As we cross the factory, I reach for the arm of the person beside me, but come up empty. The other three are ahead of me and yet I would have sworn I felt Jost right beside me a moment ago.
“The Guild leaves these here?” Jost asks as we come up on a row of motocycles.
“It’s where the Remnants are outfitted when new batches are brought in. They wake up here and are herded out into the Icebox with transport and weapons,” Dante explains. He gestures to a stockpile of firearms along the wall, tossing a rifle each to Erik and Jost in turn.
“How did you know it would be empty?” I ask, refusing a weapon of my own.
“I didn’t.”
Something dashes along the periphery of my vision. It’s probably a wild animal, but it’s enough to raise goose bumps along my arms. There’s no reason to discuss the Guild’s methods since we’ve found what we came for, so I grab the handles of a motocycle. “Let’s get these out of here.”
As we wheel the cycles out of the building, my dread dissipates a little until Jost asks, “Where’s Dante?”
He isn’t with us. We wait by the door, but he doesn’t come, and then an acrid odor drifts out to where we’re standing. I don’t waste any more time. The air stings my eyes when I reenter the factory. Sulfur prickles along my nostrils. It smells like a fire, but who would be stupid enough to light one here? A body materializes, fading in from a shaded corner, but it’s not Dante.
Question answered.
The factory isn’t empty. The shadows weren’t tricks of my imagination. I spot Dante as he sends an old stool cracking across the head of a Remnant. He yells something that I can’t make out, but I think it’s a warning.
A Remnant leaps in front of us and Erik doesn’t lose a moment—he knocks off a shot. He doesn’t hit our would-be attacker, but the Remnant skitters away from us, disappearing back into the dark recesses of the factory.
“Should we be shooting in here?” I scream, but no one answers me. The acrid odor is replaced by smoke, and I see the beginning licks of a fire. It grows larger, consuming the machines, which pop and crack in the heat. We need to get out of here fast.
The inferno is building inside the ammunition factory and I can’t think of a worse place to be trapped. We’re only steps from the exit, but I whip around, grabbing for strands, and move and tuck and weave to build a trail of protection behind us. The rush of fear makes it easier to see the wild strands, but their unruliness slows me down. I have to look closely to differentiate the time strands from the matter. As we reach open air, the Remnant that Dante hit over the head jumps toward me, landing so close that I panic and miscalculate my work, yanking the wrong strand. It wrenches out from the strands surrounding it, brushing against the flames. It slides across the plant, shooting sparks that amplify the raging fire and then the factory shatters into smoke and debris.
Black plumes billow up from the burning plant, and as soon as we’re a safe distance away, I drop to my knees, hacking against the fumes I’ve inhaled. It could have been worse. No one seems to be hurt and we have what we came for.
I’m stumbling back to my feet when Dante grabs hold of my shirt and pushes me back down. “Want to leave any more proof that you’re here?”
“It was an accident,” I mumble, but it sounds weak even to my ears.
“Like that ship you unwound from the sky? You claim to want answers, to want to help us fight the Guild, but what I see is a stupid girl bent on blowing things up.” His words sting.
“Maybe next time I’ll let them kill you,” I scream. He’s hit his target though; I’m wounded by his accusation.
“Get control of it or don’t use it,” he seethes, towering over me. “You jeopardize everything because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
A hundred jibes tumble into my brain, but before I can settle on the one that will be the most hurtful, a Remnant limps from the plant’s remains. Erik’s on his feet, heading toward him, when Jost jumps in front of him.
“Let him go,” he commands.
“He’s going to run back and tell the others where we are,” Erik says.
“And by then we’ll be long gone,” Jost says. “We aren’t ready to take on another pack and these cycles will get us back to the crawler. The Guild will come to investigate what’s happened, so we need to get out of here.”
“So you’re going to let him go rat us out? These cycles better have lots of gas, because the second we stop they’ll catch up,” Erik scoffs.
“Cormac already knows we’re on Earth,” I say, trying to defuse the situation.
“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Erik reminds me.
“Let’s go,” Dante says. His anger at me still flames in his words, but he sounds distant now. Determined.
I’d lost track of how far we’d traveled to find the mines, but I know the crawler is hours away. With the motocycles we can get back to it fast, but I know it might already be too late. It won’t take the Guild long to realize something has happened. I can only hope they assume the explosion was caused by the Remnants. I can’t imagine that they haven’t had problems controlling them before, especially if the Guild keeps them locked in a factory.
The only roads between here and where we left the equipment are cracked with age. It’s probably not a top priority to maintain roads out here, but it makes riding the cycle trickier. I’ve nearly skidded off course twice but manage to keep my motocycle upright. It’s a good thing too, because we’ve lost Dante and Erik, who are now so far ahead of us they would never hear a crash. It’s cold out here as night really settles in, and save for dark piles of bones that I hope are those of animals, there’s not much to see.