Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(57)

“Sonofa—”

Eve turned, saw Ezekiel crash-tackle the Preacher, planting him face-first into the wall. The brick split, blood sprayed, pistols boomed. The Preacher’s blitzhund lunged at the lifelike’s legs, sinking its fangs into his shin. Eve could see red rivers running down Ezekiel’s flight suit, bone gleaming through the holes in his back. But she could swear they were smaller than they’d been a minute ago… .

The black dog was growling, ripping Ezekiel’s leg to ribbons. Eve didn’t dare try to pull it away—it could take her hand off with a single bite. But the blitzhund was a thing of metal and circuits. Chips and hydraulics. Its brain was meat, but its body was just like that Goliath in the Dome. Just like those Spartans in Tire Valley.

Eve drew a deep breath, stretched out her manacled hands, feeling for the blitzhund’s current. Trying to summon her power again, drag it up from whatever corner of her head it was hidden in.

“Evie!” Lemon screamed.

Ezekiel and the Preacher were still brawling. Ignoring the dog, the lifelike slammed the bounty hunter into a concrete support, splitting it at the base. His fist crunched into the man’s solar plexus, his temple, his nose. The rage in Ezekiel’s eyes was terrifying, his fury and hatred almost setting them aglow. He drew back his fist and swung again at the Preacher’s bloody jaw. But with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings, the man lifted his right arm and blocked the titanic strength of Ezekiel’s fist.

Eve heard a dull, metallic clunk.

“Well, well.” The Preacher grinned with bloody lips. Looked down at Ezekiel’s bloody chest. “Now, ain’t you a special snowflake.”

Ezekiel grabbed him by his jacket and, pirouetting on the spot, slung the Preacher clear across the tunnel and into the far wall, on the other side of the subway tracks. The blitzhund struck him from behind and the lifelike collapsed, his one arm now in the beast’s jaw, red spraying onto gray concrete. Eve’s brow was drenched with sweat, her pulse pounding as she curled her fingers into claws and tried to fry the blitzhund’s circuits.

“Come on … ,” she breathed.

Ezekiel was cursing, slamming the blitzhund back and forth onto the floor. The cyborg simply refused to let go, ripping Ezekiel’s forearm down to metallic bone. So much blood. Ezekiel’s face twisted in pain. Cricket appeared out of nowhere, roaring shrilly over the sound of the incoming train. His WarDome aspirations overcoming his common sense, he swang a fire extinguisher as big as he was. He toppled off balance on the backswing, clipped by one of Ezekiel’s flailing legs and sent flying into the wall.

And Eve,

She …

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t feel it.

“COME ON!” Eve roared.

The blitzhund flinched. Eyes growing wide. Eve closed her fists, screamed at the top of her lungs. The light globes around them burst into a million glittering fragments. The manacles popped open at her wrists. And with a bright burst of sparks at the back of its skull, the smell of charring fur, the blitzhund released its grip and crashed to the deck, smoke rising from its hull.

Eve’s breath was burning. Heart hammering. Eyes wide.

She heard a soft curse, a crunching noise. Looking across the tunnel, she saw the Preacher rising from the pile of smashed brick and mortar he’d collapsed into. His jacket had been torn free when Ezekiel threw him, exposing his bare arms beneath. And in the light of the oncoming train, Eve saw his right arm was made of …

“Metal,” she breathed.

Reinforced titanium, by the look—a top-tier military-grade prosthetic that gave him the speed and strength of at least five very grumpy, punchy men. That explained his speed on the draw with that pistol. How he could toe-to-toe a lifelike. But for him to have survived that impact … he must be packing a truckload more augmentations beneath his skin.

Capital T, for real.

The Preacher brushed the dust off his collar. Spat a long arc of brown onto the tracks. And looking up at Eve, he smiled.

The squeal of brakes filled the tunnel, the whine of pistons echoed off the walls. The inbound train pulled into the station, cutting off the bounty hunter’s path to the platform. The Preacher’s blitzhund was whimpering, every circuit fried, the disembarking crowd blinking at the bloodstains, the shell casings, Ezekiel’s wounds.

Eve knew they only had moments before the train pulled out and that psycho was coming at them again. The Ana in her was urging her to run. But the Dregs in her was talking louder now. The dust and the rust, the oil and the blood on the WarDome floor. If she could fry electrics, and if this Preacher’s arm was cybernetic …

“Riotgrrl, come on!” Lemon shouted. She already had Cricket on her shoulders, was dragging Kaiser by his back legs toward the exit. “You get Dimples, let’s go go go!”

Eve snapped herself out of it. Ezekiel had three bullet holes in his chest. Kaiser was crippled, and she had no idea what other augs this joker might have up his sleeve. Rule Number Six in the Scrap: Think first, die last.

She stooped and helped Ezekiel to his feet, slung his arm over her shoulder, half carrying, half dragging him to the exit. His chest was still leaking blood, his shin and wrist shredded. The lifelike’s face was a mask of pain.

“I’m … all right,” he gasped. “Just give me … a m-minute.”

“We don’t have a minute, come on!”