Chapter 39

When Zane woke up, all was dark.

He had a flashback to the tunnel underneath New Vancouver, after he'd been shot and passed out. He expected to sit up and see Marcus in front of him, propped against the curved wall, his ridiculous, necessary cowboy costume seeming out of place. Zane searched for pain in his leg, but found none. He breathed heavily.

He opened his eyes, and Joseph's worried gaze met his eyes. The boy's bright blue eyes gazed fondly at him, light dancing off his irises. Joseph had his hand on Zane's forehead, and Zane realized there was a cold cloth on his head. He grunted and tried to sit up.

"Woah there," Joseph said calmly. "You exerted yourself far too much. It'll take a couple minutes to gain your bearings."

When Zane spoke, his voice was barely more than a croak. "I had to save you," he said. "I couldn't let you die."

Joseph's thumb traced a line down the side of Zane's face. "I know," he told him. "Thank you." Zane shivered.

Zane looked around. "What happened? Where are we?"

The room around him was dim, the lights downplayed. A dusty window in the corner cast small shadows about the room. Zane was reminded of Jonas's shelter in New Vancouver, the small, dark room beneath the old musty book store. The smell was inherently similar; moldy and dusty. Zane was glad that the bitter tang of steel was not wafting through the air.

Joseph laid his hands on Zane's shoulders. "We're safe," he responded. "After FEPE was destroyed, an EMP blast destroyed all of London's electronics. It shut off the microchip in Jonas's brain. He's going crazy not knowing if it's fried or if it'll turn on once we're out of range of the EMP."

"EMP?"

"Electro-magnetic pulse," Joseph said. "It's designed to wipe out all technology or anything with a chip. The cars don't run, the computers don't work, they have no traffic lights, no news, no phones."

"Wawrzynski?"

"That's our best guess," the boy said. "We think he's targeted communication. So nobody outside of London can hear about FEPE until somebody manages to get out of the blast radius, which is apparently very large." The boy ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it to the opposite side. "They're evacuating. They think another attack is coming."

"Which it probably is," Zane said. He struggled up to his elbows, propping his body up, his arms shaking from his weight and exhaustion. "How long was I out?"

"Only a couple hours," Joseph responded. "And if it's any consolation, that time I didn't want to die."

Zane gave him a hard look. He couldn't decide if it was actually meant as consolation, or a joke. "I hope not," he said hesitantly. "I can't have you dying."

Joseph smirked. "Why not?" he asked. He placed a palm on Zane's chest and easily pushed him back down. Zane grunted from the effort of trying to oppose it. The other boy leaned in close, his face inches away from Zane's. "I expect an answer."

Zane almost kicked him in the shins.

"Oh, get off me," he said, turning his head away. "You know why." He rolled sideways, escaping from Joseph. "You just want me to admit it."

Zane hissed in frustration as Joseph rolled him back.

"You can be a pain in the ass," Zane told him, and kissed him.

In the dark room, exhausted and exerted, his lips planted on Joseph's, he'd never felt more alive. As they always did when he kissed Joseph, his worries flew away like leaves on the wind. He forgot everything; the FEPE disaster, the assassins, Marlene's death. It was like Joseph blocked the trauma from invading his brain whenever he touched him. It was a magnificent feeling.

His hand slipped to Joseph's waist, and the boy leaned closer, his body curving to end aligned with Zane's. Their noses struck together, and just like the first time, Zane wanted to giggle. The only difference was, this time he did giggle. Joseph's hair tickled his forehead.

Joseph cupped Zane's head with his broad palm, and Zane pulled away, convinced he'd do something he might regret if he kissed him longer.

The other boy's face was inches from his, his blue eyes sparkling. Zane swallowed. "I can't have you dying-" he moved his hand up Joseph's side. "-because you made me who I am. You helped me realize who I wanted to be, and I'm afraid if you die, it'll all go away."

"What will?"

"Me," he said, and paused to kiss Joseph again, a quick peck on the cheek. The boy's cheeks flared bright red, and Zane smiled. "My whole life has been condensed into a month and a half, and it all revolved around you. Without you, there is no Zane Morrison."

"There's no zoom without Joseph?"

"Ass," Zane said, and, his strength mostly returned, threw the other boy off. Joseph hit the floor with a sound of surprise, but he was smiling vividly. Butterflies flitted in Zane's stomach as he watched the other boy adjust his shirt. He felt a weird tickling sensation in his gut. Weird but wonderful.

"You could try and take me seriously every once in a while," he said.

Joseph stopped moving. "Don't be under the impression that I don't," he responded mysteriously. "I want to be with you, Z. You're the thing I was searching for. Everything I went through, everything I am going through now, everything my mother is going through now, every rebellious action I ever took, I was always looking for something, I just didn't know what. Now I know. It was you. It was always you."

"How do you know?" Zane asked quietly.

"Because even Wawrzynski matched us together," the boy said, chuckling. "I bet this is something that crazy psycho didn't bargain for."

"I can assure you, he didn't," Zane told him. "He can predict everything but human emotion. He may try, but in the end, we can always outsmart him by using our hearts, not our heads. A feeling will always triumph over a thought."

Zane shakily stood up, grabbing Joseph's shoulder for balance. Joseph raised an eyebrow and grabbed him by the waist, pulling him in close. "More stability," he said, smiling.

Zane rolled his eyes. "Still trying to get into my pants?" he asked.

"Won't stop until I succeed,"

Zane smiled.

When they stepped out of the main door, a larger room was revealed, still darkly lit, but bright enough that he could discern certain features. Large bookshelves lined the walls and ran down the center of the room. Concentrically round tables sat nearby. All of Zane's friends were condensed into one table, including Trip. The man appeared more lively as he was obviously demolishing the rest of them at poker. Zane saw hundreds upon hundreds of books on the shelves, monstrous volumes and miniscule dictionaries. Large chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Dust covered the glass fixtures, evidence that they hadn't been cleaned in many years.

"Are we in a library?" Zane asked.

"Yep," Joseph responded. "Most everything is digital now, but this place is still in business. It's enormous. There was a grumpy old lady at a desk when we walked in, but she only told us to be quiet and then went back to her cheesy erotica novel."

Zane laughed. "Why a library?"

Joseph shrugged, almost dislodging Zane in the process. "It seemed like a very incognito place to go." He glanced around as if checking for falling buildings or assassins.

"But if all technology is wiped out right now, won't people be coming here to find information or something?"

"Please. People are far too afraid right now to be perusing a downtown library for books on EMPs and terrorist attacks," he said, chuckling. He still wore his black jeans and his navy polo shirt, the top two buttons still undone, drawing Zane's eyes. His white sneakers weren't so white anymore. A film of blood ran over them like a layer of wax, and multiple spots were scuffed and worn away.

Zane was still dressed in a forest green shirt they'd acquired at the small shop when they'd first entered London. His newest pair of cargo pants adorned his legs, the syringe hidden in a deep pocket.

Looking around, he realized Marcus had changed back into his cowboy outfit. The boy could obviously no longer stand khakis and a polo shirt, and he had looked extremely out of place in Zane's eyes. Cowboy Marcus was the only Marcus Zane knew. Trip kept shooting weird gazes at the boy and his cowboy hat, but Marcus paid him no attention.

"They're also evacuating," Joseph continued. "Nobody wants to stick around and read books, a primal activity, when the largest foreign embassy was just destroyed with seemingly no provocation."

"We caused it," Zane said quietly. "The provocation for the attack was us running away." He looked at the other boy, his gaze tilted slightly upward to meet Joseph's. "How many more people are going to die because we didn't cooperate with him?"

"That's what he wants us to think," Joseph said, pointing a finger. "He wants us to take blame and to feel guilt. He's manipulative, Zane. The attack on FEPE was his decision and his alone. There are far simpler ways to assassinate or capture us besides killing hundreds of innocent people. We are not to blame. He is. He always is."

Zane dropped his head. He noted that Joseph's hands were at his sides, completely still and calm, not in front of him wringing together. Zane furrowed his brow. Had he done that? Was Joseph so comfortable around him now that his nervousness was completely gone?

"Zane, look at me," Joseph said, his rough hand sliding under Zane's chin and lifting up his head. "You have to stop blaming yourself. You are not responsible for the actions of others, no matter who it is. You are only responsible for your own actions. No matter what you've been told, you are your own person, with your own choices and your own wants. You don't belong to anybody. You are your own person." He paused for a second. "I need you to be strong. Never forget that."

"Thank you," Zane said.

Joseph nodded and they walked over to join the others.

Trip slammed a royal flush down on the table and hollered in delight. But it was a loud whisper. "I whooped your asses again!" he hissed. The others set down their useless hands and grumbled in indignation. Daisy's face was bright red.

Jonas snarled in frustration. "With my microchip, I could predict every possible hand you could get, and modify my own to prepare for it."

Trip smiled. "But you don't have it right now, do you?"

"Don't remind me,"

"Sorry," Trip said quickly. He gathered the cards and began to shuffle them expertly. "I played with Iris all the time, so I got pretty good." His hands stopped moving. "I wonder what happened to her."

"We have bigger problems, sweetie," Daisy said. "Deal again. This time I'm gonna win."

Mallory harrumphed. "You can try, you aerodynamic little bitch,"

"I wasn't talking to you," Daisy said with mock sweetness.

Trip blanched. "I seriously cannot believe you guys are friends. I get the distinct impression that you both despise each other."

Daisy patted him on the shoulder. "All in good fun, sweetie," she said, grabbing the cards Trip laid out before her.

A harsh bang echoed from outside the library. It seemed to resonate across the cavernous space. Zane jumped, and Joseph laid a hand on his arm, as if to steady both himself and Zane.

"Gunshots," Mallory said.

It was Joseph's turn to blanch, his skin seeming to turn paler in the instant. "It's Wawrzynski. He's here."

"Why the hell would he use guns?" Mallory spat.

"Think about it," Joseph said. "He knows London is not prepared to use any of their nuclear weapons. He knows they have a small army, so the battle will be good and done with by the time London arms their nukes. He may or may not know if we're still alive, so this is a great way to flush us out. He knows we'll do whatever it takes to stop him. And nobody will know who he or his soldiers are, so it's a perfect scenario. They won't be able to retaliate."

"What does all that have to do with him using guns?"

"That's all London has," Joseph said, addressing them all. "And Wawrzynski has multitudes more soldiers than they do. And we haven't shown up yet, so he had no use for more devastating weapons. He obviously never intended to attack London frontally, but that's what it's come to."

Daisy caught on. "He's not trying to wipe London out, he's trying to wipe us out," she said. "And even if some of his soldiers die, there's no way to identify them, because their files were erased the moment they were either placed in New Vancouver when it was created, or born there."

Joseph nodded. "This is only to flush us out. I think we delayed his plans for war, so he wants to make sure he got rid of his biggest opposition. Us."

"Are you saying we shouldn't go out there, so he thinks he killed us?" Zane asked incredulously.

"No," Joseph said. "If we don't come out, he'll search all of London until he finds us. If we go out now, we can stop him from murdering hundreds more innocent people, and we have a chance of wiping out a fraction of his army. We are far more powerful than bullets."

Marcus pushed himself off of a wall nearby, where he had been leaning. "What are we waiting for?" he said. "Let's have a showdown." He strode for the exit, his cowboy hat bobbing. "It's been a long time coming."