“Because you would have let her manipulate you,” he says without apology. “Like you did before. Like you’re letting him now.” He considers me, pointing a finger as he thinks he figures it out. “You’re afraid. Aren’t you? Afraid of pulling the trigger. Afraid of making a mistake. We finally have a chance to make Gold bleed and you wanna reassess. You wanna take time to look at our options.” He pulls the detonator from his pocket. “This is war. We don’t have time. We can take the bastard with us, but we can’t miss this chance.”
“Stop acting like a terrorist,” I snarl. “We’re better than that.”
I stare down at him, furious in the moment. He should be my simplest, strongest friendship. But because of loss, everything is twisted between us. Even with him there’s so many layers to the pain. So many levels of fear and recrimination and guilt for both of us. They once called Sevro my shadow. He’s not any longer. And I think I’ve been bitter at him these last hours because they’re proof of that. He’s his own man with his own tides. Just as I think he’s been bitter with me because I didn’t come back as the Reaper. I came back a man he didn’t recognize. And now that I’m trying to be the force he wanted, the force that’s making decisions, he doubts me because he senses weakness and that’s always made him afraid.
“Sevro, give me the detonator,” I say coldly.
“Naw.” He opens the detonator’s priming shield, revealing the red thumb toggle inside the protective casing. If he presses down, one thousand kilograms of high-yield explosives will detonate across Phobos. It won’t destroy the moon, but it’ll demolish the moon’s economic infrastructure. Helium will not flow for months. Years. And all the fears of Quicksilver will be realized. Society will suffer, but so will we.
“Sevro…”
“You got my father killed,” he says. “You got Quinn and Pax and Weed and Harpy and Lea killed because you thought you were smarter than everyone else. Because you didn’t kill the Jackal when you could. Because you didn’t kill Cassius when you could. But unlike you, I don’t flinch.”
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…”
