Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

and awkward. Kit threw back the last of the straps, and David forced himself out of the chair and onto his feet. He felt like shit, but his head was clearing. He coughed again, and glared into the smoke.
    "Alice! Where's Alice, and Jenny?"
    "I'm sorry," said Kit. "David, I'm so sorry."
    David stared at him for a moment, and then pushed him aside and fought his way through the smoke and the rising flames to where Alice lay still next to a breach in the cabin wall. A disrupter blast had punched right through the metal hull, splaying the jagged steel edges inward. Blood dripped slowly from the sharp edges. Alice had been torn open all down her left side. Broken ribs showed clearly in the red meat, and half her guts were falling out her side. Her eyes were mercifully closed. David made himself look away to where Jenny lay trapped under the splayed-in metal, not far away. She was dazed, but still struggling feebly. David picked Alice up in his arms, and yelled back to Kit.
    "I'm taking Alice! You get Jenny out!"
    Kit loomed out of the smoke, and grabbed David's arm. "David, she's…"
    "I'm getting her out! You see to Jenny."
    Kit looked at Alice, and the red-and-purple guts hanging down from her side, and then nodded, and went over to kneel beside Jenny. David staggered over to the
    escape hatch, kicked open the door, and dropped down to the ground outside. Kit tugged at the jagged metal pinning Jenny to the floor. It was wide and heavy, and the sharp edges cut at his hands. He strained with all his strength, but couldn't budge the metal an inch. Jenny had shaken off her daze, and was looking up at him with desperate eyes. She couldn't help him. The metal had pinned her arms at her sides. Sweat was running down both their faces now, flushed from the raw heat of the approaching flames. Kit stopped pulling at the unresponsive metal and thought hard. The fire was getting closer, the flames leaping up as they consumed more and more of the cabin. If he didn't get Jenny out soon, the flames would cut him off from the only exit. Jenny saw his thoughts in his face.
    "Kit! Don't leave me! Please, don't leave me to the fire!"
    "No," said Kit. "That would be cruel."
    He drew his knife and stabbed her through the eye. He wanted it to be quick.
    Jenny jerked once and then lay still. Kit withdrew his knife, put it away, and headed for the exit. He'd done all he could. He dropped down from the escape hatch and hurried across the open ground to shelter in the trees. They wouldn't protect him from disrupter beams, but they should confuse long-distance sensor readings. He had to find David. He'd know what to do. He found David a short way inside the woods. He was crouching beside Alice. He'd propped her back up against a tree trunk, and tried to push her dangling guts back into the great wound in her side. His hands were red with blood, and his clothes were soaked with it, where he'd pressed her close against him. He looked up as Kit approached. He was crying, the tears making slow tracks through the blood that had trickled down his face from the wound in his forehead.
    "She's dead," he said, and in his voice was all the loss in the world. "She
    trusted me to look after her, and I failed her. Just like I failed everyone else."
    "I'm sorry," said Kit.
    "I killed her, you know. She died because she was with me."
    "You can't blame yourself," said Kit. David's tears disturbed him, but he didn't know what to do about them. "They're killing everyone here. You tried to save her. You did your best."
    David nodded slowly, unconvinced, and wiped tears and blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. He sniffed a few times, then looked up at Kit.
    "Where's Jenny?"
    "Dead. She died of her wounds while I was trying to free her." Kit wouldn't normally have bothered lying, but he didn't want to upset David further. He looked around him. "Any idea where we are?"
    "Yeah. I know this place. The Standing's not five minutes' walk from here, on the other side of the wood. We almost made it, Kit. We were so close. Just a few minutes more, and we'd have been safe. All of us."
    Kit knelt down beside David. "This is Lionstone's doing. Blame her. Now let's get moving. They'll be here looking for us soon."
    David nodded and got to his feet. Kit stood up with him. David looked down at Alice. "I hate to leave her."
    "She's already gone, David. She's beyond pain now. We'll take revenge for her later."
    "Yes. There will be revenge, later."
    David turned and walked off