“They’re gone,” he whispered to Star.
There was a pause, and then she tugged gently on his sleeve and started signing.
“Wait a second,” Kyle said, pulling the jacket away from their faces so that he could see her better in the dim light. The full chill of the night air struck him like a slap across the face. “What did you say?”
Where did they go? Star signed.
“I don’t know,” Kyle said. “They’re gone. Isn’t that enough?”
And right on cue came another burst of minigun fire, from somewhere west or northwest of them.
Somewhere in the general direction of Moldering Lost Ashes.
Kyle listened to the gunfire, his throat tightening. His people were under attack, people who had taken him and Star in when they didn’t have anywhere else to go. And Orozco was there, too, who’d been their teacher, their guardian, and their friend.
But there was nothing he could do to help them. Besides, he’d promised Orozco he would stay away from the place.
And he had a responsibility already. A responsibility named Star.
“Come on,” he said. He eased himself up out of his sitting position, wincing at the sudden twinges of pain in muscles that had been too still for too long. Getting a grip on the edge of the windshield frame, he pulled himself out of the car.
From inside, only the very edges of the compound had been visible. From outside, though, the full extent of the carnage could be seen. Kyle stared at the bodies littering the street, his stomach churning, a small part of his stunned mind grateful that the darkness hid most of the details.
He turned back as Star emerged from the car.
“Over here,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and turning her away from the bodies and toward the gap between the cars. “We need to make sure Fido’s still with the broken ones.”
She frowned up at him. Fido?
“The Terminator who chased us after they killed Vuong and the others,” Kyle explained, grimacing at the memory. The traders had made their own promise to Orozco, a promise to protect him and Star. And had been murdered for their efforts. “It’s just something to call it.”
What does it mean?
“I don’t know,” Kyle said. “I heard once that it was a name people used to call dogs. Family dogs,” he added as her eyes widened. “Not the wild ones.” Stepping to the edge of the gap, he looked carefully out.
The damaged Terminators hadn’t made it very far. They were not quite a block away, plodding along together like gangers drunk on homemade wine. Fido was still walking behind them, its head turning back and forth. Probably looking for fresh targets, now that Skynet’s killing spree had begun.
Star caught his arm. Where are we going?
“Somewhere away from here,” he told her, giving Fido one last look and then stepping back into shelter around the front of the car. “We’ll head east, the direction we were going when…you know.”
What about Orozco and the people at the Ashes?
Kyle grimaced. Star had that look about her, the one that said she was about to go all stubborn on him. “There’s nothing we can do to help them,” he told her firmly. “Besides, Orozco told us not to come back.”
The look darkened a little more. We can’t just leave them.
“Orozco told us not to come back,” Kyle repeated, starting to get angry.
We can’t just leave them, Star signed again, and crossed her arms across her chest.
Kyle clenched his teeth hard enough to hurt. Couldn’t she see he was trying to help her?
And then he took a closer look at her face. Behind the angry defiance he could see the trembling lower lip and the tears in her eyes.
He sighed. She knew what he was trying to do, all right. But running away…she wouldn’t be able to live with herself afterward.
Actually, come to think of it, Kyle wasn’t sure he could, either.
“Fine,” he said, giving up. “Stay here a second. I’ll go find a couple of guns and we’ll go back to the Ashes and see what we can do to help.”
Steeling himself, he headed into the compound.
There were dozens of guns lying around the street among the dead bodies. Kyle chose a rifle with a nearly full clip, gingerly removing an extra clip from the body of the man whose fingers were still wrapped around the weapon. A pump shotgun was next, along with a small pouch full of extra shells. Additional ammo for his Colt wasn’t quite as simple, but it took only four tries to find someone carrying rounds of the right caliber.
He was stuffing the extra cartridges into his pockets when Star suddenly appeared at his side, her face taut. It’s coming back, she signed.
Kyle didn’t need to hear any more. “Let’s go,” he muttered, throwing a quick look behind him as he looped the shotgun over his shoulder and grabbed the rifle. Nudging Star ahead of him, he headed toward the line of cars at the southern end of the compound.
Star had ducked through the wide gap the other Terminators had made, and Kyle was starting to follow, when the roar of automatic fire split the night and a crackle of shots slammed across the car beside him.
Kyle threw himself behind the car as a second burst shredded the rusting metal. “Go!” he shouted at Star, looking around. “That building—there,” he added, pointing to a dilapidated four-story structure just to the west of them. “Go on—I’ll catch up.”
Star’s eyes were wide with fear, but she nodded and sprinted toward the building. Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, Kyle eased back to the end of the car and looked around it.
Fido was striding across the compound, its glowing red eyes sweeping the area as it looked for something to kill. Sighting carefully along the barrel of his rifle, Kyle squeezed off a shot.
The round slammed into the Terminator’s hip, and for a moment its stride faltered as it worked to regain its balance. Kyle fired another shot, this time at the machine’s knee. It again staggered slightly, then sent another burst from its minigun into Kyle’s shelter. Kyle fired twice more, then ducked back from the gap and headed after Star.
The girl had made good headway, but Kyle had longer legs and he caught up with her before she was more than halfway to their target building. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along with him. If they could get into the building before the Terminator made it through the line of cars, they had a chance.
If they couldn’t, they were both dead.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
John’s team slipped out into the night, and Kate was all alone.
For a few minutes she paced around the narrow building, pausing occasionally to arrange or rearrange the stacks of extra clothing, food, and weapons that the attack teams had left behind, just for something to do. Outside, she could hear Skynet’s slaughter working its way through the neighborhood, and she found herself wincing with each burst of minigun fire. Sooner or later, if they hadn’t already, the Terminators were going to reach the Moldavia building.
All those people. All those children….
She stopped by the door, glaring at it as if it was the door’s fault she was stuck in here. It isn’t fair, she groused to herself. The new recruits had gotten to go with the teams. Even Leon and Carol Iliaki, and she knew John was aware of his blatant hypocrisy on that one. Leon’s wife was allowed to fight alongside her husband, but Kate wasn’t allowed to fight alongside hers.
She took a deep, ragged breath. Stop it, she told herself firmly as guilt momentarily eclipsed her anger. This was ridiculous, and disgustingly out of character besides.