Rage and Ruin | 2

7 | 3

J A X O N

I hated this.

If everything was going to plan, Delphinium, Kane, Riley and Jake were infiltrating the fortress and the army was sneaking into the side entrance, ready to murder everyone inside.

And what were we doing? Absolutely nothing. Arlo and I stared at each other, leaning against trees in the Russian forest. This was pointless. It was clear I was up here because my new injury made everyone think I was weak and needed supervision, even if it was from Arlo.

      I wanted to be in the middle of the action. I wanted to see it all, take in the chaos of the battle. I wanted to shed Imperium blood and smile because what we were doing was making a difference.

      "Goddamn it," I said loudly, hurling a rock at a tree and hearing a thud as it bounced off the trunk.

      "What, your arm? Just because you've only got one-"

      "No, not my arm, dumbass. I want to be down there. I want to fight."

      He scowled. "Who are you calling dumbass?"

      "You." I threw a pebble at him but he dodged it with his unfortunate superior speed.

      "I'd hit you, but you're still healing."

      "Plus if you tried, you know I'd win spectacularly. Even with one arm."

      He scoffed. "Please. If your ego got any bigger, they'd be able to see it from space. You're all talk."

      My scowl matched his. "All talk? That's it. You're getting your ass handed to you."

      And with that, I lunged for him. He took a swing at me—very swiftly, I'd give him that—but I dodged it, ducking off to the side. When Arlo was still turning to face me, I wrapped my arm around his neck, holding him in a headlock. It was strange to try to will my other arm forward for stability only to remember that arm didn't exist any longer.

"Tap out," I challenged. "Tap out and admit that I won."

His hands grasped my elbow. "You're...way...too competitive."

But then he went limp and pointed to something frantically in the distance. "Nice try, distracting me won't wo-"

But I dropped him to the ground when I saw what he was talking about. I heard him scrambling to get up as I walked towards the new military vehicle that had just arrived: Imperium's real fuel supply was here. Arlo followed me as I stalked toward it, trying to figure out the best way to handle this new situation.

The main entrance of the fortress was shut, the large mouth-like hole had been clamped closed as if it had successfully swallowed its prey. If the newcomers hadn't noticed it yet, they would once they tried to wheel the trolley in and couldn't. And once that happened, I was sure they'd contact someone about the doors the army had shut. Or worse—they'd open it themselves, creating a breach in the locked-down top story. The soldiers would then have somewhere to escape from and circle back to our army.

One, two, three soldiers got out of the front of the car. Another hopped out of the back, where the fuel was stored. We were close enough to see their faces now.

"We're inside now," Finn whispered into my earpiece. "The doors are shut but we haven't run into anyone ye—oh, no." He went silent as the sounds of screaming and weapons clashing came over through the speaker. The two sides had finally begun to fight. I still hadn't heard a word from any of the others down below, in the belly of the beast.

One of the soldiers got too near me as she pulled the trolley out of the back of the truck. I came up behind her, knife in hand, and hurled it at her back. She fell with a thud. I congratulated myself for such a clean kill; I usually wasn't overly skilled in throwing knives. I fought much better with my hands.

When the other three turned to see her dead body, I vanished. "That one's mine," Arlo said maniacally, running for the soldier on the far right.

Taking that into account, I went for the remaining two. Wisely, they lashed out with their weapons in every direction—as they were unsure of my exact location. Before I learned, I took a few swipes to the chest, but it was hardly anything. Feeling blood begin to trickle down and soak into my shirt, I ducked under a swinging dagger and slid across the ground, knocking both men to the ground with an outstretched arm and leg. From there, it was easy to crack both their heads together and watch as they didn't rise again.

When I got back up and brushed the dirt off of myself, I remembered Arlo. He was not doing quite as well as I had. He fought for his life against the clearly superior fighter, ducking and dodging out of the way of her knives. He had speed on his side, but he was much too erratic to make a killing blow.

"Need help?" I asked lazily, casually coming back into vision.

"I'd say yes, but I don't want you to lose the other arm," he managed to call.

I narrowed my eyes into slits. Maybe I should have let him die for that little comment. But I loved fighting too much. So I ran in to join the battle and the soldier was dead within seconds.

"Oh yeah," I said, staring at the bodies with a grin. "I still got it."

     But my smile faded as we both turned back to face the fortress. Wailing alarms had just sounded in the distance.