Hiraki-ashi: pivot.

I take out two Drau that come at me from the side.

My skin burns where their weapons hit me, droplets of pain that sink into every part of me.

I fire. Fire again. My weapon cylinder is like a living thing, like a part of my arm. I realize that instinctively Luka, Jackson, and I have arranged ourselves in a tight group with the wall at our backs.

We’re surrounded.

There are so many of them.

And it isn’t just our lives at risk. Everyone who hasn’t yet evacuated the dance is only a floor away.

They have no clue what we’re up against.

I don’t want them to have a clue.

I’m just praying Carly and Kelley and Dee made it out. Maylene. Aaron. Shareese. So many kids I’ve known almost my whole life.

I have to win. Have to take out the enemy.

Lives depend on me.

I surge forward, my blade sweeping across my attackers. Shards of light fall on me, penetrating skin and muscle, pain bright and sharp clear through to bone.

Black ooze pulses from my weapon in a powerful stream, eating a Drau, pulling it in headfirst. The way it screams is familiar now. I cringe, then lock those feelings away.

Them or me.

There’s a commotion to my left. I can’t see what it is.

“Reinforcements!” Luka yells, but I’m shorter than him and I can’t see what he sees.

Jackson leaps forward and cuts a Drau in this freaky underhand sideways maneuver that leaves the Drau’s throat slit open, head lolling back. I catch a glimpse of white bone and very dark blood, and then the Drau’s gone, digested by the surge from Jackson’s weapon cylinder.

That Drau was inches from me.

“Focus,” Jackson snarls.

I yank my cylinder up and fire over his shoulder, taking out the Drau that was coming at his back.

“Focus,” I snarl back.

I lunge, thrust, making up moves as I go because this sure as hell isn’t anything I ever learned in kendo. This is a miserable, wretched slaughterhouse where I hack at limbs and chests and heads, stab at torsos—anything to hold them off.

Sweat trickles along my spine. My arm feels like a thousand-pound weight is dragging it down. I can’t stop. I can’t rest. I lift my sword. I pull everything I’ve ever learned and funnel it into each move. I time my strikes, taking advantage of the Drau’s forward movement, using its momentary focus on its own attack against it.

But I’m tiring. Fading. We all are.

How long have we been down here? How long can we go on?

“Now would be a great time for a plan,” Luka yells.

A plan. We can’t go in either direction along the hall. The Drau are coming at us from both sides like converging swarms of locusts. The only place we can go is back into the room with the boilers.

I shoot a split-second glance in that direction. No chance. They’ve herded us away from the door and we’re stuck here against the wall, a tiny island of three in a churning sea of Drau.

“The reinforcements . . . is it Tyrone?”

Luka shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Can’t be sure. I caught sight of a human head, but I can’t say whose.”

So another team’s here. Maybe we can coordinate somehow, strengthen our position.

“Can you still see them?” Jackson asks, which means that even though he has height advantage, he hasn’t caught sight of them, either.

Luka shakes his head again, dashing my hope for a coordinated team effort.

Jackson steps and turns so he’s at ninety degrees to the wall as he shoots a Drau dead ahead, while at the same time flipping his knife blade up and jacking his fist back over his shoulder like he’s throwing salt, slamming a Drau right between the eyes.

His expression is set in grim lines. He seems leaner and harder than I’ve ever seen him, his cheeks hollowed, his jaw taut. His lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl as he turns his body and takes a spray of Drau fire across his back, sheltering me from the worst of it.

“Every man for himself,” I remind him as I lunge and hack at his attacker.

Jackson doesn’t say anything back. I don’t really expect him to.

We fight until my brain is numb. My entire being is comprised of my hands, my sword, my weapon cylinder.

The Drau keep coming, wedging us apart. Every move we make to try to stay together, they counter. Exposed, outnumbered, we don’t stand much chance. Then I think of my friends, my teachers . . . and not just them. The whole community’s at risk if we don’t stop the Drau here. The whole damn world.

It seems ridiculous, a handful of teens against a monster invasion.

And thinking like that might get me killed.

So I don’t think. I just lean against the wall, not bothering with footwork anymore; my rubbery legs aren’t up to the challenge. My whole body feels like it’s on fire, pinpricks of pain bursting bright as the Drau shower droplets of light—droplets of agony—on us. I’m breathing too fast, too hard, and I can’t slow it down. My movements are growing sluggish, sweat dripping in my eyes, blurring my vision. I don’t dare look at my con.

I don’t know where Jackson is. He was separated from us. I can’t see him. But I know he’s alive. He has to be alive.

Luka grunts and jerks. He presses right up against me. At first, I think it’s because he’s trying to protect me. Then I realize it’s because I’m helping to hold up his weight.

He’s in bad shape.

We’re in trouble.

I hack at bodies.