Chapter 7
595 Words
Chapter Seven
The Old Royal Palace, Purity Headquarters, Praha 1
Sophia was caught.
One of the Purity soldiers advanced to push her down, but she saved him the trouble by collapsing onto her back. She couldn’t stand anymore, and darkness was creeping into the corners of her vision.
Her body was shutting down.
The soldier spoke in Czech, but without her gear to translate, his words remained foreign. She guessed it was something along the lines of, ‘Stay down or I shoot’.
Behind her, Jay had also slumped to the ground. Nasira crouched over him, her pupils wide; too wide. Another soldier circled around and struck her in the back with his carbine, knocking her to the floorboards.
With so many weapons trained on them, Sophia needed a plan to get out of this. But she had none, not even with one of the soldiers standing right over her. Under any other circumstance, that would be a costly mistake. A vulnerability. She would be able to disarm him, use him as a temporary shield…
She willed herself to grab his weapon…
…but her hand never moved. Her body ignored her wishes.
Instead, the soldier struck her with his boot, the blow catching her in the side, above her hips.
She couldn’t absorb the impact properly and took the full power of his strike. Pain exploded through her, sharper than usual. She tried to resist curling up, but her body had other plans.
Hard plastic connected with bone, and Nasira roared in pain. Sophia heard her roll past, then Jay was grunting as he received a boot, too.
She felt burning anger, like a raging furnace.
The soldier lifted his visor and looked down on her with disgust.
It’s not my anger, it’s his...
I can feel his emotions.
‘Do prdele!’ the soldier said.
Splitting her legs, Sophia knocked him off balance. He stumbled, making another soldier laugh at his carelessness; they weren’t expecting resistance.
Turning onto her back, she kicked the soldier’s leg out. This time he fell.
Sophia got to her feet as quickly as she could, but she was still painfully slow. Two soldiers had time to rush her, while another pair aimed their carbines. She stepped between them, ruining their aim, and instead they reached for her arms; she relaxed and dropped to her knees. With one elbow behind a soldier’s knee, she pulled the other closer and they collided, shoving each other off as they tried to get to her.
She threw herself clear, her fingers grazing a weapon but failing to grip it. She landed on her back, keeping her chin to her chest, watching as the soldiers recovered. She’d made a mistake, putting distance between them and her in open ground. The other soldiers aimed their weapons.
Somehow Jay was standing, charging at a soldier. The soldier reacted quickly, firing into Jay’s chest before they collided and hit the floor. The soldier pushed Jay off her and got to her feet. Jay didn’t move.
Sophia wriggled back across the floor as two Purity soldiers ran toward her, their weapons steady. The soldier on her left slammed his carbine stock at her; she saw it coming and rolled to one side, wrapping her arms around the other soldier’s leg before kicking his other leg out. He struck with his elbow, but she deflected it with her own and pulled his head back. He lost his balance and stumbled onto the floorboards.
Darkness crept into her vision again. The last of her energy was trickling away. The left-hand soldier came in behind her—she kicked, but he sidestepped, moving out of range and taking aim.
Sophia stared down his barrel again.
This time, it would end quickly.
- Writer
