Page 181 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

Suddenly, a scream jolted my instincts, and we shoved her behind us. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Gedeon, we peered into the lowly lit street on the far end of the training rings.

A blood-chilling rattle of bullets rumbled across the square.

57

ZION

“Isn’t the house for the auction participants there?” Kali asked, striding around us, the crunch of gravel under her boots practically drowned out by the rising commotion not far from us.

Gedeon caught her. “You do not walk headfirst into danger. Not if you want to stay alive.”

Scoffing, she crossed her arms over my leather jacket loosely hanging on her tall figure. “Why do you think I started training?”

“Started. That’s the point.” He surveyed the two streets adjoining the training rings. “Whatever has broken out, it seems to be contained in one location,” he said, gesturing to the road winding along the outskirts of the compound.

“We’ll go see what’s happening, but you?—”

Shouts and yells rising in volume cut me off. We sprinted down the increasingly more crowded streets in the direction of the noise, halting at the corner of the fourth road. Soldiers dressed in black cargo pants and dark green, skintight shirts with knife sheaths strapped to their chests poured out of the matte black trucks.

Ilasall’s military.

They had invaded our home.

Red veiling my vision, I launched forward. Rivulets of crimson ran down the paths Kali’s nails had left on my abdomen as I plucked my knife out of the neck of the closest soldier. Gurgling, he fruitlessly tried to contain the blood pouring out of his useless throat.

My body moved separately from me as my blade swished under the soldiers’ chins, opening their tracheae and arteries, soaking me in their blood spurting from the deep gashes. The pounding of my pulse in my ears swelled with each pair of eyes dulling to glass, identical to the dead gazes I’d witnessed and caused twelve years ago.

The same trucks, the same uniforms, the same evil taking our residents away, our families, our siblings.

My sister.

“Zion!” a female voice screamed, right as rough hands shoved me into a wall. Pain bloomed at the back of my head, and I blinked to push the throbbing away. A stony jaw came into focus with a crown of dark hair beside it. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Wake up!” Gedeon slapped my cheek hard enough for the fog to dissipate. The heated sting sobered me enough to take in my surroundings. “We have to stop them. Protect her,” he instructed, then disappeared into the mass of our people shaking off their sleep and swarming Ilasall’s troops despite being unarmed. Nobody dared to turn on the lights in the apartments to illuminate the fight on the road, lest the military would know what and who was inside.

Both parties packed the street to the brim, and the sounds of metal clashing, gunshots ringing, crunches of bones breaking, dull thumps of fists landing into guts and jaws grew overwhelming, evoking the haze of scarlet to creep up on my peripherals.

Kali touched my upper back. “What do we do?”

Gradually, the roar of my pulse subsided enough to discern shouts of battle and cries for help.

Hiding behind the corner, I rattled off to her, “Stay here. Don’t move. We’ll take care of this,” and rushed straight into the mayhem before she could answer.

Taking cover from bullets zapping the air and snapping the necks of soldiers I could reach, I paid no attention to the faraway pain tickling my bare torso and attempting to convince my muscles to give out.

Blood pulsed out of the wounds I’d sustained, but they were survivable, and I slashed my way toward the house assigned to those we had brought from the last auction in Ilasall.

More military trucks had gathered around the five-story building, unmarked, the color of concrete like half the ones lining this neighborhood. Soldiers armed with riot shields pushed the locals to the sides as their military comrades dragged the shouting inhabitants through the exit, cuffed them, and shoved them into the trucks despite their protests and wails, a dozen in each, before shutting the back doors and locking them from the outside, sealing them inside, taking away any chance of escape.

Moments flashed of my sister standing in the back of a twin military truck, her plunging a knife under her ribs, and roaring, and I dashed into the first floor of the closest building. I leaped out of the window and onto a soldier clad in riot gear, tackling us both to the ground and opening a gap in their ranks for our people to flow through.

Only we knew the Matching participants lived here, on the fringes of the compound, where serenity persevered, away from the hustle of schools, training fields, and the bustle of the center. It was easier to adapt to a new home, life, to freedom, if you were surrounded by familiar faces and undisturbed by the curious gazes of others.

But Ilasall’s military targeted their living quarters specifically. Someone had leaked the necessary information.

I stabbed my fury into the soldier I’d tackled until he ceased resisting, and his abdomen turned muddy brown from his blood soaking through his uniform shirt and becoming one with the asphalt.

Crouching down to not raise attention to myself, I observed the intensifying fight further down the street, most of the compound awake by this point. A low rumble vibrated the ground, and my neck nerves shrieked as I twisted toward the roar of the engines.