Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Page 25

  A mad vibration started in Millicent’s head and worked down her bones, making her jittery. As she jogged forward, it got worse, turning her movements jerky.

  Before she could raise her gun, Ryker was already there, leaping on the overturned chair in front of the being and ripping the instrument out of its hand. Dagger was in the midst a moment later, slamming down an object onto one of their heads.

  Another weapon went into the air. One being stood. It ripped its arms up, and a chair went rolling across the room, bowling over troopers.

  “They’re strong fuckers,” Ryker yelled, kicking one in the face. The being swung at him, the movement almost lethargic. “But slow as shit!” Ryker wrapped his big arms, though small in comparison, around the being’s head before whipping his body around.

  “Just shoot the damn thing!” Millicent yelled. “Stop messing around.” To punctuate her words, she took aim and fired. Her bullet hit the mask and blew a hole through it. Green splattered out the back.

  “Ew. Their blood isn’t red.” Millicent surged forward, looking down. Her toe nearly hit a mine. “Watch your—”

  An explosion tossed bodies into the air. She gritted her teeth and shot the being reaching for Ryker. Ryker stabbed down with a knife and then flicked off the creature’s mask. A toothless mouth gaped, black inside. Four eyes clustered in its face, almost like a spider. It didn’t have a nose. At least, not in the center of its face.

  “Do they not smell?” Dagger asked, standing on a couch and shooting downward at them.

  A shiny point emerged from the huddle of enemies. Dagger jerked away just in time. The spearlike weapon hit a trooper right behind him.

  “Even their weapons are slow,” Ryker said.

  A metal tubelike gun extended from Dagger’s suit as another being exploded upward. It swung its arms in a big sweep, sending a trooper sailing. He crashed to the ground ten feet away, the strength and power of the being’s movements awesome. The speed laughable, which perhaps explained why they relied so heavily on their robots.

  “Fee Fi Foe Fum, motherfucker!” Dagger roared. His guns spat out automatic bullets, peppering the beings’ bodies. One, sheltered by another’s body, aimed something around its comrade and fired. Dagger rolled away right before a flash of light sliced through the air. It cut a trooper in half, sliced off someone’s arm, and then scored the wall way behind them.

  “I take that back,” Ryker said, his own automatic guns extending from his suit and fitting perfectly into his hands.

  “Holy shit!” Dagger yelled as he rolled and then jumped up. “They have better weapons than we do.”

  “Don’t give them a chance to use them!” Ryker launched himself into the fray.

  “Millicent!” Danissa yelled. Millicent glanced back to see horror plastered across her sister’s face. “We have—get—” A deep rumble shook the walls and the floor. Millicent barely heard the windows blast in the distance. Every few words her sister said was lost to the noise. “Huge—ship—now!”

  The beings stopped fighting. They sat down as one, folding their hands over their chests, and succumbed to death.

  That was a very bad sign.

  Chapter 24

  The rest of the troopers kept shooting, but Ryker retracted his guns and ran toward Millicent before she could even take a step. His expression was filled with grim determination.

  She had good instincts. His were great. He was bred to survive.

  “RUN!” Millicent screamed, turning.

  Ryker grabbed her hand as he passed and yanked her along faster. Danissa was already running ahead of them.

  “What’s happening?” Millicent asked as she caught up to her sister.

  “Huge ship. Huge, huge ship, from the looks of things.”

  “We need a pickup, now!” Ryker was yelling with a hand to his screen, obviously on comms.

  Once they left the room, Millicent’s eyes widened when she saw huge chunks of debris falling outside the window.

  “Is that . . . building?” she asked, her heart hammering. A surge of heat pumped through her core, fear and adrenaline mixed together.

  “Huge ship,” Danissa repeated, panting but pushing faster. “Huge heat index.”

  The floor shook harder, making everything on it dance. Millicent swayed, trying to keep upright, running harder. A giant piece of building hit off the small ledge outside. The wall cracked and then crumbled, shedding more structure.

  “Holy shit, this is bad,” Millicent muttered as they sprinted through the next room and toward the area in which they’d initially landed. The floor shook harder, like an earthquake. The ceiling cracked.

  “How did they hide a huge vessel in the building?” Millicent yelled, trying to make sense of things and failing. They stopped at the pickup location. Chunks of building fell outside like rain.

  “What’s happening?” Dagger asked, running toward them. Troopers trailed behind him. A crack enlarged above them. It split open. A metal beam crashed down and flattened one of the troopers. “Holy—”

  “They created mayhem when they first took over the systems. They could’ve done anything. We were scrambling—how would we have known?” Danissa staggered, her arms windmilling, as the structure shook violently.

  “How are we going to get out of here, sir?” Dagger asked, his cool tone evidence of his impeccable training.

  More of the ceiling cracked like an egg. Metal swung down. Millicent dropped to her knees, narrowly avoiding a blow to the side of her head.

  Ryker grabbed her around the middle and dragged her forward. “Keep your feet, Millie.” He didn’t answer Dagger. That was probably the scariest thing of all.

  Ceiling tiles fluttered down before heavier stuff crashed to the floor. The whole building swayed, as if its structure was slowly deteriorating.

  “How is this possible?” Millicent screamed. “What the hell have they rigged up?”

  Rebel crafts waited outside the windows, far enough out not to get caught by the huge chunks of building pouring down. A violent lurch dumped the whole party to their knees. The crack above them turned angry, a huge black chasm spewing out wires, materials, and metal.

  Something deep and fundamental went off, like a blast. Another, deep in the floor. The building lurched again and shimmied. More blasts, working closer.

  “They’re blowing up the building!” Dagger yelled.

  “Time to hope for miracles.” Ryker yanked Millicent closer and gave her a toe-curling, bruising kiss. A “this can’t be the last time I see your face” type of kiss. He took one moment to stare down into her eyes as the world collapsed around them before roughly spinning her around. “Ready?”

  “For what?” she asked, and then he started running. Tugged along, she went with it. At the window, she screamed as she launched herself out as far as she could, no planning.

  Gravity dragged her downward. A giant chunk of building sailed down just behind her and slightly above. If she’d jumped a moment later, it would have hit her in the head.

  She looked down, because that’s the direction she was going. A mass of gray waited for her, blocking her view of the ground ninety floors away. Eighty-eight floors away, actually. Eighty-one.

  “What now?” she yelled, not reassured by the strong fingers clamped around her wrist.

  Ryker fell like he had a parachute strapped to his back.

  Of course, he didn’t, so he had no reason to be so calm.

  His mouth moved. The words didn’t reach her.

  “What?” she yelled.

  A horrible rumble sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Plumes of dust coughed into the air as the walls buckled. Or, continued to buckle, really, since they were already on their way. Above them, fire gushed into the sky like a rocket taking off.

  Millicent had a sickening feeling that that was exactly what was happening. Toton had planned for this eventuality. They were always way ahead of the idiots on Earth.

  Seventy-one.

  �
��We need a plan!” Millicent shouted. “Or to finally choose a god.”

  Ryker affixed a strap to her wrist.

  “Oh perfect, yes. A magical strap with nothing to attach it to.” Millicent eyed the building, imploding on itself. Those charges had been set up perfectly to collapse the building onto all the tech and secrets Toton had stored within it.

  She bet other buildings around the city were doing the exact same thing. Then wondered about the rest of the world. Were they all evacuating?

  “Damn them!” she swore as time slowed down.

  Sixty-five.

  “At least they made their home at the very top of the building.” She nodded as the stinging rain smacked her in the face. “It gives me more time to talk to myself before I hit the ground.”

  Ryker affixed a strap to her other wrist and then tied a rope around her middle, all while they were falling to their death.

  Fifty-some-odd. Probably.

  It was amazing, really, how cool he was under pressure. There he was, tying the other end of the rope around his middle. He’d already had the straps on.

  The sky turned murky gray, darkening the longer they hovered in the air. Because that’s what it felt like. They’d reached terminal velocity. The air pushed up against them, making her feel like she was stationary in the air.

  Of course, she was falling, no matter what it felt like. And eventually, the ground would catch her.

  A yank on her arm brought her out of her dismal reflection. Ryker pointed at a shape moving through the murk like a giant Paradise shark.

  “Ready?” she barely heard.

  No, she was not. But they didn’t have much longer to fall. The hum of an engine beat at her senses, but she couldn’t see a craft. He brought her in close, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. If he stopped suddenly, her arms would lose their grip, and she’d eventually get jolted by the rope. She’d been here before. This was going to hurt; she had no doubt.

  As long as it doesn’t snap my spine . . .

  The craft’s motor whined as it accelerated, charging at them. Ryker whipped the rope around in circles before letting go. It sailed at the vessel, but fell just short.

  “Shit,” she heard. “C’mon you bastard.”

  Thirties. Hopefully. But probably more like upper twenties.

  He swung again and tossed. A rock pinged off the craft. The strap held.

  “Hold—”

  His suit fabric ripped out of her hands and her arms scraped down his body, exactly like she’d expected. Also like she’d expected, she hit the end of the rope and it squeezed, stealing her breath. Without time to groan in pain, she was yanked upward, tethered to Ryker, who was climbing the rope despite her weight dragging him down. A hard thing scraped her face and smacked her toe as it passed by. The craft rose, lifting them up and away to safety.

  Screaming caught her attention. Millicent barely caught sight of a falling woman, her arms windmilling through the air, before the craft, still on the rise, sought shelter behind an intact building.

  Danissa!

  Heart in her throat, Millicent was flown through the sky in a cloud of putrid dust, barely able to breathe. She dug through her utility belt, hoping against hope. With a straggled sigh, she affixed her air breather and took a lungful. Her eyes watered from the building’s destruction, making her close them. She tried to see what had become of her sister, but the craft was rising through the air. They passed one building, and then another, while they climbed.

  “You okay, princess?” Millicent heard through her comms.

  Comms, unmute.

  “Danissa,” she croaked through a scratchy throat.

  “Hang on,” Ryker said, ignoring her panic.

  They continued to rise until the air was clearer and they were no longer choking on dust from the collapsing building. Shivering from the cold and wet, Millicent wrapped her arms around herself. The craft slowed to a stop. Ryker was attached to it with a black strap. Someone helped him into the vessel, and then he pulled her up. Blood marred his bicep, but he didn’t let it hinder him. Once she was safely on board, he yanked her to his body, hugging her so tightly it hurt.

  “That was close, princess.” He kissed her head and squeezed her. “Too close.”

  “What about the others?” she asked through a constricted chest. She barely knew her sister, but she was blood, and she’d dreamed all these years of finally meeting her family. Of living together on Paradise.

  “We’re good,” Dagger said over the comm. “We’re okay.”

  “Who is we?” Millicent begged.

  “I got her,” he answered. Another craft rose out of the murky gray sky. A large man crawled into the vessel in the distance. A dangling woman was then hauled up.

  “He saved her,” Millicent said, letting tears overcome her. “Oh thank Holy, he saved her.”

  “I couldn’t let something so pretty go to waste,” they heard Dagger say. He didn’t mute his comms. “Here we go, pretty lady. Are you okay?” A moment later. “She’s good. She probably hurts like hell, but she’s good.”

  Ryker hugged Millicent close for another few moments as more crafts rose out of the murk, some carrying a great many dangling troopers. Ryker had been the example, and the rest had followed his lead, only with more warning.

  Millicent let Ryker stand them both up. “All better, princess? Ready to get back to it?”

  “Not really.” She let him cut off the line.

  “Ground level is swamped in dust, sir,” one of the troopers in the craft said. “Two crafts were downed by debris, and we didn’t save as many as we would’ve liked.”

  Ryker’s jaw clenched and he minutely shook his head. “You did what you could. There was nothing else any of us could do.” He stood at the console. “Let’s go to headquarters.”

  As they flew over the city, Millicent saw four other destroyed buildings. Her theory had been correct. Expertly placed explosives had taken them down on top of themselves.

  “Not as many as I would’ve thought,” she said. “I wonder how long they planned their takeover. With so few people, they really took this place by storm. They crippled the conglomerates.”

  “They could’ve been there for decades, rotting the hierarchy of Toton. The other conglomerates just assumed Toton was faltering. Thinking they could swoop in and take the scraps. Greed is blinding. I wonder—did those beings take anything with them?”

  “I’m sure they’ve been shipping back their spoils all along. They’ve had a decade or more to harvest.”

  “Think they’ll be back?”

  Millicent huffed out a laugh, staring out the window at the many desecrated buildings they passed. “What would they come back to?”

  “This is one city of many.”

  “Yes, but now we know about them. They’d have to fight their way back. Why not find another world where they can slither in and start the harvest again.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  Millicent looked back at him with a silent question.

  “We did our part,” he said as the vessel lowered into the rebel headquarters. “Let the Earth residents handle it.”

  “Children, this is no way to behave. You have the intellect of teenagers, for Holy sake. Act like it!”

  Five hours after her brush with death, Millicent smiled in relief as she walked into the safe bunker in a dilapidated part of the city mostly devoid of smart tech and any sort of movement. She didn’t know what had caused Moxidone to bomb the hell out of the area, but it had created a great place to squat and not be noticed. Millicent and Ryker had purposely stayed away until they were certain Toton was not still around the city, following them. It was paranoid, but where their daughter was concerned, they didn’t mind acting a little crazy. They hadn’t spent the time idly—they’d been directing efforts in other parts of the world, making sure the robots were all frozen, and hunting for any enemies that might be left. The reports from other cities mirrored the situation in LA—it seemed whatev
er creatures could escape the planet had done so, and the rest had sacrificed themselves.

  Trent stood in the middle of a tiny room with his hands on his hips. He stared down at Marie, who sat with her arms folded and a stubborn expression on her face. Terik was off to the side, fuming. The rest of the kids, aside from Billy, were looking back and forth between the two young people.

  “Going well, is it?” Millicent asked, stepping into the room.

  “Mommy!” Marie jumped up and wrapped her arms around Millicent’s neck. “Is it over? Did we do it?”

  “We did it, baby. Now we just have to clean up. Where’s Billy?”

  “Found him,” Ryker said from a room off to the side. “He’s in here with Sinner and the other troopers, causing havoc.”

  “I heard what happened,” Trent said, patting Millicent on the shoulder. That was the equivalent of him hugging her—even after all these years, she still wasn’t great at touching nonfamily members. “Close call. And they just folded up and died?”

  “Very close call,” Ryker said as he walked in. He held a dangling Billy by the ankle. “It’s beyond me how nobody noticed Toton getting such a large craft, or a small rocket, into that building. How did they even do it?”

  “The people here say things have been mayhem,” Trent said. “Have you checked into the other parts of the world?”

  “Load up, everyone, we’re headed out of here.” Millicent motioned everyone out of the room. Marie eyed Terik, who gave her the stink eye. “Does he seem familiar to you?” Millicent asked Trent.

  “Yes. I wanted to ask Danissa to give me access to their lab’s files. I’m curious about all these children. Rumor is, there are still more, spread around the city. We need to find them. But how about the rest of the world?”

  They walked toward the door, where the small collection of troopers that had been sent to guard the children waited. Billy wriggled like a fish as he dangled in the air, trying to get a punch off at Ryker. The kid was more violent than the security guys.