Page 36 of Hollow State

He returned fire, and the bullet sparked off the cage, six inches from her hand.

"Stop the vehicle," Wynn said.

"You want me to do what?" Zadie glared.

"Just do it."

"Okay." Zadie came to an abrupt stop.

Wynn found the gap between two firs he'd have to cross on his next stride—and waited the half beat it took him to fill it.

Bang!

That round hit him in the nose. He flew backward into the mud.

"Take that, you bee's dick."

"What the fuck is a bee's dick?" Zadie asked as she hit the gas.

"It's supposed to be some Australian insult." Wynn shrugged. "It sounded better in my head."

Pop! Pop!

Wynn glanced toward the other SxS. Coulter had spun again, and Neve was leaning against the roll bar, rifle in hand.

"Here comes another one," Zadie said. The SxS dropped into a rut and threw Wynn’s barrel at the sky.

She rode it down, aimed for the man running at them, and put two bullets through the open strip beside his goggles.

He dropped to the ground.

Pop! Pop!

She glanced over her shoulder. Coulter and Neve were engaged with two more soldiers. If they managed to take out those two, that left only three. If her math was correct and there were no more surprises.

"We've got company," Zadie said.

Wynn turned. "Holy shit."

A man ran alongside them, matching their speed. His arms pumped easy at his sides, and his boots hit the ground as if the forest had been built for him. This was like nothing Wynn had ever seen. This man barely breathed. He glanced at her, his eyes sharp and focused. But at the same time, they seemed hollow, as if they lacked life.

He cut in at an angle and fucking jumped.

His shoulder caught Wynn under the arm and drove her sideways into the center console. Hooking one hand on the roll cage, he fisted the harness in the other, and the rifle wedged crosswise between their chests.

Zadie pulled her handgun. The man reached for it, and he nearly crushed her hand. She screamed as she jerked her arm. A branch smacked her wrist and she lost the gun to the woods.

Wynn punched him in the side of the face. That did nothing but make her see stars. She drove her elbow up into his jaw. His head barely moved.

She'd encountered enhanced soldiers before. She expected power. Endurance. Strength that went beyond any normal man's capabilities. But this was supernatural. This was fiction. This couldn't be real. He met her gaze, and she wasn't sure anything human remained.

As close as they were, she saw something else. His skin was cracked and peeling. His eyes were swollen. His veins abnormally large.

This man was dying. Probably far sooner than he realized. She guessed he might have hours. TITAN had produced an odd side effect in some of Pryce's test subjects—an intense burst of adrenaline right before total organ failure. It only happened in two cases that Darwin had found.

An anomaly that he didn't quite understand, and she was staring it in the face.

The SxS swerved. Both left wheels climbed the bank of a washout, and the machine went up on two tires with his weight hanging off the high side, dragging them over.