Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(92)

“No,” snarled August, but Kate kept her eyes on Alice.

“I’ve got this,” she said. “Take Henry and get back to the Compound. They need you.”

“We go together.”

She glanced his way and saw pain in his eyes, and fear, and it gave her hope. That he hadn’t given up. That he was still in there.

“August,” she said. “People are going to die if you don’t leave.”

“Oh,” said Alice cheerfully, “I imagine they’re already dying.”

As if on cue, static tore through the comms, followed by a distress signal, not from the Night Squads, but from the Compound.

“Mayday . . . mayday . . . we’re under attack . . .”

“Tick-tock,” mused Alice.

Flynn tried to straighten, to speak, but nothing came out, the air whistling through his lungs as he fought for breath.

“Oh dear,” said Alice. “He doesn’t sound so good.”

“Go,” snapped Kate.

Soro was the first to move, casting an unreadable look her way as they stepped into the elevator, followed by Jackson and Ani supporting Flynn, Emily providing cover in case the Malchai changed her mind. August was the last one to go, his jaw clenched, and Kate forced herself to look at him. Even managed a grim smile, suddenly grateful that a hope didn’t count as a lie.

“I’ll meet you back there,” she said, before the doors shut.

The jeep tore through the night.

The distress signals kept coming in, filling the channel with panicked reports of a shadow and FTFs gone mad. August knew what it meant—the Chaos Eater was inside the Compound.

Soro sped up as the voices on the comms gave way to static, or gunfire; in the backseat Henry lay sprawled out, and Em said “stay with me” over and over while Jackson monitored Henry’s vitals and August put his head in his hands and closed his eyes and saw Kate, and the look on her face as he left her behind, and he told himself he didn’t have a choice—but it was a lie. He always had a choice. Wasn’t the point of being alive that you could choose?

“Kate chose.” The words came from Soro. The look on their face told him he’d been talking out loud. “She chose to stay and fight. Now,” said the Sunai, “what are we going to do?”

August straightened, because Soro was right. Kate was fighting. Henry was fighting. It was their turn. His grip tightened on the violin. He didn’t know how to stop the Chaos Eater, but he knew how to keep the FTFs from killing one another.

They just had to get inside.

“When we get back to the Compound,” he said, “you and I will go in through the back. The Night Squads will stay on the strip.”

“Like hell,” muttered Harris from the backseat.

“That’s an order,” said August. “The Compound is now a quarantine zone. Send it out on the comms—no one goes past the light grid. Use the jeeps to make a barrier, and stop anything that comes out. Soro and I will handle the rest.”

Sloan couldn’t help himself.

He wanted to enjoy the view. The alarms had cut off, but the power continued to flicker and dim as he ascended the stairs, the sounds of slaughter drawing nearer with every step. A body came crashing down the steps, its uniform torn as if by nails.

Humans could be truly monstrous, he mused, stepping over the corpse.

As he reached the Compound’s main level, he was struck by the sweet scent of fresh blood. It streaked the pale lobby floor, and brushed the walls, rose from the bodies; everywhere he looked, the living were at each other’s throats.

A man thrust a blade into another’s gut, and a woman wrapped her hands around a young boy’s neck, and Sloan moved among them like a ghost, unnoticed, their eyes fogged silver by the monster’s hold.

The shadow itself stood in the center of the lobby, growing solid as it fed on so much violence, and the Sunai, the FTF’s only hope, were across the Seam, attacking an empty tower. By the time they got here, it would be over. By the time they—

The whistle of steel sang through the air, and Sloan turned just in time to dodge a blade as it slashed upward, slicing his shirt and grazing the skin beneath.

He found himself face to face with a ghost.

A ghost with a cloud of red curls and a ragged scar across her throat.

“Ilsa.”

The jeep rounded the Compound and skidded to a halt, the rest of the convoy close behind. August and Soro lunged from the vehicle and onto the light strip.

A back door stood ajar, propped open by the corpse of a soldier who’d obviously tried to escape and failed, a pattern of gunfire dappling his back. There was no time to tend the dead. August closed his eyes for an instant as he stepped over the body, and Soro’s fingers tightened on their flute-knife as they followed.

Inside, the Compound was in chaos. The power flickered, and in the unsteady light, August saw the corpses littering the hall, most of them in green-and-gray fatigues.

An FTF was slumped on the ground, his back against the training-hall doors, and August’s chest lurched when he recognized warm brown eyes in an open face. Colin was bleeding, he couldn’t tell where, but when he stepped closer, the boy’s head drifted up, and he actually smiled.

“They’re safe,” he said. “I got the doors closed before”—he coughed—“before it saw—before they saw . . .”