His mind leaped into overdrive, his senses heightened, perhaps, by his near extinction. He stumbled to his feet and ran to Moira; before she could react, he snatched Sophie from her arms. The woman may have been Sophie’s mother, but she didn’t seem to be doing Sophie any good. She wouldn’t bleed out, not with the graze the bullet had made, so he had no qualms about getting her off the island. As far as he was concerned, this was their one shot at escaping; Lux was distracting Corpus and he wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste.
On a mad whim, he made for the small yellow excavator parked down the slope by the restaurant. He had no way of knowing if the keys were still in it, but he had to try. He couldn’t carry Sophie across the island, not fast enough anyway.
He reached the excavator just as a triplet of guards came running out of the jungle; they must have heard the shots. He recognized them as the same ones who had chased him and Lux across the island. They saw him and began shooting without hesitation. Jim dumped Sophie into the cab of the excavator and jumped in behind her; bullets pinged off the heavy metal exterior and ricocheted in every direction.
“Lux!” he yelled, but she wasn’t in sight. Had they gone inside? Had they taken Lux? He looked everywhere but there was no sign of her. Sophie stirred beside him; she blinked her eyes open and tried to sit up.
“No, no, stay down,” he murmured. “Bullets.”
She looked disoriented, but she nodded vaguely and lay still. Jim fumbled at the ignition; there were no keys. His heart pulsing faster, he searched the cab frantically, running his hands over the dash, along the seat, even on the floor. Damn. The guards were now approaching the excavator with their rifles raised. All they would have to do was open the door and shoot him where he sat, and Sophie too. He slammed his head into the steering wheel in frustration.
Sophie groaned and rolled over. “This what you’re looking for?” She held up a set of keys she’d been lying on.
With a wordless growl, Jim grabbed them and began shoving key after key into the ignition. Finally one fit, and he cranked it and stomped on the gas at the same time. The engine rattled and roared like a waking dragon, and they began to roll laboriously forward. The guards had to jump out of the way to avoid being crushed, and their bullets pounded harmlessly off the dozer. One of them jumped onto the side and tried to wrest open the door; Jim helped him out by shoving it open—right into the guy’s face. The guard fell backward, his mouth open in a shout that Jim couldn’t hear over the engine.
He flinched when he heard a thump from the opposite window, expecting to see another guard. But it was Nicholas who was pounding on the glass, yelling to be let in.
“Take me with you!” he cried.
“Let him in,” said Sophie. “Please, Jim.”
“There isn’t room!”
“Let him in!”
He growled and held his door open long enough for Nicholas to scramble around and crawl in, awkwardly lunging across Jim to wedge himself between Sophie and the window. He was carrying an old blue Jansport backpack, which he held gingerly in one hand. She had to half sit on his lap for all three to fit. The little cabin was really only meant for one person.
He looked around for Lux, but she was still nowhere in sight. Feeling the worst kind of traitor, but left with no other options, Jim floored the gas pedal and drove the excavator over everything in its path; it crushed flower beds and sidewalks and wore deep tracks into the freshly clipped grass. Soon the ping of bullets faded and stopped. Either they had outdistanced the guns or the guards had given up on penetrating the metal plates that covered the vehicle.
“They’ll come after us in their trucks,” Nicholas warned.
“Not if I can help it,” Jim murmured as he headed for the road that led to the northern end of the island. When he reached it, he drove a hundred feet and then pulled randomly at the controls to the giant claw hanging in front of him. When he found the lever that lowered the arms, he yanked it all the way down and the heavy metal claw crashed into the concrete. A network of cracks spread out from the point of impact. He raised the claw and then smashed it down again until the pavement was reduced to rubble. No truck short of an off-roader could navigate across the chunks and piles of cement, and the loose sand and trees on either side of the road allowed no means of passage around it. Jim sent the excavator rumbling over the broken road. It roared appreciatively.
“Well,” said Nicholas dryly, “suppose that should do it.”
Sophie laboriously sat up and pressed a hand to her wounded shoulder. “We can’t leave Lux,” she rasped.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jim snapped, immediately regretting the edge in his tone when Sophie’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” he said more gently, “but the only help we can give Lux now is for us to get away. We’ll come back with someone who can actually put a stop to this place.”
She said nothing, just stared out the window with her jaw clenched, partly from pain, he guessed, and partly with anger at him. He reached over and covered her left hand, which she had pressed into the seat. “We’ll come back, Sophie.”
She refused to look at him.
TWENTY FOUR LUX
This time, she held nothing back.
They were going to shoot Jim. Her brain churned with words and images, things she’d never seen but were in her mind anyway: guns have bullets and bullets kill. Kill means dead—they will make Jim dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
This was intolerable.
Her blood roared in her veins. She trembled with anger,
with fury at the ones who would make her Jim dead, who would dare hurt him.
This time, she let her body do all the thinking.
And she became powerful.
She moved with speed and grace she’d never felt before. Heady with her own strength, she marveled at how easy it was to make them fall, to drop them one by one.
Chop.
Kick.
Duck.
Sprint.
Her brain picked out target points: this chin, that stomach, this chest. Her body followed through with deadly precision. She melted from one attack to the next, flowing across the grass, her muscles hardening into steel at the right moments, then relaxing so she could spin away and pursue the next target.
Eliminate the threat.
And there were so many threats.
She kept an eye on Jim. He and Sophie were running away—good. Go, she thought. Get away.
She’d identified the leader: the woman in white. Much like the girl Mary on the beach, this one gave orders. She was the most important threat, and Lux had to eliminate her.
She sprinted across the grass, leaped for the woman’s throat.
But then the woman was gone. Lux hit the ground hard and rolled, landing in a crouch. The woman was quick; she had stepped aside just in time to avoid having her throat punched. Lux tightened her fist and tensed, but before she could spring again, she felt a sharp jab of pain in her neck: Moira Crue and her needle.
Immediately a warm sensation spread up her neck and enveloped her skull. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but her vision blurred and darkened. She lurched forward blindly, reaching for the woman in white, but she was helpless and weak. Her strength melted away, abandoning her; she landed in a crumple on the grass, tried to crawl, couldn’t find the strength.
As she lay there, fading from the world, one last thought managed to surface and swirl across her mind before she lost her grip on consciousness:
Jim said don’t fight them.
But I fought them anyway.
0111011101101000011000010111010000001101000010 10 Drowning water all around no air cannot breathe Jim where are you help me please oh what what what am I? What is happening to me please stop stop stop! Falling darkness must protect must protect011101110110I must protect1000011000010 111010000100000I must01100001011011010010000001001 001 . . .