Chapter 4 #2
Holmes sways forward, then steps back. “You got it.”
Mav bounces on his feet, his head lowered as he integrates this new information.
After a few deep breaths and a biohazard clean up, Mav returns to the mat.
Hedy and I share a look. My chest feels heavy as Rae waves me in.
While Edison used his standard technique, I’ve decided to meet Mav with his own specialty. Facing him, I hold out my hand, a move I know he’ll recognize as the traditional start to a BJJ sparring match.
He grins and smacks my hand in return, and we go at each other. He’s way bigger than me, but I put him on his ass in under ten seconds.
“Fuck,” he grunts under his breath. “You’re fast.”
I wink, and because this initiation is meant to test his control and grit, I let him see my eyes.
Obsidian, like Edison’s.
Gone, however, is the emotion of that initial discovery. Mav sharpens his jaw and nods to himself. Got it, I can almost hear him say. He locks in and doesn’t give me even a second to find purchase on his body.
“Stop holding back, Sy,” Hedy calls from the sideline.
I silently double-check with her, and she sends me a single distinct nod. Okay then.
I go at Maverick full speed, moving faster than any human he’s ever seen. His eyes widen as I grab him by the thighs, lift him off his feet, and slam him to the ground.
“Jesus fuck,” he says, breathing heavily. “You’re a blur, dude.”
To his credit, even though he’s slow to get back on his feet, something has shifted behind his eyes.
This time, when I go at him, Mav doesn’t try to keep up.
Instead, he becomes slippery like an eel.
Sneaky too. The second I think I’ve got a good grip on him, I’m looking up at the ceiling, my eyes rolling around in my head.
Sucking air, still on the ground, I roll my head to address Hedy. “He’s good.”
“Excellent.” She turns to Mav. “Take five and get ready for the real test.”
Sweat pouring off his forehead, Mav nods.
“That’s why Uncle Ro hates you,” he says, taking a bottle of water from Holmes while he watches me pick myself up off the mat. “I know you were, like, born in a lab or something. But you’re also scary as hell. If you ever decided you hated us, we’d be fucking dead.”
The others came to the same conclusion but used nicer language. I appreciate Maverick’s blunt take.
“Uncle Ro doesn’t hate me,” I respond matter-of-factly. “He’s afraid of me.”
Unlike the sadness he displayed with Edison’s reveal, Mav’s expression for me is softer. Accepting.
“Bad luck all around, huh?”
My thoughts go to Oakley, and I wonder if that’s who he’s thinking of too. I’m not very good at hiding my feelings. “You could say that.”
“If you’re breathing easy enough to talk, you’re ready for the next part,” Hedy says, gesturing to Edison.
He nods and walks over to the whiteboard about fifty yards from where we’re standing.
Edison raises his brows and Mav nods. Edison rolls the board off to the side, revealing a small holding cell bolted into a steel-reinforced section of wall.
The cell is dark and its inhabitant lies on the floor. Still.
Dead or asleep?
The big red button set off to the side looks like a cartoon prop. It always makes me laugh.
Edison takes a dart gun from his side holster, pulling the trigger with a soft thoot. Mav moves closer to get a better look. Holmes holds up his hand and motions for Mav to step back.
Soon enough, the occupant of the cell shakes off his haze and rises to standing. Well, not full standing—he’s too tall for the cell.
“Holy shit,” Mav says under his breath.
He follows Holmes to the cell door, where he hands him a small axe and a knife.
“Understand what you have to do?”
Mav looks at the man in the cell and rolls his shoulders. “Yep.”
Holmes gives him a thumbs-up and jogs back to our position.
Rae holds up a stopwatch and clicks it. Mav hits the big red button and the door slides open.
The man stays in place.
“Dude. I’m supposed to kill you. If you’re just gonna stand there and make it easy—”
The man comes flying out of the cell. Mav rolls out of the way, barely avoiding getting taken out by the giant. And he is a giant. Nearly eight feet tall and broad as a barn, almost inhuman in scale. His unibrow is ridged, his nose broad and battered, and his fingers look like sausages.
Maverick, who’s over six feet tall and built like an Adonis, looks damn near petite next to this monster. He pops up and dances on his feet. The axe and knife look inadequate in the extreme.
I turn to Hedy. “Do you think we should—”
Before I can complete my thought, the giant takes a swing at Mav, who easily ducks, avoiding the ham-sized fist, before darting behind the mammoth guy. Mav leans down and swipes at the man’s Achilles with the knife…only for the knife to get stuck and break off in the tendon.
We all shudder. Blech.
The giant bellows in pain, and Mav resets. Double-handing the axe, Mav takes a swing at the man’s other Achilles, this time slicing through it cleanly.
The giant goes to all fours, and Mav climbs onto his back, holding the axe in a reverse grip. He reaches around the man’s veiny neck and draws the sharp blade across his throat. A fountain of blood stains the mat and the surrounding concrete. But the man isn’t down just yet.
The giant, still on his knees, swings around, spraying blood everywhere. Mav holds on, riding him like a bull. The man continues to lash out, trying to reach behind him, making a bigger and bigger mess with each wild attempt to unseat Mav.
Finally, he slows. Mav, still on the man’s back, takes another two-fisted swing of the axe, this time down through the base of the giant’s skull. Right through his first vertebrae.
The giant goes lax, slumping into his own small lake of blood. We start making our way over, but Mav holds up his fist. He isn’t taking his victory lap. Not yet. Instead, he stares at Edison. Tilts his head. Decides…something.
Our contingent pauses simultaneously, as if one brain. Waiting.
Mav appears to recenter, nodding to himself before he returns his focus to the inert giant beneath him. With a mighty swing, he starts hacking away at the giant’s neck until his head is separated from his body. Mav kicks the head away, a slow, wet tumbling sound filling the space.
Only then does he saunter toward us, covered in blood, twirling the axe in one hand.
“Why’d you behead him?” Hedy asks.
She sounds horrified. Which, considering, is kinda funny. I’ve learned that most people don’t laugh in these situations, so I bite my tongue.
Maverick purses his lips. “I dunno. Why is Uncle Eddie’s chin already healed?”
There’s a sharpness to his ask that forces us to all look in Edison’s direction. And…yes. Edison’s chin is healed. As we knew it would be. It’s one of the few ways in which Edison and I are different.
It’s how I know he’s more than just a genetic experiment gone wrong. He’s something else. Something other.
Whatever he is, I don’t have the clearance.
Hedy presses her lips into a hard line.
Maverick doesn’t wait for her to tell whatever lie she has waiting on her tongue.
“Maybe I’m reading into things, but I’m starting to suspect that not everything knows how to die.
” He lifts a shoulder, as if his entire worldview hasn’t just shifted three degrees to the left.
The hollow look in his eyes, however, betrays the cost of knowing the truth. “Figured I should cover my bases.”
“Makes sense to me,” Oakley says, and I jump at his low, confident timbre.
He strides in from the side, his face impassive.
Did he see…everything?
Did he see me?
He turns his body to Hedy, even as his eyes find mine. “I understand why you wanted me to observe Mav’s initiation.” Finally, a break in his expression. A brief—warm—smile in my direction. “In fact, there’s a lot I’m beginning to understand.”