New Manhattan
Page 7
Aubrey likes it when the masks come off.
She reaches forward and strokes his cheek, letting the time energy crackle between her finger and his skin.
“You want to know what time does to people? It’s terrible, really, undignified and cruel. But, oh, so human. I wonder if it’ll even work on you, because I look around this room and you’re the only monster I see. But, I’m all for trial and error,” she smiles viciously, “I have no doubt you’ll be waiting for me in hell. I never was very good at being good. Now. Close your eyes.”
If Welland looked powerful when they had entered the room, the façade has been dropped entirely now. His eyes squeeze closed, and Aubrey takes a moment, just to be. And then, she strokes his cheek again, and the time energy that ripped her apart and put her back together after the bomb fell springs from her fingertips, a thousand years in the blink of an eye.
Welland is dust and bone before he hits the ground. A life in a pile of dirt. She looks at it, and thinks, what a shame, someone should really sweep that up, and then she turns on her heel and surveys the scene taking place behind her.
*
Gabe has Matthew in his arms, and Matthew’s mask is off now, his hair ruffled and stained red where bloodied hands have wrestled with the straps. His breathing is barely there, but there’s still time. Gabe gently eases Matthew’s mouth open, and Matthew opens his eyes blearily, and smiles a bright red smile at him.
“I got my gun back,” he chokes out, and Gabe wants to cry.
“You coulda just asked, you punk.”
Matthew’s eyes slide shut again, and Gabe raises his own wrist to his mouth and rips at it with his fangs, deep gouges in flesh, allowing his own blood to spring freely from the wound. He holds it over Matthew’s open mouth, letting the precious liquid drip onto Matthew’s tongue.
“Come on, kid,” Gabe mutters, and uses his other hand to massage Matthew’s throat into swallowing. He lowers his wrist so that the blood flows directly into Matthew’s mouth, and Matthew starts to choke before swallowing convulsively, and Gabe can feel the moment when everything changes, when Matthew finds that spark and his hands are on Gabe’s wrist, his mouth suctioned over the wound, sucking and licking at it eagerly.
Gabe had thought the loss he’d felt earlier was for Aubrey. Now he realises that time is perhaps more subtle than he’d given it credit for.
When he has no more to give, when Matthew falls back into his lap, his face a mix of his own blood and Gabe’s, Gabe takes a moment to stroke that golden hair, and feel the lingering warmth of Matthew’s skin.
Time has been patient with Matthew, giving him more years than it should have, because time is merciful. And it grants him one last mercy, as it reaches inside of him, and with intangible tendrils, wraps around his heart, and stops it, the last beat a stuttered thunderclap.
Gabe watches as Matthew starts to pale, his lips seeming redder as his skin turns to marble. His hair whitens from the roots to the tips, and Gabe mourns the loss of the sunshine it once held. Matthew’s eyes are closed, but Gabe knows when he opens them, they will be the same pin prick white and black as his own, not the summer’s day blue Gabe adores.
There’s a hand on his shoulder, and it’s small and cold.
“Sofia,” he says, and lays Matthew down on the ground to let time do its work, before gathering her to him.
“’Aubrey said you were my daddy, that I hadn’t made it up. She said your brain didn’t let you remember, but I always did. You promised you’d be my daddy, forever and ever, you said. You just forgot is all. It’s okay to forget. You’re old.”
He looks up at Aubrey, and he can’t quite read her expression.
“You knew?” He asks.
“From the moment I met you. But you didn’t. In a way, I felt it was safer if you didn’t know. You loved her so much already, if anything had happened – I was scared you’d rip the world apart for her.”
“You know I would,” he says to Aubrey, and then looks directly into Sofia’s eyes, the same blue as Matthew’s.
“You know I would,” he repeats, just for her.
“That’s silly, I’m right here,” she giggles.
“You’re grounded, is what you are,” he says, before sighing, “not that you’d ever listen to me.”
“Did you know about this?” Nathan is asking Caleb, “because I did not, for the record, know about this.”
“Let the man have his moment, okay? Just for once, do the thing where you stop talking.”
“I can stop talking, I am excellent at stopping talking, just watch me.”
“Man, shut up.”
“Is Matthew going to be okay?” Sofia asks. “He doesn’t smell like Matthew any more.”
“He’s going to be like us, babydoll. It just takes a few moments.”
As if on cue, Matthew takes a small breath and Gabe whips his head round to see Matthew leaning on his elbows, rubbing his eyes. They’re still closed, and Gabe is prepared now for the white of them, because no matter what, Matthew will still be Matthew, and Gabe loves him, deep in his bones, because time is a motherfucker, and he takes it back, time is about as subtle as a brick to the head. He’s loved Matthew since the moment he set eyes on him and he’ll love him forever.
Matthew opens his eyes.
They’re still the bluest blue.
“You have the same eyes as me!” Sofia exclaims, and flings herself at Matthew, and he falls back to the ground as he tries to catch her in his arms. As she nuzzles into his chest, he catches Gabe’s gaze.
“Did we win?” He asks.
Gabe thinks for a moment before answering.
“We didn’t lose,” he says.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
END OF PART FOUR
EPILOGUE / PROLOGUE
2019
Gabe Braken has two bug out bags, and enough diesel to make it to Canada, stored in his garage. He keeps this knowledge to himself, a quiet salve against the world. He wanders into the kitchen and catches some angry, blustering presenter explaining the need for more, more people to be rounded up, more police presence. He shouts about Undesirables and Deviants and Degenerates until Gabe scrolls the wheel on the radio to turn it down to a low whisper.
“Hey, babydoll,” he says, a smile in his voice, as he approaches the girl sitting up the table, tongue poking out in concentration. The same brown hair as Gabe’s, but if Gabe’s eyes are the grey of thunderstorms, hers are the blue of a clear day. He ruffles her hair and she squirms away. “Whatcha drawin’?”
There are two human-ish figures and one indistinct animal.
“That’s you, that’s me, and that’s the pony you’re gonna buy me for my birthday,” Sofia says, pointing to each one in turn.
“Is that right?” Gabe asks, and chuckles. He can’t quite stretch to a pony, but he’s already booked riding lessons for the next six months. “And when’s your birthday again?” He pretends to forget.
“Daddy! Four weeks and three days!” Sofia pouts.
“And how old are you goin’ to be?” He asks, because she’s very proud of it.
She holds up her hand, four fingers and thumb splayed wide.
“Five?” He widens his eyes in shock. “Wow, that’s really old!”
She giggles.
“Not as old as you, silly!”
“You know how to cut a man down to size, doll,” he says with a smile.
“Daddy – ” Sofia starts, and then pauses, her forehead scrunched up in thought. “You’ll always be my daddy, right?”
“Of course I will, babydoll, you know that,” he runs his hand through her hair again, smoothing it down. “Always.”
“Even for a hundred years?” She persists.
Gabe looks at her, the best thing he’s ever created in his life, his daughter, the one person he’d die for without a second’s thought. Hell, he’ll live forever if he’s gotta. If she asks him to.
“Forever and ever and ever,” he says, and means every word.
END