Before I could even reengage my armor to go and fight McLeod, the bastard was grabbing his head with both hands and screaming. His voice boomed in the open space, temporarily making up for the lack of people in Times Square The flames stopped and he fell to one knee, frantically looking around for something. I turned back to Lori to see her staring daggers through the man, a bead of sweat running down her face, her lips pursed hard together.

  “Shit, his willpower is nuts. I won’t be able-” Lori was cut off by a furious roar coming from McLeod.

  I looked back in time to see McLeod pinpoint the source of whatever was going on in his head. From the sample Lori hit me with, what was going on in his head was nothing good. His eyes flared with rage—probably of his own creation, not Lori’s—and shot a torrent of fire at her. It felt like time slowed down, the horror on her face clear and obvious.

  Naturally, I had a moment where I was like one of those idiot characters in a book, TV show, or movie. The one that makes a reader or viewer want to scream at the page or screen because of how stupid they were being and how any other choice would have been better than the one they made. In fairness to myself, not everyone is cut out to making smart, snap decisions. Considering how well my plans in my last fight had gone, it made a little sense that I was due for a bad decision.

  Being a massive idiot with a bleeding heart, I put myself between my friend and the fire racing through the air toward her. That wasn’t smart, but it also wasn’t what I’d call my truly stupid decision. The really stupid decision was not putting my armor back on before putting myself in harm’s way, so the only thing protecting my bare back from the fire was a plain, cotton T-shirt. It didn't take a doctor with thirty years of experience to figure out that’s not a winning combination for someone’s overall health.

  The force of the fire knocked me into Lori, forcing her to tumble to the ground beneath me. I tried to put a shield up to stop the onslaught, but with the fire blasting my back, I couldn’t muster the concentration. It was maybe a few seconds at most of the torrent of fire blasting me. Those fucking seconds may as well have been centuries. It would have gone on until I was just a pile of ash on the ground, but a piercing, shrill scream, probably from Rosie, stopped McLeod’s attack.

  I nearly fell on Lori, somehow managing to catch myself by planting my hands on the ground before I squished my friend. Her eyes widened in fear for a second, but she snapped out of it just as quickly and went into action. She rolled out from under me, letting me fall on my face. That gave me a comfortable position on rough, cold concrete to process the agony from my charred back. God, the smell of my back nearly had me throwing up right there.

  Lori, standing next to me, threw something on my back while the sounds of battle continued to rage on. Whatever she threw on me hurt like hell, or more hell than having my back tank a powerful blast of fire that way hotter than normal fire. Somewhere in my brain, I knew she was only trying to put the fire out for me. What hurt more than just throwing something on me was when she used all the strength she could muster to try and roll me over to extinguish the flames, which worked in the end. Somewhere else in my mind, I registered that the fire hadn’t completely singed all off the nerves in my back, which was a good thing.

  “You idiot! God, you stupid, dumb, idiot boy!” Lori yelled, probably looking down at me. Part of me wanted to roll over to my back to see the monstrous glare that I could feel stabbing me. She was pissed. “We need to get this shirt off you.”

  “Don’t let Rebecca hear you say that.” It wasn’t the right time to try and crack a joke, but anything to get my mind off what was going on and distract me from the pain. At least I still had my smile, because when she ripped the remnants of my shirt off, it added to the mountain of agony I was already going through.

  “Sorry, I know that hurt. I got it off you before it fused to your skin.” Lori gagged and wretched, not that I could blame her. A guy nearly being cooked alive wasn’t the best thing for a lady to smell.

  It took work, but I got to my feet and tried to push past the pain as much as my body and mind would allow. Without a shirt on, it was a little easier without fabric directly touching the injured area, though it was far from a pleasant experience. Lori’s trick at least made McLeod shoot a less concentrated blast at me, so it didn’t pierce through my body. If it had been like the first time I fought him, I would have likely been dead on the ground with at least one critical, major organ being roasted.

  When I got up, McLeod was fighting Alex, Sven, and Rosie. It was nice to see I wasn’t the only person who’d successfully wounded him anymore. The might of those three combined was too much even for him, leaving him covered in his own set of cuts and discolored skin that would form bruises. Their unified strikes worked well too, especially considering Alex couldn’t stand Sven. When push came to shove, they could work together to stop a global threat. It might not have been the inspirational coming together like one would see in a movie, but hey, whatever got the job done was good enough for me. Nearly becoming a piece of barbequed meat had my standards slightly lower than where they normally would have been.

  “That guy’s a fucking tank,” I grumbled. Lori tried to keep a hand on my midsection for support. I appreciated the kindness of the gesture, even if it was a little useless. If I was going down again, there was no chance that tiny girl could prop me up and stop it.

  “Are you kidding!?” Lori was astonished. “You just got cooked alive and you’re back on your feet like it’s nothing. I’m actually a little scared of you right now.”

  “Sorry.” I felt my face go red. I didn’t know if she was joking, but I didn’t mean to scare her. “It’s because this is the last stand. I need to be able to help however I can.”

  “You’re nuts.” Lori tried to readjust her position to make supporting me easier. It was obvious I was literally weighing on her. “But I’m thankful you’re nuts and on our side.”

  I think I grunted something unintelligible at her. I just watched the battle as it unfolded as best I could. The adrenaline from being hit was wearing off, so the pain and severity of the situation were becoming more and more obvious to me as the seconds ticked on by. I had no idea just how bad it looked, but in a sane world, I would have already been on my way to a hospital. That made it harder to focus on the job I had. I was one of the only people who could offer support from up close and afar. I had to be there and mentally with it to help my friends.

  Despite the numbers advantage and the wounds McLeod sustained, things were starting to go south. Sven got hit with a bright blue fireball that sent him skidding back along the road. It didn’t kill him, thankfully. Without his armor, he would have been left with a serious case of road rash. With his Anomaly absent in the sustained assault, it made it easier for McLeod to handle Alex and Rosie. She got an elbow to the face that put her on the ground in a noticeable daze, and Alex got a slash across his torso from the flaming sword. The biggest scare was the big guy landing right on his head. Lori gasped next to me, her small hands balling into fists.

  “Get him to safety, I’ll be fine,” I told her. Her expression was conflicted, but I wasn’t about to argue or allow myself to gain some common sense back. “Go! No one dies. Keep your man safe.”

  She didn’t need more persuasion, thankfully. Lori ran toward her love while I made myself stand upright. The sounds coming from my back were disgusting—almost as disgusting as the smell coming off the burned skin and flesh—but I forced any thoughts about the injuries to the back of my mind. There was no time to think about something that could slow me down and hold me back. We were so close to ending it all. I wasn’t going to be the reason we lost any friends.

  McLeod prepared another attack on Lori, so I sent a sword flying toward him in response. I was hoping to hit him in a vital spot, but my aim was justifiably horrendous given my injuries. Instead of the heart, a lung, the stomach, or something useful, I simply grazed his leg with it. It left a nasty cut and continued to prove he wasn’t at the top of his game, which was a small benefit. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to put him down and out for good.

  “You’re hardy, boy, I’ll give you that.” His voice was barely more than a low, angry growl, one I still managed to hear clearly.

  “I was thinking the same thing about you.” I wasn’t the wittiest person to begin with, but I had nothing else I could sling at him. Like with the inappropriately timed joke I threw at Lori, verbal jousting with McLeod wasn’t something that I needed to waste time on.

  Lori grabbed Alex and started the herculean task of trying to move someone twice her size away from danger. He was starting to stir, his own Anomaly protecting his body from a fatal attack, but he wasn’t ready to jump back into the fight. Lizzy was moving Rosie out of harm’s way with significantly more ease than Lori had with moving Alex. McLeod didn’t even notice those two, keeping his eyes on Lori and Alex.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He raised his sword above his head and the blue fire flared back to life. My aim with my sword might have sucked, but the hand I conjured behind him was right where it needed to be. I grabbed the sword and held it as tight as I could with the Shimmer-Hand. McLeod couldn’t finish his downward swing, giving Lori just enough time to pull Alex back to a safer distance. More importantly, it meant that McLeod couldn’t just focus on people who weren’t battling him.

  When McLeod looked up at the hand that was holding his sword, he upped the strength of his blue flames. I had no idea what possessed me to do this, but instead of continuing to engage him from a distance, I took off running toward him as I had with Heather. I donned my armor again while my mind was telling me I was the dumbest man in history and my body was telling me I was the man experiencing the most pain in history. I didn’t let myself listen to those two things. I needed his focus on me and me alone.

  When I got to him, he had incinerated the Shimmer-Hand I made. While that sucked, the upside was that he wasn’t bothering to look at Alex and Lori anymore. He brought his sword down in my direction and I met his strike with a shield I’d conjured on my arm. It felt like my back split open. For all I knew, it had split wide open, but I couldn’t stop. The difference in our physical strength was still insane. His fire just ripped the canyon between our physical strength open further. Even through the armor, the heat was unbearable, especially on my back which had been freshly burned.

  McLeod pushed down with his sword until I was on one knee, trying as hard as I could to push back on his attack while he kept me immobile and at bay. I was constantly trying to repair and reinforce my shield under the fire that was constantly damaging it. That was a battle I was losing and losing quickly. The tingling feeling at the base of my skull I got when I overused my powers was coming back, worsening by the second. I was getting close to running on fumes if I wasn’t already there.

  That’s when my hair started to stand on end, and I smelled something funny in the air. Considering I still had the smell of my burning back overpowering my sense of smell, it managed to stand out as especially odd.

  A blue flash filled my vision, and in an instant, the pressure and burning were off my shield. Sven was suddenly at my side, lifting me up by my arm with much greater success than Lori had trying to prop me up and support me.

  I never did any proper training with Sven when we worked together on Clamor. Some small exercises here and there, maybe, but nothing that could have had us working as a well-oiled, efficient machine against someone like McLeod. That was a detriment, but he knew what he was doing, and I knew enough of what I was doing.

  The lightning bolt managed to hit McLeod in the left shoulder and the monster was already back to his feet like it was just some minor inconvenience to him. There was no proud or sadistic grin on his face. There was only grim determination. Despite how tired he was, he still looked like he could have kept going for another few hours. He was an evil piece of garbage who slaughtered powerless innocent people, but I had to admire his absurd willpower and stamina. For all the negative things that could be said about the man, when it came to his convictions, he was damn near impossible to put down.

  But we had to try. We had to succeed.

  I took off to my right to give Sven as much space as possible to hurl lightning bolts without risking hitting me in the crossfire between him and McLeod. Sven was hurting, I could tell by how slow his lightning attacks were compared to their usual potency. I was in luck that they were still strong and quick enough to keep McLeod’s attention. They kept Sven at a distance I considered to be safe, which helped put my mind at ease.

  When I got up close to him, I threw everything I had at him. I spawned swords, spears, axes, hammers, and random amalgamations of weapons all around him. From that distance, I couldn’t miss everything, and there was only so much he could do to stop both of us from attacking him at once. I started stabbing and slashing at him with the sword I held, which he dodged without much effort. Right when he landed from that dodge, I sent all my weapons down at both of us.

  A few of my weapons struck my armor without piercing it, but more hit McLeod. Swords and spears pierced his skin and flesh, hammers crunched bone, and the freak still wasn’t going down. Apparently, nothing short of a nuclear explosion was going to finish the guy off for good. There was a pause where all was silent in the city. Not a soul dared to even move. A pin could have dropped in New York City, and it would have been as loud as a bomb going off.

  Then a bomb did go off.

  With a scream of pure rage, fury, and hatred, blue fire erupted from the area around McLeod. If it hadn’t knocked me back first, it would have incinerated me entirely, burning through my armor like it was nothing. I got off luckier than I could have. I could barely see the fireball that flew out and hit Sven, taking him out of the fight again. The blast sent me rolling a few feet away from McLeod, where I landed on my hands and knees. Blood trickled from my nose, my armor crumbling away after I came to a stop.

  “You’ve done better than you had any right to,” McLeod said. There seemed to be some enjoyment back in his voice when he saw me down for the count. “The first worthy opponents I’ve had in some time. All of you should be exceptionally proud of your efforts today. You can take that pride and sense of accomplishment to your graves.”

  Metal footfalls rang out by my head, and I looked up to see Val standing next to me, sword at the ready. With McLeod in the condition he was in, I was wondering where Rebecca was. We might not have been able to create the perfect opening, but there had to have been some moments where she could have slipped in. Since I sent a bunch of weapons flying toward him, maybe there wasn’t a good opportunity after all.

  “You still mean to defend this boy, daughter?” Blue flames fully enveloped his sword again, preparing for another fight with the woman who was basically our last hope. “Their kindness and weakness have made you soft. What a disappointment.”

  “No, I don’t.” I looked up at Val and something was off. She glared down at me, her eyes cold and icy.

  She pulled back her foot and delivered a kick to my midsection. I don’t know how many ribs broke. It felt like at least ten of them were shattered. Her kick was so powerful I landed in front of McLeod on my injured back. I managed to keep my mouth shut, nearly biting my tongue off in the process. If I was going to be betrayed and this was how I was going to die, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of screaming, no matter how much pain I was in.

  “You backstabbing bitch!” The rage-filled shout came from Lori. I wouldn’t have been able to open my mouth without shrieking, so I silently prayed she wouldn’t try to run over and help. There was no way she could survive against them. “I should have killed you like the fucking dog you are!”

  Val ignored her, which probably sent my small friend into a frenzy. She casually walked over and stood by my head. She hung her sword a few inches above my throat. There was nothing but contempt in her glare. I didn’t have the fight in me to glare back. Everything hurt so damn much.

  “You’ve seen reason, daughter?” McLeod sounded genuinely happy. You know, if happiness was even an emotion he could experience. If he wasn’t a lunatic sociopath, it might have resembled a happy family reunion.

  “I have, father.” Val’s voice was hard and cold as the steel inches away from piercing my skin. “These people were never my family. They were never my friends. They never embraced me as one of their own. You’re the only family I have.”

  She dropped her sword closer to my neck, hesitating before she stabbed me. She looked toward McLeod. “Father, he was the one who injured you in front of the nation. It should be your honor to kill him. No, it’s your obligation, and I’ll stand by your side as I always should have. Please, let this be the first step in making it up to you.”

  “Well said.” Putting his sword in his left hand, he clapped Val on the back of her armor.

  Val did as she said. She moved to his side, slightly behind him. She stared right into my eyes, but I couldn’t read anything but anger, resentment, and hatred. I felt like the biggest idiot for trusting her and thinking she could do good. I thought back to the stupid cupcake she made me for my birthday and how we’d talked about her improving her reading. It felt like an eternity ago, spent with a completely different person.

  McLeod looked much happier than I was feeling. Slowly, making it as theatrical as he could, he lifted his blazing sword in the air. I could hear Lori begging him not to do it. If that would have stopped him, we wouldn’t have lost Pittsburgh or been living in fear of the man for the better part of a year. If he had no problems wiping cities off the map, one teenager’s death wasn’t something that’d pull at his heartstrings.

  I didn’t close my eyes, but I readied myself, trying to look as defiant as I could. My back and ribs were screaming, and I labored to keep my breathing as steady as possible. Again, not about to give that bastard the satisfaction of pleading or showing signs of pain. If I was going out, I was going out with as much dignity as I could squeeze out of the hopeless situation.

  I blinked just once. A sword burst cleanly through his chest, coated in red, and McLeod grunted. Just as quickly as it was in, the sword was pulled out from his back. Val, tears running down her face, was getting ready for another stab. But McLeod had enough juice and wherewithal left to whip around and slash her armor with his sword, the fire expelled from the blade pushing her back.

  That was when another flash of red appeared above me. Rebecca teleported right between the tight space between McLeod and my unmoving body. Her hand touched his exposed forearm for just a moment before she pulled away. Again, McLeod turned and got a slash on Rebecca’s arm, but his power had already faded. The blade, still no doubt scorching, wasn’t blazing anymore. My fiancée took the slash without a single grunt or cry of pain, just holding her bleeding limb while hopping back to avoid another attack.

  Val was behind him again in an instant. She slashed both his legs, forcing the mountain of a man to his knees. She kicked his hand, and when his sword fell harmlessly to the ground, she kicked that as far away as she could manage. Tears still poured out of her eyes when she turned him to face her, putting his back toward me.

  “Kill me here, but I will return again.” McLeod’s voice sounded wet. He spat out a glob of blood and saliva at Val’s feet.

  Val just shook her head. “You won’t. That’s not your Anomaly and you know it. You’ll die here, a man without any power. Just like those you hated. Just like those you killed. We killed.”

  “I am more than a man. I am a symbol. I am an idea. I am hope for-”

  Whatever he was going to say, Val cut him off with a clean decapitation, sending his head rolling a few inches on the street. “No, you were my father.”

  His body fell to the side while Val fell to her knees, sobbing and screaming into her hands.