“Collar him, Omega,” the Boar says off to my right. He’s practically gleeful. “Collar him and I will let him live as my slave.”
Molly brings up the length of metallic rope she has left and holds it over me. It writhes like a snake, like it’s alive and eager to make me its prisoner.
Eighteen thirty-three and four seconds, Sheila says in my head. Kill her now or you all die.
“Kill me,” I say instead. “Kill me, Molly.”
She grinds her teeth, gnashing them together as she jams the barrel of the gun against my forehead.
“Collar him,” Boar yells. “Collar him! I need him, Omega. I need him and you must—”
The magnetic field in my right hand begins to buzz.
“—take him alive!”
“Molly,” I whisper. She can’t possibly hear me. Not over all the noise of the Boar, the helicopter, and the moans from Case.
But she pauses, her blank eyes trained on mine.
She’s still in there. She’s still in that body somewhere and the relief I feel from that simple realization floods through my veins.
“I love you, Molly,” I whisper. “I love you.”
A wave of energy tingles through my fingertips and a pulse of power is pulled into my body through my palms. My mind clears with the realization of what has really happened to me. I’m still human, and my love for her proves it. I’m the fucking hero here. But not just any kind of hero. I’m a superhero.
The gun off to my right snaps into my palm and before the sickness can overtake me again my finger is on the trigger and I squeeze. The bullets scream out of the barrel and hit their target.
The Blue Boar’s skull shatters—
Eighteen thirty-three and sixteen seconds—
—his body falls.
I look Molly in the eyes as her trigger finger squeezes, pressing the gun against my head.
“You know how I know you won’t kill me, gun girl?” I croak out as loud as I can over the destruction happening around me.
Her grimace fails for a moment. Her chest rises and falls, and her breath quickens as her heart rate speeds up. But her trigger finger relaxes.
“Because number one, you’re too sweet and good to hurt people, Molly. Number two, you fell in love with me seventeen years ago when I made you mine. And number three, you’re the hero in this story, gun girl. Not me.”
She blinks. Then again.
Thomas, like the rest of us, is wearing a vest, so he’s picked himself up after being shot in the chest and walks over to Case, who is holding his bloody shoulder, his arm limp by his side. “We gotta go,” he says, pointing a gun at Molly’s head.
He’s always been immune, I realize. He’s always been immune to the inhibitor and he could’ve killed any of us at any time.
“Are you listing me, bike boy?” Molly yells over the womp, womp, womp of the ’copter hovering above. “Because I never pegged you for a lister.”
I smile at Thomas and wait for him to stop aiming at my Omega before I start laughing. I drag Molly down to my chest and kiss her head over and over and over.
Thomas attaches Case to one of the grappling hooks in the middle of the room and sends him flying up towards the ’copter.
Eighteen thirty-three and thirty-nine seconds.
He wraps the other hook around Molly and me and we go flying up as well.
I push Molly into the ’copter, then help Case. Thomas enters behind me. I grab his arm just as Sheila says, Eighteen thirty-three and fifty seconds.
“Initiate,” I tell Sheila.
Blue Corp explodes. Every floor from twenty-one up starts to crumble.
Thomas looks at me and exhales a huge sigh of relief. His smile leaks out after that, and then all three of us are laughing. Molly looks around like we are crazy.
And we are, I guess. But it’s a super kind of crazy.
Thomas might be in charge. I’ll give him that. He might be rich and on the verge of taking over the world. And Case might be the one who has the tech to get us through the next stage in the plan. But they’re not SuperAlpha Lincoln. I’m the only asshole here with my own motherfucking artificial intelligence who can blow our corporate enemy as sky-high as the SkyEye satellites.
“Thanks,” Thomas mouths. If he actually says the words, they are not audible over the helicopter.
I flip him off and mouth, “You’re not welcome.”
I catch Case smiling out of the corner of my eye.
“Molly?” I ask, leaning into her ear and handing her a headset after putting my own on. “Are you OK?”
She looks up at me and shrugs, but doesn’t put it on. It’s an honest answer. So I give her the same thing back.
A smile. And then a squeeze. And then a kiss. We sit like that for a little while, holding each other. She’s shaking and her body is hot, like she’s got a fever. I’m wrapping her up in a blanket from the crash kit when another explosion erupts off in the east.
We only see it for a second because the ’copter eases back into the cover of the mountains.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask into the headset.