"Are you here to stop me?" Dieter asks. His twisted grin has fallen away into a menacing snarl, his left eye twitches. "Hypocritical of you, hypocrite. I'll do to you what I did to that menace they made follow me."
Bakari, I want to say, his name was Bakari and you killed him for no reason.
He whips a pulse of magnetic energy at me. I wrench to the side, backpedaling right to the wall. The edge of the blast buzzes too close for comfort.
Watch his arms.
Close the distance.
My feet move of their own accord, my body more prepared for this fight than I am. The next blast hits the wall shy of my heels. I jump to the side again, picking up the pace. Always moving. Always watching his arms wheeling. I've been fighting him like he was a geokinetic, but I should have been treating him like an aerokinetic. I won't make that mistake again.
Closer, closer, closer. Dieter spins, throwing magno-blasts, missing by fractions of space every time. I draw the spiral tighter, the fractions get smaller. Magnetic energy skims my skin, electric and spectral in a way that would make my brain hurt if I weren't too busy trying to keep ahead of it. Dieter slows, I count the seconds between his blasts.
Count, breathe in, a blast.
Count, breathe out, a blast.
In, blast. Out, I close the final bit of space between us, sliding into that bubble of free seconds, fist drawn back.
Not perfect enough. The blast rips me off my feet, stars in my eyes and mouth when I roll to a stop on the cold floor. Dieter cackles. Two more pulses strike me in the head and gut, warm blood sprays from my nose and drips over my lips. My side throbs, those ribs won't ever heal at this rate.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Dieter purrs, edging closer to examine his handiwork. Damn creepy kid. Rolling to my feet, I wipe the blood off my face and spit out the red iron building up on my tongue.
My blow catches him off-guard and now he's prying himself off the floor across the dome. He's sloppy, flinging at random in hopes of dinging me. I dive out of the path of a magno-blast and come up swinging, my fist connects with the side of his head. Bone crunches, Dieter screams, and my knuckles buzz from the impact. I grab him by the collar of his grungy shirt and pull back my arm to pummel him again.
"No no no no please please please no," he moans, eyes wide. Pink drool spills too fast from his trembling lips, two of his cracked teeth are on the floor. I punch him again, red mist paints his face and mine, one of his eye teeth sticks to my knuckle briefly before falling to join its brothers. His swelling eyes roll back in his head, and I prepare to strike again.
The magno-blast comes out of nowhere. Too weak to fling me away, it goes through me like a shudder, buzzing every molecule for an instant. My stomach flips and my head pounds, and then it hits my legs.
And suddenly, I'm the one screaming. Collapsing as the rods and pins holding my bones together shift. Metal grinding bone. Dieter flops in front of me, sobbing.
"Please don't hurt me, don't hurt me anymore, don't—" he begs, hammering another magno-blast into me. Nuclear pain shatters my legs into glass shreds. Like in the forest, only a hundred thousand times worse.
And I'm back, trapped under the impossibly heavy weight.
Trapped under Dieter.
He does it again, wrenching screams out of my chest like physical things. Something gives and I feel it burn a crater all the way out of my shin.
He's babbling, whimpering, he lifts his hands to strike again. I swipe at him. Miss.
His pushes down, except the blast erupts from his back. The lab ceiling bursts open, showering dust and debris. I shield my eyes from the worst of it. When I drop my arms, prepared to catch Dieter before he can strike again, I see him folded over. He clutches his arm, his shoulder hanging out of its socket.
He hiccups and the blast that bursts from him throws me across the room. I hit the wall hard and sag to the concrete, breathless. It takes precious seconds for my vision to clear up. In the meantime, I drag myself onto my hands and knees and nearly pass out when my brain and everything attached short-circuits.
Get up. The voice in my head demands it. Get up.
I can hear Dieter crying, the echoes bounce around the concrete basin making it difficult to pinpoint him. But he's not attacking. I blink away static and tears and notice I'm close to the door. Sky and Delilah should be long gone. If I can just get to my feet. If I can just make my limbs work. I look down at the blood pooling below me, dark arterial red. There's a tear in my pantleg and too much blood pouring out to see the damage underneath. Gritting my teeth and gripping the doorframe, I drag myself onto ruined legs.
The metal frame groans, it's the only thing keeping me upright. One foot in front of the other. The dome shudders under the wrath of another magno-blast. With a deafening pop, a section of the webbing comes loose and crashes to the floor. Debris and concrete dust create flurries in the air, blocking out the weak flickering light. And under all the chaos, a kid whimpers.
I look back. Dieter cowers in the center of the dome, one arm drooping uselessly at his side and the other held out from his body like something alien and dangerous. He stares wide-eyed at the destruction. Terrified. He flinches at a chunk of cinderblock hitting the floor, and the blast that explodes out of his chest puts a dent in the concrete. Bone snaps audibly. Crying out, he caves on himself, holding his ribs.
He can't stop it, I realize. I pushed him too far.
The empty corridor calls to me, I can practically feel how many steps through the familiar hall will take me to safety.
Forty-nine.
My own blood soaks my leg, my ribs ache, and every inch of my skin is a bruise beginning to form. But the fight is almost over and that's all that matters.
I let go of the doorframe and limp toward Dieter
"What are you doing? Stop, stop." He flings his hand at me. The blast bursts from his leg, toppling him. The vibration threatens to knock me over, too.
"Dieter," I say, grasping for the right words, "Dieter, I'm sorry. I'm not going to hurt you anymore."
"Yes you will!" he shrieks. His face is swelling and broken, and it's not even the first time I've done that to him. Guilt clenches its fist around my heart.
"Not this time," I promise. "What the Whitecoats did to you isn't fair. What I did to you wasn't fair."
Magno-blasts slip out of him while I inch closer. Destruction rains. I have to shout to be heard over the mayhem. The rumbles succeed in taking me to my knees in front of him.
"I know it hurts," I say.
He stares at me with eyes bloodshot and full of tears. Glances at the hand I offer him.
"Can you make it stop?" he asks.
"Yes."
He rests his hand in mine. A blast propels him forward, smashing him into me. I curl around him, absorbing as much of the blow as I can. When he tries to right himself, another blast whips him back down. My hand grinds a new dent in the concrete keeping us both up.
"Stay there, it'll be okay," I say, wrapping my other arm over him. He shudders, breathing labored, remnants of his teeth chattering. He tries to hold in the sobs wracking his body, but they and the magno-blasts that come with them are relentless.
"You're going to be fine, Dieter."
I hug him. A hand on the back of his neck. A quick squeeze.
The bone snaps, and it's over.
YOU ARE READING
Ash and Cinder
Science FictionIn the year 2181, Russia began human experiments. Kidnapped or sold off by their own families, the kids of the Compound know only one thing: They belong to the Whitecoats. Hendrix 'Trick' Sanchez and his little sister, Elle, have been in captivity...
