But his eyes still know me.
“I could’ve been … good to you, you know.” His chest rises and falls with great effort, shivering, some ribs likely cracked, too. “All … our lives … I’ve craved it … dreamed of it.”
I shake my head, unable to process. I want to curse him, to silence him forever with a final blow, but instead I choke out, “You don’t know what you’re saying,” knowing in the pit of my stomach that he absolutely does.
Thaane’s broken voice becomes a demonic snarl. If he retained control of his limbs, I have no doubt that his claws would flay the flesh from my bones everywhere he could reach. “But you had … to have … thatgirl.” His gaze is wild, afire, but heinously lucid. “When you … could’ve had …me.”
And suddenly it doesn’t matter that I can see his eyes, that I’ll probably see them in the darkness every time I close my own. I don’t see the person I thought was my brother, my brethren, familiar as my own bones.
I see a boy who disguised his selfish need as familial loyalty for a lifetime. I see a predator who stalked my steps with silent thirst, with selfish hunger, despite knowing full well my heart was fundamentally inclined away from any man’s.
Every comforting hand on my shoulder, every reassurance he would remain by my side, every lingering glance that I thought spoke of loyalty—a bid for something I could never give. How long would he have kept up the ruse? And had the tables of war turned in his favor, would he havedone worse than kill me? Asked me to smother myself and take a throne beside his, the ultimate feminine trophy of his victory?
My own tear-streaked face gleams in his pupils, so I close my eyes.
I seize Thaane’s neck with both hands and twist, andtwist, till the head pops free of the shoulders.
Silence surrounds me despite the battlefield’s clamor. I’m utterly alone in the chaos of warfare. I kneel in the puddle of blood, crimson soaking through my robes, painting me as a family killer thrice over—twice of birth, once of family found.
Thaane’s windpipe snapped, but I still hear him howling inside my head. His unseeing eyes still pierce like twin freezeblades. Hardly knowing why, I ease the lids closed with the pads of my fingers. And I’m not sorry, but I’m not a monster. Not really.
I grip both my horns with my hands, fingers buried in my overlong hair, and sob.
A gentle gloved hand on one shoulder brings me back to the battlefield. Weeping, choking, I lift my head to discover the same soldier I attempted a pep talk with not long ago. Folina, her yellow wrist bandana already ragged and torn, its edges smeared with scarlet.
“They’ll scatter without him,” she says, gesturing to Thaane’s corpse. “Look.”
I scan the combat, and indeed, Thaane’s rebels are wide-eyed and thrown off-balance. Their strikes are broader, less controlled, more fear than fury, even the six-limbed giants mostly punching the air.
“We can hold the line out here,” Folina insists. “You have to win the war down there.” She tips her head toward the elevator that leads down into the settlement. “Go to Kori.”
I swallow hard against another sob. “But how will I find her?”
At that, Folina stares at the sand, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “Follow the gunfire.”
CHAPTER
31
KORI
Guided by Jelza, fueled by pure terror, I find reserves of strength in this body that I never knew I had. My feet and ankles crackle electric blue, every step like a miniature rocket, propelling me forward to intercept my mother before one press of a button ends the world as I knew it.
As we gain on Chloe, Jelza nods in the direction of my pistol. “At least give that thing to someone who can use it.”
Throat dry, I toss her the weapon. I know full well that it needs to be fired. I simply don’t know how.
We all collide again at the control room. Realizing she can’t outrun us, Chloe whirls at the closed door and launches a blast of electric energy from one palm into my chest. I collapse in on myself, teeth rattling in my jaw, a curse caught halfway between my lungs and my tongue.
Jelza darts past me, firing heatshot once again, this time with twin pistols. Chloe claps both hands together with acrack, causing more energy to erupt in a clean circle of protective shielding, conjured by her fingertips. Jelza’s heatshot dissolves into the barrier like it was nothing.
Distantly, in some small part of my brain that hasn’t yet joined the rest in screaming into the void, I’m not sure what was worse: my mother not telling me I’m a synthetic life-form, or my mother not filling me in on all her improvements.
“How many enhancements can you seriouslyhave?” I half shout, half laugh as I haul myself up from the floor. If I don’t laugh at this point, I will sob until I split myself in two. “What was next on the features? Laser eyes? Chest that doubles as a microwave?”
“Insolent girl.” Chloe sighs, launching an utterly terrifying stream of energy from both narrowed eyes.
Jelza cleanly slides under the assault, breathing hard, and lands so that we’re back-to-back again. “Damn it, Kori, now you’re just giving her ideas.” She lifts both pistols, short of breath. “She’s going for the door!”
