The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2)

by T. Ellery Hodges

  He remembered the Alpha’s last words from the dream: “Your anger will never be enough.”

  Jonathan’s mind piled up with questions, but he pushed them away. There wasn’t time to sit here, thinking, while Rylee might be on the run from that thing.

  If she listened, he thought. Please, just let her have listened.

  Awareness of incoming danger suddenly screamed to him, adrenaline blanking out his thoughts as instincts reacted to the signal rocketing toward him. He pushed away from the wall, careening through a nest of cubicles as Grant shot through the broken window, wielding Excali-bar like a sledge hammer. Jonathan rolled with his momentum and spun, getting to his knees in time to see Grant put a hole in the floor where he had been standing. The man’s furious eyes turned to find him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jonathan yelled.

  Grant answered with a growl as he charged with Excali-bar held like a battering ram between his hands. Comprehension took a back seat to survival, and Jonathan launched forward to stop him. Their momentum brought them to a halt when his hand grabbed hold of the staff.

  He pivoted, swinging Grant into part of the concrete still standing behind him. The wall caved in around Grant’s shoulders, and if the man had been hurt, he seemed too focused to care.

  “That all ya got, Tibbs?” Grant snarled through gritted teeth, and brought his full strength to bear, thrusting Jonathan back. Not having expected to find his strength outmatched, Jonathan was caught off guard when he didn’t have the force to keep his opponent pinned into the wall. As he held tight and grappled for leverage, Grant suddenly swung their weight. The concrete gave as Jonathan’s back rammed into the wall, their bodies punching through into a hallway on the other side and toppling over one another.

  Rolling, Jonathan managed to maneuver himself on top of Grant, Excali-bar still between them. Even from the floor, he felt Grant pushing him away.

  “Dammit, Grant! I don’t have time for this.”

  “Don’t have time?” he ground out, spittle flying from his mouth. Grant’s eyes blazed with rage, and suddenly, he shifted the weight to one arm while releasing it in the other. Jonathan was struck hard on the temple, and his strength gave way at the abrupt shock of pain. Grant seized on the opportunity, bringing the other end of the bar around to connect with Jonathan’s skull. Dizzied from the blows, finding he couldn’t get his head to command his body, Jonathan fell back onto the floor.

  Grant rolled before getting to his feet, fast, and took hold of the chain wrapped around Jonathan’s torso. The man had control of him, pulling him up and swinging him around before throwing him down the length of the hallway, where he slammed into a corner wall.

  “Think you better pencil me in,” Grant said, chuckling to himself. “I’ve had this appointment on my calendar for a while now.”

  Jonathan steadied himself and, looking down the hall, saw two images of Grant coming toward him. He struggled to resolve them into one in his vision. “Probably should have made it with a therapist,” Jonathan managed.

  “That’s funny, Tibbs! You’re being so damn clueless. It does make kicking your ass rather… therapeutic.”

  Jonathan leaned on the wall, using it to push himself up on his feet. “Well, if you’re on the verge of a damn breakthrough,” he said, “perhaps you could enlighten me?”

  The smile fell off Grant’s face, and his voice grew low. “Everything you are, you took from me.”

  Jonathan’s vision solidified into a single man coming for him. “In that case, I guess I’ll have to update the diagnosis,” he said, shaking his head. “From asshole … to certifiable asshole.”

  The words brought a villainous smile back to Grant’s face before he closed the distance remaining between them, raising Excali-bar overhead to crush Jonathan’s skull.

  Jonathan held his ground, waited until the bar was coming down on him before he raised his forearm and braced for the impact. Alien steel hit alien steel, and the clang rang though the hallway as the armored plate in the forearm of Jonathan’s jacket brought the weapon to an abrupt halt. The floor beneath his boots cracked, threatening to give in and collapse where he stood, as Jonathan gritted his teeth and dropped to one knee.

  Taking the blow hurt, but he’d known it was coming, while Grant had expected a wholly different outcome. The intense vibration running through the staff back into his hands was a shock, and what he had expected to be a devastating strike hadn’t phased Jonathan’s arm in the least. Grant had hardly registered the disappointment when Jonathan exploded out of his crouch and drove his fist straight into Grant’s chin. It connected cleanly, and Jonathan followed through, sending Grant face-first through the roof of the building.

  With nothing to stop him, Grant shot out into the open air, leaving Jonathan only a split second to make a difficult call. Maddening as it was, Grant had to be taken out of the equation. He couldn’t begin to help Rylee with that Alpha if Grant was on his heels. He had to be incapacitated as quickly as possible.

  “Dammit!” He exhaled the word as he launched himself through the ceiling after Grant.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  RYLEE DOVE FROM the roof and ping-ponged her way down the alley just as one of Malkier’s attacks broke the upper corner of the building free. The resultant debris pelted her body with shrapnel as it crashed down beside her, bouncing off her skin and armor.

  She’d stood her ground against him long enough to see the futility in fighting him. Somersaulting out of the way of his initial attack, she’d kept her body a constantly-moving target. When he’d overextended himself, his powerful claw going wide as he’d reached to grab hold of her, she’d leaped above his grasp, pulling Themyscira from her jacket and bearing down with strikes that had first struck his face then his knee cap. Rylee had spun from his counterattack, and clipped the back of his thigh before jumping out of reach.

  She may as well have been trying to cut down a tree with a nerf gun—the bastard had hardly flinched. Even if Malkier stood still and let her give him her best shot, she doubted she could hurt him. If beating him to death with the rattan wasn’t going to get the job done, she had to find another way.

  Jonathan’s last words echoed: Rylee, run!

  Half a block in front of her, a parked van seemed to implode in on itself, its windows exploding into shards as the street rumbled beneath her. She staggered as she brought herself to a stop, seeing Malkier stand up from within the remains of the flattened vehicle.

  “Must we continue this?” he asked as he stepped out of the wreckage onto the street. “Your ally is surely dead by now. How do you imagine this ends, human?”

  Rylee kept the fear restrained, didn’t allow herself to falter at Malkier’s certainty that Jonathan was dead. She didn’t believe that his life could be extinguished without her knowing. Still, if he lived, he’d have to be a broken mess now—not in any condition to defend himself. Even if she underestimated Jonathan and he was on his feet, what chance was there that he would fare any better against this Alpha? The siren’s call of despair held sway over her for the briefest of moments.

  He’s alive, dammit, Rylee thought. I have got to keep this bastard’s attention. If they tag team either of us, it’s over.

  She turned to bolt in the opposite direction, resolved to give Malkier the chase of his life, but as she spun, her attention was drawn by a sudden hard change from Grant’s signal in her mind. There was a distant thud of impact, and her eyes shot into the air to see a man’s body shoot out over a building five or six blocks from where she stood. Even from such distance, she knew it wasn’t Jonathan she’d just seen knocked across the skyline. It was a beacon screaming out to her not to waver. She didn’t know how he was on his feet, but Jonathan was alive. If he still had the will to fight after what he’d endured, she’d be damned if this alien asshole was going to convince her to make this the slightest bit easier.

  She smiled as she turned back to Malkier, catching his attention drawn to the spectacle above
them as well.

  “Not bad for a dead guy,” Rylee yelled.

  She was in motion before Malkier’s angered expression had fully formed on his Feroxian features. She heard the crash of his monstrous steps as they tore through traffic in pursuit behind her.

  Her plan had taken shape, and it was simple. If she could keep Malkier busy as long as possible, she might wear him down with exhaustion. After that, she and Jonathan could take him down together. Right now, she just had to hope Jonathan didn’t do something stupid.

  Like dying without her permission.

  Jonathan leaped onto the rooftop just as Grant was getting to his feet. Grant watched him, reaching for his jaw, wiggling it back and forth before he spat a blood-soaked molar on to the tar and gravel roof.

  “Well, that’s the spirit,” Grant said.

  “You’re not leaving me a lot of options here, Grant. Help me or get the hell out of the way.”

  Grant had been staring at Jonathan with open disgust, but the idea of an alliance only added a mocking chuckle. “Oh, look at you,” he said, his voice taking on a high-pitched, whiny tone as he mimicked Jonathan: “Grant, we gotta go save the girl.”

  Jonathan didn’t know what to say, just stared back, unable to believe the man was what he appeared.

  “Tell me, Tibbs, ’cause I just really want to know. Someone tells you that you’re this big secret weapon in a war for Mankind,” Grant said. “And the first thing you do is go out and kill the son of the biggest badass in existence.” He whistled. “Ballsy, I’ll give you that. But maybe diplomacy isn’t really your thing.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Grant, how can you possibly know all that and still be doing what you are doing? Our world fights a war, and you choose the other side.”

  Grant looked at Excali-bar, still in his hand after being knocked across the skyline. He extended his arm and dropped the weapon to the roof, then stepped over it toward Jonathan.

  “Our world?” Grant asked, lifting his hands as though he were pointing to everything around them. “This is my world,” he said. “Life, it doesn’t last so long here, but that’s okay, because today is my day —I don’t need a lifetime to see you fail.”

  Jonathan shook his head. There wasn’t any question—Grant’s shadow had deteriorated, was insane, and Jonathan was done trying to reason with insanity. “Every day, some asshole tries to kill me, Grant,” he said. “So you’ll have to forgive me if today just doesn’t feel special.”

  Grant stopped smiling, the smugness erased from his face. Jonathan’s dismissal of this moment was making him shake with anger. Grant had been right—diplomacy was not his thing.

  “What’s her name? Rylee?” he asked. “She’s gonna die today, and when I’m done with you, I’m going to visit every damn one of these sluts who protected you! That government bitch, your roommate, the red head … Leah?”

  Jonathan closed his eyes. He’d never had to consider killing another human being, never imagined what would give him a reason to want to—his imagination never dreamed up Grant. It didn’t matter that this man was threatening temporary copies—that the real people would never know what Grant wanted to inflict on them. Jonathan took a deep breath. He let himself go. When he opened his eyes, the killer was waiting behind them.

  Grant’s eyes widened in sudden anticipation as he stepped forward, and Jonathan took his first step to meet him.

  “Finally,” the shadow said, accelerating into a charge.

  They met in the center. A rabid, over-eager fist went wide of Jonathan as he dodged, taking hold of Grant’s arm and swinging his momentum against him. He let go, sent Grant crashing into a metal ventilation unit that crumpled in around him. He charged in to exploit the throw, but Grant surprised him, pulling out of the wrecked metal and getting hold of Jonathan’s shoulder and chain, using the leverage to lift Jonathan up, over, and down.

  Jonathan’s body broke through the roof, landing on his back on the floor below. Grant was not long to follow, dropping in after him. They were in an open flat that was under renovation. Construction supplies and equipment laid in various stages of use, plastic sheeting still lining unfinished walls. Grant was on him before he could get to his feet, thrusting his foot hard into his gut. The kick lifted him off the floor and put him through a half-finished wall. Jonathan only came to a halt when he hit a pallet of masonry bags. The mortar dust erupted around him as he rolled through the top layer, falling off the pallet onto a half-used stack of bricks.

  Though the dust left him partially blinded, he could feel Grant’s signal coming straight for him. His hand gripped one of the loose bricks beneath him, and he trusted his instincts as he brought the brick around hard. When Grant leaped into the dust and landed on top of what remained of the mortar bags, the brick dissolved against the side of Grant’s head.

  He grunted in stunned pain and Jonathan capitalized on it, grabbing one of the man’s legs, taking him off his feet and swinging him into a wall further behind them. He followed the signal, running and thrusting his shoulder into Grant as he emerged out of the cloud into clear air. He connected with Grant, rammed his body back into the wall, and put him back into it as he rebounded.

  Jonathan landed a series of blows that caved the brick in as Grant absorbed them. Growling, the man finally got his wits back, ducking under a strike aimed for his head. Jonathan felt his fist punch into the brick as Grant burst forward, tackling him. They landed in one of the open spaces of the flat, locked in pure rage as they rolled into the center.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  RYLEE’S FEET TOUCHED the wall and she pushed up and away as a car flattened itself against the building below her. She pivoted in the air, finding Malkier still in pursuit, and picking up a motorcycle parked on the street as though they were playing a high-stakes game of dodgeball. She flipped into a landing and dove to the opposite sidewalk as the motorcycle lodged itself into the flattened car that had missed her a moment earlier.

  The crowds fleeing around her were filled with frightened faces and people abandoning their vehicles in the gridlocked traffic to get as far away from the rampaging beast as they could. She rolled onto her feet, finding the monster was already coming for her. Malkier, seeing he had her attention, plucked a woman off the street as she ran.

  The woman screamed in fear, but even if someone in the scrambling mobs might have had the bravery to try and help her, the screams were lost in the cacophony. Malkier’s gaze stayed on Rylee. He had no pity or regard for the life he held—only calculation. Then he drove the woman into the sidewalk without ever taking his eyes off Rylee.

  Since her first activation, she’d never been so powerless to stop one of the Ferox. The last time she’d let someone be killed right in front of her, the life had been her father’s. Rylee turned away; she couldn’t allow Malkier to use the lives around them to get into her head. She ran, knowing not to give her attention to him long enough that he’d have time to bother repeating the psychological attack.

  She bounded away, trying not to let the image of the terrified woman into her thoughts, and turned a corner. She kept her mind focused on circling the signal of the man that had gone after Jonathan. Though her implant gave her a far greater endurance than a human, she was by no means immune to exhaustion. Malkier wasn’t showing signs of slowing down—and she knew she couldn’t keep this up forever. Rylee pleaded in her mind for Jonathan to hurry.

  She heard the crash of a wall coming down behind her, and she shot away as Malkier erupted from within the building, having never changed his course but instead taken a straight line to her. Nothing was an obstacle, nothing slowed him down, and it made keeping distance between them far more difficult. The only thing keeping her alive was making sure he never reached her, and she had to buy as much time as it took. So she kept running.

  Jonathan hit the floor and heard Grant’s body do the same. He rolled back on his feet, starting to feel his legs losing their swiftness. It seemed that no matter how much damage he infli
cted, the man kept coming as though he had a boundless well of energy that couldn’t be worn down. Meanwhile, Jonathan was beginning to feel his muscles slow, his reactions dull. He saw Grant’s vicious expression turning, taking on an ugly smile as he seemed to realize the same.

  “Someone’s getting tired,” he said.

  Jonathan growled, launching for the man, landing a series of punches. He saw the pain registering on Grant’s face, but the man just kept smiling. He recovered too quickly. If he didn’t find a way to hurt Grant—badly enough to break something—he would exhaust himself before Grant ever stopped coming for him.

  He knocked Grant against a wall, pummeling him, roaring as anger started to become frustration, until Grant got hold of his arm as he brought it in for another blow. Jonathan couldn’t regain the leverage before Grant pulled him in, his forehead crashing into Jonathan’s face.

  Jonathan staggered back, dizzy and unable to clear his vision as more punches seemed to land down on him. The barrage only ended when a kick threw him across the room. He hit the smooth pavement, his body sliding across the floor. As he still tried to clear his head, the signal rushed toward him, and he felt Grant grab hold of his neck before he had fully gotten to his feet. He lifted Jonathan from the ground, only to throw him back down against it.

  Jonathan tried again to get to his feet, and Grant kicked him in the gut. Blood shot out of his mouth and slapped against the floor in front of him.

  “That about it then, Tibbs?” He reached down and hauled Jonathan up onto his feet. “Yeah,” Grant said, tilting his head. “You look like you’re just about ready.”

  Grant smiled for a moment before he stepped into him, pushing Jonathan away. His body rolled at first, then slid across the smooth cement like a puck across a shuffleboard. Unable to find anything to hold onto, he tried pressing his palms against the floor seeking any friction that would slow him. Then, abruptly, there was nothing beneath him. His fingers found a grip at the ledge of a drop off, barely stopping him before his body plummeted down.