Master Aki had told me since I was twelve that I had anger issues, but that anger was a good tool to use for mental control. So, taking his advice, I pulled up that anger now and used it to funnel through my mental link to the breeder whom I could feel invading my brain.
Master Aki said to visualize anger as a solid object, and for me it was always hot lava, packed and ready to burst from a volcano.
“They’re advancing!” Nox called out, but I pushed all stress from my mind.
I imagined that lava shooting up the volcano inside of me and bursting outward, latching on to the breeder and her mental hooks and eviscerating them. There was a hissing inside my head and then the pain was gone.
She was gone.
I wasted no time. Flipping around on my heels, I spun and started to open a hole into Earth behind me.
I had the sudden horrifying thought, Please don’t be in the middle of a crowded shopping mall.
As the opening grew wider, I sighed in relief at the sight of what looked like dried up farmland or just an unkempt field. Without issue, I pulled the opening wide enough to fit a semi truck through and then let out a loud whistle.
“Wrangle them in!” I called.
Nox and Maxine burst from their spots and ran to the left and right, quickly surrounding the group of sentries from behind. I stepped to the side, holding the gate open, and met the gaze of one of the breeders. She looked… afraid.
I grinned.
She knew. She knew that she would die if she came to Earth, and she knew what I was doing. I just knew that in that moment.
She started to move backward, but that’s when Nox threw the firebomb. It crashed into the ground behind her and she and the others in her group ran forward, closer to my opening in order to avoid blowing up.
“Can you move it closer?” Damien asked, pumping a magazine full of bullets into the sentry nearest him.
Sure, I’ll open a portal into another world and just move it closer. No big deal.
I growled in frustration.
As I started to walk, I was surprised to find that the opening moved with me if I concentrated hard enough.
“Kit Steele!” one of the breeders in the group roared. I could feel her pressing at the edges of my mind, but my volcano was flowing strongly and she wasn’t going to get in today. Damien covered me as I ran at the group. Only five more feet and I’d be upon them.
Ronnie was to my left and Maxine and Nox were bringing up the rear, ready to kick them in. I was praying the sentries would burn up when they hit our atmosphere, but part of me wondered if that would be too easy. I had a split second of fear that they wouldn’t, that instead they would walk the Earth and wreak havoc on the humans there.
With a giant kick to the back, Maxine launched the first sentry in; the second fell in right after him at Nox’s pushing. The third and fourth were forced by fire, while the Breeder proved stealthier, weaving out of Damien’s grasp. My gaze was behind me, on the sentries who’d landed on Earth, to look for signs of death, so I didn’t notice when the breeder swam into view and swiped out, grasping both sides of my face.
‘I will end you,’ she said into my mind, mouth open like she was about to tear my face off with her teeth. In a panic, I threw myself backwards, into Earth, and the portal collapsed around me as she landed on top of me, fingernails injected into my cheeks.
“Fuck you, zombie bitch!”
I embraced my inner foul-mouthed Marine and wrapped my fingers around her throat. Fear and anger flashed in her blackening eyes in equal measure.
“Yeah, you can’t survive here, can you?” I taunted, even though my cheeks hurt where her fingers had dug in, even though I was scared to look over and see the sentries possibly getting up to attack me. “What is it? The air? The radio waves?” Her face was disintegrating, turning to ash in my hands, and with a final push I shoved her off me and popped onto my feet.
Please, God, have mercy on us, I prayed as I spun around to take in the… piles of ash and empty silver armor.
Holy shit.
The sentries were dead… just like her.
Oh, it was fucking on! We were going to bring the Dream War down, big time.
For the first time I noticed that I was standing in the middle of a large public park, not a farm. There was a swing set off to the right, but that’s not what caught my eye. The group of teenagers with their phones out filming me was.
Fuck.
Did they see everything? Like… everything everything? Damien and the team were probably freaking out that I’d disappeared with a breeder on top of me. I’d have to worry about this PR nightmare later. Right now I needed to get back in there and help my friends. I was tempted to ask or bribe the kids to put their phones down, but that would only make me look more suspicious. Like I was an alien or something. And I didn’t have time.
Taking in a deep breath, I opened the portal again, slowly, in case a bullet was going to shoot through it. Maxine and Nox were taking down a sentry, and Damien was screaming my name. Bursting the portal open wider, I stepped one foot inside.
“Holy hell!” a prepubescent, cracking, male voice screeched behind me.
Shit. My paparazzi.
Leaping the rest of the way into the Dream War, I spun around and came face to face with a zitty red-headed teen boy and his camera phone.
“What the hell are you doing?” he screeched.
I didn’t want him to think I was a terrorist, or
