“No,” I said. Were we actually going out to fight those things?
Right. That’s what we did. It was part of that whole monster hunter description.
“I think they’re next door,” I said, fighting down every impulse in my body that said hide. “I saw Grayson putting them back in the closet after he showed them to us.”
Screams sounded from somewhere in the complex.
“We should try to get to them, right?” Edan said. “Julian told us to stay put, but I don’t think he realized they would come in—” He abruptly stopped talking as another scream ripped through the building. It sounded like it was coming from below us, on the first floor.
“Yes,” I said. Hiding wasn’t an option. Half the teams were outside. The good teams. We had to help the other recruits.
I slowly pushed open the door again and peeked out. No scrabs. Just a trail of blood.
Edan and I stepped into the hallway. I walked as quietly as I could, jumping at a roar that sounded a little too close for comfort.
The door to the storage room creaked as I opened it. Edan sucked in a breath, his head snapping to where the scrabs had disappeared at the end of the hall. It was still empty.
The room was full of boxes, with at least a hundred spears in a clump against the wall. I grabbed two and handed one to Edan. The first box I opened was full of daggers, each of them in its own sheath. My pants didn’t have pockets (thanks for nothing, women’s clothing designers), so I tucked the handle into my waistband.
It didn’t feel like nearly enough. There was supposed to be armor and formations and a plan. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not yet.
Edan grabbed one of the daggers and slipped it into his pocket (showoff). He looked just as nervous as I was.
“Do we follow them?” I asked, pointing. I could hear human screams and scrab roars from that direction.
“I think we should.”
We walked down the hallway, sidestepping the splatters of blood. I realized I didn’t know if scrab blood was red. There was no way to tell if it was human blood or not.
We turned the corner.
A scrab flew through the air.
I gasped as it crashed into Edan. He yelled. The scrab pinned him to the wall with the claws of one arm. It smelled like dirt and blood and something sour.
I lifted the spear. Neck. Upward thrust. We’d practiced this yesterday, and Julian had said, Good job.
I drove the spear into the scrab’s neck. My fingers brushed its tough, prickly skin, and I had to repress the urge to immediately snatch my hand away.
I tried to push the spear upward, but the scrab howled and spun around to face me, making me lose my grip on it. The scrab reached up and yanked the blade out of its neck. Blood poured from the wound. It was red.
The knife slipped easily out of my waistband, and I was surprised to find that my hands were only shaking a little.
A spear rammed straight through the back of its neck and out the other side, splattering blood across my shirt. Edan grimaced as he held tight to the end of the spear.
The scrab had the worst scream. It was more animal than human, the sort of sound that made your blood curdle because you knew something just died.
It staggered backwards and slumped to the floor. The spear cracked in half as it hit the ground. Edan scrambled closer to me.
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly. I returned my knife to my waistband.
“Yeah, you too.” Four holes were poked into the left shoulder of his shirt, where the scrab stuck its claws in. Blood dripped down his arm.
“On your left!” someone screamed nearby. A scrab roared.
I heard the click of claws on the floor before it rounded the corner. I reached for the spear protruding from the dead scrab’s neck and yanked it as hard as I could, stumbling as it came loose.
Edan ducked the scrab’s claw as it swiped at him, and then jabbed his knife into its side before skittering away. He was nimble and fast, just like in practice. Even more so now, like the adrenaline pushed him to be better.
The scrab yelped as Edan drove the blade in, but it wasn’t a kill shot. He took advantage of the momentary distraction to deliver a kick straight into its stomach.
I jumped forward and plunged the spear into the scrab’s neck. Upward thrust. Harder this time.
I must have hit its vocal cords, because only a squeak escaped its mouth. I tried to keep a grip on the spear, but it broke off inside the scrab’s neck as it slumped to the ground. I tossed the broken handle to the ground.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Dorsey burst through the stairwell door, shoes slipping on the tile. He flailed and nearly fell, catching himself with one arm. He shot up and broke into a run, leaping over the dead scrab sprawled out on the floor. I suddenly understood why training included jumping over hurdles.
“I stabbed it, and it barely slowed down!” Dorsey yelled as he passed me.
The scrab flew around the corner, dripping blood from a wound on its side.
Dorsey skidded to a stop, looking from the spear in the scrab’s throat and back to me. “Where did you get those weapons?”
I pointed. “Closet. That way.” He took off.
I pulled my knife out of my pants. Edan stood next to me, bloody knife gripped in his hand.
“We should do that dive thing—what did Julian call it?” I asked. The scrab was running straight toward us, a little slower than the others had. The wound was slowing it down.
“Team dive,” Edan said.
“Right. I’ll dive.”
He looked at me quickly. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I can take a hit.”
He nodded once, either because he believed me or because there was no time to argue.
