Chapter 42

As Zane tumbled through the air and his tears fell into the expanse below him, he screamed at Wawrzynski, curses he never thought he knew and insults that would be better left unheard.

Joseph was gone.

Out of his grasp.

I'll always be here for you, Joseph.

Zane couldn't save him.

He wanted to. He wanted to do whatever he could to save Joseph, but whatever he could was just not enough anymore. Even if he utilized this awful power Wawrzynski had given him, his cells would be lost in the rushing air around him, disembodied from his soul forever. He would sacrifice his own life and possibly not even get close to saving Joseph's.

He could do nothing but fall.

I'll always be here to help you.

And so he fell.

The sounds of fighting below had intensified, and when he looked down, the ground was far away, like a world that existed only in his imagination, like a world he could see but never reach. He felt so small, like his problems didn't matter.

But that was what Joseph had been trying to stop him from doing.

I can't live without you.

Blaming himself.

He promised to himself then that he would never blame himself again. It was what Joseph would have wanted. Wants, Zane told himself. What Joseph wants. He could not let himself believe Joseph was never coming back. If Joseph ever came back to Zane, Wawrzynski would be dead between them, the invisible barrier he held shattered, freeing Joseph to step through and come to Zane.

He promised himself that moments before he realized that in a couple moments, he could be dead and it might not matter anymore. Joseph was gone. He didn't know if, given the chance, he would save himself before he hit the ground.

I know that if you do this, I will too.

Thankfully, he didn't have to.

A figure sped through the sky toward him, and his tear-filled eyes struggled to make out the figure, but the blue hair was hard to ignore.

"Hold on, Zane!" Daisy cried. "I can't catch you immediately, or the momentum will tear you in half!" She sped past him, arms folded in at her sides, toes pointed downward. As she flew past, Zane caught a glimpse of her eyes, sad but determined. She too knew that Joseph was not coming back anytime soon.

He flattened himself out as best he could, spreading his limbs out in a starfish pattern to slow down his descent. The onrush of air swept into his lungs and he coughed, not expecting his breath to be stolen away by the sky. His eyes watered, this time from air smashing into his eyeballs instead of anger at losing Joseph.

His shirt rippled at his sides. His hair blew back, and Zane felt like Trip with his hair all flown back. The thought entertained him and distracted him from the events on the jet.

Soon, Daisy was falling next to him, her body upright in the air. She fell with her toes pointed, reducing the air resistance. She smiled sadly and put out her arms.

He decellerated slowly in her arms as she slowed their descent precariously, him perched in her arms like a doll. She gritted her teeth. "We'll get him back," she said determinedly. "I am not letting your romance fade so easily."

She chuckled, but Zane was not in the mood for her jokes. Instead he watched the ground as it sped up, seeming to rise up and threaten to swallow him whole. Daisy's uncomfortable laughter subsided and Zane focused all his attention on the scene below.

The groups of London citizens had long retreated inside their city, even though the evacuation order was technically still in effect. But it seemed to Zane that outside the city was far more dangerous than inside.

Gunshots echoed and Forthrite soldiers and New Vancouver soldiers alike fell to the barrage of bullets. A large circle had cleared out around a figure in the center of the shooting ring, presumably Jonas, deflecting every bullet that came at him. The Forthrite soldiers were using him as a sort of shield to avoid being shot. Anastasia was with him, and cracks zig-zagged through the ground to the New Vancouver soldiers and spewed white-hot lava.

Screams could be heard from where Daisy held Zane aloft in the sky. Paired with yells of triumphs and shrieks for help, Zane felt the terrible urge to curl in on himself and never face the situation below him. But he had to. Showing Wawrzynski he was not useless was just the first step of many to getting Joseph back.

Daisy steered them toward the buildings on the outskirts, away from the melee and bullets. Zane was about to object, but thought better of it. He may be distraught, but he didn't want to deliberately place himself in a situation where he could easily get both himself and Daisy killed for no good reason.

When Zane's feet touched the ground, he sank to his knees and buried his head between them. He couldn't bear to face Daisy, because he knew the look on her face would be one of pity and sadness, and he had had enough of that for a lifetime. "I can't believe I lost him," he whispered, tears tracking down his cheeks.

Daisy's hand alighted on his shoulder. "It's not your fault," she said. "I don't know what happened, but I know you would never leave Joseph unless you absolutely had to."

"I didn't leave him!" Zane yelled. He slammed his fist into the ground and he felt the uneven asphalt dig into his hand. "I would have stayed with him!" he slumped forward, not worrying about how it looked to Daisy.

"What?"

"Wawrzynski had a bomb!" Zane screamed. "He would've blown up everything if he didn't get away with at least one of us. He knows we'll go back for each other. He played us again." His voice broke and a sob wrenched itself from his throat. "He knows I need Joseph."

"We'll get him back,"

"How, Daisy?" he demanded, looking up. Where he expected to see pity, sadness, or even anger, he saw fear. And it terrified him. "That's what he'll be expecting!" Zane choked on his words. "Joseph is gone and that means I'm gone, too. He made me who I am. He was the first person I truly knew and I can't be myself without him here. It's like I've lost a part of myself along with him. I can't live without him, Daisy."

It was then that her face contorted into sadness. "You can," she said. "And you will." Her hand lifted. Her voice was colder than usual. "In case you noticed, there are a lot of people that are willing to help you keep yourself together."

He sniffed. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just scared that I'll go back to who I was before, which was absolutely nothing. A brainless monkey."

She laughed. "I won't let you become a brainless monkey," she said. She leaned her back against a nearby building, crossing one ankle over the other. She took a long pause before her next words. "I love you, Zane. I won't let you go back to that."

When she realized how it could be construed, she rushed to correct it. "I platonically love you, sweetie," she reprimanded herself. "I can't love anybody any other way, so that's what you get."

Zane knew her identity was her own, just like his was his own, so he didn't pry. Instead, he smiled. Daisy was there. She wouldn't let him decline back to a New Vancouver citizen while Joseph was gone. "I love you, too," he told her. She raised an eyebrow. "Platonically,"

Daisy peered back in the general direction of the conflict just outside London. "We should probably do something," she said, then raised her eyebrow higher. "Although Jonas did appear quite in charge." She placed her chin on her hand.

"I need to do something," Zane said. "I've been pretty useless in this battle, seeing as it was the thing I was trying to prevent."

"Are you kidding?" Daisy asked. "You helped disable a jet and chase away Wawrzynski."

"At a cost,"

"Joseph wouldn't want you to dwell," she said.

"I know,"

"So let's go kick some ass,"

They were interrupted by a door opening just next to Daisy. Dmitri and Trip stumbled out. "We heard shouting," Dmitri said. He appeared to be frantically buttoning up his jeans and slipping his belt into place. Trip was quickly and expertly buttoning up his eco-green FEPE uniform, his cheeks red and his eyes cast downward.

It was Zane's turn to convey a silent question to Daisy via a raised eyebrow. She shrugged and smiled. Then, when Dmitri managed to regain his composure after his zipper got stuck, she laughed.

"What?" he demanded, his cheeks beginning to flood with red, but not as viciously as Trip's. "What's so funny?"

Daisy chortled. "There's a battle proceeding not even a half minute's walk from here, and you're fooling around with a boy you just met?" she asked, her laughter only becoming exceedingly louder.

Dmitri glared at her and placed his large hands on his hips. "I happen to like him very much," he said in defiance, and pulled Trip over by the hips. Daisy rolled her eyes and Trip blushed even more fiercely. Zane covered his mouth to stifle his laughter. Daisy's older brother had a certain way of making Zane forget all he was feeling.

Trip coughed. "Anyway," he said. "We also heard something about kicking some ass." He was desperate to change the course of the conversation.

But Daisy wasn't done yet. "You mean you heard that through Dmitri's noisy kissing?" she demanded, and Dmitri spread out his arms in a silent question. She pointed at him, her eyes narrowed in sarcasm and mockery. "Your room was right beside mine," she said without skipping a beat. "You were quite the horny teenager." She leaned over to Trip. "Boys and girls."

Zane stepped in. "Alright," he said, stopping the siblings' squabble. "We have got to go help them." Gunshots could still be heard. "There is still a battle going on and we don't need to hear about how horny Dmitri was as a teenager." He rolled his eyes and Daisy stuck out her tongue at her older brother. Dmitri smiled and planted a sloppy kiss on Trip's lips.

Daisy threw up her arms. "I'll never understand why people have sex,"

Zane once again rolled his eyes and turned to head toward the noises of fear and anger and triumph and longing and grief.

When the four of them cleared the line of buildings, the gunfire had slowed. Jonas was still stalking the field with Anastasia, wreaking havoc, but he was wobbling on his feet and Zane knew that when his power finally gave out, they would both be dead. He was staving away exhaustion out of complete necessity. Zane cringed.

Marcus was nowhere to be seen, which was good: he wasn't invincible like he thought he was. Mallory couldn't be seen either, and Zane knew she was either comforting Marcus in a fit of panic or preventing him from storming out onto the field and attempting to kill every last person.

Dmitri picked up a gun from a fallen soldier and ordered Trip to stay behind. The other man didn't even try to protest. Only that morning, he had been working his regular job at his regular time and his regular place that no longer existed.

Daisy and Zane ran into the field, the short stalks of long-forgotten crops stabbing at their feet through their ratty shoes. Zane winced with every step but he forced himself to keep going. "Maybe you should stay behind, Daisy," he suggested. "You could get hurt."

She shook her head. "I said I would never let you become a brainless monkey. If that means staying with you every second of every day, that is exactly what I will do. You deserve more than this."

They hid behind the jet that had been disabled earlier. "Get in," he said, gesturing with his thumb to the inside of the jet. The bay door was still open. "It's safe and we can figure out exactly what we can do, because going out there with our only intention being to kick some ass I feel like you might actually just kick some poor dude in the butthole."

She chuckled. "That would be fun,"

"See what I mean?"

She sighed. "Yeah," she said sadly.

She stepped on the ramp and he followed her in, side by side.

Mallory and Marcus were sitting on a nearby bench, kissing.

"Good lord!" Daisy screamed. "Why are people sticking their tongues down each other's throats in the middle of a fucking invasion?" Her raised voice made the two jump back from each other in surprise and embarrassment.

"Sorry,"

"I don't need you to be sorry!" Daisy yelled. "I need you to keep your tongues to yourself!"

Marcus looked behind Zane. "Where's Joseph?"

The complete grief struck Zane then. He gasped, suddenly losing his ability to breathe, and Daisy glared at Marcus, who stepped back in surprise, his hands raised.

Joseph was gone. Wawrzynski had him. Which meant Wawrzynski had Zane, too. If he had one of them, he had both, and he knew that.

Zane felt his heart wrench as he thought of all his moments with Joseph. He thought of the first time Joseph had kissed him, outside of New Vancouver, in the beautifully bright snow, his lips surprisingly warm despite the cold weather. London wasn't nearly as cold, and there was a noticeable lack of snow.

Zane thought of when he had kissed Joseph on the plane, how he had felt free and finally like the person he wanted to be and the person Joseph deserved.

And he thought of Joseph's suicide attempt that Zane had prevented. What if Joseph attempted it again and Zane wasn't there to stop him? Zane's breathing sped up and his heartbeat quickened.

And then he pictured Joseph's sky blue eyes to which the sky could not compare.

And he felt, rather than saw, the shockwave of power that spread out from him, filled with his grief and his sorrow and his sadness. His friends flinched as he screamed in anger at losing Joseph.

He gasped, and the shockwave grew in size and power.

Zane screamed.

And every New Vancouver soldier turned to dust.

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