The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(95)

I found the wall by almost colliding with it and immediately put my back to it. Then I waited, rubbing the dust off my watch and checking the time again. I turned my glance upward, looking for any patch of clear air or recognizable landmark from the blueprints that would orient me. I was so focused on my search that when Tabitha loomed suddenly out of the dust cloud, only years of muscle memory combined with adrenaline kept me from being killed.

I flung the egg out to block her as she drove a knife down. Her strike caught it directly, the egg shaking in my hands, and I cried out and jerked back as the knife slid and bit into the fingers of my left hand.

Tabitha pressed forward, her eyes wild, slashing for me. I sidestepped, ducked, and dodged, keeping myself just out of her reach but feeling my panic grow. I could tell the cut wasn’t deep, but blood was dripping down my hand, making the egg slick under my trembling fingers.

“Tabitha!” I shouted.

She paused, cocking her head. “What?”

I lowered the egg slightly, surprised that she had stopped, but not planning to waste an opportunity. “What are you going to do to the king?”

Tabitha’s face screwed up in confusion, cutting through her anger, slowing her slightly. I took a measured step back, then froze when her focus seemed to return. “What do you care? You’re going to be dead soon anyway.”

I took another step away as she started to advance. “Settle a bet? Just between us girls?”

She paused again, her face reflecting her incredulity that I was still continuing this line of inquiry. “Look, Maxen’s a dead man—he’s a threat to the master plan. Why bother asking now?” She stepped forward and swung her fist at me, almost casually, and I ducked, weaving to the side. “You’re dead too. I’m two steps from killing you and taking back what’s mine!”

“Don’t you mean what’s Elena’s?” I taunted, holding the egg up a little.

Tabitha’s eyes narrowed as she took me in, and her knife flashed furiously out toward me. “As soon as our scientists crack the code, we’ll be on our way to creating a new race of humans, far superior to what your kind has churned out for the last few generations.” I blocked with the egg again, this time managing to keep my hands out of the blade’s way.

My eyes flicked to my watch while she spoke, and then, stepping out of her range once more, I met her gaze with a wry, challenging one of my own. “Really? You think your sister is going to share power with you?”

Tabitha’s eyes became slits of rage, and she sprang forward, her arms lifted to strike me down. But it would have been almost impossible not to see that one coming, and without really having to think about it, I dove right and rolled to my feet, whirling around to meet her.

The dust still filled the air, making it harder to see, but we were close enough that I could make her out as she whirled and continued to press forward. I backed up again quickly, but realized that soon, there would be nowhere left for me to go—she was pressing me against the wall.

Just then, the smoky dust clouds started to swirl into spirals, and I saw a dark shadow approaching from the sky, a familiar, high-pitched whirring sound getting louder. Tabitha froze and then looked over her shoulder toward the growing shadow that was choking off the remaining beams of light. I exhaled as the smoke was pressed out of the courtyard, revealing the heloship—God, I hoped it was our heloship—dropping straight down over the courtyard. The ship was too big to land here, but we had known that going in.

Tabitha took a step back as a huge turret mounted on the belly of the heloship swiveled and the barrels dropped slightly, pointing right at her. There was a moment of silence in the courtyard, and then Tabitha sprinted away, spewing profanities, as Amber opened fire on her. I pressed myself back against the wall and searched the courtyard, trying to find where Cad and my uncle had run to. Among the haze, I saw two figures huddled near the piles of debris from the fallen building, and I raced toward them as Amber began firing on the second and third floor of the still-standing inner building, shooting out windows and presumably any wardens who were set up there.

Bullet casings were raining from the sky, bouncing off the ground as I pelted across the center of the courtyard toward my cousin and uncle. “Over here!” I shouted when I got near, but I wasn’t sure they heard—Cad was definitely shouting something to me, but I couldn’t make it out over the massive gun firing and the whine of the engines.

I made it to the pile of rubble and tree trunks they were sheltering behind and gestured lamely with my left hand, my right still clutching the egg, at the belly of the heloship, where two metal cables dangled down from the cargo bay. Amber had delivered on her part of the plan.

I raced toward the lines, frantically waving at my relatives to hurry up, and then leapt up to catch the end of one of them. My uncle got to me first, and I immediately began threading it through his belt loops and back around again. The fingers of my left hand slipped and trembled on the loops until Cad, catching up to us, took the end and helped me, clipping the small but heavy clasp affixed to the end back onto the cable.

Then we switched to Cad himself, me snatching the end of the cord and handing it to him, my cousin threading it through his belt loops and allowing me to clip it back onto the cable. He tried to say something again. I shook my head, pointing at my ears, and he gave me a breathless smile, mouthing the words ‘thank you’. I nodded at him with a smile of my own, and then scrambled back, checking my watch again as I did. We’d only allotted ninety seconds for this part.