Chapter 24.
‘Christian’
When I wake, there’s a pulsing at the back of my skull.
I think I’m dead. If that’s the case, it’s not heaven or hell… It’s somewhere in between. Somewhere between agony and disconnection. I’m floating in the abyss until something sucks me back into my body.
My eyes snap open. I jolt upright, alert, and Xavier is beside me. We’re still in the harbour, but we’re no longer estranged on the bridge. Instead, I’m tucked under the shade. Closer to the offices along the shore and out of the afternoon sun.
The afternoon sun.
“What happened?” Too much time has passed. I try to stand, but my bones fight against me, making me wince. I’m struggling to get to my feet, but instead of helping me, Xavier steps back, out of reach.
He’s quiet. His gaze is sharp. Unfamiliar. And there’s a sinking feeling in my chest when I remember.
I was going to take the shot.
“What… what did you do?” I croak. My voice feels raw. Unfamiliar. And my guns—
My guns are gone.
“Where’s Evelyn?” I step forward but Xavier raises his gun at me and all the dread inside me makes my toes curl.
Tell me this is a fucking joke.
“I can’t…” His words falter even though his expression is hardened, and he swallows almost unnoticeably before injecting resolve into his next words.
“I can’t have you ruining this for me, Christian.”
“Xavier.” Something is unfurling inside me. Something broken and furious and uncontrollable. “What did you do?”
“… What I had to.”
I swear this strange world is shifting beneath my feet, “I had the shot. Xavier, I had the fucking shot—”
“And if you’d taken it, Evie wouldn’t have been able to fulfil her purpose.”
Her... purpose?
I’m splintering.
Splintering. Shattering. Breaking.
“You left Evie to die.” My realization is quiet. My thoughts are far from me. Far from where I think I am.
“Reuben gave me full autonomy.”
“You betrayed me.” Those words are heavy in the air. They roll in a silence that is so heavy it threatens to pull me back beneath the darkness.
Yet still, Xavier’s aim doesn’t waver, his lips are pressed tightly into a thin line, before he finally responds.
“And you have no grenades to stuff into my mouth this time.”
I step forward to lunge at him but he fires a single shot. One that grazes my cheek and makes me hold my ground.
“You were going to put a bullet in her, Christian,” he grinds between clenched teeth, as though he’s trying to get me to see reason—to convince me he had no choice. “Then they would’ve just thrown her body overboard, then we would’ve lost them all.”
“And where the fuck are they now?!” I yell.
“They think they’ve won,” he rattles on. “They’ll take her to their base—”
“And then she’ll be dead!”
“And then she’ll lead us!” Xavier shouts back—losing his patience momentarily before continuing, “To the people who did this. She’ll lead us to Philip!”
There are footsteps nearby, rushing toward us, but I don’t care to see who it could possibly be—another realization is sinking into my fractured mind. One that drives a wild and raw chuckle from my lips, “You chipped her.”
Xavier's nose flares. “Their interference jammed our communications. But it won’t jam the GPS I placed on her.”
“You never fucking cared about Evelyn—”
“This mission isn't about Evelyn!” He screams at me and I see it there. That madness deep in his eyes. Hidden behind rage and torment and obsession. An exact mirror of the one I saw in the case room with all of the photos relating to the victims.
“This is about finding the Harvester! Finding who he works for!” His eyes glower darkly with promise, his next words softer.
“And making them all pay.”
That’s always what this has been about.
Protecting Evelyn was never in the cards for Xavier.
Tobias and Gabriel are out of breath in my periphery. Their eyes are wide as they watch us both, gasping for air, but all my focus is centred on Xavier.
“Did you tell Reuben about this?”
“Reuben gave me full autonomy,” he repeats it like a broken record. As though it’ll save him.
Silence settles between us again as we each stare down the other—another stalemate… but not at all one I wanted.
“I threw my body over you, Xavier.” The words fall out of my fractures. From all the pieces of me that are now slipping through my fingers.
I still feel the echoes of my bones shattering. The glass splintering through my skin. The suffering ebbing from my torn and broken carcass as I pieced my bones back together at the bottom of a damaged car.
“My fucking—” my voice cracks without my consent. This isn’t the time for weakness. “My fucking body.”
But there isn't anything in his eyes that remotely resembles gratitude.
“You really should stop doing things like that,” he says calmly, with a steeled expression.
I lunge for him. He can put a bullet through my chest right now and I still wouldn’t stop.
I’ll kill him just like I killed Everett.
Gabriel grabs me before I can reach him, tugging me back violently and Tobias pulls Xavier’s barrel away from me—his shot is fired into the sky.
I’m screaming because I’ll kill him today.
“You were going to kill her anyway!” He shouts at me, rallying behind Tobias. “Then we accomplish nothing! Then it’ll just be more and more kids like Evie!”
“And she just happens to be the one you abandon for the sake of everyone else?!” I spit venomously, charging toward him with all my strength, but Gabriel is immovable between us.
I never knew he was so fucking tall.
“Yes!” Xavier’s words are a scream in my ears. A scream that saps all my fight. That makes the world so hatefully quiet as my arms fall to my sides, weightlessly.
“Yes, she is,” he says softly. “The Harvester took my sister from me. Five years ago. His head—his backers—his death—his future—” his eyes are shining with a wild light, “it’s mine. Mine to destroy.”
I don’t care that he’s breaking too, beneath the mask—don’t care that I see his weakness even if I was to stare into it for all eternity.
You sacrificed an innocent, for a woman who’s been dead for five years.
I won’t ever accept that.
In one swift motion, I've pulled Gabriel’s gun from his holster, ducking beneath him to aim for that spot right between Xavier’s eyes. My last two shots—the shots I should’ve used to save Evelyn and kill Philip—they burrow into the earth as Gabriel knocks the gun downward.
He tries to tell me something but I can’t hear beyond that familiar madness.
The one that reminds me so much of Reuben.
I grab Gabriel by the collar of his shirt, stepping forward to unbalance him and drag him to the ground.
I don't spare him a glance as I pivot around him, grabbing one of his daggers from a compartment in his pants—where I know he keeps them. I put all my weight and focus into hurling it at Xavier.
Tobias deflects it with his own knife, but he staggers back from the force of it, biting a command behind him.
Xavier scowls as he staggers back, preparing to run.
But I won't give you the courtesy of running.
Gun in hand, I rush towards him and Tobias lunges, slashing his knife down towards me.
I use the barrel of the gun to catch it, putting all my weight into blocking him.
He’s screaming at me.
Still, I can’t make out the words.
I shift my weight back and he’s easily unbalanced.
Two well-placed punches into his ribs, and he falls to his knees—I’m stepping past him as though he was never there.
Xavier breaks off into a run.
I throw my empty gun at his feet and he falls, turning on his back as he scurries backwards.
This is exactly how Evie would’ve felt when you let them take her away.
Gabriel jumps onto my back, locking his arm around my neck in an attempt to hold me there.
‘Don’t do this.’
I throw my elbow into his guts sharply, creating enough space to loosen his grip and push his arm up over my head in one quick movement.
I turn to face him, holding his trapped arm tightly and grabbing him by the shoulder of his shirt to pull him down and knee him in the face.
I shove him away to kick him across the cheek and he stumbles, bearings lost.
I’m grateful for the extra dagger in one of his pockets—I'm throwing it before Xavier can get off the ground, and it pins his hand into the earth with a sharp cry.
I’ve seen what the Harvester does to people.
One knife wound doesn’t hold a fucking candle to what Evie will be going through.
Before I can step forward, I feel Tobias coming for me again. My back is turned to him but I can sense him. I step back, turning my body and snatching his hand out of the air before it reaches me.
Their weaknesses are all the same.
My other hand grabs him by the waistline of his pants to pull his body forward, unbalancing him once more and throwing him to one side, into the dirt.
Xavier raises his gun but it’s too late, I’ve closed the distance between us.
And his aim is, by now, predictable.
The second feels slow as I tilt my head to one side—
As the shot echoes into the air—
As the bullet grazes my cheek.
He clicks his teeth with frustration and that question is there in his eyes again—that question that hits too dangerously close to home.
‘What are you?’
In the next second, I’ve taken his gun. I’m pointing it at his head, staring him down beneath me.
And there are two clicks in the air as Tobias and Gabriel press their guns to the back of my head.
Each of them finally finding the courage to put me down properly.
Here lies my third stalemate.
“Reuben got shot.” Gabriel’s voice finally filters through, and my bloodlust stutters.
Sound returns to the world again as I fight the itch to pull the trigger and the chaos inside me recedes.
You've gotten clever, Gabriel.
“But it'll take more than that to kill him,” he tries to placate me but the gun he’s pointing at my head doesn't waver. “He’s on his way. Let him deal with Xavier.”
“Reuben won't kill you,” I speak only to Xavier. My words are crisp. Breathless. I sneer, “Luckily for him, I'm familiar with killing traitors like you.”