Chapter 81
Callum
Callum had let the boy slip away for the last time.
He wasn’t going to make those same mistakes again.
They were in his sights and he had the havoc of the battle around him to his advantage.
With Angela Barclay missing, Callum could get away with anything he wanted.
Ezra Gray would finally die. He had been waiting for this moment since he lost his chance to apprehend the boy at the party.
Amid the chaos, he watched the burning structure Thax had escaped from.
Callum didn’t care where his friend had run off to.
In fact, after today, he wasn’t expecting to be alive any longer.
But if he was to die, he was going to take the life of the boy who had made his life a living hell—a joke amongst the Barclay Network’s inner circle.
From the thicket, he spied. Callum saw Conin, the boy’s lover, carry him out of the collapsing station.
He was disgusted. Their obsession with each other was insipid to Callum, the true driving force to why he failed every time he got so close to capturing Ezra.
Another Angelic was with them, a man he could not recognize.
No matter. He’d handle this quickly enough.
It would make no difference who was there to back Conin up.
Callum stepped out of the thicket. He navigated the battlefield, avoiding the Angelics, and watched as Barclay soldiers were downed ruthlessly.
He cowered behind train cars and piles of debris, narrowly missing an encounter with an Angelic he shot twice through the visor.
The recidivist dropped to the tracks. When at last Callum surpassed a long procession of carts, he rounded the end and found himself yards away from Conin, his Angelic comrade, and the boy in his arms.
He raised the gun. And fired.
When Callum blinked, the godforsaken bullet had missed its target.
He didn’t have time to fire again before he was being tripped up by a swift force to the ankle.
He knew then who the third person in their party was.
Atlas teleported and lunged for Callum’s weapon, but Callum wasn’t going to let him have it.
Callum spun and threw himself at his attacker, lashing out and attacking the man’s visor.
The force shot jolts of pain up his knuckles and wrist. Before Atlas could strike again, a woman gained on Callum’s right.
If he was going to go down, he wasn’t going to do so quietly.
He released a final bullet from the gun’s chamber, and where it landed, Callum would never know.
The woman used every ounce of her strength to lift Callum high, high into the air.
Ah, he thought. He also knew who this was.
Ambrosia released her hands, the same very hands that had killed his brother, and watched as Callum fell.
His ankle was the first to crack. Then came both kneecaps.
He knew the moment his body made impact with the gravel, he was paralyzed from the waist down.
“You’ll pay for the lives you took,” Ambrosia said, kneeling beside him. “Imagine how differently this could have gone if we hadn’t turned against each other.”
Callum didn’t give a shit what she said.
He just wanted to know if his bullet had found its mark .
. . if the boy was dead. The terrible truth was, he would never know.
Ambrosia attached a thick material to his chest. Callum could already feel his airflow grow tight.
He knew what was happening and what was worse .
. . he’d never get the closure he so desperately needed.
The woman pressed hard against the material and white armor coursed across his paralyzed body, molding over his broken legs as they bent and snapped.
Callum’s world closed in around him. A familiar visor overtook his vision—the ventilation system whirred on and started to flow clean, filtered air into his lungs.
But it wasn’t enough. He could no longer breathe.
Callum peered down and could see Ambrosia’s fingers tightening into dangerous fists.
He was . . . suffocating. His chest was being crushed.
His eyes were overcome with coppery blood.
He could feel himself drown while it pooled to the brim in his mouth.
The last of the world he saw was smoke and ember, blood and red, and the woman who would take his miserable life away from him forever.
Oh, the sweet relief of death.