by Olah, Jeff
The man on the left was a head taller than Declan and looked like he outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. His faded jeans were tight around his massive legs and his black polyester jacket hugged his biceps like they were meant for someone at least two sizes smaller. He spoke first. “We found them, but …”
Declan held the wall as he took a step forward. “Found who?”
“The Mercers, Thomas led us right to them.”
For a moment, his anger began to fade into something resembling excitement. Something he hadn’t felt since that day driving onto the abandoned freeway, only minutes before his entire existence was irreversibly altered.
“Are you sure, where is he now?”
The mammoth of a man paused a moment and pushed his fingers into his temple. “They got him, but they also got the others …”
There was something else. The way he paused at the end of his statement. Declan could read most people like a book, and now that his other senses had been slightly impaired, he felt almost telepathic. “And?”
The man in the faded denim curled his lip. “And … they killed Steven. He died in the street, in the gutter.”
Declan took a measured step forward. He never liked Steven, and probably would have done the same thing at some point, but at least for the time being he was needed. He was necessary for what was being built in the former offices of BXF Technologies. And although it appeared he had a lock on Natalie Mercer, there would still be a debt to be paid.
“Who else?”
“They got Thomas, but it looked like he was there to help them. They also got Billy and Max, it was a mess from the time they stepped out onto that street.”
“No one else made it out?” He took a breath as he tried to control the rage building behind his words. “Just the two of you?”
The second man shook his head. He had bad skin and a nose that looked like he’d been on the losing end of one too many fights. “No, Jack and Caesar are downstairs. They want to go back.”
For an instant, the pain radiating from his right leg and into his lower back faded. He held back the urge to smile, and instead took a moment to look out over his suite before turning back to the giant of a man in the black polyester jacket. “And Mario, what do you think we ought to do?”
Mario looked at the floor for a few seconds, turned to the smaller man on his right, and then back to Declan. “Uh … I say we go get our men back. I say we take everyone back over there and open that place up like a can of sardines. Make them pay for what they did to Steven.”
Declan shifted his weight from one leg to the other and motioned back toward the windows. “Okay, round up the twins and everyone who isn’t already outside the radius. I also don’t want us disrupting the group in quadrant four, we need those supplies. But everyone else needs to be ready to move.”
The smaller man’s eyes darted from Declan to Mario and then back. He looked like he was going to speak, but then didn’t.
“Yes, Frederick?” Declan tilted his head ever so slightly to the right. “Was there something else, something I may have missed?”
Frederick shook his head. “No sir, it’s just that—”
“It’s just that what?”
“Those people, it seemed like they knew that we were coming, that they were just waiting for us. What if they make Max or Billy talk, what if they’re just waiting for us again?”
Declan admired the smaller man’s forethought, or maybe he was just amused by it. Either way, he liked Frederick. He liked him in the way he would have liked having a little brother growing up. The way he would have liked having a puppy or a kitten or a rabbit. Childlike imagination tossed into a full-grown human. It never got old for him.
“You’re right.”
“I am?”
“They may have known we were out there this morning, and they might be expecting us to come back for our men. Hell, they may even have someone inside this building who is tipping them off right this very minute. Who knows, I mean it could be anyone. It could even be someone in this room.”
Mario shook his head. “Mr. Declan, with all due respect, I don’t think it was someone in this building, or even someone out with us this morning.”
“Really?” Declan scoffed. “Then what’s your theory? How would Mercer and her family have known that we were out there? How would they have known about any of what we were doing? I mean, this was something I hadn’t even been made aware of.”
The massive man nodded. “I don’t think they knew we were out there, but they may have known about Thomas. He’d been going out on his own for the last few days. Maybe he tipped them off.”
Mario was right and he knew it. He nearly brought Thomas in days ago, but he wanted to see how all of this would play out. Now he was glad he didn’t. Although he’d lost one of his own, and possibly more than that, he had a chance to finally find the man who attempted to end his life.
“You may be right. It very well could have been Thomas, and before this day ends we are definitely going to find out. We are also going to make those people pay for what they did, every single one of them.”
Frederick looked like he was going to speak, but then Declan raised his hand, cutting him off.
“But, there are a few things I want everyone to understand before we leave this building. First, I want Thomas Jefferson found and brought back here. I don’t care what we have to do. And second, no one touches Mercer or her children, and especially not her husband. You bring them to me unharmed, no exceptions.”
96
Owen stopped outside the gates, slipped the Glock into his waistband, and took his time wrapping the length of chain. He moved slowly, counting each revolution as he attempted to clear the images from his head, if only for the moment.
Before moving on to what was next, he slammed home the lock, let it drop on the opposite side, and stepped to the edge of the gate. An eight-foot section of Douglas Fir, two-by-six, painted white and bolted to the concrete column, was his target. He twisted back, dug in his trailing foot, and slammed his right fist into the pressure treated piece of wood.
There was an audible crack that sounded like the two-by-six had taken the worst of it, but the white-hot thunderbolt of pain that shot from his hand up into his elbow told him another story. He felt lightheaded for a moment, but it wasn’t enough, he wasn’t nearly done.
Winding back and clenching his jaw, Owen unleashed a second and then a third strike. His vision went bright and then quickly darkened, a minefield of hazy stars shooting across his eyes. He dropped to one knee and let out a howl that sounded eerily similar to a wounded animal.
From a kneeling position he leaned back, closed his eyes, and turned his face toward the sky. He thought about his former life, the one before the world died. The one before every single minute of every single day was a life or death situation. The one before he had to kill a man just so his wife and his children could live to see another sunrise.
He hated who he’d become and no longer wanted to be Owen Mercer, at least not this version. He wanted to put a pistol in his mouth and squeeze the trigger; however that wouldn’t change a damn thing. It would only make this life an even deeper level of hell for those he’d leave behind.
Owen sat forward, wiped his bloodied right hand against his shirt and then his pants. He reached for the gate, pulled himself up, and started toward the rear wall. As he slipped in between two cars, stepped off the sidewalk, and jogged the last twenty yards, his thoughts were only for what came after the next few hours.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.” It was a voice he didn’t recognize. And as he dipped around the northwest corner, Owen saw the three men from the street.
Thomas, the tall young man who’d been shot by one of his own, stood with his back to the wall as, six feet away, the other two sat on plastic crates beside one another. Travis was opposite them, his weapon trained on the man in the green aviator jacket. Kevin stood further back, eyeing the second man, who wore a black long
sleeve t-shirt and a blue ball cap.
“I say we let them go.” Travis wore an evil smirk as he turned to Owen. “Let them run the gauntlet, see if they even make it back to the garage.”
The comment hit him as funny, although Owen didn’t laugh. He was still in it, couldn’t put aside what was coming. “Stand them up. Take the tall one back to the yard, and leave the other two here.”
The tall young man looked from Owen to Kevin and then back. “My name is Thomas. I told you, I came here to—”
“Shut up.” Owen was staring at the man in the green jacket, specifically at the knot that had risen along the right side of his head. He wanted to hit him again, in the same spot. But first there was something he needed. And finally turning back to Thomas, it hit him again.
Something he didn’t quite yet understand.
Kevin had moved to Thomas and was now starting to lead him away.
“Hold on,” Owen said. “Just a second.” He stepped closer to the young man, waited for Kevin to release him. “Who are you?”
“My name is—”
“No!” Owen roved the end of the Glock from Thomas to the other men and back. “Who are you? Why are you here, and why in the hell did your own people shoot at you?”
“I was trying—”
Owen cut him off again. “If you lie to me, I will kill you. All three of you, just like your friend out there in the street.” He didn’t like this role and wasn’t used to the theatrics. But for now it was keeping his family safe, and that was all he could focus on. “And trust me, this isn’t a game. I’m not kidding.”
The man in the aviator jacket started to stand. His hands had been taped behind his back, his exaggerated movements pulling all eyes toward him. “It doesn’t matter. I already told you—you and your family are as good as dead. There’s no going back now.”
“If you could have, you would have. And just for the record, I wasn’t speaking to you. Going forward, unless I ask for you specifically, I’m gonna need you to keep your mouth shut. Things will go much more smoothly that way.”
The man shook his head, laughed under his breath, and backed himself into the wall. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Owen ignored him and instead, turned back to Thomas. “Why were you out there? How did you find my family? And don’t tell me it was a coincidence or that you don’t remember us from the city.”
Thomas looked first at Kevin and then back at the two men. “I’ve been out here for a while now, every day.”
“So, you just got lucky? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Thomas turned from the men, stepped out away from the wall, pushing his hand into his hip. “No, that wasn’t it.”
“Okay?”
Before the younger man could begin, Kevin took a step toward the man in the green jacket and raised his weapon. There was a glint of light that cut at the side of his left eye. A tear. “Tell him Max, tell him why you followed the kid out here.”
The man who Kevin had addressed as Max didn’t move. He only stared at the ground, while mumbling something incoherent.
Owen cocked his head, cutting his eyes at the smaller man. “Tell me what?”
When Max finally looked up, a thin line of blood ran down the side of his face. He turned to his left and pressed his temple into the barrel of Kevin’s weapon. “You tell him.”
Kevin’s hand was shaking and the vein running along the left side of his head looked like it was going to explode. He continued to hold the pistol against Max’s temple, but turned to Owen. “He’s one of them, one of Goodwin’s lackeys.” Kevin nodded toward the second man. “This one too, his name’s Billy.”
It made sense now.
Owen had struggled with what had happened out in the street earlier that morning, and although he told himself he didn’t have a choice, he knew he did. But it was now clear that Kevin also had a reason.
“And the other one?”
Kevin nodded. “Steven … yeah. And he would have done the same to you, the same to me.”
Max nudged the weapon away from his face and glared at Owen. He again looked like he was going to laugh. “Whatever it is you’re going to do, you may as well just do it. I’m sure by now Declan has already sent the others back out. I’d say you got maybe an hour, if that.”
Owen tucked the Glock back into his waist and motioned Kevin away. He stepped quickly to the smaller man, pulled back his balled left hand, and slammed his fist into Max’s right eye, the trail of blood now growing from the previous wound. “Declan?”
Kevin opened his mouth to respond, but instead Thomas stepped forward. “Yes, he’s still alive.”
“What?” Owen’s heart rate began to climb. “That’s impossible.”
The tall young man held his head low. “No, he’s alive, he is … and I know because I was the one who saved him.”
Owen turned to Kevin for a brief second, his friend looking like he was going to explode. And then back to Thomas he said, “Why, why would you—”
Thomas interrupted. He lifted his eyes and now looked straight at Owen. “I found him outside our building. He was alone and looked like he had been infected. My first instinct was to let him live that way, to let him suffer for all the horrendous things he’d done. But then I noticed something different. He looked like he was in pain, like he was limping. He wasn’t all the way gone, not yet.”
“So, why didn’t you just kill him?”
The tall young man paused to look around at Travis, Kevin, and then again at Owen. “I needed to find you and your family first.”
“Find us … for what?”
Thomas let out a slow breath. “I wanted to give you the chance to do it.”
97
The hall once again smelled of antiseptic and bleach. It was coming from the room thirty feet away, but it was like it was right there in his nose. Like he had swallowed it, like he’d gargled with it. The stingingly sweet scent seemed much stronger today than yesterday, but anything was better than what it was like outside the gates.
Noah stood on a chair and looked toward the opposite end of the hall, to where his mother spoke quietly with Gentry and Harper. He kept his voice to a whisper, leaned down, and tapped his sister on the shoulder. “What are they talking about?”
Ava sat on the cold tile floor, her legs pulled into her chest and her arms folded tightly around them. She looked up, but just long enough to offer him a half-smile. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Yeah, sure. You always say that.”
“Okay, smart guy. What do you think it is?”
Noah slid down to a crouched position and turned his head to the side. He was silent for a few seconds as he closed his eyes and just listened.
Ava let out a giggle. “So, what’s the big secret?”
“I can’t hear them, only Harper, just a little bit.”
Ava sat up straighter. “What did you hear?”
“She asked Dr. Gentry why he didn’t tell us.”
“Why he didn’t tell us what?”
Noah gripped the back of the chair with one arm and leaned forward, as if the extra few inches would somehow make a difference. “I can’t hear.”
“So go over there. Mom told us we can ask her anything.”
Noah thought about it, but felt like they’d stop talking about whatever it was when he came close. The adults seemed to do that more over the last few weeks. Like there was some big secret that he and his sister weren’t supposed to know about. But they would find out, they always did.
“Why don’t you go over there? Mom tells you more stuff than she tells me.”
Ava pushed away from the ground and started to stand. She brushed her hair behind her ears and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “It looks like they’re arguing.”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “Mom looks really mad, like she used to, when she would fight with Dad.”
There was a pause in the conversation at the opposite end of the hall. Noah held his finger over his lip
s, got down off the chair, and started away from the door. He could see the back of Dr. Gentry’s head as it moved back and forth, but he was still unable to catch any of what was being said.
Ava whispered. “Noah, get back here.”
He tiptoed to within fifteen feet and feeling like he was about to be noticed, moved to his left and flattened himself against the wall.
“No, that doesn’t help.” His mother’s voice had ticked up. She backed away from Dr. Gentry and turned to Harper like she was looking for a friend. “I don’t want an apology, I just want to know why we weren’t told about this. I understand you have other things occupying your time, but this is unacceptable. We are supposed to be a family here and looking out for one another.”
Dr. Gentry’s voice was lower, but Noah could still hear his response. “Natalie, I’m sorry.”
His mother stared at the floor for a moment, then looked back at Dr. Gentry, her words now coming slower and her voice more even. “You know this could get all of us killed?”
Harper unfolded her arms and stretched her neck. She started to speak, but then paused, looking like she had remembered something. But before Noah could move away, she turned toward him, motioning with her chin to Natalie.
His mother’s face was a light shade of pink as she started toward him. “Noah.” She sounded happy, different than before, like she was trying to hide something. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, I’m bored.”
“Me too buddy.” Her eyes looked full and wet. He’d seen her like this before, but not very many times. “But that’s all about to change.”
Noah curled up his nose and stepped out into the middle of the hall. “What?”
Natalie dropped into a squat. She nodded toward the front door, looked first to Ava, and then back to him. “We’re leaving this place. We’re going somewhere better, somewhere we’ll be safe … forever.”
Lucas appeared behind Harper, Zeus near his left leg. The teen held a walkie in his right hand, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. He was frozen for a moment, but then said, “They’re coming back.”
