Violet had never felt so alive before. All of her senses were on high alert. Strength coursed through her veins as she charged straight ahead, like a linebacker, tackling Zane at the waist. Her shoulder impacted his stomach with a thud, and she kept driving, relishing the sound of the recycled air being forced from the large freak’s lungs.

They hit the far wall of the relay station with a jarring thump. Violet swore she felt the durasteel walls give a little on impact. But that would be impossible, nothing damaged those things short of an explosive ordinance or an asteroid strike.

Zane retaliated, pushing her away and swinging with a looping overhand right.

The blow was wild and wide. Violet ducked and dodged to her left, light as a ballet dancer.

Her foe roared in frustration and swung three more times, but with Violet’s newfound speed and strength, she easily slid out of reach.

With each counter, Zane grew more and more frustrated, finally resorting to schoolyard bullying tactics. He threw one last punch, guessing Violet would duck it as before. This time, however, he abandoned the follow-up strike and reached for her hair with his other hand. His fingers found a handful, and he yanked, pulling Violet’s feet out from under her.

He laughed with an ugly chortle. Bits of phlegm flew from his blood-stained mouth. He dragged Violet by the hair, kicking and screaming, toward the door.

Violet tried to fight off his grip, but it was too strong with the leverage she currently had, despite her newly gained strength. She had to get back to her feet, somehow, and fast.

She dug her heels into the floor and arched her back, lifting her stomach toward the ceiling. The demon kept dragging her, but at least now she had a base to work from.

She twisted her torso, feeling her hair tighten around her scalp, and scissored her legs. Now she was facing the floor. She brought her knees, and then her feet, underneath her and stood up.

Now to deal with the fool who was still attempting to drag her down the hall by her hair. Zane looked back at her with an incredulous look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe she was still resisting the inevitable.

She closed the distance between them and wrapped both her arms around the monster’s waist. Her hands were barely able to clasp each other.

Wondering if she’d completely lost her mind, she followed her instincts and pulled up and back with all her might, arching her back and driving with her legs off the floor.

She lifted the monster of a man and suplexed him onto his head, following with all of her bodyweight.

His grip on her hair slackened, and Violet scrambled to her feet, ready for another skirmish. But none was necessary.

Zane was out cold. Blood trickled out from beneath his skull.

Violet studied his unconscious form, worried she might have killed him, but the subtle rise and fall of his torso proved otherwise.

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“Alright, now what?” Violet asked the silent room.

She checked the time on her comm.

“Of course…”

The screen was cracked, and not like a few lines from an accidental fall. It was smashed to hell and back. Spiderwebs of cracked glass covered the entire screen. She tapped the display a few times and several shards fell, but no light emerged from the damaged device. It was completely dead.

A half-laugh, half-cry escaped her mouth. Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes.

That was her only copy of the instructions to restart the engines. She tossed the useless comm aside and slid her back down the wall, prepared to wait for the inevitable collision. It shouldn’t be long now.

As she gave in to her fate, her eyes fell on the shallow-breathing psychopath who was the cause of all her suffering and misfortune. And then she made the easiest decision of her life.

She climbed back to her feet and grabbed Zane’s ankle.

“We may all be doomed, but I’m going to make sure you can’t hurt anyone else for as long as you keep living.”

She dragged him down the hall toward the construction zone.

She didn’t know the extent of their freakish new abilities, but if she was correct, they would both survive the destruction of the station and the cold vacuum of space. There was only one thing she could do—blast Zane into space and let him drift for all of eternity. Lost like a psychopathic needle in the haystack of space.

She reached the closed-down section of the corridor and opened the inner airlock door.

She dragged Zane through, dropped his body, and the door hissed shut behind her. She took one last look at the monstrous killer and then keyed the panel to begin equalizing the air pressure. An error alert flashed on the panel.

Life signs detected. Insufficient access level to open airlock.

Violet screamed in frustration. She should have known the airlock had some sort of safety feature. But then again, she’d never tried to space someone before, so.

She racked her brain for other options. How had Zane done it?

His parent’s access codes! With the station administration codes, he could probably go anywhere in the station that he wanted. Except in the case of a quarantine lockdown.

Either way, her plan wouldn’t work without the codes to override the airlock’s security system.

“Hello?” she heard a voice from the intercom control on the door. “Violet? Is that you?”

Violet recognized Hector’s voice.

“Who else would it be? I’m the only person left alive down here, remember?”

“What are you doing at the airlock? You’re supposed to be at the relay station, restarting the engines.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I thought I’d go for a little stroll outside first.”

“Maybe you could quit with the sarcasm, kid? We’re almost out of time.”

Violet bit down, holding back a sarcastic retort. Hector was right. There was no time. “I ran into the psycho and my comm got destroyed in the process.”

“How did you get away? You know what? Never mind. Time for that later. Get back to the relay station, ASAP. I can walk you through the procedure from the intercom on the door, like I’m doing now. But hurry, we have less than a minute before we pass the point of no return.”

“On my way.” There was still hope. She turned to run, but stopped.

She gave Zane one last kick to the head for good measure and then left him inside the airlock. She sealed the inner door behind her and then smashed the door panel. With any luck he’d be trapped inside.

And then she ran like her life, and the lives of everyone that she knew, depended on it.