some of the other wounded. He said it a second time, louder, before Marck was sure he’d heard him.
It was good news, and he figured as much. He was about to leave when his wife emerged without warning from the anxious crowd, startling him.
Her eyes widened as she recognized him. And then her gaze fell to his wounded arm.
“Oh, God!”
She threw her arms around him, pressed her face against his neck. Marck hugged her with one arm, his rifle between them, the barrel cold against his quivering cheek.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She latched to his neck, her forehead finding his shoulder, and said something he couldn’t hear but could feel against his skin. She made room to inspect his arm.
“I can’t hear,” he told her.
“I’m fine,” she said, louder. She shook her head, her eyes wide and wet. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there for any of it. Is it true about Knox? What happened? How bad was it?”
She focused on his wound, and her hands felt good on his arm. Strong and confident. The crowd was thinning as members of Mechanical retreated further down the stairwell. Several in Supply yellow treated Marck to cold stares, eyeing his wound as if worried it would soon be
“Knox is dead,” he told her. “McLain, too. A few others. I was right there when the blast went off—”
He looked down at his arm, which she had exposed by tearing away his ripped and stained undershirt.
“Were you shot?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It happened so
Shirly set her teeth and jerked her head at the door, which was two-deep with yellow coveralls. “Don’t think we’re wanted,” she said, her voice raised so he could hear. “I’ve got to clean this wound. I think some of the bomb is in you.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I’ve just been looking for you. I’ve been worried sick.”
He saw that his wife was crying, unbroken tear tracks standing out amid the beads of sweat.
“I thought you were gone,” she said. He had to read her lips to make it out. “I thought they had—that you were—”
She bit her lip and stared at him with uncharacteristic fear. Marck had never seen his wife phased, not by a sprung casement leak, not by a cave-in deep in the mine that trapped several of their close friends, not even when Juliette was sent to cleaning. But heaps of dread were locked up in her expression now. And that scared him in a way the bombs and bullets couldn’t.
“Let’s hurry after the others,” he said, taking her hand. He could feel the exposed nerves on the landing, the gazes begging them to be off.
When shouts rang down from above once more and the members of Supply retreated to the safety of their doorway, Marck knew this brief moment of respite was over. But it was okay. He’d found his wife. She was unharmed. There was little anyone could do to him now.
When they reached one-thirty-nine together, Marck knew they’d made it. His legs had somehow held out. His blood loss hadn’t stopped him. With his wife helping him along, they passed the last landing before Mechanical, and all he could think about was holding the line against those bastards who were taking shots at them from above. Inside Mechanical, they would have power, safety in numbers, the advantage of home turf. More importantly, they would be able to bandage wounds and get some rest. That’s what he sorely needed: Rest.
He nearly tripped and fell down the last few steps, his legs not used to an end to the descent, a flat piece of ground rather than one more tread to sink to. As his knees buckled, and Shirly caught him, he finally noticed the jam of people at the security station leading into Mechanical.
The crew that had stayed behind while the rest marched up to fight had been busy. Steel plates had been welded solid across the wide security entrance. The diamond-studded sheeting stood from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Sparks hissed along one edge as someone worked to complete the job from the inside. The sudden flurry of refugees and wounded amassed in a crowd desperate to get in. Mechanics shoved and jostled against the barrier. They screamed and beat on the steel plates, mad with fear.
“What the hell?” Marck cried. He followed Shirly as she pressed into the back of the crowd. At the front, someone was crawling on the floor, wiggling on their belly through the tightest of gaps, a rectangle left open below the security turnstile wide enough to slide through, easy enough to defend.
“Easy! Wait your turn,” someone ahead of them shouted.
Yellow coveralls were mixed in with the others. Some were mechanics who had donned disguises—some seemed to be from Supply, helping the wounded, mixed up in the wrong crowd or not trusting their own level for safety.
As Marck attempted to usher Shirly toward the front, a shot rang out, the thwack and clatter of a hot ball of lead striking nearby. He changed directions and pulled her back toward the stairs. The crush around the impossibly small entrance grew frantic. There was a lot of yelling back and forth through the hole, people on this side shouting that they were being shot at, those on the other side yelling “One at a time!”
Several were on their bellies, scrambling for the tiny hole. One got his arms inside and was pulled through, sliding across the steel grating and disappearing into the dark space. Two others tried to be next, jostling for position. They were all exposed to the open stairwell above. Another shot rang out, and someone fell, clutching a shoulder and screaming “I’m hit!” The throng dispersed. Several ran back to the stairs where the overhang of the treads protected them from the gunfire. The rest were in chaos, all trying to fit through a space expressly designed to allow no more than one at a time.
Shirly screamed and squeezed Marck’s arm as another person was shot. A mechanic fell to the ground and doubled over in pain. She yelled at her husband, asking him what they should do.
Marck dropped his rucksack, kissed her cheek, and ran with his rifle back up the stairs. He tried to take them two at a time, but his legs were too sore. Another shot rang out, the ricochet of a miss. His body felt incredibly heavy, slow like in a bad dream. He approached the landing of one-thirty-nine with his gun level, but the shooters were further up, peppering the crowd from higher above.
He checked that he had a fresh round in the homebuilt gun, cocked it, and edged out onto the landing. Several men in the silver of security were leaning out over the railing above, barrels trained down toward the ground floor of Mechanical. One of the men tapped his neighbor and pointed toward Marck. Marck watched all this down the length of his own barrel.
He fired a shot, and a black rifle tumbled toward him from above, the arms of its wielder slumping over the railing before sagging down and disappearing.
Gunfire erupted, but he was already diving back toward the stairs. The shouting grew furious both above and below him. Marck went to the other side of the stairs, away from where he’d last been seen, and peered down. The crowd was thinning by the security barrier. More and more people were being pulled through. He could see Shirly looking up, shielding her eyes against the stairway lights above.
Boots rang out behind him. Marck reloaded, turned, and aimed at the highest step he could see along the upward spiral. He waited for whatever was heading down toward him.
When the first boot appeared, he steadied himself, allowed more of the man to sink before his barrel, and then he pulled the trigger.
Another black rifle clattered against the steps and bounced through the railing; another man sagged to his knees.
Marck turned and ran. He lost his grip on his own gun, felt it bang against his shins as it skittered away from him, and he didn’t stop to retrieve it. He slid down the steps, lost his footing, landed on his ass and bounced back up. He tried taking the steps two at a time, was running as if in a dream, not fast enough, legs like rusted steel—
There was a bang, a muffled roar behind him, and somehow, someone had caught up, had punched him in the back, had hit him.
Marck sprawled forward and bounced down the steps, his chin striking the steel treads. Blood was in his mouth. He tried to crawl, got his feet beneath him, and stumbled forward.
Another roar, another punch to the back, the feeling that he’d been bit and kicked at the same time.
