Blood dripped down onto my hands. They shook.
I looked up at the Mayor in a mixture of horror and regret as he tipped over. He would have fallen if Cove hadn’t already intervened, snatching his arm to prevent the flashlight from swinging into my face. The Mayor’s face scrunched in pain, and his grip weakened.
The flashlight fell to the floor; the gun slipped and clattered against it.
My hands were warm, sticky, and damp.
For a moment, I thought I’d killed someone again.
“Let go, you filthy ingrate!”
Shocked by what had just happened, Cove let the Mayor slide down to the ground. The Mayor landed on his feet, swaying. His hand went up to where I’d shot him in the shoulder. He stared at me, sweating and flushed. “You shot me!”
The thinking was like moving through a maze. Every time I tried to break away from a thought, the warmth on my hands reminded me of Sera’s injury, of the vacant eyes of the dead chimera, of the soft red hair of Sera’s fallen body doubles. My heart was still pounding like drumbeats in my ears.
The Mayor knew he was outmatched. He shoved Cove to the side, lunging past to the dark corridor. “You won’t get away with this!” he shouted, making his escape. Blood dripped on the floor as he stepped, leaving a sticky trail.
Cove and I watched him go. Mattie and Jack were supposed to be dealing with him, so his presence meant something unexpected must have happened.
“...Do you think I should go after him?” Cove wondered, his eyes narrowed at the receding figure.
My attention snapped back into focus, and the thoughts receded. Behind him, the monitor showed blinking red dots heading our way. “The fragment should be on its way.”
Cove blinked, and a little tension bled from his figure. I hefted myself to my feet and looked around for something to wipe my hand off on.
A white cloth near Gale’s workbench caught my attention, and I swallowed thickly. The scent and feeling of blood made me nauseated. Bearard peaked his fluffy head out from where I’d hidden him, and Ranch and Ani also made their presence known.
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Without a word, Bearard jumped on the desk and picked up the cloth, holding it out for me to take.
“Thank you.” I lifted it from his hands and ducked my head, wiping the blood away with a grimace.
I couldn’t restrain a full-body shudder as the blood smeared across my hand. “I hope he wasn’t sick.”
When I looked up, Cove stood terse before me, a water bottle in his hands. He unscrewed the top and offered it out to me. He carefully avoided even the slightest brush of our hands when passing it over. I scuttled over to a more out-of-the-way section of the cave, avoiding stepping in any blood splatter, and dumped it over, rinsing my hands off as best I could.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a far cry better than they had been.
My injuries made themselves known with stinging pain, and I pried apart the fabric split on my arm, checking to see how the ricochet injury was. It already seemed to be clotting, so I left it alone.
When I turned back, Cove was doing the same, wincing as he pried open a hole in his shirt. Our eyes met. “The bullet caught part of the wall,” he explained, pointing at different holes in his clothing.
Perhaps that was the case for my arm as well. It didn’t really matter. Finished with his inspection, Cove glanced at the flashlight and gun lying on the floor. He crouched down, picking them up with each hand.
I stalked back over to the computer, checking on the status of the robots. A good number of them had disappeared from the map, which I took to mean they’d already entered the tunnel.
Cove set the two items on the ground and squatted down by one of the cave walls, stretching his legs out to lean back. Bearard and Ranch sat beside him, and I stood above them, resting my weight against the wall. Ani rubbed himself against my leg, desperate for attention.
For a time, the only sounds in the cave were Cove and I’s breathing and the droplets of water hitting the ground as they dripped from the stalactites.
DRIP.
DRIP.
DRIP.
DRIP.
The droplets were oud against the floor, masking our early warning. Ever so slowly, another noise reverberated down the tunnel, getting steadily louder and louder.
Ani and Ranch were the first to notice, their heads whirling in unison to stare down the dwelling darkness in the connecting tunnel. Cove and I exchanged glances, unable to decipher the noise from the background sounds veiling it.
And then, we heard it. Metallic feet scraped and thudded against the floor.
Cove pushed Ranch off from where she’d migrated to his lap and rose to his feet. Bearard tugged on his pantleg, and Cove heeded his wordless order, picking Berard up and placing him on his shoulder. He crouched again, remembering to pick up the flashlight and the gun. He tucked the flashlight into his pocket but kept the gun in his hand as he strode over to stand near the entrance, craning his neck to peer into the shadows.
I held my position against the wall, glancing again at the monitor. Only a few red dots remained on the screen. Perfect.
There was a shuffling sound, and when I checked, Cove had startled backward, his left hand over his heart. “Woah. Didn’t expect that.”
He backed away from the entrance, making room for the approaching robots. They brought a slight breeze with them, sending goosebumps down my arms. I pushed myself off the wall on the off chance there was trouble.
The first pair of red eyes shone through the dark, casting a faint red tint throughout the room. A second pair joined, then a third. Their heads whirled around, scanning as they entered.
I was the first they noticed, as I was standing in full view of the door. In unison, their heads fixed on me like hounds catching a scent. Instead of going past us and up to the Mayor like they were supposed to, they redirected their path, aiming for me.
I scooted closer to Cove, uneasy with the sudden attention. Nothing I saw indicated they should have been acting like this. They followed, raising their mechanical arms.
They were preparing for battle.