At first, the shock and ringing in my ears blotted out everything else. Then I registered a patter of approaching footsteps below the ringing. Footsteps, and Rekkan’s yell.

“Zaf, get back!”

Before I could oblige, he seized my shoulders and threw me back toward the desk. My hand that snapped back to catch myself slipped in a pool of still-warm blood, and my tailbone knocked the desk. I recovered just fast enough to see the bald researcher hurtle through the doorway. The rifle fired again, and blood and brains splattered the file cabinets, dripping down over the papers.

Doors slammed walls, and more feet battered the ground.

“Fuck, there are too many.” Rekkan shot me a glance. “We gotta get out of here. Follow me.”

I pushed off the table and trotted to Rekkan’s side, but then my eyes snagged on the leatherbound notebook on the coffee table, and my breath caught in my chest. I recognized the handwritten scrawl across the open pages.

My mother’s writing.

I swooped over to grab the book and tucked it under my arm before rejoining Rekkan. 

Rekkan shot me a bewildered glance, but he only said, “Stay close to me.”

Then he strolled out into the entry hall. 

I watched the next sequence of events as though in a dream. Doors swung open and shut as more researchers streamed into the room. Rekkan swung the rifle around, picking off the closest attackers without ever breaking stride. Tables toppled, papers fluttered, and brains and blood spattered the room like a combusting pressure cooker. My eardrums rattled with the growls, snarls, rifle blasts, and exploding heads. 

Near the exit, my boot kicked something soft, and I stumbled. The book slipped from my blood-slickened fingers and slid across the ground. 

I lurched toward the book. The moment I snatched it off the ground, a white lab coat flashed in my peripheral vision. The growl poured hot breath over my ear. 

I jerked back just before the attacker could reach me. Another blast from the rifle ripped off the growl, and blood painted the floor where my feet had been a millisecond prior. Then I darted toward the exit where Rekkan waited. 

Rekkan pushed me out first. When he followed, he shoved the rock door closed behind him. The moment the notch clicked back into place, a body thumped the other side of the door. 

Rekkan shifted, preparing his rifle once more. More thumps, and a few muted snarls. Then the sounds grew quieter. I pressed my ear against the rocky surface and heard the wet slap of retreating footsteps through carnage.

I deflated, letting my eyes fall shut and the door behind me take my weight. Dark clouds shrouded the fading sunlight, but the cold wind on my face had never felt so good. Giddy relief spilled laughter into my panting breaths. 

When I reopened my eyes to smile at Rekkan, I swallowed the laughter. His chest heaved with each breath, stretching his leather jacket. His jaw clenched, and those brown eyes pinned me with a seething glare.

“What the fuck was that? What were you thinking?”

Fresh fear sloshed though my gut. I’d seen a stare like that before, and I’d barely lived through the repercussions. Rekkan won’t hurt me, I told myself. Still, my lungs seized and hands clammed up.

I forced myself to breathe. “Ok, I understand you’re displeased, but —”

“Displeased? I can’t fucking — a book, Zafaru? You ran back for a book after I —”

“Not just a book. This is —”

“— left my fortress, pandered to the fucking Cutthroat Crew, joined this pathetic, idiotic mission —”

“Pathetic and idiotic?” My eyes burned, but I fisted my hands and withheld the tears.

Rekkan blew out a breath. “Zaf, just — do you seriously believe you can save the world? The last research base is gone now, and we got nothing from it.”

“Doctor Gazira kept saying it wasn’t a virus. That has to mean something.”

“Doctor Gazira was Infected.”

“Yeah, but they speak using muscle-memory, so she must have said it before.” I lifted the leatherbound book. “And see this book? Rekkan, these are my mother’s notes.”

He appraised the book with a furrowed brow, but when his gaze met mine again, his eyes were hard. “So you think she left a secret message for you? Something you would understand that a bunch of researchers studying her work would miss? Zafaru, being her son doesn’t make you special.”

Fuck, the tears were starting now, pricking my eyes and clogging my throat. I had grown up telling myself I’d prove my father wrong and make my mother proud, but over the last eight years, all I had done was stay alive — and barely. Even if my mother could have saved the world, the book clutched in my hands was only ink on paper.

“So you don’t believe I could save the world.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t believe the world can be saved. I did believe I could keep you from getting yourself killed, but I’m doubting that now. If you want my protection, then give this up. If you want to sprint toward your death, you can do that without my help.”

“Fine.”

He raised a brow. “Fine, what?”

“Fine, I’ll do it without your help.”

I started trudging through the snow away from the research base. The silence behind me echoed through my heart, and regret swelled bitter in my throat. He had given up a lot for me, and this was not how I wanted to part. Ether, I didn’t want to part at all. With every step, my heart tore open a little further.

Then feet trotted toward me, and a hand touched my arm. “Where are you going, Zaf?”

“Sprinting toward my death.”

A moment of silence. Then, “I’ve seen a farmhouse still in good shape a little further up the highway. We could stay there for the night.”

I sideglanced him with raised brows. “We? You’re coming with me?”

He shrugged. “I made a promise. I’m staying with you whether you want me here or not.”

“I do want you.” I swallowed. “I mean, I want you here. Though I also want you.”

I waited for an exasperated response, or perhaps the kind of self-satisfied sarcasm he delivered after kissing my hand. Are you still angry? 

When no response came, I snuck a glance in his direction and caught a brief flash of his eyes before he jerked his gaze to the path ahead. The lines of his profile remained hard, but pink sponged his cheeks, a bare brush of color against the monochrome backdrop.

A smile warmed my lips.

As we walked, the sky darkened and leaked icy raindrops, propelled into my face by gusts of wind. Rain spattered the leatherbound book, soaking into the pages. With cold, fumbling fingers, I unzipped my coat and attempted to slide the book inside.

“I’ll put it in the pack,” Rekkan said, stretching a gloved hand toward me.

The cold obliterated my protests, and I handed him the book. Then I yanked the hood over my head and shoved my hands into my pockets. Much warmer, though not as warm as Rekkan’s pockets. Not as warm as Rekkan. 

In my peripheral, Rekkan slid the book into his pack. Then he unfolded a blanket and covered the book inside the bag.

Protecting a book he didn’t even care about.

Despite the cold, my insides melted. The words slipped from my mouth unbidden.

“How could you possibly think there’s anything wrong with you?”

He hesitated, glancing at me and then away again. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded and released an exhale. “Ok, well… you know how they say Ether connects all living things? I think it... I don’t know, it missed me somehow. Even as a kid, I did things other people found… disturbing. Laughing and crying at the wrong times, killing butterflies and admiring cockroaches. My own family didn’t know what to do with me.”

For a minute, I struggled to form a response. How could I explain to him that none of that mattered? None of it bothered me at all, except the part about his family, which I was afraid to address.

Finally, I said, “I don’t know. Cockroaches can be pretty. Like, in the right lighting, they’re kind of shiny.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, expression half incredulous and half… maybe hopeful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re not fluffy, though.”

“No.” He hitched his thumbs in his pocket with the barest of smiles. “Fluffy is better.”