“Shit,” he says with uncommon surprise, pushing himself up. I pull him to his feet, but after that, he’s on his own. I can barely stand as it is.
“This way!” We hobble back past the Aquarium, heading for a green railing above which is mounted a circular sign with a big T in the middle. The red brick is unforgiving beneath my feet, each impact a new kind of agony.
The sound of a continuing missile barrage, coupled with Nemesis’s roar, draws my attention back to the harbor. Nemesis is aglow with explosions, writhing in pain or fury. Probably both. The fighter jet pilots have done a good job of avoiding those orange membranes.
Then the missiles stop.
The jets flying past overhead peel away, afterburners roaring as they flee the scene.
A tiny black dot falls from the sky, headed toward Nemesis.
MOAB.
I look forward, the subway station is just fifty feet ahead. If I were healthy, I could cover the distance in a few seconds. Now...it’s going to be close. The problem with MOAB is that it’s a fuel-air explosive, meaning it will detonate before it strikes Nemesis, creating a thermobaric wave of stunning force and heat not unlike Nemesis’s self-immolation.
Ignoring the bomb and its target, I push past the pain, willing my legs forward. Endo reaches the stairwell before me and plunges into the darkness. He shouts in surprise about something, but I don’t slow as I reach the steps. Instead, I throw myself downward, expecting a brutal but potentially lifesaving fall. The surprise comes quickly as I splash down into salt water. The subway is flooded. We’re still too high!
“Down!” I shout, ducking beneath the water and swimming for all I’m worth, while the salt water burns my wounds. After just five strokes, a wave of pressure moves through the water and my body, drawing the air from my lungs. I instinctually head for the surface, but I bump my head. Seeing stars, I spin, pressing my hands against an invisible ceiling, unable to tell if they’re moving through water or air, or even if I’m right-side up. I’d shout if I could. Scream like a madman. But there’s no air left in my lungs.
And then, from the darkness, some unseen predator strikes hard, pulling me to my doom as water rushes into my lungs.
29
I have no memory of how painful my birth felt—to me, not to my mother. I imagine it wasn’t comfortable, being squashed down in too tight of a space, head compressed, limbs twisted. Torn from the world I knew and thrust into a coldness without connection. Could there be anything much worse than that?
The answer to that question, I now know, is: fuck yes.
I feel several things at once. My lungs and throat tear with wet coughs. Blinding jolts of pain explode from my ribs with each heave. The surface beneath my back is hard and uneven. Stairs, I think.
And then the rest of my full body pain returns. Screw childbirth, this must beat an afternoon in an iron maiden. But it’s not enough to knock me unconscious, which is both fortunate and unfortunate.
I hear breathing in the dark.
“Endo?”
“I am here.”
“The fuck did you do to me?”
“You drowned.”
The simple explanation is enough. I drowned. He performed CPR. Saved my life again. Damn him. Of course, I saved his, too. People are going to start thinking we’re pals. Feels like a few more of my ribs are broken. “Didn’t hold back, did you?”
I sit up with a grunt, clutching my ribs. The motion moves blood into my legs. The knife wound throbs. “You were pretty convincing. Up there on the roof.”
“There have been times when I would have liked nothing more than to kill you.” His honesty is disconcerting. If he changed his mind now, I’m not sure I could do much to stop him. “But,” he says. “you have been chosen for a purpose.”
He’s speaking about Nemesis. About my connection to her, which I understand a little bit better now. Not how it works, but why she would choose me.
I slide up against a cool, damp wall, pushing myself higher. “You have nice parents, Endo? A good childhood?”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then drops a bomb. “It’s your father.”
“The hell do you know about my father?”
“I know as much about you as you do about me,” he says.
“I know shit about you!” I shout.
“Then, yes,” he says. “I had a good childhood. And kind parents. They are still kind parents.”
“Asshole,” I say.
I hear him chuckle, and I have a strong urge to kick his face in, but I decide that will just end badly for me. “Where are we?”
“Underground,” he says, and I reconsider my boot-to-the-face idea. But then he adds, “Some kind of service tunnel. There’s a ladder here.”