Shaq hopped back onto my shoulder. Ixy took the lead, with Emerald and Ki right behind her.

  “Ben,” David said, pointing to a thick metal column that split the corridor up ahead. “That’s one of the stabilizers.”

  We slowed before reaching it. “What’s the best way to weaken it without bringing it down?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied.

  “Aren’t you a scientist?”

  He thought about it. “Weaken the floor below it. When you create the larger quake, it’ll already be straining under the additional pressure.”

  “Got it,” I said, strumming another quick lick to separate the floor beneath the stabilizer. The stone cracked and splintered, and the column popped as it resettled. Before we continued, we heard the distant rumble of pounding feet approaching from behind us.

  I could hear the pounding of more boots behind us. “Stampede!” Emerald shouted, her voice echoing in the passageway. She managed to draw a laugh from George in addition to her own wild cackle.

  “Ixy, slow them down,” I said.

  “Yesss,” she agreed, falling back and beginning to web up the corridor. The guards could shoot through the barricade, but it would give us extra seconds that could mean the difference between escaping without a fight and needing to turn back the tide.

  We left Ixy behind, running down the corridor until Shaq directed us to the left at the next corner. Slowing, I peeked around it, pleasantly surprised to find the coast was clear. The doors into the southern expansion were visible a few hundred feet away, past a series of side doors and an open room about halfway down the corridor. The mess hall, I assumed. Two more stabilizers also occupied the passageway.

  Ixy caught up to us at the corner, stopping there to web the junction, adding another thick mass of silk the reinforcements would need to burn through. The rest of us advanced, with Emerald, Ki, George, and Quasar moving ahead of the rest of us. I slowed to damage the floor beneath the next stabilizer.

  All my attention was on the floor beneath the metal column when I heard a muffled thunk. By the time I looked up, a small blob of what looked like gray Play-doh had attached itself at about head height between Ki and George. They both turned their heads to look at the snotball.

  It exploded in their faces.

  CHAPTER 29

  The blast sent George and Ki flying backwards and threw Emerald, along with a shower of rock fragments, all the way across the corridor into the mess hall. Shrapnel peppered the rest of us, each jab painful but not lethal enough to puncture our armor. I barely noticed the pain in my concern for my downed crew.

  “Shaq, Ixy—check on Emerald!” I snapped as I started playing again, putting a shield of absorb around George and Ki as larger debris broke away from the ceiling. Shaq jumped from my shoulder, dodging boulders as he raced across the floor. Ixy passed overhead, crawling along the pock-marked ceiling toward the mess. “David!” I found him hunkered down in the corner behind Sheri. She was on her feet but had an arm braced against the wall, her head lowered against the pelting debris, protecting both herself and David.

  His arms were wrapped around his head as dust and smaller rocks continued to swirl around the three of us. Peeking under one of his arms, he glanced at me, his body shaking, otherwise frozen in fear. “Go help George, damn it!” The man was sprawled face down among several good sized rocks, one pinning his legs. I couldn’t find Quasar in the chaos. I figured she was somewhere behind me, probably still fighting the reinforcements held back by Ixy’s webs. Ki was already trying to get up and move to aid George.

  “Ben,” Sheri said. “The stabilizer.”

  I looked over my shoulder at it. I had already weakened it, and the explosion had dislodged it further, the metal starting to buckle. If it failed now, how much more of the corridor would come down with it? Enough to bury us? “David! Move! We need to get out of here!”

  “I’ve got him,” Sheri said, grabbing his arm. “Come on, we need to help George.” She had managed to overcome her own fear and panic earlier, more worried now about someone other than herself.

  Energy blasts from the other side of the blast zone whizzed into the barrier I had created around my fallen. Behind us, flashes of light from the reinforcements trying to box us in burned away Ixy’s first web. We didn’t have a lot of time to get out of here.

  Somehow, I needed to get us past the guards ahead of us. I started forward, trying to see through the dust hanging in the air, but before I could pinpoint where to send the energy absorbed by the barrier, all the closed doors in the passageway slid open in unison. I should have guessed the corridors had been clear up to this point because the enemy had planned an ambush. I should have been more careful, but that was a needless negative thought now. Regret wouldn’t help any of us right now.

  All hell was about to break loose.

  A dark shape exploded from the open door beside me, a heavy fist cracking hard enough to break my jaw and turn my head sideways. A second hand grabbed my guitar, tearing it out of my hands but failing to snap the strap that held it to me.

  “Surprise!” Coil growled, his spit landing on my face. “I told you I wasn’t done with you yet, Murdock.” His eyes were black as night, but somehow he could see, his attack ending my control over my absorb action, the collected energy burning a gash in the stone at my feet.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a vague glimpse of Sheri, valiantly trying to protect George and the still cowering David against the attackers boiling out of the open doors into the corridor. Shaq and Ixy had disappeared in the hanging dust, but Emerald was on her feet, fighting in the mess hall doorway, her chest smoking from the hits she had taken. Another one sent her tumbling backwards as Sheri took a plasma bolt to her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch until another one hit her in the hip. As she fell, I took a blaster hit to the chest, just missing my guitar. The air fled from my lungs as the burn began to penetrate my armor.

  Emerald was right. We were all going to die.

  I didn’t care about myself nearly as much as I cared about the rest of my crew. Seeing them all injured or about to be killed, especially Sheri, created a terrible, wailing agony in me even though I couldn’t make a sound. How had our fortunes turned so quickly? Had I gotten too cocky? Too overconfident, despite all the sacrifices made to get me this far? How could I be so stupid to fall into such an obvious trap?

  Held tight in Coil’s stranglehold, my vision began to blur. My body convulsed. Coil laughed at my imminent death and that of my friends. My family, My crew. But I didn’t have enough strength left to be angry.

  I knew this was the end of the line.

  Except it wasn’t.

  David’s ring flared brightly and the entire universe started flowing backward. The energy blasts that had hit Sheri backed out, reversing into the shooter’s guns. Emerald shifted back to her feet and re-entered the mess hall. Our attackers walked backward into their respective doors. The air returned to my lungs. Coil’s grip on me loosened. His punch backed away from my face, my jaw knitting back together. His hand let go of my guitar, and he reversed toward his hiding place.

  His dark eyes widened in surprise as he seemed to be aware of what was happening. He reached out, managing to grab my arm even as David’s action forced him back into the room where he’d been hiding, dragging me along with him. I didn’t understand the full nature of reverse. I doubted David did, either. This probably wasn’t an expected side-effect.

  The door closed behind me, leaving me in a long, relatively narrow dormitory lined with unmade bunk beds. Coil and I moved backward until he was sitting on the edge of the bunk closest to the door with me standing in front of him, his hand still gripping my arm. I was ready when he tried to punch me again, able to catch his fist in my other hand, his blow lacking leverage from his sitting position. I slammed him in the face with my knee. Once. Twice. Three times until his grip loosened enough for me to break free and back away.

  I barely had time to turn for the door before he tackled me. We crashed into the bunks on the other side of the room, both of us falling to the floor and rolling until he ended up on top of me. He reared back and threw another punch at my face. I just barely managed to get out of the way before getting off a glancing blow to his cheek.

  “Pathetic,” he growled. He grabbed my guitar strap and yanked it over my head, tossing it aside. “I don’t know what the frig-all just happened, but I’m gonna enjoy killing you a second time.”

  I shoved him off me and jumped to my feet, spreading my feet and raising my fists in a fighting stance. “I don’t know how the hell you can see, but shut up and bring it on, asshole.”

  He grinned as he charged, throwing a series of punches I struggled to keep up with. I took a jab in the ribs, a right cross in the shoulder, and a left hook in the gut that stole the air from my lungs, all while backpedaling as quickly as I could. My mind wasn’t on Coil. It was outside this room, wondering how far back David had taken things. Where the rest of my team was. Whether or not they could change their fortunes. Or if history would simply repeat itself following the reverse.

  “You suck at this,” Coil said, landing another blow to my stomach. I was running out of room to back up. “You’re nothing without your magic, are you boy?”

  I had to forget about the others right now, as hard as that was to do. I needed to focus on myself, or Coil would beat me into a bloody pulp. I put all of my attention on him, ready for his next move. He threw another series of quick punches, but this time I managed to block most of them, and when he went for a powerful uppercut, I skipped aside. His fist created a breeze centimeters from my face while my punch cracked him in the jaw a second time. This one hit had enough force in it to get his attention. He hopped back a couple of steps.

  “Well, now we’ve got ourselves a brawl.” He laughed and spit some blood on the floor between us, lip curling into a sneer as he charged me like a bull, hitting me low and lifting me as I pounded his back. He drove me hard into the wall behind me before turning and throwing me into one of the bunks. The metal frame bent as I tumbled against it.

  He came at me again, intent on grabbing me before I regained my balance. I managed to kick him in the chest, pushing him back a step and giving me enough time to right myself. Unfortunately, a wave of dizziness hit me, my cancer making itself known at the worst possible moment. My vision blurred, and I could barely move.

  Coil wasn’t about to give me any quarter, kicking me in the side of my leg. The blow knocked me to a knee before he punched me in the side of the head. My ears rang, my vision doubled as I tumbled to the floor. He tried to stomp me, but I grabbed his leg and rolled him onto a bunk. Turning over and scrambling away on my hands and knees, I went for my guitar while he regained his footing.

  My nose was bleeding. My jaw hurt again, but it wasn’t broken this time, at least not yet. He grabbed my foot and pulled me back to the side of the bed. I kicked out at him with my other legs, dislodging his hold on me, and despite my vertigo, I caught his leg when he tried to knee me in the face and pushed him backward, slamming him into another bunk

  The moment my vertigo passed, my vision clearing, I shot to my feet and hit him again in the face. I landed a few more punches before he pushed his head under my arm and lifted me up, throwing me into the metal crossbar under the mattress of a top bunk. It hit me squarely in my lower back, painfully bruising my kidneys and making it hard to breathe. I managed to grab the rumpled blanket off the bunk as I fell.

  Coil’s boot slammed down on my chest, knocking the air out of me. He stomped me four more times before I scissored the leg he was standing with both my legs on and turned him, sending him into yet another bunk. Still clutching the blanket, I draped it over his head and crossed my arms, pulling it tight around his face. He grunted and kicked his leg back at me several times, but I managed to avoid the blows. Muscles flexing with all the strength I had in me, I slammed his blanketed face against the wall until I heard the crack of his nose breaking.

  He cried out in rage, driving his elbow back and finding my arm, forcing me to let go of the blanket. Free, he turned to face me, tearing the blanket off his face and glaring at me.

  I waited for him to pounce, my fists at the ready. He sat there on the side of the bunk, grinning maliciously at me like the demented psycho he was. And then he roared his rage and charged me. My fist greeted him. I put everything I had into the punch, connecting with his already broken nose. I was ready to hit him again, but his body stiffened, and he collapsed.

  I stood over him, breathing hard, hands still up to continue the fight. I had seen action flicks where the hero kills an attacker by punching him in the nose and supposedly sending bone fragments into his brain. I had even Googled it, and I knew it was typical movie make-believe. That particular impossibility didn’t change the fact that Coil was dead. Maybe it was bone fragments from his skull, maybe it was a concussion. Maybe he just had a stroke or an aneurysm at an opportune time. It didn’t matter how he died. It just mattered that he’d died, and I didn’t.

  I dropped my guard and raced toward the door, scooping up my guitar on the way and strapping it on, my fingers angrily ripping across the strings to create a horrible wail to open the egress hatch.

  I ran from the room, anxious over what might await me in the corridor.

  CHAPTER 30

  With the foresight to avoid walking directly past what would be the snotball’s blast zone, Team Hondo remained near Ixy’s second web, some fifteen feet away. Initially, their rifles swung toward the door as I opened it, but they breathed a collective sigh of relief, their rifles shifting away from the door when my strident guitar chords bled loudly out into the passageway.

  Emerald rushed over to me as I stepped back through the doorway. “Ben,” she whispered, reaching up to wipe a dribble of blood from the corner of my mouth. “Your face.” She held my chin in place, her concerned eyes scanning the injuries made by Coil’s fists.

  “You should see the other guy,” I replied with a wry smile. “Coil’s dead.”

  The other doors in the passageway opened, one after another, the ambushers apparently responding to the awful noise coming from my guitar. They charged out into the corridor, one of them holding a weapon that I immediately assumed was the snotball launcher. He fired it as he reached the corner, sending the glob my way.

  Bad idea.

  I pushed it back past him until it slammed into the frame of the open entry to the mess hall. I wrapped my arm around Emerald’s waist and pushed us back to where the rest of our crew were, blasting most of the ambushers back through the doors. I raised a shield of absorb in front of us just as the snotball exploded.

  The blast shredded the guy who’d launched the device, along with any ambushers within a six-foot radius. A hail of sharp stones blew down the corridor, peppering the shield I raised around us. The ambushers left standing opened fire on us, their effort completely wasted as I collected the energy output and dispersed it back at them. The wall of energy swept through the passageway, knocking down every single attacker in it, along with any rock frags still in the air.

  Just like that, the fight was over.

  “Come on,” I said, urging the others to follow me. “Stay behind me.”

  Instead, David ran back the way we’d come. “David, stop!” I reached out for him as he reached me, but he jerked out of my grasp and kept running.

  “We need to move the web!” he cried back over his shoulder as I turned to see Ayane reach Ixy’s second web. I could only wonder how she’d gotten through the first one.

  “They’re right behind me, Murdock!” she shouted, looking from me to Ixy. “Please, let me through.”

  Ixy responded, skittering toward the web to comply.

  “Ixy, wait,” I said. She came to a stop, tipping her head to look curiously back at me.

  David threw me an angry look. “What are you doing?” he wailed. “We have to help her!”

  “David, that may not be your mother.” I shifted my attention back to her. “If you’re Ayane,” I shouted back at her, “you have sigiltech. “Use it to pull the web apart.”

  “I can’t,” she sobbed. “I…I’m too tired. Please, help me!”

  “Ixy, let her through!” David shouted. He leaned back to see further down the corridor. “They’re coming! Hurry, damn it!”

  I could hear the reinforcements getting closer. Why hadn’t they started shooting at Ayane? Were they afraid of her sigils?

  Or was it something else?

  Without turning back around, I took two steps back the other way. “Team Hondo, let’s go. Ayane can get herself through the web if she wants to follow.”

  “Ben!” David shouted. “You son of a bitch, I just saved the lives of everyone here. And you won’t let her through? What’s wrong with you?” He turned and broke into a run toward his mother.

  “David, stop!” He ignored me. “Sheri, grab him!” I shouted as he was about to run past her.

  She reached out, snagging his arm and dragging him to a stop. “Use your brain, David,” she snapped at him. “You claim to have a big one. If your mom won’t, or more likely can’t, use sigiltech, it’s because she’s an Aleal.”

  “But she used it before, when we were…” he trailed off, tears welling in his eyes as he began to realize the truth.

  “Bring him, Sheri! Now!

  “David, come on. We need to go. Now!” she urged.

  He reluctantly stumbled along after her but continued to glance back at her. “Mom, use your rings. Please,” he begged what he still obviously still wanted to believe was his mother. But then it stepped back from the web, no longer pleading for help, its expression morphing from fear into a murderous scowl.

  “No. No, no, no, no, no,.” David sobbed, his tears spilling over as he finally accepted the truth and picked up his feet, running alongside Sheri.