One more toss of the coin. One more step. One more climb. One last chance.
Heads or Tails
The card with its stupid lighthouse on it hadn't moved in front of her. It hadn't gone up in a puff of smoke like she'd willed it to, hadn't started smouldering at the edges or turned itself into confetti. It lay there, and it stared at her, accused her with its fading colours of a crime she hadn't yet committed.
So she glowered back at it and waited, with her legs crossed and hands rested on her knees.
Zofia waited, and she hated it.
Her eyes flicked to the door. It had started raining.
She piled waiting onto the stack of everything else she loathed, right alongside the radio she kept picking up, her thumb hovering by the transmit button. Hovering, but never quite connecting, because what'd she say?
"Hello, Crane." She walked across the room, stopped in the kitchen. "Will you be home by dinner?" Her eyes went to the MRE's he'd stacked into a corner. A big haul it was, and she wondered what he'd used to pay for it. She picked up one. Looked at it. Tossed it back and sighed. "We've got— chicken things and an atrocity for meatballs. Tastes like stale fart."
Zofia dropped the radio on the counter and padded to the door. The rain had gotten bad. Wind whipped across the balcony, and she'd had to weigh down the buckets and bowls with bricks to keep them from being blown off.
Least they'd have a lot of water.
Unless the skies started raining bombs.
They'd not be needing any water then.
A frustrated groan bubbled up her throat, and Zofia went to find refuge with a pair of pills, washed down with sour rain and thoughts of sour ends.
Shameful.
That's what this whole deal was. Shameful and horrible, and she hated that she couldn't do this proper, that she couldn't keep her grip on the bow steady with her left arm ruled by a dull ache. Every beat of her heart sent a stupid throb along the length of it, and any moment now she'd have to let go.
Her right wasn't off much better. Sore muscles, ready to seize, an equally angry shoulder, all set to fall right off, and her eyes— Zofia blinked, tried to squeeze the blur out of them.
Shameful, yes.
But distracting, and a distraction was what she needed, even if it made her feel horrible about herself and reminded her how she'd been reduced to a helpless victim hurting the day away while the world poured misery from the skies.
She exhaled. Slowly. Released the old arrow she'd nocked.
THUNK
It sunk into the wall and the room trembled, shifted around her as an irregular, stuttering thunder rumbled outside. The shot had missed the dinner plate she'd propped up on the cupboard by a good inch, and wobbled its shaft as if to mock her.
"Drat."
And then the world knocked her off her feet.
A clumsy stagger carried her backwards and she rapped her legs against the low table. Sat down hard. Yelped. Her tailbone flared with a shock of brilliant pain, and that was just downright embarrassing. She ought to know how to fall.
Frustrated, she let the moment settle. Not for long though. Just long enough to realise this hadn't been lightning striking close. The rain and wind drumming and howling against the walls had come without the bluster of thunder, had just been very wet and loud.
Zofia pushed herself to her feet and ran for the door. In the wall, the arrow bobbed madly, shaking along with the trembling building. The key turned quick and the world outside met her with a sheet of hard rain and a burning city.
Planes shot by overhead and she looked up, tracked them by the trails they dragged through the grey skies. Her throat seized up. Her legs rooted themselves against the tiles. And she wondered if it'd be quick once they covered Old Town in fiery death.
They didn't.
Instead the planes carried on, and she looked back across the city, at the red smouldering between buildings to the East. It was a warm, out of place glow. A speck of colour where there shouldn't be one, steadily rising against the skies and creeping through the streets.
Higher. She had to get up higher. Had to see.
Zofia whipped around. Picked up speed. With a quick hop up against the railing, and a stubborn push of her legs, Zofia leapt for the roof's edge. She slammed into it hard, all elbows and arms and the bow snapping against her side.
Clumsy.
Useless.
Shameful.
Her feet kicked against the slippery wall and she squeezed a stubborn groan through clenched teeth, but she kept at it until she had one leg over the edge and then the other— until she stood and stared out across Old Town's irregular landscape of rising and falling buildings.
Higher, but not near high enough, because all she saw from the flat roof was the same dark red boiling in the rain. Thick black smoke had started curling up alongside it.
She tried to place the area, pin it on the map in her head, but all she found in there was a disarray of thoughts tripping each other. Every single one of them tried to get the final word in, and they almost drowned out her name: "Zofia!"
Startled, she looked around. Saw more red in the distance, out across the channel, hard at work against the base of a cluster of skyscrapers. But no one to call out for her.
"—answer—please—no—"
There it was again. Familiar, if a little metallic, trapped in a tin can bouncing down some stairs.
Crane.
She hit the balcony with a pained grunt and hurried back through the door, followed his voice squeezing itself through the radio, cracked and frantic. She'd left him— no, the radio —on the table, and by the time she'd scooped it up and pressed it against her ear, she'd forgotten what she'd wanted to say.
"Are we okay now?"
Well, that'd do. It was a valid enough question, even if her quickly thumping heart wanted to ask Are youokay?
He didn't reply. And she couldn't even hear him breathe, only heard more of the rain out there, or maybe that was just a rush of static, because in-between when he'd called for her and when she'd gotten there, he'd died.
Obviously.
"Crane?"
"Yeah," he choked through the radio. "Yeah. We'll be fine."
Zofia's eyes flicked back to the sheen of red roiling in the distance, blurred by the heavily falling rain. She pushed the door shut. Retreated into the room. Her arm came up and swiped at her hair, a hopelessly drenched shirt sleeve trying itself at rubbing water from her head.
Crane's voice brought the radio back to her ear. "You okay? Are you far enough away from the blast?"
"I think so. I can see the fire from here, but there's a river in-between, and the rain— the rain will get it. It'll douse it, no? It won't spread?"
"Not far," he said and she heard him inhale sharply. A quick intake of ouch. Metal clanked about and Zofia closed her eyes. Listened. When he spoke again, he sounded strained. "But keep an eye on it. Can you do that?"
"Uh-huh." She wandered further away from the door, dripped water onto the carpet. Left soggy footprints where she stepped.
And then he went and promised her life, because he was so bloody full of himself and thought she'd fall for it. Again.
'Fool me once…'
"Good. Okay. Great. Now listen up. I'm going to get us out of here. So you sit tight and wait for me, okay?"
"Uh-huh," she repeated. Lame. Quiet. A sorry excuse for hope kicked against her heart, then stopped, because it couldn't be bothered keeping up appearances.
'Fool me twice...'
"Oh, no reason to sound so damn excited. It's not like I'm about to save your life or anything."
Her teeth clicked shut, and Zofia huffed at the radio, tied her tongue up in her mouth, and couldn't figure out how to tell him that she couldn't believe him, because this hadn't ever been meant to end well.
That she couldn't fathom it, or think of it as anything else but an empty promise.
"Hey—" Professional again, the hint of playful offence gone from his voice. "I'm not leaving you here, so you better be ready to move when I get back. Understood?"
Zofia nodded. Then added the most convincing "Yes," she could manage. It took effort, dragging it past the doubt and misgivings she couldn't shake, and to offer it to the radio clicking off a moment later.
And it took effort to breathe when she realised the line had gone dead. That she'd have to wait. Sit tight.
Well, bugger that. No bloody way.
When the door opened to let the storm carry Crane inside, Zofia had just about paced a furrow through the floor and made it to the next apartment below.
He's back. He's— Upset? Or just miserable, drooping wet with his hair on the fritz, short beard dripping water from his chin, and clothes stuck to his frame in a drenched mess. A shotgun hung from his front. That was new.
It fit him though.
His eyes landed on her the moment he'd stepped past the threshold, darted up alongside her and made her abandon the next round of walking in circles through the living room. Frozen on the spot, Zofia said, "Hi," because that felt like the most appropriate word to use considering he'd come back.
Like he'd said he would. Maybe she ought to start believing him. Stop doubting. But there were things you didn't do in Harran, and getting your hopes up was one of them. It just got you hurt when life went to have a good laugh at your expense.
Crane smiled. A short lived twitch of his lips, both ends curling up, then dropping back down because he glanced at his wristwatch and that ruined his mood. Whatever mood that might have been.
"You good to go?" He indicated for her, a quick wave of his hand, and the motion drew her forward. One step— two steps— three— and her heart wasn't in it. The tired thing stayed tethered to doubt crouched being her, and mocked her from back there.
Are you really about to fall for this?
Crane's eyes took another tour of her and then cut right past her to the kitchen corner.
"We need to get back to the slums," he said, and hurried inside with the wind howling at his heels.
See. There's always a catch.
"Why?"
He ripped the cupboards open, dug for the Antizin he'd stashed there. "I managed to book us a flight out of here. Two tickets. Coach. They can't set down in the 0 though. The blast knocked out the hospital."
All four vials vanished into his pack and he turned back around, walked right up to her. Stopped a step from running her over.
"It was the only building both high enough and with a heli pad."
"But there's not enough time. We won't make it before nightfa—"
"We have to. So, you ready to go?"
No. She nodded.
"Okay, sweet. Let's get the fuck out of here."
"What about the others?" Lena. Rahim. Jade— no, not her. Not her, because if there'd have been one person to deserve being saved it'd have been her. So naturally she'd had to die.
Half a step was what he managed before she'd dropped that question. Crane didn't frown or pout or let on that he thought about them too. He looked at her instead and he smiled, his hand patting at the pack snug against his side.
"They'll be fine. If we get the cure out of here, all this shit can be fixed."
He believed it. For once, Zofia thought, he actually bought his own bloody lies. So she figured she might as well do the same. Maybe he was right. Maybe this would be it, and maybe she wasn't going to die here. Maybe she'd get home. Maybe—
"Hey, you didn't trash it, did you?"
Zofia frowned. "What?"
"The postcard, you didn't—"
And maybe he was still a muppet.
Her jaw set and her arm came up as she jabbed her thumb at the fridge. She'd found a few magnets. Stupid things with stupid faces on them, and she'd arranged them in a frown. One eye held the card in place.
The Paper Tiger had been right. He'd been too slow on his way back.
They reached the sewers and they ran out of time.
Water washed hard past her feet. It snagged at her ankles and pulled her right leg out from under her. Zofia staggered forward. Fell. Because clearly somewhere between here and then she'd forgotten all about walking. Crane's hand caught her arm. Pulled her up and onwards, every one of his steps accounting for two of hers as she tried to keep up against the torrent of rainwater around them.
Her teeth chattered and she was cold, her muscles burning with an unfamiliar stiffness and her toes aching in soggy shoes.
"This sucks," she told the black water rushing by and the hand settled around her bicep. It squeezed, and up in the almost perfect darkness, Crane coughed up a miserable chuckle.
His torch wasn't doing well in here, and hers fared even worse, its beam flickering unsteadily from where he'd taped it to her shoulder.
The shadows were too thick, and the sheets of water pouring from the drains overhead washed their lights right out of the air. She barely recognised the place, and every step had her second guessing where she led him. Comfortably wide tunnels with decent room to move had reduced themselves to narrow pathways snug against cold walls, and what had once been relative silence was now a constant, disorientating murmur of water. It was hard to tell left from right— to spot the white arrows winking back meekly when their torches found them.
She swallowed hard, her eyes searching the dark.
Why'd she thought this'd work?
Why'd she let him fool her again?
And she'd believed it for a bit. Really had. For a while, Zofia had thought he might have been onto something, because he'd been so bloody confident about it all, and who was she to argue? Or what choice had she had anyway?
None, really.
She could have told him to go on his own. Leave her out of this. Leave her here. She could have stayed with everyone else abandoned behind tall, thick walls. Forgotten by a world that seemed to have grown weary of them. Weary of her.
No. She'd gone right with, bow strapped to her ("You should leave that here…" — "It makes me feel better." — "Fine."), and they'd made good time across the Old Town roofs. After all, she wasn't just some stupid Tourist reading his map upside down.
He'd called Troy on his way out, and she'd wished them luck. Then he'd called Brecken and Lena. They'd done the same. And maybe they'd all meant it.
Yeah.
She'd almost thought it'd work.
It didn't, and she should have bloody known.
Kyle mistook it for a Biter first. One that hadn't gotten swept off its feet and washed down the drain channels like flotsam made of flopping meat. But his flashlight grazed it as it lurched through a curtain of dirty rainwater, swept over gnarly muscles and broken skin. Hunched forward. Long arms. Jaw half open, a scratchy, out of tune breath sucking in air.
Volatile.
A fucking Volatile.
It saw them. Set yellow eyes on them. Stuttered and wailed. Ripped the air around his ears. Liquified his spine.
And Kyle got to work.
He pushed Zofia aside, turned her into a blur of light dancing away to the right. Out of sight. Not out of mind. The Volatile ignored her. Went for the bigger target, the one with more meat on it. Its jaws fell open and teeth that might have been human at some point flew at him, right along with a set of crooked claws.
Kyle had teeth too.
The 12 gauge type.
He snapped the shotgun to his shoulder. Didn't bother aiming, because centre of mass was headed right fucking for him. Kyle squeezed the trigger. Deafened himself. And then he ran.
You'd have thought a direct hit (almost perfect), would have killed it. If not that, then maybe stopped it— disabled it— crippled it.
It did jack all. The Volatile was thrown off course and it went down hard, its mass almost knocking into Kyle's feet and throwing him like a bowling pin. And then it got back up. Didn't miss a fucking beat as it flipped itself onto its legs and sprinted after them.
Deja vu.
She'd led him through a tunnel once, and they'd almost gotten eaten then. Now she led him through another, and Zofia wondered if she'd be dessert.
"Go-Go-Gogogo—" He insisted, but she would have gonegonegonegonegone anyway, legs pumping under her (slipping, almost slipping— too much rain, too much mud and bits of people), and the useless light sharpening shadows and doing not much else.
Behind them, the Volatile hacked up a hungry yowl.
Around them, the walls echoed the noise. Then they kept yowling and wailing, each cry pitched differently as more of nightmares joined the call to the hunt.
Great job, man. Great job. Woke up the whole family, you fuckwit.
And the family was hungry. Above them, night sat at the edge of falling, the day limping out of its path, and that had brought them out. Right when Kyle had dragged the Paper Tiger through the twilight of storm drains and sewers.
Almost out. Almost safe. Almost with their feet off the ground, Harran falling away below them, the soothing THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD of chopper blades carrying them off. Almost ready to close his eyes and feel Titus' fur bunching between his fingers, and Seb's chiding: "I told you this was a stupid fucking idea, now have a beer."
Almost.
Kyle gritted his teeth. His eyes cut up, past Zofia, and found dusk flirting with the notion of one final goodbye. A hint of light winked at him.
His last Hail Mary.
"Up the duct!"
She heard him. And maybe she saw the idea of light flowing in with the rain through the gutter shaft. Maybe she saw the ladder on it. Maybe she didn't. Either or, she could have kept running, what with death tearing after him. But she didn't. And Kyle lovedher for it.
The Tiger turned below the duct. Quick and smooth. She tucked her shoulders in. Looked at him. Wide eyed focus snapped to him, and he loved her for that too. No way she'd make the leap on her own. She knew that. So she waited until he caught up, waited those two agonising drum rolls for heart beats, and stepped on the barrel of the shotgun.
Kyle lifted her.
Her legs went up, ankles and all, and he would have liked to climb after her. But he couldn't.
Not yet. Not ever, probably, but he'd cross that bridge whenever he got there. If it hadn't burnt up.
He turned and the Volatile crashed into him.
Its claws caught on the shotgun and Kyle pushed back. Monster and man growled at each other, the Volatile's jaws snapping for his throat, catching air. He didn't need such a good look at it. Didn't want to, no sir, fuck no. Leathery, gray skin clung tight to its bald head. Ripped around its cheeks, revealed thick sinew and muscle, raw flesh with bone sticking out. And of course he counted the teeth. Because it had too fucking many of them. Thirty-two-man teeth and then some, the bottom of its jaw cleft in half and having grown sharp fangs ready to shred him to bits.
Kyle didn't feel like getting shredded.
"Fuck— you— ugly— piece—" His right arm dipped down. The Volatile tore past. Something on him flared with sharp pain. His side or his front, he couldn't be too sure. "—of shit."
Shotgun up. Finger on the trigger— it settled in hard against his shoulder. A shriek and the Volatile kept coming. Kyle caught its chin against the wooden butt. Or one chin anyway. Some chin. It staggered. One step and its back hunched. An arm raked at him. He slid back, felt his shirt tear. Heard it stutter up frustration before it lunged again. Right for him. Kyle jammed the shotgun forward, into wide open jaws. The Volatile bit down on metal. He squeezed the trigger.
Once.
Twice.
Empty.
It kept coming, didn't quite catch on quick enough how the back of its head had come apart, and slammed into him. Kyle was knocked off his feet, onto hard, wet ground. His skull cracked against concrete. The air whooshed from his lungs. He coughed and he wheezed, but he wasn't dead. Not yet, anyway.
His arms protesting how he'd gone out of his way to batter them, Kyle rolled the Volatile off him and struggled with getting his legs back under him. He slipped twice. Almost managed to trip the third time too, but the wet smack of heavy footfalls headed his way from both ends of the tunnel convinced him that now wasn't the time for rolling in the muck.
The ladder bounced in her grasp and Zofia wished she'd been born a mouse or some other insignificant rodent. Because then she'd have slipped through the bloody metal grates, rather than being trapped in a cold, wet blender of sorts. Her cheek and shoulder were squashed against the unyielding lid while the blades below turned. Bones shaking, teeth chattering, she slipped her fingers through the gaps. Water washed over them. Over her. Down her chin, into her shirt. Torrents of it, dirty and cold.
Again the ladder rattled and she wanted to scream, because Crane was dead and now she'd get eaten from the feet up.
When it grabbed for her leg, she kicked. And when it blinded her with burst of bright light and grunted at her, she almost kicked again.
Then it crept up along the ladder, all manners of crowding her with heavy arms to her left and her right, and a rapidly rising and falling chest.
Oh.
He'd lived, but he'd put on some red, the water hard at work washing it from his front where both layers of his shirts had been rent open.
"You're bleeding," she told him. Just in case he hadn't noticed.
He huffed at her, flashed her a wobbly smile, and then the shaft he'd sent her up into filled itself with mostly him and very little of anything else. Zofia slipped down, shifted on the ladder to give him room to keep climbing, one clumsy, apologetic reach after the other. Until they hung huddled together at the top, her lodged in sideways with her shoulder catching on his chest, and him with one arm of his steadying himself behind her back. The other started working on the gutter grate.
Below them, death plodded past, one monster at a time. Her chin dipped, and she looked past Crane's straining front, the bloody mess of his shirt, and their ticket to safety tucked away in the slim pack. One Volatile stopped where she could see it. Snuffed at air. Turned its flayed head left and right.
Stutter-stutter-stutter it went. Where are you? Where did you go? I'm hungry, so come out and play.
Don't look up oh god please don't look up.
A hand slipped against her hip. Squeezed. Zofia almost squeaked.
"Sorry," Crane murmured, but didn't let go, least not until the thing lumbered on. And even then it took another few heartbeats and a pointed look his way before the warmth lifted.
"Hang on, I'll have this open in a second."
He braced his back against the wall, lifted the crowbar up and slid the pointed end into a groove. The lot of him tensed, his arms shaking and his jaw set tight, and Zofia found herself feeling about as useful as a bloody hand break on a canoe. All she was good for was watching, her eyes flicking up, then down, unable to decide if it'd be better if she'd see death coming, or if she'd rather keep looking at him to wonder when he'd run out of steam.
When the gutter cover jumped and his arms snapped down, he laughed. A breathless, triumphant and short lived noise, but it curled around her heart anyway. There it squeezed a little, wrecked her chest. She breathed out. Breathed in. Watched him push the grate open and climb past her, and she didn't move until he crouched by the edge and offered her a hand.
Zofia blinked at his dirty fingers. At the scabs and the blood clinging to them. At the sincere hope looking down at her. A piece of her, one she'd figured broken beyond repair, stammered its approval.
She climbed a little higher, snapped her hand around his wrist.
And tried very hard not to hope.
The first places to go had been hospitals and clinics.
Some unfortunate S.O.B up the chain of command had decided that containment was a brilliant idea. That you could strap raving people to tables. Prod them with needles. Fix them. But that had gone straight to hell real quick, wrapped in a neatly arranged gift basket full of freshly turned Virals.
Kyle knew all of that since he'd skimmed the reports. The bits and pieces they'd thrown together for his reading pleasure, while he'd lounged in a briefing room with a cup of shit coffee for company.
Those places had also been the first people had tried to ransack when everything had fallen to pieces. Tried and failed, mostly. He knew that because Lena had told him about the clinic. And because she might have hinted that it'd be nice if he could go take a looksie.
Maybe later, had been the conclusion and he'd gone off to chase his own tail for a few days instead, cocksure that he wouldn't need to get back to that promise.
Later had come and gone, and Kyle found himself with the pleasure of approaching the slum's hospital, a modestly reluctant Paper Tiger attached to his left.
"We're never going to get up there," she told him. Again.
"Has anyone ever told you that you suck at pep talks? Like, really. You're shit at them."
Her hip bumped into his and Kyle looked down, at how tightly she clutched her bow with her good hand and how water dripped down the lot of her in rivulets. Every shiver of her made him only want to move faster, find some place warm and dry.
She looked up, her dull gray eyes searching the night skies and frowning at them. Or him. Or everything. His jab she studiously ignored.
"Come on." He nodded towards the building sitting in the dark in front of them, its walls draped in thick sheets of orange plastic stamped with hazmat symbols declaring the place unfit for entry.
He agreed with that assessment and hung right, went on until he found what he was looking for: A fire escape.
Just one more climb.
It was a shitty climb and it didn't get them all the way. The last two levels were missing in action, with only its hinges still attached to the side of the building. Kyle went for the nearest window and knocked the glass in with two jabs of his crowbar, before he swept at the sharp shards at the bottom until it looked passable.
His light found chaos inside, a hallway made of bloody floors, dusty walls, and overturned gurneys. But nothing came to investigate the shattering glass, and after he felt confident enough nothing would , he climbed inside and helped Zofia out of the rain after him.
"I told you we'd make it," he said while he let them both carry water through the hallway. His eyes cut left and right. Closed doors. Every single one of them covered in hazard tape. One of them rattled in its hinges, the wet, gurgling groans of Biters slipping through the cracks. He hoped it'd hold. "We're almost there. The helipad is on the other end, but once we're on the roof we should be good."
"I didn't see a helicopter."
"They're waiting for signal flares. I pop them and then we wait for fifteen minutes—" They reached the staircase door and Kyle nudged it open, his crowbar at the ready and light cutting at the dark. Left, clear. Or rather, a pile of furniture blocking off the stairwell. Right, clear. Up? Hopefully too. "—and then it's pizza five times a week."
She padded after him. Quiet like a mouse, or a particularly shy tiger following at his heels. One floor up and he checked if she was still there.
"What'll be the first thing you do when you're out?"
His question got her attention and she looked at him, squinting against the light he'd trained on her, and Kyle let the flashlight dip lower until it caught on her muddy pants.
"I—" She frowned. "Don't know?"
"Guess that's fair. You'll have time to think it over for a while anyway. They'll quarantine us first."
"Ah—"
"Yeah. Sorry. You'll be stuck with me for a bit longer."
The Paper Tiger's brows furrowed and she looked at him. Stared. It didn't last, faded right when he thought it was getting good. But when her eyes went to dance to his shoulder again, and her feet started carrying her past him, Kyle thought he saw a smile on her lips. Small and lightweight. But damn, did he love it and—
A loud clatter snapped both of them around and Kyle drew her up behind him. She didn't protest.
"Shit," he breathed. It had come from down below, and he waited for the telltale sound of feet smacking against the steps. When all he heard was their own quiet breathing, and the rain pelting at the walls around them, Kyle felt his grip on his crowbar tighten, even as his fingers itched for his sidearm.
"Jumping at shadows," he murmured to himself, turned, and guided her up the stairs with his arm looped around her back.
At the top, Kyle paused only long enough for the hollow echoes of their footfalls to fade, and when nothing followed them, he tested the door handle. It moved freely and the door came open with a quiet click.
He swallowed and stepped out, Zofia following close behind.
The first shot greeting them went wide.
Number two clipped the door where she'd stood a beat earlier, and Kyle heard the bullet ricochet with a hollow, metallic TWANG before more of them whizzed by overhead. They impacted into the concrete behind them. Showered them in finely grained dust and peppered their backs with sharp shrapnel.
Zofia whined under him, a quiet, confused tilt of her voice that had him want to apologise for having dragged her off her feet and pushed her against the wet ground.
Right after a You're welcome and the "What the fuck now! "
Not like he had to wait long to get his answer. It came when the gunfire died down and echoed across the roof, declaring tonight to have gone appropriately tits up.
"Crane!" Rais called. "How inconsiderate of you to keep me waiting."
Of course. Of fucking course.
Kyle hissed "Stay low," at Zofia and went for his sidearm, his eyes scanning the roof for their attackers. He heard one before he saw him. Behind them— heavy boots pounding up the stairs.
A trap.
This shit had been a trap, and he'd walked right into it with his pants around his fucking ankles.
Somewhere off in the distance, the rhythmic WHUP-WHUP-WHUP of rotor blades had itself a good laugh, and Kyle wanted to stomp his feet and throw a tantrum, because this shit wasn't fair.
"Come on out," Rais taunted. "We have a lot to discuss. Parting gifts to exchange."
Kyle's eyes cut across the roof again. He flung his flashlight away, let its beam spin wildly through the night, and the motion drew another sharp staccato of gunfire. Muzzle flash. Close by. To the left. From between heavy, stocky shapes of equipment left behind after failed evacuation attempts. The whole damn roof was cluttered with junk, piled between ventilation ducts, metal walkways and heating structures.
A bit of a labyrinth.
A lot of cover.
He tapped Zofia's shoulder. "Right. Behind the pallets. Go. Now! " The moment she scrambled to her feet, he rose to his, sent three shots down into the general direction of the muzzle flashes. They returned fire, but they returned it blindly, and he bolted after her and slid the rest of the way when the potshots turned more purposeful.
Up again— one hand against her back, the other pulling him forward. Behind them, the roof access door flung open. Bright light cut towards where he'd just crouched, a moment after he'd hauled himself and her around the next corner.
More shots ripped into their cover. Splintered wood. Dragged a few startled cries from her throat.
"Fuck-Fuck-Fuck." Kyle chanced a sweep of the roof, caught the blur of red smoke fighting the rain towards the other end. The helipad— Rais had called the chopper.
"This doesn't have to end in blood, Crane."
He swallowed thickly. Glanced at Zofia.
"Hand me the cure, and you're both free to go. Run back to Brecken, for all I care, it's all the same to me. But you're not getting out of here, and I'll tell you why. Because you'll never have a thought of your own, you'll keep dancing to whatever whistle blows the loudest. The GRE. Your friends at the Tower. The Ministry. It's time to stop pretending you're more than what you're made to be and do as you're told."
"Oh would you just shut the fuck up?"
Kyle let the anger sit at the base of his throat, took a deep breath, and snapped his pack free.
"I wish I could say I'm surprised," Rais continued. Light danced across the roof. Guessed where they might be. "But you're about as predictable as you are profane, Crane."
Next to him, Zofia stiffened when he slipped the strap of his pack around her neck.
"What are you doing?" Her whisper barely carried through the rain.
"I want you to get to the pad."
"Are you— are you mad?"
"Yes. Yes I am. But I need you to do this for me. Can you trust me?"
"N—No. No I can't, you're—"
He snatched her chin and made her look at him, even though he really couldn't spare the time to get his eyes off the roof. Off of Rais and his men— three? Maybe three. Hopefully three. No more, because then they'd both be fucked. More than they were already, and Kyle had gotten tired of getting fucked.
"I promised you I'd get you out of here. So I want you to keep your head down and get to that pad while I keep them busy. Okay? Your ride is almost here, and you're not missing it."
"You're not staying."
Kyle swallowed. He wanted to lie to her, tell her No, I'm not. I'll be right behind you. Wanted to be just that, because he'd have liked to get home. Live to regret. To hate. To love. Maybe. He drew her into him instead of lying, pressed a hurried kiss against her brow, and whispered "Go."
It came up hoarse. Pathetic. Kyle figured he'd regret it in a while.
But he'd promised.
No way he'd back down from it now.
Zofia liked to believe she would have argued if he'd given her the chance. Properly argued. Properly told him he was being a muppet, and muppets weren't meant to make decisions because they were terrible at it.
Crane didn't give her a choice. He ripped the bits off her that she'd begun to think she'd missed, and he sent her off with the chatter of his gun. One loud POP after the other while she ran.
And she ran, because she was good at that. Had perfected it. She stayed low like he said she should. Waited whenever silence fell, and listened to Crane make his stand.
He bellowed insults at Rais. Nonsensical ones. Terrible ones.
And Zofia listened, wanting nothing more but for Crane to keep talking, because with every word he said he wasn't dead.
"You've upset a lot of people," Rais called back at some point. Behind her now, just by a little. Ahead, a tall meshed fence cordoned off the the rest of the roof, and Zofia knew she'd have to get past it. "A lot of very powerful people. Don't be surprised that they don't want you leaving Harran."
"Give me a fucking break! You're telling me they'll let you out? Because you're such a fucking prodigy?"
"Politics. Simple as that. I'm the one that exposed the GRE. You're the one that came to bring home their plans."
Further behind her still, and another step closer to the fence. She saw the helicopter now, a heavy blob nearing fast, a wide swath of light dripping through the night in front of it.
"You've dug your own grave, Crane. And I am going to enjoy putting you into it."
More shots. A cry of pain. Not Crane— not Crane— couldn't be Crane, and Zofia almost turned around. Almost hurried back where she'd left him, until a hard, sharp wind reminded her she'd been told not to.
The helicopter sat down, its deafening thrum calling her closer. So she kept going, inched forward.
A look left and she saw one Rais' men standing by the only entrance. He stared down the roof, a rifle lifted against his shoulder. More gunfire barked from back where she'd left Crane, and the man with his swathes of yellow stepped forward, towards the noise. He didn't look left. Didn't look right. Didn't see her stand and dash across the concrete roof, her feet hitting the ground hard as she sprinted through the rain. She slipped in behind him, her heart in her throat, and then right back down in her stomach, snapping back and forth on a rubber band of dread.
Another cry of pain.
Not Crane.
She reached the helicopter. It was big. Bigger than she thought it'd be. Painted dark gray. Loud. So loud. Zofia skidded to a halt. There were people in there. Of course there were. Three of them reached for her as they shouted for her to Get on!, their gloved hands frantically waving, and their helmetted hands bobbing wildly.
At some point she'd started shouting too. She cried to them that she had the cure, but that they ought to help. 'Help. Please. Help.'
"Help him! You've got to help him!"
They didn't listen.
Behind her, Rais snapped: "Get her!"
Sparks lit the night around her. The helicopter whined, and a hand had her by the elbow and dragged her inside.
"Go-Go-Go!" one of them barked. The world lurched sideways. Then up.
Good little Tiger, Kyle thought.
And he meant it. Even if the helicopter dipped away without him, leaving him with rain to fuck up his vision, and four shots to his name.
Granted, it could have gone worse.
He'd gotten two of Rais' men. One because he'd strapped a light on his rifle, sparing him the need to squint and aim, the other because he'd looked at Zofia as she'd run and took a moment too long to turn and line up a shot.
Two down, two to go.
Two down, and thoroughly pinched in.
He'd had to follow her a little. Get himself closer to the pad, so they couldn't go after her. Make himself a threat by sheer proximity, and maybe get to the rifle one of Rais' flunkies had dropped. But that hadn't worked out, and now he crouched behind a stocky crate with a whole lot of nothing at his back, and Rais with his last man bearing down at him from the sides.
And then things did get worse, because someone had loaded his dice while he'd not been looking and ended him with a row of snake eyes. The gunfire and helicopter had gotten the slum's attention, and he heard them trying to find a way up the side of the building. Once they did it wouldn't matter if he'd gotten his hands on that rifle. It'd be useless in an argument against all that death wanting for him.
Kept your promise though. Yeah. Small blessings.
He caught movement on his right. The goon ducking between cover. Flanking him, and Kyle wasted two shots. The third clipped meat. The fourth had his target stagger and fall to not get up again.
All out.
Not down though, not yet, and Kyle plotted a path back to the door, because if he made it back into the hospital he might stand a chance. Plotted it, started it, and froze when he stepped into a beam of light.
"I should have killed you at the Pit," Rais snarled from behind the rifle, his lips pulled back from perfect white teeth. His finger rested on the trigger.
Kyle's jaw set.
He'd run out of luck. Called it wrong. He'd piled on his mistakes and there he was now, staring down the barrel of every decision he'd ever made.
Shit.
Game over.
Rais pulled the trigger, and the night came pouring in around him.
Zofia found herself ready. Whatever way it had wanted to go, she'd been ready for it. But he'd messed it up. She should have known. Should have known the moment he'd fallen from the sky and knocked Harran off its feet, that he'd be trouble.
The infuriating sort. Intimidating. Well mannered, and anything but. Persistent.
He'd gone out of his way to mean a little too much, and a little too soon, and even though she tried real hard to believe otherwise, he'd made himself worth it.
Worth falling again. Worth catching the concrete roof against her shoulder. Worth living for, even if it'd kill her.
It didn't make much sense, but at least she was ready.
Ready to draw her arm back, her fingers kissing her cheek. Ready to squint against the rain, let the air puff out her nose. Slow. Steady.
Ready to let go.
Rais missed. His arm jerked aside and the hail of bullets cracked into the ground. Kyle exhaled. Tried to catch up with not being in agony. He stared at the arrow lodged into Rais' arm. Heard the man scream. Saw him bring the rifle back up. Aim at him— no— her.
She'd gotten the shot wrong. Sort of. Zofia nocked another arrow. Brought the bow up and drew back. Rais turned towards her.
Oh. Dead now.
Crane flew by, knocked his shoulder into Rais and they went down in the rain. A tangle of hate, limb over limb, frustration and pain, and blind fury.
Blind to the night, and blind to their audience clawing its way over the edge of the roof. Zofia let the arrow fly. It sent the first Volatile falling back. Not because she had hurt it, but because death abides by physics too, even if it howled loudly while it did so.
She'd not have enough arrows for the rest.
Crane got up. So did Rais. They went for each other's throats.
"Kyle!"
His name. Somewhere. Out there. Past the heavy anger. Past the fist driving into him and winding him. Past his knee snapping into a gut and returning the favour.
Again— "Kyle! We need to go!" He weaved out of the way of a quick jab. Aimed his own at Rais' wounded arm. The blow went wide, because the fucker was slippery, and they traded places, their feet shifting and sliding across the wet ground.
The second one heaved itself onto the roof and Zofia's arrow sunk into it. Not like it cared. It didn't give a toss, just shook itself and declared itself king of the hill with an ear rending yowl.
Rais drew a knife. Sharp looking, long bladed. He swung at him and Kyle recoiled with a finger's width to spare. The blade cut past and he stepped into the attack. Didn't see the knife flip, not until it came back around and caught on his arm.
Kyle felt it bite. Saw a flash of brilliant white when it nicked bone.
He found the arrow. Yanked it out. Heard Rais scream. Heard himself answer with short, hoarse rasps. One shove and they went down. "This is for Jade you fucking asshole." One desperate leap and Kyle was on him. Had him by the wheezing throat. Squeezed. "For Zere—" He drew his arm back. Let it fall. Once, twice— every strike finding Rais. Every connecting blow jarring his shoulder. Biting his knuckles. Every rise and fall one step closer to the end.
Except there were hands on him now. Urgently tugging and pulling, and Kyle wanted to snap at her. He wanted to tell her she'd earned it. Tell her he needed this because she needed it.
Rais owed her that much.
But Kyle owed her more.
The Volatile plowed through the rain. Headed right for them.
Zofia dragged on his arm until he stood, and then he was the one doing the pulling, because his legs were longer and he'd always run faster. The night howled around them. Kept howling when they reached the door. Slammed into it when he pulled it shut behind them. Continued to do so, claws raking against metal, heavy bodies bending the frame if the screech of metal was anything to go by.
Because she couldn't see. Couldn't see a bloody thing in the pitch black, and they ran-staggered-fell down the stairs, shoulders bumping against each other, nothing but feet and arms and hurried breathing.
They hit an open door. Found the dark hall they'd come in through. Found the window and she knew she'd cut herself when she climbed through, felt glass biting into her. But she kept going. Kept going until the howls faded, and the world stopped trying to wash her away.
It was a small room and it was dark. But it was dry and his shin found a bed ("Fuck.") and his hands found blankets which he dragged around the shivering mess that had come back to save his life.
Zofia didn't want to let go of her bow when he asked her to, and he had to pry her fingers off it before he tossed it to the floor. It landed with a clank and she twitched, and that made him jolt too. They'd stretched a life wire of nerves between them. Fragile. Thin. Ready to snap as they expected something, anything, to catch up with them and finish what the night had started.
They waited until the slums calmed, the ripple of noise dying away slowly. And then they waited a little more, just to be certain, and Zofia tried herself at counting the rushed beat of his heart against her ear, the slight irregularity to it, as if it hadn't been built for all of this and was ready to give in.
Eventually, even that unruffled itself, fell into an even rhythm that drew her in closer, let her head lean in under his chin and her fingers curl into his grimy, wet shirt.
He smelled of wet, peaty ash and too much blood. She was okay with that.
"You're insane," he said after an eternity passed and she'd begun to think they'd both forgotten how to speak. His voice rumbled up his chest. Took a bite from her heart. "Why did you come back?"
Because you've come back for me.
Because you'd have died.
Because I got scared and didn't know what to do.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. None of it seemed true enough and none of it seemed to make enough sense, so she settled for, "I don't know."
He squeezed her closer, his arms heavy around her, and puffed warm, senseless words against her ear.
Called her crazy. Stubborn. Berated her that she should have listened. That she was shit with instructions. How he ought to be mad. How she was a tough little tiger. And how he loved it.
EPILOGUE
The storm raged on until daybreak.
It left Harran flooded. Rumpled. Lifted roofs from their homes. Started fires. Extinguished them. Then started them right back up, because why not. It warped roads, mudslides washing away abandoned cars and rubble, or simply tearing the asphalt aside.
Come late afternoon, Kyle barely recognised the slums as he made his way back to the hospital. What had been a basin of shanties standing side by side, now lay flat and scattered. And where Runners had built makeshift pathways across rickety roofs he found barely a foothold left.
The air was thick. Heavy. It went down his lungs wet and rotten. He wrapped a piece of cloth around his mouth. It didn't help much.
At the top of the stairs, he found the roof access door warped in its frame. For a while he stood and looked at it, the bulging dents where the nightmares had tried to get through, and the jagged holes ripped into it by assault rifle fire. He was amazed that it had held.
His crowbar lay right where he'd dropped it. Kyle scooped it up. Gave it a testing spin in his hand. Fought the urge to kiss it, and instead gave it a testing spin by his side. Whoosh-whoosh it went as he walked, metal cutting air, and his eyes swept the roof.
Shell casings littered the ground. Dried blood retold last night's ruin.
He found four bodies. Three men, right where he'd dropped them. And a Volatile. Dead.
Kyle swallowed.
He didn't find Rais.
"Oh man— this thing is high," Rahim complained.
Because complaining was a thing he did, as Zofia had come to accept, and she figured at one point or the other she'd get used to it. She caught her weight on her arm, felt the metal strut bite into the crook of her elbow, and peered down at the huffing boy.
He stared back at her, a bit wide eyed and with his face a little pale, and even though she tried, she couldn't keep the smile off her lips.
"You can go back down if you'd like."
Her eyes flicked that way, right past him, and then right around him.
Down was about three quarters of the climb, even if it'd go relatively fast with the rope they'd affixed to the antenna tower's outside structure. Couldn't risk anyone falling off. It'd be a shame. A mighty shame. Or so Crane had said a week ago and then went off with a ton of rope on his back to go play hero again.
Muppet.
"No- No, I'm good. Thing is just getting heavy, you know?"
Thing being the pack he was lugging up, though he had no one but himself to blame, considering she'd offered to carry half. But that wouldn't ever bloody happen, because man pride. Impressive, really. Rahim still flinched when he stretched and let his hand fly to his side when he thought no one to be watching. He'd healed. But not quite fully.
"Uh huh," Zofia hummed, turned around, and kept climbing, though not before she'd looked out across Harran again, the whole of it laid out under the bright midday sky.
She liked it up here. Liked the air. How clean it was. How she could drag it all right into her lungs without having to worry about regretting so a moment later and coughing it all up again.
A few minutes later the top greeted her with a slow smile curling inside a half-arsedly trimmed stubble, and a hand with wiggling fingers on it.
"Hey," Crane said as he balanced on the balls of his feet and watched her from his perch.
"Hi," she offered back, and then he had her by the wrist and pulled her up the rest of the way. The moment she had her feet under her in the straightest of manners one could muster at around five hundred meters up, he went and patted his hands down her sides, as if she'd found herself in dire need of dusting off.
Zofia slapped his hands down, collected the lopsided grin he threw her way, and wandered off so he could go help the grumbling Rahim.
The hero of the quarantine had kept busy.
He'd built a neat nest up here, even managed to line the railing with planks of wood to offer a little shelter from the wind where he'd laid out two sleeping bags and a few rolls of blankets. Cozy, almost. Still a bit fresh once night fell, something she'd had to find out the hard way.
Equipment lay stacked and secured. Electronics, mostly. Bits and pieces Savvy had thrown together ever since that day he'd punched right through the jamming signals and saved Harran from being burnt to cinders.
It didn't take much to think back to that, or the night that had followed. An idle moment here. A passing lull, or stray thought. Eventually, the shadow of regret would swish its tail and reminder her what she'd done.
What she'd lost. Given up.
Zofia settled her arms against the railing, listened to the chatter behind her, and looked out across the peninsula. The quarantine looked back at her. Swish, went the regret. She drew in a shaky breath. Let her eyes drift to the far right, where a slice of Harran prodded outwards into the sea.
Swish.
A fumble of her good fingers found her binoculars. She squinted through them, at the pillar of white standing atop the edge of jagged, grey cliffs.
Swish, it went again, this time bringing along a sickly, cold touch of faint dread. Rais. Still out there, somewhere. Alive. Probably. She slipped her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed, tried to think of anything but.
Even from all the way over here the lighthouse looked pretty, and while Rahim and Crane made a racket behind her, their voices carrying a hint of excitement, she dreamed herself across the water.
Swish.
Least until the binoculars were lifted from her hand, leaving her to blink at the tiny speck in the distance. Warmth snuck against her side. Started drumming. Tap-taptaptaptaptaptap-taptap— The intro to La Grange, as she'd found out when her patience had finally run out and she'd asked him.
Which she really didn't mind. The tail swishing, growling slice of her slunk off.
"Go on," Crane said. "Everything's set."
The tapping stopped. Her chin came up and she frowned unhappily at him.
"You should do it. Or Rahim. I'm really not—"
"It was your idea," Rahim called from behind her, and when she turned he held a radio in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other.
"Yeah," Crane agreed and she swallowed thickly, tried to get the knot that had started forming at the base of her throat to go back where it belonged. Wherever that might have been. Maybe it ought to go play with the regret. They could go build themselves a miserable little fort.
He stepped away from her and sat, resting his back against the boards he'd fitted to the railing, and stretched his long legs out.
"You've got this," he said from down there, and she collected that smile too, carried it right along with her as she walked up to Rahim and grasped the radio in her right hand.
She squeezed. Heard the thing click and murmur a hint at static at her.
Another look at him and his brows hiked up. Maybe she should have practiced this…
"Hey— Hello." Her voice tripped on the first word. Fell flat on the second. But she kept going. "This is Zofia Sirota—"
"And Rahim Aldemir," he blurted from the sidelines, quickly adding: "You are listening to Rrraadio Harrrrran!" because why the bloody hell not?
She scoffed at him, muttered: "You sure you don't want to do this?" only for him to step away, but not before he left her with the piece of paper.
"Okay," she continued. "To anyone listening— I— we— we're broadcasting from the Harran Quarantine, and for the next hour we'll read you a list of names.
"Survivors.
"To those of you who've lost someone in the Zone, don't forget about us. Don't abandon us.
"To those trapped in here, don't lose hope."
Zofia looked at the list squeezed between her thumb and index finger. It was almost full, the names written in tiny, tidy script. Still a lot of space. Still a lot of room to fill, and still a lot of names to find.
Her eyes cut to Crane and she swallowed again.
She'd never liked speaking in front of an audience, let alone the whole world.
But the hero of the quarantine seemed to think it'd be fine. He nodded at her and he smiled, a gentle, reassuring curl of his lips. Not his professional one, not the practiced and easy one, but the one he'd fitted on for her.
Taking one more deep breath, Zofia started reading.
And her world listened on.
Taffer Notes: Hello everyone. Here you are. We're done. This is it. I'm exhausted. I'm a wreck. I've got a soaring love in my heart for these two idiots, and now that Latchkey is done it's only burning hotter.
I want to thank all of you who've sat through this, no matter if you've been with me from the start, or found it halfway through or just now tripped over it.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for ever word of encouragement.
Thank you for letting Crane and Zofia take on a little adventure.
What now though?
Well. There's the drabbles. There's A Lady's Favor, and Before Harran. And there'll be a sequel, because who am I to keep Zofia away from the lighthouse she's been dreaming of?
In closing, I've got to mention a few of you in person, even if some of you might have moved on.
Cortax, for being the first person to ever leave a review on Latchkey here, and ExoRipper, for being a blessing even though you probably never knew how much every single review you left meant to me. You two helped drag me through the first half of the story and your support was an incredible inspiration.
Jysshio! You dropping a review at just the right moment, and JDMichelle: AH! I hope you stuck around to the end! See, I told you I'd finish it!
And of course: SilverRockets. I know we traded. But you were a gift. You are the sort of reader that we all ache for, who lights that spark we need to keep going. That I enjoy your writing in turn is the icing on that particular cake.
So: Thank you, everyone. Thank you for reading and thank you for bearing with me as I worked my way through it. In sincerely hope that you enjoyed it.
Taffer signing off (for a little while). Crane and Zofia deserve a bit of downtime ;)
Updated 18th August 2017