Page 441 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

He died for Riley. The Tower is burning. Their defences are lost.

It’s all his fault.

If he hadn’t gone up there…

‘Come on!’ he snarls through shuddering gasps, voice breaking. ‘Come on, just… get up. Go help. You c-can help… them… if you just…’

But he can’t.

He’s three years old in the snow.

He’s thirteen years old in the bath.

He’s nineteen and covered in blood.

He’s twenty-nine and he’s alone.

Twenty-nine years of life and every minute of it a failure.

His body is stuck in a loop that spirals ever higher.

And Riley hates himself so much he wishes he could puke up his soul and leave this body behind and be anyone else but him.

The best part of him was borrowed, hidden, kept.

And now it’s gone.

‘Is that him?’

‘Harker, confirmed.’

No, no, no, please.

‘He’s seizing. You four, take him and dose him for transport.’

The thing inside is a vortex of feral desperation.

An act of God inside flawed skin.

And it always does the wrong thing.

Instead of doing what Lee can do, producing a biological deterrent to ward people away, no… his stupid fucking body does the opposite.

Riley knows what it feels like.

He remembers the smell.

His skin is wet with sweat, body feverish and weak.

The first hand on him steals all his air, locks his jaw tight.

It’s not Resets that are taking him, it’s the PMCs.

He can tell by their heartbeats.

The way they quicken, working into a slow frenzy, affected.

‘What the fuck is wrong with him?’