Legion Reborn
Page 20
Stirling takes my hand, squeezing it tight, then he closes the lid on Malcolm and the underground lab. Stirling kisses the back of my hand before he fully lets go. Then he claps his hands together brightly.
“Now, where’s Mum with that food? We’re going to stuff ourselves stupid and talk about old times. And then I want to just fall asleep, right here with you beside me.”
There’s a desperate shake right down deep in my gut, like I want to cry and scream again. But I breathe in, holding everything back, and just nod. These next two hours are for him now, not me. All I can do is give Stirling the evening he needs, and the kind of death he wants. I kiss him, a tentative kiss, and he snuggles me in under his arm just as Sheila returns. He has us both now, perhaps the only two people left that he has ever truly loved.
“This is perfect,” he says, smiling still. “Just how I wanted it.”
*
It is long after two in the morning before I can stop crying. I decide to take a slow walk in the chill air of the October night. I thought I might have sat beside Stirling’s body for longer once his life had left it, but it was too much to bear. He went out with a smile and a song, and he told me again that Malcolm was there to guide him. In some terribly jealous way, I still wish that my general was here to guide me now.
There’s some carousing on the streets ahead. The once-grimy lower levels of Prudell’s System have been cleaned up a lot since we moved into Tania, and now real people walk them, like they did in the old video that Stirling showed me. As I walk slowly, clutching my sore side for support, four figures come into view amongst the celebrating crowds. Everyone is cheering for democracy here, their hoots and hollers rising into the air. Of the four figures closest, I know them all. Their voices and their smiles hit me like a wave of energy.
“To a new future!” Cornell shouts, raising a sloshing plastic glass.
It clinks clumsily with Nema’s. She stumbles a little, no sign of injury left in the leg where I shot at her. There’s only a grin now, her body falling against Cornell’s as he catches her unsteadily. She’s wearing a bright red dress, but still has her old army boots on.
“To us! To all of us!” She hoots back, laughing.
“Go steady on that, you,” says another voice. “This thing is new, and I’m damned if I’ll break it trying to carry you home.”
The new voice belongs to Reagan, and to demonstrate she waves a new mechanical arm at the drunken pair. It also holds a drink, but this one just looks like water. As the others carouse, Reagan works carefully to bring the drink to her lips with her new arm. Her smile is bright when she succeeds. Beside her, the last figure swipes the glass out of Nema’s wavering arm. He raises it to his lips, his mop of curly hair almost obscuring his little face now. But I know his voice, and his cocky, bright quips.
“Pfft. I can drink it if she can’t. Watch.”
Malcolm. The new Malcolm, as he’s becoming known now. He glugs down Nema’s drink despite her protests, and the four of them giggle like fools as they process with the crowd down the street. I hang back, watching them go, and my heart is lighter for the sight of them. The people who weren’t at the very heart of this terrible operation are free now. Free to forget and go forward into a new world. It might have problems of its own, large and small, but I know inside that we have made things truly better. It’s enough to stop my tears. Enough to help me make another step back to Goddie and my family.
And if there ever comes a time when the world looks grim again, I have a silver-tipped pistol with a single bullet in the chamber. I keep it close to my heart, and every night I pray that I will never have to use it.
THE END
Can’t wait for more adventure and intrigue?
Then why not try these other titles from K.C. Finn:
Fallow Heart
When a gruesome murder spree leads to the door of a teenage loser, she is forced to face the reality that something demonic is growing inside her.
Fallow Heart is the story of Lorelai Blake, a self-conscious, overweight seventeen-year-old who discovers that a demon has pierced her heart, sparking an incredible transformation. Sleepwalking, fits of rage and impossible strength force Lori to accept that part of her is no longer human. It was hard enough fitting in before, and now that hurtful voice in her head has taken an even more sinister tone. Worse than this, bodies are being discovered. People in Chester are dying and they have only one connection: a nocturnal killer who savages its prey.
Lori seeks help from the D.C., an organisation formed to treat infected children, but even they can’t protect her from the Harvest. When her powers reach their peak, the beast that infected her will return to consume those powers, killing her in the process. She learns the awful truth from a rebellious new friend, Kasabian, who seems to have found a way to avoid this grisly fate. With a detective on her back and a demon in her heart, Lori must master her darkness and follow the murder trail before it reaches the people she loves, and all before the terrifying Harvest sets in. Along the way, her outward insecurities pale in comparison to much bigger problems.
When you’re becoming more demonic by the day, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Fallow Heart is a tale of strength, suspicion and the supernatural for ages fourteen and up.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H1MGNVQ
The Mind’s Eye (Synsk, Book 1)
2nd Place: Best YA Paranormal – RONÉ AWARDS 2015
A girl with a telepathic gift finds a boy clinging to his last hope during the war-torn climate of Europe, 1940.
At fifteen, Kit Cavendish is one of the oldest evacuees to escape London at the start of the Second World War due to a long term illness that sees her stuck in a wheelchair most of the time. But Kit has an extraordinary psychic power: she can put herself into the minds of others, see through their eyes, feel their emotions, even talk to them – though she dares not speak out for fear of her secret ability being exposed.
As Kit settles into her new life in the North Wales village of Bryn Eira Bach, solitude and curiosity encourage her to gain better control of her gift. Until one day her search for information on the developing war leads her to the mind of Henri, a seventeen-year-old Norwegian boy witnessing the German occupation of his beloved city, Oslo. As Henri discovers more about the English girl occupying his mind, the psychic and emotional bonds between them strengthen and Kit guides him through an oppressive and dangerous time.
There are secrets to be uncovered, both at home and abroad, and it’s up to Kit and Henri to come together and fight their own battles in the depths of the world’s greatest war.
http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Eye-Synsk-Book-ebook/dp/B017Q4DSMO/
The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn, Book 1)
Winner of Best Gothic Fiction 2016, Chanticleer Paranormal Awards.
Lily Coltrane’s to-do list for starting university life is pretty simple:
1. Make friends
2. Meet a cute guy
3. Survive her first year in Modern History
In the little English town of Piketon this seems more than achievable, so much so that Lily even joins The Illustrious Minds Literary Society, an extra-curricular club that promises a truly unique social experience. What Lily doesn’t bank on are the society’s monthly visits to the mysterious Theatre Imaginique at the edge of town, a dark venue that houses the most obscure cavalcade of carnival performers she has ever laid eyes on.
Stranger still is the emergence of the theatre’s enigmatic proprietor Lemarick Novel, a stupendous showman with a frosty wit who never seems to smile, and who raises a plethora of questions in Lily’s fearful mind. How does he levitate with no sign of wires or mirrors? Why do the lightning bolts that shoot from his hands look so real? And why, of all the people in the theatre, do his pale eyes keep locking on hers?
The answers to this and more lie buried in heritage and blood. The Book of Shade is opening, and Lily Coltrane will read it, whether she wants to or not.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Shade-Shadeborn-1-ebook/dp/B00RD7SGK4/
About the Author
K.C. Finn has been writing since 2011, at a time when extreme illness saw her trapped in the house with nothing but her imagination. Since then she’s amassed a collection of stories, poems and novels spanning many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, gothic fiction, horror, paranormal and historical works. Her unique and diverse voice has won many awards, and she is both an Amazon and USA Today best-selling writer.
In her free time, K.C. is an eternal student, forever studying and learning more about the world. She travels whenever possible to explore new cultures and climates, and when she’s at home she enjoys coaching writers of all ages with a story to tell. She also exercises her flair for the dramatic by directing, writing and occasionally acting in darkly humorous theatre productions in her hometown of Chester.
http://www.kcfinn.com