New Elysium: Weapons of War (Book 2)

What is, What may be... Part 24

I feel your grip firm on my shoulder
But this fear in my head won't subside
They patiently circle around us
As we hold out
"Against the Tide" - Celldweller

It was the teddy bear that did it, lying on the ground, slightly scuffed from wear, with a bloody pool splattered nearby, but thank God she couldn't see the owner of said blood. The bear wore a white lace dress, over yellow fur.

Ember stopped cold at the sight of it... 

It was an innocuous thing...

And yet...

It released a flood of memories, a flood she couldn't dam, even as she tried to hold them back, they slipped through her fingers like sand. She froze, her body stiffening in the hall, arms tightening around Nova's rib cage so much he gasped. But she didn't hear it.

Ash falling like snow, a teddy bear lying on the ground half out of the soot. Beyond that a child clasped in a woman's arms, it's face buried in her chest. One shoe was gray, over ashy skin, with her arms draped around the infant's body. The other foot was bare, pink skin out of place over the bleak landscape. The only part screaming that these used to be living people, not statues. As she moved around it, the other side of the couple was burned to a crisp barely recognizable as the humans they used to be.

"Ember?" Nova gasped. His voice registered but it didn't change what she was seeing.

"No," she whispered as the dead of New Caledonia appeared before her as she walked its surface again, the scene melding in almost seamlessly with New Elysium. "Not again."

Ember are you here? Red's voice interrupted her thoughts. She wanted to scream at him, yes I'm here damn it... But her mind was frozen.

She was reliving the moment she stepped on New Caledonia again. Physically she could feel herself supporting Nova's weight on her arm. But she couldn't see him, only the wasteland around her as her co-pilot Jordan pleaded with her to return to the ship because she was acting out of orders.

Ember? Lars's voice this time. She was being hailed but she couldn't respond.

She was meant to cause this kind of destruction but seeing it up close again...

Ember screamed, her wail echoing across the halls of New Elysium.

Because it wasn't the wasteland of New Caledonia she was seeing.

It was New Elysium, completely and utterly destroyed.

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Ember had dropped both of them to the ground, and Nova found himself laying across her midsection, his face almost planted into her chest, one arm pinned under her shoulder. Knowing Red would kill him if he found him like this he rolled off of her leaving his arm under her shoulder. He was too damn tired and he grit his teeth feeling useless. He grimaced as he felt her grip under his arm tighten, her fingers digging into his muscle.

"Angel?" He whispered. "I'm not going anywhere if that's what you're worried about." He couldn't even if he had wanted to. Exhaustion was taking its toll, not to mention the connection between Amy and himself and the pain it caused him... Dying for love? He smirked at the thought. It was almost poetic the way it was happening. When all it took was her mere presence to kill him? Nova, you've made some dumb choices back in your time, but this? This takes the cake. Not that he ever really had a choice. He'd been done for the moment he laid eyes on her when every part of her screamed to be left alone and he'd taken it as a personal challenge to be useful to her in some way just so he could remain in her tiny, well concealed, orbit.