by G. O. Grason
“Thompson,” is all Christine told Baggins.
She rifled her car into oncoming traffic for his hospital, knowing it was going to end up one way or the other. That’s how it always was. That’s how it would always be.
Chapter 7
Christine couldn’t believe her eyes. Parts of the hospital were on fire as she pulled up to it. In the circular patient drop off area were bodies of policemen, rioters, and civilians alike. With pistol ready, she made her way to the front doors. She carefully stepped over the bodies, checking on the ones who showed some movement. She stopped at one officer on his back, his eyes pointed up at the sky. Christine slid her hand underneath his neck and listened.
“We tried,” the officer said. “There was too many.”
“Too many of who?” Christine asked softly.
“Not the rioters, not the looters, it was the one’s behind them…the one’s…we couldn’t see. It’s like we couldn’t see them but, they were there all along.”
“What did they look like? Where did they go?” Christine asked desperately.
“They wore the same faces, the same look, acted all in the same way. They were…like…”
The officer’s eyes faded, dipped, and rolled in their sockets.
“Hang on!” Christine shouted.
“They were one but separate, like a killing machine, with one…objective…power within destruction.”
The officers head went limp. A surge of people pushed from the street. There was nothing Christine could do but leave the wounded officer and run into the building.
She took the stairs. As she sprinted up and up, her throat burning from the smoke, she checked her phone. A text had just come in. Below, Christine heard the slap of a door against stone then a flood of footsteps. A mob was taking the building. Soon, everything around her would be in rubble. Why did she think this? That’s exactly what they wanted.
I’m on the 12th floor in the back room. There should be a guard dressed in black at my door. I trust him but I need you. Don’t make fun of me for saying that, ok?
Christine couldn’t help but smile.
She skipped step after step, every muscle in her body was on fire as her heart pounded harder and harder. Her eyes watered, her lungs burned, yet all the agony never overtook the will to get to Thompson to ensure that he was safe. Entering on to the 12th floor through the stairwell door, Christine found herself in dark, empty hallway. A phone rang at a receptionist’s desk three times then went dead. The fluorescent white lights that stretched like a snake along ceiling above her flickered dimly as she walked to the back room where there was one TV glowing. With nothing but herself and her senses, Christine felt along the wall until she heard Thompson’s voice.
“Christine…” Thompson murmured. “Is that you?”
“Yes…” Christine whispered, edging closer to his voice. “Is that you Thompson?” Where are you?
“Yes, it’s me ” Thompson’s voice said. His voice sounded like it was getting thinner. “I’m over here.”
Christine pushed through the darkness. Again, down the hall, a phone rang. It echoed against the linoleum and plaster. Then an elevator door dinged, slid open, but no footsteps. The absence of an echo was more haunting than if there were some. Christine pressed against the wall as she moved closer to Thompson’s pleading voice - the only source of their joined reality.
“Tell me where you are,” Christine pleaded.
“I’m here.”
She rolled her shoulder over the edge of the doorframe as she stepped into the room. She looked around at shadows and darkness, at buzzing lights and sounds. Finally, Christine rested her eyes on Thompson. He was flat on his back, his face glistening with some kind of oil or ointment.
“So predictable.” She heard a voice say
Christine turned and caught an arm flying toward her. Christine jammed her knee up and brought the attacker up and over herself. He landed with a hard smack on the ground. Christine popped up and readied herself, completely enveloped in the darkness. The only light visible was the heart monitor Thompson was attached to and the stars mixing with the glowing flames outside the window. Even amidst the fight, Christine felt a great relief that Thompson was ok.
“We all knew you would show up,” the shadowy fighter hissed. “He said you were predictable.”
“Did he predict me killing you?” Christine flicked a knife from behind her back and stepped back, melting into the darkness.
“Where are you!” the fighter shouted, taken off guard. He wasn’t expecting Christine to back off from a fight. In truth, this was the last thing she was doing.
Stealth, Christine’s father Apollo told her. Is the one thing an enemy can’t fight against. If they don’t know you’re there, you’re not there, leaving you free to kill however you please.
Christine slinked around to the other connected room and watched as the thug tried to secure their surroundings, never leaving Thompson’s side.
“You sure you want to leave your precious Thompson with me?” the fighter threatened. “I have orders to kill him but I want to make sure you watch while I do it.”
Christine said nothing. She was trained that when the coyotes yapped and chattered it was to keep predators away. Apollo told her this was a tactic based in fear. She could smell the terror in the assassin. They knew they were in over their head and they weren’t ready.
“Show yourself bitch,” he cajoled. “You can’t lurk in the shadows like a two dollar whore forever.”
Christine moved through the darkest corners of the room, gliding over the tile as if it were made of ice. She flicked the knife open and passed it through the assassins femoral artery. He screamed in pain, toppling to the floor. He pointed his gun wildly around the room. Christine, again was gone. He pushed himself up against the wall, above him was a window overlooking the city he was promised would one day would be theirs.
“It’s sad to see someone of fabricated importance discover they were nothing but a pawn,” Christine whispered.
The assassin, slowly bleeding out, couldn’t help but laugh.
“We’re all pawns here,” they gurgled.
A single round from Christine’s Glock caught the assassin in the collar bone. The bullet snapped the fragile thing in two. The assassin, trained in the art of pain, barely let out a grunt so as not to give up his position.
“You can scream,” Christine said. “I see you, even if you don’t see me.”
“You don’t see shit!” the assassin groaned.
Another shot, this one in the other collar bone. They both heard the snap of the bone. Christine could feel them kicking in pain on the ground; she felt the vibration underneath the soles of her feet. A part of her reveled in their pain; in her victory. Another part of Christine told her there would never be an end to the violence. Pain the feeling told her, will always be there, and fighting it so others never feel it is a game that can never be won.
“Why?” Christine whispered under her breath, trying to reach the voice that spoke to her.
The voice, did not respond.
“Christine…” muttered Thompson.
The assassin, remembering his assignment, jumped to his feet and lunged for Thompson.
“One more death before mine!” he screamed.
Christine fired, plugging him six times in the chest. His body hurled through the window, crashing it into a million pieces. Christine, ran to Thompson, not bothering to look out the window. Let them die alone, she thought. Let them die in regret, never satisfaction.
“When am I going to save you?” Thompson joked. “You keep showing up and I’m just here on my back, useless and in need.”
“You’re not useless,” Christine said taking Thompson’s hand. “Remember when you came in from the riots and saved me?”
“Oh yeah…” Thompson smiled. “That was pretty good.”
“And when you helped me avoid getting blown up by that bomb?”
“Right, right,” Thompson n
odded playfully. “That could have been bad.”
Christine knelt down to get eye to eye with Thompson. She studied the sweet lines of his face, studying the physical pain in his eyes slowly edge away like a tide pulling back into the ocean when he saw her face. She relieved him. Christine brought him comfort where there was only uncertainty in a world of good versus evil. Christine watched the rigid lines of his forehead soften, his breath drops into his chest, Thompson’s entire being fall in synch with itself rather than the responsibilities of the outside world. For the first time, Thompson and Christine were with each other void of trouble, catastrophe, or interruption.
“I’ve always…” Thompson began to say.
“Me too,” Christine said, stopping him with a kiss.
There were no words or accolades shared as they pressed themselves against each other. Christine, careful not to hurt Thompson, bit his skin and kissed every part of him. Thompson held Christine’s shivering body tight. Something in her, be it from the intimacy or the vulnerability or both, had changed her completely. Love, when true, was an expression of complete trust, something Christine realized she had never shared with someone else. It felt hot and right like an iron or the sun, but it also felt fleeting, as if that love could disappear in a second. Christine gripped onto Thompson’s arms as she mounted him, pressing her lips onto his.
“I’m here,” Thompson managed to say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t let me go,” Christine begged. “Please…please.”
Thompson took Christine’s face in his hands. She leaned into them feeling their strength. They wanted nothing from her and she owed them nothing. All they desired was her and her comfort, her happiness, her joy. Christine had never felt that kind of unrequited love in her entire life. For once, Christine was rid of her civic responsibility, left with the possibility of just being her with him, Christine with Thompson; what she always wanted.
“You sure you’re ok with me laying on the bed like this with you?” Christine asked.
“So we hook up and now all of a sudden you’re all motherly and shit?” Thompson laughed.
Christine pushed her finger into Thompson’s bandage. He squirmed and groaned, trying to get away. They locked eyes, deep in challenge. As always, Thompson relented. It would always be that way, they hoped.
“Alright!” Thompson shouted, pushing Christine away playfully. “You got me, you got me. You’re the tough one.” He kissed her softly, tucking his hand behind Christine’s neck. She leaned into his embrace, unafraid. “We’ve always known that.”
“I’d rather not think about the past anymore,” Christine admitted. “There’s nothing for me there.”
Thompson took out a single bullet from his hospital gown. In his eyes, however much he wanted to believe Christine’s words, he knew they could never be true. He handed the bullet to Christine.
“Right now the past is close behind,” Thompson said. “And you have to meet it.”
Christine took the bullet. “What the hell is this?”
“Open it,” Thompson said.
She twisted the top off and pulled a small note from inside the shell.
I am here, by the mountain, at the rivers bend, where all this started. Where it will all end.
Christine furled the note tight into her hand and looked at Thompson.
He took her hand.
Time, in a succinct moment, held the past, the present, and a hopeful future.
“Do you need me?” Thompson asked.
Christine held Thompson’s hand, wanting nothing more than to have him close to her. She knew she couldn’t ask him to do that. This was her destiny.
“No,” Christine said. “He wants me. My father was never someone that didn’t get what they wanted. He’d kill you before he killed me.”
Christine bent down and kissed Thompson softly on the lips. She tasted his relief on the edges of his mouth. In their way, they both knew this is what they wanted. They also understood, life was not going to just give them what they wanted. Life was never that way. They would have to fight for it.
“Will we be…” Thompson began to say, but stopped himself thinking of the alternative.
“We will,” Christine assured him. “I promise.”
Chapter 8
Thompson promised not to tell Baggins or anyone else where Christine was going. If there was any kind of backup or show of force that wasn’t Christine, she knew her father would escape. The only way to end the killings of the major heads of New York and get the chaos out of the street was through Apollo. For every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction. There was no getting around it. Christine understood this and of course Apollo did: he was the one that taught her.
All she packed was her Glock, a knife, and a small composite bow with ten arrows. Christine had no idea what kind of fight Apollo was going to put up, but if she knew him at all, the less complicated the better. She felt the weight of the knife, moved it back and forth between her hands, and envisioned the blade entering Apollo. Then, she picked up her Glock 17. She checked the mag, the slide, and quickly took a fighting stance in multiple directions.
One day you will have to kill your masters, Apollo told Christine the day after he had allowed her to fall from the mountain.
Like you? Asked Christine.
Maybe.
“You’ve wanted this all along,” Christine murmured to herself starting up her unmarked car. “Since the day you started training me, you knew it would come to this.”
It was a three-hour drive to the mountains from New York City. Christine let the cool wind and the glow of the stars above comfort her for what was soon to happen. She focused on the road, the yellow reflection of the median, and the shadows cast by the thousands of trees surrounding her. Had she ever known Apollo as a father rather than a trainer of death and violence? She couldn’t recall. Regret filled her heart, then anger that Apollo never allowed himself to be that for her. How different everything would have been, Christine thought. But then, she would have never been put on the path of good she was on. She would never have become a policewoman, then a detective, or worked under the leadership of Lieutenant Baggins and she would have never met Brian Thompson.
A warmth overtook her heart. It had been so long since she felt the comfort of love. Christine hoped that it would stay. As she pulled up into the mountain path, she prayed for the first time, to who? she didn’t really know, but she prayed that the feeling would stay. Finally, Christine had something to look forward to. The heart requires that.
As dawn arrived, Christine pulled up to the edge of the river. She gazed at the mountain, awash in yellow orange sunlight. Nothing had changed, not the rock face or the plants around it or the sound of the rushing river below. Nothing had changed, only she had. Christine imagined her younger self running along the banks of the river so full of trust for Apollo. She envisioned herself plummeting down to the rapids, her father looking down on her, not caring whether she lived or died but if she survived another one of his tests.
“Where are you hiding…” Christine asked herself popping the trunk of her car. She fit her knife on her side and was about to fit the bow on her back when an arrow stabbed through the metal. “Shit!” Christine jumped back and hit the floor.
A booming laugher echoed over the land. Christine, with her face pressed to the dirt, tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. She didn’t see him in the trees or in the mountains or near the cabin. It was as if Apollo was the wind, moving invisibly through the air, taunting her. The laughter escalated into a manic, power hungry roar then suddenly, stopped.
“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint,” Apollo boomed.
Another arrow plunked in the car. Then another and another. They were never ending.
“Come out Christine,” Apollo beckoned. “I want to see my little girl. It’s been so long. I want to see what I’ve been missing. I want to see my creation.”
Christine had two options: stay down and try and
escape into the trees behind her or face him.
There is no use in running what you will face tomorrow, Apollo once told her.
“How am I supposed to trust you after all you’ve done to me?” Christine shouted as loud as she could.
“You’ve grown,” Apollo said genuinely struck by her voice. “I’ve watched you on TV and listened to your interviews but, hearing you in person, I can feel all that pain in you.”
Christine sprang to her feet and fired three arrows in the direction of Apollo’s voice. They soared into the arms of the trees, but she was already repositioning herself along the bank of the river. Christine listened to something crash to the ground and then feet running on top of dead leaves. She listened to the panting of a tired man, a man who only knew chaos and never love; a man that was more comfortable with death than life.
“I didn’t train you to shoot like that,” Apollo laughed. “Looks like the academy has trained you well. Bravo.”
“You’re still talking,” Christine shouted, her voice drowned out by the rushing river. “So I’m not that great.”
She spotted him hiding behind a tree near the trail to the cabin. There was no mistaking his bulky frame, his silver hair, and his broad shoulders tight from gripping the bow.
“You were always humble…” Three more arrows whizzed over Christine’s head. “Not sure who taught you to be like that. Maybe your mother.”
Rage surged through Christine. She sprung to her feet and landed five shots on the trunk of the tree as she pressed Apollo. As she was about to fire her second to last arrow, Apollo sprang forward and fired an arrow, grazing Christine’s pulling arm. Her screams sent the small birds in the trees fleeing, her agony echoing up and over the mountains. Christine struggled to fire an arrow to back Apollo off, but he easily dodged it as it lazily whizzed by him. She staggered back to the banks of the river, drawing her knife.
