Pure - The Broken Society

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

◉ Tate Torres ◉

My eyes dilate in horror as the sky begins to rumble overhead. Ahead, over the rolling hills and the tall grass, Patrolmen jog in unison. They march with perfect form, marching in ten by twenty rectangles maybe even more, three groups of them all storming towards us.

My eyes dart to those around me, watching as they hold their weapons tightly, changing their stance to take off running. The helicopters that fly overhead drop lower to the ground, dispatching more Patrolmen, but these men appear different from the rest.

I watch as they walk in a perfect line towards us, stopping a half a mile across from us in the meadow. They tower over the ground, their midnight black armor shining under the sun. They grip spears, sharp spikes on the top of the pole, and as if they were robots, all twenty of the counted soldiers press a button that sends electrifying sparks all the way up the pole to the blade. I watch as the men and women around me flinch, their once confident demeanors denoted to ones of plain dread.

Within minutes, the meadow across from us crawls with Patrolmen, each and every one of them with loaded firearms. They all face forward, not moving a muscle...all appearing inhuman. A shiver runs down my spine as I take in their numbers compared to ours, Gage noticing the sizable difference.

"What are we going to do? They outnumber us ten to one," he runs a shaky hand through his hair, after readjusting the metal mask covering his nose and mouth. I just stand and watch in admiration and horror.

The people around me look to me for guidance, their eyes all asking the same thing, what do we do?

I finally found my voice again, "Hold your ground!" I bellow, watching as the soldiers opposite from us stand like statues.

"Was this the fight you were expecting?" Gage glares at me.

I begin to shake my head, "No," I say in disbelief.

"Well, then, answer me...what do we do?"

I pause for a moment, my eyes scouring over the Midnight Soldiers, "We do what we came here to do...we fight."

Gage's eyes squint as a smile stretches behind his mask, his eyes filling with the determination that once resided in them.

Just as my eyes come to rest on the soldiers in front of me they step to the side forming a gauntlet as one Patrolman steps in front of the black armored men. I watch in confusion as he removes his helmet, and I find myself being pushed out into the field moments later by Gage's strong force. The unmasked man eyes me up and down, a look expressing his thought of this will be easy. I pull my metal mask down to my neck as I stride to where he stands.

"Ah, we meet again, Torres," the man states as I step closer to where he stands ten feet away. I gaze at his face, quickly recognizing his sharp nose and beady eyes.

"Terrano," I say, his name instantly coming to mind, "Nice to see you," I assert venomously.

"Funny seeing you out here leading a rebellion, I've always thought of you as the thief that has been caught one too many times," he chuckles.

Terrano has caught me stealing from food garages on multiple occasions, those visits always resulting the same...sometimes with scars and bruises, other times with broken ribs.

I find myself laughing back at his comment, "And I've always thought of you as the puppet who works for a bitch."

He glares from ten feet away, "You won't win this, you should know that. Your friends are up with the Governor, I wouldn't be surprised if they meet the same fate that foolish traitor boy did."

My heart stops at his words, but I refuse to let it show on my face as I continue to scrutinize his being with fiery irises.

"I wouldn't be too quick to assume, Terrano," I fire back, "You haven't seen what my people can do."

He chuckles again, "I guess I will have to see then," as the last word slips from his mouth, he punches a fist into the air, and every single soldier lined behind him pulls the barrel of their gun backwards, loading the weapon's chamber with bullets.

"You know what we've come here to do, Torres, and we are prepared to push you back under the dirt," he places his helmet back over his head, grabbing his gun from the holster around his belt, loading the gun with momentum.

I step back towards the trees quickly, pulling my mask up as I hold my arms out wide on either side of me, the determined eyes of all the men and women burn ablaze from around me. As I hold my hands out as a signal, the men and women step out from underneath the trees, revealing our true numbers. They fall into a formation of their own consisting of one large group composed of three rows.

I snap my fingers as Terrano tilts his head to the side in confusion, at that moment all weapons behind me are engaged.

"You asked for this, Torres!" Terrano shouts as I draw my sharpened knife from my waistband in one hand and shotgun in the other.

"I know."

And at that, I charge forward towards the soldiers in front of me, every single man and woman behind me following suit, clashing into the wall of Patrolmen with a rage unlike I've ever seen before.