Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
He turns towards me with a rage swirling in his cold eyes, but he doesn’t make it more than a step before his legs buckle and he falls to the ground, clutching at the gaping hole in his chest. I can hear the sound of boots getting closer. Someone heard the soldier’s shout, and from the sound of it, lots of them are heading this way. The terror in Zarah’s eyes when I look at her reflects the feeling that has my heart thundering in my chest right now.
“Run, Luna!” she screams.
I shake my head. “I’m. Not. Leaving. You.”
And I am not going to die here. Neither of us will. I grab the gun from the soldier’s hip and take the safety off. My father prepared me to use weapons. I don’t think he, or I, ever thought I’d be using those same lessons to escape a bunker The New Order held me captive in.
I aim the gun, intent on shooting anyone who comes around that corner. My balance becomes unsteady when the ground beneath me begins to rumble. Not just the ground, the doors tremble on their hinges, and pictures of The New Order’s leader shakes on the walls. This is not a train passing. This is something else. Something that is making the bunker itself feel like it’s about to come apart at any moment.
“What is this?” Zarah asks.
Before I can answer, and I have no idea what to say, anyway, the first soldier rounds the corner. I don’t hesitate for a second before firing. The bullet lodges itself right in the middle of his forehead. His body slumps to the ground, making the next soldier to come into the hallway trip over it. I use his second of distraction to shoot him, too. Blood gushes out of his neck as he also crumbles to the ground. The shots have clearly only drawn more soldiers, unfortunately, if the sounds of the many boots stomping my way are any indication.
Screams filter down the hallway, too. I look at Zarah in confusion at the sound of them, high-pitched and desperate. Her brows are raised as she looks down the hallway. Some soldiers plead for mercy, but from who? Others demand that someone stop or drop their weapons.
“My father,” I breathe, dangerous hope rising in me.
“Luna!” Zarah shouts.
She points down the hallway and I quickly focus there. Two soldiers rush towards me, one with a gun drawn. I aim for him first, but he fires at the same time that I do. His bullet painfully grazes my right cheek while mine hits his chest. He groans, but I look away from him to the other soldier. He tries to put his hands up in surrender, but I shoot him, anyway, right in the face. I clearly remember him being the soldier who kicked me in the face during my worst beating. Me blowing his off seems a fitting repayment. More and more soldiers come around the corner. I shoot two, but when I go to fire again, I hear the click of an empty clip. I’m out of bullets with three more soldiers still coming my way. The soldier who had a gun is too far away from me to get it from his limp hand. All I have is my knife, now. And I will use it.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Zarah limp away from the wall until she’s at my side.
“I certainly won’t let them kill me without a fight,” she says.
“We’re not dying here.”
I get a better grip on my knife and prepare as they slowly come closer. They pause as the screams get closer, too, looking at each other in horror. I almost think they’ll decide Zarah and I aren’t worth staying for whatever is causing those screams and run the other way. But then they look at us and all nod at each other, clearly coming to the decision that we’re still more important than saving themselves.
But then …
My eyes don’t know what to make of it all. It happens so fast that it doesn’t seem real, and yet, the screams and blood filling the hallway make it clear that it is. The soldier in the middle suddenly gasps and arches forward. Red begins to fill the front of his shirt, but before I can even fully comprehend that something, someone, has harmed him, the soldier’s head next to him goes flying, hitting the wall before it begins to roll down the hallway a little. A scream makes me look up to see the last soldier’s arm get cut off seconds before something protrudes through his mouth, blood pouring from it. Then, it’s yanked out.
Shakily, I slowly look to the middle of the hallway. To a gray body with black markings and blood covering the muscles of its chest and shoulders. I follow the path of one of those arms to find his hand holding a bloody spear with fingers that end in black claws wrapped around it. My eyes dart to the other hand to find a blood-soaked sword. Then, I’m looking at his neck, the markings there barely visible through the blood that makes it unmistakable that he used that sword and spear to kill the soldiers.