Ruins

“I think they’ll take their blood and run,” said Kira. “I intend to stop them before that happens.” They reached the seventh floor and burst out into the hallway, running at full speed. Green dropped to the floor, holding the door open behind him and raising his rifle like a sniper—but instead of looking behind him, he was looking forward to the far end of the hall. Kira didn’t stop to question; if the Ivies linked him at that staircase they might not think to look for anyone at the other. She pulled out her handgun as she sprinted, cursing herself for dropping her rifle, praying she could get to the stairs and behind the Ivies before Armin had a chance to escape. Marcus puffed behind her, struggling to keep up. She poured on the speed, ready to slam into the door and race up the stairs, when suddenly it opened on its own and an Ivie peeked out into the hall, assault rifle up and ready. Kira panicked, ready to throw herself to the side, when a loud crack split the air and the Ivie went down, a red hole blossoming between his eyes.

“Go!” Green shouted, and Kira didn’t even slow down, thanking him silently as she pelted up the stairs. She heard boots above her, and then the roar of a vicious windstorm; Armin and his soldiers were already fleeing to the roof.

“We don’t know where they all are,” said Marcus, holding her arm to stop her. “If there are still some on the eighth floor, and we go up past them to the roof, we’ll be surrounded.”

Kira concentrated on the link. “You’re right,” she said, pointing. “A big group up top, and a smaller group still down here.”

“That’s so weird,” said Marcus. “You can . . . feel them?” The look on his face wasn’t shocked or horrified, but it broke Kira’s heart just the same: For the first time in his life, he was looking at her as a stranger, someone he could only barely understand. She tried to ignore her sudden emotional vertigo and whispered her strategy.

“I can’t feel much detail,” she said. “Not like they can. I can’t tell how many there are, or pinpoint their locations. I figure there are one or two left on this floor, and a few more than that on the roof.” The wind was howling wildly outside, as if a storm had risen up out of nowhere, and it had dragged their pheromonal data away and left her blind. “You stay here and watch that door like your life depends on it, because it does. Shoot at it the instant it moves—don’t wait for a clear shot, just fire.”

“You’re not going up there alone.”

“I’m not letting him get away,” said Kira. She racked her gun and ran up the next flight of stairs, steeling herself for . . . she didn’t know what. Four or five Ivies with assault rifles, she thought, and clenched her teeth as she thought of Green’s words. They have numbers and high ground, and who knows what kind of armaments on that rotor. I have a stupid handgun and . . . well, better cover than they do, probably. But what am I going to do? Kill the soldiers? Shoot my father? She remembered her father’s fevered rant about a world tearing itself apart with violence; the Ivie she’d shot was still bleeding on the hospital floor.

What else can I do?

She reached the roof access door and put her hands on it gingerly, just barely pushing it so she could peek out, but something was holding it closed. She shoved harder and it gave, only to slam closed again. The wind, she thought. What’s going on out there? And what was that rumble we felt? Marcus screamed below her, opening fire; she prayed he would be safe, and shoved against the door with everything she had. It flew open with a bang and she stumbled out, whipped by a raging windstorm that slammed the door shut behind her, and through her flying hair she saw the rotor lift off, a dull-gray jet with a belly like a cargo bus, and two massive fans in the place of wings. Her father stood in the open door, watching her wordlessly, and then the rotors tilted and slammed her back into the door. She ran forward as soon as the pressure released, shouting into the gale-force wind for him to stop, to come back. The rotor flew south, and she watched it shrink to a dot in the slate-gray sky. With its engines gone the fierce wind grew bone-chillingly cold, and she shivered as she watched him disappear.

“You okay?” asked Marcus. She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her. She nodded. His voice was a mixture of awe and terror. “What happened?”

“I didn’t make it in time,” she said softly. “They were already in the rotor when I—”