The knife flashed.
I parried with the machete.
Sparks flew.
Ije was fast.
Trained.
She fought like someone who’d done this before.
Maybe she had.
She slashed.
I stepped back.
The blade cut my jacket.
I swung.
She ducked.
The machete bit into the wall.
” You can’t win,” she hissed.
“I know your moves.”
“Then you know this.”
I kicked her knee.
It buckled.
She fell.
I raised the machete. The source of this chapter is g.com.
She rolled.
The blade hit the floor.
She was up again, limping, knife in hand.
“Kael,” Rhea’s voice in my ear.
“They’re coming.
Dozens of them.”
Ije heard it too.
She smiled.
“Your time’s up.”
“No,” I said.
“Yours is.”
I grabbed the radio and hurled it at her.
She flinched.
I lunged.
The machete found her shoulder.
She screamed.
The knife clattered.
I grabbed her by the collar.
“Tell me about the vector,” I said.
She laughed through the pain.
“Never.”
Behind us, the first of the dead stumbled into the atrium.
Then more.
Then a horde.
Ije’s smile returned.
“You can’t escape them.”
“No,” I said.
“But you can.”
I shoved her toward the horde.
She stumbled.
Fell.
The dead closed in.
I turned and ran.
Behind me, her scream was cut short.
I didn’t look back.
I just ran.
Into the rain.
Into the smoke.
Into the next chapter.