Reaper's Legacy: Book Two (Toxic City)(59)
“You really want to play a lottery for whom that bullet's aimed at?” Fleeter said. She was pointing up, and Jack could now see a metallic smear to the air ahead of where the flash of gunfire and smoke was blooming from high up. I'm watching a bullet travel through the air, he thought, amazed. It was just about the only thing visibly moving.
Neither of them knew whom the shooter had been aiming at.
“Damn it.”
They hurried back across the clearing towards their friends and allies, and as they reached them Jack saw a smear of blood hazing the air around the girl's face and across her chest. She was bleeding from her nose and eyes, but he had no time to help her right then. He set her gently on the road.
“Hurry!” Fleeter said. Jack glanced back and saw the silvery trace of the bullet. It was already halfway between the sniper's rifle and its intended target, and Fleeter was standing at Reaper's side. “Remember, gentle,” she said. “Just ease them aside. It'll hurt, but if you shove them over into the ground, the impact might kill them.”
“Did it kill those guards?” he asked, but Fleeter did not answer. She was guiding Reaper to one side, lovingly, reverently, and Jack had to look away. That was his father she worshipped. A man he loved, and now the most brutal person he knew.
No, not quite. That title now went to Miller.
He stood in front of Sparky and Jenna and turned to watch the bullet, tracking its path. “It's him,” Jack said. “Fleeter, it's my dad.”
“Safe now,” she said. “Kneel by the girl, flip back, make sure they see her.”
“You think we can stop this now the first shot's been fired?”
She looked around more urgently. “Can't see any more flashes. Come on. Flip.”
With a smack against the dulled air, Fleeter grew dull and motionless in Jack's vision.
He closed his eyes and did the same.
The gunshot and ricochet were deafening.
Jack gasped in a heavy breath, winded, and scooped the girl from the ground.
“Bloody hell!” Sparky said. “Where did you—?”
“We've got the girl!” Jack shouted. “And your torture doctors are dead! One more shot and the rest of you die too. Every…single…one of you!”
“Hold fire!” a voice shouted. It was electronically amplified, and Jack recognised Miller right away.
The rush of sound and input shocked Jack. The breeze against his face, his friends’ heavy breathing, the rustle of clothing, mysterious, distant noises from elsewhere in the huge container park or beyond…he heard none of these when he was flipped. I accelerate, he thought, but knew that was not quite right. He could not fully explain what he and Fleeter could do.
The girl moved in his arms. She moaned something, and whined, and blood was still flowing from her nose and eyes. She was much too light, and he could feel bones he should not be able to feel. In using her, they had also neglected her. It was so brutal that it made him want to cry, or rage.
He chose rage.
“One more gunshot, you bastards, and you'll only kill one of us!” he shouted, voice echoing from stacked containers around the clearing. “That'll leave the rest, and others you can't see. Check on your torture hole. Check it!”
A rustle through the hidden loudspeaker, and then two Choppers jogged from different directions towards the doorway Jack and Fleeter had exited moments before. But they did not need to check. As they approached, a woman crawled into sight in the open doorway. She was on her hands and knees, bloodied head nodding slowly up and down, hair matted with gore. A high, soft keening came from her mouth, but Jack could not pity her.
“We'll kill them,” Miller said. Faceless, voice crackling and distorted through speakers, he was more inhuman than ever. “The ones you want are still alive, but we'll kill them the moment something happens. One of you moves, one of you even blinks, and they die.”
“We can be on you in less than a blink, Miller,” Reaper said. His voice was low and casual, but it echoed from metal walls, and grit vibrated across the ground. Jack could already hear the fury in his father's voice. Good, he thought, elated. Good! He is here to help. He does want Mum and Emily.
The girl in Jack's arms opened her eyes. “Jamie?” she said.
“No, I'm not Jamie. My name's Jack.”
The girl blinked bloodily, slowly raised a weak hand and wiped at her eyes. She looked at Jack for a few seconds, so sad, so soulful. His heart sank. He could have fallen in love with those eyes in an instant. “Oh,” she said. “You're not Jamie.”
He set her down, but kept an arm around her shoulder. Leaning against him for support, she felt dreadfully cold and weak.
“Every one of you,” Jack said. “Every one of you, Miller! You'll be shooting at shadows, strangled by hands you can't see, seeing things you can't imagine. You think you know what the Irregulars can do, just because you've sliced them up and taken samples of their brains? You think you have even an inkling of what the Superiors can do, because you lose Choppers to them every week? Do you…do you have any idea what I can do?” He felt the others watching him—his friends, in fear; the Irregulars, nervous and yet ready to fight. And his father, with what might have been respect.
The scene fell almost silent. Hidden speakers crackled with Miller's doubt. Choppers stood tensed, uncertain, glancing down at their dropped weapons. Jack, Reaper, and the others faced them. And the girl leaned against Jack, starting to shiver with the knowledge that she had been released.