J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“There’s no fixing anything with Tiberius.” He reached the end of his room, near the window overlooking the strange, twisted streets, all of it eerily contrasted by the bright sunshine. Those two things didn’t belong with each other. Like a lot of things in his life, now that he thought about it.

Mira stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. In spite of everything, the silence between them was still thick. Holt hated it. The apprehension that existed whenever they were close now, but it was what it was.

“Where’s Zoey?” he asked.

“At the burial. No one except her and the White Helix were allowed, but I watched from a roof. After they were done… she started cleansing them.”

“From the Tone?”

Mira nodded. “All of them, one at a time. There were thousands, Holt, waiting their turn, and more are still coming in. I just wish I knew what we’re supposed to do now. ”

“I don’t have the first idea,” Holt admitted. “I guess we just keep following Zoey’s lead.” Holt hesitated, looking at Mira. She was unkempt but still beautiful. Her hair had grown even longer now, stretching past the back of her shoulders. He liked her with longer hair, he decided. “I wanted to tell you I… don’t want it to be weird between us. We don’t have to try to be what we were. Or… almost were. You know what I mean. But we shouldn’t go our separate ways. Not now. Zoey needs us—maybe more than ever—and we need her.”

Mira just stood there silently. He hadn’t expected anything else, really. After all, what was there to say? She didn’t owe him anything, not anymore. God, he was tired. “Look, I need to close my eyes, and I’m sure—”

“You believed in me,” she interrupted him softly.

Holt blinked. “What?”

“When no one else did,” Mira continued, staring at him. “I would have quit without you. It’s what got me through the Vortex. It’s what’s gotten me through everything that came before, I just never saw it.”

Holt stared back, unsure what to say or think. All the same, he felt his heart beating faster. He watched her move to him, slowly reach down and take his left hand, running her fingers across the unfinished tattoo there.

“This used to be something that bothered me,” she said, “but it doesn’t now. Now it’s proof you really are who I thought you were, and I don’t think you should cover it up anymore.”

The words had more impact on him than he expected. Slowly, Holt ran his fingers through hers. He half-expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.

“You asked me something and I never answered,” Mira said, looking up from their hands and back into his eyes. “You asked if what happened at the dam meant something. If it mattered to me like it did to you. I should have answered, but I was… scared then. I’m not anymore. It did matter, Holt. It meant more than something. It meant everything, and it still does.”

Something about the way her voice gently broke at those last words pulled Holt forward like a magnet, his exhaustion forgotten. He wrapped his arms around Mira and pulled her to him, and their lips found and moved over one another. It was a release more intense than any he had ever known, and he could feel in the way Mira desperately clung against him that it was just as intense for her.

She gasped as he lifted her up and off the floor, their mouths and hands roaming wildly, carrying her to his cot and laying her on top of it, the heat from their bodies melding together and slowly intensifying until the world melted away and there was nothing left but them.

ZOEY STARED AT THE RUINS below from her perch at the top of the tall building. The White Helix had buried Gideon and now they filled the streets. The brightness of the world, now drenched in sunlight, startled them. The dark oppression of the Strange Lands was normal, and all this light and warmth was unsettling.

She had cleansed all of them—so many, one after the other, that time lost its meaning. She didn’t know how long it took, but she stayed until every White Helix was free of the Tone. Whatever else they felt for her, there was gratitude now, loyalty.

Mira sat next to her, feet dangling over the edge. From her, Zoey sensed old emotions. Ones that had been lost in recent days. Mira’s mind shifted occasionally to images of her and Holt, intertwined and lost, and it made Zoey smile in spite of everything. She hoped they could hold on to that through what was to come.

Zoey told Mira almost everything she had learned in the Tower. Only the details about her final choice, about the bargain she struck with fate, she left out. She would learn that soon enough.

“I still don’t get one thing,” Mira said when Zoey finished. “Why are you so important to the Assembly? Why do they keep chasing you?”

It was a question Zoey had asked herself, the biggest question really, the only one that remained, and she had her theories. In their conversation, the Tower had never once mentioned her abilities, how she could control machines or feel the emotions and memories of other people. It confirmed for her that those things didn’t come from the Tower at all.

She remembered the vision the Oracle had shown her, that horrible, black room and the blue-and-white shape that buried itself inside her and the pain that followed. It wasn’t until then that she had first felt the Feelings. The ones that rose whenever she called, and gave her aid.

If the Feelings really were what she now suspected, then her path was clear. It was why she had used the Tower to arrange things the way she had. In the back of her mind, she wondered again if she had done the right thing. Would it have been better to die with the Tower, to not cheat destiny? What she had risked by making her choice, she didn’t know yet, but she did know what she had gained.

Zoey looked at Mira, felt her emotions for Holt all over again. They were both alive. They could go on and be happy. All it meant was Zoey had to find a way, in whatever was to come, to make sure it stayed that way, and there was only one place she could do that now. She was starting to feel the weight of her choices.

“I haven’t thanked you, you know,” Mira said softly, staring at the world ticking by below, “for saving us.”

Zoey could feel her gratitude. That and something else. Guilt. She realized it came from Mira’s belief that Zoey had done something she could never repay, and she desperately wanted to. Not because she didn’t like owing people, but because Zoey meant so much to her.

Zoey reached out and rested her tiny hand on Mira’s.

Mira’s hand squeezed hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mira.” She meant it. It made everything that was to come that much harder. “I need to share something with you.” Mira looked at her, unsure. “It’s something you’ll need, and you’ll know why when you do.” Her grip on Mira’s hand tightened. “Close your eyes.” Zoey felt Mira’s uncertainty, but she did as Zoey said.

Zoey closed her own eyes, then reached for the Feelings and they responded, rising up from the depths. They saw what she intended, and for the first time since they had been a part of her, she felt dismay from them. Revulsion even, but she didn’t care. It was the price the Feelings would have to pay if they wanted what was to come. And she had a feeling they desperately did.

Golden energy formed and flickered like flames, slowly spreading up Zoey’s and Mira’s arms, leaving a trail of tingling warmth as it moved. She could feel Mira’s trepidation growing.

“It’s okay, Mira,” she assured her. “It’s going to hurt, but only a little.”

Mira’s mind opened to hers. Zoey saw the infinity that it and all minds represented, stretching out in an unending field of memories. She pushed forward into it, wading through thoughts of herself and of Holt and Ben, drifting past memories of her father, finding a very specific part. Zoey reached for that part and wrapped herself around it. Mira shuddered. The pain seared Zoey’s mind the same as hers. She hated hurting Mira, but there was no other choice.