by Olah, Jeff
But as a silhouetted figure appeared in the open space at the bottom of the stairwell, the sound abruptly came to an end.
“Hello?” The voice was low, not much above a whisper. Meant only for Owen. The shadowed figure stayed just inside the threshold and perfectly out of view.
Owen’s pulse began to beat in his temple, but he didn’t respond.
“Hello, I know you’re out there. You’ve been watching me for the last week.”
It was a male’s voice. Not much older than Lucas if he had to guess. Maybe early twenties.
Owen fought the urge to speak, he wanted to see how far the young man was willing to go before either coming out and giving up or turning and running. He preferred the first option, but didn’t want to reveal his own hand just yet.
“I know you’ve been coming out here and have been watching me.” The young man’s voice seemed to waver. “But … I’ve been watching you too.”
Owen’s face felt warm. His finger began to tighten around the trigger guard, and although the temperature would have normally precluded it, a single bead of sweat began to form above his right eyebrow.
Again leaning into the wall, Owen watched the entrance to the stairs, but pulled back his weapon. He made sure to match the volume of the man’s voice. “Who the hell are you?”
There were a set of eyes, and then a face. Still partially shadowed, but vaguely familiar. The young man stepped halfway out into the morning air, holding a rifle tight against his right side. “Don’t shoot. I’m not here to hurt you or your family.”
Owen choked down his initial response. It would have either taken the conversation in a completely unproductive direction or ended it all together. If the young man was to be believed, he had been watching Owen just as long as Owen had been watching him. There had to be a reason. If he had wanted to hurt Owen or his family he would have, and probably long before today.
But there was something else, something in the man’s voice that was different. Again familiar, but also with an edge to it. Like he had a history with Owen and his friends. “My name is Thomas … and I’m here to help you and your friends.”
As the young man stepped out away from the door to the garage and into the light of day, Owen’s heart felt like it missed a beat. It came to him all at once, even before he could make sense of what it meant. He remembered the man’s face, his massive presence, and how his best friend had ended up face-down in a pool of his own blood in the middle of that intersection.
Owen brought his right hand up below the Glock, slipped his left index finger over the trigger, and aimed for the younger man’s chest. “I’m going to give you exactly three seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
The young man slowly began to shake his head and bent at the waist. He laid his rifle on the ground and held his hands up at his sides. “I know you probably remember me and what those other men did to you and your—”
There was a crack that echoed from somewhere close. A single shot that took the tall young man from his feet and threw him to the pavement in a twisted heap.
Owen instinctively flinched and pulled himself in behind the concrete post only a fraction of a second before two more shots sounded from beyond the four-level parking garage and exploded into the wall eighteen inches away.
The area quickly fell back into silence, but only for a few seconds. Another man’s voice—one he didn’t recognize—came from the adjoining lot. He was shouting. “FINISH THE KID AND THEN TAKE THE GARAGE. WE’LL COME BACK FOR THE OTHERS!”
93
Owen tucked his back tight against the post. For the moment, he had the upper hand. They would have to cross the lot—out in the open—reach the stairs, and then somehow climb the two flights. They’d have to go through him to get to his family, and today that wasn’t going to be an option.
Unless.
“Oh no.”
There was also the chance that they’d decide he wasn’t worth the trouble and circle back around to the front of the garage. Harper might still be at the gates, and now that shots had been fired, maybe even out in the street, along with his family and his friends.
Before the thought had time to manifest, he was running. In a dead sprint within five seconds, he leapt the short concrete wall at the center of the garage and was descending the stairs two at a time when he heard it.
The short quick barks, three at a time, were unmistakable. Owen took the last four steps, moved out of the stairwell, and turned toward the building he’d called home for the last two months. The gate now sat open and Zeus, in full gallop, was mostly a blur.
“NOOOOO!”
Travis appeared a few seconds later, followed closely by Lucas. They both carried handguns and Travis had a semi-automatic rifle hanging from his left shoulder. He waved with his right hand, motioning back toward the parking structure. “GET BACK OWEN, GET BACK INSIDE.”
On instinct alone, Owen turned to look back at the garage and the long city block that ran the length of the four-story concrete structure. Three men exited the ramp from the garage, each with a weapon trained on him. The last man to walk out into the street and join the others was dragging the tall young stranger who had identified himself as Thomas.
Instead of turning and ducking back into the stairwell, Owen offered Travis a quick nod, turned to face the man, and raised his Glock. The trio slowed their pace, but continued forward, the man on the right tossing Thomas out into the middle of the street.
With Zeus now tucked beside his left leg, and Travis and Lucas positioned on the opposite side of the street, Owen looked quickly over his shoulder and then back at the men. “Whatever it is you think you know, you’re wrong. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but it isn’t here, and it isn’t with us.”
The three men stopped fifty feet from Owen. The one dragging Thomas out of the garage and along the street moved the end of his weapon just slightly away from Owen, now eyeing Zeus. He wore dark colored jeans, a tan jacket, and a black Yankees cap. “What’s your dog’s name?”
Owen shook his head. “Last chance.”
The man in the black ball cap used the end of his pistol to motion back toward the gates Travis and Lucas had just exited. “You think you and your wife and your children are safe behind those gates, you think …”
As the man continued to rattle off what Owen imagined was building toward some sort of poorly articulated threat, he turned toward the wall over his left shoulder, found Kevin perched behind his rifle, and gave a quick nod.
Before Owen could turn back, there was a crack that echoed across the street, through the stairwell, and into the garage. The man in the dark jeans was thrown backward, his ball cap suspended in the air for a brief second. He hit the asphalt, slid on his side into the curb, and the right side of his head poured blood into the gutter.
He curled up his nose, reminded himself to breathe, and fought to keep the Glock steady in his left hand. Owen hated this—it went against everything he typically stood for—but he was also done giving people the benefit of the doubt. If it meant his family would survive, he was willing to do just about anything.
Including what came next.
The men standing on either side of Thomas quickly turned to one another, tossed their weapons into the street, and held their hands out at their sides. The one on the right, closer to the man with a hole in his head, looked back toward the wall, and then to Owen. He was breathing hard and fast. “Please … we aren’t …”
The second man wore a green aviator jacket and black combat boots. He scoffed at his friend, his voice coming out low and gravely. He sounded rattled, but not scared. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Owen turned his weapon from the downed man to the man in the green jacket. He started forward, his eyes straight ahead. “Take two steps back, get down on your knees, and cross your ankles.”
The first man had already moved back and was beginning to get to his knees. However, the man in the green aviator jacket was moving
a bit slower, almost as if he hadn’t heard Owen’s simple instructions.
“You’re not gonna want to test me.”
The man in the green jacket began to shake his head. “You have no idea how bad this day is going to end for you and your family.”
Owen continued forward, pausing near Thomas, who was now rolled onto his side in the fetal position, moaning quietly. “Hey.”
The younger man looked up at Owen, he was bleeding from his left hip. “Uh … I’m not—”
Owen cut him short. He kept his eyes on the man in the green jacket but spoke only to the injured young man. “Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Can you move?”
“Yeah?”
“Okay Thomas, get yourself up, and go sit on the sidewalk.”
“Uh, alright?” The tall young man who’d identified himself as Thomas pushed away from the asphalt, slowly got to his knees, and winced as he finally stood.
Owen turned back to the man in the green jacket, who’d finally started to move to his knees. He gestured toward the man lying motionless in the gutter, and with his heart racing in his chest, counted to five in his head before continuing.
“That’s not on us, that’s on you. That’s on you and your friends. All of this.”
The man in the green jacket opened his mouth like he was going to speak, but then just looked at the ground in front of him and shook his head.
Owen stepped closer, now only a few feet separating them. “You chose to come out here, you chose to do this.”
The man lifted his head, now staring up at Owen. “You can do whatever you want to me.” He looked to the left. “And to him. But I’m telling you, it’s not going to matter. You and your family, your friends, you’re already dead.”
There was a long moment where the street and the area around fell into silence. All eyes now focused on Owen as he turned back toward the gates and confirmed that his wife and his children weren’t present.
“That actually helps.”
Green jacket guy tilted his head and cut his eyes at Owen. “Excuse me?”
Owen turned again to Thomas. “You come out here with these guys?”
Thomas offered a half shrug as he pressed his hand into his side. “Not really.”
“But you know them?”
“Sort of.”
“Good, which one do you know better?”
Thomas looked confused, but after a beat, motioned toward the man only feet away.
“Okay,” Owen said. He looked back to Travis and then to Kevin, still seated on the wall. “Bring them around back, get what we need, and then take them out to the highway.”
As Travis stepped off the opposite sidewalk and started toward him, Owen moved to the man in the green jacket, raised the Glock above his head, and slammed it into the side of the man’s face.
94
She had paced the hall between the front door and the room her children were in for the last twenty minutes. There wasn’t going to be time to stop whatever this was, but with Gentry not fully recovered and the others starting to come around to Owen’s way of thinking, she no longer had the strength to fight him on it.
Natalie Mercer leaned into the room, reached toward her lower back, and handed her daughter the Beretta M9. She offered her a weak smile and looked back into the hall. As usual, there wasn’t time to go over the details, and although this wasn’t the first time she’d run this drill, it hadn’t gotten any easier. “Stay here and—”
Interrupting her mother, Ava held the Beretta out in front of her and racked the slide. “And don’t come out.” She turned and looked back at her brother. “Either of us, we got it.”
She lowered her eyes and stepped into the threshold. “I’m sorry.”
Ava looked confused. “Uh …”
Natalie wasn’t usually the type to apologize, but things had changed over the last month. “I should have listened. Your father was right, we aren’t safe here. He knew it the first week and I should have too. I’m sorry.”
Ava turned back to her brother, could see that he had lost himself to the music flowing through his earbuds. “For what?”
“For what we’re going to have to go through once we go back out there. I thought we could make it work, that we could be safe here …”
There were footsteps outside the front doors. They were quick and sounded like they had a purpose. Natalie stepped into the hall and began to close the door behind her. “Stay put, I’ll be back in a minute.”
She was twenty feet from the front door when it opened. Harper’s face looked a shade lighter than usual and she was breathing hard. “Kevin shot someone.”
Natalie’s heart leapt in her chest. She quickly shut down the mental images firing in her mind. “Where’s Owen?”
“He’s okay. He’s on his way in right now, but …”
“But what?”
“I think he’s losing it.”
“Yeah, you said that earlier.”
“No, I mean I think he’s the one who told Kevin to do it.”
Natalie didn’t know how to respond. She’d seen a change growing in Owen, but as of yet it hadn’t been a cause for alarm. He said he was going to do whatever it took to keep his family and friends safe, but it appeared he may be taking his new decree a bit too literally. “What are they doing?”
“Travis and Kevin are taking the others around back.”
“Others, how many are there?”
“Three.”
“And what’s Owen doing?”
“You can ask him yourself, he’ll be coming through that door any second.”
“Ava and Noah are in the back, can you hang out here for a few?”
There was motion beyond the front door. A rustling, like someone was tearing apart a plastic bag. Natalie laid a hand on Harper’s shoulder and then turned and started in the opposite direction. “Thanks, just give me a few minutes.”
Three paces from the door and she could hear him breathing in and out, much faster than usual, like he’d been running or was in the throes of a full blown panic attack. Reaching for the handle, Natalie pulled it open slowly to find her husband pitched forward with his hands on his knees.
“Owen?”
“I’m okay.”
“No you’re not, what’s going on?”
“This isn’t me, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She moved to him, placed her left arm over his shoulder and her right hand on his chest. Helping him to stand, she peered out toward the gates. Lucas looked like he was shaking as he closed and locked them. “I know who you are and I know where you’ve had to go to make things safe for us here.” She pushed into him, her lips next to his ear. “I’m okay with it.”
Owen saw that Lucas had turned away from the gates and was now heading up the walk. He closed his eyes for a moment, pulled Natalie into a hug, and kissed her on the forehead. “But I’m not sure that I am.”
As Lucas approached he looked past them and in through the door. He wiped at his face and swallowed hard. “Uh … Owen?”
“I’m gonna go around and meet them in the back, why don’t you head inside and make sure we have what we need for tonight?”
Lucas increased his pace and continued through the door. He tucked his weapon into his pants, turned the corner, and disappeared into the interior.
Owen pulled away, almost too forcefully.
She noticed. “I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have a choice. I mean Kevin is okay with some of the things that the rest of us aren’t. Why don’t you lean on him a bit more?”
“It doesn’t work that way, not anymore. I can’t ask someone else to do what I should have been doing since day one. That wouldn’t be right, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did.”
Natalie didn’t like what all of this was doing to her husband, but knew he was right. The world was different and it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect that he wouldn’t change with it. And of everyone, Owen was going to ha
ve to make the biggest change to who he was. She just hoped it wouldn’t take everything that he used to be as well.
She lowered her head a bit and looked up at him through squinted eyes. “What are you going to do?”
He bit into his lip and again looked toward the street. “One of them said something about us leaving. Like he knew we were already having problems here, maybe they’re the reason—”
She stopped him, knew where this was going. Like it had a hundred times over the last several weeks. “You think we need to leave.”
“Let me just figure this out, see what they know. We can make a decision as a group.”
Natalie folded her arms into her chest, began to shift her weight from one foot to the other. “Gentry’s not getting any better, he says he doesn’t think he can make it work here. Not with the way things are. He needs help, and more than I can give. So …”
“So?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe you’ve been right the whole time.”
Owen cut his eyes at her, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, smiled. “I’m going to need you to repeat that, maybe more than once. And definitely when we get back to the others.”
“I love you, you know that right?”
Owen nodded and once again looked over his left shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Natalie said, “go do what you need to do, but be careful. And don’t try to do this all on your own; you’re not alone out here.”
Owen gave her another kiss on the forehead and looked into her eyes. “I love you too, now go inside.”
95
Jerome Declan watched the monitor and gripped the edge of the desk. The joints in his wrist and hands felt like they were on fire, although he was having a hard time containing himself. He pushed back in his chair, cursed as he stood, and started toward the hall.
Within ten feet of the elevators, he stopped and waited. When the doors finally opened and the two men looked up, he was nearly spitting his words. “Where is he?”
