Page 92 of Static/Cling

“Won’t change anything.”

Leif made a sad noise and Kassian sighed.

It wouldn’t change anything for George, that is.

Leif’s fingers scrabbled against his skin. “Do something!” they seemed to say.

But what could he do as George grabbed the gun from his henchman’s hand and pointed it so Kassian couldn’t help but look up the barrel and into his furious face.

It was fine. If George was focused on him, he wasn’t paying any attention to Leif. But even as he thought that, George smiled.

Instead of pulling the trigger in that last instant, he moved the gun, pointing it over Kassian’s shoulder and down, a mean, ugly sneer curling his perfect smile into a mask of cruelty.

“No!” Jerking his legs, Kassian surged forwards, as if he could lunge from the chair. He wouldn’t be able to, of course, and trying would probably rip a few tendons in his knees, but all he had to do was knock George hard enough to disrupt his aim. Hopefully enough to buy Leif some time. The door was still open. He didn’t seem to be bound. He could make a run for it while everyone was on this side of Kassian and distracted.

Leif’s hand plastered flat and freezing against Kassian’s spine and a rush of cold, hard will shot through him.

He could wrap his mind around the gun, shift it, just a little bit. He could save Leif. He barely moved his feet. He had so little strength left in his thighs. Not nearly enough to get free.

Still, the screws in the walls gave way, flying from their anchors, spinning in the air, rocketing towards George so fast he barely had time to register surprise before they were embedded in his eye sockets. Each three-inch spike buried itself to the head in his brain and disappeared. A couple reappeared a second later, out the back of his skull.

They clanked against the far wall and dropped to the floor, covered in gore.

The cold of Leif’s hand, and the frightening chill of that alien will, evaporated.

George crumpled. The gun bounced harmlessly off Kassian’s shoulder as Kassian’s momentum carried him forward, unexpectedly free, but on legs so weakened from the strain of his constant yanking at the chains he had no hope of staying upright.

He only just caught himself on the edge of the desk to keep from pitching face-first into the computer monitors.

The soldier, caught off guard, scrambled for the gun, got a hand on it, then gurgled and fell over Kassian’s back. They both sprawled across the desktop, sending the monitors crashing to the floor, Kassian pinned under two hundred pounds of literal dead weight.

A hot, wet slime dribbled across the back of Kassian’s neck and down his jaw to drip off his chin. He heaved up, disgust making his muscles do the work. “Get off!” he elbowed at the unresponsive body. “Off!”

“I got you,” Leif wheezed, dragging the body off him by the belt and letting it slide, boneless, to the floor. “I got you,” he whispered, mouth close to Kassian’s ear. “Come on. You’re free.”

“How?”

“No idea. Who cares?”

He let Leif haul him up to where he could wobble on numb legs and stare down at the carnage. “Take the gun,” he rasped, revolted by all the blood, but determined not to let that stop him getting the hell out of there.

“No.”

“No?”

Leif pulled at him so he had to stumble forward, towards the door, chains still attached and clanking behind him. He barely remembered to drag the laptop off the table and tuck it under one arm. “You heard him,” Kassian argued. “Bullets are faster than powers.”

“Are they, though?” Leif asked, voice so quiet Kassian barely heard him. “Who’s dead and who’s not?”

“I don’t—what happened?”

Leif didn’t get a chance to reply, though, because as they made it to the door, another soldier appeared, gun pointed at them.

“Are you kidding me?” Kassian muttered.

The soldier narrowed his eyes at him. “Sit the fuck down.”

“Your boss is dead,” Leif said, jerking a head at the mess on the floor behind them. “Maybe calm down and don’t be an asshat.”

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