Chapter 95 The end of us

Chapter 95 The end of us
"I'm going to Earth," I said.

Tasha looked up from the weapons inventory she'd been organizing on the kitchen table. She looked at my face. She set down what she was holding.

"WHAT?"
"Adrian. Victoria. Daniel." I said the names flat and separate. "All three of them."
"You can't walk into Earth and kill the leadership of Men of Moon."
"I'm Liam Vaelthor," I said. "I can do whatever I want."

She was quiet for a moment, choosing the next thing carefully.

"That's not what that means," she said. "The bloodline gives you legal authority. Colonial standing. It doesn't make you bulletproof and it doesn't make three of the most protected people on Earth suddenly easy to reach."
"Men of Moon's power meant they could do anything they liked for twenty years," I said. "They killed my family. They killed Elara. They killed my other parents. They used me, they used Matt, they used everyone who ever trusted them and they did it from offices on Earth while people on the Moon suffocated." I looked at her. "So will mine."

She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she went to the wardrobe.

"Fine," she said. "But we pack properly. Then we go to Grandisfield for the ship."

We left the mansion an hour later, the house sealed behind us, Aldric's hologram waiting in the entrance hall for whenever we came back.

I didn't let myself think about whether we'd come back.

The rooftop routes were the fastest way through without touching street level where Men of Moon's teams were still running active sweeps. We moved across the upper structures of Aquilas in the low dome gravity, the city spread below us in both directions.

Tasha moved ahead, reading the next rooftop before committing to it, her jacket dark against the dome's afternoon light.

I followed her rhythm.

Grandisfield's Gladivean base sat beneath a commercial building in the administrative quarter, the entrance through a service corridor that required three separate codes to get through. I had two of them from memory. Tasha had the third.

The building above was empty. No Grandisfield. No staff. No evidence that anyone had been here in days, the equipment powered down, the displays dark, chairs pushed in at angles that suggested a fast departure rather than a planned one.

"He moved?" Tasha said.
"I thought you said he was here…" I said.
“He was… I’m sure of it.” she looked around. “Check the underground, and I’ll check above.”

We split at the lower entrance. Tasha went up, back through the building toward the roof, working her comm to pull whatever signal she could from Grandisfield's network. I went down.

The base ran three levels below street level, each one accessed by a separate stairwell, the architecture getting older and less finished with every floor. 

I came down the last staircase with my weapon drawn and my comm open to Tasha's channel.

"Anything up top?" I said quietly.
"Nothing yet," she said. "Give me five minutes."

I moved through the third level corridor, past a row of storage units, past a room full of old broadcasting equipment, and toward the operations space at the far end.

A pistol grip caught the back of my skull with enough force to send me toward the wall, making both of my hands go up, my weapon clattering to the floor as my knees went.

I grabbed my head and turned, already dropping into a crouch. Matt stood over me.

His face was something I didn't have a word for. Past rage. Past grief. 

"I LIVED WITH YOU!" His voice broke against the walls of the corridor as he stepped closer, raw and enormous in the confined space. "I shared everything with you! My pain. My joy. My worst moments and my best ones."

I stayed on the floor, one hand still pressed against the back of my head, looking up at him.

"Matt—"
"Fuck off!" He raised the weapon. "Don't say my name like that. Don't do the voice. Don't do any of the things… Just fucking shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

I looked at the barrel of the gun. Then I looked at him.

I dropped my other hand from my head and opened both arms, staying on my knees, looking up at him.

"Then shoot me," I said. "Get on with it. Because I can't live knowing you'll blame me for the rest of your life for something I have carried every single day since it happened." My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I only ran. If I had stayed I would be dead alongside them! Some part of you knows that and it doesn't make it easier and it doesn't make it right but it is what it is!"
"Shut the fuck up!"
"I am not shutting up. Not anymore. Not about this."
"I will kill you!"

"Then do it!" I held his gaze, my arms still open, my knees on the floor of a basement corridor with nowhere left to run. "Do it, you bastard! Because if you can't, then we both have to live with what we are to each other, and I would rather you shoot me than spend another ten years pretending."

His hand shook.

"I will," he said.
"I know you will," I said. "I know you. Better than anyone. And I know that if you were going to do it you would've done it in that vault instead of firing at the wall."
"That was a mistake."
"It wasn't."
"It was a MISTAKE!" His voice cracked fully on the last word, and his gun hand steadied again, the barrel leveling, his jaw set and his eyes wet and his finger moving against the trigger.

I closed my eyes. The shot was very loud in the confined space.

Was I dead? I didn’t feel anything… 
I opened my eyes.
Matt was on the floor.

Garron stood at the end of the corridor, his weapon raised, the slim Lunar coat motionless around him, his pale face giving nothing away.

I moved before I understood what I was seeing, crossing the corridor in three steps and dropping to my knees beside Matt, my hands finding him, pulling him up against me.

"Matt." My voice came out wrong. "Matt, hey."

His eyes were open. 
"I won't forgive you," he said. "For not saving them."
"I know," I said. "Hush now."

His breathing was shallow, his hand coming up slowly to grip my jacket at the collar, the grip weaker than it should have been.

"I would've done it," he said. His mouth pulled at one corner. "I really would've."
"You would. Yes I know."
"But I know you love me." His grip on my jacket loosened slightly, his eyes staying on mine. "Only friend you ever had. Ten stupid years."
"Ten stupid years," I said.
"I'm glad I go first," he said, quieter now. "So I can add to it. So you carry this too." His eyes held mine. "Shame on you Da vinci for—"

His grip released.

"Matt."

He stopped breathing.

"Matt..."

His eyes stayed open, looking past my shoulder. I closed his eyes as my tears dropped on his cheeks.