Killer Instinct

Chapter XVII

THE PAST

I was staring into his aquamarine eyes, my heart was a mess, my soul raged at his betrayal, but on the outside I was calm, blank, I was collected. I was the efficent killing machine I'd been created to be. I was the living and breathing embodiment of vengance.

"Isley," His voice cracked, his hands shook, his eyes pleaded with me. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry."

I shook my head slowly. "No.. you don't love me. You love power." I looked away from him, off into the distance. The gutted top floor of the skyscraper we stood in had the most spectacular view of New London, the sun setting over the Thames, the scattering of golden clouds sweeping over the horizon. I suddenly felt tired. So tired. I didn't even know what I was doing anymore. I had gotten so caught up in him I had lost sight of what I had been fighting for. And I had been fighting for so long. I had walked away from the only solace and comfort and surety that I had ever known to be with him.

Apollo.

I could feel him now, even though we were hundreds of miles apart. I could feel what he was feeling. I could feel that my mood was effecting him. I could feel his curiosity through our bond. I could feel his sadness that was merely an echo of my own. I felt him reaching out for me, wanting to soothe me.

No matter how badly I'd hurt him, he still loved me, still wanted me, still needed to know that I was okay.

I shied away from his psychic touch. I didn't deserve that kind of unconditional love. I didn't deserve anything except what I had coming to me.

"The end is near." I said focusing back on Mischa.

"This is just the beginning, Isley. Doug won't stop until he gets what he wants. He won't stop until he eliminates the human race and builds a world for himself where we are no longer outcasts, where we are no longer hunted. Where we can be free. Humanity hates us! Why would you save them? Why would you protect the very people that want you dead?"

I glared at him, hating myself more in that moment than I ever had.

"Because it's what's right." I sighed. "You would never understand, because you are just like Doug. You get so caught up in your superiority that you forget it was the very humans you despise that created us. We aren't natural, Mischa! It was never meant to be like this. All we can do is set right their oversight. All we can do is finally be at rest."

"We are gods among men!" Mischa roared, his anger overwhelming me, choking me. "You would die to save them?"

"I would die so that I could finally be at rest." I rubbed at my eyes, letting my impervious mask slip. "I'm so tired of living, of being reborn, of dying. I just want to be free of it. I just want to let go." I sighed. "You'll never understand. I thought you did, but I was wrong. You don't. I thought you knew what it meant to live, but you only know how to kill."

He said nothing, and I knew that I had silenced him with the profoundness of my statement and with the surety that I would kill him. I couldn't let him go back to Doug, and I could not let him attempt to worm his way back into my heart. He was everything I despised, and I had loved him.

God, I had loved him. I had forsaken my one true love, my other half to love him! I had destroyed everything for him. And he had betrayed me.

"Doug will be here any minute." He told me. "The end is most certainly near."

"Then let it come."

Without exerting any effort, I seized his head between my palms and savagely wrenched his neck to the left.

I threw him away from me as his lifeless body slumped to the ground.

A quick and painless death. Something he didn't deserve, but I didn't have the heart to deny him. Because at one point I had loved him, and torturing him would have just broken me.

I sighed again.

It will all be over soon.

I expanded my sense, hearing them surround the abandoned building, hearing them scuttling to the top floor. I let them.

Because I love nothing more than a good kamikaze. The only sure way to destroy evil is to take yourself with it.

As soon as I was sure they couldn't escape, I summoned my power, and the building swayed, plaster falling all around, the lights flickering, and then the collapse.

I closed my eyes, relishing the overwhelming sensation of wielding my power, I felt it course through me like a drug hitting a vein, spreading until I felt the most brilliant sense of euphoria, even as everything around me fell to pieces.

Within moments, all seventy stories became nothing. Nothing but rubble, and I stood, blazing with energy at the apex of destruction.

It was over.

I sighed. It was over.

I teleported away to where I sensed Apollo's life force. I could finally tell him that it was over. That humanity had been saved.

Instead I arrived just in time to see Doug Spielman ripping out his heart with his telekenisis. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face as Apollo's lifeless eyes met mine, as his body gushed blood, as he slumped to the ground, as Doug threw his still warm heart on top of his corpse.

"Isley." He grinned. "You're just in time."

"How, how did you trick me?" I demanded. "I felt your signature. I felt it at the tower! I wouldn't have brought down an empty building if I wasn't sure you were there!" I screamed.

"Don't worry about that." Doug grinned at me, and it was truly malevolent. I hated him. I hated him so much.

Apollo.

God. How could I live in a world where he didn't exist? Where my own foolishness had cost him his life?

At that moment I had reached a point of no return.

I was too weak. I couldn't save the world. I couldn't save the world just to live without him. Doug could have it. He had won. He had finally beaten me.

A knife, platinum, cold, hard slipped past my ribs and into my heart.

I locked eyes with Doug. I'd give him his moment of victory. I'd give it to him. After all, I had taken from him, too. I had ruthlessly forced his hand. I allowed him the satisfaction of taking my life. After all, it was what I deserved.

As his faced faded away, I embraced the darkness. There would be no coming back for me. No one would revive me and clone my DNA. I would finally die and stay dead. The world might be going to hell but at least I wouldn't be born again to see it.

I gave Doug one last smile of bitter and selfish satisfaction as everything faded to black.