bathroom, dragging my legs. Beside the shower, there’s an enormous bathtub made of dark wood that resembles a huge salad bowl. I crawl past it to a vanity made of the same dark wood. Looking up, I pull myself up against the countertop. Using my fingers, I scratch them over the surface. A group of small shelves rise from the teak surface. Among the bottles of lotions, oils and perfumes, combs and brushes, I find what I need. I grasp a pair of tortoiseshell-handled scissors in my fist.
Sinking down to the floor once more, I roll over on my back, hearing a familiar sound. It’s coming from outside. It sounds like gunfire—the automatic kind. I gather my hair in my fist and put the scissors to it. I cut off huge, blond chunks of it, and it grows back instantly. The circulation returns to my useless legs, my knees no longer ache as much, and I’m able to get to my feet. Panting, I place my hands on the surface of the vanity and gaze at my pale reflection in the round mirror. One thing is clear, if I’d stayed away from my body for much longer, I wouldn’t have survived it.
A horrendously loud, garbage-can-lid-banging noise pierces the air beside me. I let out an involuntary scream, jumping and shying away from it. Something car-fender-big rams against the storm shutter. Each time it crashes into the metal, I jump. As I back away, another hard jolt pummels the shutter, this time shattering the glass too. Shards of it spew all over the floor.
Reacting out of fear, I stab the air with the scissors, cutting nothing. Fear bleeds in watercolors through my veins. In the bathroom, someone outside yanks on the metal storm shutter, rattling it like it’s a vending machine that refuses to spit out chips. “Oscil!” I hiss. “Kill intruders!”
“You are not authorized for that command,” Oscil replies.
My teeth clench and I growl. I try to weigh my options. If I leap into the future now, I’ll leave my body too vulnerable to whoever is breaking in. I dash to the front room, looking for a place to hide, but another shriek tumbles from me when some kind of explosion fractures the metal and glass in the front of the hut.
I turn to run back to the bedroom, but an Alameeda Striker is standing in the doorway to it. His nightmare-blue eyes roam over me. I wish that I had more on than a bathing suit and Kyon’s T-shirt. Another soldier joins him in the bedroom doorway. He’s in a sealskin black aquatic combat uniform. It looks like its made more for swimming than for protection. The soldier who just arrived nudges the first one hard from behind with his shoulder. “She’s not going to hurt you, Valko. Didn’t you read her bio? The only gift she has is a fortune-teller stare.”
“You go first then, Cree,” Valko offers.
Cree punches his friend playfully before he strides toward me. Grabbing me by the throat, he picks me up off my feet and raises me up with beastlike strength. He smirks, “See, she’s weak and—”
I plunge my scissors into his eye. Cree drops me and starts screaming. Blood gushes everywhere as he wrenches the scissors from his head.
I dash toward the lavare, but Valko lifts me and throws me against the commissary bar. I fall against the countertop. “You’re not weak, are you?” Valko snarls.
“Oscil! Kafcan!”
A pot of kafcan rises from the hole in the countertop near me. I grab the urn and smash it into the side of Valko’s head hard enough to knock his brain sideways. Wax-melting-hot, coffee-colored kafcan scalds his skin. Valko groans as his flesh turns bright red. Straightening, he takes a step in my direction. Kyon comes up behind him, clasps his hand to Valko’s forehead, and twists. Valko’s neck breaks in one smooth jerk.
As the Striker’s body falls on the floor, Kyon moves on to Cree, who won’t stop screaming, and slits his throat. Cree makes a gurgling sound and then falls silent.
Kyon isn’t breathing hard at all, while I can’t seem to catch mine. He picks up the scissors that I used on Cree. My knees weaken. I can’t move. Trembling with full-body quakes, I watch numbly as Kyon goes to the sink beside me. He runs the scissors under water, washing away the blood. Drying them off, he brings them back to me. I take them from his palm. Clutching them in my fist,