More shouts erupted on the other side of the armored vehicle as the rest of Cisco's guards and Jenkins’ men arrived on the scene of the double homicide. Angry shouts were quickly followed by sporadic gunfire. In seconds, the entire camp was consumed with the vestiges of Cisco's army killing each other over control of the captives.
As Reese rose to his feet, he realized that while the guards were preoccupied, the captives were busy escaping. A group of five men ran by, intent on making a beeline to the forest. Reese followed them, though they went south, determined to lose himself in the woods then circle back east toward home.
He took three steps and tripped over a rock, which caused him to stagger right into another man. They grappled with each other for a moment, and Reese cocked his arm back to throw a punch, teeth bared and ready to fight to the death, but froze. Reese held his arm steady for a second. "Morgan?"
His opponent relaxed his own grip on Reese’s arm. “Reese! When you said we'd know, I didn't think you meant you were going to do something like this!" The firelight reflected off his wild eyes as he laughed. “They’re tearing themselves apart!”
Reese clapped Morgan on the shoulder. "Hurry—get your wife and get outta here! Head east! Go to Bee’s Landing—that's my neighborhood, it's only a couple miles away. Tell the others—tell everyone you meet! East!”
"Right!" Morgan said as he bolted for the interior of the camp in search of his wife.
Reese stumbled forward through the undergrowth, then turned and worked his way around the perimeter of the camp heading east. Gunfire continued to crackle in the distance, and the screams of women and children echoed through the forest. Men shouted, guns fired, and people died.
Reese paused on the eastern end of the camp. All he had to do was keep going, work his way through the woods, and he'd be home by sunrise. It would be a long, treacherous night picking his way through the forest in the dark, but there was nothing standing between him and home.
A volley of gunfire erupted from the camp, and several voices cried out. A wave of yells and shouts responded, and sporadic gunfire continued to crackle. Reese balled his hands into fists and clenched his teeth. He couldn't just leave those people behind. The entire way south from Maine, he'd been forced to avoid helping anyone, running from danger, running from captivity. He'd already struck the first blow in freeing all the prisoners in the camp by setting Cisco and Jenkins against one another. For all he knew, the guards were still fighting it out, and a new Cisco would take over. Or perhaps they would join forces and wipe out all the prisoners together?
The real question that floated through Reese's mind was whether or not he could risk leading everyone to Bee’s Landing and bring the guards with them. That would save the people in Cisco’s camp but threaten his friends and neighbor.
Growling in frustration, Reese turned and ran back toward the camp. He had to do something to help. He couldn't just walk away, not this time.
Reese emerged from the tree line into the face of hell itself. Both tents were on fire, as were a few of the vehicles that hadn't burnt down to their rims. The neatly organized fire pits had been scattered during the chaos, and several bodies lay roasting on the flames.
Embers and sparks swirled up into the air, and on the far side of the encampment, the forest itself glowed with nascent fires. Several men ran across the camp with torches, which illuminated panicked people scrambling for cover as they darted in and out of the shadows.
Every now and then, a muzzle flash flared as the remaining guards continued to shoot at the escaping prisoners—and each other. Bodies littered the ground as far as he could see. Steeling himself, Reese leaned forward and started for the camp. If nothing else, he decided, he’d work his way across to the far side where the women and children had been kept, and at least try to free as many of those as he could.
He got three steps in the clearing when someone tackled him from behind. They hit the ground, and Reese kicked and punched, flailing with all his limbs to free himself. The man that knocked him down was about the same size, but much heavier than Reese.
He landed a lucky shot square on the man's nose, and his attacker howled in pain and rolled off.
"Gotcha!" said a second voice as a man in a leather vest stepped out of the shadows and leveled a shotgun and Reese. "You're the one that started all this mess, ain’tcha?”
The first one got to his knees. "Busted my nose!" He swiped out at Reese and caught him on the shoulder, which spun him around to the ground once more.
"Yeah, we’re going to take you back to Cisco…” said the man with the gun.
"Cisco's dead, you idiot," the first one said as he got to his feet and wiped the blood from his face. "So is Jenkins."
The man with the shotgun shifted his weight on his feet, and Reese watched the barrel of the scattergun shift just a little to the left. "So…what do we do with him?” asked the bigger man.
"Just shoot ‘im! Ain't nobody in charge now!"
Reese watched the heavyset man think this over as he adjusted his grip on the shotgun. "Why don't we be in charge?" he asked with a lopsided, snaggletooth smile.
"You know…that ain't such a bad idea,” agreed his partner.
Movement behind the man with the gun drew Reese's attention, and the guard saw Reese's eyes shift, but it was too late. Someone flew out of the bushes from behind and swung a fist sized rock at his head. The rock connected with the side of the guard's head with a solid thunk, and the man's eyes rolled up as he dropped the shotgun and fell like a sack of bricks.
Morgan landed in the dirt next to Reese and rolled awkwardly to his feet. It was all the distraction Reese needed. He bolted up and drove his shoulder into the stomach of the man who'd originally tackled him. That guard doubled over, and grunted in pain as Reese stood, thrusting up with his legs and throwing the guard onto his back. Reese ducked low and snatched the abandoned shotgun from the ground. He turned and leveled the weapon at the man.
“What do we do with him?” he asked Morgan. “Dang, I sound just like them, now.”
In reply, Morgan put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Three more men emerged from the shadows of the forest, each carrying branches or rocks. "He's all yours," Morgan said as he got to his feet and dusted off his hands. A woman emerged behind the men, and ran to Morgan’s side. They hugged, then Morgan looked at Reese.
"I'm sorry I doubted you."
Reese opened his mouth to reply, but paused, frozen in shock as the three escaped prisoners pounced on the guard and commenced beating him to death. They struck the former guard over and over again like wild animals, yelling obscenities and curses all the while.
Morgan's wife buried her face in his chest, and he turned away from the gruesome scene.
"My offer still stands," Reese said to Morgan in a flat voice as he grimly watched the demise of the thrashing guard. Between the kneeling bodies of the escaped prisoners, one of the guard's hands flopped and clawed at the gravel, clinched into a fist, then relaxed after a vicious crack split the air. The three escaped refugees stood, their hands red, eyes wide open, and mouths curled into wolfish sneers. They nodded at Morgan, then looked off toward the rest of the fighting.
"The rest of the guards won't last long now," Morgan observed. “I think everyone figured out we outnumber them ten to one.”
Reese turned and led them through the woods. "Come on, let's get out of here."
“Where are we going?” asked Morgan’s wife.
Reese smiled. “Home.”
Chapter 27
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cisco's return to consciousness after the assassination attempt was a long, tiring process, step by painful step through waves of pain. Agonizing pain—he'd never experienced in all his life, in all the fights and crimes he’d been a part of, never had he felt such a burning, searing, soul crushing pain. His body was racked by it to the point of paralysis.
He couldn't feel h
is limbs, only fire where his limbs used to be. Cisco floated through this haze of torment until he finally could open one eye as he drew a ragged breath. It felt like one of his lungs had filled with concrete. He could hardly breathe. Panic seared through his tortured body. The movement of the muscles in his chest caused a grating sensation. Cisco feared he had at least one broken rib.
Great.
He tried to open his eyes, but only one responded to his command. As the world swam into focus, everything was tinted red. Cisco blinked, and his vision cleared. He lay on the ground in his command tent, but he couldn't feel the dirt pressing into his face. That was odd.
Above him, his tent was in flames—he could feel the heat on the back of his neck. Cisco groaned and rolled—more like flopped—onto his side, panting. He watched the colors dance up the walls, writhing and squirming like living things. He watched, hypnotized, as flames crawled down the wall of his canvas tent and ignited the map of Bee’s Landing he'd painstakingly drawn.
In a detached, surreal fashion, a voice in the back of his mind spoke up and told him he needed to move—he needed to run. He had to get out of the tent, but his legs weren't answering the call. His arms felt useless, heavy, and filled with fire.
With a monumental effort, Cisco managed to claw his way forward with one arm. Why the other one, his right one, wasn't working, he didn't have time to find out. He used his left hand to reach out in front of him toward the open tent flap, grabbed a handful of dirt and pulled with all his strength. His body, normally big and powerful and useful for dominating those smaller and weaker than him, now became a lead weight, dragging him down.
If he didn't get out soon, he was sure the tent would collapse under its own weight as the fire ate out the supports, burning him alive. Adrenaline coursed through his tortured body and gave strength to his abused muscles. His arm strained, but inch by inch he pulled himself closer to safety.
At last he was able to regain some control over his legs. The sharp pain in his lower back was worse than anything he'd thus far experienced, and he cried out—though he didn't recognize his own voice. Besides the thudding of his heart and the blood rushing through his ears, the only thing he heard was the crackling of the fire. It grew louder and louder as the flames grew, greedily consuming everything in their path, inching closer and closer to him.
The heat burned his face and caused sweat to break out where he wasn't bleeding. Still Cisco clawed forward through the dirt, grunting with the pain and the effort.
Just as the heat from the fire reached an unbearable level across his lower legs, and Cisco feared he would cry out in pain, thudding footsteps approached on the other side of the tent flap.
"Boss! Oh my—” a familiar, gruff voice called out. "Get over here! Help me get him up!"
In a drunken daze, Cisco felt himself lift off the floor, though he didn't move a muscle. He'd given up, willing to be consumed by the flames. Perhaps it was a just sentence. For all the evil that he’d committed in his life—and he knew none of his actions had been good since he’d become a man—perhaps it was time to face the afterlife and man up to what he’d done.
Cisco couldn't understand why he was rising up off the ground, though. His abuela had always told him stories at night as a child, stories about wicked men—and what happens when they die. The devil, she said, reaches up through the ground and pulls them down, down deep into the dirt and the ground and underneath everything good and holy. Down to the dark place they’re taken, down where tortured souls spend an eternity repenting of their sins.
Cisco fully expected the earth to open and swallow him in a ring of fire, smoke and pain, but that didn't happen. Instead, he felt himself lifted, carried as if on the wings of angels, up above the ground and out of the fire, away from the heat and pain, to a cool, peaceful place.
He opened his good eye, and instead of seeing the glowing face of an angel he saw the blood splattered, grimy, hairy face of Billy, one of his most loyal soldiers. White teeth gleamed through the curly, coarse black beard that covered most of his face as he smiled.
"Dag gum, Boss—you look like you been run over a couple times by a combine!"
Only then did Cisco realize he was standing on his own legs, and Billy held him by his good arm. He blinked. "What happened?" he growled.
Billy stepped back and blinked as if he didn't understand English. He glanced to his left, and Cisco followed his gaze toward two other men, both disheveled and bloodied, one with a jagged cut across his face that positively wept blood. "What happened?” Cisco demanded again.
"Boss…I cain’t understand you," Billy said, sheepishly.
Cisco turned in frustration and almost fell. The world spun around him in sickening shades of gray, black, and all the colors of the fire as it consumed his command tent. He caught himself and a ribbon of pain glanced up the side of his right leg into his spine. He arched his back and inhaled sharply, which caused his cracked or broken ribs to stab his chest with new shots of fire. Cisco froze, breathed very slowly, and waited until the waves of pain subsided. He opened his weeping eye and stared at his command tent as the roof collapsed in on itself, sending up a great gout of sparks into the air.
“Boss…we don’t know what happened…” Billy said, apologetically.
"Jenkins…” Cisco snarled, remembering.
The events after Jenkins entered his tent flooded back to him. The newcomer—what's his face, the one Jenkins had taken a shining to—had been sent by Jenkins to assassinate him. But he couldn't. Like an idiot, he’d turned over the gun and thrown himself on Cisco's mercy.
Cisco nodded to himself, about the only movement that didn't cause immediate, earth-shattering pain. That's right, he remembered now. He’d taken the fool’s revolver and sent him back out to set a trap for Jenkins. Jenkins had come marching in, expecting to find Cisco on the floor in a pool of his own blood, and instead he found defiance, and an AK aimed at his head. But the man had been quick. Far too quick—Cisco had never seen it coming.
A crack like thunder, and an impact like a 2 x 4 sent a bullet through Cisco's side. He glanced down and looked at his naked torso, covered in a sheen of blood, sweat, soot, and dirt. A weeping, puckered hole just over his right hip leaked blood down into his waistband.
Cisco grunted. It was a flesh wound, just barely enough to go straight through his side. It hurt like the devil, but Cisco knew he wouldn't die of it anytime soon. What troubled him more were the other wounds that Jenkins had managed to inflict. He'd never seen someone shoot so fast before. He'd managed to not only hit Cisco in the side but in his right arm, his leg, and one lucky shot almost took off his head.
Cisco stood there staring at the fire, but not seeing, as his hand gently probed his body, running over the injured limbs to confirm the extent of the damage he'd suffered at the hands of his traitorous lieutenant.
Then his hand crept up his neck, growing slicker with blood as he went. He froze, and the breath that entered his lungs became a bare whisper as his abused fingertips touched shredded skin, and what felt like bone. Cisco frowned. That couldn't be right. He didn't feel anything on his lower face. No pain, no nothing—but the downside was he didn't feel his jaw either. Cisco's eyes widened as he turned to face Billy once more. "What happened to my face?” he asked, deliberately slow.
Billy narrowed his eyes at Cisco for a moment as if trying to decipher his words, then nodded eventually. "Oh, gotcha. Yeah it looks like you been shot up, Boss. Jenkins did a number on you. Does it…does it hurt much?" he asked tentatively. Then he turned to the others. "Go find a first aid kit or some bandages or something—hurry!"
Cisco staggered past him as his good eye fell on what remained of his camp. All the hard work, all the planning, all the preparation and forced labor of the road refugees. It had all gone for nothing.
Before him, illuminated by the handful of cooking fires and the great blaze that had become his command tent, Cisco found dozens of bodies. Some crawled weakly, some cried out, but most
lay still in awkward positions, legs and arms thrown willy-nilly as they fell. A gunshot popped in the distance through the woods. Cisco flinched.
"Yeah…hell of a mess, ain't it?" Billy said in commiseration as he stepped next to Cisco. "Once you and Jenkins started fighting…I reckon everything just kind of fell apart," Billy said with a shrug. “First the screaming, then the running—next thing I know, I got guards fightin’ guards, prisoners fighting prisoners, everybody fighting each other…”
Cisco grunted.
Billy nodded. “It was total chaos. Then somebody had the bright idea of running off into the woods while everyone was distracted. It almost worked, too. Most of ‘em got away, but they went in every direction and we didn't have enough men left to catch them,” Billy said by way of apology. "We didn't know what to do, so I went around trying to find survivors…and that's when I found these two knuckleheads,” he said with a gesture at the two men behind him. “And you." Billy put his hands in his pockets. "What do you want us to do, boss?"
"Here—I found some bandages…a-and some water," one of the others said helpfully. Cisco was vaguely aware of something being pushed in front of his face. He reached out with his good hand and swatted it away. "Doesn't matter…” he growled, not understanding his own voice. He could feel blood leaking out of his body. "Not enough time…”
Soon enough, he realized, his life would end. He had to move. He had one last chance. Cisco turned east. "Weapons. Follow," he managed to choke out. He took a step, then another, wavered momentarily as he tried to catch his balance, and pause to take another chest spasm of a breath.
Another step, then another, and the movement became easier as his body adjusted to its new condition. By force of will alone, Cisco ground what teeth he had left and ignored as best he could the pain that tore at his body. Only one thing mattered—revenge.
Broken Tide | Book 6 | Breakwater Page 19
