Last to Rise(67)

I had to do this now or not at all, so I sucked out all the pain I could and thought of the lab, warm and waiting for us. A rearrangement, a piece of magic big enough that it brought a fresh scream from Pasha – or maybe that was because we were no longer in the snow, no longer just yards from Jake. We were sprawled on the floor of the pain room and this time Pasha was throwing up all over the place, looking like I’d sucked half his soul out with his pain and juice. I didn’t feel much better myself. Everything kept wobbling in and out of focus like I’d had a fatal amount of booze.



“Bastard,” Pasha managed at last. “Jake, what about Jake? I have to find her. Have to get her out of there, she’ll… Oh, you bastard.”



He staggered to his feet and stood there glaring at me like Namrat himself, like he wanted to eat my soul.



“Don’t you care? I though you at least cared enough about Jake, but no. Obviously not. So to save your own skin, you’ve condemned her to who-knows-what. She’s – they’ve caught her, you know that’s worse for her than if they killed her? Worst thing, for her, to be trapped, to be held. I thought you were better than that, I really did. Looks like I was wrong, doesn’t it?”



I staggered to my feet and tried not to imagine using my juice – even using Pasha’s had woken up my black, brought it laughing into the back of my head. Pasha’s tirade stung too, at least partly because he was right, though so was I, but the sting came out front and centre.



“Us getting shot in the head wouldn’t help her any, would it? You want to save her, you need to be alive to do it, usually. And preferably alive to enjoy it afterwards too.”



Looking back, I think that was the point where he snapped – but instead of raging further he shut up, stood still as the statues of the saints and martyrs in the temples. His face took on their marbled sheen and his eyes – I’ve never seen anyone whose eyes looked quite like his then. They were usually dark and angry, spitting sparks at the injustices of life, but now they took on a cool, dead calm that jangled my nerves and made my heart go cold.



“You don’t get it.” His voice was soft as snowclouds, cold as midwinter on the mountains. “You never did. Never will, too wrapped up in your own head. It’s not a sacrifice unless it hurts. If doing it, giving it, is as easy as, as, getting up in the morning, it’s not a sacrifice, it’s just doing something, meaningless movement. Real sacrifice, like the Goddess tells us, showed us when she gave her hand to Namrat, real sacrifice hurts. I would do anything to find Jake and get her back. Anything, no matter what it costs me. You won’t because you don’t care enough about anything but yourself to hurt like that. You never were willing to go far enough.”



We stood and stared at each other, and the sting got worse because maybe he was right. Then again, maybe he was just stupid; I couldn’t tell which it was, or whether I’d saved him for me, because he was my friend and I needed him, or for him. Whether I’d ever be the sort of guy who could willingly sacrifice myself for anyone.



I couldn’t even tell if I was being sensible or a complete dick when I finally said, “Pasha, I’d have done it, stayed there, died even, if I could have been sure it would have helped, if we could have found her in time, saved her like you wanted to. Dying while saving her, that I can understand, that I’d do. Yes, I would. Dying while failing to? Stupid. And I never took you for stupid. You’re too wrapped up in everything but yourself, too wrapped up in trying to be her hero to remember she’ll want you around to be her hero for a while. And you have that, had her to go home to, and you don’t even know what that means. Everything I wanted, you have. And you’re ready to throw it away.”



An almost silent snort of what might have been laughter, a twist of lips that was a grotesque imitation of his usual monkey grin.



“Throw it away? No, get it back. And not just for her, for all of us…” He shook his head and left, silent but intent. On what I couldn’t be sure, though “damnfool way to try to rescue Jake” would have topped the list.



I should have followed him, but I couldn’t. I envied him like I never had before. Not because of what he had, but because of what he was prepared to do for it, her. I was jealous of the strength he had inside him, even when I thought it was making him stupid.



So I didn’t follow him, because all that would have come out and I didn’t think he deserved it. Instead I sat and stared at my stupid throbbing hand and listened to that insidious voice inside me, telling me to do it, do it, blow the whole place, you know you want to. And I did want to. Too much. Not for anyone else; for me.