The moon is huge and watchful, teasing the surface of Lake Union with its magical shimmering brush. It is as it must have been since the beginning, since before there were humans to spoil the horizon with concrete towers.
It is unchanged.
The view invites thoughts about my life and this struggle, of how, before I knew what I am, emotions seemed absolute and insurmountable.
I had no concept of change. Not really. I thought everything was “the most” I had ever and would ever experience. The most dangerous. The most terrifying. The most intense.
Everything was superlative.
Everything was new.
Before I knew about Eklyptors, I never thought that anything could surpass my intense desire to figure out what was wrong with me. For years, that need drove me, lit a fire in my heart that kept me searching and asking questions. A desire that led me to IgNiTe even when James gave me nothing but secrets, even when joining him seemed like a monumental mistake.
Now, however, I know better. “The most” doesn’t exist.
I’ve been through too much, and now there’s only the knowledge that anything can always be worse: pain, guilt, desire for revenge.
For the latter, there is, at the moment, a blinding force, a powerful flame that ignites me. A heat that burns hotter than molten lava, an intensity that is restless, determined and dogged in its single-mindedness. A desire that has grown from a concept to an overwhelming drive for payback, for justice, for one eye in exchange of another, and for hours of pain in payment for mere seconds.
Because, in my revenge, in this new driving force that grows and grows, there’s no decency, no morality. I’m stripped raw and, in the flesh, in what is left, I am primal. I know no codes.
My need for revenge has become a cancer that seems to encompass more and more every day. Its fuel is hatred, and there’s a never-ending supply of it. I can feel its tendrils reaching, finding new targets, but keeping two in particular at the very top, at all times.
One: Elliot who has taken so much from me.
Two: Luke who stole any chance I ever had to make right with Karen—even if she wasn’t my real mother—and, above all, to love Xave for a full, happy lifetime.
Revenge suddenly is a beautiful word that rolls off the tongue, that matters more than anything else, that gives me lucid moments like this one—where the moon seems within reach, where it’s not the most beautiful I have ever seen, but it’s, at this moment, beauty itself.
I pick up a rock, test it in my hand, place it just so between my fingers. With a quick flick of my arm and wrist, I cast it against the surface of the lake. It skips four times, kissing the water and sending ripples that will go on for longer than I can imagine.
“Good shot,” Aydan says from behind me.
I whirl, heart thudding. “You’re here.” My voice breaks. I didn’t know if he would get my message, if he would come. Since I became Elliot’s savior, I can come and go as I please. Meeting with Aydan was the top priority on my list.
He’s pale under the moonlight; a figure carved out of wax, the planes and angles of his face symmetrical and strong.
I open my mouth to say something, but before any words come out, Aydan covers the distance between us and wraps me in his arms.
He doesn’t say a word. He just holds me, tighter and tighter until my body arches backward, and I can hardly breathe.
I don’t hug him back. I can’t.
Whatever relief I feel to see him doesn’t compare to his. The intensity of Aydan’s emotion is spelled in the curve of his arms, the strength in his muscles, the warmth of his cheek against my temple. There’s much in his embrace, and it freezes me, my thoughts, and a world of possibilities. And it could be one of those “most” type of moments, but I don’t know anymore, so I just take what I can from it and allow the burning flame of my revenge to grow dimmer and less important than the here and now.
I close my eyes.
“You’re okay,” he says, voice vibrating in his chest and against mine. “When I saw your message … I just …”
My skin begins to tingle. Something crackles. I open my eyes. A light glow traces Aydan’s shoulder. I lift a hand and stare at it in awe. My fingers are silhouetted in light, like tiny electric bulbs that could illuminate the world.
“Wow,” I say in a whisper.
Aydan pulls back, stares at my hand. His lower lip trembles. His eyebrows can’t decide whether to go up or stay down.
“That was …” he begins, sounding embarrassed.
“Beautiful,” I finish for him.
He smiles halfway. I do the same.
“I … we … thought you didn’t make it,” he says.
“Did James make it?” It’s all I want to know.
“He sends his regards and his thanks.”
A long exhale rushes past my lips. “Good. Good. I wished I’d known you were going to attack.” I don’t want it to sound like a reproach, but it does.
“I wanted to tell you, but—”
“No, you don’t have to explain. I understand. I’m just glad James trusted me enough to take a risk with the information I gave him. I wish we could have gotten to Elliot, though.” My voice betrays my anger. Something burns a little hotter inside me.
“Oh, we did,” Aydan says. “We got to him all right.”
I frown, confused.
He walks to the closest park bench and sits. With an extended hand, he invites me to take a seat next to him. I shake my head and shrug with impatience, demanding an explanation.
“He can’t be happy right now.” Aydan’s expression is satisfied; something I haven’t seen in a while. “All thanks to you. That list you gave us, we used it. Almost every single one of those reproductively capable Eklyptors is dead.”
My mouth falls open. “How? When?”
“The same night of our attack on his building. It was a concerted effort. James gathered as many people as he could and we all attacked at once. It had to be done that way. If we didn’t get to everyone at the same time, Elliot would have moved them, would have put them under tighter surveillance. With their deaths, he has lost decades. It’s a huge blow to his faction, if he can even boast of having much of one anymore.” Aydan’s smile is huge and satisfied—nothing halfway about it, now.
I’m smiling, too, and walking back and forth in front of him, eyes darting in every direction as I realize the magnitude of what he’s saying.
“He can’t grow in number anymore,” I say.
“No. And everyone he loses from now on is one more he won’t be able to replace, not for a while, not if we keep striking and do our best to stop others from reaching reproductive maturity.”
I think about it, frowning. It’s far from perfect. Too small of a victory.
Aydan seems to read my thoughts. “There are still many battles ahead of us. We just have to win most of them, and we just won a huge one.”
“I know that. But it seems so hopeless sometimes.” I finally sit, pressing my restless body against the bench’s cool metal. “Maybe we’ll get our city back, but what about the rest of the world? What about other factions? Hailstone may have a plan.”
I tell him about Lyra, how she rescued me, how they suspect Hailstone has some sort of grand plan, how it might involve me, all of it.
Aydan just nods, but he looks like he knows something.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just that James mentioned it. He’s aware of it and he seems to be worried. Worried enough to,” his voice breaks with too much hope, “ask you to come back. You’ve done your part. You’ve paid your dues. It’s time to think of yourself first.”
The irony of it is too much. This is what I’ve wanted all this time, and I now can’t.
“No. I have to do this. I have to keep fighting.”
“It’s not all up to you. I know you think you’re alone in this, but it’s not true. You have us. We’ll be your friends, your … family.”
I hide my face from him. I feel so broken inside, so consumed by this desire for revenge that I don’t even think friends and family could soothe the raw edges this fight has left on me.
“Everyone’s fighting, Marci,” Aydan continues. “The entire world. James also passed the list you gave us to his contacts in London. They weren’t as successful as we were. They didn’t get to everyone, but it was also an effective attack.”
“That’s good, but we need more from everyone. More than anything, we need a cure,” I say, hoping to veer the conversation in a different direction. I peer at him, knowing he can’t share this type of information with me.
“Yes, we do.” Aydan returns my gaze. His dark, dark eyes tell me nothing.
I look away and stare at my boots. Silence weaves itself between us. To my surprise, it’s a comfortable thing, like a blanket wrapping us in one single space.
After a moment, he asks, “Please, Marci. Come with me?”
Come with me. Not us. Me.
I want to believe that he doesn’t mean anything by it, but the hopeful tone in his voice makes me doubt. “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t.” Especially knowing that my work as a mole has had such an impact in this war.
“When, then?” he asks, and his tone suggests there may not be another chance.
But I’m okay with that. I have felt truly ready to die. That changes something inside of you.
I’m not the same person I was.
I am more, and I am less.
I am what I need to be.