Free Web NovelChapter 278: Chapter 277 - The Tank
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Smoke rolled into the lift before anyone stepped out. It carried the smell of gunfire, wet stone, blood, and something burned. Red light flashed across the ground level of Fort Schuyler, cutting the yard into broken pieces. Guards ran through the open ground. Their voices overlapped through the smoke, sharp and panicked under the hammering shots from the upper walls.
The broken gate hung inward, twisted from its hinges.
Bodies lay near the entrance.
Iyisha saw all of it in flashes. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Then she saw the tank.
It stood in the middle of the fort yard, blood running down its chest and water still dripping from its arms. Its skin was torn in places where bullets had struck, but some of the wounds were already closing. Slowly. Wrongly. The sight made her stomach turn. It looked bigger on the ground than it had from the bridge. Bigger than the memory of it. Bigger than anything that should have survived that much gunfire.
Her knees weakened.
Malcolm caught her around the waist and pulled her against him. She grabbed his shirt with both hands. Her fingers shook against the fabric. The counteragent had pulled her body back from the drug, but it had not given her strength. It had only made her awake enough to feel everything.
A survivor behind her whispered, "What the hell is that?"
Iyisha could not answer.
The tank bent and grabbed a torn piece of metal from the ground. It hurled it toward the upper wall. The impact struck hard enough to shake the fort. Stone dust burst from the ledge. Someone inside the elevator screamed, and Iyisha flinched against Malcolm’s chest.
She searched through the smoke.
Marybeth.
Lance.
Aljun.
Her eyes found them near the broken gate, crouched behind a damaged patrol truck. Marybeth was there, one hand braced on the side of the vehicle. Lance crouched beside her, pale even from the distance. Aljun was half turned toward the wall with his gun raised.
"Malcolm," Iyisha said, lifting one shaking hand. "There."
A guard on the upper level aimed down at them.
Aljun fired first.
The guard disappeared from the ledge. His rifle clattered down the stone steps, and the sound of Aljun’s shot cracked across the yard like a signal.
The tank stopped.
Its head turned.
Iyisha felt the change before she understood it. The body in the middle of the yard shifted. Its shoulders locked. Its attention moved from the wall, from the guards, from the gunfire, and fixed on the broken gate.
It had heard them.
It moved toward Marybeth’s group.
Guards fired into its back from the wall. Bullets struck its shoulders and spine. It flinched once, then kept going. A soldier ran too close with a long shock pole gripped in both hands.
The tank caught him without looking.
It slammed him into the ground.
Another guard rushed in. The tank threw the first body into him, and both men crashed across the pavement. A third guard fired near its side. The tank turned, grabbed him by the vest, and dragged him close.
Iyisha saw its mouth open.
She saw the guard’s legs kick once.
Then the tank bit into him.
Her stomach twisted. The holes across the tank’s body began to tighten as it fed, closing little by little under the red flashes.
The yard split into more noise.
"Keep firing!"
"Fall back!"
The tank kept moving.
Another shot came from above.
Lance jerked.
He dropped beside the patrol truck and slid into the open.
Iyisha’s breath stopped.
"Lance."
Malcolm moved before her voice finished.
He pushed her toward Phillip and ran into the yard with his pistol raised. Smoke swallowed him for one second. A guard crossed in front of him. Malcolm shot him and kept moving. Another bullet struck the stone behind his shoulder. He did not slow.
Iyisha tried to follow.
Phillip caught her arm. "Stay back."
She saw Malcolm reach Lance. She saw him grab the back of Lance’s shirt and drag him toward Marybeth’s cover. Marybeth pulled from the other side. Aljun fired over the hood of the patrol truck, forcing guards on the wall to duck.
The tank reached them.
Its arm swung.
Malcolm flew into the stone wall near the gatehouse.
The sound of his body hitting the wall cut through everything.
Iyisha tore free from Phillip.
"Malcolm!"
Her feet hit the yard and almost failed. She caught herself against a supply cart, then pushed away from it. Her vision blurred at the edges. The drug pulled at her knees. The pressure inside her head rose anyway, rough and painful, scraping through her skull as she forced it outward.
The tank stepped toward Malcolm.
He pushed himself up and reached for his knife.
It was too close.
Iyisha tried to use the pressure. At first, her throat gave nothing. Her mouth opened, and only air came out. She pushed harder until the sound tore free.
"Stop!"
The tank paused.
Only for half a second.
Malcolm rolled aside as its hand smashed into the wall where his head had been. Stone cracked under its palm. He came up low and drove the knife into its forearm.
The tank roared.
It swung him off.
Malcolm hit the ground and rolled.
Iyisha staggered between them.
The tank turned on her.
Everything inside her went quiet.
Gunfire still hammered the yard. Guards still shouted. Someone screamed her name near the truck. Malcolm pushed himself up, blood at his mouth, eyes fixed on her.
"Run!"
She barely heard it.
The tank reached for her.
Its hand closed around her body and lifted her from the ground. Pain flashed through her ribs. Her feet left the pavement. Her hands grabbed its wrist, but her fingers were weak against the thick grip around her.
Malcolm ran toward her.
The tank turned its shoulder and knocked him back before he reached them.
Iyisha gasped as it brought her closer to its face. Blood and water ran down its skin. Its jaw was torn. One side of its mouth hung wrong from Marybeth’s shot. Its eyes moved over her, unfocused and hungry.
Iyisha pushed again.
The pressure inside her head snapped outward.
Stop.
Please stop.
Her eyes filled. She thought it was going to eat her. She thought Malcolm was going to watch it happen. She thought after everything, after the bed, the needles, the doctors, the baby under her hands, this was where her body would finally fail.
The tank paused as if something had caught inside it.
Its grip tightened once.
Iyisha cried out.
Then she saw the mark near its clavicle.
Small.
Dark.
Half hidden beneath blood and torn skin.
A tattoo.
Two doves.
One tucked beneath the wing of the other.
One protecting it.
The yard vanished.
The gunfire dropped away. Malcolm’s shout faded. Marybeth’s voice faded. The red lights, the soldiers, the hand crushing around her ribs, all of it fell behind that one mark.
Iyisha knew that tattoo.
She remembered Cena laughing when she got it. She remembered telling her it looked stupid. She remembered Cena calling her a chicken because they had promised to get the same one, and Iyisha had backed out at the last second.
The tank’s wet hair clung to its face.
Then its other hand rose.
Slow.
Awkward.
The thick fingers dragged near the side of its head, brushing the wet strands back from its cheek.
Iyisha stopped breathing.
Cena used to do that.
After training. After crying. After pretending she was fine. She would push her hair back like that, then look away before anyone could see too much.
Iyisha stopped fighting.
Her hands loosened on its wrist.
The thing holding her was huge. Torn. Wrong. Covered in blood that was not all its own.
But the tattoo was there.
The habit was there.
Her sister was there. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Iyisha’s breath broke.
"Ce..." Her voice failed.
The tank’s eyes shifted.
Not enough to be human.
Enough to hear.
Iyisha’s tears slipped down her face.
"Cena..."
