The little girl giggled and twirled, the image crackling briefly. “That’s right, Cade. Don’t you forget it.”

Cade said nothing. He wanted to go back to his friends.

“What’s that?” the girl asked suddenly. She pointed a dainty finger at the Gray toy in Cade’s hand.

He looked down at it. Inside, his heart pounded, but he turned the fear into rage. “To remember,” Cade said in a low voice.

“Remember what?”

“What you made me do,” Cade said.

He held up the toy, jabbing it in Abaddon’s face. “There were children in there!” he said. “Civilians. Innocents.”

Abaddon’s avatar shrugged. “So?” she asked mildly.

“You made me a murderer!” Cade bellowed through his raw, bile-bitten throat. “They didn’t have to die!”

The girl giggled. “Well, of course they didn’t have to. Nothing has to happen. But wasn’t it fun? This is real war, Cade. Don’t you like the taste?”

Cade spat, phlegm passing through the avatar and plummeting below.

“Now, now,” Abaddon said, wagging her dainty finger. “I’ll forgive you this once. Do it again and I will transport you into the sun.”

Cade opened his arms wide. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “What’s the point? There’s nothing for me here. No joy. I might as well give up now.”

He lied easily enough; it was how he had felt in his despair but a few hours earlier.

“Then why don’t you jump?” the little girl asked in a chocolate-sweet voice.

“Maybe I will,” Cade bit back.

There was no response this time. Only the movement of the Codex, shooting into the sky.

And then, he was alone. No girl. No Codex.

Just him, alone on the spire.

CHAPTER

31

It was cool on the rock, despite the sun in the cloudless sky. Cade sat upon the spire’s edge, letting his feet dangle.

Cade was on another planet. He knew this by the enormous white moon in the sky, just visible upon the line of the horizon.

He was as alone as any man had ever been, he imagined. Even Neil Armstrong had company.

Thoughts consumed him. Imaginings of his journey into the jungles. Collecting the bomb, and returning to the keep. Flying into the sky.

Dying.

Joy and triumph. Then oblivion.

Tears dribbled down his face, left to dry as he stared across the empty plains.

It was bittersweet, dreaming of a victory that only ended in death. Yet it was not for himself that he cried. First his family. His father, who had taught him so much. And his mother, whose love had been unconditional.

But most of all, Amber. Or rather, her absence from his life.

That he would never know her. Truly know her, the way only time spent in comfortable companionship allowed.

Not moments snatched in a battle for survival. But walks along the beach. Kissing in the rain. Netflix and chill. All the clichés, and then some.

But if he did succeed, she would live on. Humanity would. People across time immemorial would love where he could not. He was willing to make that sacrifice.