Stormblood, стр. 146
I locked sights with my brother. Pleading for him to do something, anything. He glanced away.
‘You actually thought your brother was going to help you.’ Jae slipped to his side, hand on his shoulder. My teeth clenched hard enough to crack. ‘Artyom has been fully committed to our cause since we became his family, one which wouldn’t abandon him. You took a beating and ran away to war. He stayed and faced your father. And now, he’s standing up to the evil of Harmony as you never could.’
And the thing was: she was right. My brother was standing with this little snake because I’d run like a coward and let the wolves of the world tear him apart. We were here because I’d failed him.
Yells. Gunfire rumbling through the stone.
On a flexiscreen, a highrise disappeared in a fiery explosion. Dust poured out the broken windows like streams of smoky tears, the hot ruins shedding fire and rubble onto the crowded streets as they collapsed with a great shuddering roar, screams ringing through the speakers.
The chainship winked to life. Ungluing from its berth, the cycling chamber irised open to allow them access to open space, where they’d continue to spread the House of Suns’ poison and lies to outposts and stations and habitats all across the Common.
I’d failed.
I almost looked away. A white-hot streak jerked my attention back. A guided Anti-Hull micro-missile, programmed by Juvens to target any unidentified ships making a sneaky getaway. Jae’s head snapped around as the missile rammed into the chainship. The hull crumbled like paper as it exploded. Chunks of debris showered outwards, bleeding liquids into space. Sudden streamlined bursts of red plasma fire zapped out from the alien gunship, vaporising whatever was left of the ship and everything inside it.
‘No,’ Jae gasped, stepping backwards as she watched the man she loved turned to atoms and ash, spilling out into space.
Slowly, slowly, I tested my arm. The drug still had its feverish claws hooked into me. But the stormtech was slowly eating it away, coiling its energy inside me in preparation. Heat lashed against my inner chest. ‘On the plus side, if there’s a hell, you and Sokolav will have all the time you want together. You’ll make a great pair.’
Jae turned around. Her black eyes were empty as vacuum. ‘Artyom,’ Jae said, not tearing her gaze from me.
‘Yes, Jae?’ Artyom asked.
‘Kill him.’
Something in me turned very, very cold.
‘What?’ Artyom asked, like he couldn’t believe he’d heard correctly.
‘It’s a perfectly simple order, Artyom.’ She turned to him. Unblinking, unwavering. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever stuttered. Or perhaps I did, and you didn’t understand me.’
‘I understood you,’ said Artyom quietly.
‘Then we are in agreement. It’ll be your final step to ascension. You will become one of us.’ Jae’s voice was as soft and calm as the wind across a Harvest battlefield. She dropped a thin-gun into his hands and stepped back, hands held behind her back. ‘Kill him.’
Artyom’s hand was shaking as he held the thin-gun between my eyes. The small cold barrel pressing into bone. I looked up past the length of the gun and into my brother’s eyes. We were closer together than we’d been since he’d betrayed me to the Suns. His cold breath plumed in the air. I saw the boy who I’d grown up with, who’d walked the midnight streets with me, who’d climbed mountains by my side. The shared memories strung between us like manacles.
No matter what, I’d said, you’re still my brother. You always will be.
Artyom swallowed. Tears beaded in his eyes and made furrows down his grimy cheeks as he looked at me. His trigger hand wavered, then fell. ‘I can’t.’ His whisper seemed to fill the room. ‘He’s my brother. I can’t. I can’t do it.’
Jae nodded in understanding. ‘Very well,’ she said. Her face was expressionless as she fired six bullets into my brother’s chest.
49
Brother
Blood sprayed from Artyom’s chest. His legs gave out under him, his body crumpling to the floor. Gasping for air as he clutched at the gaping holes in his chest, right below his heart. His limbs pawing helplessly at the ground as he tried to right himself. But he couldn’t. His body shuddered.
‘No, no, no, no.’ I managed to crawl next to him, holding his hands over the wounds. But there was so much blood leaking out of him from so many places. His breathing turned frantic, more blood bubbling out his mouth and dribbling down his chin. ‘Please, don’t die, Artyom. Stay with me, stay. Please, please stay. Look at me, Artyom! Look at me!’
He did. His eyes swum in fear, darting back and forth, as if he’d felt himself slipping and was desperately searching for some way to hold on. He shivered in my arms and his hands flopped to his sides. His mouth opened to tell me one final thing, but he made a small gasp and his eyes glazed over. His pulse faded away as his body went limp.
The boy who’d walk with me through the snowfields on winter mornings, who’d climb to the observatory at night to listen to music and stargaze was gone, along with everything he could have become if I’d be a better brother, spreading across this cold, cold floor and pooling at his killer’s feet.
A sound of pure anguish tore out of my throat. My body racked with sobs, my vision drowning in tears as I hugged the body of this lost, confused soul. This boy who’d deserved so much better in a world so full of evil and hatred.
‘You want to be with your brother? His body will join you in the Blind Room. Traitors have no use here,’ came a demonic little voice from far away.
A rage-filled hatred like I’ve never known, that I didn’t realise someone was capable of possessing for another human being, screamed inside my chest. With a sobbing snarl, I swung