Robert Crane - Untouched

I wanted to cry, wanted to scream, but I heard both from behind me before I could let out my own. I lurched to my feet and started back toward the far side of the roof. Gavrikov hovered, bursts of flame flying through the air, balls of fire aimed at the helicopter above, forcing it into motion.

Kat was kneeling next to Scott, whose body was burned horribly. Her hands were already on him and his skin was returning as I stepped onto the long, empty section of roof where they were. Gavrikov turned to them from where he hurled another bolt of fire at the helicopter and his face changed, even beneath the flames. “What are you doing ?” He threw a small fireball at Kat, forcing her away from Byerly. “I save you from them and this is the thanks I get?” The Black Hawk shifted and flew off, coming around in the distance angling to approach the tower.

“I don’t need saving!” Her words came out as a cry. I was still a good many paces away from them, but I could see Aleksandr’s skin begin to glow brighter. “I don’t even know who you are! I don’t want to go anywhere with you, I want to go back to the Directorate—it’s my home!”

Gavrikov was quiet for a moment, but he hovered only a foot or so off the ground. “I tried to save Klementina. My penance for failures, for crimes—for murder. For the murder I did when I was too young to know how to control myself.” He edged closer to her.

She skidded away from him, sliding across the roof, almost on her back. “I didn’t ask for this—not for you to help me, not for any of this!”

Gavrikov drifted closer to the ground. “I see how it has become. Things are not so different from the world we grew up in. Family betrays you at every turn, it is cold and dark and miserable and bereft of light. Everything Father did to us was nothing compared to what the world will do, with its cheap brutality and meanness.” He let out a tortured howl that shook me inside. His skin glowed all the brighter, but he had stopped advancing on Kat. “You’ll see soon enough.”

There was a crack of gunfire and a bullet whistling through the air. I saw it hit Gavrikov and he dropped to a knee, the flames around his shoulder dissipating to show puckered flesh, blood squirting out in short intervals. He seemed like he was going to fall over but steadied himself. “Thank you,” he said, “for proving my point.” He heaved the largest fireball yet at the Black Hawk and I watched it sway as Bastian tried to dodge, sending the chopper into a dive beyond the edge of the rooftop and out of our view.

I was only a few feet away now and Gavrikov saw me but didn’t react. I stopped, my chest heaving from the effort of crossing the roof. “And you too, matryushka ? You are more like the sister I remember than this one is.” His hand reached out, the flaming fingers extended to indicate Kat, who quailed away from him. “You know the pain she has forgotten. You have tasted the rich inequities of life.” He smiled, but it was rueful. “You have fought, been hurt, been beaten down.”

I stared back at him, exhausted. “What of it?”

He smiled and his chest burst back into flame. “I will give you the greatest gift I can.” He rose into the air a foot. “Life doesn’t get better from here, it gets worse.” His hands came up at his sides, giving him the rough look of a human cross and he started to grow brighter. “I will give you the only gift I can. The same gift I will give all these people.” His hand waved to indicate the city spread out before us. “Peace. True peace, lasting and final.”

“You say peace,” I said, drawing closer to him, “but I kinda think you mean death.”

Even through the fire that engulfed his face, I could see the line that was his mouth twist into a rough smile. “Death is the only peace in this world.”

The flames leapt all around him, the glow encompassing him like what I imagined the rising sun to look like. “I’m sorry, Aleksandr.” I peeled off my gloves and let them fall to the ground. “I can’t let you do that.”

His burning eyes looked down at me and he drifted closer, the flames receding from his face so that he could look at me with his own eyes. He glowed ever brighter and I knew I had only seconds. “What will you do?”

My mouth was dry. “Give you peace,” I whispered and brought my hands up to touch his face. I felt the skin singe as I touched him, the fire from his body so hot that it started to burn me. I ignored it and looked into his eyes, saw through the pain, the anger, saw the wounded soul beneath. He smiled when I touched him, and closed his eyes. His face went slack, even though I knew he hadn’t felt the effects yet. He jerked for the first time a few seconds later, and the fire around his body started to gutter out.

“A metal box to spend the rest of your life in would do you no favors,” I whispered as he sagged to the ground, then fell to his knees. I held his cheeks clenched in my fingers and he jerked again, the fire now out. Tears streamed down my face as I felt him heave for the last time and I let go, staggering back and falling over, my brain on fire with memories and visions, whirling in my skull. I looked over and saw his body start to blacken, then turn to ash that was carried away by the wind.

My head was pounding but I forced myself to turn over and sit up. Kat passed me and knelt next to Scott, putting her hands on him. He started to stir, a few moments later, his skin rejuvenated, coming back to life. I felt a hand land heavily on my shoulder and turned to see Zack. I tried to force words through the jumble of thoughts clogging my head as my brain made way for Gavrikov inside it. “Are you okay?”

“I feel like I just spent an intimate evening on the freeway being made love to by a Mack truck.” Zack’s face was bruised.

“Is that better or worse than spending the evening being made love to by a trucker named Mack?” I said it, huffing as I tried to stop the spinning in my head. I started to shake my head, but it felt impossibly heavy, like it would roll off my shoulders at any minute.

“What happened to Gavrikov?” Zack reached out and tugged at my arm, helping me to my feet.

“He wanted…peace.” I stared over the edge of the roof to the east. “I gave it to him…as best I could.”

“So he’s…” He looked around. “Gone?”

“No,” I said and pointed to my head. “He’s in here, now. With the other one.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll end well,” he said as I caught sight of Clary hobbling toward us from the stairs. I could hear the blades of the chopper as it hovered above us and Bastian drifted her down, using the wind to steer his approach. He brought the helicopter down to a mere foot off the roof, resting the front wheel as Kat and Clary helped Scott into the side of the chopper.

I paused as Zack pulled me toward the door and turned around. The sun was rising in the cloudless sky, a bright red disc slipping over the horizon, the sky lighting up gold around it, with the first strains of blue transitioning to a deep indigo in the west. I stared at it, trying to savor the moment. I stopped resisting Zack’s tugs and let him guide me into the helicopter and I watched the roof drop away beneath us as the Black Hawk turned and we headed west. I craned my neck in my seat, trying to watch the elusive sun as it cast a light on us.

“It does get better,” I whispered so low no one could hear it over the chopper noise but the one I intended it for, nestled as he was in mind. “It has to.” I watched the light as we raced the sunrise back to the Directorate.

Our first stop once we landed was the medical unit. I saw Dr. Perugini waiting along with Old Man Winter, Ariadne, and Dr. Zollers as the helicopter came in for a landing. I thought about bracing myself for the inevitable onslaught, but instead I just soaked up the rays of the sun, beaming down from outside. When the blades spun down and the doors opened, Scott was the first out. He looked a little discombobulated, but his skin was pink and fresh, like I suspected a newborn’s would look. He caught my eye as he passed and nodded.