by J B Cantwell
I was a Prime, though. Almost. I’d only had two phasings in my life, but I was stronger than most.
He gagged and fought, but he couldn’t rip my hands away.
“You know,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’ve never really liked you.”
He moved backward, this time toward the door to the balcony.
The air was cold as he struggled to get outside. He kept moving backward, and I suddenly understood his intention. He was going to slam me like he had Hannah, right into the balcony railing.
Right over the railing.
His desire to force himself on me had been overrun by his will to survive.
Slam. Slam.
I was stronger than Hannah, but not stronger than him.
I fell to the ground, losing my grip around his neck.
He turned, picked me up from under my arms and held me against the railing, pushing, pushing. Soon, I was hanging by my hands, him using his full force to tip me over.
Then Hannah reappeared, blood pulsing through the wounds on her shoulder.
Damien gasped suddenly and lost his grip on me. I wasn’t ready for it, and only just grabbed onto the lower rungs of the railing with one hand. For a moment, I thought I was going to fall, dangling fourteen floors up, the grip of only my right hand saving me from certain death.
I managed to get high enough to get a grip with my other hand. I breathed heavily, dizzy as I looked at the street far below.
Something was dripping on my head, something warm. I looked up and saw Damien’s face, blood spurting from his mouth. He was getting closer, closer, and instinctively I knew to move. I had only just moved out of the way before he fell. He tried to grip the railing just as I had, but his hands were slick with blood, and he could barely hold on.
“I never called!” he shouted at me. “You’ll never find them!”
This was no surprise, because, really, hadn’t we known that things were going to end this way? We hadn’t known who would survive, but there hadn’t been a doubt in any of our minds that this was a suicide mission. We had known it would be him or us.
I lifted my knee and kicked him in the head.
His hand, his final connection between life and death, slipped on the railing, and he fell down to the earth and out of sight.
Chapter Eleven
Hannah offered me a hand, but I didn’t take it. She wouldn’t be strong enough to pull me up and over, not with the injuries she’d sustained.
Still, she tried.
I climbed back up onto the balcony rung by rung. My hands were covered in blood, too, but it was Valle’s. They were sticky now, not slippery. Soon, I was halfway over with one leg on either side. Hannah grabbed for my back and pulled me the rest of the way until we were both splayed out on the concrete.
I stood up and looked over the railing. Damien’s body lay motionless in the street. A few screams made it up to us. No sirens yet.
Hannah stood up beside me and peered over. She had one hand on her shoulder where he’d stabbed her.
“Wanna get out of here?” I asked.
“We probably should.”
I turned and walked back into the apartment. Blood was everywhere, made brighter by the white of the walls, the carpet. It was like some sick, fine art painting.
I knelt for a moment by Valle, his eyes open wide, vacant, the blinking quieted. I closed his lids with my hand.
He had been a good man, a flawed man, but he wasn’t alone in that. He’d had a heart of gold.
I wished we could take him with us, to give his dead body the time and attention it deserved, because I knew all that awaited him was a body bag and a morgue.
As I stood up and started toward the door, I wondered how we would escape this crime.
Part of me didn’t care anymore, though. We’d done so much in the past weeks to make things better for this city, for the world. Including taking Damien out of it.
I stepped into the elevator not knowing what would be awaiting us below. Hannah joined me without comment, and the doors closed.
“You sure you want to come with me? This could be it for us.”
She took one tattooed hand and brushed back hair from her sweaty face.
“I know. But I don’t care anymore. I did what I came here to do.”
I pressed the button for the lobby, and the car started to move. We rode it silently down to the first level. It seemed like escape wasn’t on either of our minds, but my heart leapt when I realized the lobby was empty. I took a tentative step out of the elevator and looked around.
Nobody.
But there was also no other exit but the front. Somewhere in the distance now, a siren could be heard. It wouldn’t be long.
“Come on,” I said to Hannah and grabbed her good arm. “We might still have a chance.”
She laughed as I dragged her along.
“Have you seen us?” she asked as we reached the front doors.
But I didn’t care how unlikely it was.
I paused before opening the door. A small group of people were huddled around Damien’s body, including the two guards who had been in charge of the lobby. I stepped outside, and one of them looked up at me. First, he wore a look of surprise, no doubt because two blood-soaked girls had just stumbled out of his building.
But he paused, his eyes meeting mine.
He understood, somehow, what had happened, and he nodded.
A free pass.
He had surely known what sort of man Damien Ross had been.
So, we were allowed to leave that crime scene, to go along our merry way.
Down the street half a block was Albert and his waiting car.
I walked up to him, staring straight into his eyes. He didn’t move an inch.
“You ready to go home, Miss Page?”
“Yes, Albert. Very much so.”
He opened the door, and I climbed inside.
The car ride was a blur. My head was pounding from where I’d hit it on the stair in Damien’s apartment. I lay on my side, trying to keep pressure off of it.
Hannah was in worse shape, blood seeping out of her shoulder, staining her clothing. She was sobbing, suddenly emotional about all that had just transpired. It must have been some sort of shock from fighting and then killing her tormentor. I wondered what exactly he’d done to her during all those weeks he’d held her captive.
But those were her demons to hold as close to her chest as she dared. And nothing she could’ve said would’ve changed the fact that killing Damien was a good thing. A right thing.
I stripped off my outer layer, a sweater, and wrapped it around her shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t last long, though, before dizziness overtook me again. I fell back to the seat, head pounding.
It didn’t take long for Albert to get us home. Soon he was pulling up beside my apartment building.
“Do you need assistance?” he asked. “Or can you make it upstairs on your own?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
I was growing more confused, and I had a vague idea that maybe I had a concussion. Time was moving in awkward, jerking motions. One minute, it felt like things were moving at warp speed. The next, that everything was is slow motion.
The next thing I knew, I was in Albert’s arms at my own front door.
“You have your retinal scanner,” he said. “Can you?”
Hannah stepped in front of us and rang the bell.
Quiet footsteps, the pause for someone to look into the lobby, and then the door was open.
Time warped again, and I woke up on my bed, lying on my side, Melanie holding an ice pack to the back of my head.
“Hannah?” I asked.
“She’s in the other bedroom. Jay’s taking care of her.”
I released a breath I’d been holding for what felt like days.
“Albert?”
“He went down to bribe the kid watching the door.”
“Good. That’s good.”
/> I rolled over until I was on all fours.
“You should stay still,” Melanie said, pulling on my shoulder. “It’s what Jay told me to make you do.”
I grabbed for the ice pack behind my head and held it there as I sat up.
“Riley, don’t be an idiot,” she said.
I laughed, but laughing hurt. I stood up and took a few tentative steps toward the bedroom door.
“Leave me be,” I said. “I’m just going to the couch.”
“Well, at least let me help you,” she said. She walked up behind me and wrapped my arm around her neck, walking with me side by side.
There was nobody in the living room when we got there.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. “They still eating?”
Of course not.
“They’re all gone,” she said. “Only Jay stayed behind. I told him to leave, but he refused. He knew better than the rest of us that we might be receiving injuries. Of course, few of us thought you’d make it back at all.”
“Yeah, I guess me, too.”
Now that I thought about it, I’d felt certain I would take my last breaths tonight. I had known that the possibility of releasing the Volunteers under Damien’s command was unlikely, and I had gone anyway.
Why?
I was tired. Though, no more tired now than I had been before.
Tired of waiting. Losing. Managing my fear.
But this kind of fear couldn’t be managed. Eventually, it would bubble up to the surface, and then what would I do? I had felt certain that I would die. But no, it was only in the end that my body had decided without me, forcing the will to live into my consciousness.
I slumped down into the cushions of the sofa.
“Does Jay have anything?” I asked. “For pain?”
“I think you already have some, actually.”
She disappeared, heading into the other room to search. Time slowed down again, and I felt my head throb with each beat of my heart. I rolled over onto my stomach, waiting, waiting for it to subside.
Somewhere in there, Melanie arrived again, rolling me on my side and putting two pills into my mouth. A straw materialized, and I gulped at the water. Then, I fell back to the soft cushions. From behind me, I heard the soft crinkling of the ice pack, then felt the gentle replacement of its weight on my head.
Gradually, the darkness came. I felt groggy, unable to speak, grateful that the feeling that was overtaking me was complete. No dreams would disturb me tonight. But that didn’t seem to matter, because the last images I held in my mind were not of something sweet. Instead I saw Valle. Laughing. Drunk. Serious. Murdered.
And it was the blank eyes of my friend, my partner, that followed me, finally, into sleep.
“Should we wake her?” I heard someone whisper. Female.
The bright light of morning shone through the windows, and I squinted my eyes.
“No, she should sleep. Too much stimulation would not be good for her brain right now. She needs time to heal.”
Jay.
“Where’s—” I tried.
Had the entire thing been a dream?
“Hannah?” I asked.
I felt a hand check my forehead, then the weight of another body sitting down next to me on the sofa.
“Hannah will be fine,” Jay said quietly. “You need to sleep now.”
I noticed that the pounding in my head was significantly less than it had been the night before. But still present.
So it had really happened.
Tears of relief and frustration burned my eyes. The drugs weighed me down, but I tried to sit up, anyway.
“No, dear,” Jay said, one hand on my shoulder, trying to push me back down.
“Get off,” I complained. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Finally, he relented, and instead of pushing me down, he gingerly helped me up. The ice pack fell, then reappeared behind my head. I turned to see who it was behind me, but every movement hurt, even through the haze of the medicine.
“What happened?” I asked. Though I already knew. I just needed to double check. “Valle?”
“Honey, Valle is dead.” It was Melanie who appeared before me now.
Yes. Dead.
“The Guard?”
“No one has shown up here at all. Albert bribed the kid downstairs, but I haven’t even seen anybody in the street. I think you might have gotten away with it.”
“Oh.”
The idea or torture, misery, death was still present in my mind. Everything that had happened had been real.
“I want to go see Hannah,” I said.
“No, that’s not a good idea,” Jay said. “You’re not able to move right now. You need to stay put.”
I struggled and tried to get up onto my feet, but Jay pushed me gently back onto the sofa.
“Let’s bring her out,” Melanie said.
They were gone. I blinked. It was time playing with me again. Was the sun higher up in the sky than it had been when they’d been here right next to me?
Maybe they’d left us. Left me. The ice pack had fallen from my head and onto my neck, and while still cool, it was no longer cold.
I sat up from where I’d been slumping. A small notecard sat on the table.
Back soon. -Mel
Two pills lay on the coffee table before me, a glass of water at the ready. I leaned over and picked up the pills, gulping them down with the water, then downing the whole glass.
My chest hurt, and I tried to remember if I’d sustained an injury there. It took me a few moments before I understood where the pain was coming from.
Grief.
I didn’t cry, though. I just sat with it, dull and all encompassing.
Who was left?
I couldn’t answer this simple question. I wondered if Hannah was still in the bedroom.
Valle was dead. Mom was dead. Chambers? Alex? How far had Damien taken things before we’d hurled him off the balcony?
A bell rang, and I frowned, looking around. I knew that if I moved, I would certainly be reprimanded for it.
It rang again, and this time I recognized it as the doorbell.
Someone was in the hall, waiting. I crawled from the sofa, first sitting up, then standing. The rush of blood to my head was unexpected, and I nearly fell, but the wall caught me, and I fought to stay upright. I inched my way closer to the door.
“Hello?” a voice came. Whose?
I didn’t want to speak; somehow I knew that would bring nothing but more pain. But I made it to the door in one piece. I looked through the peephole, and I saw someone, but I couldn’t place from where.
I looked around the apartment, which swam in my vision.
Just me.
I unlocked the deadbolt and, holding tightly to the handle, opened the door.
The figure before me was enormous, bigger than any Prime I’d ever seen. I tried to look up into his eyes, but it took several attempts for me to realize that it wasn’t just any Prime standing in front of me.
It was Alex.
“You must be Audrey,” he said.
He held out his hand to shake mine. I looked down at it, then back up to his face.
Could it be? Would it be so simple? Did Damien really let them all go?
“Miss, you don’t look so good. Here, let me help you.”
He picked me up like a small child and walked into the room, laying me gently back onto the sofa. He arranged the pillows so that I was upright enough to speak with him.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I frowned.
“I—I fell. Bad bruise.”
“Ah. Can I get you anything? Maybe some ice?”
“No … thanks …”
He sat down on the loveseat opposite me, taking up the entire thing with his massive body.
Alive, then. He was alive.
Then why did I feel so odd? The concussion. No, that wasn’t it.
He doesn’t recognize me.
After all
these weeks, I had figured that he, of anybody, would recognize me for who I was, that he’d be able to look beyond my exterior self and see that it was me, Riley, sitting across from him.
“I’ve been sent by the Champions,” he said. “I’ve been told that you’re my contact. I’m here to help you in the pursuit of Riley Taylor.”
What?
I sat there, confused. Was it a trick of my mind? Part of the concussion?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t know, then? Damien told me this might happen.”
Damien. Another gift-wrapped package sent to me, this one from beyond the grave.
“Well, he told me to search you out. Audrey Page, right?”
I nodded, still confused.
“Sorry,” I said, motioning to my head. “I’m still a little confused from when I fell.”
“Oh, well, don’t worry about that. Since you haven’t heard from Damien directly, I can fill you in, though the job is relatively simple. You and I are to find Riley Taylor and take her down.”
My breath caught.
“Take her down?”
“Yes, Miss Page.”
“When? How?”
“I suppose that is up to us to determine. Once you’re feeling better, I can help us get started. I’m told that you know her, is that correct?”
Fear.
Fake it.
Horror.
Please, nobody come to the door.
“I—I used to know her,” I said, trying hard to keep breathing.
“Good, that’s good. If you knew her, that’s an excellent place for us to start. You’ll know her habits, what she likes and doesn’t like. Do you know where she is now?”
Honestly, no.
“No. I haven’t … spoken to Riley in a long time.”
“I see. Well, an old friend of hers is the best we can hope for in this pursuit.”
“Who … who are you again?”
It was a question I needed to ask. A question that he would surely be expecting.
He leaned over the coffee table and stretched out his hand for me to shake.
“Daniel,” he said. “Daniel Foster.”
Breathing ceased.
