Molly looked back up at the remaining workers running their way. They came around the last row of gurneys topped with draining Callites, yelling and jostling and full of rage. Molly’s ears continued to ring. She remained frozen in place, watching events as if through another’s eyes. Her gaze fell to a nearby Callite, who was lifting her head and looking Molly’s way.
It was Cat. Her lips were moving.
“Run,” she was shouting.
Molly could hear it, now. Could match up the ringing in her ears with the movement of Cat’s lips.
“Run.”
But the men were already upon them.
The first man headed straight for Sheriff Browne, tackling him before he could reload. He crawled on top of the older man and began pummeling him senseless. Molly moved to help—she felt the Wadi fly from her neck—when a figure reached her at a dead run, his fist a blur.
Molly ducked and twisted out of the way just in time, letting the man fly past; his splattered denim coveralls barely registering in the back of her mind as something she should recognize.
Two more men scrambled around Cat’s gurney to join the fray. There was a shout from behind her, and Molly turned in time to see her Wadi slung by its tail and thrown down against the tiled floor. The creature went limp, and the man, his neck bleeding, went back to pounding on the sheriff.
Someone slammed into Molly’s back, sending her flying forward. She landed near her limp Wadi and was unable to take her eyes off it. She felt a rage coursing up inside, filling her up. A man stood over her, his boots planted to either side. He reached down to seize her, to drag her up, and Molly let him. She let him pull her up by her collar while she kept her body limp and half balled-up. As soon as her feet came under her, she kicked off the floor, jumping straight up as hard as she could, sending her head into the man’s nose.
His screams seemed to frighten off the ringing in her ears. The world returned to a normal speed as it resumed making noises. The man over a limp Sheriff Browne turned and realized the fight wasn’t over. He stood to join the others as Molly backed toward Cat’s gurney.
“I got this!” the man with the bleeding nose said, but the other men kept creeping forward. Molly finally recognized one of them as being Pete. She watched him spit through a sneer as she circled Cat’s gurney. She reached for the straps across her friend and started fumbling with them. The man she’d attacked lunged forward and grabbed at her wrists, forcing her to stop and pull them back.
“Nose!” Cat yelled.
Her head lifted off the gurney and turned to Molly.
“Now!”
The man was still leaning over Cat, his hands on her straps. Molly reared her fist back and threw her shoulders into the punch. She cracked the man on his already bleeding nose and felt a jolt of pure pain shoot through her knuckles and waver up her arm.
“Palms!” Cat said. “Use your palms!”
Molly obeyed and threw her left palm after the last punch. She struck him with the heel of her hand, using her armbones like battering rams. The blow slammed into the man’s face as he was already falling forward from the last blow. His head bounced off Cat’s stomach and flew back; his body crumpled on the other side of the gurney. Molly shook her right hand and watched as the other three men strode forward.
“Fight their joints,” Cat told her. Her voice was solid and unwavering, despite her condition.
“What?” Molly looked around for something to wield as a weapon, or someone to help her, but it was just a sea of still bodies and blue bags.
“You aren’t fighting them,” Cat said. “Just their joints. Pick a joint and fight it.”
One of the guys rounded Cat’s table and swiped at Molly. She bobbed her head under the blow and circled away, all the while pondering what Cat was saying and trying to remember everything she’d learned in her Naval combat classes.
The figure yelled something to the other two, keeping them at bay. He lashed out with a spinning kick meant to decapitate Molly. She fell into a crouch as his boot whizzed by, then lunged forward with her own foot. She caught him on the side of the knee as hard as she could and watched him wobble backward.
Molly turned to see what the other two men were doing—
“Forget them,” Cat said. “They’ll come one at a time.”
“Why?” Molly yelled. She danced to the side as the enraged worker shot forward, his attacks angry and telegraphed. As he passed by—his fists attacking the space where she just was—she threw the ball of her knee into the side of the same leg she’d already attacked. The man roared and fell to the ground, clutching his leg. Molly lined it up like a Galaxy Ball and kicked his knee as hard as she could with the steel toe of her flightboot. The man gurgled with pain, but a kick to his chin cut the sound off.
“Why? Because they’re men,” Cat said. “They don’t prove themselves in groups.”
Before Molly could work on the straps across Cat, one of the workers shoved Pete in the chest, pushing him away from the action. The figure came forward in a boxing stance, his hands high as he bounced on the balls of his feet.
“What now?” Molly asked.
“Can you wrestle?”
The man bounced forward and his hand disappeared. Molly felt it crack her cheek, and she saw sparks. She jumped back, but two more swift jabs landed in a flurry, one to her nose and another to her ribs. The man hopped around and showboated with his fists while Molly held her nose, bent over, blood leaking through her fingers.
“Get off your feet!” Cat yelled.
Molly glanced over and saw Cat straining against her restraints, her arms tensed and popping with wiry muscles. She had her head turned to the side to follow the fighting. The man darted forward, his hands coming up in front of him to unleash another blistering combination—
Molly dove at his waist and wrapped her arms around him. She brought one foot behind his heel and kept pressing forward, putting her weight and momentum into his thighs. The boxer waved his arms in the air, but couldn’t keep himself upright. They both went back and crashed into the floor, his head cracking the tiles loudly.
“Elbows!” Cat yelled.
Molly pulled herself up to the guy’s chest while he busied himself clutching the back of his head. She bent her arm in half, keeping her fists up by her shoulders. She twisted back at the waist, then unloaded with an elbow across his chin. The man’s eyes rolled back. She hit him with another, just to be sure, and his arms fell to the side, limp.
“Enough!” Pete yelled.
Molly stood up from her latest victim and turned around. Pete stood behind Cat’s table, a silver blade twinkling against the Callite’s neck.
“Thought I told you to stay put,” Pete said. “Now get your arms behind your head before I spill what’s left of her blood.”
Cat met Molly’s gaze and smiled. One of her eyes scissored shut in a Callite wink. “After he kills me, kick his ass,” Cat said.
“Shut it,” Pete said. His arm tensed, and Molly could see the blade bite into Cat’s neck.
Cat’s smile broadened.
“Attack the joints,” she said. “Concentrate on the wrist with the knife.”
“I said shut it!”
The knife bit deeper and blue leaked out with force.
“And don’t you come closer!” Pete yelled at Molly. “Get your hands behind your head!”
Molly didn’t know who to listen to. She put her hands in the air, not willing to be responsible for Cat’s death. “I’m a sheriff’s deputy, Pete. Think about what you’re doing. Think about the next Pete.”
The man at her feet groaned as he came to. Molly stepped away from him, which made Pete flinch. “Stay where you are,” he told her. “Hey, Mickie, you okay? I need you to check the others.”