Chapter 93 The Price of Blood

Chapter 93 The Price of Blood
Marcus

The cold steel of Mason’s gun barrel pressed so hard into my neck that I could barely swallow. My ears were still ringing from the flash bang, a high-pitched scream that made my head spin. I could taste old blood in my mouth.

"Don't move, Nephew," Mason whispered right into my ear. His grip on my neck felt like an iron collar. I could feel the rhythmic thump of his pulse against my shoulder. He was completely calm, even after everything that had just happened.

On the floor a few feet away, the Director was gasping for air, her fingers scratching uselessly at the wooden floorboards. She reached toward the silver controller, but Mason didn't even look down. He just brought his heavy boot down hard on her wrist. A loud crack echoed through the quiet auditorium, and she let out a sharp, ragged scream.

"You really thought a little EMP would stop my personal gear?" Mason mocked softly, scooping up the silver controller with his free hand. He slotted the backup drive into his pocket. "I shield my tech against my own weapons, Director. You should have known that."

My chest burned with a deep, ugly anger. He has everything now, I realized. The names, the network, the power. He had let everyone else fight and bleed just so he could walk in and take the prize. He had let my father die.

"You won't get away with this," I choked out, trying to tilt my head away from the gun. "Jax and Sarah know what you did. The whole city will know."

Mason let out a short, dry laugh. "The city believes what I tell it to believe, Marcus. Tomorrow, the news will say the Director died in a tragic terrorist attack. And you? You'll just be another sad statistic from the lower sectors."

Sarah

My vision was blurry from the white flash, but the sound of the Director’s scream helped me lock onto the center of the stage. I blinked rapidly, forcing my eyes to focus through the dim moonlight. Mason was holding Marcus like a human shield, a silver pistol locked against his head.

"Let him go!" I yelled, my voice cracking with pure emotion. I raised the iron wrench, my knuckles white and shaking. I knew a piece of pipe couldn't beat a gun, but I couldn't just stand there. I had promised myself I wouldn't lose anyone else.

"Sarah, stay back," Jax warned in a low, tight growl. He stepped up beside me, keeping his body positioned slightly in front of Lily. His right hand was still gripping Julian’s black cylinder switch. "He's waiting for an excuse to shoot."

"Smart man," Mason said, shifting his gaze toward us. "The loud friend has some sense after all. Now, drop the little toys. If I hear anything hit the floor that isn't a weapon, I will put a bullet through Marcus's eye, and then I will let my drones clean up the rest of you."

Lily started to cry quietly behind my back, her small fingers bunching up the fabric of my shirt. We can't win this way, I thought, a cold blade of despair cutting through my stomach. He has all the cards.

"Jax," I whispered out of the side of my mouth. "Can you hit him with the switch?"

"Not from this distance," Jax muttered back, his face tight with stress. "The EMP drained some of its power. I have to get closer."

Marcus

I looked past the barrel of the gun at Sarah and Jax. They were bleeding, covered in soot, and completely exhausted. They had followed me into this living hell because they trusted me. They wanted revenge for what the system did to them, too. I couldn't let them die here just because I was caught.

If I’m going to die, I’m taking his prize with me, I thought.

I didn't try to pull away from the gun. Instead, I leaned backward, throwing all my body weight straight into Mason’s chest. The sudden movement caught him off guard. His boot slipped slightly on the dusty wood, and the gun barrel slid away from my neck, firing a loud shot directly into the ceiling dome.

Glass rained down around us like frozen tears.

"Jax! Now!" I roared, grabbing Mason’s gun arm with both of my hands.

The blue data lines on my skin didn't flare up with bright light, they were totally spent. But I used every ounce of human muscle I had left, twisting his wrist away from my friends. Mason growled, his elbow smashing hard into my jaw, sending a blinding wave of pain through my skull. I didn't let go.

Jax

The second Marcus moved, I lunged forward. I didn't care about the glass falling from the roof. I sprinted up the wooden stage steps, holding Julian’s black cylinder out like a grenade.

"Get off him!" I screamed.

I slammed the violet button on the cylinder just as I reached them, thrusting the device straight against Mason’s armored thigh.

A high-pitched, electric whistle erupted from the device. A small, concentrated ring of purple sparks shot outward, wrapping around Mason’s legs. The high-tech armor plates on his chest and arms began to pop and smoke, their internal batteries exploding from the inside out.

Mason let out a loud roar of agony as the electrical feedback fried his suits systems, forcing him to drop his rifle. He stumbled backward, his grip on Marcus breaking completely.

Marcus collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air, but Mason was already recovering. Even with his armor smoking and ruined, his eyes were full of a murderous, cold fury. He reached into his vest, pulling a long, wicked steel blade from a hidden pocket.

"You little street rats," Mason snarled, his voice dropping all of its corporate politeness. He lunged straight at me with the knife.

Before the blade could reach my chest, a heavy, mechanical shadow dropped straight through the broken glass dome above.

A massive, scorched chrome arm slammed down onto the stage between us, shattering the old wood into splinters. The metal was covered in fresh dents and black grease, but the single violet eye in the center of the skull snapped open, locking directly onto Mason.

It wasn't Julian. The face plates were completely different, older, and stamped with a golden serial number I had never seen before.

The massive machine didn't hesitate. It grabbed Mason by his throat and hurled him bodily through the heavy velvet curtains at the back of the stage, followed by the sound of breaking wood and a sudden, terrible snap.

The mechanical beast turned its heavy head slowly, its violet eye staring right at Marcus.

"Core asset secured," the machine’s deep, synthesized voice boomed through the quiet hall. "Initiating extraction protocol for Project Thorne Phase Two."

A completely new machine has appeared, and it knows Marcus's name! Who sent this second robot, and what is Phase Two of the project?