[The Tempest trilogy: Book 2] After the incident in Ostrava's Neoclash arena, Zoya faces dangerous challenges. Nightingale's uprising threatens to destroy the whole Europe, the racist Yeomen movement steps up their campaing against Castaways and Rya...
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With a sinister grin, Nightingale clenches the foot of my right bionic leg into her talon and squeezes tightly. I feel the crooked metal claws penetrating the durable polymers, damaging the delicate mechanisms inside. It doesn't hurt, but the consequences certainly will.
She's taking my strongest weapon away from me.
With a shriek of panic, I swing the damaged leg, with Valentina attached to it, to the side. Fortunately, the engines in my leg are powerful enough to smash Nightingale to the ground. She loosens the grip of her talons and I yank the leg out. Now I have to run away.
I get on my feet and try to move. Damn! The foot damaged by Valentina moves nowhere as fluently as the undamaged left one. I can only move forward with a significant limp and my trademark speed is gone. It's faster for me to move using flips; that way, I can use my arms to relieve the damaged foot.
I flip my way to the edge of the overhang and grab a narrow ledge above the row of windows leading into a hallway inside the aircarrier. I move hand over hand along it, trying to get out of Valentina's reach. Now it's no time for heroism, I have to retreat. With the damaged foot, I can do nothing.
Valentina realizes she has the upper hand now. A shadow falling on the wall in front of me gives away she's behind me, preparing for a strike. Her talons attached to her bionic foot land on the ledge and I have to release the grip of one of my hands to prevent more injuries.
Now I'm hanging on one hand only and the lactic acid starts to accumulate in the strained limb. I scream in pain as the talons on her other foot bury into my back and move down, creating another set of deep, bloody gashes. I start to cry out of pain and my vision blurs.
Luckily, I still maintain some of my common sense. I realize that if she continues, she will sooner or later reach and destroy my kidneys in my lower back area.
I have no choice but to let go.
The fall feels like forever. I flap my hands all around me, desperately looking for something to hold on. My fingers finally find another ledge which I grasp as firmly as possible. Another scream of pain follows. The cuts on my shoulder hurt the most since the muscle is heavily strained; I feel blood soaking into the tatters of my sleeve. Then, the fresh gashes on my back pulsate. Instead of soothing it, the cold wind makes the pain even worse. What is the air touching? My bones? My lungs? How deep the wounds are?
The slashes on my torso caused by Julia are just a distant memory now. They hurt, but the pain from the fresh wounds efficiently drowns it out.
I grab the ledge with both hands and look down. I see the roof of AVIA Mall below me. If I let go now, I probably wouldn't die, but I'd break most of my bones. And then, Valentina would be quick to finish the job.
What should I do now? There's nothing else to grab below me, one of my feet is close to useless and Valentina already commenced the attack; I just know it. All I can do is to move across the bottom of the aircarrier to the other side - there are enough holds and protrusions.
