“You at a crossroads, and you need to make a decision,” Keryn said. “I know what you want to do. You want to play the role of knight in shining armor. You’ve rushed to the aid of your love and want revenge on the person who brought her low, but this isn’t a storybook. If you decide to go forward with your plan and attack me, let me explain how the rest of your night will go.
“First, your punch will be far too slow. You’re drunk, and I’m not. Beyond that, I’m a Wyndgaart and the finest fighter in the class. So you’ll punch, and you’ll miss terribly. By the time you realize I’m not on the connecting end of your powerful punch, I’ll already be behind you. Your back will be exposed, which will allow me to pummel it on both sides. Why the lower back, you ask? Because that’s where your kidneys are.”
Keryn looked to make sure she had everyone’s attention and no one else was trying to flank her. Confident they were paying attention, she continued, “Have you ever been punched in the kidneys? I have. It’s a miserably painful experience. Every time I hit your kidney, more and more blood vessels will rupture. They’ll spill blood into your kidneys. The same thing will happen to your intestinal tract, as stray punches rupture blood vessels in there, too, mixing blood into your bowels.
“The end result will be that your friends will carry you out of here tonight. Tomorrow, once you’re sober again, you’ll have plenty of time to wonder why you made such a poor decision every time you go to the bathroom and fill the toilet with dark, red blood. All that will happen because of a bad decision you’re about to make.”
She shifted her stance in preparation for the conclusion of their discussion. “Which brings us back to the present. Either you take your slut of a girlfriend and leave right now, or you can do what I see in your eyes you want, and try to attack me. It’s your choice, Terran humper.”
For a moment, Keryn thought he might’ve taken her offer to leave. However, she wasn’t able to pass up an opportunity to goad him one last time.
The Uligart launched at her, throwing a clubbing fist downward toward her head. Sliding easily to the right, she watched him slam his fist painfully into the solid bar. As he howled in pain, she extended a knuckle on her right hand and struck the side of his neck.
Zalide jerked, as the muscles in his neck seized, leaving him unable to turn his head. Keryn immediately followed that up with a swift knee to his abdomen. Clutching his stomach, he doubled over in pain, as she moved behind him.
She delivered a series of blows to his lower back. The Uligart grunted in pain, tears rolling from his eyes, as she alternated open-handed palm strikes and close-fisted punches to the delicate area. Slowly, his knees buckled, and he slumped against a barstool.
Her vision red with anger, Keryn only partially heard yells of surprise. They reached her ears as if she were under water. Figures approached from the corner of her vision. Finished with Zalide, she drove her knee into the back of his neck, disrupting his nervous system and dropping him unconscious to the floor.
Moving quicker than she anticipated, a figure slammed into her side, lifting her from her feet. The two landed heavily together, their limbs intertwined, as the attacker tried to pin her to the ground. Lashing out with an elbow, she caught his jaw and sent him reeling backward while freeing her.
As she slid away and fought to regain her footing, she noticed the dark, black pants and matching uniform jacket of an instructor. He cupped his mouth, blood seeping from between his fingers and dribbling down to his jacket collar. He glared at her with venom.
“Cadet Riddell!” a familiar Avalon voice yelled, cutting through the commotion. “You’ll stand down at once.”
Victoria stood in the doorway, her wings tucked tightly to her side, her hands on her hips, as she glowered at Keryn from across the room. Though she was many feet away, Keryn shrank back from that malicious look.
Victoria turned toward the few members of Sasha’s group who remained. “You three will take your two cadets and my instructor to the infirmary immediately. Do I make myself clear?”
The three girls nodded and rushed forward. Though Sasha and the instructor were able to stand and walk, Zalide was dead weight and had to be carried from the bar.
“Cadet Morven,” Victoria told a quickly sobering Iana, “you will head straight back to your room. Don’t let me catch you deviating from that location in the slightest.”
Iana gave a furtive shrug toward Keryn before slipping past Victoria and the two instructors flanking her. The bar was empty except for Keryn and the instructors. Even the bartender was gone.
“As for you,” Victoria said, her singing voice marred by anger, “I thought we had reached a pretty clear understanding. I thought you had potential, but now you’re making me think I was wrong about you.”
As Keryn’s warrior instincts fled, and her adrenalin stopped pumping, her blinding fighter’s rage was quickly replaced by embarrassment. Again, she felt tears sting her eyes.
“You’ll accompany me immediately to the dean’s office. He’s more than eager to have a word or two with you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vance, breaking from cover, ran up the ruined street, dodging the larger piles of rubble. The outpost was still ten blocks away-an incredible distance even with the way cleared by Halo’s bombing of the city. He fired a couple rounds at any Seque foolish enough to emerge from the alleyways along his path.
The loss of the alpha male left a void in the Seques’ hierarchy and made them hesitate, as their prey ran past, but Vance knew it wouldn’t last. He and his soldiers took advantage of the opening to cover a lot of distance toward the military structure.
The group labored during the run. Smoke still hung like a blanket over the city, stinging their lungs as they rushed for safety. The smoke, a combination of concrete dust and ash from still-smoldering plasma, watered Vance’s eyes. Tears streamed unwillingly from his eyes, leaving tracks down soot-covered cheeks before pooling in his beard.
After they ran for nearly three blocks, the Seques finally broke from their stupor. At first, only one or two broke from alleys or leaped from rooftops to impede the escaping soldiers. Though resilient, a steady hail of gunfire brought the more-daring Seques down, leaving them writhing in pain on the ground. Steadily, however, more and more Seques attacked the group’s fringes.
Without stopping, Vance cringed, as he heard screams of surprise and pain, as his soldiers were attacked and killed by the monsters.
“Ainj,” he called into the radio over the din of gunfire and screams, “we need cover fire. I don’t care how bad a view you have through the smoke, find a scope setting that’ll penetrate the smoke and start firing.”
He ran on, waiting for sniper fire that never came. “Ainj, do you copy?”
Atop a skyscraper, a Seque clamped its jaws on the thigh of the body under it, planting a clawed hand on the abdomen for leverage, and tore a strip of bloody meat from the corpse. Slurping, it sucked down the dripping meat and sunk its head down again, its razor-sharp teeth ripping into the exposed stomach.
The Seque looked up, as a distant voice called out.
“Ainj, are you alive?”
It spoke in a language the Seque didn’t understand. It tipped its head in confusion.
Pushing the corpse aside, it stalked across the roof, searching the source of the sound. Sniffing the air, it glanced back and forth, unable to locate it.
After a brief pause, the voice rang out again.
“Answer me, Ainj. Tell me you’re alive.”
The Seque finally located the noise near the edge of the building. Near the lip of the roof, a voice spoke from a discarded headset and speaker. Sniffing the radio, Seque flicked its hand and sent the headset cascading off the top of the roof.