“Gabriel. Focus. Matthew, stay. Or go. But don’t listen to him. Gabriel, get your head on straight,” Caleb reprimands.
“Oh that’s real funny Caleb. You forgettin’ how they practically scraped it out with a spoon just to see what’d happen? Not everyone got the free ride to immortality you did. Some of us were at the front of the queue, checkin’ the brakes.”
“I haven’t forgotten that. But you’re acting like a child.”
“You have no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” Gabe sneers.
“Oh, because no-one else in this room has ever lost anyone. I forgot. You’re a freaking snowflake, Gabriel. Come on, pull yourself together. If not for yourself, then for Sofia. You want to murder strut your way in and get shot from a mile off? Be my guest. I’m just suggesting an alternative,” Caleb says firmly.
“Fuck you.”
“Theory: Welland wants Gabriel in one piece. We may not have to worry about snipers,” Nathan interjects.
“Why does he want him though? Aren’t we going to question that?” Caleb asks.
Gabe hunches his shoulders and closes his eyes, silently counting to ten.
“Because you’re right, I’m a freakin’ snowflake. I was the first. The first to respond, the first to die and come back. The first Shade. That’s why Welland wants me. Because it never fuckin’ ends. I keep losing everything, again and again, and men like him are the reason why. Fuckin’ Nazi fucks.”
“Nazi?” Matthew asks, unsure of the word.
“In all but name. Big on the whole fascist, race purity thing. You don’t see many people looking like me around the dome, huh? Thought not. Welland and his cronies, they’re not the type of people you’d invite to a dinner party, to put it mildly,” Caleb explains, and boy, is he putting it mildly. He forgets sometimes how young the mortals they meet are, how much context they truly lack.
“Why does the president want Gabe? Don’t they know how to make people into Shades by now?” Matthew asks, as if there’s ever a simple explanation.
“A lot of the information was lost, destroyed. Over time, we’ve managed to weasel our way into their systems and erase it. Some knowledge doesn’t need to be kept. There’s probably a few isolated servers and a ton of hard copy, but we’ve been pretty thorough over the years. Maybe Welland thinks Gabe holds the secret to how we work. I don’t know,” Caleb says.
“If I offer myself as a trade for Sofia, he might agree,” Gabe says and his voice sounds small, the anger dissipated.
“This is so blatantly a trap. Am I talking to myself here? Trap. It’s a trap. Come on guys. We’re not falling for this. I’m not saying we cut our losses here but – ” Nathan starts – “You better fuckin’ not be suggestin’ anything in the neighbourhood of cuttin’ our losses. It’s Sofia, Nathan. Don’t you dare.”
“Not daring. Just saying. Trap.”
“We get that it’s a trap. But sometimes traps are good. How a trap is designed normally says more about the person setting it than the person it’s set for,” Caleb says thoughtfully.
“I don’t care if it’s a corn maze and what that says about Welland, I’m goin’ in.”
“Gabe – ” Matthew tries again.
“This is not your fight.”
“I’m makin’ it my fight,” Matthew responses, standing up straight, still a head shorter than Gabe, but bristling with righteousness.
“You’re stayin’ here, with Aubrey,” Gabe says.
“Only if you promise to come back.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then I’m not stayin’.”
“Guys, I hate to break up the honeymoon hangover, but we need some kind of plan here,” Caleb says exasperated.
“I have a plan. We walk straight to his door. Knock on it, smile politely, and then break his fuckin’ neck. Any objections?” Gabe grins fiercely, and Matthew sees more animal than man.
“Several actually, because that is definitely not going to work, but okay,” Nathan agrees.
“I’m calling Tee for backup if this all goes south. He can be here in a day with an army if needs be. Then I’m gonna check on Aubrey. Jesus, Gabriel,” Caleb is already leaving the room to make the call.
“Who needs an army when we have something so much better?” Gabe runs his tongue over his fangs, tasting the last remnants of copper.
“What?” Matthew asks, and Gabe wants to laugh because mortals never fucking get it.
“We’ve got me,” Gabe says. “Who needs an army when we’ve got me.”
*
Gabe skulks back to his room, looking for a moment’s peace. The bed covers are still rucked and smell like Matthew. He sits down heavily and lets out a sigh. He closes his eyes and tries to collect his thoughts, running wild through his head until he can’t make sense of them at all. He hates his brain, hates how the people who made him fucked it up and how he’ll never be the person he was when he was alive, how some memories are just gone and others are too vivid.
If you had asked him, when he was still human, he would have said that immortality would harden him to the losses. That it would be impossible for him to still care about anything after two hundred years. But dammit, he does.
He hears footsteps and Matthew hesitantly enters the room. Gabe isn’t sure if he can face him right now, because no matter what Matthew says, it’s not his fight.
“Gabe,” Matthew says, and reaches out to run a hand through Gabe’s hair. Gabe tilts his head upwards to meet the touch, and just allows himself to feel, just for a moment. It’s easy to give into the touch, to pretend for a little while that things are going to be okay.
“Gabe,” Matthew repeats, and his hand moves down Gabe’s cheek, tracing the line of his jaw.
Nobody asks for a war, and the Time Wars that led to the domes were no exception. Fifty years into his immortality, Gabe had seen cities razed to the ground, people ripped apart by time energy, time bombs dropping and erasing so, so much. Gabe doesn’t know how much Matthew is aware of, what they told him growing up in the dome. Not much, he’d wager. In the centuries that followed, the domes have been handed down from dictator to dictator, the people inside little more than worker bees tending to a select elite. Leaving the dome is a decision made only when all other options have been exhausted.
And Matthew, well, he left the dome. So maybe he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be operated on whilst fully awake, unable to will your body into unconsciousness. So maybe he doesn’t remember the wars and the world before everything went to shit. But Matthew isn’t as innocent in this as Gabe had allowed himself to believe.
Maybe he has underestimated Matthew, a little.
“I’m sorry,” the words stick in his throat, but he forces them out. Matthew looks at him and those blue eyes, so different from Gabe’s, just look back at him, and Matthew bites his lip, resting a hand on the crook of Gabe’s shoulder.
“You have nothing to apologise for. This isn’t my fight. You saved me. We don’t know each other. I can’t help the way I feel, especially if you don’t feel the same, but I can try. I can leave, when this is done. Go back to the dome. Or find another base to call home. I don’t have to be here.”
The words sting, and Gabe reaches forward, wraps a hand around Matthew’s slim waist, and pulls him forwards so that Matthew stands between Gabe’s open legs.
“You might just be the one good thing to come out of all of this, Matty,” Gabe whispers, rubbing circles on Matthew’s hipbone. “The one good thing.”
“Don’t talk like it’s over before it’s even begun,” Matthew says, resting his other hand on Gabe’s other shoulder, so he’s bracing Gabe. Gabe allows his head to fall forward against Matthew’s stomach, warm and soft and alive.
“I’m scared,” Gabe admits. “I shouldn’t be, but I am. I could have killed Aubrey, earlier. It’s luck that I didn’t. What type of person does that make me?”
“I’m not going to pretend I understand, or to condone it. But you know someth
ing? Mistakes make you human.”
Gabe smushes his head closer to Matthew’s stomach, and Matthew threads his fingers through Gabe’s hair. Gabe sighs again, closing his eyes.
“I haven’t been human for a long time. I don’t even remember what it feels like to be human.”
“I don’t believe that,” Matthew murmurs.
“They took so much, Matty. And they enjoyed it. They wanted to see how far they could go, and then they went even further. Just because they could. I was never human to them. None of us were. Sofia – she’s with them and if they hurt her, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Matthew reassures him.
“No, it’s not.”
“Then we’ll deal. But I made a decision, okay? You want to know what I decided?” Matthew asks.
Gabe nods against the fabric of Matthew’s t-shirt.
“I’m not losing you. And I’m not letting you lose Sofia. I don’t like bullies. I don’t care how powerful they are, or who they are. You forget I grew up under Welland’s rule, I nearly starved under Welland’s rule. Don’t for a second think I don’t harbour a certain degree of resentment for the man.”
“Resentment is one word,” Gabe says.
“Not a good enough one. But you understand? We may not have the same experiences, but we’re on the same side. And you can’t drive me away. I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get Sofia back. It’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Gabe says in a small voice, barely audible. “I used to know. I used to be clever. Before. Now – now I don’t know. If Caleb’s right and it’s a trap, which it is, I know it is, but then what? Matty, promise me something, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
“If everything goes south, if Welland – if I go with him, if there’s no other option, you’ll take care of Sofia, okay? She likes you. Just – look after her. She’s four years old. This was never her fight.”
“I promise,” Matthew says, and it sounds like he’s crying. Gabe daren’t look up.
“Thank you.”
“Just don’t give up just yet, okay? Welland is only one man.”
“One of the most powerful men in the country,” Gabe corrects him.
“But still only human. Mortal. Like me. Made of blood and guts and squishy bits. You’re a force of nature, Gabe. To me, it looks like he just picked a fight with a forest fire.”
“All forest fires burn themselves out in the end.”
“But they also scorch the earth they leave behind.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” Gabe chokes out a laugh despite himself.
“What I’m saying, Gabe, is that you need to burn him to the fuckin’ ground.”
Gabe finally lifts his head and looks Matthew dead in the eye.
“Now that, I can do.”
*
“Woah, woah woah woah, okay, I’m going to leave the room and then come back in.”
Gabe looks up from where he’s nestled his head into Matthew’s stomach to see Caleb exiting the room with his eyes covered. He shakes his head.
“Caleb, it’s cool I was just talking,” he says. Caleb comes back in, peeking through his fingers.
“To Matthew’s belly button?” He says sceptically.
Gabe shrugs. It’s been that kind of day.
“So, man, we’re going to roll out if you’re ready,” Caleb says, recapturing his train of thought. “Thought you might wanna come along for the ride.”
Matthew runs a hand through Gabe’s hair as Gabe shifts and stands slowly.
“Yeah, I’m comin’,” Gabe says, and rolls his shoulders. He looks at Matthew. “You can stay here, you know? Look after Aubrey.”
Matthew’s jaw tics.
“This is my fight too,” he says.
“Okay, but remember what you promised.”
“Don’t worry.”
Gabe slips his hand into Matthew’s and they leave the room, making their way down narrow corridors to the front of the base. Nathan and Caleb are already waiting there, and to Gabe’s surprise, so is Aubrey.
“You should be resting,” he says. She rolls her eyes.
“I’m just here to see you off,” she says. In a rush of movement, Gabe surges forward and scoops her up in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pressing his nose into her hair, “I’m so sorry.”
“Save it for later, Gabriel, you sentimental asshole,” she grins at him, and despite the tiredness in her posture, she seems a little brighter, a little stronger.
“Are we gonna have a prayer circle or are we gonna go? Because I didn’t bring my rosaries,” Nathan says and Gabe shoots him a glare.
“Matty, mask,” Gabe remembers, and takes it down from the hook Matthew slipped it over, pushing it over Matthew’s head so that there’s no way the time tainted air can get in. Gabe tilts his head and then ducks down to kiss the small bump where Matthew’s nose would be, before ruffling Matthew’s hair and doing the leather straps up tight.
“We doing this?” Caleb asks.
Gabe doesn’t respond, instead shouldering open the door and stepping outside.
“Shit, you feel that?” Caleb says, as a rush of time energy hits them. It’s almost tangible, almost alive.
“Something’s brewing, something not good, I’m guessing,” Nathan sniffs the air. “Tangy.”
“I don’t like this,” Caleb looks over at Gabe. Gabe shrugs.
“It’s a trap, right?” Gabe says. “Pay to play.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Nathan points out.
“Neither does your facial hair, but I’ve been very polite about it so maybe you should shut up,” Gabe retorts.
“I’m wounded, Gabriel, wounded,” Nathan says, clutching at his chest and staggering.
“Boys,” Aubrey says and smiles gently.
“Fuck, I forgot my gun,” Matthew interrupts, and shouts over his shoulder as he runs back to Gabe’s room, “don’t leave without me!”
“You’re letting him take a gun?” Caleb asks.
“I don’t think letting is the right word,” Gabe replies.
“He’s got you wrapped right round his little finger, Gabriel, it’s sad, pathetic, but also kinda beautiful,” Nathan rambles. Gabe flips him off.
Aubrey steps into the hazy grey of the outside, and shivers.
“You okay?” Gabe asks, but she just looks at the sky. “Aubrey?”
She turns to him, and it’s almost as though she’s looking right through him.
“You don’t have to make a choice, you know,” she says, her voice flat. “You don’t have to make a choice.”
“Aubrey?” Gabe steps towards her, reaching a hand out for her.
His ears pop, and time yawns, and everything goes, for a few seconds, very strange indeed. There’s a flash of light that isn’t light, a burst of sound that isn’t sound, and a wave of heat that isn’t heat.
And then Aubrey is standing there, perfectly still, too still, not moving even to breathe, her mouth half open in a surprised ‘o’.
Gabe’s hand finds her shoulder, but the second he touches her he knows he’s made a mistake.
She crumbles. Her body dissolves in front of him like a pillar of ashes disturbed by the wind.
He pulls his hand away, as though it will undo the damage. Behind him, he can hear Caleb and Nathan asking questions, and then pushing past him as though they can somehow fix this. Gabe stares numb at the ground where Aubrey was.
He doesn’t hear Matthew call his name, doesn’t even notice him as he comes back out of the base, shoving the gun into its holster.
The world comes back to him in bits and pieces, Caleb’s broken what did you do? what did you do? and Nathan’s too fast to catch explanations, theories, ideas. He stumbles backwards a step, and Matthew places a hand on his back to steady him.
Gabe’s felt time bombs go off before, but he’s never seen what they do first hand.
He understan
ds now why Aubrey couldn’t see anything beyond this point, why she felt like she was dying. Because she was. Time is brutal and impartial and whatever was Aubrey isn’t any more. Oh, time bombs don’t affect Shades. But oh, how they affect those who still live and breathe, even those who have Split themselves.
And Matthew was inside, protected.
The first trap has been sprung, and Gabe feels every inch the cornered animal.
“Gabe?” He hears Matthew say, and he looks down at him, tries to feel the warmth of Matthew’s hand as he rubs circles across the notches of Gabe’s spine.
“Gabe?” Matthew asks again. “Where’s Aubrey?”
END OF PART THREE
PART FOUR
As they walk towards the city, there is an implicit, silent agreement not to talk about Aubrey. Matthew has picked up the gist of things, that a time bomb exploded, and that it was probably the work of Welland. What none of them know, what none of them dare consider, is how far ranging it was, how many other humans were caught in the blast. It was sheer dumb luck that he’d been inside the protective walls of the base when it had happened, and now he wonders if maybe he should have agreed to stay with Aubrey, should have somehow done more.
Gabe is walking too fast for Matthew to keep up, his head held high like he’s marching to his death. Caleb and Nathan each walk by themselves, and Matthew realises that though this group may have known each other a long time, sometimes that bond is still no cure for grief.
Hundreds of years should prepare you for the eventuality of death. But when you live surrounded by people who cannot die, maybe you begin to forget that it’s a possibility at all.
If he lives through this, if he lives to be a grand old age and if time eventually does to him what it does to everyone, slowly but carefully snuffing him out, will Gabe mourn him? Or will Gabe turn away sooner, as Matthew’s skin wrinkles and his gait stiffens? To an immortal, is the spectre of death more frightening than it ever could be to a human?
It’s thoughts like this that keep him trudging forward, because this at least, is action, is movement, is something that can be done.
The dome looms large in the horizon, a transparent pale blue, humming and sparking like some kind of electrical beast. There are cracks within its walls, some no larger than his palm, others large enough for him to squeeze through with relative ease. It is to one of these that they are headed, because unlike the others, Matthew cannot walk through the domes walls – to him, they feel like glass, but to a Shade, it is more a cascade of water. An illusion of safety, one the government has told its populace protected them from the Shades and the world outside.
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