Before me, Sienne already had him pinned on his back with her foot on his chest. She gripped the staff of that bizarre weapon, wrenching it free of Phox’s torso with one brutal jerk. My lungs constricted. Bile burned at the back of my throat.
Phox … ?
Sienne reared back again, her cold eyes narrowed and the rest of her face hidden beneath a rebreather mask. The blade of her scythe glinted in the light of the crimson sun, primed for a killing blow.
Beneath her, Phox sucked in halting, shallow breaths as he bared his teeth. He snarled up at her, his body shuddering as his blue-tinted blood turned the ground into purplish mud. “I-I’ll see you in hell,” he heaved in a broken, gasping growl.
Sienne’s brow crinkled slightly, as though in disgust or wrath. I couldn’t tell which. She started to move—to swing—like she intended to cut his head right off his shoulders.
“NO!!” My hand snapped up to aim my weapon with a primal scream.
Sienne’s head whipped around, looking at me with surprise an instant before it happened.
Something in my brain snapped, like a rubber band that’d been stretched beyond its limit. Anger kindled in my veins like molten metal, sending waves of heat sizzling up my spine and rippling along the back of my skull.
CRACK!
The glowing blade of Sienne’s Archilex blade shattered into a thousand pieces, imploding and sending a spray of tiny purple fragments through the air with a blinding flash. It blew her backward, the empty staff snatched from her grip as she landed almost ten yards away. From somewhere deep inside, that tingling heat bloomed and flashed through my body, leaving me numb.
My ears rang. I couldn’t feel my heart beating. But none of that mattered.
The gun slipped out of my hand, clattering to the ground at my feet, and I broke into a run. I hit the ground on my knees at Phox’s side, shivering and gulping in fast, frenzied breaths as I grasped the sides of his face, his shoulders, and anywhere else I could. He couldn’t—he could not leave me! Not now! I wouldn’t let him go!
“Phox.” His name tore past my lips in a screaming sob as he blinked owlishly up at me. “P-Phox, please! You’re okay—you’re going to be okay!”
A strange, delirious scowl flickered over his features. One of his big hands shot up to grab my chin roughly. “S-Shut up … a-and go.” He grunted weakly, then pointed off into the distance.
Toward the final checkpoint.
I shook my head wildly. “I’m not leaving you, idiot! So don’t you dare give up on—”
“No.” He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, dragging me down close enough that our noses nearly touched. “Finish it. Go—NOW!”
Then he let me go. His expression went blank, his eyes fixing as though he were gazing at something far away. His arm fell limp back at his side.
A shrill, garbled, wild scream ripped from my throat. I floundered back as my vision spotted and swerved, as though my brain were coming completely undone. Revenge. I needed it. I needed to kill Sienne with my bare hands.
Now.
I shot to my feet and whirled around to find her standing, too.
With her mask hanging around her neck, Sienne regarded me with a feral snarl curling over her lips and her short black hair whipping in the wind. “You,” she hissed, her voice hardly more than a venomous whisper. Wrath and revenge crackled in her eyes.
But that was nothing compared to the fury boiling in my blood.
Suddenly, her gaze shifted from me to something else—something behind me.
I looked back to find her partner steering their rattling, shuddering runner craft in close. It had been shot to hell and one of the engines, the one I’d tossed our belt of ammunition into, wasn’t working. The one remaining engine coughed and belched smoke, as though it were hanging by a thread.
My heart thumped against my ribs, clashing in my ears like thunder as everything seemed to blink into focus.
Phox was right.
I had to finish it.
I spun, leveling my glare at the distant metal towers looming on the horizon.
And I ran.
35
RADIANT
My lungs burned, my heart pounding in rhythm as my feet blurred over the ground. My core flexed. My calves and thighs hummed with power and strength with every step. The scorching wind stung my eyes. My hair whipped and snagged, stinging my cheeks.
But I knew this feeling. I knew this speed.
Because it was all mine. Years of training. Of countless miles. Of sweat and tears and pain set to the pulse of music pounding in my ears as I’d trained.
Roughly two miles ahead, the checkpoint’s glowing ribbon of light sparkled in my view. The spear-shaped structures were surrounded by hundreds of spacecrafts of all shapes and sizes. Some were parked on the opposite side of the finish line. Others hovered in close, hanging in midair amidst a shimmering storm of more spec-cams than I could even fathom.
Behind me, the roar of Sienne’s ship thundered at my heels as it sputtered and stalled—fighting to overtake me.
No. Not today. I didn’t know Sienne or her partner. But I knew myself. I was freaking Brinna Blake.
And I would not lose.
My body moved with mechanical precision, every system finetuned for the push. Breathing controlled. Back arched. Feet flexed. Hands tight. Every step sent a jolt of white-hot pain from my injured leg. The agony threatened to make my gait stagger or my knee give out. No—I couldn’t focus on that. Focus, Brinna. I pushed my thoughts past it.
A flash of light to my right caught my eye as a spec-cam zoomed in close. Another appeared right in front of me. A third swept in to follow, the familiar hum so close, I knew it had to be right behind my head, matching my pace and following me in.
I didn’t pay attention to any of them.
The rumble of Sienne’s ship grew louder, gaining on me. I
