Page 62 of Trigger Discipline

“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Want me to look at your leg?”

“It’s still broken.” She didn’t look at him, her blue eyes narrowed under lashes thick with dirt, avoiding eye contact. Blake didn’t take her tone to heart. He knew what pain did to people. Especially people like her. Victoria was tough, and he bet she’d had to prove herself every day; she didn’t want to accept his help to run.

Judd came back. “Sounds like there’s a pretty big fight toward the river.”

Blake’s head snapped up. He took a minute to try and picture DC as he knew it. Where the river was in relation to his station and where they were now. “That’s where we should go.”

“You want to runtowardthe fighting?” Victoria asked him incredulously.

“That’s where Gabriel will be,” Blake said. “A—and the others. We should join up with them.” He stumbled out.

It didn’t make any sense, but in a world that was rapidly giving him the middle finger, he didn’t care much aboutmaking sense. He wanted to get back to Gabriel. That felt right. And he wasn’t about to question it.

Judd rolled his eyes. “Commander must really have somecharisma.”Then he took off jogging. Blake grabbed Victoria, wrapping his arm snugly around her waist so she could take some of the weight off her broken leg. She hesitated again, but after two steps she whined through her teeth and let him take her weight.

It took about twenty minutes before he realized the zappy balls had stopped falling. In fact, everything seemed to have quieted. There were fewer and fewer aliens, which had Judd constantly muttering under his breath. Even Blake was beginning to realize he liked the enemy he could see and hear a whole lot better.

Every time they passed a car, Judd would wrench the door open and test it. See if he could get it started. Some of the cars had keys in the ignition. Those were mostly dead. Their previous drivers having taken off, leaving the engine running. Some of them, Judd was able to hot-wire, but they wouldn’t start.

“I don’t get it,” Blake muttered as Judd kicked the tire of a late model sedan. “They were working before?”

“Who knows what the fuck is going on!” Judd shouted, throwing his hands up in the air.

Blake adjusted his grip on Victoria, trying to come up with a rational answer, but he was too damn tired. Every bone in his body ached and sweat poured down his back in buckets. It felt like his brain couldn’t get enough oxygen.

He was about to say as much when they heard a high-pitched scream. They immediately tensed, looking toward the river. The scream didn’t sound like anything Blake had ever heard before—and he’d told a lot of people their loved ones had died. There was one memorable church lady who collapsed onto him when he’d told her the truth, that her husband’s second heart attack would be his last. Her red nailshad gouged into Blake’s skin through his uniform, and her screeching had nearly shattered his eardrums.

This was worse.

It was a combination of ripping metal and nails on a chalkboard. Giant, horrible goblin nails.

Judd was running before any of them could ask what was going on. Blake and Victoria limped after him, the noises getting louder with every hobbling step. They rounded a burnt-out hardware store into a scene of total chaos.

On a wide avenue, butted up against the river, the aliens were fighting. Not other humans, butmore aliens.At least, Blake thought they were aliens. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. The Handlers were firing, feet braced. Their incendiary rounds struck the new aliens. They screeched as they were hit, flying back.

Then there was another, striking the FUDs with physical blows. It was a lot like watching a nature documentary—two wild cats battling for dominance. Except, instead of tigers or lions, it was a big mechanized alien versus a biological one.

Like shirts and skins,Blake thought somewhat hysterically.

For every biologic struck down by a Handler or ripped apart by a FUD, two more seemed to take its place. They moved strangely, in controlled bursts, occasionally pausing with their beetle-like faces lifted and big ears twitching. The left one had a longer tuft of hair sticking up. It quivered whenever they stood still.

“Hairy fucking bitches,” Judd swore, watching the fight through his scope. He wasn’t firing—maybe because he didn’t know where to hit. Or who. But he looked like he wanted to, finger itching on the trigger.

“Are they…?” Victoria shouted over the clamor, her hand dug into Blake’s arm. Half the street was on fire; they could feel the heat from where they were standing.

“The Monkey Cat things? Yeah, pretty sure they’re extra-fucking-terrestrial.”

“I thought we told you to stop naming things!?” She screamed, pulling away from Blake to rest her hip against a tire, leveling her handgun. Like Judd, she waited to shoot, just analyzing the situation.

Her shouting seemed to draw one of the outliers’ attention. It slammed to a halt, its four claws digging into the asphalt. It turned and paused, like it was assessing them, and then its hind end bunched as it leapt for them.

Judd and Victoria’s guns barked as they fired. Their hits clustered around its face and neck, but it didn’t even seem to notice. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the plates on its skin.

One of the bullets got lucky, striking the creature’s eye. It didn’t make a noise, but it veered off. Skittering back blindly until it was hit by a Handler round. Its body flipped with the force, landing dead in the center of the street.

Blake’s knees nearly gave out. He grabbed his chest and pressed his heels into the ground, desperate to stay upright. He hadn’t even reacted. That thing was coming right for them, and he’d juststared.Didn’t grab his gun. Didn’t even take a step back.