The hiss of hydraulic breaks echoes throughout. The truck rocks after the squeal of wheels against asphalt. The sounds of something breaking, crashing, twisting, follows. Everyone pushes to the edge of their seats. They sway from side to side as the truck tilts, taking what looks like sharp curve after sharp curve. Following another crash, the truck lurches to a stop.
“We’re here.” Tusks stands—head hitting the canvas cover—and starts spewing orders. “Go, go, go. You!” He points at Azrael. “C’mon,” he says as he opens the tailgate and jumps out.
Tigress stands and looks at her partner. “Allez, Dillon.” He gets to his feet and follows. Bodies press against each other as they rush out of the cramped space. Azrael stands, gets caught in the fray and is practically carried outside.
Lost in my gray world, I come to a halt. What little attention I’ve been able to bestow on my search is promptly snatched away by Azrael’s new surroundings.
“Now, open it.” Tusks’s hand jerks to point at something. A long string of slobber hangs from the corner of his mouth. Azrael stares straight at it for a moment too long, then turns, following Tusks’s arm to a panel on the wall.
The view completes itself in stages. First, I realize the panel is a bio reader, then I notice the elevator. We really are here: the entrance to IgNiTe’s safe haven, the place for which Azrael has just the right handprint and retina to gain access.
The place where death will soon rage.
Chapter 28
“We don’t have all night!” Tusks takes Azrael’s hand and presses it to the flat screen on the bio reader. A blue light runs from the top to the bottom of the screen. After a rapid set of beeps, a line of red text appears announcing: “ACCESS DENIED.”
My biodata has been invalidated. A surge of relief mixed with hurt whirls in my space. Both emotions are strong and real, and the last one tears me apart.
“What the hell?!” Tusks exclaims. “You were lying about being able to get us in.”
“They removed my access. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.” Azrael goes on a rant, repeating the same word over and over like a scratched CD.
“Never mind you,” Tusks pushes Azrael out of the way, propelling her against the wall.
There’s a light crunch as her head bangs against it. Then her view of things changes dramatically and all I can see are blurry legs and boots. Azrael blinks and blinks, then gets back up. Tusks is in front of the elevator that leads underground to what used to be one of James’s best-kept secrets. Today, though, everything lies out in the open. The existence of Symbiots, James’s headquarters, the fight to find a cure. Everything. Azrael told them all there was to know, and it’s my fault for not being strong like Xave said I was, for getting captured and eclipsed.
Tusks slides his fingers between the closed elevator doors. If I could, I would laugh. The elevator might as well be the door to a bank vault. There’s another entrance, a way for the crew to bring vehicles in and out when Rheema works on them, but, gratefully, I never used it and don’t know how to access it from the outside, so Azrael couldn’t tell them about it. My hope is that, by now, they’ve been alerted to our presence and are well on their way out of here. Not that Tusks has any hope of prying the doors open with his bare hands.
A sudden crunching sound shatters my train of thought as well as its validity. Tusks’s massive back is bulging and his cylinder-shaped fingers are wrapped around handfuls of twisted metal. Growling between clenched teeth, he pushes the elevator doors out of the way, biceps the size of cantaloupes, veins popping everywhere like live electric wires.
The whine of twisting metal bounces against the concrete walls of the underground parking area and echoes down the elevator shaft as Tusks pushes the obstacle out of the way with one final exertion.
He whirls, face drenched in sweat. “You!” He points at a small woman, thin and short as a middle schooler. She steps away from the others, her movements jerky and tentative.
“Send the elevator up,” he orders her.
The woman gives a curt nod and, without hesitation, runs toward the ravaged opening. Azrael follows her trek, unblinking. Several yards before reaching the elevator, the woman launches into the air. A pair of white, angel-like wings spring from her back. She glides into the shaft, dives—chin tucked against her chest, head pointing straight down—and disappears into the darkness.
For an interminable minute, Azrael’s heart pounds. Tusks stands in front of the hole, feet shoulder-length apart, chest ballooning like giant bellows every time he inhales. His small eyes, almost nonexistent under his encyclopedia-sized forehead, throw furtive, furious glances this way.
A ding sends everyone’s attention to the top of the elevator door. The “up” arrow blinks red.
“Voilà,” Tigress says, shifting her weight from one slender leg to another. “Ready for action?”
Dillon, her feline partner, leans into her. “Oui,” he says with a rakish, cat-like smile. “I like the taste of vermin,” he adds with a dirty look for Azrael.
As soon as the elevator cabin appears, casting a bright light onto Tusks’s immobile shape, he orders half his team through the door, and quickly files in after the last one. Azrael follows, keeping her eyes downcast, hoping to sneak in undetected, but Tusks presses a large hand to her chest and pushes her out.
“Not you. Come in with the next group. Or stay here. That’d be better,” he sneers.
When the elevator returns a few minutes later, Azrael gets pushed out of the way as the rest of the Eklyptors rush in. When the cabin begins to descend, leaving her behind a second time, she snatches a knife out of the sheath of a bug-eyed Eklyptor.
“Hey!” he exclaims. “That’s my favorite one, you bitch.”
“Idiot,” Azrael screams, stabbing the air repeatedly as if an invisible person stands in front of her. “You wouldn’t be here without me. Oh, no, no. I deserve to go. No one else. Hope he does his speed thing on your ugly ass.”
With everyone gone, Azrael paces in front of the crumpled doors, cursing. “Gotta get in. Gotta get in.” A growl of frustration tears through her. She sticks her head into the shaft and yells, “Send it back! Send it send it send it!”
As if on cue, the cables groan and the elevator begins to climb.
“Yes!” she exclaims, gripping the knife with both hands and brandishing it in different angles.
My wisp of a being shudders. Azrael is just one crazed Eklyptor, but something about her determination sets me on edge. I have to do something to stop her. I get on the move again, trying to find a way, any way, that can give me some control over her actions.
Even before the cabin levels with the door, Azrael hops inside and frantically pushes the down arrow. “C’mon, c’mon.”
As the elevator makes its way downward, an insistent sound becomes apparent, then grows louder and louder the deeper she goes. At first, it’s just an unrecognizable screech, but soon I realize it’s the ear-splitting bellow of an intermittent alarm.
When the elevator reaches the bottom level, Azrael rushes out and—through the thick glass window—surveys the chaos below. Eklyptors run loose between pods, knocking down heavy equipment, then shooting at it. Sparks fly as servers, monitors, and electron microscopes short circuit. Glass from beakers, test tubes, light fixtures, and cubicle partitions shatters and flies in all directions. Boisterous commands ensue out of Tusks’s mouth as he orders everyone to check the entire area and find the damn vermin.
Azrael turns and takes the metal steps two at a time. Once at the bottom, she pauses, looks around, then surreptitiously turns toward the sleeping quarters, making sure Tusks doesn’t see her.
No! I have to stop her, and maybe I can. I feel sturdier now. I’ve had some time to understand the boundaries of my own brain, like a fish getting acquainted with its bowl. Determined, I scramble, speeding faster and faster still finding no hint of anything that could help, no idea of how to use this bit of strength I’ve regained. Curse words infused with all my frus
tration fill me. They swell and swell with no way to get out and relieve my fury. I will explode. I can feel it. Blow up until what little I’ve become scatters into less than semi-dreams.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Azrael swears. She stops abruptly, presses a hand to her mouth, looks around.
The pressure deflates.
What just …?
Did I do that? Did I make her curse? I try again, conjuring the foulest curses I can think of. I let them build, then wait.
Nothing.
Azrael shakes her head and turns down a narrow hall. From the looks of it, no one has checked this area yet. She hurries to the first door, throws it open and flicks the light switch. The room is stark, occupied by a small, unmade bed in the corner. No other signs of life but the rumpled sheets suggest that anyone has occupied the room. No discarded clothes or shoes, no wall hangings. Nothing but a sad bed. She moves to the room across the hall, goes for the door knob, but notices a movement out of the corner of her eye: the slight shift of a venetian shade behind the window of another room.
Frozen, Azrael watches the shades for more signs of life. There’s a soft metallic click. Her eyes flick to the door. It cracks open. A head pokes out.
Oso.
“Marci,” he whispers. One of his hairy arms urges Azrael to join him in the room.
No. No.
He thinks it’s me. He doesn’t know. How could he possibly know?
Azrael looks back the way she came, then tentatively approaches. When she’s close enough, Oso snatches her and wraps her in a bear hug, his wide torso obscuring the view into the room.
“You’re okay,” he says. “Aydan said they captured you, but I knew you’d escape.” He holds her at arm’s length with a nervous smile. “What the hell is going on out there? I had my headphones on and just realized the alarm is blaring. Where’s everyone?”
His gentle brown eyes examine Azrael’s face. I don’t know what he sees there, but he frowns. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, real fine, real fine,” Azrael says.
Oso’s frown deepens. His eyes flicker to the knife as it flashes in Azrael’s hand. His eyebrows shoot upward. He tries to step back, but the blade is already moving, headed straight to his abdomen—a wide, sure target in his massive torso.
No.
Not Oso.
Not him!
I cast myself outward, willing my ghostly being to grow and swell and expand … explode if necessary. Anything to give this gentle man a chance; to stop him from getting hurt, from losing it all.
He has time only for surprise. He looks so shocked, betrayed, rendered the perfect victim for a vengeful coward.
The sharp blade cuts through Oso’s stomach once …
NO. NO.
I expand and expand, thinking of the weapon in her hand, my hand, using the strength I’ve managed to gather.
… twice, three times. A strangled cry escapes from his mouth as the shock in his eyes morphs to denial.
“Marci?” he says in a weak, wet voice.
Azrael says nothing. She hasn’t shut up all night and, now, when her crazy rants could prove to Oso that this isn’t me, she remains quiet.
Oso’s face goes deathly white. He stumbles, wavers on his feet. In one swift motion, Azrael switches the grip on the knife, holds it over her head and drives it down toward his heart.
NOOOO.
I expand more and more and then … an explosion.
Suddenly, I’m infinite, covering the expanse of this universe and all others. And still I’m dissolving, becoming nothing but empty space and going dimmer, dimmer, dimmer. Whatever I was is gone in a big bang and I’m so scattered that I’ll never be one again.
And that’s okay.
I deserve to disappear, because, tonight, a good man has paid for my mistakes.
Chapter 29
Wet. Thick. Slick.
Everywhere.
It shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t be.
Red wiggles in front of me.
On … my fingers. My fingers.
I stare at them, hypnotized for an instant.
I’m back. I’m back in control!
My body shakes. I fall to my knees and discover that Oso is on the floor, dark blood staining his shirt, turning it crimson at a staggering speed as its fibers soak his life away.
A voice rings, saying the same thing over and over again.
“No. No. No. No …” My lips are moving and I think the voice is mine.
A shadow falls over me. I recoil, too weak and lost to fight the agent anymore. My head turns toward the door, functioning on muscle memory alone. It’s not the agent. There’s someone standing by the door.
James.
I try to say his name, but my mouth won’t obey and just keeps saying no.
His storm gray eyes go from my hands to the knife on the floor to Oso’s immobile shape. Next I know, James disappears. A blur hits me. I fly across the room and land in a heap. My head spins. I blink and see James kneeling by Oso.
“Oso, big guy,” James says, fingers pressed to his friend’s throat.
The agitated pumping of James’s chest stops as he tries to get a pulse. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. He inhales deeply and shakes his head. Trembling, he closes his eyes and lowers his chin. After a heavy moment, his gaze swivels to mine in slow motion. Hatred twists his features into a horrifying grimace.
In the next instant, he’s on top of me, his large hands wrapped around my neck, squeezing. My throat closes with the pressure. Saliva pools in my mouth. Time stretches, painting everything a vivid shade of red. Blood seems to slide down the edges of my vision: the life of an innocent man. Oso’s life, a waste that will forever remind me of my failures. Did he have a family? Have I left a child without her father? I don’t even know that. I don’t want to know that.
Tears gather in my eyes and I think that I deserve to die. That this death James will give me is cleaner than any other I might have encountered so far, cleaner than the one I deserve, anyway.
I’m torn between the instinct to fight and the justice in letting James kill me. Then I realize my body has already decided and my blood-streaked hands are wrapped around his wrists, battling to pry him off. But he’s strong. His modified skeleton and muscles are no match for my ordinary human body.
Just die, Marci.
No one
will
miss
you.
My hands fall to the side. I give up. For good.
I’d decided to live for Xave, because he believed in me. But, it turns out, he was wrong. I’m not strong. I’m nothing like he imagined. In a world with no real hardships, it’s easy to pretend you’re all-mighty and able to withstand whatever crap life throws your way. But this grisly reality is more than I can take. It has true fangs and claws. It has ripped off my façade, exposing the weak girl that I’ve always been; the silly girl who thought herself special, worth all the things a mother, a brother, a boyfriend, and a few friends had to offer.
God, I never knew what I had and now it’s all gone.
Gone.
My lungs ache. My neck feels like a desiccated branch ready to snap in two. I’m limp in utter surrender.
Looking into James’s eyes, I beg for forgiveness. His intense gaze falters. Doubt enters his expression, dissolving a measure of his hatred. The grip around my neck eases a fraction as indecision and determination seem to battle within him.
Marci, he would never kill.
The creature that killed Oso, on the other hand, he would gladly asphyxiate a thousand times over. I know he thinks I’m lost, trapped inside this body, but I wonder if he thinks there’s still hope for me.
Whatever the case, he shouldn’t stop.
I give him what he needs to help him make up his mind. I bare my teeth like an animal and attempt a growl through my constricted throat.
All doubt is erased from his expression, but his previous fury and determination don’t return. Instead, pity and regret take their pla
ce. Regardless, his hands tighten once more. Agony cinches around my throat as his large fingers dig harder and harder into me. A strangled sound gurgles through my mouth.
James’s eyes waver. A tear rolls down his cheek. He knows he’s doing me a favor, but it isn’t easy. We’ve all become murderers, directly or indirectly, justified or unjustified. The parasite in my brain has no business being there and doesn’t deserve to live. James is right to do this. If I was still under the agent’s control with no hope of return, I wouldn’t want to live—not after I failed Oso. And even now, as I’ve risen from the shadows, James is still right. I shouldn’t be allowed to go on. So I don’t struggle, even as tears streak his cheeks, even as my nails dig into the carpet and I stifle the instinct to fight.
My lungs scream for oxygen. My legs twitch as if electrified. A heavy fog falls over my eyes, obscuring everything. The world fades away and, for the first time in forever, I get a glimpse of peace, an end to the pain and loneliness. I can finally let go.
Images of a happy past flash across my mind. Dad twirling me around. Mom laughing. Xave holding my hand. A smile stretches over my lips. This isn’t so bad after all.
Strange, distant sounds interrupt the calm. The happiness is cut off as excruciating pain returns. I’m lying on my side, sputtering. Wheezing and sucking in air like gulps of water. My neck throbs in sync with my heartbeat. The room tips and I start to slide.
I’m suddenly on my feet. Someone shakes me.
“Where the hell did he go?”
Spittle sprays my face. My head lolls. I blink my eyes open and stare into a pair of curved tusks dripping with slime.
“He was just right here.” Tusks lets go of me and whirls around the room. “Find him!” He bellows. Hurried steps sound outside the room.
I sway, then drop to the floor with a thud, arms limp, head dangling like a wilted plant.
“At least you were good for something,” Tusks says, gesturing toward Oso. “I thought they’d all gotten away.” He kicks the fallen body in the ribs.
Eclipse the Flame Page 16