Spant rose unsteadily to his feet. He couldn’t stand straight. Every breath came in ragged hitches. He clamped a hand over his ribs. His fingers dug into the shredded fabric of the Kevlar.
He leaned against the wall. LJ’s hand hovered around him. She didn’t know if she should touch him or not.
“Ah didn’t know y’all were comin’. You okay?” she asked.
He watched her as she slid his arm around her shoulder. “I’m fine.”
Spant hesitated, his eyes lingered on her longer than he intended. LJ cut her eyes to him. “Don’t stand there starin’ at me. Move your legs,” she demanded, pointing to the front door. “We have tah leave her now! Ah’m not goin’ back to prison!”
Pain surged through his body and Spant fell against the wall. He was having another of his usual pain episodes and slipped out of her arms. Stunned she looked at him. She thought it was a side effect of her whistle and tried to lift him. “You’ve got to help me help you. Ah’m sorry Ah did this.”
He could barely speak through the pain, but he managed a nod. He’d had episodes like this before, but tonight felt different. The whistle had aggravated the pain and made it worse.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. LJ’s fingers trembled on his arm as she steadied him. He winced as pain shot through his side, the room spinning slightly.
He wondered how Andre would explain a pain episode if LJ were around when one hit him. Would she connect the dots together? Would she put two and two together?
“No time to waste on blame… I hear footsteps rushing toward us.”
LJ steadied him against the wall. “Stay here,” she said, walking to the door. She pressed her ear to the door before cracking it open enough to look out. CPD were at the end of the hall. She closed it quietly.
“CPD is here. They brought SWAT with them.”
Spant cursed under his breath. He took a deep breath and straightened quickly. The pain was worse but he had to ignore it.
“Stand aside,” he commanded her.
He shot filament across the door. It hardened quickly. Grunting through the pain, he removed his hoodie, and tossed it to her. “Take this.”
“Wear it. Keep your head covered. You can’t be here.”
LJ looked at the hoodie and put it on. “How are we getting out of here?”
“Come here. I’ll show you,” he said watching her walk toward him.
Spant wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close. He felt her heart stutter against him. As her feet lifted from the floor, she grabbed his sleeve. “What are you—”
He cut her off. “Hold on.”
He maneuvered her onto his back. “Keep your head down and hold on to me.”
She wrapped an arm around his chest and the other around his neck and buried her head into his back. CPD pounded on the door, announcing their presence. She felt him leap onto the wall. The vibration ran through Spant’s body.
She whispered, “No.” into his back, pulling the hoodie over her head.
“I won’t let you get caught in here, LJ.”
Spant climbed the wall. He paused to look at the door CPD was still pounding on. “It’ll hold.”
LJ opened her eyes to look for herself. The hoodie fell open and her hair fell back. She nearly screamed. They were upside down on the ceiling. The room below was torn to pieces and full of the dead swarnlings. She looked down and grinned.
There was a loud Boom that shook the ceiling. Plaster fell to the floor under them.
Spant glanced at the door. It had shifted off its hinges a little. LJ looked at it too. “Whatever they’re usin’, that door ain’t gonna hold much longer.”
She let go of his chest and tried to cast a shadow with her right hand. “Ah gotta get outta here,” she pleaded. She shifted her weight wrong and slipped from Spant’s back.
He leapt after her. “Why are you panicking?” he growled. He caught her by the waist. “You won’t go back to prison. I won’t let them catch you.”
He searched her eyes.He could see the fear in them. Up until now, he hadn’t known LJ to be scared of anything. He remembered how she looked the night he left her to get caught by CPD nearly five years ago.
Still holding her, he twisted midair and landed on the I-beam. He gave her no warning before launching upward. “Cover your head,” he barked.
LJ held on to the hoodie as she felt her stomach lurch upward. She watched the room beneath them grow smaller.
They crashed through the skylight, glass shattering around them. He shifted her into his arms before they landed on the rooftop. He lowered her onto the rooftop. She stepped away, favoring her right ankle, and nodded her head. “Ah…Ah’m sorry.”
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He looked at it and back at her. “Anyone would panic.”
“Carrow PD. Open the Door!” an officer shouted from the hallway. “Come out with your hands in the air!” he shouted.
Spant leaned over the skylight and looked into the room. Swarnlings lay dead. The furniture and walls were ruined. The door was holding but he didn’t know for how long.
LJ started to pull the hoodie over her head. “Ah guess Ah don’t need y’all’s hoodie anymore, hero…Spant.”
“Keep it on. You’re not getting tied to this,” he told her, tugging the hoodie back over her head. “I gave you my word.”
His gaze dropped to her, and she made the mistake of meeting it. She looked away. He bent down and reached for her injured ankle. “Let me take a look at your ankle before we go.”
Before he could reach her ankle, pain tore through him so hard his vision blurred. He folded without warning, catching himself on both hands against the rooftop. “Not now,” he thought.
She reached out to help him. “What do Ah do?” she asked him, wrapping her arms around him. She tried to lift him. “Damn. Y’all’re heavier than you look.”
Spant rose to his knees, one arm wrapped around his abdomen. He looked up. The sky was full of stars but they weren’t what caught his attention. “We have to… move. Now,” he said, barely standing straight.
His eyes shot to the roof door. LJ looked at him.
“Cover your face, LJ. Now!” he barked.
He straightened through the pain, snatched her arm and shoved her behind him.The roof door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame. Boots thundered onto the rooftop. Flashlight beams and gun barrels found them instantly.
She froze behind him and stared at his back. He put himself between her and the guns.
“Freeze! No one move!” an officer yelled.
Spant stared at the officers. “Trust me,” he whispered.
Behind him, she tightened the hoodie around her head.
Without looking away, he reached behind him and caught her wrist. “Keep your head down.”
He shifted to run when a loud clicking scream wailed through the air.
She dropped to her knees, grabbing her ears.
The CPD officers fell to the rooftop as well, clutching their ears and heads.
Then the clicking came. It surrounded them from all directions. The sound intensified becoming sharper, louder.
Spant clenched his fists.
LJ’s fingers dug into her ears.
A chill settled over them. Then, the rooftop shook.
***
The shadows tore open and something moved inside of them.
A muscle along Spant’s jaw ticked. Taking a step, the figure’s head turned toward him.
It began to click as it straightened.
Spant’s head whipped toward it.
“Swarn,” he growled.
He grabbed one of LJ’s arms. He didn’t need to ask why Swarn was there. They both knew the answer.
“I’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Ah. Ah can’t move,” she said with one eye squeezed shut. “Tha noise…”
“The scream is echoing all around us,” Spant said as he tapped his right temple. His vision sharpened and he scanned the darkness around them. “I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” he said.
“Leave me,” she said. “Y’all are in no condition tah fight him. It’s me he wants.”
Swarn went still.
The darkness answered him. Swarnlings crawled in from every direction, clicking and snapping their jaws as they surrounded the CPD.
“I will not let you sacrifice yourself,” he said, pulling her to her feet.
The moment she placed her weight on her feet, the scream’s pitch changed and she screamed.
Her fingers clawed into the hoodie as her body collapsed back to the rooftop.
“What’s wrong?”
“M…Mah brain. It’s on fire,” she said weakly.
Spant clutched his fist. “He takes you over my cold dead body,” he growled.
He turned toward Swarn and took a step, but stopped as pain hit him again. Steadying himself against the edge of the skylight, his eyes found Swarn.
Swarn’s gaze was fixed on LJ.
“Give her to me,” Swarn said, gesturing to the officers squirming on the rooftop surrounded by the swarm. “And they will live.”
He gestured to Spant and lowered his voice.
“You will leave.”
Swarn gave a command. One of the swarnlings leapt onto an officer before he could get his gun up.
The officer screamed.
The creature tore into the man’s chest and ripped free a beating heart.
Blood sprayed across a fellow officer’s terrified face as the creature tossed the heart to Swarn.
“Get in my way,” he said, crushing the beating heart in his palm. “They will die.”
Spant looked at LJ, then at officers surrounded by the swarm. When his eyes lifted to Swarn, the choice in them had already been made.
***
Spant tilted his head.
“I have a better idea.”
His knee buckled. “Blow the whistle, LJ,” he whispered.
“What… no,” she said, clutching her head. “It’ll hurt you too.”
He raised both arms. “I don’t have time to argue. Do it!”
Before Swarn could react, black filament shot from Spant’s wrists and cemented Swarn’s feet to the rooftop. Another strand snapped over his mouth.
Spant fired again, wrapping the rest of Swarn’s body in black filament.
“If you don’t, we all will die. That won’t hold him long.”
“Blow the whistle!” he barked as he shot more filament at the swarnlings.
Swarn struggled inside the cocoon.
LJ’s trembling hand found the whistle in her pocket. “Ah’m sorry,” she whispered. “Ah can’t do it tah you.”
The swarnlings lunged toward the officers.
Spant fought through the pain and managed to catch a few of the swarnlings in his filament.
One of the creatures jumped over the rest and landed on the back of an officer.
The officer froze and screamed as the swarnling’s claws dug into her shoulders.
Spant barely had the strength to stand, so he used momentum instead. He whipped his arms in a hard circle. Black filament hissed through the air and wrapped around the creature’s throat and midsection.
He yanked hard. The line cinched tight and ripped the swarnling off the officer’s back. It slammed into the rooftop gravel with a sickening crack.
Before it could scramble up, Spant flicked the tail of the filament, anchoring it to the heavy steel frame of the skylight.
It was tethered like an angry animal on a very short leash.
“The whistle!” he roared. “Blow it!”
LJ’s hands shook as she brought the whistle to her lips.
She hesitated.
“Now!” Spant ordered.
She inhaled and then blew. Everything seemed to stop.
Spant crumbled to his knees, clutching his sides. The swarnlings stopped moving. Swarn stilled.
The pain in her head stopped and LJ pulled the whistle from her lips. She blinked through her blurred vision and saw Spant staggering toward her.
She rose to her feet. The swarnlings began to click.
“They’re only dazed. Again,” he barked as he fell to one knee. “Do it!”
The screaming had stopped and the pain searing through the officers’ brains eased off.
She closed her eyes and blew it again. This time she put everything she had into it.
The pain in her head stopped, and so did the clicking. She heard the officers regain composure. Something hit the rooftop hard and she thought it was Spant.
LJ opened her eyes and saw Spant barreling toward her. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her.
Swarn was moving again, his cocoon snapping in places.
The officers were raising their weapons again.
He grabbed her. His momentum took them over the edge of the building.
“Stop! Hold it right there!” an officer yelled out.