The week went by quickly.

  “Look, all I’m saying is if we had a stowaway in the district, don’t you think we would have noticed by now?” Lucas asked as they made their way out of the Mess Hall, blood bags in hand instead of plates of food, all four of them attempting to get away from the overpowering odor of cooked meat inside of the hall. “It’s been a week. I don’t think anyone could hide from us that long. And look, the world hasn’t ended yet, so what’s the big deal anyways?”

  “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but Lucas is right.” Spike sighed as the four of them found a table at the Grove, one of the outdoor sitting spaces, and sat around it. Illuminating the table and much of the Grove this late in the day were electric lights placed around, hanging from poles and casting a sufficient ambient glow on everything. “It’s been a week. Assuming there even was someone who snuck in here, despite how fucking impossible that is, I think it’s pretty clear by now that they must have also snuck right back out. And all of our systems are running as they should, so clearly, whoever she was and whatever she wanted, sabotage wasn’t on her list of priorities.”

  “There been any word from District 5 yet?” Chloe asked, looking at Jon. She was referring to Mason, who Hardy had, as they’d all expected, instructed Evan and Aiden to escort to 5, where he was supposed to undergo Pandora. A week was usually the right amount of time by which point they’d know whether or not Pandora had been successful.

  Jon shook his head in response, and Chloe simply sighed. No word back in a week only meant he mustn’t have survived it.

  “Pity.” Lucas slurped on his blood bag loudly, then burped. “I quite liked that guy. Had a certain…craze to him. Certainly takes a good amount of that to pull a gun on people like us multiple times.”

  “That what you were like before Pandora?” Jon asked. “Annoying?”

  “Please.” Lucas snorted. “I’m the same now as I was before. Charming and drop-dead gorgeous. The only thing that changed was my appetite. Did you always have a stick up your ass?”

  They all chuckled then, including Jon, whose eyes twinkled almost playfully—a rare sight, and a fleeting one since he very quickly turned serious again and cleared his throat, alerting the others to Hardy, who’d emerged from the Mess Hall and was now marching toward them.

  “Wonder what he’s grumpy about this time.” Lucas grumbled.

  Hardy came to a stop at their table. “Another missing ration,” he grunted, sounding most displeased with it.

  “Well, we didn’t take it,” Lucas replied, holding up his blood bag for the Chancellor to see. “Dietary restrictions, remember?”

  “That’s been multiple ration thefts over the course of the week now,” Hardy growled. “Need I remind you what your duties are?”

  “Uhm, to keep the crazies outside from getting in and slaughtering everyone in here or turning them into mindless fleshmongers?” Spike frowned. “Did I get it right?”

  “You’re also supposed to preserve order in here. You’re supposed to patrol and ensure that nothing’s out of place or done any differently than it should be. When things like vanishing rations become a frequent occurrence, that falls to you.”

  “Really?” Lucas frowned. “Us? Not the morons who man the kitchen or your hunky guards?”

  “There’s a thief in the district.” Hardy placed his hands on their table, bringing it down hard enough to rattle the entire table. “Find them.”

  “And this can’t wait till after dinner?” Lucas slurped on his blood bag again, grinning in a manner that made clear his intention was very obviously to aggravate the Chancellor further.

  Jon cleared his throat and kicked at Lucas beneath the table before rising to his feet and saying in his usual manner of seriousness: “Fine. We’ll go take a look at—,”

  He was cut off by the loud wailing of the district’s alarm systems, a wail that was accompanied almost immediately by the lights over them flickering. A number of the lights went out, the others dimmed.

  Hardy’s expression shifted from one of frustration and mild annoyance to one of grave concern. He looked upward, his eyes grim.

  Chloe picked up on an odd warbling sound, and just after that, she heard groaning and snarling. Screeching. She looked to Jon and the others and could tell from how their postures had stiffened, and faces had darkened that they’d heard it too.

  “They’re at the fence,” Chloe said, hurrying to her feet, as did Lucas and Spike. Lucas no longer had on his mischievous grin and looked now just as concerned as the rest of them were.

  “Keep everyone inside the Mess Hall,” Jon said to Hardy, and without saying anything more, he broke into a sprint. Chloe and the others required no instruction—they ran after him.

  They made quick stops at their respective tents, grabbing whatever weapons they might need. Chloe wasted no time, grabbing a rifle from her tent and continuing on her way, not even bothering to check whether or not it was loaded. She had little need for bullets anyway.

  Lucas ducked into his tent, saw Jin sat there, a plate of food in her hand, bits of it on her mouth.

  “Noise,” she said. “Why?”

  “Trouble,” Lucas answered, very quickly grabbing his weapons from the box he kept them in. “You need to find some way to sneak into the Mess Hall and stay with the others. Bloody Servants shouldn’t be able to get past the fences, but on the off chance that they somehow manage something, things might get rough in here.”

  He didn’t get a response from her or even wait for one before dashing right back out of the tent and sprinting in the direction his ears told him the trouble was coming from.

  As they went, there were others who emerged from buildings and tents, confused and frightened about the loud wailing and blaring of the alarms, and all of them had questions that all stemmed from a confusion about what was happening.

  “Get to the Mess Hall!” Jon roared, waving frantically in the direction of the hall. “Go! Now! Run!”

  They arrived at the source of the disturbance only a minute later, having sprinted the entire distance and they all came to abrupt halts as soon as they saw the Servants, swarms of them, all at the boundaries of the electromagnetic fences that kept the District safe.

  “What the fuck?” Lucas looked deeply concerned, and Chloe couldn’t blame him. It was most unusual for the Servants to ever get as far as the fences—they’d always seemed to sense the danger of the fence. Now, however, they were almost stampeding over one another and attempting to break through, even with dozens of them dropping dead or disintegrating upon coming into contact with the energy field. Each time there was some impact, the energy field would pulse, glowing brilliantly for a moment.

  “Can the fence take that?” Spike queried.

  “We stop them before we learn the answer to that.” Jon continued forward in the direction of the Servant swarms. The rest of them followed him.

  ***

  The Servants were much more frenzied and violent than usual.

  “Are they fighting back?” Lucas’s query came over the comms just as Chloe caught a Servant that had lunged her, wincing as the undead creature slashed at her ferociously with cracked, bloodied fingernails, snarling and drooling all over.

  She tore the Servant in half, but just as she’d done this, four more came at her, charging from separate directions. They were just as clumsy and stupid as usual, but there was something odd about their aggression, something much more animalistic and targeted about their bloodlust than usual.

  She was able to blur out of the way, avoiding the Servants that had come at her, before grabbing her rifle, flipping it like a baseball bat and taking it to the Servants, swinging at Servant after Servant, blood and bits exploding into the air and raining down after every hit. In the midst of all the chaos and the ridiculous number of Servants around, she’d lost sight of Jon and the others, but she could still hear their grunts over the comms as they took down Servant after Servant.

  Overhead, the night had turned even darker, and the air around had taken on a foreboding chill, even more chilling because of the odor of rot it carried.

  A sickening thump followed sickening thump as they tore through Servant after Servant, the fence behind them still holding up, under much less strain now that they’d drawn to themselves the aggression of the creatures. Still, there were dozens of Servants who got past them and threw themselves at the fences, snarling loudly and angrily like relentless predators in pursuit of prey that had long eluded them.

  Chloe tried hard not to distract herself with thoughts about the odd behavior of the creatures, but the more frenzied and motivated the Servants became, the harder it was to not think about it. The distraction proved costly when she felt a sudden piercing, burning sensation on her left ankle, and gazed downward to find a Servant at her feet, its teeth sunk into her ankle.

  Searing pain flashed through her, causing her eyes to water. Angrily, she kicked at the air and sent the Servant flying straight at the fence. The monster went limp the moment it hit the fence and hit the ground with a wet thud a moment later.

  More Servants came at Chloe. This time, she was the one who retreated, slinking back and past the district’s fence barrier where they wouldn’t be able to reach her. She crouched at once, pulling her pant leg up just enough to see where the thing had bitten her. The jagged teeth marks were there, blood slowly trickling out of the wound.

  She felt her heart sink a little, knew exactly what the bite meant, knew what poison was already in her bloodstream, and knew also that even if it didn’t kick as quickly as it would have for others, it would still take its toll eventually.

  Beyond the fence, the Servants continued to snarl, continued to throw themselves at it. The others were getting overwhelmed. She needed to get back out there.

  She pulled her pant leg back down and straightened to her feet prepared to head back into the fight, when suddenly, she felt rather unsettled, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, her skin crawling slightly. A dark frown creased her face, and she swirled around with her eyes wide in an attempt to find whichever eyes were currently watching her.

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  She saw no one in view and sensed no heat signatures nearby. But there was no mistaking what she’d felt. Someone had been watching her.

  Quick footsteps came from just behind, and she spun around, startled and ready to strike. But it was Jon, who was coming toward her with one hand clutching a bleeding arm, an expression of concern on his face. But the concern wasn’t for himself.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded before throwing a searching glance around. “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.” Chloe shook her head. “I…I just thought there was someone watching.” She moved toward him and pulled his hand away from the wounded arm. There was a deep gash on his arm. Something had sliced at him, but it wasn’t a bite. She breathed a sigh of relief, then patted him. “That’ll heal. Come on, let’s get back out there.”

  Jon nodded at her, and together, the two returned to the carnage. As soon as they emerged past the barrier, one of the Servants that had leaped at it, dropped onto Jon from above, sending him to the ground. This Servant wasn’t dead, and it immediately started to claw at Jon, snarling and snapping teeth at him hungrily.

  Chloe moved quickly, slamming a foot into the Servant’s head with enough force that the head got torn from the body, hurtling through the air like a football. Jon squeezed his eyes shut as the torsos’s headless stump gushed blood onto him, and a moment later, he rose to his feet, assisted by Chloe, sputtering as he did.

  He wiped the blood off his face, then spun to face a Servant that had been running at him. The Servant leaped at Jon. Jon caught the monster by its head and, with all of his strength, slammed the Servant’s head into the fence. The Servant’s head exploded at once, the rest of its body twitching for a moment before falling sideways to the ground.

  Jon spat angrily, kicked the Servant’s torso aside, then fixed his gaze upon the others. There were far too many of them left to do a headcount, but Chloe estimated there had to be about sixty left, give or take a dozen.

  “Fun’s over.” Jon addressed all of them over the comms. “This has gone on too long. End it now.”

  “Ugh,” Lucas groaned. “What a killjoy. Fine, have it your way then.”

  Jon turned to Chloe, reached behind himself, grabbed three grenades and tossed to her. She caught them perfectly. He gave her a nod, before turning and blurring off into action, trail of flying Servant heads immediately following him.

  Ignoring the uncomfortable burning in her ankle, Chloe went at the Servants too. She pulled the pin from one of the grenades she’d been handed, shoved it into a Servant’s mouth with enough force that there was no chance it could get out, then hurled the Servant at six more that’d been close to the fence.

  The monster crashed into them, and almost as soon as it had, it went up in a fiery explosion, taking the others out with it, Servant chunks flying through the air.

  She took out sixteen more Servants similarly, using the grenades, before going on a solo blitz where she took out six more, punching through them without care and with unbridled ferocity, eyes glinting as she moved.

  When at last she stopped, there were only a handful of them left, a handful fairly quickly dispatched by the others. The Servant swarms had been taken care of for the most part. There were a few on the ground, legs mangled or torn off but still alive, who still tried desperately to crawl toward the fence. Jon went around stomping on their heads, ensuring that not even a single one of them would be left.

  Then it was over.

  Chloe wiped the blood off her face and winced slightly at the burning in her ankle, which was accompanied now by a weird throbbing sensation, but did her best not to make her pain obvious to the others.

  Lucas and the others converged, staring at the mess around.

  “You guys think maybe there’s a chance Servants like to get wild and get all hopped up on drugs when they aren’t being all kinky and biting fellas?” Lucas asked. “Cocaine, a little weed, anything? Because I don’t know about you guys, but there’s no way these were sober swarms.”

  “There’s gotta be something making them act like that,” Chloe said. “What makes predators act crazy?”

  “Dunno.” Lucas shrugged. “An apex predator?”

  “Yeah, but the Servants are—,”

  Chloe didn’t get to finish because a dark, bounding shape sprang forth from the woods, then with eyes dark as night, and tore across the distance between them in a blur. The others hadn’t seen it coming and had all instinctively moved out of harm’s way when they sensed the thing’s presence. Chloe attempted the same, but the flash of pain in her ankle slowed her down, and she saw the glint of claws just before the tearing pain that followed as the claws sank into her chest, a great weight throwing her to the ground and pinning her there.

  There was a loud snarl from the creature above her, accompanied by a guttural-sounding bark, the creature’s mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth and a forked tongue that drooled onto her. The animal clicked its teeth at her, came dangerously close to biting at her face, and sank its claws even deeper into her.

  Chloe cried out in pain and shoved a fist into the animal’s stomach. It went rolling off of her with a canine-like yelp before hastily scrambling to its feet.

  Chloe, pushing past the pain now shooting through every inch of her, hurried to her feet and staggered in the direction of the others; Jon was quick to get to her, examining her newest wounds with great concern.

  The animal that had attacked her growled loudly and angrily, and moved back and forth, its soulless obsidian eyes locked onto them, as if measuring them, attempting to decide when to pounce and who to attack next. Its eyes seemed to constantly move toward Chloe, as though sensing she was the easiest prey at the moment.

  Chloe heard rustling sounds then, and echoed growls. Her eyes darted from left to right as more of the animals emerged from the woods, emerging slowly and with a frightening coordination, eyes locked menacingly onto the five of them.

  They started to circle.

  “Are those dogs?” Lucas sounded cautious.

  Jon extended one hand in front of Chloe, stepping forward just a little. The hounds snarled in response.

  Chloe thought they might have been dogs. They sounded like dogs and seemed intelligent. But she knew what dogs looked like, and she hadn’t ever come across dogs with such scaly skin, soulless eyes, forked tongues, or even teeth like that. And she knew for a fact that dogs couldn’t move nearly as quickly as the one that had attacked her, and they wouldn’t have been able to get up so quickly after taking a punch to the gut like that from someone like her.

  “Jon,” she said. “We need to fall back.”

  “Slowly,” Jon said, agreeing with her. He took a slow, subtle step backward. The others all did the same.

  The hounds snarled again and advanced on them. Chloe noticed the way their muscles rippled, the way the animals tensed, ready to pounce.

  “Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to let us retreat,” Spike said.

  “Do you still have any grenades?” Chloe asked.

  “No.” Jon shook his head.

  “Well, only one way out of this then.” Lucas sighed. He slipped his hands into his pockets and pulled out brass knuckles. He equipped them at once, the hounds snarling and advancing as soon as he did.

  “Lucas, I think you just annoyed them.” Aiden took a backward step.

  One of the hounds charged then, with blistering speed, going right for Aiden. The hound leaped for Aiden. Lucas twisted on his feet, spinning to the right and throwing a powerful fist out. His fist crashed into the hound’s head in midair, a loud crack filling the air as soon as he made an impact.

  Blood sprayed out of the side of the hound’s head as it dropped to the ground, blood that smelled just as putrid as what flowed through the Servants. The hound hit the ground with a whimper, twitched for a moment, and then rose to its feet again, retreating from Lucas in a limp.

  It’d been wounded, horribly, but it’d survived a blow that powerful. This gave all of them reason for pause, even Lucas, who looked a little astonished that the hound was still moving.

  The rest of the hounds pounced simultaneously, snarls and growls filling the air. Jon, holding Chloe, twisted out of the way as two hounds leaped in their direction, then pulled a pistol and fired at one of them. The hound blurred out of the way, and the bullet bounced off of the floor.

  Jon fired again, repeatedly, at both of the hounds that continued to advance on himself and Chloe. The hounds avoided every shut, and as soon as Jon’s pistol clicked uselessly, indicating it needed to be reloaded, the hounds charged again.

  This time, Chloe dashed forward, getting in front of Jon.

  “Chloe, no!”

  She punched at one of the hounds, sending it some distance away. The second pounced onto her back, sank teeth into her shoulder, and gnawed away more angrily than hungrily, its claws raking into her.

  She forced herself to move through the pain, spun to get the hound off her, and threw a fist as it charged again. Her fist went right into its mouth, and the hound snapped its mouth shut around it, teeth sinking into her hand.

  Her vision flashed in agony, but she continued going. She pulled the hound toward her and wrapped her free hand around its neck, content to let it gnaw away at the one in its mouth. She squeezed firmly, choking the hound. Its legs started to kick and thrash futilely, but she didn’t relent.

  Behind her, the second hound was preparing to attack again, but Jon was there, stepping forward then and standing back to back with her, focusing his attention on the other hound.

  The second hound charged, and so too did Jon. Chloe’s hound continued to twist and squirm in her grip, but she didn’t release it. Eventually, the hound released her hand from its mouth, and as soon as it did, she snapped its neck, yelling as loudly as she did.

  The hound’s body dropped, she caught it before it hit the ground, hurled the body right at one that had pinned Aiden to the ground.

  Chloe drew a shaky breath and then blinked hard as the edges of her vision blurred and darkened, her head spinning. She heard a dripping sound and looked at the hand the hound had bitten to find blood dripping from it dangerously. Her top felt wet against her back too. She was losing a lot of blood.

  She staggered, despite her best efforts to steady herself. She shook her head, attempting to regain focus, but this only seemed to worsen it.

  She dropped to one knee, a numb sensation spreading up her left leg, up her back, her hand burning intensely. An awful taste filled her mouth, and she bent her head slightly to spit. The blood she spat on was darker than normal.

  The events that followed made little to no sense to her.

  She tried to get back on her feet, but then she was sailing through the air, biting pain in her back. Someone was screaming her name, no doubt Jon.

  She landed hard on the ground at the edge of the woods and groaned as she turned over. Teeth sank into her legs, dragging her. Then Jon was there, stomping furiously on one of the hounds, sending blood everywhere, looking like a demon in the night.

  He lifted Chloe to her feet, and said something to her that she couldn’t quite hear, his words sounding distorted to her, dulled out. But he looked panicked, and it didn’t take her long to see why.

  She turned her head and saw Aiden dropping to the ground, one hand clutching his neck, blood gurgling from it. Spike was in the air, and there was something holding her there. Something tall and horrific, with long, spindly limbs. Spike went flying, and she hit the ground hard, landing oddly.

  She didn’t get back up. The angry god had killed her.

  Lucas darted across the chaos, picking Spike and Aiden up, before sprinting in their direction, his eyes wild, face frantic. He yelled something at them and though Chloe couldn’t hear him, she knew what he was saying.

  RUN!

  Jon was holding her up, and he was racing back in the direction of the district. Behind them, the angry god followed, crimson gaze glowing down on them, its limbs shooting through the air, missing them by mere inches and striking earth instead.

  They got closer and closer to safety, closer and closer to the fence. And then they were in, back within the confines of the fence’s protection. Lucas made it through just after them, face half covered in his own blood, eyes looking as though it was taking all of his strength to keep them open.

  He dropped Spike and Aiden to the ground and said something Chloe didn’t hear, but whatever it was, it caused an argument between him and Jon. Jon let go of her, flailing his arms around wildly, yelling something at Lucas.

  Chloe felt a nauseating sensation, spun slowly, and dropped to her knees. She vomited blood, darker too, like what she’d spat earlier.

  Her entire body went numb then, and she dropped to her side, vision nearly completely blurred out of focus.

  She could still see Jon and Lucas arguing about something, saw Spike’s wide open, lifeless eyes peering directly at her, and saw a pale, twitching Aiden holding on to life. She saw what was left of the hounds advancing toward them, getting closer and closer to the fence. The angry god was behind them, not halting its advance.

  The hounds arrived at the fence’s barrier. They snarled and threw themselves at it, clawing ferociously.

  They didn’t crumple as most of the Servants did upon touching the fence. They simply bounced back, circled, and went at the fence again. Each attack on the fence caused it to pulse, and Jon soon halted his argument with Lucas, looking toward the fence and the hounds, the realization of a frightening possibility dawning on him.

  Then, the angry god arrived at the fence. One limb struck the fence’s barrier. And the blue energy field flashed red.

  No one moved for a while—not Jon, not Lucas, not the hounds, not even the angry god. It was as though time had slowed to a crawl for just that moment.

  And then, menacingly, the hounds continued forward, past the fence, and right into District 7. The angry god marched in behind them.

  Jon scrambled toward Chloe and attempted to lift her to her feet. The angry god attacked, and Jon went flying. Chloe attempted to scream, but her throat burned and stung, and she had no more control over her body. She couldn’t run to his aid.

  The angry god swatted Lucas out of the way in the same way it had Jon. Lucas went crashing into a building.

  The angry god continued its advance into the district, and Chloe saw sparks fly from wires, saw the creature’s limbs tear through buildings, rip poles from the ground and send them flying. And then came the agony.

  A loud ringing, wailing sound filled her ears, causing her body to jerk suddenly and her vision to blur completely out of focus. She twisted and writhed on the ground, hands clutching her ears hard, tears quickly filling her eyes, trickling down the side of her face.

  She saw a shape that looked like Jon go down to the ground, similarly clutching his ears. She saw the hounds all drop, saw the angry god lose its balance, saw it topple to one side, collapsing into some brick buildings.

  The angry god’s crimson eyes went dark, and then the world went black.