73. Chapter 73
Conin
The stray bullet knicks my tricep. I fall on all fours, my botched palms drawing blood against the road’s surface, crimson draining in rivulets from the bullet’s graze.
Before I find Atlas and Ezra, I need to obtain both my Angelic suit and the HK from the armory inside Headquarters.
So, I get moving, careening up the hill as flames encroach on the wildlife and buildings behind me.
Angelics scream and cry for help, many of them sprinting in the direction of the tunnels.
I wonder if that’s where my boys have headed since they were together working on the fields.
That’s where I’ll go once I have the armor and gun in my possession.
I round the corner and beeline for the entrance.
I need to be hasty since it’s only a matter of time before Barclay’s soldiers find their way here—before the flame climbs, claiming the land around us.
When I enter HQ, a stream of Angelic guards adorned in their armor sprint out and make their way toward the action.
I’m backed against the wall, panting and watching as smoke starts spilling over the streets.
It’s thick and dark and blocks any view of the street beyond.
Barbara clambers from the desk and spots me hunched, back pressed against the bricks.
“What are you doing?” she exclaims. “They’re coming!”
“I’ll follow after you!”
She hurries through the exit, but the second she reaches the outside, the smoke swallows her whole.
I hear the brat-brat-brat of a gun. Crimson stains splatter over the glass door.
The horrifying image is enough to send me sprinting toward the stairs that lead to the locker room.
I make it about halfway before I trip over myself and go barreling down head-first over the remaining steps.
My body’s on fire and I ache from head to toe.
Nothing’s broken, at least not from what I can feel, so I sit up, brush my hands against the metal railing, and pull my body to stand despite everything in me resisting.
I’m slower moving toward the locker room.
I keep my hand against the wall, letting it scrape against the concrete, but it’s enough to keep me upright.
The room approaches and I slip in, but halt when I see two figures hovering near my locker.
Their faces are coated in sweat and grime.
I recognize them both and it’s enough to send jolts of hope all through my aching body.
Ambrosia’s purple dreads are a little worse for wear, while Atlas’s glasses are shattered in one lens, his hair disheveled, poking up at odd ends. Ezra isn’t with them, but they have to know where he is. They have to.
“Here,” she clips, tossing me my emblem.
I attach it to the fabric of my beaten shirt, pressing down hard.
The armor wraps around my frame and tugs against my stomach.
I place two fingers on the neckpiece, feeling the confines of a helmet appear from thin air.
The ventilation kicks in and it becomes significantly easier to breathe. The others follow suit.
Ambrosia turns to me, eyes wild.
“Where’s Matt?” she breathes.
I can’t do this now.
“I was with him . . . he—”
“No,” she says. Her visor shakes, glints from the fluorescents above reflecting off it. “No, no, no.”
The pain in her voice shatters my heart.
“I’m so sorry,” I croak.
An intense pounding crescendoes down the stairs.
I twist to look behind me and see the crude outline of a figure in the darkness—through the smoke that starts to drift in.
Ambrosia releases a bloodcurdling cry and the figure rises into the air, smacking into the ceiling, before falling onto the cement in a piercing crunch.
Whoever that was could’ve been one of us.
Vomit rises in my esophagus, threatening to splatter the visor of this helmet.
“Ambrosia—”
“These suits have night vision, Co. They were a soldier,” Atlas says.
“I can’t feel him,” she stutters.
I have no idea what she means, but the longer we sit here, the higher the chances are we’ll be caught.
“I can’t feel him!” she screams.
“We need to move,” I say and push past the two for the armory. “Help her up.”
The armory’s already looted, but my HK remains clasped to the wall.
I punch in the code, feeling the weight tug down on my shaking arms. The strap falls onto my shoulders.
Once I’m situated, I search for a weapon to give Atlas.
Ambrosia’s abilities are a weapon of their own, so I don’t worry about her, though I’m not optimistic she’ll be useful at the moment.
And for good reason, too. When the two inch into the room together, I extend a SIG Sauer to Atlas in hopes he’ll take it.
He eyes it warily but doesn’t protest as he hesitantly grabs it.
“We need to find Ezra. Where is he?”
“I don’t know, but he’s alive.”
“What happened?” I ask, growing impatient. “Weren’t you with him?”
“I—I was with him! Callum intervened and took Ezra. I’ve never seen Callum before, but that scar . . . Ezra’s not dead yet. I can still feel him.” Atlas quivers.
I don’t need to see his face to know he’s crying, but he’s much more composed than Ambrosia, who leans against the threshold, clutching her emblem.
“Do we have one for him? When we do find him?” I say, indicating the one on my chest.
“Yes,” he says.
“Let’s go find him. Maybe he escaped.”
The distant cracks of bullets being fired ring close. More and more smoke collects in the basement—a window must be open somewhere.
“Go on without me,” Ambrosia sobs.
“We’re not leaving you here to die,” I say firmly while everything inside me falls apart.
I’m reining in every last drop of energy and adrenaline I have to remain composed, but I feel myself bursting at the seams. Not having Ezra here with us is making me lose my mind, but if I fall apart before we can do anything about it, I just may never get to see him again. And that’s not going to happen.
“Please,” she says.
“No,” I say. If this makes me the bad guy, then so be it. “We have Angelics out there counting on us. And forgive me if I don’t want my friend to die.”
Ambrosia leans against the outline of the exit, then slowly straightens to her full height. Her visor is directed toward the floor. Seconds later, it finds Atlas, and then me. She nods. A sliver of hope wedges itself inside me. We’re going to do this. Ezra will be fine.
“Let’s move.”
I lead the way while Atlas takes the rear.
Boots bang against the linoleum over us and I prepare the HK for inevitable confrontation.
The first black-clad soldier takes a step down.
I fire, releasing a stream of ammunition into the helmet.
A cherry-red stream sprouts from the exit wound and cakes the cement behind the fallen soldier.
More arrive—I’m about to send another flurry of bullets their way when I get shoved to the side.
Ambrosia’s dreads spill out the back end of her helmet, her gloves gripped tightly into fists.
The second soldier takes the place of the first—they have barely any time to react.
Ambrosia releases her fingers, splaying them out wide, and fills the hallway with her screams while she furiously sends the lineup flying down the hall.
Atlas teleports to the end, where Barbara’s blood stains the entrance’s glass.
I climb the last step, watching him put a bullet through the head of every Barclay soldier.
Each shot rings in my head—each shot reminds me of Mara’s fallen body, of the man whose life I ended at the warehouse—Matt’s fractured skull.
The soldier whose crimson life force scatters the wall below me—another testament that I’m a murderer.
I can’t see Atlas’s expression behind the visor, but each bullet to the brain is another puncture to the heart, another reason to fear for him. If he’s okay. If he’ll be able to live with himself.
“Atlas—”
“No time to stall. There’ll be more soon,” he says.
Ambrosia swipes the bodies to the side and clears a direct path to the door.
Atlas is the first to exit. A whirl of pungent smoke in hues of gray and black wafts through the space.
The thick clouds obstruct our vision. Even the suit’s visor has a difficult time picking up anything through the intense layers.
I follow Ambrosia out, stepping over Barbara’s cadaver, slicked with blooming blood from multiple entries to the skull and chest. That urge to vomit resurfaces and I try my best to swallow it down.
We file onto Main Street, the occasional clearance in the air allowing us to see ahead by several feet at a time.
I keep my eye trained on Atlas, ensuring he stays within my view.
I can’t lose him either. I won’t. It’s my peripheries that notice a shift in the landscape—a life form that wasn’t there before.
Infrared outlines an approaching radio signature.
It moves slowly, negligently, without a care in the world—without fear that a town burns around them.
Unless they’re injured, this can’t be good.
From out of the thickened haze, a figure dressed in the bare minimum in sheer black swaggers in our direction. Flame tattoos wrap around the length of his forearms like a spindle—fire hovers above his palms. Levi glares triumphantly through the heavy smog, cradling death within his hands.
“Whom do I have the pleasure of burning?” he bellows maniacally.
He’s deranged. Frenzied. And he’s enjoying every goddamned second.
Atlas dissipates in the smoke and rematerializes behind Levi, draping an armored hand around the mercenary’s neck, the other hand holding a gun to his temple.
“Atlas!” I wail.
“Where’s Ezra Gray?” he seethes.
Levi’s mouth betrays him and a delightful laugh escapes. Atlas digs the SIG Sauer deeper into the mercenary’s skull.
“Oh, it’s you two,” Levi says. His laugh grows uncontrollably, but his entire frame stays unnaturally still as Atlas keeps the gun trained on him. “Angela has him. If I’m correct, they’ll be siphoning him of his abilities any moment now.”
I lose all feeling in my legs.
“No!”
Instinctively, Atlas presses the trigger.
Even in the pandemonium that captures the valley, I can hear the audible click of the gun—the indication it’s still in safety mode.
Levi grins and shoves Atlas off, consuming his suit with flames.
Atlas disappears. Ambrosia raises clenched fists.
I let gunfire loose, spraying the area around Levi.
He vanishes in a flare. I lose sight of him as the smoke covers his every trace, raining hellfire around the vicinity.
Ambrosia keeps back and I hope that Atlas has the instincts to do the same.
A light flares behind a fresh cluster of clouds.
The equivalent of a meteor barrels right at me.
I lunge away from the blast’s radius and right into Ambrosia’s figure.
She stumbles and loses her footing. I land on the asphalt with a loud thud.
The smoke clears, revealing a brief flash of Atlas falling on top of Levi.
The two come clambering to the ground. Fire erupts from the mercenary’s palms and Atlas has to once again teleport to safety.
Ambrosia is quick to her feet, swiping her hand aggressively to the right.
Whether her attack did the trick or not, we’re not sure.
Levi cackles, vanishing into the smoke. Behind me, I hear the thump of heavy boots, watching Atlas rejoin me and Ambrosia.
“Motherfucker!” Atlas roars.
Infrared is hardly doing its job. Where Levi vanished off to is a mystery.
I peer around, HK trained and ready to fire.
Seconds bleed into minutes. Time passes excruciatingly slowly.
I take a large gulp of ventilated air when Ambrosia is once more swept off her feet.
She slams to the ground on her ass. Levi mercilessly sends waves and waves of flames all over her suit.
I twist, releasing more heavy gunfire. The mercenary deflects what he can with an erected wall of fire and flees the brief exchange.
Ambrosia moves to her knees and flicks her wrist, managing to lift Levi in the air before he can escape.
He drowns in the very smoke he’s guilty of conjuring.
I gun the trigger. A large detonation implodes and Levi’s figure careens through the sky.
He’s swallowed by flame and smog. Atlas unclicks the safety on the SIG Sauer, waiting for the mercenary to resurface.
Levi charges, freeing sporadic fire darts that hail past us.
Some find their target in my armor, singeing the seemingly indestructible material.
Ambrosia twists her frame and pulls Levi into her telekinetic embrace.
She lifts him high, high, high, mimes grabbing him with two strong fists, taking hold of both ends of his body. She pulls.
Atlas teleports and reappears at Levi’s bottom end. He grabs the mercenary’s feet, and in one cruel, sweeping motion, Levi Finch splits in two.