Bound to Ashes [The Altered Sequence: Book 1]

13 • Coward's Relief

[Dev]

Shouts are just white noise blending into the overwhelming sound of the machines. I roll forward to avoid being gunned down. Stay low. That first one might have ignored me, but these might be different. And there was only one then, now there's... too many to count, they're too fast, they keep moving... Alessandra and the others bolt in every direction. Gunshots erupt.

One of the machines pounds towards me, metal legs a blur. I duck—it passes right over. I stand up and it crawls over a few barriers, headed towards the back where a clump of others have retreated. Another in the group scans the arena, landing its gaze right on me, but turns away.

I'm standing, alone, in the midst of a battle, and none of the Sentinels can even see me.

"What the hell?!"

This is stupid. This is—is this even happening?

A huge thunk to my right. I spin around and Ashton rises from a hunkered position, shoulders slack and mouth open, heaving breath. An upside-down Sentinel writhes before him. His foot rears up and snaps down, right into the face of the Sentinel like it was tissue paper. I arrive as he's yanking it out.

"What's going on?" He breathes. "It's just like before!"

"I know," I seethe. "I don't get it!"

"I can handle it," he huffs. "Go make sure everyone else is okay."

My heart surges. There's something about being assigned a task, a goal... everything is clearer.

Energy courses through my veins. It urges my legs to run and for a second all I am is my goal. All I am is my momentum.

Peregrine is to the left. Bulging, heaving bodies of Sentinels close around her—trapped between two of the barriers. I lunge forward. "Hey!"

The two Sentinels freeze, then slowly descend and face me.

Oh. Is this even going to work?

They stop and stare at me just long enough for Peregrine to slide out from between the barriers and flash me a grin. She slips under one of the Sentinels and points her rifle straight up. I wince at the shots so close by—but the Sentinel has it worse, it staggers and tries to move away but the other has its guns trained on Peregrine. She pushes off and jumps backwards. The injured Sentinel's body jerks from the volley. Peregrine is long gone. The standing Sentinel looks at me again, then turns around and heads off. I shouldn't be surprised it killed its ally to get Peregrine.

"N—wait a sec—" There it goes. Am I just going to be chasing them around this whole time?

Someone shouts—fire on the side of my neck—I suck in a fast breath and touch it. It's not from my fire, it doesn't bleed, but hurts like a welt, throbbing and stinging.

Wait, so they're shooting at me now? I turn around and there's Alessandra, rifle in one hand, the other balled into a fist. Her eyes are stuck on the one that shot at us.

The machine's course doesn't waver, it keeps looking past her, but when the rifle shots cut through the air, its eyes fix on her. For a second everything seems quieter. I can hear the creaking of the Sentinel turning to look her in the face. She opens her arms and glares right at it. And there—my heart skips—that folding and scanning light. She lets it pass right over her face, she doesn't even blink. The Sentinel snaps shut and turns aside, moving off slowly. How can something like that calm it down? Is it not on the attack anymore? Alessandra jogs after it. It doesn't even notice. It's like she just no longer exists to it.

This is stupid. What's even more stupid is the fact that I'm angry about it not attacking me or Alessandra. It just doesn't make sense.

Alessandra works fast—the Sentinel that scanned Alessandra crumples to the ground. Sneaking up behind it and emptying a clip in its underside seems to do the trick.