"Capture them! Now!"
Our bubble of peace bursting, reality rushed in. We reacted too slowly, unable to immediately reconcile the danger we were in with the relief still coursing through our veins, pure warmth made liquid. Light flashed so bright that my vision momentarily eclipsed with white in the aftermath as my pupils struggled to adjust. At some point, I went rigid, parallel upon the hard ground. My teeth clenched. My muscles jerked wildly out of my control from an electrifying pulse shot directly into my spine.
"Sir!" exclaimed a voice I was only vaguely familiar with. I should have been able to place it, but I struggled to string together even the most basic thoughts. "That's enough! Tell Static that's enough!"
I felt the staggering shock to my system of my heart losing it's steady beat, impeding blood flow to the rest of my body. The searing current only stopped when the Constable tsked and said, in an offhanded way, "Fine. That's enough. I'll admit, Fate, that I am rather surprised. I had no idea you were so soft-hearted."
"We've gotten what we wanted," Fate replied stiffly. "There's no point being cruel."
My surging powers brought back my pulse and I gasped, rolling over onto my side long before I was ready to move in order to try to get a good look at Atticus's condition. The Constable either hadn't made the connection, or didn't care about the relationship between the physical damage Atticus took and his mental deterioration. Eyes squeezed tight, Atticus sat nearby, hunched with his hands tangled in his hair, warding off his most destructive impulses with the fraying thread of his sanity.
I let my body take control, pushing off the ground, feet staggering , one in front of the other. I ignored the aches and phantom pain, the exhaustion and spasming neural connections rewiring themselves. So many times today I'd reached a point where I'd thought, "This is it, this is all I have left to give," and each time I managed to muster just a little bit more. This was no different. I would always find more for the people I loved.
In my periphery, I caught Ren looking on with the most peculiar expression. Possibly, he hadn't made any of his promised attempts to distract the Guild leader, for those attempts certainly hadn't worked if he tried. Had this been a betrayal? Had he taken on the role of double agent at the Constable's behest, playing me for a fool in order to get Atticus back under control? And I walked right into it, a fool indeed.
"See?" the Constable said matter-of-factly to Fate, a teacher guiding their student along a problem until they, too, understood the correct answer. "Look at her. Sometimes, they leave you no other choice than a little bit of cruelty to break their spirits. Static?"
"Understood," another replied.
I jerked the hand I had just laid over Atticus away as another volt shot into me through the center of my shoulder blades. I smashed my temple into something hard on my way down. The assault seemed to go on forever, much longer than the last, but at least I'd been expecting it, although bracing for such a sensation was impossible.
"Sir!" Fate protested again, as though from very far away. Not even Ren, my supposed double-crossing ally spoke up in my defense. "This is unnecessary-"
I heard a scuffle, a brief shout of alarm that quickly cut out, and then my body went blissfully limp, the stream of lightning sparking through abused arteries suddenly severed.
"Serves you right," a girl grunted.
I knew that voice almost as well as I knew my own.
But... I sent her away. She was supposed to leave!
"How did she get past our perimeter?" the Constable roared at no one in particular. "Deal with her!"
"Wait!" Ren intervened hastily, panicked compared to his speculative, easy demeanor earlier. "That's a civilian, don't-"
With effort, I lifted my head to spy Static sprawled on the ground, and Leigh standing over him with a large rock clutched in her white-knuckled grasp. She took a teetering step back as it hit her how much danger she was really in, preparing to make a run for safety, but she never got the chance. Evidently, Ferrus hadn't actually been killed by her earlier hammer strike, only knocked unconscious and then sent back into the action as soon as he awoke. He raised a clawed hand at the same time that I forced myself up again, even though every inch of my body screamed in protest. Protect her! I needed to-
He shot her. Five times, he shot her.
I couldn't believe my own eyes, couldn't accept the truth the way it was relayed to my brain.
My mind went blank from rage. The next thing I knew, I was on top of him, screaming like a wild beast, and slamming him into the ground over and over and over, taking no note of the pandemonium erupting around me. At some point, he fired the other five of his iron finger bones into my abdomen. I only noticed because the impact knocked me back just not long enough to save him. In fact, I became less than a beast. An injured animal knows when to flee, and I could never have been made to do so in that moment, not until after his last death rattle fled his chest.
My first direct kill, and I felt unchanged, unmoved by the evil act, my anger a poison that refused to dilute.
"Will someone do something about her?" the Constable shouted when I stood up and fixed him with my most deadened stare, sizing him up. He was bigger than me, taller than most. Muscular, too. Additionally, I no longer had the element of surprise, like I'd had in getting Ferrus down to the ground.
Still, my rage was greater. That evened things.
Then, Leigh let out a pained whimper from where she'd fallen on her back, and I remembered why I was so overcome in the first place. The will to fight fled my body in a single rush that left me only a vessel for dread. A second later, I dropped to her side, assessing the blossoming circles of red staining her clothes, three on her torso and one on her hand where she'd attempted to shield herself. One iron bone missed her, while another demolished the rock in her other hand, slowing it enough to reduce the damage when it came out the other side.
Still. So. Much. Damage.
"Hosp- we need to get her to a hospital!" Automatically, I looked to Atticus, who was practically trembling with suppressed energy looking for an escape. It took several attempts to get his attention, like he'd been caught up in his own internal battle the last few minutes and couldn't quite process the world outside of his own cruel mind. As though jerking awake, his head shot up at the sound of my voice calling his name. "Atticus! Hospital! Now!"
After a too long moment, his expression cleared to dismayed understanding when he spotted his sister, and he dragged himself over, stooping down to take hold of Leigh's wrist. A wrinkle formed between his brows, while he concentrated, working his jaw and pressing his eyelids tight.
It had never had never taken this long before for him to summon the shadows, at least, never when he previously had the ability at his fingertips. We'd only just seen them, for goodness sake! Why wasn't it working now?
This was despair. I knew what he was going to say even before he cleared his throat and hoarsely pushed out, "I can't. I'm sorry, Leigh... I can't do it. I can't control it anymore."
"No. No, no, no, no, no, no." Desperate, I overlapped my whole arm against his, digging my nails into the inside of his elbow. Take everything, I thought. Take it all, forever. I don't care, so long as you heal enough to save her. "Try again," I demanded. "TRY AGAIN. Try- try-"
I felt myself descending into a state of full-blown panic. Only Leigh's fingers lightly squeezing two of my own grounded me, preventing me from going completely off the deep end.
"You!" the Constable pointed to a muscular Guild Super who I recognized as Boulder, the woman that helped free me and Atticus from the Archive following Tectonic's staged attack on the Guild. "Detain them."
"Sorry, sir," she replied. "I'm actually under new management. I don't follow your orders."
"What?" he spat, anger reddening his neck. "I am your leader. You do what I tell you, whatever I tell you!"
"Sorry, sir," Boulder repeated, smiling grimly without any teeth. "You'll have to take it up with my new boss."
Instead of arguing further, he turned to another Super at random, only for them to parrot back Boulder's exact response.
A million emotions crossed the Constable's face at the dawning understanding that he was being, for lack of a better word to highlight his feelings of betrayal, overthrown at a time where he had never been closer to winning. All his loyal Supers were either too injured to fight or ill-suited to combat, henceforth unable to defend their powerless leader.
"This will not go unpunished," he gave his low promise of retribution. "This might be the most powerful of my Guilds, my most curated for talent, but it is still only one of them. That is over a hundred Supers elsewhere in the country that will come at my beck and call to crush," he waved a lazy hand to encompass Boulder, the other Super, and Ren, who made no moves to stop their coup, plus everyone standing in between, "whatever little resistance is going on here. This will be swiftly dealt with, and without mercy." After one last withering look, he turned on his heel, robe flaring out behind him. "First, however, I will not be going anywhere until that boy is dealt with. Fate!" he barked, his mere tone implying that, no matter the loyalties of the others, Fate would always align himself to the former Guild leader's interests.
"Sir..." Fate visibly let his reservations be known, hesitating a fair distance away, as he always seemed to be. Distant. Disconnected from the fold. "Let's just go. There's been enough bloodshed today. Why not leave and get our reinforcements, then return for Nightshade when we have some place to restrain him? The prison is gone."
It was a weak argument, even I could tell that much, and I was barely listening. Why were they too caught up in their pissing contest to call for help? Leigh didn't have the time for them to resolve their squabbles.
Fate's noncompliance seemed to catch the Constable off-guard, even more than the outright betrayals. "Fine," he ground out, ripping off his Elder robe to reveal his suit from the days when he and the other Elders built their Guild empire from nothing. "I'll do it myself. Nightshade can't even defend himself anymore. We might not get this chance to capture him a third time."
Their conversation might as well have been happening on the other side of the world for all it impacted me. We were in imminent danger and I never cared less, unable to fathom anyone could care about anything else besides my bleeding best friend.
"Pull yourself together, Lil," Leigh admonished of my bloodless, shell-shocked expression, though each word came out slower than the last. "If any of us should be freaking out, at least let it be me."
I squeezed her hand back. "No. Nope, no one's freaking out. Everything is going to be fine. Just hang in there for a moment, okay?"
But while I spoke to her, I looked to Atticus, seeking out his confirmation more than anything, because if he said everything would alright, I'd believe it, too.
He pointedly avoided my gaze. "I'll go find someone, and get them to call for help, or maybe - maybe Flicker is still alive, and can teleport her to the hospital." But I knew Flicker had been lost to the whirlwind of ice and shadow, so if he still lived, he couldn't be in a good state. Atticus abruptly stood up, his movements almost wooden. He stopped at the last second to tell his sister in a pained voice I'd never heard before, "I'll be right back. Hold on until then."
Moving to block his path using his wider frame, the Constable said, "You're not going anywhere."
I was inclined to agree with him, or would have been, had I been thinking clearly. Atticus could barely stand upright under his own strength. How would he make it far enough to get help? He'd never make it past the man currently in his way, regardless of the fact that the Constable had no powers to speak of.
Which left me. I felt like I was trying so, so much, and it was never enough to make a marketable difference in our outcome.
Carefully extricating Leigh's fingers from my own, I pulled away and threw an arm out in front of Atticus. "You stay. I'll be faster, and if no one else is going to stop him," I nodded jerkily towards the Constable, "then I'll manage it by myself. I made him a promise, after all."
"Don't," Atticus said.
"Stay with Leigh," I murmured in return.
The Constable grinned at my earlier challenge, more a flash of teeth than a measure of true enjoyment. "Dear girl, it's about time someone teaches you how to accept defeat."
"No one knows how many killing blows you will need to land on me for it to stick," I told him, edging closer, "but I, on the other hand, only have to get you once in the right spot. I'll take those odds."
He slipped a sleek, dark object out of his pocket and into his hand. "We'll see about that."
Ren cursed, and for the dozenth time I wondered what game he was playing at with his wishy-washy loyalties. Then, I was staring down the barrel of a small handgun. My initial alarm quickly diminished when I remembered that I'd been shot dozens of times that day and turned out fine, until the Constable said, "You wouldn't believe how tricky it was to develop bullets from the same mineral that makes the Guildhall nearly indestructible to superpowers. My people working on the project called it impractical, but I knew it would come in handy one day, and now here we are."
It seemed that everyone took a collective intake of breath, unwilling to exhale as we all reached the same conclusion in our heads of how badly this could end for me. One well placed shot into my head or my heart, or even just through a random artery that could not heal with the bullet blocking its path spelled certain death.
The Constable used his thumb to draw back the firing pin, pausing long enough to add in a saddened tone that he had no right to, "It's a shame. I had high hopes for you. I really hate discarding the lives of superpowered people like us so wastefully, but you've left me at a loss for options."
Ren barked the order, "Stop him!" half a moment too late.
The Constable pulled the trigger to an explosion of sound that cracked my eardrums, and I was falling, not because I'd been hit, but because Atticus tackled me to the ground. I forced him off in a panic, looking for where he'd been hurt, certain that he must have been injured in my place, only to pat my frantic hands down nearly every inch of him and come away no bloodier than before.
At a displaced gurgling noise, I glanced up to find a small blade protruding out of the Constable's neck, and Fate standing at an improbable distance away to have successfully made the perfectly aimed throw, yet his stance didn't lie.
Nor did the blade. I could recognize it anywhere. I thought I'd never see it again after I hurled it at Fate in the Guildhall, trying to distract him long enough for me and Atticus to escape that day.
Spurts of blood poured from the now former Guildleader's throat, despite his vain efforts to staunch the flow. He lowered to his knees, mouth overflowing a deep crimson with each nauseating gurgle as he tried to gasp for air.
Fate had been loyal, though. Why do that? Why-
It didn't matter why, I abruptly remembered. All that mattered was finding Leigh help.
No doubt reading my thoughts, Ren said, "I called for paramedics a few minutes ago. They should be on their way."
Why not tell me earlier?
Another question that might have mattered at any other time.
I pressed my hands once more over Leigh's most dire wounds, covering them as well as I could manage. The fact of the matter was, I hadn't the foggiest clue how to help her, where to apply pressure to stem the bleeding. It seemed more of her blood spilled out onto her clothes than what could possibly remain inside.
I had survived injuries that made hers look like a paper cut by comparison, but she was not me. She was normal. She could not heal, and she could actually die.
I forgot how to breathe.
In the short time since my power became known to me, I'd been nothing less than grateful. Ecstatic, even. Learning I possessed rapid healing had forced me to put my life into a perspective that cast away all the little inconsistencies I ignored throughout my childhood, but what I wouldn't have given at that second for the ability to heal others instead of a selfish ability that only served myself.
"I'm getting really tired," Leigh murmured.
"Stay awake," I choked out past the pressure in my throat, because although I didn't know much, I knew that falling asleep was a foreteller of bad things to come. "Just — just a little bit longer. Help is almost here, do you understand? Don't close your eyes yet. You can rest later."
"Okay," she agreed, eyelids already drooping, despite her words. Her breaths came out in shallow whispers. "Keep talking... please... Give me something... to distract me..."
Panic shut my brain completely off, and suddenly I couldn't think of a single thing to say. My mind conjured only fragments of our past, the things she stood to take with her that I knew I could never find anywhere else. "Do you remember when we first met? We were both being assessed to see how we were coping with the tragedies in our lives. You remember that, right?"
Another breath so precious I wished I could cradle it to my chest and keep it safe from growing any more frail. "Yes."
"Well, I thought you were a major bitch."
Not expecting that, she gave a startled laugh, though it came out frighteningly weak, barely more than an abrupt exhale and the twisting of her paling lips. "How sweet. You thought that way... at twelve years old?"
I swallowed hard. "I hear that's how all the best friendships start out."
Her eyes drifted shut. "Is that so?"
"You looked mean, and you were, in fact, very mean. You wouldn't leave me alone when all I wanted to do was be left to myself. You harassed me for weeks, and then before I knew it we were going everywhere together. You were impossible to get rid of, you know, and after awhile I didn't want to. I needed you and I still need you."
No response.
Shaking her side with increasing insistence, I said, "Please, don't do this to me, Leigh. You can't do this. I can't do this."
More silence, made loud somehow for the absence of the little things. No one spoke. No jostling movement in my periphery.
Later, I would remember thinking that I couldn't fall apart there, in front of others, because that was a personal tragedy that they didn't deserve to witness. No one deserved to have their heart break in front of an audience, but there was nowhere private to duck into and I couldn't leave her alone with people who didn't know her sense of humor, her poor taste in movies, and her delight for breaking up relationships.
If they had known her, they'd know there could never be a reason to laugh again, or smile, or sing along to a cheesy song in the car. I failed to imagine my place in a world where she no longer existed. I couldn't reshape my gravity in the universe to take into account the absence of hers.
"Leigh, please." A sob escaped my lips, against my best efforts to suppress it. It was ripped out of my chest.
She and Nicole once theorized I could survive just about anything, but I knew at that exact moment that I could not survive this. I couldn't survive losing my best friend - my worst half, Adrian jokingly called her - a person who sometimes knew me better than I did.
"Stay with me," I gasped between ragged breaths.
Why had I ever thought she'd leave me behind in favor of her own safety? She probably only made it halfway to her car before her conscience overruled her self-preservation and she circled back. This was all my fault.
All my fault. All my fault. All my fault.
When I watched her face carefully through damp eyelashes — nothing. I saw and felt nothing from her, except the unnatural stillness of death. I knew then she was gone, and, if possible, my heart would have stopped beating alongside hers for the deep aching in my chest.
Desperation had me reaching deep for anything - any idea, any untapped power I may have possessed - to no avail. An impenetrable wall stood between me and everything I needed. That wall was manned by Death themself, and on the other side Leigh waited, just out of reach.