what to look for, he could spy them. “Watch carefully.” After backing up a few steps, he raced forward at preternatural speed, angling toward one side, and—just before he reached the first sensor—jumped up. His right foot hit the wall a foot above the sensor as his body canted sideways. His left foot hit the wall yards away above another. His right hit the wall again and pushed off. Then he landed on the floor at the next intersection, having triggered not one fail-safe.
Yes!
Bullets plowed into him.
Snarling, Cliff swung around to face the soldiers firing at him from the end of the long corridor.
“Rafe,” Mattheus called.
The teleporting immortal appeared behind the humans and took them out.
A river of black flowed up the wall behind Cliff, following his exact path.
Cliff didn’t wait for them. He entered the adjacent hallway. Saw the same sensors. Showed them the path to take. Did the same with the next hallway. When he reached the next, a quick scan revealed no motion sensors. He checked the floor. Nothing. Had they thought the immortals wouldn’t get this far?
He shot toward the opposite end.
Pain lacerated his arms.
Skidding to a halt, he took in the new gashes and the blades that had carved them.
Damn it. What had he missed?
He saw no sensors in the walls. Nothing on the floor.
He looked up. There. “The sensors are in the ceiling on this one.” Sticking close to the wall, he darted forward again and made it safely to the end. “Hug the walls and you’ll get through.” A burning began at the site of the wounds, as if the blades had been coated with cayenne pepper. But the ground began to tremble beneath his feet, a rumble accompanying it, reminding him they needed to hurry.
Wiping it from his mind, he lunged forward.
And so it went. Cliff took the lead in every hallway, racking up wounds while he found routes of safe passage for the others. They could have navigated the hallways at mortal speed, but time was tight. The roar of gunfire filled the air constantly. And they couldn’t afford to give any mercenaries a chance to flee.
The base was big and boasted many corridors, almost every one of which sported fail-safe measures of one kind or another. Every blade that cut or impaled Cliff, every bullet that pierced him, seemed to clear his head more. The pain that buffeted him intensified by the second. But he kept pushing forward, kept clearing paths, showing the immortals how to remain unscathed, hoping every life he saved would redeem him for those he’d taken. And those he had almost taken.
Mattheus tried to stop him, tried to take the lead to spare him. “We can take more damage than you, damn it.”
But Cliff shook his head and continued onward. “It has to be me.”
“Seth wouldn’t want you to—”
“It has to be me,” Cliff repeated resolutely. Because this had to end. Tonight.
He had lost his battle with the madness. But he would win the war. He’d let these fail-safes bleed the monster right out of him and deny it dominion. Instead of killing innocents and having to be put down like a rabid dog, he would sacrifice himself for others. It was the closest thing to a heroic death he could hope for.
So he ran the gauntlet. Again. And again. And again.
And as he did, he stopped seeing the guards who shot him.
Instead he saw Emma’s beautiful face.
He stopped hearing the monster inside him howl its fury over being thwarted.
And instead heard Emma’s off-key singing. The musical sound of her laughter. Her gasps of ecstasy. And the affection that laced her voice as she told him she loved him.
He stopped feeling the cuts, the gashes, and the blades sinking deep into his flesh.
And felt her lips brush his instead.
Too late, he noticed something off about the floor in front of him. The tile beneath his foot sank a millimeter. The wall beside him exploded. Fire scorched him. Agony assailed him as the blast swept him off his feet. So much pain battered him that he couldn’t make a sound as he flew through the air, then hit the floor, skidded across it, and slammed into something hard.
A crack sounded. More pain ricocheted through his head.
All strength left him as he lay there, stunned into immobility.
Blood rattled in his lungs as he struggled to draw breath.
Blurring, dark forms swarmed forward and crouched around him.
His heart strove to beat as a face appeared before him.