Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“Watch your three o’clock!”
Gabriel leapt back as a FUD battling a Monkey Cat slammed into the ground where he’d been standing.
Thick honey-colored blood smeared across the pavement as the FUD’s sharp claws raked across the Monkey Cat’s back.
It snapped at its front leg, ripping it off with a squelch of shredded flesh and sinew.
Alvarez covered him as he got to his feet, reloading the moment Gabriel was upright.
He’d taken Zoe’s gun and was doing his best to make it count, but the horde of aliens only seemed to swell, coming closer with every bullet fired.
There were five of them left upright, six if you counted Beaumont, but he was down an arm and firing pot shots with a handgun that might as well have been loaded with bubbles.
They were trapped, and the aliens knew it.
They’d turned their attention to each other, content to let the humans fester until the winners finally killed them off.
Gabriel’s hackles rose with the sickening sense of claustrophobia.
Every opening he found was quickly closed.
Their only hope was to retreat into the tunnels, but he had no idea what shape they were in.
Phin had disappeared into the darkness and hadn’t returned.
For all Gabriel knew, the Metro had collapsed further in, and they couldn’t risk being boxed in like that.
One of Alvarez’s men that Gabriel only vaguely recognized had tried climbing the collapsed rubble, but the chunks were too big to scale, and getting up high had made him a clear target for the Handler’s weapons.
Staying low was the only reason the Handlers and Drones hadn’t picked them off.
They couldn’t risk hitting their own troops.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see Phin emerging from the Metro carrying Tommy. The young man was clearly unconscious, slumped in Phin’s arms. Phin caught his eye and made a quick sign with his hand under Tommy’s knees.
The mission is go.
Judd must be down in the tunnel, ready to throw the switch. They could still do this. He looked down at the street. Just beyond his boots, the metal grid still lined the street, primed and ready to shock. Everything in this narrow stretch of street would die.
Including them.
If they let up their suppression fire for even a moment, the aliens would be on them.
And if they made a run for the tunnel or even one of the intact buildings, the aliens might follow.
If they got to Judd or the switch before it was live, the mission would fail.
All those deaths would have been for nothing.
Alvarez stopped firing and turned to Beaumont. Without hesitation, he grabbed the slim man and threw him into the Metro station behind Phin, his blonde hair disappearing down the stairs.
“Lennox!” he screamed, his voice raw. His right side was badly burned, and his eyes shone with pain. “Fry these sons of bitches!”
Gabriel shook his head. “You’re in the strike zone!”
“Fuck you!” he took three shots, striking a FUD in its eye. “I’ll see you in hell!”
Glass and metal crunched under his boots as he waffled with indecision. He couldn’t look away from Alvarez’s face. Half of it was raw and pink, smeared with blood and dirt. White teeth flashed as he snarled, never taking a step back even as the enemy advanced.
His hands felt numb around the stock of his weapon, cold sweat prickling down his back. If he did this, he would be killing them. All of them. These people who had believed in his plan. In him. They’d trusted that he could get them home.
Just like the young soldiers he’d led to war only to bring them home in a box.
Just like the soldier in his office with the dead eyes.
Shaking his head, he looked around desperately. There must be another way. He could do this. He could save them. There was something…
Gabriel couldn’t save them.
But he could die with them.
He took one step onto the street, the metal grid scraping the bottom of his boots. Gabriel refused to have another soul on his conscience. He would die beside his team, gun in hand.
Gabriel pictured Blake’s green eyes and pouty lips, that one stubborn curl he liked to twirl around his finger. He wanted that to be his last memory.
Looking over his shoulder, he made eye contact with Phin. Inhaling, he got ready to shout the order when a concussive blast struck him from behind. It was so loud that even the aliens slowed in their fighting, attention turned to the sound.
A soft glow burned from the middle of the rubble.
So small, Gabriel thought it was sunlight glinting off glass, but then it grew, faster than he could conceive.
It looked like magma burbling out of an active volcano, so hot it was melting the rock around it before bubbling free and spilling down the crevices.
Steam hissed, and Gabriel could feel the intense heat even from where he was standing.
Thick chunks of concrete and steel beams melted like candle wax as the glow burned white hot. Rock burnt to ash. The wall started to sag as the rubble under it melted. Sunlight from the other side streamed through the steam.
An exit.
“Run!” Gabriel screamed, turning his back on the exit and laying down suppression fire.
Taking advantage of the alien’s distraction, he kept an eye on both as his men scrambled over the cooler pieces of crumbled building.
Alvarez hopped in before him. Gabriel backed up so close he could feel the steam on his back. Then a hand grabbed his shoulder.
Gabriel’s feet had barely left the metal grid when he screamed, “Throw the switch!”
For an agonizing moment, nothing happened. The aliens advanced, maws agape and claws tearing through the asphalt. Handler fire echoed through the narrow streets, followed closely by the quicker rat-a-tat-tat of Drone guns.
And then it stopped.
All at once. Like the terrifying silence just before the first crack of thunder in a summer storm.
With his breath stuck in his lungs, Gabriel watched as Monkey Cats went stiff.
Every muscle in their body contracting so painfully that their bones snapped.
Bodies twisting grotesquely, tails splayed straight out as they were stuck by the voltage.
The Off Formers reactions were slower, bodies tremoring as their suits absorbed the shock.
FUD’s pinchers squeezed so hard they popped off, and the Handler’s heads swiveled.
Even the Drones were affected, jerked from their flight paths to crash to the ground, where they rolled in seizure-like motions.
Gabriel lowered his gun, letting it dangle from his fingers.
They did it.
A ragged cheer rose up. Faint, at first. Almost a question. Then another joined. And another. Suddenly, there was a cacophony of whoops and chants.
With a big pop, the switch flipped, and the aliens all collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. Smoke curled off their limp bodies.
A warm hand slipped into his. Gabriel looked over to see green eyes sparkling at him. “Careful,” Blake said, smiling so hard the dried blood on his face cracked. “One of these days, I might really hold you to that whole life-saving punch card thing.”
Gabriel’s chest clenched, and he tugged Blake to him, wrapping his arm around him. Blake hugged him tight, burying his face in his chest. Gabriel’s ribs were screaming, but he didn’t care. He closed his eyes and kissed the top of Blake’s head, breathing him in.
Alive.
Words failed him. He’d been so close to death he could smell the sulfur pits of hell. Now he was standing atop melted rubble, hugging an angel.
“You saved my life,” he breathed.
Blake huffed. “That’s what I do.”
Gabriel pulled back so he could kiss him. He buried his fingers in his curls and kissed him deep. His lips were chapped, and he tasted like pennies and grit. But it felt like a stiff breeze through his hair after a hot, humid day. Relief.
It wasn’t enough. It never would be. But thanks to Blake, he might have a lifetime for more.
Injured people who had managed to roll out of the shock zone or squeeze into side streets began limping into the road.
Zoe was supporting a now conscious Tyler, slowly picking their way through dead aliens.
Beaumont climbed out of the station, blinking at the sunlight.
Alvarez slipped through the wall, jogging up to him.
Beaumont smiled brightly…right before he punched Alvarez in the face. Gabriel winced and looked away just as Beaumont started shouting at him about being left behind.
Blake pulled away from Gabriel to hop down into the street to help the wounded. Gabriel was pleased to see there were more wounded than he thought. They popped out of hidey holes, nursing broken bones and bloody wounds, but alive.
“Whoo-fucking-hoo!” Judd screamed, throwing his fist in the air as he came out of the Metro station. “We just saved the goddamn world!”
Everyone cheered at that; bloody, dirty fists raised to the sky.
It wasn’t the whole world. It was just a single city.
But it was a victory. One against incredible odds, wrestled from certain defeat with the stubborn singlemindedness that only humanity was capable of.
A crazy plan full of so many holes it couldn’t hold a single teaspoon of water, and a group of people just insane enough to make it work.
Judd whooped, ruffling Blake’s hair as he checked Tommy’s pupils.
Blake shoved him off, rolling his eyes. But he was smiling, his lips quirked like he couldn’t make them stop.
Phin wrapped a protective arm around an unsteady Tommy.
The look directed toward them all might have been a little more effective without the inch of filth on his skin.
Tommy knocked Blake’s hands away and began probing at his bloody right arm.
Predictably, Blake tried to shrug him off, but Tommy was insistent, ripping at his mangled sleeve to get a good look.
Phin and Judd bickered beside them, their words barbed but their eyes raking over each other to check for any injuries.
There they were. Team Oh Shit. Battered, bloody, and a little worse for wear, but still the same. A group of people who in no logical way should have ever made sense. A mistake waiting to happen. Until the world went to hell.
His team.
Blake laughed at something Tommy said, chin ducked.
Gabriel remembered that last image. The one he’d held onto as he prepared to die.
It was still there, fierce and whole. But he let that image go.
He wouldn’t miss it. There would be thousands of others he would replace it with. A new one every day.
Come to think of it, maybe Gabriel was wrong. They had saved the world. His whole world.
He hopped off the wall and made his way toward his team. There were plans to be made. They needed to patch up the wounded. Rendezvous with Victoria, and get back to the museum. But for now, he would take a moment to stop being Commander Lennox.
“Excuse me,” he said to Tommy as he snagged Blake by the waist, kissing him deep. Blake laughed against his lips, wrapping his arms around Gabriel’s neck, standing on tiptoes so he could kiss him back.
“Thank you,” Gabriel breathed against Blake’s lips. “Thank you for coming back to me.”
Blake stroked the hairs at his nape. “Thank you for trusting me to.”
He brushed his nose against Blake’s, basking in the feel of his breath against Gabriel’s cheek.
Somehow, in some way Gabriel could never explain, he knew he was always destined to end up here. Maybe not in the middle of a trashed DC street, covered in alien guts. But here. With Blake. And if he had to survive wars, guilt, sobriety, and the end of the world to do it, he would.
Because this was more than survival. This was a cabin in the mountains beside a sparkling lake full of fish he would never be able to catch. This was books with half-naked men on the cover and coffee orders they’d never get to make. This was a pocket without a crochet hook.
This was love.
This was living.