Sevro’s thumb twitches for the detonation switch. But before he presses down, I activate a jamfield with the jammer on my belt, blocking the signal from leaving the room. “You son of a bitch,” he snarls, rushing for the door to get beyond the field.
I reach for him. He spins under my hands. My jammer ’s not a strong one, so he doesn’t need to get far away from me. He bowls into the hallway, I scramble after.
“Sevro, stop!” I say as I push into the hallway. He’s already ten meters down the hall, running at full speed to get clear of my jamming field so his signal can go out. He’s quicker than I am in these small hallways. He’s going to escape. I pull my pulseFist out, aim it over his head, and fire it, but my aim is off and it nearly takes off his head. His Mohawk sizzles smoke. He stops dead in his tracks and wheels back on me, face feral.
“Sevro…I didn’t mean…”
With a howl of rage he charges me. Caught off guard, I stumble back from the manic man. He closes in a flurry. I block his first punch, but an uppercut smashes into my jaw, slamming my teeth together. Rocking me back. My teeth close on a corner of my tongue. I taste blood and almost fall. If Mickey hadn’t made bones proper, Sevro might’ve shattered my jaw. Instead, he curses, gripping his fist in pain.
I move with the uppercut and lash out with my left leg, kicking him so hard in the ribs that his whole body carries sideways into the wall, denting the metal bulkhead. I throw a straight jab with my right fist. He ducks under and my punch lands on duroSteel. Pain rattles up my arm. I grunt. He flies into me under the left elbow I swing at his head, ratcheting strikes into my stomach, aiming for my balls. I twist back, manage to grab one of his arms and swing him around as hard as I can. He slams face-first into the wall, spilling to the ground.
“Where is it?” I search his body for the detonator. “Sevro…”
He scissor-kicks my legs. Tangling them. Dropping me to the ground so we’re grappling instead of
trading punches. He’s the better wrestler. And it’s all I can do to keep him from choking me out from behind as his legs form a triangle, heels locked in front of my face, legs pressing in on both sides of my neck. I lift him off the ground, but I can’t dislodge him. He’s dangling upside down behind me, spine to my spine, heels still in my face, trying to elbow my balls through my legs from behind. I can’t reach for him. I can’t breathe. So I grab his calves on my neck and spin my body. He slams into the metal. Once. Twice. Then he finally lets go, scrambling off. I’m on him in a flash, throwing a tight series of kravat elbows into his face. He catches my chin with the crown of his head accidentally.
“Dumb…son of a bitch…” I mutter, stumbling back. He’s gripping his own head in pain.
“Stupid lanky ass…”
He aims a kick at my midsection. I take the blow, catching the leg with my left arm, and exchange it for a haymaker right that crashes into his skull with all my weight behind it. He goes down hard, like I’m a hammer driving a nail into the floor. He tries to rise, but I push him down with a boot. He lies under it, heaving breaths. I’m dizzy and panting. Body hating me for what I’m doing to it.
“Are you done?” I ask him. He nods. I pull back my boot and extend a hand to help him up. He rolls to his back and reaches for it, then lurches up with his left boot heel straight into my groin. I fall and dry-heave beside him. Crippling nausea swells from my lower back into my balls and my stomach.
Beside me, he’s panting like a dog. At first I think he’s laughing, but when I look up I’m shocked to see tears in his eyes. He lies on his back. Huge sobs make his rib cage shudder. He turns away, tries to hide from me to stop the tears from coming, but it makes it worse.
“Sevro…”
I sit up, feeling ripped apart by the sight of him. I don’t hold him, but I put a hand on his head. And he surprises me by not flinching away, but instead crawling up to put his head on my knee. I put my other hand on his shoulder. In time the sobs slow and he blows the snot from his nose. But he doesn’t move. It’s like the moment after a lightning storm. The air kinetic and vibrating. After several minutes, he clears his throat and pushes himself up to sit with his legs folded under him in the center of the hall. His eyes are puffy, ashamed. He plays with his hands, the tattoos and Mohawk making him look like something pulled from a deranged children’s book.
“You tell anyone I cried, I’ll find a dead fish, put it in a sock, hide it in your room, and let it putrefy.”
“Fair enough.”
The detonator lies off to the side. Close enough so we can both reach for it. Neither of us do. “I hate this,” he says weakly. “People like that.” He glances up at me. “I don’t want him to be a Son. I don’t want to be like Quicksilver.”