Rivals (Page 50)

"Would someone please tell me what just happened?" Brent asked.

Maggie spun around and saw her brother kneeling on the ground next to her. There was blood on his face but he looked a lot better than he had a minute earlier. Then he'd been about to die - now he was seconds away from getting up and starting the fight all over again. And now there were two of them - two people on Earth who posed an actual threat to her safety and freedom.

Whatev. I'll just have to kill them both, the darkness said.

"Your little friend went inside the cylinder," Maggie explained. "She went to the well of green fire. It might have killed her, but it didn't. You know what that means?"

"I think so," Brent said.

"Um, excuse me," Lucy said, walking toward them. "I don't want to break up your little moment, but it seems to me we've got some business to attend to over here. I mean, if you've got a second. If it's not too great an inconvenience."

"What on Earth are you talking about?" Maggie asked, turning to face the girl again.

"I need to kick your ass," Lucy said, and hit Maggie across the mouth with a right hook that sent her spinning backwards. Brent tried to grab her as she fell - maybe just to help her up, but probably to try to subdue her. Maggie threw herself to the side to avoid him and landed on a pile of construction tools.

I'm stronger than they are. They're just kids, the darkness said. I'm smarter than they are, that's for sure. She looked up and saw the two of the approaching her. Wait for them to come closer.

Her hands moved through the pile of tools, looking for weaponry. They found what they needed.

Lucy must have seen what she was doing. "Be careful, Brent, she's got - "

Maggie whipped up her arm. She was holding a nailgun. Before Lucy could finish her sentence she squeezed the trigger and a volley of nails snapped out at Lucy's face. The girl fell backwards, swatting at her face as if she were being attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.

Then Brent knocked her sideways, hitting her hard enough to send the nailgun flying out of her hand.

"I'm okay!" Lucy shouted, but Brent didn't seem to hear her. He was on top of Maggie, pounding her face and shoulders with his fists. Maggie struggled up to her feet as her ears rang and her vision blurred. He kept hitting her, again and again, so she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him over the top of a construction trailer.

Then she spun around looking for Lucy - but the girl was nowhere to be seen.

"What's the matter," Maggie roared. "Did you get scared and run away?"

She spun around when she heard the noise of a diesel engine grumbling to life. A puff of black smoke shot up from the exhaust pipe of a bulldozer off to her right. She squinted and saw Brent sitting in the driver's seat, pushing levers and knobs and trying to get the thing moving.

"You think you can get away in that? I can outrun that thing, Brent. I can chase it down and tear you out of there. You haven't got a chance!"

The bulldozer lurched forward and then stopped suddenly. Brent scowled and slapped the steering wheel. Maggie laughed.

Until Lucy came out of nowhere and jumped on her back. Maggie whirled around and bucked madly trying to get the girl off of her, but Lucy tugged at her ears, her nose, her shoulders, always pulling her hands away before Maggie could grab them. The younger girl wasn't particularly strong - not by Maggie's standards - but she was faster even than Brent.

"Play fair, you little twit," Maggie screamed.

Lucy kicked Maggie in the back of the head.

Enough, the darkness said, and anger flared inside Maggie's brain. She waited for an opportunity, then she reached up and snagged one of Lucy's ankles. Digging in her heels for balance, she pulled Lucy free of her back and then swung her around and around. Lucy's arms and her free leg flailed but Maggie had her now. She swung her around in a wide arc and let her go.

Lucy shot away from her like a cannon ball. The younger girl flew through the air as fast as a comet and hit the side of the cylinder with a noise like a bass drum, then bounced off and landed face down in the sandy soil.

Lucy tried to get up but she was badly hurt. It was all she could do to push herself up on one arm and stare in blind panic as Maggie stormed over toward her.

"Brent," Lucy called. "Now!"

The bulldozer's engine screeched and its tires spewed up great fountains of dust as it shot forward. Its blade caught Maggie square in the back and knocked her down, but it didn't stop coming - instead it rolled right over her. The giant tires barely missed crushing Maggie's bones beneath the weight of the construction vehicle and she thought Brent had made a big mistake - until the bulldozer vibrated to a stop, right on top of her.

Its undercarriage pressed her down in the sand. Maggie tried to get up but the weight of the bulldozer was on her back. She tried to beat at the sand with her hands, tried to push upward with every ounce of strength she had.

But it wasn't enough.

"Come on, damn it," she said through gritted teeth. "Come on!" She begged the darkness to lend her strength and felt the anger coursing through her veins like dark magma, felt her muscles push and heave and shove -

But it was no use. She could pick up a car and throw it like a ball. She could punch her way through the wall of a house. But the bulldozer must have weighed ten tons and it was just too much for her. She couldn't get any leverage - her arms and legs were pinned and the ground under her was too soft to let her push very hard against it.

She could just turn her head to the side. She looked over, and saw two faces peering in at her. Brent and Lucy were down on the ground watching her intently, watching to see if they'd finally got her. If they'd pinned her enough that she couldn't get up. It looked like they had.

"Brent! They'll send me to jail forever," she said. The darkness was leaking away, her anger and her negative emotions fleeing her now that she couldn't give them the destruction they wanted any more. "Please! You can't let that happen! You're my brother. Doesn't that mean you owe me something?"

"Yeah," he said, very softly. "It does. It means I'll come and visit you often, and make sure they're treating you okay. It means I'll make sure you get the help you need."