“Army? We destroyed it with Navang’s facility.” The room was going gray around the edges, like fog rolling in, and Renna blinked furiously to clear her vision.
“You didn’t think that was the only facility I used to produce my army, did you?” Samil laughed, loud and girlishly high.
Renna clutched the edge of the desk even harder as her whole body started to tremble. “I should have guessed.”
“Yes, you really should have.” Samil took another step closer. “Give in, dove. There’s no need for heroics. I don’t plan on killing you.”
“Stay where you are.” Renna tried to raise her gun again, but her arm wouldn’t obey.
“Another minute now and you’ll be out. You and I will disappear, and when MYTH finds the charred remains of my team, unidentifiable because of the bombs, poor Major Dallas will assume you’re among them.” Samil gestured to the back of the warehouse.
Renna’s gaze followed the woman’s finger to the heap of bodies piled in the shadowy corner. All wearing gray MYTH uniforms. “You killed them,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her lips.
As she watched, a trail of crimson blood snaked from the shadows toward Renna. It trickled across the pavement at first, gaining speed as it flowed through the warehouse. Her eyes widened as the thick blood flowed faster, picking up pace as it turned into a river of death. Headed directly for her.
Renna jumped to her feet and lurched away from the oncoming storm. Samil dashed forward to grab Renna’s arm, but she wrenched away from the doctor. Renna stumbled, her foot slipping in the viscous liquid, and she landed on her ass with a jarring thud.
“I’m gonna…killlll…” Renna’s words slurred as her mouth filled with cotton wool, and she tried to swallow.
Godsdammit.
Terror surged through her in one last burst of mind-clearing adrenaline, and she scrambled to her feet. She threw herself at Samil, her left fist connecting with the woman’s jaw. With Renna’s momentum, the two women landed in a heap on the floor.
Samil screamed as blood streamed from her nose, and the door behind them slammed open, two more guards surging into the room. As they crossed the threshold, Commander Jayla jumped from somewhere behind them, cracking the butt of her pistol against one of the men’s skulls.
He went down like a ton of rocks, and Jayla pointed her gun at the other. “Don’t move, ass**le.”
The doctor scrambled to her feet and raised her own gun at Jayla. “I’m sorry you got involved, Commander. You’ve never been part of this plan. You were one of the good ones.”
Renna blinked up from her position on the floor as the whole room spun drunkenly.
Samil’s grip tightened on her gun and Renna opened her mouth to scream a warning at the commander, but her lips didn’t move.
Samil fired off a tranq shot, hitting Jayla in the neck.
Jayla furrowed her eyebrows. “Dr. Samil? What are you doing?”
Before the doctor could respond, a low vibration filled the air, growing louder. “Looks like I’m out of time. Come along, Renna. We have an appointment with a medical facility far from here.”
Jayla dropped to her knees with a thud. Her gaze met Renna’s across the room. Terror had stretched her features into a stiff mask.
“I’m sorry,” the commander whispered before she toppled to her side, unconscious.
The throbbing grew louder as the ship approached the bunker, and Samil hooked her hands under Renna’s armpits and pulled her toward the door.
“Damn, you’re heavier than you look,” she muttered.
Renna glared or, at least, tried to. Her muscles just wouldn’t respond. Maybe there was some way to slow the doctor down so she was caught in the bomb blast as well. She’d sacrifice herself if it meant stopping Pallas for good.
Renna’s eyes had turned to sand, her eyelids growing heavier by the second, but she forced them to stay open, to stay focused. She was not going out like this. There had to be some way to fight it. Coldness seeped through her limbs. She would have liked to have said goodbye to Finn. To see him one last time. But this way he’d be safe. He’d get over her.
The doctor hit a rough patch on the floor, jarring Renna, and she gasped as fire shot through her bad shoulder. The pain cleared her mind for a split second.
Her holo interface blipped into focus. Maybe her implant had reset. Maybe she could use it against Samil. Another bump and the heads-up display flickered off. Shit.
Renna fought for consciousness and for control of the implant. At the next bump, the display slid into focus. Something low and insistent blinked behind her left eye, and she forced herself to read the letters. It felt like trying to decipher an alien language, but eventually she got it.
The approaching ship wasn’t the MYTH bomber.
It was Lieutenant Blake and the Eris.
FIFTEEN
“Let the drugs take you, Renna. You won’t feel a thing.” Samil smiled down at her, then pressed a finger to her ear communicator. “Larson, I need someone in here now! We need to evacuate.” Samil paused, a frown marring her pretty features. “Where the hell is everyone?”
The door slammed open, and Blake stood there, his blaster aimed at Samil’s heart. His blond hair was disheveled, and with his brown eyes flashing, he looked like some kind of avenging angel.
“Dr. Samil? What are you doing?” Confusion furrowed his eyebrows as he glanced at Renna and the commander both motionless on the ground.
“Oh thank god, Lieutenant,” Samil said, her voice going soft and trembling. “Larson tried to kill them. We have to get help.”
“I can radio MYTH. They’ll stop the bombers if they know we’re here.” Blake lowered his gun and pressed a finger to his comm unit.
“Good idea. I’m going to go get my med kit. I’ll be right back.”
Renna tried to thrash and scream, to warn Blake, but her whole body felt like it was coated in cement. Things were getting dimmer by the second.
“This isn’t over, Renna,” Samil whispered, before darting away through the open door.
Renna gasped for breath, the words echoing over and over in her mind.
Pallas. Dr. Samil had escaped.
Blake crouched beside her and placed two cool fingers against her neck to check her pulse. “Hang in there, Renna. Help’s on the way.”
She felt her eyelids grow heavy, and he shook her shoulder. “Stay awake. You don’t need any beauty sleep. You’re gorgeous enough already.”