DIVISION 52 - BOOK III

CHAPTER XI

"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago." 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

S C O R P I O N 

I would hunt him until the ends of the earth. Then I would hunt him all the same. 

There was nothing else outside of it. Every moment I shut my eyes I saw the man that had stood beside me for every victory, every horror, everything–began with Proximo. I saw our bloodied hands clasped over a poisoned blade to the death. His smirk as he hit the escape pod out of a burned out Falcon at the last second. That dark glint in his eyes that said yes to every perceived one-way trip or mission. And I. Let. Him. Die.

There would be no end to the torment I had planned for Artella Maxim. Not even the previous Underworld rulers sent me further from myself.

And in many ways... he had taken Makayla Xavier with him.

She couldn't look at me again when I had prioritised her life over his–and in some ways I now hated what I saw in myself too. Because if she had been right. If there was a chance all of us had walked away from that rooftop and I had made the mistake–

"–Scorpion."

I ripped my thoughts back to my personal guard. The conversation was a blur. One where I asked for the arms dealer to be secured and for someone to get me Dazz to verify her transaction history. To track down the contractor's last used credit bar. But I couldn't be present for it. It was enough to have Makayla's relentless distance occupy my mind... the rage from his sister didn't need to add to it.

It hit me from every angle.

My feet carried me away from them all. From the noise. The voices. The ever increasing sense of my body being constricted and ripped apart all at once. Before I could even register it, I was running–dodging through hallways, throwing myself into the lift and only when the doors hissed shut around me and flew downward did I release the roar in my throat. I threw all of my weight behind my fist and connected harshly with the glass floor.

The mechanics in the glove held but the glass cracked viciously beneath me. I wished it had given out. I snarled into my teeth and felt the breath couldn't come. Nothing was holding. It was all collapsing around me too fast to hold.

The numbers flew downward at a rate I didn't care to notice.

And yet I didn't remember the number I input.

I rolled back with my back pressed against the wall and my forearms over my knees. What a sight this leader of the Underworld now was. Long ago I had considered the closest around a leader as their greatest weakness. But when you cut them all away... It was so very clear that was not the case. No one could hold onto this alone.

"Can you stop crying in the elevator, please?"

I froze.

Then glared all the death I had left up to the camera in the lift.

"Why is it, the useless Dartega survives?" I growled back.

"Oh, you know... intelligence. But that's not why I'm interrupting your breakdown, Scorpion."

I leant my head back against the glass and let a long breath go.

"What. Dazz."

"I personally, enjoy your suffering... but this is now counterintuitive and my brother always was a moron."