He beat at his attacker’s arms, beat at its chest, kicked with his legs, tried to squirm his body left and then right. None of it was working. He flailed, feeling for anything, any object nearby that might help. The life was squeezing out of him, leaking out, and the ugly expression of the one doing it, that face just a small distance away from his own, made Isaac desperate not to let it happen.

His pocket. He remembered his pocket.

He reached for it, brushed across its fabric, felt the hard solid length of what nestled inside. Choking, dying, making no sound because there was no air to do it, he fumbled with his fingers, reached into the front pocket of his pants, found the object, gripped it tightly in his hand. It was the key, the big, metal key, the one Orange had given him to unlock their shackles.

His vision was muddled, full of sparkling diamonds of light that obscured everything in sight. He could only make out the bare outline of his attacker’s head. The pain, the pain in Isaac’s throat was a great and sharp and terrible thing. His lungs begged for air, his eyes were on the verge of absolute detonation from the pressure.

Somehow, he found the strength. He reared his arm to the right, then swung it with every last speck of his remaining power toward the creature’s neck. The key, as solid as any key ever made at the Forge by Captain Sparks, found the perfect spot, sliding into the soft tissue and releasing a beautiful fountain of blood. The half-Crank let go of Isaac’s neck and clutched its own, but it was over for the pitiful creature. Even as Isaac sucked in the most glorious breaths of his life, the attacker toppled to the side and bled out.

Isaac rolled over, looked at Jackie, straddling the one she’d fought. Her fists were bloodied and her face glistened with sweat.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” she said through several gasps. “I can’t . . .”

Isaac heard all kinds of noises, now. Creaking, moaning, footsteps, screams, incoherent babbling.

Cranks! The familiar word flashed inside his mind.

He was weak, his adrenaline spent. But he saw shadows moving down the hallway. Human-shaped shadows that were growing in size, along with an increase in volume of their terrible sounds.

“Come on,” Jackie said. “Come on.”

Helping each other, leaning on each other, holding on for dear life to each other, they stood up, shuffled their way back in the direction from which they’d been dragged down the hall. They found the hatch. It was open, and Dominic was just stepping out of it.

“Oh, there you guys are. Hurry up, would you?”

They entered the belly of the beast and shut the heavy door.