All Light Will Fall (22 page)

I dropped the knife.

Raine’s fist cut quickly through the snow. I blocked the
strike and he swung again. I dodged right, blasting my fist against the edge of
his jaw. He flew back, sliding to a stop in the snow.

“You sure are one hell of a spitfire,” Raine huffed. He
rolled his shoulders then wiped the blood from his mouth. “Round two,” he
grumbled.

I altered my stance. And when he came again, he was
relentless. His strikes were fast and agile. They came one after the next,
controlled and full of power. He was calculating, analyzing the pattern of my
steps.

Our hands were a blur. Our fists clashing. Flesh ripping
flesh. Bone breaking bone. The snow whirled around our swift moving bodies.

A fist flew forward. I blocked the attack and spun with a
kick. Raine caught my ankle, holding tight with a bone-breaking grip of his
hand. He lowered his forearm and I jumped, twisting free of his grasp.

Then we collided, our arms pulling and twisting. I pressed a
hand to his face, ripping the flesh of his eye. He growled and gripped the bend
of my neck. I drew my nails from his eye and across his face.

He released me suddenly, and with a free hand, yanked me
flush against his lips. I screamed as he bit deep into the bone of my collar.

I threw him off of me. He rolled to the side then rose up
from the snow. Blood seeped from his wounded eye, dripping slow from the
scratches on his face. Raine smirked then spat my blood into the snow. I
grimaced, rising to my feet.

My hands burned in the cold. The skin of my knuckles were
battered and raw. There was an unbearable ache in my chest from a blow I had
suffered. I found it painful to breathe.

“I could do this all day, 2102. Unfortunately I don’t have
the time,” Raine chuckled. I noticed it then, after he had spoken. There was
something amiss. The land was strangely quiet and that howling soundlessness
terrified me.

They had surrounded me, no one moving as they aimed their
weapons. In my pursuit of them, I had the intent to survive this battle, but
with Ellis here, I wasn’t so sure. With him as my enemy I wasn’t sure if it would
be his life, or mine.

“I really must understand,” Raine said. “You flee from your
duties as a solider. You attack and murder your own kind. You commit treason,
suicide even. All for what?” Raine demanded.

“You know nothing,” I growled. I made a move suddenly, and
West fired at my feet, keeping me still. I looked up at him, and I was sure
there was fear in the look of my face, because Raine’s eyes narrowed, deep in
question, staring at me, wondering just who I had become.

“You know something, 2102,” Raine scoffed. He looked at me
with his head cocked to the side and a proud smirk on his lips. “You aren’t as
smart as I thought you were,” he said. And by the calm in his voice, I could
tell he knew that he had me. I was at his mercy. Because I had lost my reason.
I had stripped myself naked in the heart and mind. All in my desperate return
to the grave. I was searching for myself, wandering without consciousness,
blind and dumb in the deep. And I had found something there, buried in the
bones of my body and in the flesh of my guilt. And I couldn’t let it go. It was
mine to cherish and mine to suffer.

“We’ll make this simple, 2102,” Raine said. “If you beg
mercy. I want to hear it, on your knees,” he ordered.

My body tensed. Get down on my knees? “You’ve lost your
mind,” I hissed.

“Perhaps I misjudged the situation, 2102. I should have
known. After all, that pride of yours was always far too dangerous.” He nodded
to his left and West broke into a stride.

His hand ripped at my shoulder. “On your knees!” He pressed
his gun to my temple.

I snagged his forearm. His weapon fired and missed. He spun
free from my grasp and I grabbed him again, dodging the second shot. Then his
arm was around me, crushing my ribs as we crashed in the snow.

I wrangled from his grasp with a powerful knee to the chest.
I was on my feet again and spotted my knife in the snow. Shots fired and I slid
into the ice, catching the knife in my hand.

When I looked up, West was there, his lpc staring me in the
face. I slashed the blade up through the snow. The ice hit his face and the lpc
altered slightly. A shot of fire snipped my shoulder.

The other arsenal moved in, firing recklessly. I pushed
through the pain, slowing the attack in my mind. West was turning, his eyes
wide and wild as he fired. The bullets curved, and before they could come full
circle, I stuck him three times in the chest.

He stumbled back. I swung again, lashing the blade across
his throat. The splatter hit my face and as he staggered to the side, I stole
the lpc and fired twice at the third arsenal. He dogged the first shot, the
last bullet snipping him in the chest.

I fixed my aim on Raine. There was a sound, the crack of
thunder and the hiss of steel.

A throbbing and vicious pain broke through my ribs.

The chain rattled as it zigzagged through my side. Fire rose
in my lungs. I swayed on my feet. The heat was dizzying. My throat clenched.
And I could feel my stomach winding in and out of itself.

The sling jerked backwards, the spearhead breaking open. I
gripped the bloody chain, keeping the iron blades from ripping through my
waist. I looked up at Ellis. He held tight to the Iron Sling. I felt his name
on my lips, sour as the blood in my mouth. I wanted to scream. To cry out to
him. Anything for him to stop. Anything for him to remember.

“It wasn’t necessary, 2102. All of this bloodshed,” Raine
called. I held still, trying to ease my breathing. I could hardly stand.

“It’s a shame isn’t it, people killing people?” His tone was
teasing. “But we just can’t seem to stop, can we?”

My breaths were shallow. Blood trickled from the chain into
the snow. “Y-you,” I panted. My lips were dry. I could barely speak. “This
isn’t you, Elric... you’re everything but this,” I uttered.

“I know who I am,” he pronounced proudly. “And I keep my
word. You gave your word. Then you betrayed us. Everything we stood for. The
promise we made. Because that’s who
you
are.”

“No Elric... I do know who you are. You hunger for the
light... you seek the truth... you have no fear of danger... no fear of fate. I
haven’t betrayed you. I followed your will... for freedom... for compassion...
for truth.”

“What the hell are you saying?” he snapped.

“I am not the lie. ARTIKA is the lie,” I said. “And I would
die before I let them keep what they have stolen. So I’m telling you... wake
the hell up damn it... or I’ll do it for you. You coward.”

Ellis blinked, staring at me as if I had lost all of my
sense. Raine only smirked. The other arsenal simply stood there, fascinated
that I was still standing.

“Look at you,” Raine said. “You can hardly stand. And by the
looks of it, you’re all out of juice.” He glanced at my blood in the snow.
“Literally,” he smirked. “You can talk all the treason you want. But we’re
taking you back to New Eden. Give it up, 2102. You’ve lost.”

I tugged on the chain. Ellis skidded forward. I felt Raine
move behind me. The other arsenal advanced from the left. I yanked the chain
through my back, dodging their line of fire.

I crashed into Raine. He raised his firearm and I gripped
the weapon. The gun jerked right, firing at the third arsenal. He staggered to
the left. Ellis pulled again and I wound the chain around my arm, pulling
against him.

The third arsenal closed in, firing three shots above the
wound in my side. I yanked his arm, twisting the gun out of his grasp. I turned
again and blasted my elbow into Rain’s chest. He doubled over. And as he bucked
forward I used him as leverage to lift myself into the air.

I loosened the chain and thrust the sling through my side.
As I turned, the chain looped around the other arsenal’s neck, jerking tight
around his throat.

A cry exploded from my lungs as I pulled, and wrenched, and
bled. The arsenal lurched forward. The chain vibrated with the pull. A gurgle
of blood bubbled from his mouth. I yanked again and felt his neck break with a
snap. The chain went slack.

“You really are remarkable,” ,” Rain growled. He held me at
gunpoint. I held my breath, not even daring to move.

“Since the day you entered Pilot with that haughty strut and
your hair ablaze like a flame, I’ve wanted to test your strength. I wanted to
see the rage, the bloodlust. How deep it ran.”

“You have no idea!” I spat.

“But more than anything. I wanted to see you just as you are
now. Didn’t I say it, 2102? That we had a score to settle. I believe I did. And
we’re about to settle it . . . right now.”

“That’s enough, Raine!” Ellis uttered. “We have her. Let’s
take her and be done.”

Raine glanced back at him. His lips curled back in a smile,
his eyes wide with madness. “If it puts you at ease Elric, I’m feeling merciful
today.” Raine licked his lips.

“Raine!” Ellis snapped.

The spearhead snapped closed. I released the chain and the
sling jerked back. A scream caught in my lungs as it ripped from my side. I
fell to my knees. The bridge was there in front of me, and I stared, through
the blur in my eyes, at that bottomless scar in the earth.

A shadow hovered behind me. Raine gripped the back of my
neck, pushing me up and forward. He dragged me to the edge and gripped me by
the face, forcing me to stare into the deep. There was nothing there except the
rush of snow and the white twinkle of stars against the black.

He wrapped an arm around me, rocking my body softly as if he
were comforting me in those wicked arms of his. “I guess it’s true what they
say. Pride can kill,” he said. “I could make this your grave, you know. This
beautiful dark abyss. Your life belongs to me, right now, in this moment. Isn’t
it amazing?”

He threw me down into the snow. Blood rose from my lungs. I
gasped, chocking as it rushed into my throat. Raine climbed on top of me. I
wrangled against him, fighting the pain, fighting the cold. Then he lowered
himself, so close that my reflection caught in the copper of his eyes.

“You know something, Celeste?” I grimaced, my arms
thrashing. He pressed harder, holding tight to my wrists. “You and I could have
been something else.” He raised his hand and I flinched. But he brought his
fingers down gently and stroked the soft of my eyelids, then my cheek, slowly
caressing the underside of my face. “Our rivalry was fierce, exhilarating. But
I must admit, beauty and strength like yours, it’s too rare to ignore. Only a
fool would.”

I struggled against him, but he held me still. I couldn’t
move. The light was slipping.

“I vowed to tame you. And I have, yet still you reject me. I
had hoped not. But either way,” he gripped me by the hair, “you will submit to
me.” Our lips crashed. I jerked in his arms, twisting and scratching to break
free. His mouth was poison. And I could feel his heart throbbing hard against
my chest. There was a wicked sound to it. I hated every beat of that sick and
awful sound.

When his mouth retreated, it was as if the lips of death had
kissed me. “Bring the wire!” Raine called.

I lied still in the snow. I couldn’t move. I was ill from
the pain, ill from the bleeding, ill from the tangle with enemy lips. The world
was spinning and shaking all around me. There was nothing but the cold and the
silence. I saw the snow fall, flake by flake, as it vanished in the smoke of my
breath. I watched my spirit breathe. In and out. Out and In. Just like Fern’s
breathing from long ago.

Suddenly, my ankles were bound. I pitched forward through
the snow. I was being dragged like an animal for slaughter.

I saw the trees, white-iced and beautiful, the pink blossoms
folding out, blooming with a soft and gentle ease. I watched them spring to
life, again and again, until it was all a dream, a fantasy clinging between
consciousness and the dark.

“Stop!”

It was a voice. There was someone there.

“She’s... too much blood. She’ll... dead... we reach New
Eden.”

Darkness colored my eyes.

“Untie her. I’m sure her corpse... no use to them.” A flash
of light woke me.

“Are you sure... leave her?”

Shadows circled around me.

“What are you doing?” That voice, it sounded familiar. The
light was dimming. There was a beat in my head, a gentle tapping that was ever
so slow.

“Shouldn’t we at least...”

“No... I want her to suffer.”

The shadows faded, and once they had gone, that gentle
tapping ceased. Then there was nothing. Only death.

I awoke to the light. The world was quiet. I hardly remembered
where I was. I hardly remembered who I was. From where I lay, I watched the sun
rise to the east. It smiled over the forest.

I sat up and immediately felt a dull pain in my side. All
was quiet, and in the lonely stillness, I heard my name in the wind.

“Corrine.”

I looked up. “Ellis?” I called. My eyes searched the
underbrush, but I couldn’t find him.

“Corrine, we have to go,” he shouted.

He vanished into the woods and I stood to follow him. I
stumbled a bit, pushing a tangle of trees from my path. “Faster, Corrine.
We’re
so close,” he said.

His voice came from all around. I moved faster, dashing
through the trees. “Wait!” I called. “Ellis!”

“Hurry, Corrine,” he called. “We have to find the truth,
remember?”

I ran faster. Why couldn’t I reach him? He sounded so close.
“I’m hurrying!” I panted. I could see him through the trees. I saw him as the
Ellis I once knew, as the reckless spirit he was back on Earth.

I reached forward and almost touched him. “I’m hurrying,” I
said. “Just wait for me...”

Then he disappeared. He vanished right before me, his hearty
laughter dissolving in the wind.