Chapter 170: Charge Against Charge. (One of Us Dies)
"You should have stayed in the Fallen City," Owen said, stepping fully inside. "This isn’t your fight, outsider."
I held my position. Eyes tracking him. Every micro-shift in his shoulders, the way his bald head caught the low light like wet bone.
"But you’re a good guy, Abram." His gaze swept the room — Mary on the floor, Becky slumped on the sofa — before settling back on me. "I’m here to remove someone. For the peace of the walls."
I remembered him putting Speed down. The discharge I had first thought was an accident and had later learned to read very differently.
"And Speed?" I said. "Oddo? The whole mission? That all for the peace of the walls too?"
He smiled. The same mild, almost friendly smile he had worn through everything.
"I’ve done things I’m not proud of," he said. "Killing Mary Stam isn’t one of them."
"She’s not dying today," I said.
He closed the door behind him with a quiet click and walked slowly toward me. The girls stayed down. The metallic coating on the walls still hummed faintly with residual charge.
"You don’t know a damn thing about Mary," he said. The second person to tell me that today. "And I don’t fail missions. Even when they require clearing everything in the way."
He stopped a few meters away. I studied him and didn’t move.
"I respect you, Abram. Genuinely. After what I saw you do outside, more than most." His voice stayed even, almost conversational. "But if you stand in my way, one of us dies. And my instincts say it won’t be me." A pause. "Choose."
I looked at him. At Mary on the floor. At Becky unconscious on the sofa, my partner. At the charge running quiet under my skin and the charge already glowing at his fingertips in bright, snapping arcs.
"I’ve already chosen," I said. "I chose the moment you drove away and left us behind in the Fallen City."
The electrical body lit across my skin in a sudden, violent rush. Blue-white arcs danced over my arms, chest, and shoulders, crackling loud in the sealed room. The apartment lit up sharp and bright, shadows leaping across the walls.
Owen’s smile didn’t move. His own charge flared brighter at his fingertips, forking between his knuckles in jagged, hungry arcs.
[Owen is offensive. You are defensive.]
[Letting him strike first favors him over time. Open the attack.]
I sent the first charge. A bright blue-white bolt snapped from my palm straight at his chest.
He moved like the ghost he was, body blurring sideways at impossible speed, the bolt cracking into the wall behind him and leaving a smoking black scar. He returned fire instantly, a thick lance of electricity ripping toward me. It slammed into my chest and absorbed straight into the electrical skin, feeding me instead of hurting me.
"Impressed," he said.
He came forward. I closed the gap to meet him.
His hands landed on my shoulders. [Electrical body active.] It didn’t throw him. He held on, eyes lighting up with surprise as his charge pushed against mine and met resistance. For a frozen second neither of us got what we expected, his power wasn’t flowing through, and my body wasn’t repelling him the way it should have. We stood locked, electricity crackling and snapping where our skin met, the air between us hissing.
He let go and threw a punch at my head. I slipped it, the fist cutting air inches from my ear, the backdraft of his fist sent a stray spark snapping toward the sofa, missing Becky’s face by inches.
I brought both hands down hard against the sides of his neck. The impact made a wet, meaty sound. We broke apart.
"You’re not bad," he said, rolling his shoulders.
"I know," I said. "You’d have done it the way you did Oddo. Hit from behind and run. Face to face isn’t really your strength."
He smiled, then discharged.
I absorbed it, but the flow didn’t stop, he was already moving in behind it. Both hands hit my chest. The impact lifted me off my feet and slammed me into the wall hard enough to crack the metal coating. Dust rained down around my shoulders.
He made a small gesture with two fingers. You talk too much.
I pushed off the wall, charge flaring brighter across my skin, lighting the room in sharp, electric blue.
Owen rolled his neck once, the crack audible in the tight room, and came at me again.
Short punches rained down, each one carrying a sharp burst of charge that my skin fought to absorb. His fists blurred — left, right, left — knuckles slamming into my ribs with meaty thuds. One checked my side hard enough to make my breath catch. Then his fist caught my jaw. The impact snapped my head sideways, pain exploding white-hot across my face.
He closed in, giving me no space, turning the cramped apartment into a cage. Punches landed properly now — ribs, stomach, neck — fast and ruthless, the way someone drills until muscle memory takes over. The coffee table scraped backward as we collided with it. A lamp toppled and shattered, glass crunching under our boots.
[Create distance. He is ruthless in close range.]
I pulled him in instead. I forced his arms behind my back and clamped him against me, chest to chest. His fists still found my back, each contact bleeding charge through the shield, burning lines across my spine. But I had him. I turned, lifted him off the ground by the waist — his feet kicking once — and slammed him backward into the wall with all my weight behind it. Becky’s metallic coating shimmered and dented with the impact, plaster cracking around his shoulders.
He struggled, elbows driving into my sides. On the couch, Becky was starting to stir. Mary was pushing herself up from the floor.
"Thought this was a walkover," I said, breathing hard as he shoved off the wall.
He smiled. Dropped his shoulder left, then right. A small wooden chair caught me across the face — wood splintering against my cheekbone. Pain flared. Before I could process it he was on me again. I went down hard, him on top, the punches heavier now, electricity shocking through every strike.
[Defensive system weakening.]
A punch closed my left eye. The notification flared and vanished with the hit. He hauled me up by the collar and threw me backward. I collided with Becky, who had just gotten to her feet. We crashed together into the couch, the frame groaning under the combined weight.
Mary was up. My one open eye tracked her. Owen turned and discharged at her point-blank, a bright lance of electricity ripping through the air. She dissolved into black mist as the bolt passed through where she had been. She reformed beside him in the same heartbeat, knife flashing toward his throat. He caught her wrist mid-strike and punched her in the same motion. She dropped hard against the wall, sliding down, knife clattering to the floor.
The room was half-destroyed, overturned furniture, shattered glass, scorch marks on the walls. Owen stood in the middle of it, breathing steady, charge still crackling around his fists.
He looked at me, then at the two women trying to push themselves up.
"Last chance," he said. "Walk away."
I wiped blood from my split lip with the back of my hand and stood.
"No."
The fight wasn’t over. It had only just found its rhythm.
