DIVISION 52 - BOOK III

CHAPTER IX

M A K A Y L A

Day five. 

Since the world had taken on its darkest edge. Since Proximo had left this world. And everything left behind seemed to morph into a reality I didn't recognise.

Alex hunted him of course.

Artella.

She had become just as vengeful–if not more–than Dazz. Yet I couldn't. I couldn't be with them taking that bloody path to retribution. It wouldn't bring him back. It wouldn't count because it was now in the past. It would have counted when his life hung in the present.

And I couldn't forgive her for that.

I sighed back onto my arms and left my boots dangling over the edge of a tower deep in Sector 30–or maybe it was 20. So long as it was far from where their hunt pursued gods knew who tonight.

"Proximo..." I breathed into the night. "–I could really use you right about now."

The darkness did not speak back. Only the city did. It's hum and constant whir like a perpetual engine. A living machine. 

I chuckled into the cold air and shook my head. 

"She chose to leave you up there." I shrugged forward and watched the streets far below as they continued unaware. Only now they held dozens of Imperial enforcers. Now the Division retreated into the shadows. They would never dare if a large man with tattoos down his face roamed them. They wouldn't dream of it. 

"–I wanted to. I would have done anything it took to save you." I bit out, shaking my head and letting a trail of salt water leave my chin and fall to the depths below. "–you meant so much more, Proximo–than I ever let you know. You never demanded anything in return."

I raised my head and stared deep across the horizon of Merridian. Just so I could vaguely make out the sky towers gleaming in the distance.

"You and that calm sureness. You got out of every fight you got yourself into." I murmured, shaking my head with a bitter humour. "–Not even death could claim you. Only your heart could get you killed. You didn't deserve it. We didn't deserve you." I finished into the cold night.

The city glowed back at me.

I looked down at my arm.

It was red and the coat was too large. But it was his.

I swallowed and breathed in deep. Everything had changed so much in the last week. It had all seemed so possible. The happiness we were promised on the horizon. The futures we had. The violence we would leave in the back rear view. Then it was stolen.

Because things that good always had a high price.

I rose to my feet slowly and looked down at the distant street. The fusion crafts weaving below. Death used to scare me. Now it felt like living was the harder path. Especially without the ones that deserved it here with us.

My comm buzzed against my wrist but I ignored it.

I shook myself out of my darkness and turned on my heel for the Falcon jet perched on the rooftop behind. The Division didn't need all of them anyway. It was the only way to cut through the city without being detected. Yet a part of me knew Alex would know. She only chose to let me have this escape without her. We both dealt with our darkness in different ways after all...

The comm buzzed again and I sighed through my nose in frustration. Then ripped the trench coat arm back to reveal the screen.

But what it said made a slight tremor pulse my heart back to life.