Drifting Chapter Part 2 (Ch. 11)

I had one chance to make it out of this. They were off guard with me screaming and confused about my absent arm. Basically, they had no idea what was going on here.

One chance.

I threw myself forward, crashing into the legs of the man in front of me and firing my gun into the group. Two collapsed to the ground as I killed the surprised soldier I had taken down. The others were attacking now. Two bullets uselessly buried themselves into my leg. Quickly I got to my feet, kicking out at the closest attacker. I cringed at the sound of his bones breaking. Suddenly I tumbled forward, unbalanced from the kick and the missing weight of my right arm. One of the soldiers remaining grabbed me around the middle, pulling us both down. My head bounced forcefully off the ground as my back hit the ground. I tried to shoot the soldier on top of me, but I missed.

"Keep her down!" yelled one of the soldiers to the man on top of me. I started struggling before I saw the gun trained to my forehead.

"What the hell is she?" that one was a woman, off to my left. There was four still alive. Three lay dead on the ground.

[I wonder if I'll go back to my body once they kill you! Or maybe then, once your "heart" is gone, I'll be able to take over...] Piko mused, trying to frighten me further. He was succeeding. The image of me rampaging back to the lab, killing everything in my wake, was too real.

"It must be a robot..." said the man who had been checking to see if the others were really dead.

"That doesn't make any sense! It's too human-like!" the woman said again. They stood uncertainly around me. I must've killed the one in charge.

"It doesn't make any difference what she is. She killed our men and we have orders to kill anyone we find no matter how... unusual they seem," said the man with the gun pointed at my head. I looked away into the face of the man on top of me, except he was still a boy. Brown hair matted to his head and deeper brown eyes looking at mine. His terrified eyes couldn't look away from my face. Maybe he was wondering what kind of monster had just killed his comrades.

"I'll find out what she is after you kill her, then," said the woman as she drifted forward.

[I guess you're gonna die now] Piko whispered in the back of my mind, a confusing thread of emotions behind it. I didn't have time to understand it.

Instead I looked at the brown haired boy and pretended he wasn't going to have nightmares about me.

BANG.

I flinched, fully expecting the bullet to come ripping through my skull, but I was still alive. I heard a grunt as I quickly looked for the man who was going to shoot me. He was falling to the ground, dead. The others stared in shock with me. What had just happened?

"There's someone else!" yelled the other man as another shot rang out from the darkness, killing him as well. The woman quickly started shooting into the darkness as the boy looked between the two of us, trying to decide which was more important. His hold loosened on me. Almost without thinking, I knocked his arm away. His eyes widened in fear as I grabbed my gun and pulled the trigger. I watched the life leave his eyes as his body collapsed on me. I lay there for a moment, feeling as if I had killed Len all over again. No, I couldn't start thinking like this. He was going to kill me so I killed him. End of story.

I pushed him off, making a noise that almost sounded like a sob, when I saw them.

There were two of them. The tallest was a boy with shocking pink hair. His eyes stared down at me, calculating. He had a rifle slung across his back, as well as the one he held in his arms. The other, only a head shorter, was a girl with long light brown hair which almost looked tan. She also had several guns. Both of them had travel-worn clothing, and I wondered if they had been traveling since Exeria was attacked.

I nervously waited for them to say something and tried not to think about my appearance. From the jagged metal where my arm used to be and the fresh blood stains mingling with the dried ones, I had no idea what they must be thinking about me.

"Well, that sure was a close one," said the boy. He looked a couple years older than me.

"Good thing we showed up when we did," replied the girl. She sounded as if it was some kind of joke.

[Too bad...] Piko muttered. I mentally shushed him.

"Thank y-ou for saving me," I said as I slowly stood up.

"Are you a robot?" questioned the girl, her eyes flicking back and forth between my face and my missing arm.

"Yes, but I-I used to be a human," I replied. That bit of information didn't go over so well. They looked at each other then back at me, probably trying to assess whether I was lying or not.

"That's hard to believe..." the boy trailed off.

"It's true," I said, feeling exhausted for some reason, "I've go-t nothing to hi-hide anymore."

The girl smiled as if coming up with an idea.

"Do you have a place to go?" she asked.

I cringed at that question and quickly shook my head "no." The boy looked over at her, a bit confused.

"Perfect! You should come with us then!"

The boy and I both looked at her in shock, but he recovered first.

"You have a feeling about her, don't you?" said the boy. He seemed to be trying to decide whether he wanted to be annoyed with her or not, "We can't just take in every person we help."

"But she needs us! The others didn't!" the girl tried to persuade him.

"I can t-ake care of myself," I added lamely.

"Now don't start lying to us now," admonished the girl. Her emotions changed so quickly. She reminded me of Gumi in a lot of ways. I looked questioningly at the boy and he just shrugged.

"She's one of those weirdos that can tell if someone is lying," he explained quickly as the girl kicked him in the leg.

"Don't call me a weirdo!" she yelled at him. I laughed at the glares they were giving each other. They both turned quickly when they heard me laughing.

"Wow, I didn't know you could smile, let alone laugh," the boy said in fake astonishment, which got all three of us laughing. It felt good to laugh, if not a bit strange.

[Ugh, this can't be happening...] groaned Piko, reminding me of all the deaths and the virus.

"See? You do need us!" exclaimed the girl as she walked over and took my hand. Almost as if crossing an invisible line.

"You're right," I selfishly agreed. I didn't want to spend the rest of my days with just Piko to remind me of all the terrible things I've done. It would be better to be with these two, then at least I wouldn't break my promise to Len, but... I felt split in two. One part of me still screaming, the other part... I could only describe as desperate. Desperate not to be left alone, desperate for something to keep me sane. I couldn't turn these two down.

"Then it's decided!" the girl said. The boy seemed to want to oppose that but he gave up and just shrugged. "What's your name?"

"It's Rin."

"Mine is IA and this is VY2," said the girl named IA. This time I looked at them strangely.

"Those aren't your real names..." I started.

"Nope! They're codenames. Cool, huh?" VY2 said. I decided to just accept that and move on.

"We've stayed here too long," IA said suddenly and VY2 nodded his argument.

"Yeah, other soldiers will come along soon," he added as he turned and started walking. I hesitated, but IA quickly grabbed my hand.

"Don't worry, we've got a car! We'll just drive for a while and then we can sleep," she said reassuringly, though that's not what I needed to be reassured about.

I just nodded and followed them, as I tried not to look back at the bodies we left behind us.