Infinity Rises (The Infinity Trilogy Book 2) by Harrison S

Author:Harrison, S. [Harrison, S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-04T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The blast punches into the room like a thunderclap, rupturing the front windows into glittering powder. The explosion itself doesn’t kill the three soldiers, not really. Neither do the spraying fragments of glass. It’s the air that does it. The invisible, expanding sphere of superheated gases hits the men like a concrete wall, sending their bodies flying backward as their internal organs are pelted into tattered meat by the shrapnel of their own shattered bones.

The shock wave reaches us in a violent rush of glass, concrete, wood, and metal. The base of the desk stays mostly intact—that’s what saves us—but parts of it fly off. A decent-size chunk catches me in the head as people tumble and splay all around me. Mouths are screwed into contorted shapes, hands and arms shield faces, and ears are thumped into deafness, but for that second, for that brief, destructive point in time, the only things that exist are the brutal noise and the percussive force. I don’t think or feel anything. There’s no fear, no confusion, no questions.

But when the broken pieces are settling, and the chaos fades, I know that those three things will fill every bewildered corner of our reeling minds.

There’s moaning and labored movement. “Wha . . . what happened?” asks a muted voice. I only barely hear it through the high-pitched tones warbling in my damaged ears, but it sounds like George. I rub my eyes and survey the room.

Dust and debris are strewn all over the tangle of people scattered around me. Otto is lying facedown beside me; her glasses, remarkably unbroken, are just a half a meter from her mop of frizzy brown hair. I push myself up onto my knees and press my palm to the side of my skull. There’s blood matted in my hair, but the dull throbbing warning tone in the back of my mind tells me that it’s not too bad. I crawl to Otto, move a broken section of desk from her legs, and turn her over onto her back. She groans and winces, her computer slate still safely cradled in the crook of her elbow.

Looking around, I can see that everyone in our little group seems to be intact. No appendages missing, no eyeballs hanging out of faces, no ears or noses sliced off. Ryan pushes up onto his elbows and looks in my direction. I should run; this is my chance to ditch everyone and go it alone, but something won’t let me. Something inside me is making me stay, holding me like a magnet to these people. Despite what I think or what I want to feel, I just can’t deny the intensely uncomfortable fact that . . . I’m beginning to care what happens to them.

“Help me get everyone out of here!” I shout. Ryan seems to get the message through the ringing he’s undoubtedly hearing, because he nods and rolls onto one knee, tugging at the shirt of a groaning Brody who’s lying on his side nearby.

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