. Amidst the bursts of gunfire and bloodcurdling howls, I hear a familiar voice shouting orders. Thankfully, none of their focus is on me.
Okay. So maybe I did look back just once—and just for a moment, I swear—but only to make sure I didn’t get shot in the back while I booked it. Not because I had to know if my mother was still alive.
For Whit’s sake, I stop myself from barreling straight into the alley to briefly save her cousin’s life by kicking the bloodhound off him and unloading a hammer pair into its head, killing it before it hits the sidewalk. I almost do the same for Alkins—despite us never really interacting—but I’m interrupted by a sharp pain in my chest, and before I understand why, my blood starts to boil with rage.
Do you know how Two Bull’s cousin repays me? By stabbing me in the fucking back.
My Rose Zone blossoms around me reflexively, and at that second, I finally remember his name. Or, at least, the translation. Eagle’s a statue now, holding onto the hilt of his tempered combat knife. Helpless. In a flash, my hand lashes over my shoulder, tears it from his grip, and my body spins around, aiming the molten-looking blade toward his nearest eyeball—
Stop!
I freeze before I impale him. A part of me is tempted to leave it floating a centimeter away and walk out of my Rose Zone to see if he falls into it, but I can’t when I see the recognition in his gaze and the fear gradually contorting his face. Now that I’m really looking at him, he kinda looks like Whitney, if she had patches of stubble on her chin and a sharper jawline. She’d been a friend too, since the day we’d met at Basic. She’d also died tonight protecting her last surviving relative. Eagle.
For her, I spare him, taking his knife with me and running into the mouth of the alley.
My Rose Zone collapses behind me, and not three seconds after it does, Eagle begins yelling, "Target is escaping West-Northwest toward Masters Street!”
Then he picks up his fallen R18 and starts firing at my back.
The moment his first bullet clips my thigh, another Roze Zone flares to life. This one is different though. The first that’s not a bubble. It spreads in front, behind, and above me, filling the entire alleyway to create a long narrow path I can speed through safely. As I run effortlessly faster, each step covering ten feet of space, I begin wondering if I can shape future Zones without a metaphorical stencil to contain it.
I don’t get to wonder long. Not when three strides away from the exit, a pack of four frothing bloodhounds reveals themselves. They seem intent on waiting for me beyond the edge, so I skid to a halt and gaze over my shoulder.
At the other end, Eagle is still unloading his rifle into the alley. Alkins stands behind him, shouting and waving for other Martians to join them. It seems I only managed to get myself trapped.
I try igniting my power again, hoping to catch the bloodhounds in a smaller zone, but I already know I can’t without collapsing this one first and waiting a few seconds. So I reach for Darling’s rifle, where I’d slung it over my—
Nope. I dropped it when I nearly killed Eagle with his knife.
Dumbass!
Can I survive long enough with just my unnatural strength and a mere four-inch blade of tempered steel? Probably. But I don’t want to risk it, honestly. Though I’ve lost no energy physically, I’m mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. In such a tight space, I’ll need to be on my A-game to dodge multiple attacks from both sides. I don’t know if I can handle it.
I look up at the sky and ask HaShem why. Why is any of this happening? Why doom the earth? Why forsake humanity? Why abandon me?
No one answers. The daynight sky is as grim as always, like an ocean of ash, shadow, and fire that’s hardly any brighter nearer the sun, though its engorged silhouette bores deep enough to bask the land in something akin to a full moon’s light, just… redder.
But at least that draws my attention to the broken fire escape hanging from the side of the apartment building on my right. I crouch down low, then push off the ground with all of my strength. The pavement cracks beneath my feet as I spring twenty feet into the air, where I grab the edge of a dangling platform and immediately start climbing. As I do, I can feel the last rusted bolts holding it to the wall on the verge of breaking under the strain of my shifting weight, yet my Zone keeps the entire thing from plummeting. Odd, considering I can move objects when I want to, but intent seems to matter.
Whatever the reason, I’ll take it.
I climb and climb and climb until there’s nothing left to climb, looking for the nearest window. There has to be a stairwell inside, and with that I can get to the roof and look around for the best route to safety. Maybe if I throw myself up with all my strength or settle for a lower floor…
My Rose Zone makes the decision for me when it collapses. I don’t have time to ask why this one couldn’t sustain itself as long as the previous. No, I’m too busy punching my left arm through the one miraculously unshattered window, burying glass shards in my tricep as it catches the windowsill to arrest my descent, then heaving myself inside onto a solid concrete floor covered in, guess what—more glass shards! Hell, one even managed to pierce my right eye! It’s long and thin, too. Fun!
Prying it out with my fingernails isn’t my favorite experience tonight, that’s for sure. I swear I can still feel it, like a needle-long razor of sheer agony. It hurts worse than all my wounds this far and takes the longest to heal. Any longer or deeper and it might have actually scratched my brain.
Outside, I hear a volley of bullets whistle as they pass, followed by pained howls from bloodhounds and Eagle shouting: “Cease Fire! Target has entered the apartment! Fifth or sixth floor! Someone inform the Colonel!”
Until now, I never thought I could regret saving a life, but Two Bulls’ cousin is really testing my limits. Why couldn’t Eagle just thank me and let me go? Powers or not, I’ve done nothing wrong. Why are they all so desperate to kill me?
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I know why, of course, though I still have trouble acknowledging it. Had I been in any of their shoes, would I not do the same thing? We’d all been trained to kill demons on sight—heads filled with countless war stories about the havoc they’ve wreaked across America—and sworn to give our very lives to eliminate them. If Darling and I traded places, would I not shoot her? Would I not chase her? Would I not sacrifice my life to kill her? We’d all affirmed the same oaths.
I wish I could say I wouldn't have, but tonight I’ve killed three bloodhounds without batting an eye. I even saw their corpses revert back to human and still thought of their kind as monsters. Hell, I’d put myself at risk to save Eagle from one without being the least bit reluctant about killing it. The cognitive dissonance is mind-boggling.
Is this what it feels like to be brainwashed?
Speak of the devil, one of the bloodhounds from the end of the alleyway leaps into the room through the same window I’d just shattered and lands on me with a ravenous shriek, serrated fangs scraping against each other as it snaps at my face. I wrestle it for a second, but its stretched-out body is too slender—and too weirdly slippery—to get a firm enough grip.
Before I can ignite a new Rose Zone, it takes a full bite from my neck, and my vision goes black—
SNAP!
I taste fire again. Power.
I open my eyes again. Red.
But this time, the violence is already over. I know that much by the seemingly human corpse slumped over me. A petite woman with a snapped neck—her head spun around so I can’t see her face—and an open throat with deep teeth marks around the slits. It— It looks like I— I’d—
Fed.
I touch my own neck—scarred but whole—and shiver. The warmth inside my chest is full again. Apparently all that requires is drinking the fresh blood of demons.
It’s at that point I resign to stop denying what I am.
More bloodhounds are in the building. I can sense their velocities and trajectories with greater clarity—probably because I just finished drinking one’s blood—and the first to enter are beginning to bound up the apartment’s central stairwell. More and more pour in from the ground floor, as if following in their faster kin’s footsteps, but I suspect it’s not just that. After all, they seem to be heading toward me explicitly.
Can they sense me too? Are they drawn to my power? It would explain the huge swarm and their impeccable timing. Perhaps even the four I ran into on Broad Street…
If so, then maybe all these deaths—Darling’s death—were my responsibility. Maybe I do have more blood on my hands than I want to believe.
Maybe I am the monster.
They just keep on coming. Bloodhounds. More than the first group that attacked Echo Company. They must have been coming from all over the ruins of Philadelphia, and none of the surviving Martians seem to care about getting in their way. Knowing the Colonel formerly known as Mom, she’s already giving orders to burn down the whole damn building. With enough R303 incendiaries, they could eliminate an unprecedented number of demons in one decisive strike.
I bet that would earn them one of Commandant Locklear’s coveted Medals of Martial Merit. Oh what a pretty and shiny end that would be. The remnants of Echo Company would be celebrated as selfless heroes, and the Colonel might finally be promoted to General. All at the cost of my life and the lives of those who died trying to stop me.
Darling. Wallace. Now McCall and Kirkland. Even Two Bulls, though I still have no idea what killed her. Why can’t I remember how this all started? And why, even after their repeated betrayals, do I still mourn them? Why do I continue to wish Eagle, and even someone I’ve never talked to like Alkins, the best? It just doesn’t make sense!
I have to shove the exsanguinated corpse off me to wipe the blood and tears out of my eyes. The closest bloodhounds are just two floors down now and I can hear explosions crashing into the apartment. Can feel the floor shaking with every hit to its foundation. Can smell the rancid smoke drifting through the window.
I’ve waited as long as I can.
So why am I not moving? I’m not ready to die, am I? I’m not so cowardly that I’d just give up and lay here… right?
It’s certainly the easiest way out, and who could blame me? The Martial Corps surely wouldn’t. If anything they’d be ecstatic. Even my own mother, after all the years we’d lived, thrived, and survived together.
How weak does it make me that I’m already second-guessing my convictions? That I’m considering letting myself be washed away by their unrelenting hatred?
I know it won’t be easy. Everyone I know and love is effectively gone. But someone needs to end this madness. It’s just not right. And whatever I’ve become, I’m still a person. I’m still me. Still… Bethany. And she’s never been one to give up or take the easy route. That’s just not what either of her parents had taught her.
So no, I guess I’m not ready to die. Amazing pep talk, me!
But now I’ve really waited as long as I can. Maybe too long.
Not that time matters much if I burn the power in my chest.
Across the room, a pair of bloodhounds reduce the door to splinters by crashing right through it. I can fill the room up, I know, but then I’m effectively trapped again. More have already reached this floor and found my hall, and even more are only a few steps behind them. I can flee back out the window from which I came, but that feels to me like backtracking, and besides, I’m sure there are rifles trained on every possible exit.
The faster bloodhound—female, I’m guessing—bounds across the turned-over living room with a remarkably long set of claws extended; resembling five miniature spears carved from bone and dripping with blood. The slower one prefers crawling on walls like some kind of lizard, digging into them with its own claws to find leverage. Their eyes remind me so much of the sun’s crimson silhouette, and I can’t help but wonder if mine glow like that too.
At the very last second, I ignite a handful of sparks to quickly deflect the first demon’s claws with Eagle’s knife, roll over, rocket onto my feet, and kick it square in the back with enough force to send it flying out the window. Then the second leaps on my back and pushes me until I nearly stumble out after it. Burning another spark, I rip four sets of barbed claws through my flesh and toss the fucker over me instead. Damn that stings!
Now that I’m moving again, I can’t find the will to arrest my momentum. And so with nothing more than Eagle’s tempered steel blade and a chest filled with blazing embers, I run out into the hall and wade through an onslaught of enemies. Before I know it I’m caught up in the sheer thrill of narrowly avoiding my death within literal split seconds. I don’t fight to kill—like creating a Rose Zone—because I don’t need to. It would be a waste of time and power, and at the rate dense black smoke is pouring up the stairwell, I’d probably end up being consumed by the flames with them. Instead, I just focus on evading, using my enhanced sense of their movements to predict their frenzied strikes, and successfully dance out of the way. All while sprinting. Not ten feet in a lone stride but still inhumanly swift.
I have to admit it feels good, exploring the bounds of my power. At least until I reach the stairs. There are just too many bloodhounds and these look more coordinated. Plus I still have enemies at my back.
Let’s test something else, then.
With a thought, a Rose Zone blooms. Fill the stairwell, I command, and by HaShem’s will or mine, it does! I can feel it reach—draining more power than I expect, but not so much that I’m helpless—until it encompasses all ten stories. Dozens of bloodhound trajectories and velocities emphasize in my mind, and just in time too. One’s claws are less than a foot away from my throat. I saw it coming, but failed to calculate precisely how many stairs it could cover in one full-force bound. Countless more float behind it, doing much of the same. They’d intended to pile up on me, I’m guessing.
Too bad for them. The fire is still devouring the rest of the apartment, which means by the time my Rose Zone collapses, they’ll be stuck at the center of a massive inferno.
Meanwhile, I duck and weave my way through a labyrinth of their bodies, and as soon as I’m free of the last few, I start running—clearing over ten stairs per stride.
Up, and up, and up I go, until there’s no up left within my Rose Zone. At the very top, nothing other than a metal door stands between me and the apartment’s rooftop.
I reach out, throwing it open, and breathe a sigh of relief that it’s still whole. Crowned in dark smoke, yes, but outside, the flames have yet to reach this high up. Safe.
Only problem is, I’d been hoping for a good view of the surrounding area so I could pick the best route to escape. Does it matter? If I jump as far as I can will anyone even see me? And my odds will only be worse if the building collapses first.
Now or never.
I step out into the fresh air. Or fresh smoke, I suppose, though my lungs don’t seem to have any trouble breathing it. It’s thick enough that I can only see approximately nine feet around me. Barely smaller than my very first Rose Zone.
Behind me, the metal door slams shut. “I’ve been wondering if you’d make it,” a suave voice with a vaguely European accent says. “Took your time, did you? Almost too much. To be completely honest, you’re lucky that I’m still here.”
I don’t know why I’m waiting for him to stop talking, but the moment he says ‘here,’ I reach for the last of the warmth in my chest and—
“Don’t. Stop. Listen.”
I want so badly to disobey, but I can’t.
Why the fuck can’t I?
“Turn around,” the voice says, returning to its original intensity. They’re as comparable as a soft wind instrument and a deep brass horn. “I don’t want to force you, but it’d be polite for you to face me.”
Against better judgement, I do so I can watch a man step out of the smoke and in front of the stairwell door.
The first thing I notice is his clothing. More specifically, the wine-colored Revolutionary War era military jacket draped over his shoulders.
That’s all it takes for my heart to drop into my stomach.
Redcoat.