J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Holt felt the anger fill him again. Everything from the last few hours combined with the tone in her voice boiled over in him. He saw Ben lift Mira up, saw him kiss her.…

“Why shouldn’t I use it?” he snapped.

“Because you promised me you wouldn’t.”

Holt froze. She was right. Something about the dishonesty, or the casual way he had forgotten his own oath, stopped him. He looked down at the Chance Generator.

“The abacus makes you paranoid,” Mira continued. “It becomes an addiction, and you’re being affected by it. If you keep using it, you won’t be able to do anything without having it turned on. That’s what it does. ” Mira looked at him with sad concern. “I want you to shut the artifact off—and hand it to me.”

Holt looked up at her.

“It’ll be tough,” she continued, “there’s no doubt, but after a week or so without it… you should be okay. You should be yourself again.”

Holt was silent. He looked back at the abacus. Was she right? Was this thing really affecting him? If it was, shouldn’t he be able to tell?

“Think about how you were before the artifact,” Mira said. “You were strong, self-sufficient. It’s what meant the most to you, your ability to survive. And you hated artifacts. Can you honestly tell me you would rely on something like the Chance Generator instead of yourself?”

Holt was silent. What she said, it made sense. Didn’t it?

“I need you where we’re going, Holt.” Mira’s voice sounded raw. He wasn’t sure what had happened with Ben, but it had been emotional. “The real you. I rely on you, don’t you see? I don’t know if I can make it with you like this.”

Words that were meant to placate him cut like a knife. He looked up at her with a new look, a heated one. “You don’t need me, you’ve got him now. I’m a liability here, you and I both know it. That’s what you really want to say, isn’t it?”

Mira sighed and looked away. “What happened between us at the dam… happened because I wanted it to, but it wasn’t fair to you. I had things that weren’t resolved, things that—”

“You told me,” he said, cutting her off. “Not in so many words, but you did. I just didn’t listen, like an idiot. I stuck around when I shouldn’t have, when everything pointed for me to leave. Survival dictated it—but I stayed anyway. I keep doing it over and over again with you.”

Mira looked up at him, and her eyes were glistening. “I wanted you to stay,” she whispered.

“Why?” If she would just answer that, he would be there for her as long as she needed, whether he was any use or not, whether he died or not. If she would just tell him, he would stay.

She didn’t answer. She held his gaze a second—and then looked away.

Holt got to his feet, the anger building. “Can’t even answer me that, after everything we’ve been through.” He clutched the abacus in his hand, and it felt good there. The anger felt good, too. Why shouldn’t he be angry? After all he’d been through and done for her? What had he ever gotten for his trouble?

Mira looked back at him. “Holt, you’re not yourself right now. Please give me the artifact. Give it to me and then we can talk. We can talk about anything you want.”

She offered her hand out, but it only made him more angry. “No,” he said firmly.

Mira frowned. “Holt, I have to have it. You’re not thinking clearly. It should be obvious to you!”

He felt more heat build inside him at the arrogant way she barked her orders, at how she thought she knew him. The Chance Generator throbbed in his hand.

“This artifact is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His voice held nothing but scorn, and Mira’s eyes widened. He didn’t care, just felt the anger flow through him, the abacus burning in his grip. He liked it. “You can have your Ben and your Strange Lands, and all of it—but I’ll keep this. I’ll keep it and leave.”

She stared at Holt a second more—then stepped toward him. “I can’t let you do that.”

“It’s not up to you.”

She reached for the artifact, tried to grab it from his hand. Holt resisted, and pushed her away from him.

“Holt, stop! ” Mira shouted and moved forward again, grabbing at the artifact, trying to yank it away.

More anger flared inside Holt, hot and powerful. His reaction was fueled by it, drove everything that happened next, and it was all virtually automatic and mindless.

Holt shoved Mira hard, watched as she fell and slammed down on the old wing. He rushed forward, full of fury. His hand raised, curling into a fist, readying to strike downward and—

Mira’s scream snapped him from the action.

He froze in place, one hand poised to hit her, the other hand holding the Chance Generator.

He had never seen the look on Mira’s face directed at him. A look of shock and fear, of confusion and pain. She stared at him like she had no idea who he was. He could hear her frightened breathing.

With wide, horrified eyes, Holt stepped back.

There was a hollow thump as the abacus fell from his hand and clanged against the metal wing. He didn’t look at it. He just stared down at Mira with a blank, stunned look.

“Take it,” Holt said, his voice a ragged whisper, barely audible. “Take it.”

Slowly, Mira reached out and grabbed the artifact, keeping her eyes on Holt. He could see the pain there, the damage. He hadn’t hit her, but he’d hurt her all the same, crossed an invisible line. He had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Mira… I’m…” he started to say.

A shower of sparks exploded into the air at the northern end of the city, where the cliffs rose upward.

Holt and Mira both looked toward the sight, trying to find the source. Another plume of sparks, and something else.

A single point of light, bright enough to be visible in the afternoon sun, hovered in the air. Holt watched it sink slowly down, pulled by some unseen force toward one of the old planes. When it touched it, another shower of sparks plumed upward.

“Oh my God.” Mira said next to him. There was genuine dismay in her voice, like she was looking at something that made no sense.

“What is it?” Holt asked. Screams echoed in the distance. More sparks shot into the air.

But Mira didn’t answer. She just jumped to her feet and moved for the opening in the plane’s roof.

ZOEY STOOD AT THE EDGE of Midnight City’s massive dam, staring at the breadth of the flood plain that fanned outward from the sheer drop at her feet.

It wasn’t like before.

There was no battle this time—no explosions, no shrapnel or plasma bolts burning the air, no screams and no dying.

Everything was silent and still. The world seemed frozen, like she was standing in a photograph. Except far beneath her, in the water, there were shadows, and the shadows writhed and moved in disturbing ways.

Zoey felt sensations pouring up at her from them. The same suggestions, over and over, and she tried to stop them, but she couldn’t. They filled her mind and there was nothing she could do.

If she had to put the sensations into words or into a thought, it would simply be: “Why?”

Again and again. The same question.

Then a voice. From no source she could discern. It was loud. So loud it overpowered the suggestions from the squirming, unsettling shadows below.

“Wake up, Zoey,” it said. “Balance must be restored.”

The voice, Zoey noticed with some alarm, sounded exactly like her own.

“Wake up!”

* * *

WITH A START, ZOEY woke and found her head full of pain.