Page 91 of Dustwalker

Something thudded and scraped behind her. A hand closed around her ankle, abruptly halting her movement. She fell hard, the impact knocking the rifle out of her hands. The weapon clattered to the floor a few feet away.

Screaming, she clawed at the floorboards and kicked wildly at the thing behind her, scrabbling for the gun. The thing caught her other ankle and dragged her back. Her oversized shirt bunched around her waist, baring her lower body.

The world spun as the bot flipped Lara onto her back. It swiftly crawled over her and pressed a hand on her chest to hold her down.

Lara’s eyes flared as a rush of cold fear swept through her. The bot’s clothing was blackened and tattered, and patches of scorched, melted skin clung to its exposed metal body. It smelled faintly like burning rubber. The metal face shifted into an expression that might’ve been readable if the thing had skin, but its teeth were locked in an unnerving skeletal grin behind the small plates that would’ve moved its lips.

The only bots she’d seen with metal exposed like this were gearheads.

Her fear escalated into terror. If the bot meant to kill her, that was one thing. It’d be over quick. But the way it was suspended over her, the way it had her pinned down…

Warlord’s face flashed in her mind’s eye.

No!

Her throat burned with the scream that tore through it.

“Lara,” the bot said.

She thrashed beneath the inhuman force holding her captive, kicking and slapping, ignoring her pain as she struck its solid body.

“Lara,” the bot said again, its voice penetrating her terror.

She froze. The bot sounded just like Ronin.

Panting, she looked up into its face. Its left eye was damaged, with a jagged, disc-shaped piece of metal lodged in the socket. The right was a familiar shade of vivid green.

“Ronin?” she rasped.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I thought you were a fucking gearhead!” Her terror subsided, shifting into horror as realization hit her. “Oh my God! What happened to you? You’re…you’re…”

She lifted her hands toward his face. “Oh God, does it hurt?”

He pulled back before she could touch him. “Don’t feel much of anything, right now.”

Lara placed her hands on his cheeks. His metal was warm beneath her palms. When he reached up to brush her arms aside, she stopped him with a firm but heartbroken, “Don’t.”

“I see the fear in your eyes, Lara. You don’t have to look at this.”

Her stinging eyes blurred with welling tears. “I thought you were one ofthem. If I had known it was you… I’d never be afraid of you, Ronin.”

Another realization struck her, this one like a punch to the gut. “Oh shit, did I shoot you?”

“You missed.” His lip-plates shifted into what might’ve been a smile. “We’ll have to talk about that sometime. You’re a terrible shot.”

“Not like I ever shot a gun before.” Carefully, she brushed her thumb along the disc protruding from his eye; it didn’t budge. Her lower lip quivered as her tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “God, you’re a mess. What happened to you?”

“A trap.” He cupped her cheek, wiping the moisture from her skin with a metal finger. “Why are you crying?”

“Look at you.” Her eyes dipped, taking in his ravaged chest, the blackened metal of his arms, the ruined skin, the jagged chunks of shrapnel sticking out of him.

His undamaged eyebrow plate fell lower, andhe seemed to frown. Gently, he guided her hands away from his face and moved off her. With his right leg dragging, he crawled to the staircase, where he used the railing to pull himself onto his feet.

Lara scrambled onto her feet and hurried over to him. “Let me help.”

“No. I’ll manage.”