Godslayers (Gearbreakers #2)

by Zoe Hana Mikuta

“Let’s live here,” I say into their shirts. “Somewhere like here, when we’re done with all of it, yeah? We’ll all have our own houses. I can sit on my porch and throw shit at you guys on yours whenever I’m in a bad mood. You’ll need to be away from the river so whatever chemical stuff you’re messing with can’t seep in accidentally, but then, June, you can grow all the poison plants you like in your garden. And we’ll need to have at least two bedrooms apiece to rotate Nova around, whenever she burns down her house. We might need a wall in case Jenny tries to siege, but otherwise we’ll be good.”

So, it’s all ridiculous. The hope, despite everything else. The jolt of excitement, like a giddy kid, at the thought of her coming home. It’s ridiculous anyway, so I open my mouth, and I say, “I’m stunning. I’m fucking ethereal, and Sona’s coming home.”

Eris did not give me a choice. She did not give me a choice, but there was not another one besides dying together, and I only want that later. Much, much later. Because I need to know her for most of my life. I scared her and she ran and it’s going to be okay. She is a riot with skin and I love her I love her I love her and we really do have to end up being okay—

We’ve never had to fight, never had a gun to our heads telling us to hurry up and save the world, and yet, it’s the funniest thing—we’re here, again. In pieces, again, again, again.

You are children, and you are so saturated with violence you cannot even see how wrong it is

“Okay…,” says Theo, straightening. His pale eyes drift toward me out of habit only—I’ve never been one to sugarcoat anything for my crew, but that’s never what they’re looking for anyway. They’ve seen me arrogant and they’ve seen me broken; I’m not steely like I used to be, like I was supposed to be for them. Truth be told, I don’t know what any of them have come to expect from me. Maybe it’s just what I expect from them—to be here. That’s enough for me. That’ll always be enough.

“I know you are ashamed. I am never going to be ashamed of you.”

War is only able to eat its way forward across generations because the others have a singular face, and it’s blank. It’s easier to fight, easier to kill when it’s just a tally knocked off Godolia’s numbers, when it isn’t real, breathing people, not really. Just the heavy, sick hate sitting in your gut.

“No,” Nova says seriously. “I want a smiley face. On my face.” Silence. Nova blinks up at us, waiting. “Metal,” Nyla breathes from the floor.

Eris looks so dumbstruck while the kids ricochet in the shadows, flapping their hands and repeating me, distracted. My arm loops around Eris’s waist so I can kiss her, daze her, and do it again because it’s funny. Because she can hate the city all she likes; I am trying to keep her from hating the rest of the world, too.

“It’s cold,” I say, feeling a bit dazed, feeling the gaps between my clothes and my skin. And it startles me when she speaks again, because she does so very softly. “It’s quiet.” And then the words are gone completely, swallowed down like a pill into the stomach of the dark. Quiet, and still, and I just—breathe. Mechas strewn before us, shadowed edges of limbs, fingers dropped in half curls toward the earth. Eris sleeping just fine above my head. The slow stretch of the lungs in my chest, and hold still. Just for a minute, just for now.

“I don’t want to die,” Eris says, her voice small. “I’m scared.” “Don’t worry,” I murmur into her, holding her tight. Fighting to keep a tremor out of my words. “Hey. Remember when you told me about how we were all going to live next door to one another? Somewhere quiet. With a porch.” Her fingers tighten around my arms, breath coming quick and shallow. “Can you picture it for me, Eris?” I whisper, heart breaking in my chest. “It’s summer, and it’s warm. I make a stupid joke and you threaten me for it. The sun goes down. We sleep in the next day. I’ll make the bed. I’ll make you breakfast. If you ever get dark and sad I will open the windows and you can sit in the middle of the kitchen floor until it goes away, love. “It will always go away…”

We fell into each other so completely that I cannot mourn her without mourning myself.

“It was worth it,” I whisper, words murmured into her skin. “Everything that happened to me. Everything I am going to carry with me, and hurt for—it was all worth it, because it dropped me right next to you. I love you. I love you while the world is ending, and I love you when it goes still.”

And it clicks. This moment, the thing I’m addicted to, where everything lines up all neat and narrow and it’s just me and the thing I have to beat—there is a kind of stillness here. “Okay.” Steady, now. Yeah, I’m steady; I’m at the last part of the end of the world, and I’m freaking solid. “Come and get me.”

And, lately, I touch the people next to me and my hand scrapes against the sky, and the thought comes with perfect, unrushed clarity—the Gods aren’t anywhere but here.