Syn took a chance. “Do you think she’ll share?”
Taji couldn’t hide her confusion. Syn had seen her own confused face. She recognized the twitch of muscles alongside the eyes that forced them to narrow in suspicion. Perfect.
Syn continued. “I think when you’re over there, one of us is going to have to take out the other.”
“You’re not going to be over there.”
“Then it’s you versus Pigeon.”
“I’d smash Pigeon. She’s a piece of trash. She’s worthless. Neci can’t stand her. Who cares about Pigeon?”
“And then it’ll be just you and…” Syn’s words were cut off by an audible scream from far above them.
Both Taji and Syn turned their heads sharply to see the sound. Something was falling— Something fell from the sky and landed with a harsh thud just meters away.
Syn turned, “We need to…”
But it was too late. It was Kerwen. She had finally fallen.
Syn convulsed and heaved. Her dinner from the night before came up and spewed across the ground.
Taji began to laugh. The girl held her stomach and roared.
Syn heaved again. A thin line of spittle ran across her lips. She stared around, bringing her head up. She spat on the ground, leaving a small divot in the hard-pan. She ran her lips across her sleeve, wiping the spittle and vomit away.
Kerwen was dead. She had seen Kerwen slam into the ground. She could see the shape of the flattened body. There lay her sister—a dark spot in the miasma of the smoke.
With her free hand, Taji picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it in the air, catching it with a single hand. “You stupid, little bitch. If that one survived, we’ll use its scrambled brains to make another golem.”
Syn stabbed at Kerwen’s corpse, “That was your sister!”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Taji said. “I don’t care about you, and I don’t care about her.” With that, she threw the rock as hard as she could. It flew through the air in a clean, straight trajectory and slammed into Syn’s chin, knocking her back. Syn palmed the base of the statue behind her to steady herself.
A line of blood appeared, pooled, and then began to drip down Syn’s chin. Syn roared as she ran at Taji. But just before she collided, she ducked, anticipating the brute retaliation from Taji.
Taji swung the spear, but she went too high, completely missing the battered Syn. Syn curled in and kneed Taji hard in the gut.
The girl toppled over, clutching her stomach, grunting, “You bitch.”
Syn didn’t stop. She punched Taji with her fist, landing it squarely on the girls’ cheek. Now it would come down to endurance. Syn was sure she could outlast Taji. But she also could not dance with her, allowing Taji to keep returning more powerful responses back.
Syn kicked Taji’s chest but pulled back the shot, avoiding the girl’s head. Taji used the moment to slice into Syn’s calve with Syn’s own spear. Blood spurted across the ground. Taji herself was splattered with the blood.
As Syn fell to the ground and saw Taji’s face covered in her own blood, she wondered if there was any difference between their blood. Perhaps they had different names and took different approaches building upon the same body, but probably the blood was identical. If they extracted it, could anyone tell the difference between each strain? Syn wasn’t sure why the thought arose, unbidden, but it flowed and formed.
Syn landed hard on her right knee, sending a stab of pain coursing up her leg. She felt like her kneecap had popped off. She reached out and slashed at Taji’s face with her nails. She missed and smacked the ground.
Taji tumbled over and dropped her full weight on Syn. Syn was locked in place. She struggled to get out from under the weight of the more massive form. Taji held onto both of Syn’s wrists and pressed her own face hard into Syn’s. Nose to nose. Syn could smell the thick, foul breath of her sister. The girl’s nose smashed into Syn’s.
A flash of white popped into sight. A zipping dot zooming toward them—Blip was nearing. Syn glimpsed him from the corner of her eye. She smiled.
Taji did too. A gruesome, dark smile.
Blip was there. Taji leaped up and swerved out of his path. And swung as he passed by.
The spear contacted the back of him and shattered against his shell. The spear split with a sharp snap. Blip’s casing cracked like an egg with the collision—a deafening crunch and then in a cloud, bits of him flew forward, and, like a meteor from the sky, his white shell slammed into the ground. All dead weight. The dirt clouded around, billowing up, momentarily obscuring the murderous Taji from Syn’s stunned gaze.
Taji held the two halves of the shattered spear, one jagged piece in each hand, and growled. “You bitch. You just had to come and ruin it all. If you hadn’t shown up, she would’ve taken her time.”
She fell back down onto Syn, pushing her fists into the girl’s shoulders. Syn pulled at her arms and growled. “Get off!” she grunted through clenched teeth. “And that’s not true. She’s pregnant.”
“What?” Taji was dismayed and answered by head-butting Syn. The two foreheads cracked as they impacted.
Syn saw stars as everything went black. She screeched in pain.
Taji yelled back, “I’m going to kill you!”
Syn’s fingers scrambled, searched, groped for anything.
Taji smashed her head again into Syn’s. The girl wheezed as she lost her breath. Her fingers searched and dug in the dirt.
Taji yelled in Syn’s face, “I hate you! I hate all of you! You’re the worst of us. You’re everything I won’t be!”
Syn’s fingers brushed against something smooth and cold. That was it. This felt exactly like… her spear. She fumbled at the piece, gripped, and wrenched it from Taji’s grip with a jerk. In the same swift motion, she swiped it across Taji’s wrist.
Taji howled, but it was cut short as Syn twisted under the girl’s weight, broken half of the spear still in hand, and brought it sharp against Taji’s head, slamming against her temple.
Taji clutched at her head with the one hand that was not dangling limply. She fell back on the ground and curled up in a fetal position, her knees close to her chin.
Syn jumped on the girl and jammed the rod down, its shattered edge sharp. But she froze as she hit the girl’s skin. Syn hovered there, the piece of broken spear shaking in her hands. She raised it again and brought it down once more but stopped in the last instant.
She couldn’t do it. She rolled over and slammed the piece of the spear into the ground, pretending it was Taji. Syn screamed, “Kerwen! Kerwen! Kerwen!” Over and over, she shouted the girl’s name at Taji’s limp form, hoping to drill the name into the girl’s flesh. Hoping that with repetition she could burn it like a brand.
Taji was no longer howling in pain. As she fell into unconsciousness, it had turned to a whimper and then stopped altogether.
Syn’s anger felt warm. It felt like blood coursing into her arteries. But the anger felt more than warm. It burned in spots. There were elements of it that were years old. Like an overlooked wound that pinkened and then succumbed to infection, radiating pain with each step, it had festered. Anger at the colonists. Anger at Captain Pote. Anger at the builders. All of them had been fools. They had created a dream and stocked it with the demons of Hell. How could they do that? How could they create her only to have her be some guinea pig? How could they have done such a horrible job? Her anger was at Taji and at Neci and at everyone that had forced her into the very act that she was doing at that moment. Her anger felt like an electric storm. Billowing up and forced through with electrical flashes, shocks of lightning, pure raw power in fierce delights. She wanted to kill her enemy, and it felt right. She felt like this was true. This moment was the one she had been born to meet..