Warcross: Chapters 19-24

Wikki blinks at him with the most sorrowful look a drone can muster.

“Today, the Demon Brigade faces off against the Phoenix Riders in the White World, a landscape of speed, stealth, and quick thinking. There will be no time to hesitate!”

I gingerly test my hoverboard, then realize that a button exists on the board beneath each of my heels.

I see the way the structure looks on all sides, the crevices nearest it, and the way the terrain tilts.

Behind me, an explosion shakes the level. Snow and shards of ice fly past me.

If he knocks me off my board, I’ll go tumbling into oblivion and regenerate behind everyone.

Plumes of snow whip up as they zoom by.

He’s standing on top of the ice monument, clad in the same fitted black armor I’d seen on him in the Dark World.

Even if he doesn’t show it blatantly, I can sense that he’s shaken.

My thoughts continue to churn, looping back over and over on Kenn’s words.

Roshan sobers a little at the mention of Tremaine, but he hides it behind a smile.

The edges of Hideo’s lips twitch with a smile, a brief respite from his grave look, and he nods for me to follow him.

The walls are lined with portraits and with shelves of books—pristine early editions—neatly organized and artfully arranged.

Then there are shelves displaying vintage video games and consoles, as well as prototypes of what look like the earliest versions of the NeuroLink glasses.

“My mother took good care of my early NeuroLink prototypes,” he says. “She and my father made sure to save them.”

I’m very aware of our proximity to each other, as if I could feel the ghost of his presence against my skin.

I’ve hit an old wound, a yawning abyss thinly scarred over.

I’m careful to steer clear of whatever mystery shrouds his past.

I startle at the novelty of it, then hesitantly send a thought back to him.

I can sense desire in him, a dense, smoldering heat.

His breathing is soft and labored, his brows furrowed, the fire still alight in his gaze.

His emotions crash against mine, roiling into one, and he is undone in this moment, the reserved, distant, proper version of him stripped away to reveal the part that is unthinking and savage.

I can feel the calluses at the base of his fingers, rough against my skin.

Then, abruptly, a needle of a foreign emotion slices through our raging tempest, a thread of worry from him.

Jealousy flashes across his face, and his eyes darken to cinder.

Hammie and Asher are on the living room couches, engrossed in a quiet debate about how best to mess up the Cloud Knights’ defense.

He gives me a sheepish smile as she stretches up to pat both his cheeks like he’s a small boy.

Inside, the home is sunny, cozy, and absolutely immaculate, lined with framed photos and green potted plants, clay pots, and odd, metallic sculptures.

His father looks on from the hallway, coughing a little, the sound indicative of something chronic.

Neither of his parents is old, but they seem frailer than they should be at their age.

“My mother has been learning how to make clay pots since she retired from her neuroscience work. The metallic sculptures are my father’s, welded together with leftover computer parts from his repair shop.”

“Mozart’s ‘Queen of the Night’ aria,” I finish. “Because, well, I fancied myself as one.”

“Sasuke!” he calls again at the thicket of trees.

I look on as we follow him through the trees and into the overgrown grasses, slowing occasionally whenever the foliage turns too thick.

Long minutes drag by as he does an exhaustive hunt of the small thicket.

Then the scene switches to a young Hideo on his knees before his parents, sobbing, begging forgiveness, hysterical, inconsolable, even as they try to make him get up.

Dinner is so delicious that I wish it could last forever—juicy, tender cuts of chicken fried to perfection; gleaming rice topped with a fried egg; lightly pickled vegetables for garnish; soft mochi cakes made of sticky rice flour for dessert, each stuffed with strawberry and sweet red bean; soothing cups of hot green tea.

I feel groggy today, my mind stifled and my heart still pounding from another round of nightmares, and my limbs are weighed down as I drag myself out of bed.

The ruins stretch as far as I can see, dappled sunlight dancing against their surfaces, and drifting over them are a field of shining, jewel-like power-ups.

“And you’re the one who's been trailing me. Hideo’s little lackey.”