Морган Райс - Return стр 7.

Luna, whats going on? Cub demanded, dodging back from another blow. Luna saw him stare at her. Oh no. No!

Luna charged at him and the others with all the speed of her kind, breathing out vapor even though she knew it would do nothing to people already inoculated against the danger. A man got in her way and she cut him down with her shard of metal, shoving another man out of her path.

Shes transformed! Cub yelled above the sudden chaos.

Then he did the unthinkable, and reached for a gun.

Luna was already lunging for him, shoving him back and knocking the gun from his hand so fast she could barely believe how quickly she was moving.

Grab her! Ignatius yelled above the chaos.

Luna struck out toward him, the need to obey the Hive besting any attempt to resist. Inside, she was screaming, but it only came out as a dull hiss. A dozen other people were on her in that moment. Luna shook one of them off, throwing him away with more force than she could have believed, and lashed out at another.

Even so, more people piled in, and for all her strength, all her ferocity, Luna found herself pinned between them. There were too many of them to fight. She breathed out vapor in what seemed like the futile hope that it would turn some of these creatures, these humans and even as she thought it, Luna caught herself. She wasnt what the aliens wanted her to be. She wouldnt lose track of who she was.

Shes changed, Cub said, shaking his head. Shes gone. Lunas gone.

He still had the gun in his hand, and his hand seemed to be shaking now, as if he were wrestling with a decision. Luna could guess exactly what that decision was, and she hated it.

Dont say that, Leon said. She might still be in there.

Luna wanted to scream that she was still in there. She wanted Cub to see that she was still there, that well, she didnt know what happened after that.

Instead, she saw Cub lift his gun.

I know what its like as one of those things. Even if Luna is in there, she wont be for long. It sucks away who you are.

But shes there now, Leon said. We can still save her. The blast

The blast converted people all around it during the battle, but it didnt save Luna, Cub said. Luna could see tears in his eyes now. Shes gone, and now I have to do I have to do the only thing that can be done.

Luna could guess what he was thinking: that this was the same as with his father, Bear; that there wasnt another choice; that he was sparing her from a fate worse than death. Even so, he was pointing a gun at her, and she hated it. How could he do that to her? How could he think, even for a moment, that it was the right thing to do?

Wait! Ignatius yelled, and he was the last person Luna would have expected to step between her and a gun. The chemist and former drug maker was nothing if not a coward.

Get out of the way, Cub snapped back.

We can still save her, Ignatius insisted.

If she wasnt saved when the blast went out

Because she was at its center. The eye of the storm! Ignatius said. He didnt move aside. Luna hadnt expected him of all people to stand in the face of that kind of danger. It doesnt mean that she cant be saved. We just need

What? To recreate the blast? Cub demanded, and Luna might have wanted to dry the tears in his eyes if not for the reason for them. Recreate a random burst of alien energy tuned to just the right frequency when it hit the crystals? Do you think I wasnt paying attention to what youve been saying, Ignatius? If I thought there was a way

He pulled the trigger on his gun and Luna saw the dust at her feet kick up. Her controlled body didnt flinch, didnt even react.

That was a warning, Ignatius, Cub said, and Luna could hear the certainty in his voice now. Move.

Luna tried to get her body to move so that Ignatius wouldnt be in the line of fire, but she was imprisoned both within her own flesh and by the hands of those who held her. They wanted this. They wanted to make sure that the most people were hurt.

The blast let us overwhelm the nanites involved in the change for hundreds, Ignatius said, but we can still come up with a cure for one person at a time. We just need to process it.

Luna saw Cub hesitate at that. It seemed to be the only thing that was enough to do it.

You can really do it? he asked.

Not here, Ignatius admitted. The damage from the battle is severe, but all I need is a lab with the right equipment, and a few specific pieces of machinery.

And in the meantime, we all have to hold onto Luna to stop her killing us? Cub asked.

We can build something to contain her, Barnaby said. He already seemed to be working on it, holding up rough pieces of metal to the remains of a motorcycle trailer as if he could already see the way it fit together in his head.

And shell pull in all the aliens from a hundred miles around, Cub said.

Luna knew what he meant. The creatures controlling her would see everything through her eyes. They would know where to send more.

Were going to do that all by ourselves, Ignatius said. We owe her this, Cub, and I promise we can get her back.

Cub stood there, but Luna could tell that hed made his mind up. Maybe she should have felt grateful that he wasnt going to kill her. Maybe she should have felt some pity for the tough decisions that hed had to take already. Instead, all she could think of as he stood there was that hed been going to kill her. Hed actually been going to kill her.

All right, Cub said. He backed away. All right.

Luna continued to snap and snarl, unable to help herself, while the people held her in place. She was everything that Cub feared she was, but she was more than that. She just didnt have any way to let people know. A little further over, Barnaby was working on the enclosure designed to hold her. It looked like a kind of cage, made out of parts scavenged from the wreckage of the battle.

It came together slowly, piece by carefully constructed piece. As quickly as it came together, Luna felt herself gradually falling apart. She could feel memories sliding away into the depths of her being in a way that felt all too familiar. Shed felt this before, the first time she had been transformed, fragments of herself lost whenever she looked away from them, impossible to grasp, impossible to hold onto, like darting fish slipping through her fingers.

The memories of her parents slid into a vague kind of knowledge, with Luna unable to recall a single moment with them, a single instant spent laughing at home or arguing about chores or even sitting down together to eat. Luna knew the facts of her life, but couldnt recall it. She couldnt truly remember what it had been like to be in school, or to sit and watch TV, or to be outside, or

Kevins face came into her mind so sharply and perfectly that it might have been a photograph, and Luna clung to that image as tightly as she might have held onto a metal post in a hurricane. She wouldnt lose Kevin, wouldnt lose a single fragment of him. She wouldnt lose the moments that shed spent with him. Those moments seemed etched into her, from being there with him at the NASA Institute, to fleeing to the bunker and hiding from the flow of the vapor, to trying to bring down the aliens together.