What was that?” Solana asks, grabbing my arm—and totally screwing up my throw.
My windslicer sails in a wobbly arc and lands nowhere near where I was aiming.
Even better: It settles between the teeth of one of the giant cogs, and when the gears spin together . . .
CRUNCH!
“What the hell?” I timed that throw perfectly, and now I’ve lost my weapon, and the freaking turbine is still spinning.
Solana turns a slow circle, studying the fans and vents. “I saw something,” she tells me, reaching for her windslicer. It’s all mangled from banging it against the gears in our other failed attempt to sabotage this stupid thing—who knew a turbine could be so indestructible?
I ask my Westerly for a report, but I can’t separate its song from the roar of the wind and the gears. And the constantly swirling air throws off my senses, with all the waves of hot and cold and swishes of sour and bitter.
And then . . . I see a flash of light.
I can’t tell which vent it came from, but I’m guessing it’s some sort of signal for a bunch of Stormers to attack from every direction. They probably followed our trail through the maze—or maybe this turbine is sending our trace through the fortress.
Solana pulls me behind her. “I’ll get us out of this, but I need you to let me fight my way.”
“You’re not using the power of pain—”
“We don’t have time to argue.” She snarls a garbled command and two yellowed drafts seep out of her skin and coil around her hands like sickly gloves.
“How is that supposed to help?” I ask.
“The need will tell me.”
Her voice sounds flat and far away and her eyes look glazed, like she’s turned into a zombie—which definitely isn’t selling me on the power of pain.
Then again, it’s probably a good thing we have it. The light just flashed again, and this time I saw where it came from. One of the vents way up high looks like its bending, and I swear I saw a quick glimpse of something gray.
“They’re coming,” Solana says, still in that faraway voice. “Stay back and let me fight.”
“You can’t take them all by yourself.”
“I only feel two. It will be easy.”
I’d be a lot more excited about this plan if she didn’t sound like a possessed kid in a horror movie.
But two Stormers is good.
We’ve already done that and won before—surely we can pull it off again.
“We have to keep this quick,” Solana says. “The air here is too turbulent. As soon as they land I’ll use the need to end them. Cover eyes so you don’t have to see.”
I want to tell her I can handle it, but I’m not sure if I can. I’m getting flashbacks to the bloody carnage after our last battle, and the dead Stormer we left in the storage room, and—
Don’t think about it.
My legs shake as I watch the last of the vents’ metal slats get ripped apart by a seriously scary-looking Stormer.
He’s too high up to see details, but I can tell he’s bloody.
He shouts something I can’t understand, and he and another Stormer dive for us.
Solana starts murmuring a creepy command, and I beg my Westerly to come up with something useful. But as the Stormers drop closer, I notice the bloody one’s a guy with long blond hair. And the other—
“Solana, STOP!”
I shake her out of her frenzy right as she releases the drafts and they spiral away from her hands, barely missing the two figures as they land.
“Why would you . . .”
Solana’s question trails off when she takes a closer look at the “Stormers.”
Meanwhile five million emotions have taken up the epic battle of What Should I Feel Right Now? as I ask, “Audra?”