Chapter 20 #2
Once I’ve reached the apex of my climb, I fly back down until I’m floating between the two buildings. A masked Fox tries to escape from the office rooftop, and I take aim.
I’m already unstable, thrown off balance because of the one blaster Raven took from me, but I steel myself with the blasters around my ankles.
Until something slams into me from behind. All I register is someone choking me from the back, then I’m falling.
In a knee-jerk reaction, I glance behind, only to see Raven in a koala hug on my back, her eyes screwed tight. Her hand slips around my other blaster and she disarms it before throwing it off too.
Mental note: put that button somewhere harder to reach.
With both our added weights, I can’t keep balance, and my ankle blasters aren’t enough. Which means we’re falling, and quick.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ I scream at Raven as I scramble to repower my suit, but Raven is restricting my movement. ‘You’re going to get us killed!’
‘Use your powers!’ she screams back.
‘You just threw them away!’ Wind roars past us, buffeting against my helmet. ALFRED disappeared during the power redirection, but I estimate we’ll hit the ground in a few seconds at a speed that will definitely injure.
So I yank Raven off my back and hug her to my chest.
The floor rushes up to us, and suddenly we stop.
We stop, hovering, almost a metre off the ground, as if gravity looked at us and decided we’ve been going through enough, so it forgave us and stepped back for a little breathing room.
‘What—’ I begin.
Gravity returns, and Raven slams onto me.
‘Oh, no,’ I gasp, sucking in to replace all the air knocked out of my being. It barely works. ‘Was that your telekinesis?’
‘Obviously.’ Raven rolls off, dropping to the pavement with a plop. ‘Your magic is actually so useless. Didn’t Chang’e literally float to the moon? Can’t you do that?’
Through the ringing in my head, I find it in me to glare at her. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t inherit every single power from someone twenty generations ahead of me. You, on the other hand, literally have telekinesis. Why’d you stop us so late?’
‘Most people just say thank you.’ Raven grimaces as she lies on her back and stares up at the moonlit sky. ‘I know you hate me now, but petition to catch a quick breath before we go back to trying to kill each other.’
I sit up, resting a forearm on my knee. ‘I don’t hate you.’
A long stare as Raven turns to me. ‘Hard to believe,’ she pants, slowly pushing herself to stand. She looms over me and holds a hand out, waiting.
I eye it. ‘I can’t believe you made me miss that shot,’ I say, to distract her from the topic.
It takes a second for her to buffer before she pulls me up and pats my shoulder patronizingly. ‘Don’t be jealous that I’m better at my job than you are at yours.’
‘You almost killed us.’ I draw my sword.
‘Don’t cry about it. I saved us.’ Raven parries forward with her daggers, lightning-quick. ‘How about you stop trying to kill me?’
I block the attack and knock a dagger out of her hand. I’ve spent all my downtime training, and it pays off: a blow with my sword distracts Raven enough for me to blast her knife out of her hand.
I whip my sword back around as she shifts.
Its edge hovers over her neck.
I pant and hold it, blazing tip trembling under her arrogant chin, blade against supple throat. ‘You know I can’t just stop fighting you.’ I lick my lips, my throat dry. ‘Criminal.’
Raven tugs her mask below her chin, the light of the sword illuminating her dark eyes, pink lips.
It’s Harper who offers me a sad smile. ‘Is that all I am to you?’
I let the sword fall to my side. ‘Please stop this. You know it’ll hurt.’
Harper stills. ‘So, what, we’ll be like this forever?’ she asks, her voice tiny. She doesn’t clarify what this is. I don’t think either of us really know.
I swallow, clear my throat. I stop myself from feeling for the smooth assurance of the moonstone just in time, knowing it’ll be a dead giveaway of my nerves to my ex-girlfriend, and I make do with rubbing a thumb on my knuckle.
Danger is a primal instinct I’m used to associating with Raven. But Harper’s standing in the darkness, her eyes shining in the dim streetlight, and it takes everything to remind myself over and over that they’re the same person.
‘I really almost reported you, you know.’ I take a step closer, backing Raven into the wall behind. ‘Got right up to Niko’s door.’
‘What are you—?’ Her gaze turns wary, and she throws a hand out for her daggers to rush into her grasp. In a fluid motion, she slides one up to my throat and presses the button to open my visor. Now the knife digs under my jaw, a cold edge dipped into my skin. ‘Watch it.’
I lean into Harper’s blade, letting it dig deep enough that although it twinges with pain, it doesn’t breach skin.
The move closes the space between us, our faces barely millimetres apart. My neck is the one at the mercy of a dagger, but it’s Harper’s throat that flexes as she stares up at me. ‘You said we can’t be together.’
‘We cannot,’ I whisper. When I raise a hand to take her knife, she gives it up without a fight.
We’re so close. I barely feel Harper through my chest armour, but she tilts her face, and our lips brush.
‘We can’t do this,’ I murmur.
She releases a quiet scoff. ‘What if we just kept it a secret?’
‘It’s not about secrets. The nature of our identities will hurt us.’ But my arms circle her waist, and her hands slide from my breastplate to my shoulders. She eases my helmet off, bares Tia to the night and tosses Lune away.
We are Harper and Tia, once more.
‘Then I guess we’ll just never do this again,’ Harper says, her voice scratched low. Her fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of my neck, and I tighten my hold around her. ‘Guess this can be the last time.’
I hear the implication in ‘again’, and watch the way her eyes dart to my lips.
There is no ‘this’, I want to say. What leaves my mouth, instead, is, ‘As long as this changes nothing.’
I say it like I’m reasoning, as if reason didn’t slip from my fingers two minutes ago. ‘As long as it means nothing. Promise me.’ I’m also aware I say promise like I’m begging for something different, and I hear the hitch in Harper’s breath.
‘This means nothing,’ Harper swears, then she closes the gap and kisses me like she’s starving.