Pivoting from left to right, I wait for someone to strike. Berta yells at the intruders to identify themselves and hurls something across the room, which smashes against the wall.
Rough hands grab at my arms and separate me from Gemini. “Found her,” says a female voice. “Everybody stand back.”
The hands tighten around my arms, but the grip isn’t strong. I swing at my captor’s face, but my fist meets a rubber mask. The woman grunts and knees me in the side, but the adrenaline rushing through my veins and fueling my mounting rage cushions the blow.
With a sharp elbow to the woman’s chest, she doubles over and loosens her grip. I should run, but her companions block the doorway. Instead, I knee her in the gut once, twice, slip my fingers beneath the seam of her gas mask and rip it off her face.
A shriek rings in my ear. She coughs and slaps at my arms. “Let go of me, you imbecile!”
The gas mask rolls across the floor, but it doesn’t matter. Her reaction tells me everything. She’s not Lady Circi or any of the Amstraadi girls. My attacker hasn’t had much combat training and is probably one of the other contestants.
She twists away to hide her face, but my eyes are too blurred to see her features. I grab the girl by the hair and yank her into the thinning cloud. “Who are you?”
“Stop,” she rasps between hacking coughs.
I slam my elbow into her back. “Tell me your name!”
“What’s happening?” shouts another female voice from the door.
“Calico.” The girl coughs and tries to pull out from my grip. “She pulled off my mask.”
“Turn off the gas and step aside, or I’ll choke your friend,” I shout.
The girl I’m fighting rears up and slams her head into my belly, knocking me back a few steps. As I struggle to keep her under the gas, more footsteps rush into the room, followed by the sound of fists meeting flesh.
Pained grunts and gasps and panting breaths punctuate Berta’s snarls. It sounds like Berta is taking on at least four girls and winning.
“Stay out of this, Ridgeback,” says a pained voice. “We have no argument with you or Pixel.”
“Then why gas us all?” Berta barks.
The other girl doesn’t answer, and Berta charges through the thinning gas at the door.
I throw the coughing girl aside and rush after Berta. As I pause to tell Gemini to escape, someone grabs my hair, loops a rope over my neck, and pulls, cutting off my air.
Before I can react, girls in black surround us. They slap at my arms and pull at my clothes. If it wasn’t for the noose around my neck, I would call their attacks pathetic. I kick out at my assailants, who jump out of range, but the girl holding the noose leans back with all her weight.
“Berta,” I wheeze, but there isn’t enough air to make a sound.
My mind flashes to a youth cell meeting where Ryce taught us how to break free of a guard’s stranglehold. It’s too late to twist and attack the strangler with a palm strike. There’s no slack. My attacker knees me in the back and pulls the rope taut.
I grab at the rope and struggle for air, thrashing from left to right. My eyes bulge, and my head feels like it will pop. Whoever is strangling me knows what she’s doing and is probably the same person who murdered Rafaela.
With a massive heave, I throw my weight backward. The girl with the noose staggers, loosening her choke-hold. I twist and slam my fist into her face. Her head snaps back, and I attack with a hard punch. Bone crunches beneath my knuckles. She screams and releases the noose to clutch at her face.
Air rushes through my aching throat into my lungs, bringing with it a mix of satisfaction and nausea. I’ve never hurt anyone outside a practice drill, but that girl wouldn’t have stopped. Her companions rush at me. Some grab at my arms, others rain punches down on my bent body.
“Get out of my room.” Berta returns and fills my ears with the sound of her pounding fists.
The girls release me, and I stagger out of our room to find a small blonde figure in the hallway. Her white clothes blend with the wall.
“Are you alright?” Gemini asks in a small voice.
Clutching my aching throat, I wheeze frantic breaths. My eyes feel like they’ve been doused in onion juice and won’t stop streaming, and the pounding of my head muffles the sound of the scuffling in our room. “Not really.”
“You’ve got to hide,” she whispers. “One of the girls rushed down the stairs. What if she’s calling for reinforcements?”
I glance over my shoulder into the misty room. “But Berta—”
“She can take care of herself. It’s you they want.” Gemini gives my arm a hard shake. “Go.”
With a nod, I turn toward the stairwell.
Gemini places a hand on my arm. “That’s where she went. Take the other exit.”
I rush in the opposite direction and bound down the stairs with both hands on the rail for balance. My ears fill with the echo of my footsteps and blood roaring through my veins. That was a coordinated attack of at least two Echelons working together.
My thoughts jump to Ingrid Strab, who the Council of Ministers favored for the next queen, but I’m not sure that she would have been able to get so many girls on her side.
At the bottom of the stairs, I grope around for a door, hoping that I have enough security clearance to leave the building after dark. My wristband brushes against a panel on the wall, and with a beep, the door clicks open.
Clean, fresh air fills my lungs, and the breeze dries my wet face. It’s dark outside,
