Fate's Edge

now the boy held Karmash’s head with both hands. Audrey cradled Jack. He had stopped crying, but he still looked like death.
    They were bloody, bruised, battered. Everyone hurt.
    “This is what it’s like to fight the Hand,” Kaldar said. His voice held no mirth.
    The boys didn’t say anything.
    “Tomorrow, I will buy two tickets,” Kaldar said. “We’ll put you on a plane in the Broken. You will land in a large airport, then another plane will take you to a smaller airport not too far from where you grew up. You will enter the Edge there, find your grandmother, and wait with her until Declan comes to get you.”
    “No,” George said. His voice creaked like an unoiled door. “We’ll finish it.”
    “Jack?” Kaldar asked.
    “We’ll finish it,” Jack said with quiet savagery.
    “Okay,” Kaldar said.
    “Okay?” Audrey asked. “Okay? Help me out, Kaldar, which part of this is okay? Are we in the same car? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
    “We’re all alive and mostly uninjured,” Kaldar said.
    “We are putting them on that goddamned plane tomorrow.”
    “We won’t go,” George said.
    Jack reached over and patted her hand.
    “Yes, you will. This is no place for children. This is not a kid’s fight. We survived today by the skin of our teeth.”
    “You don’t have to be here, either,” George said softly.
    “Yes, I do. I helped make this mess. I have to fix it.”
    “We do, too,” Jack said. “We help.”
    “They fought like adults,” Kaldar said. “I’m treating them as adults. Adults understand the price and make their own decisions.”
    Audrey closed her eyes. “You are all insane.”
    “They are,” Gaston said. “I’m good.”
    “You are holding a decapitated head in your lap!”
    “What are you going to do with it?” Kaldar asked.
    Gaston shrugged and winced, rubbing his shoulder. “I thought I’d pack it into some preservatives and take it with us.”
    “Why?” Audrey asked. Dear Jesus, why would he want to keep the head?
    “I’m going to send it to my parents as a present. It won’t make my mom’s leg grow back, but it might make them feel better.” Gaston patted Karmash’s hair. “He isn’t Spider, but he was his top dog.”
    Kaldar raised his hand, and Gaston high-fived him.
    “Thank you for the flash, George,” Kaldar said. “That was a hell of a shield.”
    George smiled through the grime on his face.
    “That’s right,” Gaston said. “That flash was killer. And Jack, you totally kicked ass. Saved all of us, probably.”
    Jack sat up straighter.
    “Yes. Sorry you had to go through that, but the timing couldn’t have been better,” Kaldar said. “You guys took out two of the Hand’s operatives and helped to kill another two, including a veteran underofficer. There are Mirror agents, trained fighting personnel, who’d give their right arms to be you right now. I think there is a price on that head, actually, Gaston.”
    “That’s fine, but I think Dad and Mom would rather have the head.”
    Audrey covered her face. They were just making things worse now. She had seen more violence tonight than she had ever witnessed in her entire life. Then the rusty scent hit her nostrils, and she realized her hands were bloody and she had just smeared the gore all over her face. She should feel something more. She should be sick and throwing up on the side of the road. Or be in shock and turn into a catatonic vegetable. Instead, she felt nothing. Just dullness and fear. She was so scared. It was over, and she was still scared.
    “You will feel better soon, love,” Kaldar said, as if reading her thoughts. “I’m so sorry. And I meant to tell you: that was a one-in-a-thousand shot.”
    She raised her hand. “Don’t.”
    “It was awesome,” George confirmed.
    “It really was,” Jack said. “His head exploded.”
    Something inside her broke. Tears swelled in her eyes and fell onto her bloody, tattered skirt. She breathed a little easier, as if some of the pressure inside had leaked out of her soul through the tears.
    “Chocolate helps,” Jack said. “We should get some chocolate for Audrey. And for me.”
    “We can do that,” Kaldar said.
    “What was that back there, seven men, Uncle?” Gaston asked.
    “Six. The last was a woman.”
    “How did you do it?” George asked. “Swords don’t sever people in half.”
    “I stretch my flash across my blade,” Kaldar said. “Makes the edge magically sharp. You’ve never seen Cerise