I kept approaching. Chris decided to stand his ground. He offered up the syringe, like it was a peace offering, or something that would make me shy back.

“It’s alive, you know. Tucked into her bra even now. With its own tiny heartbeat.”

I closed my eyes, letting the mental picture come and go. I reached the point where Chris and the syringe were in arm’s reach. He put a hand out, indicating for the two Shin ex-prisoners to back away.

I took the syringe. “I guess that’s a good barometer.”

“Of?” he asked. “You’re not making any sense, you moron.”

“If she still has it when I see her next, I’ll kill her,” I said. “If not, then… I don’t know.”

He stared me down.

“What do I do with this?” I asked, holding up the syringe.

“Stab it into the altered site. Press the plunger down. It’s a syringe. It’s not hard.”

I held onto the thing, still staring at Chris.

It was like he wanted me to hate him, and that extended to wanting me to kill him.

Or something. I couldn’t pretend to fully understand him. But I felt like ending his life here after he’d offered me a cure would prove him right in something.

I wanted to say something that would penetrate that exterior of his, convince him, or even bother him. Kenzie had managed it.

Like mentioning Swansong, and how she’d actually grown as a person.

Or telling him he deserved his own misery.

A gold alert flashed in my right eye. A series of reports about cracks. Ongoing. I ignored it for the time being.

The fighting continued in the background. I could look up at the Ophion Titan and see the damage I’d done, still healing, while capes flew around him. Narwhal was using the damage as a target point for forcefields, leaving them embedded whenever they sank home, to slow and stop his regeneration.

I stuck the plunger into my leg, high up on the thigh. I pressed it down, my mind numb.

The feeling of bones moving and flesh stirring was almost as nausea-inducing as the transition had been in the first place.

I stared Chris down as it took effect. Used flight to stay upright.

He nodded as he watched the change regress.

“He’s a bastard,” I said, looking up at the Titan. I could see the Mother Giant attacking it. A giantess with a boneless creature ten times her mass extending from her nethers, grappling Ophion, tearing away flesh.

“Mm.”

I wanted to spit in his face, to scream at him, to throw him into those black spikes, or to hurl on him, if I hurled after all.

But there was no point to it.

The gold alerts continued to come in. I skimmed it, saw ‘cracking’, and took it as an alert there was still more coming.