Apex

Chapter 21

•Kriss•

I must have been sliding down a too quickly because by the time my feet hit the bottom the impact vibrated up my legs in an unsettlingly painful way. I fell on my butt. My breath stuttered out of me.

Hands pulled me away from the rope and a flashlight was shined on my face. I winced and cringed away.

"You good?" Mark said. He trailed the light down my body.

Was I good? I just helped a dismembered person into a collapsing deathtrap of a building to the soundtrack of gunfire and alien monsters while singing Pink Floyd, no I was not good.

"Yeah," I let out a rough breath. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Mark, help me out here," Pax said, kneeling next to a still unconscious Connor and digging through his pack.

"Shouldn't we wait for the others?" I looked up and realized I could hardly see the hole fell from.

"They'll find us," Mark pushed his flashlight into my hands. Sweat glistening on his freckled face. "Connor can't last long like this. He needs a doctor."

"And you know where to find a doctor?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, we do. And we won't find him waiting around down here," he said.

I kept the light shining on him while he tightened the makeshift tourniquet. It was holding up surprisingly well. Connor moaned in response, but his eyes remained closed. Pax grimaced.

"I'd loosen it to try and save the rest of the leg, but there's not much to save here," he mumbled regretfully. "Get his shoulders, Mark."

Mark immediately obliged and they held Connor between them, ready to move. Shaking my head helplessly, I kept my injured arm to close my body and swallowed hard.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" my voice came out quietly, eyes glued to the man barely clinging to life. Mark shook his head.

"He may not make it to where we're headed, we've got a little ways. But if he dies we can at least take the body back." He said, mouth set in a grim line. "Just hold the light steady and follow us."

With that, the headed into the darkness. I spared a glance up at where we'd descended, still unable to see anything other than a faint hole in the ceiling a few stories above. For a moment I was rooted in place waiting for someone, anyone, to come down to follow us.

"Kriss," Paxton ordered. I shook my head to dislodge the baseless hope trying to make a home there. Lighting the way, I followed Pax, Mark, and the half-dead man between them.

•Zoryne•

There were no windows, so I couldn't tell the time of day or if it was even day at all. What I did know was that Rem's cell was empty. He didn't greet me when I returned and didn't ask about what had happened when I was taken away. I didn't hear his obnoxious snores either, nor did he respond when called his name.

No, either they were interrogating him as well or they'd let him go since he was one of them, a defender of our empire, on the front lines to build new worlds for the rest of us. But me?

I was no one at all.

Just a cocky scientist who thought I was making a difference.

I sighed heavily. This could have been different. I'd been here for the past three years, cleaning up after the military's mess. The fact that there were still R3s running about was a miracle. I cringed inwardly at that thought.