James Axler – The Mars Arena

“I’m confusing?” she repeated, irritation weaving through her voice as sure as a stickie had suckers on his butt.

Dean let his own irritation show. “Yes. First you’re yelling at me for being here. Now you’re threatening to yell at me if I leave. That’s confusing.”

“I’ll let you go,” she said, “if you’ll tell me why you were here.”

Dean took a deep breath, decided that he was doomed for sure, surer even than a triple-stupe mutie who’d wandered one time too many into a rad-blasted area following a vision. “I came to find out something.”

“What?”

“Something about you.” He couldn’t just blurt it out. His face felt hot again, and the electricity was back squirming in his groin as he looked at that little nubbin of flesh poking at the lavender blanket. Glancing over Phaedra’s shoulder, he looked at Calgary hanging there like some kind of stupe bat. Silently he wished the boy’s head would explode. During the confusion of all the flying bloody matter and what little brains Calgary actually had, judging from tonight’s little adventure, Dean was certain he could make an escape.

“What about me?”

“I heard that you slept naked.” Dean watched her. There, he’d said it.

She looked at him, her mouth going open but no sounds coming out, as if she were a fish drowning in the air. She worked her jaw a few times.

Dean wondered if he had time to make a dash for the window before she started yelling. Or hitting.

Before he could move, she found her voice. “You came up here to look at me naked?”

That one he could dodge. “Actually just to find out if you were.”

Her face went crimson, blushing dark in the shadows gathered in the room. Without her body moving enough to give a hint of what she was about to do, she punched at Dean again.

Before he could get away, the blow landed against his nose hard enough to start stars flashing behind his eyeballs.

RYAN FELL. Illuminated from above and behind by the flashlight Jak held, he skimmed across the hard rock leading down to Krysty.

Her face was turned from him, focusing on the approaching bulk of the wrecked helicopter.

The skeleton dressed in rags sitting in the cockpit jumped and jerked behind the controls, looking as though it had come to life and was piloting the wreckage of his craft with insane glee. The Plexiglas nose slid straight at Krysty.

Ryan hit the steep incline more than eight feet from her. His stomach lurched inside him when he knew he was going to reach her too late. Forgetting the rope around his ankles, he tried to push himself up and run. Unable to, he dug his boots in and leaped forward, skidding down the tilted rock, trying to navigate an interception path using his hands, ignoring the pain that was inflicted.

Rock and dirt came shooting after him, overtaking him, swirling up inside his mouth, nose and eye. He blinked, closing on Krysty.

But the helicopter was nearer. She put her hands out as if to hold it back, took a final look at him and went over the side, bulldozed by the helicopter.

Chapter Eleven

“Krysty!” Mildred yelled from above.

Ryan watched as Krysty fell, captured in the beam of the flash Jak held. Heaving himself over the side, Ryan plunged into the abyss after her. Hot sulfuric fumes pressed into his face, burning his nose and eye. He spotted Krysty ahead of him, on the other side of the helicopter. Her eyes were still focused on him.

Ryan prayed the rope wouldn’t come up short.

In her desperation Krysty grabbed the helicopter as it tipped over the ledge. She got one hand around a helicopter skid. For a moment, despite the piles of rock and sand shoving up behind it, the aircraft teetered on the edge of the precipice.

Before it fell, Ryan was there. He wrapped his arms around Krysty, pulling her into him. The rope kept playing out, and they fell past the fissure’s edge.

“Ryan!” Krysty screamed, taking his face in her hands. Her sentient hair coiled protectively around her scalp.