Aberrant

Chapter 66

Pain ... everywhere. A high, aggravating whine.

Jinx groaned as consciousness returned. The throb in her skull all but killed her ability to think. The urge to throw up gripped her. She stifled it. Emptying her damn guts would hurt too much.

Prying open her eyes, she tried to focus. Everything blurred ... spun.

Shades of grey. Flashes of hot orange. Popping and hissing sounds all around her.

Fires. Electrical shorts.

She tried to move—sent metallic debris clattering. Pain lanced through her head and shoulder. Grinding teeth, she shoved herself half upright and fought to think past the bells singing in her ears.

For a moment, she couldn't process the scene around her.

A haze of smoke. Piles of broken tech. The huge, battered legs of a huntsman exskel a cage around her. Dying soldier exskels, their long, crumpled limbs twitching in the rubble. Organic matter oozed, hissing as it hit flames. Dozens of thin red ghosts pierced the gloom at odd angles, winking on and off: glitching Xykeree targeting lasers.

Overhead, caught in one of the huntsman's leg joints, a humanoid, mech hand swung, hanging by the exposed wires at its severed wrist. Below it, its mate lay motionless, still attached to a smoking, headless, metallic torso.

Something pale, like cooked mucus, steamed near the neck cavity.

The Qua-zi.

Jinx felt the world drop away, memory spinning back. The alien ... it'd taken her over. Her mind. Her body. It had forced her to—

Kaplan. God. She'd shot him. She'd—

No, no, no. She scrambled on all fours over broken exskels. Where was he? He'd been right beside her.

She clawed away smouldering debris, fighting to breathe. Skittering sounded around her, along with a rising hum on the edge of hearing. Live roaches stirring, recovering from whatever had hit them.

She didn't care if they heard her. If she'd killed Kaplan, she'd welcome a plaz bolt to the head.

A battle suit boot. Poking out from under the smoking, torn wreck of a soldier exskel.

Pulse roaring, she wrenched composite legs out of her way—uncovered a stretch of battered Zex armour. God—there was blood on her gloves. Kaplan's or hers? She needed to see his wrist com, check his vitals. She needed to see his face—see that she hadn't blown his goddamn head off.

Bracing herself against the huntsman they'd used for cover, she shoved the rest of the soldier exskel off him with both boots. Her shoulder shrieked. She didn't fucking care. It was less than she deserved. That thing had used her, taken her over. If Kaplan was—

A battle suit mask: black, scarred reinforced plaz. Still in night mode.

Still intact—and attached to the rest of Kaplan.

Relief choked her. She fell to her knees. She'd missed. She'd frigging missed. Had probably hit the roach attacking him. Or he'd reacted in time to save himself. He'd have known she'd been compromised—that weird link he had with her. But he'd gone down when—

Memory flooded back: fury and lightning. Not the nightmare Cal had shown her. Reality. Something she'd experienced.

Something she'd done.

The truth hit like a body blow. Oh ... God. She was his sister. An alterant.

An electrokinetic capable of baking dozens of roaches with her mind.