We hugged buildings as we ran up the road. But I cringed every time I looked inside a storefront and saw the Bane, standing there, staring emptily out at us.
“You know they’re not going to stay like that for long, right?” I said as we crouched behind a car. “The Sleepers are going to wake up.”
“That’s what we’ve been theorizing,” he said. “That’s why Margaret’s gotten so crazy. She’s desperate.”
We dashed across the road and hugged the building again as we worked our way up the street.
“You mean she wasn’t always this… hostile?” I said, keeping my voice low.
“She’s always been a little intense, but you have to understand, you being here, TorBane, it’s all personal,” he said as his eyes swept the buildings around us.
“What do you mean?” I asked, scanning the roofline across the street.
“Margaret had two daughters. The oldest one, Bridget, she was fifteen when she was infected last year. There was a breach,” he said. We both saw movement at the same time and ducked behind a car. I peeked through a window and watched a boy cross the street. He still looked human except for his bare, mechanical feet.
“But she also had a three year old who was dying of liver failure before the Evolution,” Tristan whispered. “No organ donors came up, no transplant came available. Margaret sold everything to pay for her to get a TorBane upgrade.”
I’d seen the evidence of everyone who had turned, who had been infected. But it was always so much worse hearing stories about the first generation, who embraced TorBane without knowing what it would shortly do to them and the rest of the world.
“So you understand why Margaret hates you so much,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. They were green.
“I can’t blame her,” I said. “I hate myself too sometimes.”
“Sounds to me like it wasn’t your fault,” he said, his voice more understanding than I deserved.
“Road’s clear again,” I said, looking out the window.
We bolted down the road as the rain continued to fall.
I couldn’t help the instinct to fire when I heard the clatter to my left.
A Bane hurtled itself at a window when it saw us moving. I fired in its direction, shattering the large glass window and took it out. But there were a dozen others standing next to it, staring out at us, their muscles, or whatever they still had flexing and twitching to jump out after us. This group was almost one hundred percent mechanical-looking. Most of them didn’t even have skin anymore.
But they stood frozen just under the cover of the building.
“The rain,” I said in awe. “They won’t come out because of the rain!”
“Let’s move!” Tristan shouted.
We sprinted, turning down another road.
Glass continually shattered as we moved, Bane throwing themselves out at us, only to twitch and short out as the rain crept into their mechanical innards. They could only stand under the cover of buildings and race along after us or die.
“How much further?” I asked. I was heavily weighed down with ammunition, but the amount of bullets I had didn’t equal the number of Bane that were surrounding us.
“Two more blocks,” Tristan called.
With all the adrenaline pumping through my system, I hadn’t realized my head had stopped pounding and the wound was no longer bleeding. TorBane was healing my body.
Tristan turned down another block. As soon as we rounded the corner, he turned, grabbed two of the grenades from his belt, pulled the pins, and tossed them at the hoard that chased after us.
Body parts littered the street. And there was a horrible grinding, crunching sound as the side of the building broke apart and crashed to the street, crushing the bodies, and narrowly missing us.
“Good aim,” I said, my pace slowing slightly, now that the danger level had dropped a bit. My head was no longer pounding, but my legs were wobbly still and I felt slightly woozy.
“You okay?” he asked, turning concerned eyes on me.
“I can understand why that woman hates me, but damn her for making me less than what I should be and throwing me out to the Bane,” I growled, my step faltering slightly.
“I don’t know what they’re doing to you,” he said as we slowed to a walk. He pulled me behind a car and eased me down to the ground. “But I’m pretty sure there has to be a better method.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I didn’t know how much he knew about me or what they were trying to get from me.
“Desperate times make people act desperate,” he said as his eyes met mine for a moment. “Desperation has a way of bringing out the worst in people.”
“Yeah,” was all I could say. Because I’d seen it too often. I’d seen it in myself on more than one occasion.
“You ready to go again?” he asked.
“Where are we actually headed anyway?” I asked. My head was slowly evening out.
“Our group was getting supplies at a hardware store when something went wrong. We’re not entirely sure what happened,” he said. “But they knew something was coming and they barricaded themselves in the bank across the street. There’s a vault they’re hiding in.”
“Alistar is more than some soldier to Margaret, isn’t he?” I asked, climbing to my feet. We started down the road again.
“He’s her lover,” Tristan said, shaking his head. “I don’t get it. Margaret is… Margaret. How can he stand her?”
“Maybe he enjoys power-hungry women,” I said, disgust rising in my stomach.
To my surprise, Tristan laughed. It was a deep, belly laugh. It was so unexpected, I couldn’t help but smile too.
“That’s it right there,” he said, once again serious. Tristan pointed to a building sandwiched between a dozen others. Its front was stark marble white with gold trim. On the ground level, the entire front was nearly all glass.
“I know you’re supposed to be able to communicate with them or something, but I think our best bet is to just fire as many rounds as we can,” Tristan said.
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I can do my best to keep them away from us.”
Tristan looked at me, his brows knitting together. “It doesn’t really matter to me what you are,” he said, his eyes trailing over me. “But so far I think you’re pretty impressive.”
“I’m also involved,” I blurted.
A coy grin cracked on his lips. “That wasn’t what I meant, but good to know. I’m just saying you’re one impressive soldier.”
My face turned warm with embarrassment. “Thanks,” I muttered. “Let’s go.”
We jogged toward the building. I slowed as we approached the bank, stopping just out of sight.
There were seven of them inside. Advanced looking. Most of them had no flesh at all anymore.
Five of them stood in a line facing what must have been the vault. They were perfectly still, frozen like they were statues. One of them stood next to the combination, its hand pressed flat against the steel wall. And another had its hand on the dial, slowly rotating it to the right.
“What are they doing?” Tristan barely whispered.
The realization hit me just as the one turning the dial stopped turning it and I barely registered the faint click.
I started firing the same time the Bane yanked the vault open. Screams filled the air and metal scraped against marble as the Bane rushed into the vault.
“NO!” Tristan bellowed as he fired into the bank.
I didn’t stop shooting. But I knew it was too late. The Bane were all over the five people inside.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I screamed, grabbing the back of Tristan’s soaked jacket and pulling him quickly back toward the doors.
The Bane then registered we were there.
Knowing they had completed their only reason for being—infecting humans—they turned and sprinted after us.