--==Chapter 63: I Thought You'd Learned--==

Jon struggled beneath me, but unlike Nia and the drones, his strength was ordinary and no match for a werewolf's. Both of our guns had skittered across the floor when I'd crashed into him, leaving him at the mercy of my strength. Of course, I wasn't trying to actually hurt him, so he was proving himself slippery. It would be different if my attention were all on him, but I had one paw-hand in my pocket, having an embarrassingly hard time pulling it back out with the crystal.

For his part, Jon kept letting out grunting shouts, almost barks, as he tried various things to pull himself free. We'd both done wrestling in school, but while Jon had eventually gained the advantage in size in high school, he'd lost that edge since the apocalypse. Sitting atop him, I pinned his hips, and with one forearm just below his throat, I pinned his shoulders. It wasn't exactly a sanctioned pin, but I was out of practice and in a hurry.u201

Frankly, I was surprised Buck hadn't already come charging in. Then again, as far as I knew, he wasn't a cop. Even if he was, charging into a gun battle during an apocalypse would take a lot of bravery—or a lot of stupidity. Jon had basically ambushed me, and it was still clear he was struggling to keep his calm. Not that I could blame him.

I finally got the crystal from my pocket and pressed it to my forehead. Rather than again using the memory of beating his ass, I decided to show him a more recent memory.

*---=*--=-*--==*

In the memory, we sped toward the vortex wall, but I could already tell we were too late.

"Jon, we're not going to make it," I said, sighing in defeat. "You have to stop." It wasn't anyone's fault. Helping Nia and Titus had slowed us down—so had investigating the abandoned patrol cars, but there'd been no way to predict how fast the vortex would lower.

"No, we can make it. We'll drive straight through." Jon had said, an understandable desperation in his eyes as he set his course and increased speed. Understandable or not, I'd seen in graphic detail what that slowly churning wall of gas did to anything it touched.

"Jon, no!" I yelled. "I've seen what it does to people. It eats through anything in a second."

He ignored me. "Everyone, get low—it's our only shot." He was going to stubbornly 'try his best' even though it was impossible. The vortex was already too low for anything but a quick death. Suddenly, thirty days to search for a solution didn't seem too bad, but I knew I couldn't sway him in the time we had left. He was going to rush us all straight to death in his refusal to back down.

I grabbed the wheel and shoved it hard to the left, slamming us into a parked van feet from the vortex wall.

*---=*--=-*--==*

I'd only been distracted for a moment as I pressed the memory into the crystal. Unfortunately, it was enough time for Jon to pull out his own surprise.

I pressed the crystal against his head. At the same time, I felt something press against my abdomen. The crystal snapped as the memory flooded Jon's mind, but not before Jon pulled the trigger on his taser, sending pain exploding through my body, expelling all the breath in my lungs and nearly causing me to vomit.

I lost a bit of time there, and when I came back to myself, Jon was free. Half crawling, he reached for my shotgun, probably because it was closer than his pistol.

I was still recovering from spasming muscles as Jon grabbed the gun and cocked it. I kicked out at him and knocked it from his hands and into the air. Jon and I both scrabbled after it, and I shoved him away as I pulled myself up using the railing. I half dove over that rail and nearly dangled by my waist before my hand closed on the stock of the gun.

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My core still burning from the taser, I whipped myself back and brought the gun around to aim it at Jon to end the fight. Unfortunately, a bullet tore into my thigh as I spun, and my leg gave out.

Collapsing at the edge of the stairs, my imbalance sent me tumbling backward down the steps. As I flipped tail over teakettle, the shotgun clattered down with me until we reached the landing halfway to the first floor.

The sudden stop knocked the wind out of me, and— between catching a bullet with my vest and enduring 50,000 volts moments ago— I was too disoriented to put up much more resistance.

Jon followed, taking the steps slowly, unhurriedly. I didn't think I'd hurt him much, so he was trying again to put on his stoic warrior face. I took a gasping, ragged breath that made me cough and wheeze.

Jon was going to kill me. Again. He refused to listen, refused to look at my proof. I'd known I might have to face Jon to get to Kay. I'd known I might even need to shoot him. When it came down to it, I'd hesitated and looked for other solutions. I was about to pay the price for that, but I wasn't the only one. Jon might be happy to let me go be a monster where he wasn't looking, but I wasn't the only one he'd label like that, and he wasn't the only one blinded by appearances. Ultimately, I wasn't the only one who needed a voice.

My hand tightened on the shotgun that had landed next to me.

Jon took notice.

His eyes widened, and he began to raise his pistol, but he'd come too close. I barely had to aim, let alone stabilize the gun, braced as it was against the floor. Leveraging it up in one motion, I pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in my hand despite the floor, but the damage was done.

The blast took Jon in the chest, knocking him off his feet and up the stairs briefly. Crashing bonelessly down, he rag-dolled back down the steps to land beside me. My brother from another mother, from another world, and another life gaped at the air, trying to get a breath. Blood poured from his mouth, and he stared in disbelief at nothing as he struggled to understand, struggled to live.

Nia's words from when I'd been in a very similar position came back to me. "I'm sorry; it'll be over soon. I wish I could have helped. It wasn't... it wasn't about you, Jon. I wish that hadn't made you so obstinate. I hope you'll figure that out." But he was already gone. Not that it mattered; he wouldn't remember this, at least not in any way that would mean anything to him.

That only made it more frustrating. Aggravating.

To him, he was fighting 'monsters' on a self-righteous' holy crusade,' and, win or lose, he got to just forget the misery he caused, including his own suffering. He got to pretend he was above it all and lean into his ignorance to cling to a false sense of superiority.

"Dammit, Jon," I said, searching his lifeless face before joining him in staring blankly at the ceiling.

"It didn't have to be like this. I didn't want this, or choose this. You should have known better. You should have known life was complicated, that appearances were deceptive. I thought you'd learned. I thought you'd be able to see past the exterior. I thought you knew me. I wish you'd been willing to listen, willing to see. I think... I think this is goodbye. I hope you'll come with us, but I can't—People are depending on me. You were my family—my only family. But that's not enough. I can't put everything on hold to get you caught up over and over, especially when you seem so set on denying what should be obvious."

Wiping imagined tears from my eyes, I pulled myself to my feet, hopping on my good leg. Unfortunately, my 'good' leg was the one I'd smashed into the railing. I was not in a condition I'd choose before facing bogey-Kay. As the Shadow on the ship, she'd been far from weak, and I had no reason to think it was different in the real world.

None of my wounds were serious, but my entire body smarted and ached, and I was far from steady on my feet. I was going to have to take things slow.

Speed was impossible, and stealth was out. There was no way our gun battle had been missed by anyone in the hospital, let alone the chapel on just the other side of the wall.

I limped over to the memory crystal that Jon had let bounce down to this level and, looking around, spotted the other one as well. Both were cracked, but neither had shattered. I slipped one back into my pocket and palmed the other.

As far as I knew, the cultists only had one other gun, Buck's. Kay had a knife, though, and— with or without her shadow teleporting—Bogey-Kay was likely to be stronger and faster than your average chaplain.

Crowseph and Hands had hidden abilities. The stuttering movements and teleportation from the ship might be Kay's, but I had no way of knowing the extent or limits of her 'powers.' If nothing else, she could control people like Mr. Peterson and give them strength that matched my own. I could only hope that, like Guy, her mind could only be one place at a time.

Either way, I needed to make it into my stolen Shadow no matter what. That meant I couldn't afford to hold back anymore. I'd need to throw everything I had at anything that got in my way.

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