The screams and voices licked at her back as she ran down the steps with the little boy jostling in her arms like a floppy doll.
“What the hell did you do?” Niche yelled, eyes wide with terror at the chaos right behind the frame of the door that no longer existed.
“Drive!” Meg screamed, sending her will directly into Niche’s terrified mind.
He responded immediately, flooring the sedan away from the building, down a back road that led to a service entrance to the compound.
“The gate!” Meg grimaced as they sped directly toward a ten-foot iron fence.
“I stole the key from Ermos,” Niche snapped.
But the closer they got, the more sure Meg was that soldiers were there waiting for them.
Their headlights had been turned off, but Meg reached over Niche and threw them on.
She felt herself vibrate with anger at what she saw.
The squad of eighteen metamonarchs she’d sensed running the perimeter at 2am were there, waiting for them. They hadn’t had time to gear up, but it didn’t matter.
Meg carefully laid the little boy on the back-seat floorboard. When she turned around, Niche was holding out a gun to her, butt end first.
“I also grabbed some weapons from the locked cabinet. SHIT! That’s probably what triggered a silent alarm.”
“Too late for regrets,” Meg said, her fingers deftly handling the weapon, checking the clip and realizing she was only working with six bullets. She slammed it back into place, safety off and ready to do some damage.
“I promised I’d get you out of here,” Niche was saying, “And damn it, I will keep that promise!”
He pulled the car to a stop twenty yards away from the hulking mass of mindless soldiers.
“I promised him I would save him, and I’m damn well keeping my promise!” Meg growled, glancing back at the silent pile of sheets behind her.
“Niche, how good a shot are you?” she asked, weighing their odds.
“Guess we’re about to find out,” he risked a glance at the girl who’d changed his world.
“Damn I wish I weren’t so weak, or I’d level them all myself.” Meg said more to herself realizing her head was pounding hard enough for her to feel like her ears were about to start spilling blood.
She took a deep breath and opened her door. She heard Niche do the same, following her lead. That’s when she felt the attack coming from behind them. They had only minutes before they would be flanked by Arkdone’s men.
Panicked she forced herself to breathe the fresh scent of grass and clean air of the freedom she could almost taste on the other side of the mob in front of her.
A smile crept across her lips as a thought burned like an ember in the dark.
I don’t have to level all of them. She thought. I just have to control enough of them.
Without a word, all eighteen soldiers ran full speed toward them. Meg opened fire, emptying her weapon into the kneecaps of six of the soldiers, not missing one. Niche hit another four, each in the chest. The remaining eight were on them. Meg used the butt of her gun to break the jaw of the first guy who reached for her. The second, she attacked.
Jumping into his space, she elbowed his sternum, watched him double over and kneed his face, then jabbed him in the throat with her palm. He was down before he could cough.
Niche was fighting his own battles giving Meg a moment to pull aside and focus on the remaining seven. The three nearest her were her targets. She concentrated the last of her energies on them, willing them to fight against the remaining four. She felt their confusion at her demand, but pushed through it, manipulating. She locked eyes with each in turn and watched as undefined acknowledgement glinted in their eyes.
So accustomed you are, my puppets, she thought. Fight for me.
She managed her last push against their will and immediately saw the surprise on the faces of those soldiers remaining as they attacked their own with renewed aggression. They were on a mission.
After the initial shock, the remaining four began to fight with renewed anger. One of the four split off, attacking Niche with a knife. Meg looked on with weakened horror as one soldier threw a knife at her. The world moved in slow motion as she watched it spin end over end, black and sleek moving so close she could almost read the maker’s name etched in the blade. She tried to find anything she had left to fight back, but she was quivering, barely standing with the effort it took to control the first three.
Maybe I shouldn’t have tried for three, was her last thought before she saw Niche dive in front of her attacker. His eyes flashed with determination, as black as the Punisher’s, when he dove into the knife’s blade. It didn’t just graze him. Not at that angle of impact. The seven-inch blade buried itself to the hilt deep in his chest with a sickening thwump.