With a metallic roar, Bernard flipped Rogan onto his back, effortlessly pinning the large man to the ground. A viselike metal grip fastened around his neck.
"Do not fear, Rogan," the robot said in an eerily calm voice. "It will all be over soon. You failed. You failed Kira Jordan and you failed yourself."
Rogan moaned and swore incoherently. "Don't hurt her!"
"It is my job to hurt her."
"Thirty.. twenty-nine … twenty-eight…"
I reached out and wrapped my hand around the gun, then staggered up on my left leg, doing my best to ignore the searing pain in my other leg. I felt nauseated and weak and ready to drop back down to the ground. I swayed unsteadily but managed to stay upright. Bernard looked up at me from where he had Rogan pressed against the hard ground. I could see the robot underneath the skin. Just multicolored wires and smooth silver metal, like the cameras that spun around the area taking in every angle of the scene. His skin must have been plastic. Just plastic.
All of it was fake.
I'd been ready to die to protect somebody who didn't even exist.
"Ten … nine … eight…"
I raised the gun and pulled the trigger over and over until it was empty, and I hoped it would be enough.
It was. It blew Bernard's robot head clean off his body.
I dropped the gun and collapsed back to the ground and let the pain take over again. Rogan crawled to my side.
"Kira." There was a red mark around his neck where the robot had almost choked him to death. "Are you okay?"
His hand clamped down on my thigh, attempting to slow the bleeding.
I tried to speak, but found that I couldn't form the words.
The words would have been something along the lines of: Okay? Do I look okay to you?
Just before I passed out, the last thing I heard was:
"Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing Level Three of The Countdown."
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was dark that night. So dark.
"Mom? … Dad?" I said, too softly for anyone to actually hear me. I was scared. I'd gone to bed early, mad that I couldn't get something-new jeans, a new purse .. didn't matter anymore. Didn't matter then.
My bedroom door was closed. Locked. I didn't want to talk to anybody. Not even my friends, who were sending me text messages. I ignored the soft vibrating sound my new phone made every few minutes.
It was after midnight on a school night. I remember I had a big test the next day that I hadn't studied for. Math, I think. Or Neogeography. I didn't care what happened- if I passed or failed. I actually couldn't think of one thing in the stupid, boring city I really gave a shit about.
But suddenly I did care about something. The creaking sound of somebody moving around in the hallway. I knew that it wasn't either of my parents-I just sensed that it wasn't. It wasn't my older sister returning from a late date and sneaking back in the house so she wouldn't get in trouble for breaking the new citywide curfew of eleven o'clock. She'd gotten back from the movie theater hours earlier.
It was somebody else.
Somebody bad.
For a moment I thought it might just be my imagination, my overwrought, overworked brain that always came up with the worst-case scenario. My mom said I should be a writer, since I always made up such crazy, overdramatic stories. Made mountains out of molehills, she 'd say. But even before I had my flex-or at least, before I'd learned to use it-/ had this sense. A sense of impending doom. The ability to tell if something wasn't right-that something felt off.
And that was how I felt when I lay in my bed that night with the sheets pulled up to my nose, listening to the footsteps outside my door.
Something was off'. Horribly off.
And then I heard my father move into the hallway to investigate the noises. I listened to shouting as he must have confronted the intruder.
And then I heard the gunshots-two gunshots-and the thump as my father's body hit the floor.
Then I heard the screams as my mother… and then my sister-oh, God, both of them-were confronted by the intruder. More shots rang out. My whole body shook as I fell off the side of my bed and crawled underneath, tears streaming down my cheeks. My whole world narrowed in on that moment. Those three minutes that felt like three years.
When all was silent, when my family was dead, I heard my door rattle as the murderer tried to get into my room. My door was locked, but he would have no problem busting it open.
I'm going to die, was all I could think. And I was afraid. So afraid.
But suddenly there was the sound of police sirens, and the intruder fled without another sound, without a word, into the night, where he was never caught.
I never appreciated my family until they were gone forever. I hadn't even said good night to them.
And ever since that night, the inky darkness just reminded me of how close to death I had come. How powerless I was.
How it felt like hands clutching at my neck, holding me down, forcing me to relive my family's murder when I didn't do anything except hide.
I woke slowly but saw only blackness. The pain in my leg immediately alerted me to the fact that I wasn't sleeping. Or dead.
At least, not yet.
"No," I murmured, feeling those familiar tears of panic prick at my eyes as I felt the darkness close in on me. "No … please. Not again."
"Kira," a voice said, familiar and deep. "It's okay. You're going to be okay. Open your eyes."
I felt a warm hand on my cheek, wiping away my tears. Soft lips brushed my forehead, and fingers stroked the hair back from my face.
"It's okay," the voice murmured again. "I'm with you."
My eyes shot open. I thought they'd been open before, but I must have been only half-awake. Half dreaming. I squinted as the soft light of wherever the hell I was became less blurry.
The first thing that came fully into focus was Rogan. He was sitting on the edge of the bed I was lying in. He looked like hell, still dirty and bloody and a total mess, but the sight of him made me feel happy, chasing away my nightmares.
He frowned. "What's that?"
"Wh-what's what?" I managed. My voice sounded croaky.
'That thing on your face."
I tried to reach up. "What is it?"
"I think it's … yes, it's definitely a smile."
I let out a long breath and rolled my eyes. "Obviously a total mistake. There's no reason for me to be smiling right now. Is my leg still attached?"
He glanced down the length of my body and then looked back up at me with a half smile on his own face.
"For now." The smile faded. "You were having a bad dream."
"I can't imagine why. We've been having so much fun." I tried to look around, but didn't see anything other than a bland room with a small window that only looked out to another building. "Where are we now?"
"They brought us to a medical station. I guess you getting shot wasn't in the script."
"There's a script?"