فصل 66

CHAPTER 66

The man screamed and clawed at Mark’s face, kicked blindly and tried to stand and run. But Mark didn’t let any of it affect him. A universe of fury seemed to spin inside Mark, an impossible feeling that he knew couldn’t last, couldn’t be contained. His sanity hung by a thread.

He dragged the man on. Along the curve of the hallway. Through the cockpit door. Toward the broken window. Alec didn’t even seem to notice, was sitting there with his hands clenched in his lap, staring blankly at the controls.

Mark didn’t say anything, thought something might explode out of him if he dared open his mouth. He stopped next to the window, bent over and grabbed the man around the torso, then lifted him, holding him sideways. He twisted to pull the guy back, then flung him toward the window. His head cracked against the wall and the man fell to the ground. Mark picked him up, pulled back and tried again. Same result, the man’s head thumping loudly.

Mark picked the man back up and once again threw him toward the broken window. This time the guy went through—head, then shoulders, then waist—before he got stuck. Mark didn’t let go, kept pushing and shoving, throwing all his strength into ending this man’s life.

The ship lurched just as Mark shoved the man’s hips through the open space, his muscles tensed as he pushed. The entire world tilted, his head spinning with a rush of blood through his system. Gravity seemed to disappear as well, and he was falling through the window along with the stranger. Where blue sky and wispy clouds had filled Mark’s vision before, now he saw the ground straight in front of him. He was about to plummet to his death.

Mark kicked out and latched his legs on the lip of the window frame before he could fall all the way out. The rest of his body hung from the Berg, and the man hadn’t let go of him. He clutched Mark’s upper arms, gripping his shirt to keep himself from plunging to the earth below. Mark tried to push the guy away, but he was desperate and wild, climbing Mark’s body like a rope, high enough that his legs now wrapped around Mark’s head. Wind tore at both of them.

How could this possibly be happening again? Mark asked himself. Falling out of the Berg’s window twice!

A jolt ran through the ship and suddenly it righted itself again. Mark and the man swung back toward the body of the Berg and slammed into the side, just below the window from which they dangled. Mark’s legs screamed with pain from supporting two people. He flailed with his arms, trying to find something to hold on to. The outside of the Berg was littered with various boxy protrusions and handles for maintenance workers. He ran his hands along them but couldn’t still himself long enough to get a grip.

Mark’s fingers finally found a long bar, and he gripped it tightly. Just in time, because his legs had no strength left. His feet slipped from the window and the two bodies flipped over and slammed into the Berg’s side once more. Mark felt the jolt through his entire body but held on, slipping his forearm into the gap between the handle and the ship so that his elbow took the weight. His stomach and face pressed against the warm metal of the Berg, the crazed man still clambering for some kind of position on his back. The man was screaming right in his ear.

Mark’s mind jumped between clarity and foggy anger. What was Alec doing? What was happening inside? The ship had righted itself, continued to fly forward—though at a slower speed—and no one was reaching out of the window to offer any help. Mark looked down and immediately regretted it, a wave of terror crashing over him when he saw how far away the ground was.

He had to get rid of this man or he’d never be able to climb back inside.

The wind gusted, whipping the man’s hair into Mark’s face and rippling through their clothes. The sounds were all too much—the wind, the screams, the roar of the thrusters. The closest spout of blue flame was just below them, maybe ten feet away, burning like the breath of a dragon.

Mark shook his shoulders, kicked off the side of the Berg with his feet and let himself slam back into it. Still the man held on. He’d scraped Mark’s neck and arms and cheeks, leaving painful gashes everywhere. Mark ached, every part of him. A quick examination of the Berg’s body showed several places he could wedge his feet. Going up seemed impossible with the extra weight of the crazy guy on his back. He decided to go down, a terrifying idea having formed in his head.

The gamut of options had run out. His strength was just about sapped.

He reached way down, grabbed a short bar, then let his body fall, planting his foot on a boxy metal outcrop he’d spotted. The man shrieked and almost let go of Mark’s arms, slipping until he caught hold again, wrapping both of his arms around Mark’s neck and squeezing just enough to make him gag.

Choking out a cough, Mark sought more places for his hands and feet, dropped another yard or so. Then another. The man had ceased his juddering movements. He’d even grown silent. Mark had never known such hatred for anyone, and in some faint part of his psyche he knew it wasn’t quite rational. But he loathed the man, and wanted him dead. It was the only goal in his mind.

He kept descending. Wind tore at them, trying to rip them away. The thruster was so close now, just below and to his left, its roar the loudest thing Mark had ever heard. He stepped down again, and suddenly his feet were dangling in open air—there was nowhere left to put them. Another bar ran along the length of the Berg’s lower edge, with just enough space for Mark to slip his arm through it.

Mark slid his right arm in and crooked his elbow, letting every pound of his and the man’s combined weight rest on the joint once again. The strain was terrible—it felt like his arm would rip in two at any second. But he only needed a few moments. Only a few.

He twisted his body, craning his neck to look at the man who clung to his back. He hugged Mark with one arm above his shoulder and one wrapped around his chest. Somehow Mark got his free hand up, slipping it between their two bodies and up to his foe’s neck. He slammed it into the man’s windpipe and began to squeeze.

The guy began to choke, his grayish-purple tongue sticking out between his chapped lips. Mark’s right elbow shuddered in pain, trembling as if the tendons and bone and tissue were coming apart. He tightened his fingers around the man’s throat. The guy coughed and spat, his eyes bulging. His grip on Mark began to loosen, and as soon as it did, Mark acted.

With a shout of rage he pushed the man’s body outward, snapping his arm straight and shoving him directly into the path of the thruster’s blue flames, watching as the man’s head and shoulders were consumed by the fire, disintegrating before he could even scream. What remained of his body plummeted toward the city below, swept out of Mark’s vision as the Berg sped forward.

Madness crept through Mark’s muscles. Lights danced before his eyes. Anger howled within him. He knew that his life was almost forfeit. But there was one last thing he had to do.

He started climbing back up the outer face of the monstrous Berg.