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The pane of dimensional energy screams against his talons as he rips it apart. The kid stares at him through the jagged tear, a deer in the headlights. Maybe that’s not the right analogy.
He knows what this must look like from the outside, to the audience behind him, but there’s no time to care. Seconds before the machine’s sequence completes and the kid slips through his fingers again, and the fruitless chase continues in another dimension. Can’t let him get away. Can’t let him doom his universe, maybe the whole multiverse. One life against billions, explained to him in no uncertain terms, and the selfish brat chose the one. Who does he think he is? Miguel’s blood boils.
This is it. Last chance. He gasps in a breath, wrenches his hands apart—and the pane flickers, falters, and Miguel crashes through, slamming the kid against the inner wall of the multicolored energy cocoon.
It’s instinct. They’re already out, scraping his lip as he snarls.
He sinks his fangs into Miles’s neck and lets the venom flow. One second, two—then the kid starts to struggle, and Miguel jerks back. Miles looks up, desperate, eyes blown wide and terrified.
“I can’t—why can’t I…” The kid’s arms stiffen where they’re pressed uselessly against Miguel’s chest. The venom is pumping through his veins now, eating away his strength like acid.
“You’ll be okay,” Miguel tells Miles. “Just breathe.” Already his anger is draining out of him, leaving behind the usual emptiness. No point in wasting the emotional energy. It’s done. One more threat to the multiverse subdued. Check it off the neverending list.
Miles makes a strangled noise, half sob, half whimper, and tries to squirm out of Miguel’s grip, but his rigid limbs betray him. The kid yells something, but it’s woozy and distorted and his throat catches on the last word. It’s probably “Let me go.” A little late for that, now.
“Can’t do that,” Miguel says. He forces his fangs away. Too hard to talk around them. “I don’t have a choice. Wish I did.”
Miles tries to talk again, but the venom’s finished its work. His lips twitch and his eyes dart frantically in their sockets. That’s more than most can manage. Kid’s a fighter, Miguel will give him that much. Things wouldn’t have gone this bad if he wasn’t.
Around them, the web of energy sparks and dissolves—Margo must have finally killed the machine, or maybe Lyla—and Miguel tightens his grip before Miles can topple backwards off the platform. (Talons sheathed, of course. He’s not a monster.) He hoists the kid up into his arms. It’s like carrying a corpse.
He leaps the gap back to the lab floor awkwardly. Almost stumbles as he lands, but doesn’t drop his burden.
He held a different kid like this, once. She was scared, too.
No time to dwell. The others are staring at him. He surveys their faces: shock, sadness, stoicism. The blank white eyes of the Spiders crowding silently behind them.
It doesn’t matter. He did what he had to. They don’t have to like it. He doesn’t have to like it. That’s just the job.
“What did you do to him?” Gwen’s voice shakes with rage and fear. “Is he—?”
“I’m not a monster, Gwen,” Miguel says. It sounds unconvincing even to himself. “It’s temporary. Few hours and he’ll be fine.”
Naturally, this doesn’t placate her.
“This is wrong. You need to put him down. Now. Get away from him!” She moves as if to charge at Miguel, but Jessica blocks her path with a firm forearm.
“Don’t, Gwen.” Jess doesn’t even turn her head to address her protégé. She stares at Miguel instead, jaw set and eyes hard. She’s not happy, but she’s with him. Good.
Gwen shoves Jess’s arm away and surveys the room with a fiery gaze. “This is crazy! How are all of you just going along with this?”
“Okay,” Peter cuts in. “Gwen, Miguel, let’s all stay calm and talk about this for a second.” One of his hands cups protectively around his baby where she’s still strapped to his chest. Right, because Peter’s such a model parent. He didn’t just drag his infant child on a chase into the upper atmosphere on the exterior of a high-speed moon transport. It’s hard to explain even to himself why Miguel keeps this idiot around.
“Gwen,” Peter continues, “I know Miles is your friend, and I’m not thrilled about it either, but you know what could happen if he saves his dad. And Miguel, man, I love you, but you really can’t go around biting kids! It’s not a good look.”
“Shut up, Peter,” Jess and Gwen say simultaneously, with varying levels of fury.
“Uh huh, yep, good talk,” Peter says meekly. Useless.
“I’m taking him to a secure room before this wears off,” Miguel announces. He’s looking out at the throng of Spiders, so he can’t see the terror in Miles’s eyes anymore. But the feel of the kid’s rigid body against Miguel’s chest, his arms, his fingertips—beneath his suit, his flesh crawls.
It’s harmless, his venom. No lasting side effects. He’s tested it extensively, obviously. Miles will be fine. Scared, maybe. Hate Miguel forever, probably. But being liked isn’t Miguel’s job, and at least Miles will be alive to hate him, instead of glitched into nothingness along with the rest of his sorry dimension.
The pit in his stomach refuses to be logicked away.
He starts forward, and no one stops him.
Gwen says, ugly, like it’s being ripped out of her, “You’re sick, you know that? This whole place is.”
“Then go home, Gwen,” Miguel says. He’s too tired to be angry. “No one’s keeping you here. The machine’s right there.”
He passes Gwen and Jess and Peter. The rest of the gathered Spiders part wordlessly before him. Like Moses and the Red Sea. Yeah, right. The only Promised Land Miguel ever found, he destroyed.
He won’t let it happen again.