Terrence Brooks Jr's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The pull hit Terrence like a hook behind the ribs. He raised his own hand and mirrored it, and the air locked between them. Behind him, boots scraped stone. One2's guards filled the tunnel mouth, dead-eyed, and sealed it. The only way back to the ship in the weeds was gone. Terrence stood trapped in the blue-lit chamber with the dead man who killed his father. He needed the gold chain around One2's neck. It held the key to the ship. He would not leave without it. One2 strained against the mirrored pull. His gold teeth flashed. His hand shook, greedy, starving. "You copy me," he said, flat. "But you don't feel it. The hunger. I feel it for both of us." "I don't want your hunger," Terrence said. "I want the chain." One2 laughed, dry as gravel. "My cousin used to want what I had too." His voice dropped, quieter, direct. "Then the turn scattered him. Now I can't feel a dap. Can't feel nothing." His eyes went to the guards at the wall. "You think they love me? They just kneel." Terrence saw it then. The pull cost One2 everything he had. The dead man poured his want into the reach and left nothing to hold his own body steady. Terrence stopped fighting the pull head-on. He stepped sideways instead, still mirroring, and let One2 lean into empty air. One2 stumbled forward. Terrence caught the gold chain with his free hand and yanked. Links snapped. The black-and-gold key swung loose, cold and heavy in his palm. One2 roared and swiped. His gold teeth cracked the stone where Terrence's head had been. Terrence dropped the mirror. The tight air broke. He bolted for the sealed tunnel mouth, key clenched tight. The guards closed shoulder to shoulder. No gap. Then a growl rolled through the chamber, low and wrong for any dog. The black hound limped from a side crack in the wall. Gold marks flickered along its ribs. Half its side was torn. It should have been dead. It threw back its head and barked, sharp and ringing. The guards turned toward the sound, drawn like water tipping. The wall of dead men broke open. "Go," the hound growled. "I don't die easy." Terrence ran through the gap. He didn't look back. The barking pulled the guards left. He went right, up the dark path, key biting into his hand. Behind him One2 screamed one word. "Mine!" Then the tunnel bent, and the scream fell away. Terrence climbed toward the blue glow of the weeds above. He had the key. He'd taken it clean. But the hound had stayed below to buy the way out, and One2 knew the ship existed now. The dead man would come for it. Terrence broke into the open air and gripped the key tight. The ship waited in the weeds. His father's ship. And for the first time, he held the way to reach it.