Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Getting through the thin vent is a lot harder for me than it is for Evan, though he has much broader shoulders than I do. My sutures ripped open during my fight with Parker, leaving a trail of blood behind me. Doesn't matter, though, because someone else's is already in here, coating the bottom. Evan doesn't seem worried-- Evan seems excited.
Evan stops about seven minutes later. I want to ask what he saw, or heard, but he looks up at me with a firm shake of his head. Don't move. Don't speak. Complete silence.
"No one helped me!" Someone is screaming. A girl. I don't know her, or at least not enough to recognize her voice, but Evan certainly. His fucking ears perk up at the sound of her voice. It's disgusting. "I did it all myself!"
"Really? Then how is it, at the precise moment you were killing Dr. Pam in Hangar One, two of our sentries were shot, another eviscerated, and a fourth hurled a hundred feet down from his post on the south watchtower?"
Glance at Evan. Was that you? He shrugs his shoulders sheepishly. Who the fuck is this guy?
"I don't know anything about that. I just came to find my brother."
Vosche. That son of a bitch. "There really is no hope, you know. All your daydreams and childish fantasies about defeating us—useless."
"Fuck you."
Something happens below us. The same girl, screaming, and something clattering to the floor. The scuffing of boots against the ceramic floor. And then the sound of something hitting the wall. Vosche speaking.
"He's hacked into the mainframe and overwritten the program," he snarls at someone. "He'll cut the power next. Hold them here. Secure that door! No one leaves until I get back."
The door slams. Evan drops something down the vent. He peers down through the slits in the grate, points his gun through the thin opening. I have no idea what's going on below and the thought has my mind reeling. He fires.
"What the fuck?" leaves my lips before I can stop it. Evan turns back with an amused smile. Fuck you.
There's another shot from inside of the room. More shuffling. The relieved whispers of someone I can barely hear. And then, "we're clear!"
Evan knocks against the side, leaving me confused. The girl beneath us seems to understand, because she starts to laugh. Hard. "Yes, Evan. You can come in."
"There's someone with me-- don't shoot her." And he drops down, lands on the balls of his feet. Then he grabs my feet, calves, thighs, hips, stomach. Helps lower me to the ground. When I turn, there's Nugget and Zombie, staring at me. Well, they're both really confused and trying hard to understand how I know Evan, how this girl knows Evan, and how Evan and I got here. And I'm wondering who the hell this girl even is.
"Cassie?" Nugget says.
"Who?" I ask. "Is this the Mayfly you were talking about?"
