Chapter 14 #2
"Vesperin." The ragged edges of the word cut into his throat.
The guards stiffened. They held a man—Lucien.
Kit knew him. He thought he should know him. Didn’t he know him?
Kit stared at the man, with glasses and black hair, held back by two guards. Whatever this man saw on Kit’s face made his features twist in anguish. Kit bared his teeth at him, like an animal. Sometimes he could not decide if he was more animal or machine. He felt like he might be both.
"Kit, don’t," said the man—Lucien. The guards holding him ordered him to shut up.
Vesperin just stood there, eyes wild. She looked different. Paler. Unwell.
Something in Kit cracked, rattling against the metal-fused bars of his flesh in rage. He was the only one who got to hurt her.
"Who hurt you?" Kit’s voice was low.
"W-what?" Vesperin shook her head. "What are you talking about, Kit—" She made to step forward, but a shift in sound made Kit’s head swing to the cloaked Soul Searcher, who was trying to be subtle as he shook his head at her.
The guards raised their weapons.
Kit did not feel fear.
"You look hurt. Who hurt you?" His eyes raked over her, from the top of her tousled hair to her heels, peeking out from the hem of her gown. He did not know what to do with the feelings she stirred within him.
One of the guards raised his gun, the barrel gleaming in the low light. "Back the fuck up."
"Phoenix," another barked, when Kit did not move, "surrender."
Kit did not speak.
"Enough," came a smooth, strong feminine voice.
That voice had spoken to him as he had been cut open, his brain bared for them to study. The room before him merged with the dark, blood-soaked, medicinal operating theater. He shook his head to displace the thoughts.
When the room sharpened before him, Sabine stood there, Talor by his side.
His father, his mother—his makers.
The ones he vowed to hunt that day he had escaped. To make them pay.
Kit found his focus torn away from Vesperin—his true obsession—as Sabine stepped closer, the guards anchoring her.
"Kiton, thank the Celestials you are here." Blasphemy. She did not believe. "You can help us apprehend these trespassers." A slender finger pointed at the group, as if she wished to sic him on them.
Lucien was the only one held back. The Soul Searcher stood before a red-haired woman, while Vesperin was backed against a wall.
Kit felt a smile tug his lips. True and sinister.
"Ma’am, we should get you out of here. I don’t think—" one of the guards started.
"Are you giving me an order?" Sabine questioned.
The guard shook his head.
"Return to us, son," said Talor, "or our guards will force you."
"I have ripped apart each guard you have sent for me. What makes these so different? I will coat the walls of this room in their entrails. I will paint you in the blood of the soldiers you send to bring me back to the base. To return—return to the base? Never," Kit stressed.
He studied the guards. There were twelve. Seven on one side, five on the other.
Sabine shook her head. "Pity." She began to turn away. "Get him."
And the guards obeyed. They were well-trained; Kit was not. He surged forward, while two of the guards stepped in front of his makers, shielding them.
Bullets sprayed.
"Do not kill them!" Sabine ordered.
Vesperin, Kit thought, as he leaped, drawing his legs beneath him as he fell into a perfect crouch behind two of the guards. He stared at their backs, wanting their focus on him—and not Vesperin, who had moved to the Soul Searcher, crouching low.
The woman with red hair was on the ground, blood spilling from her neck, coating her silver gown.
She choked on her own blood, bubbling past her lips as Vesperin tried to staunch the wound from a stray bullet with her hands, teary-eyed, as the Soul Searcher tried to coax her back, tugging on her arm. Vesperin refused to leave.
Her pretty blue gown was covered in red, the white ends of her hair stained with scarlet.
His orders glitched. Return—return—b… base.
His right hand snapped out, gripping the back of one of the guard’s necks. He grabbed the other, then bashed their heads together with preternatural strength. Their skulls collided, red spraying out as brains wept from the caved-in holes.
He heard screams. More bullets.
He did not stop.
Vesperin. He had to get them away from her.
His obsession twisted. He would protect her.
He knew nothing but the haze of violence, licking against him like tepid ocean waves on unfeeling flesh.
Blood warmed his cheeks, soaked his black clothes.
The only thing that drew him away from the haze was the sound of her voice, yelling his name.
"Kit! Stop!" Vesperin begged. She was held in the arms of a guard. Blood all over her. Was it hers? His gaze swung to the red-haired woman’s unseeing eyes. Dead.
Kit heaved, reaching out for a ripped arm on the ground, the fingers still curved around a gun’s trigger.
He dropped the arm and raised the bloodied gun.
It felt unnatural in his hands. He tightened his fingers, and the metal turned to a heap, crushed.
Bullets plinked to the blood-soaked concrete. He dropped the mass of metal.
The guard holding Vesperin was one of the last left. Another stood before Sabine and Talor, staggering as he clutched a wound at his side.
The guard pressed the barrel of a gun to the side of Vesperin’s head, arm locked around her neck as he squeezed her against him.
She reached up to grip the guard’s arm where it was locked over her neck, her lips twisted into a grimace.
She wore only one heel. The other was lost in her struggle, discarded further away.
The Soul Searcher’s scythe had been knocked out of his hands.
They were losing.
"Well, I have finally found your weakness," Sabine intoned. "Her."
"I will make you pay," Kit vowed.
"But will you before I order a bullet through your precious Soulbond’s head?" Sabine countered.
Fear made him go cold.
"You need her." Kit remembered that much.
"Would you bet her life on that? We have put millions into you. We have not been able to recreate the Phoenix. In time, we could recreate the phenomenon of Vesperin—that is what the Aetherborns are for. Testing. Using the Aether to create Nova."
"You have failed. Why are you so confident now?" Lucien’s voice was strained.
Sabine gave a laugh. "Much can be accomplished in eternity."
He did not wait to hear what else she was going to say. He would not test her claims.
Kit pounced, sweeping low. A gunshot went off. It ricocheted off the ceiling, dust falling. His fingers enclosed around the toe of Vesperin’s discarded heel as he pushed himself up—behind the guard holding her.
His breath rustled the hairs at the back of the guard’s neck as he whispered, "Too late.
" He jabbed the pointed tip of the heel into the back of his neck, digging in deep.
The guard gave a strangled moan, gun falling from his limp fingers as blood spurted from the wound.
"Go." The word came from the very pit of Kit’s Soul as his eyes met Vesperin’s.
Kit ripped the bloody heel away from the guard’s neck, clutching it to his chest. It was warm with blood, slick. Small like the one who had worn it.
Vesperin stumbled away from the guard into the Soul Searcher’s arms. Lucien joined them. They each stood on either side of Vesperin, shielding her.
The Soul Searcher bent to retrieve his scythe, the Star on his cheek glowing as he swiped it over something in the corner, just above the dead woman’s body.
The glow of the Star dulled. His shoulders loosened.
Satisfied, he wrapped an arm around Vesperin’s shoulders, held his scythe up once more, and—
Made a pained groan.
The Soul Searcher fell to his knees.
Vesperin went next, a soft series of pants as she tried to remain upright—a losing battle. Blood slipped from her nostrils, pooling in the bow above her lip, and dripping from her chin.
Lucien grabbed for her unsteadily, then fell by her side, wrapping his arms around her to protect her from whatever gripped them both.
Kit’s temples throbbed dully.
He turned his head sharply to the side, staring at his makers.
Sabine held a strange device, shaped with a wide, flared mouth. It was focused on the three who writhed on the ground.
Anger surged inside Kit. He took a step closer to Sabine.
Talor held up a gun. "Stay back."
"You hurt her. Stop," Kit seethed.
"This has gone on long enough. Do you not agree, Kiton?" Sabine clicked a button on the device. Vesperin gave a choked scream. "There is a way to get this to stop."
The orders… They changed. For the first time in months, since he had gone rogue.
Surrender or she dies.
Everything inside Kit froze. The mechanics in his arm whirred as his fingers tightened around Vesperin’s bloodied heel.
Rin couldn’t think past the pain in her body. Her brain felt like it was going to split in two, her organs turn to liquid, her bones to jelly. Her heart was one long erratic beat in her chest. It was agony.
The concrete was warm with blood beneath her. She felt it drip from her pounding ears, tasted the metallic tang on the back of her tongue.
Auren clawed his way over to her. Blood fell from the corners of his eyes like scarlet tears. Rin sobbed. She tried to say his name, but couldn’t speak.
Through blurry vision, clouded by tears of pain and blood, she saw Kit frozen. He was speaking to Sabine, who held a device. The air around it seemed to ripple as she forced the device closer to them.
More pain.
Rin gave a weak, pathetic cry.
Shadows stretched across the floor, pleasant coolness brushing her ankles and twining up her calves. They slipped beneath her gown, shivering across her belly, up to her breasts, until they traveled up her jaw, grazing the comms behind her ear.
It felt like a phantom hand, holding her head up.
"My… shadow," Rin tried to say through the pain, but her lips barely moved. It was a soft exhalation of sound.