“This isn’t going to work. There’s got to be three dozen rooms up here. His reinforcements have to be coming.”
“Suggestions?” Lexi asked.
“We need someone to tell us where he is. I should’ve grabbed that girl.”
Lexi didn’t hesitate; she marched toward the stairs and disappeared. Unsure of where the girl might be, she decided to just take the first person she’d see. She kicked open the first-floor door and entered the downstairs hallway. A rustling sound to her left caught her attention; she turned and through the night vision spotted the girl. “You’re not too smart, are you?” Lexi grabbed her arm and said, “You’re coming with me.”
The girl screamed.
“Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” Lexi barked, dragging the girl into the stairwell.
The girl did exactly as she said.
Up the stairs they went.
Lexi threw open the door and came back into the hallway, pulling the girl behind her.
Gordon shook his head in awe at how effective Lexi was.
“Where is his room?” Lexi asked.
The girl didn’t answer.
“Where is he?” Lexi yelled at her.
The girl cringed, a look of terror on her chubby face. She pointed down the hall and said, “Last room on the right.”
Gordon petted the girl on the head and said, “Thank you.”
Lexi let go of her and said, “Fucking brat.”
The girl ran back to the stairs and was gone.
“Let’s line up,” Gordon ordered.
Gordon took point, with Lexi right behind him and Rubio bringing up the rear.
Automatic gunfire could be heard outside now; this could only mean that other forces of Rahab’s were coming, but Jones and McCamey were engaging.
The three moved swiftly down the hall and took positions around the door.
Rubio knelt at the doorknob and applied a small explosive charge above it.
“Done,” Rubio whispered.
Gordon and Lexi put their backs against the wall, anxiously waiting for Rubio to call out that the blast was coming.
This was it, this was her moment. Soon she’d be face to face with the man who murdered her sister; soon she’d be able to exact revenge. Lexi couldn’t believe it; it was surreal in so many ways.
“One, two, three, fire in the hole!” Rubio called out and blew the door.
The blast tore a gaping hole in the door.
Gordon stepped up and kicked what remained of the door in. He rushed into the room, with Rubio right behind him.
“Left!” Gordon said as he swung left into the large suite.
Rubio went right.
When Lexi entered, she went left.
A living room was the first space they walked into, with sofas and upholstered chairs. On either side were bedrooms.
A woman came out of an adjacent room and rushed Gordon with a knife in her hands. Gordon reacted swiftly by putting two rounds into her chest. She crashed into a glass cocktail table, dead.
The sound of whimpering children came from the room on the left.
“Room left, going in!” Gordon cried out.
“Room right!” Rubio then responded.
Gordon turned the corner and froze. “He’s here! I got him!”
Rahab stood with his arms wide open as if in prayer. His long jet-black hair hung straight with the tips touching his shoulders. He didn’t respond to Gordon’s presence. He continued to look up and mumble something unintelligible.
A large group of children were gathered at his feet, crying and sniveling.
Gordon put the red dot on his chest but hesitated when he saw that Rahab’s torso was packed with explosives. A wire ran from his chest down his right arm and into his hand. There he saw a detonator.
Lexi stepped next to him and placed her red dot on Rahab’s face. She couldn’t fathom why Gordon hadn’t taken the shot. Here he was, standing with his vitals exposed. For her, he was a dead man.
“Lexi, we need to clear out! He’s packed with explosives!” Gordon exclaimed.
Gordon saw more wires leading down around the room.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Gordon barked.
“Fuck him!” she yelled, but she did heed Gordon’s command and eased off the trigger.
“No, he’s got a dead-man’s trigger!” Gordon barked.
Lexi couldn’t leave. This was her moment and she didn’t know when she’d have another chance at killing Rahab. They had come here to kill him regardless of their own safety.
Gordon saw she wasn’t lowering her rifle and retreating, so he grabbed her by the neck of the vest and pulled her hard.
Gordon’s forceful tug pulled her off her feet and accidently caused her to pull the trigger.
The round exited the muzzle, striking Rahab directly in the chest and forcing him backwards over the children towards the floor. Rahab knew this was it, he was a dead man, but he wasn’t going out without taking the infidels with him. His eyes gazed up towards the ceiling as if looking to heaven, and just before he landed on the floor, he cried out, “Praise be to God!” and lifted his thumb off the trigger.
Lexi had regained some footing after Gordon let her go. She looked up and saw Gordon exit the room. As she followed closely behind, she saw that Rubio was still in the other room; then everything went black.
Lexi opened her eyes and groaned. Her ears were ringing from the massive explosion. She pushed off the ground, stopping at her knees when a stabbing pain shot up from her lower back. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision. When she looked around, she was astonished by the destruction. Surrounding her were piles of smoldering rubble with clusters of small fires here and there. The orange glow from the fires enabled her to make out what was left of the two-story building. As she looked towards the second story, it dawned on her that she had fallen to the ground after the blast.
Screams and cries rang out from all directions around her.
“Gordon? Rubio, where are you?” Lexi cried out as she painfully got to her feet. She stumbled and tripped several times, searching for her two comrades.
Distant voices made her pause to verify where they were coming from. Rahab was surely dead, but he still had followers throughout the extensive compound. Soon they’d be marching on her location.
She increased the pace of her search for Gordon and Rubio but couldn’t find them. She discovered bodies, but none were them. Were they dead? Did they get blown up? Had they left her? Were they still on the second floor? She had no idea how long she had been knocked out; the dark sky told her it was still night or was it mid morning?
“Gordon…Rubio?” she called out.
No reply.
The voices were growing louder. Whoever it was grew closer. Should she wait to see who was coming towards her? Not in any condition to take chances much less fight effectively, she panicked. She stopped her search and raced towards an adjacent building, stopping halfway from the severe pain in her lower back. “Damn,” she grunted in pain. “Another twenty feet, Lexi, go!” She cleared the remaining distance and hid near a propane tank just outside the building.
The voices echoed off the building next to her, and now they were close enough for her to make out what they were saying, and it was clear without a doubt it was some of Rahab’s people.
“Think, think,” she growled under her breath. She took inventory of her equipment, finding that she had left the rifle. Without a thought she had gotten up and ran. “What an idiot,” she scolded herself. She did find her sidearm; a pistol and her two trusty knives were still in their sheaths.
She scurried to the edge of the propane tank and peered around. She made out a few shadows of people wandering through the debris. She couldn’t sit there; she had to flee and quickly. Remembering the layout of the compound, she knew all she needed to do was head south and up into the hills where Jones and McCamey had been. She crawled over to the opposite side of the tank and looked into complete darkness. Staying
there wasn’t an option; she had to make a run for it.
Lexi got to her feet but remained crouched down behind the large white tank. She took in several deep breaths and sprinted south. The pain immediately reminded her she was injured, but she endured through it, ignoring the electrical shocks that shot up into her ribs. The ground was uneven, causing her to almost lose her footing. She counted her footfalls as she ran and estimated she had to be close to the southern road; there she’d be at the foot of the hill.
Her soles suddenly hit gravel, signaling she was on the road. She was close to the hill and hopefully close to being rescued. With her mind on getting back to Jones and McCamey at the Humvee, she forgot about the large concrete drainage ditch that sat to the east. She went into the three-foot-deep ditch with the crown of her head leading the way and violently collided with the wall. The force of the impact knocked her out cold.
A cool mist woke Lexi. She opened her eyes and saw the gray skies above her. Confused and disoriented, she sat up and scanned her surroundings. By the brightness of the day it looked like it was midday. The sounds of earlier were gone, replaced by the wisp of a cold wind. Back and forth she scanned the compound, using the ditch for cover.
She touched the top of her head and recoiled when she felt the tender knot. She looked down at the leaves and dirt that covered the bottom of the ditch that had been her bed while she was unconscious.
She groaned when she crawled out, stopping only to look around again.
Nothing. There was no one around. The building that had been Rahab’s quarters was smoldering.
She wondered if Jones and McCamey were still in their hide—she doubted it, but she had to go look.
Slowly she made her way up the rugged and rocky hillside and found the exact location they should have been but weren’t. Frustrated, she kicked a few rocks and thought. The next place they might be was their campsite from the other night. That hike would take her an hour if she went directly across the compound north. If Jones and McCamey were driving there, she could beat them because their route would take them longer.
Lexi was accustomed to being on the road by herself but never had she been so banged up. Her entire body hurt, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. She was a physical mess and needed to rest.
Making the long hike seemed dreadful, but she mustered the strength and went. Her mind spun different scenarios and outcomes as she took each step. She knew nothing about what happened after the explosion and couldn’t help but be curious if any of Rahab’s people survived. The events that led to the explosion were fresh in her mind, and she kept going over it again and again. A deep-seated anger built in her knowing that Rahab’s death was at his own hand. She remembered the rifle going off but wasn’t sure if she shot him. The only thing that kept repeating over and over was Rahab’s last words. She hated that. She was disgusted that she never got to personally end his life. Having him die that way wasn’t enough for Lexi; she needed to have him die begging for his pathetic life, not going out in a blaze of self-righteous glory.
Deep in her thoughts, she lost track of time. As if she were on autopilot, she navigated the steep hill and found the old deer trail that led to the campsite. “Almost there,” she said out loud, pausing to bend over and rest briefly. She was parched and in need of food. The cool mist had turned to a light rain. Lifting her weary head, she opened her mouth.
“Okay, Lexi, get moving,” she said and stepped off down the trail.
When she came into the clearing, the woman spotted her and scurried back against the tree. Her face contorted in terror at the thought of what Lexi was going to do to her.
Seeing the woman’s expression, Lexi chuckled and walked towards her, stopping a foot away. Towering over her, Lexi looked down and said, “They’re all dead, including your precious leader.”
The woman mumbled, but her mouth was gagged with a rag and duct tape.
Lexi pulled one of her knives out and held it firmly in her right hand. She bent over and tore the gag off.
The woman pulled back and begged, “Please don’t kill me.”
“Why did you do it? That’s all I want to know.”
“Why did I do what?” the woman asked.
Lexi dropped to one knee and lowered her head. She admired the steel blade of her knife and gently touched the sharp edge with her thumb. “Why did you go along with Rahab?”
“I had no choice, like you.”
“I don’t believe it. You were one of his original followers; you were with him before.”
“I-I-I,” the woman stuttered.
“You killed my sister, not you specifically, but your group did and don’t try to convince me that you were innocent. I saw you hold other women down, I saw you help the men rape and beat other women. You were instrumental in Rahab’s group.”
“I never knew he would go this far. I only did what I did to survive.”
“Please spare me the bull. Everyone has a choice. You had a choice then, but you stayed and helped commit horrible acts against innocent people, and I have a choice right now. Do I kill you or let you live.”
“Please, I have a family. I have a son,” the woman cried, her greasy long brown hair hanging in her face. Grime and dirt streaked down her face from the rain.
Lexi held up the knife, pointed it at her and said, “Don’t say a word. There’s not a thing you can say that will convince me either way.” Lexi’s back ached, so she shifted and dropped to both knees.
The woman began to sob.
“I think I should kill you, but if my sister were here, she would probably tell me to forgive you. You see, my sister was a good person, a sweet and gentle person. You violated her but never corrupted her; in fact, all you managed to do was make her stronger. She couldn’t let you take her soul, so she fought back. It was that spirit that you couldn’t break, so you had to kill her. I can still see her that day…”
January 13, 2015
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” – John F. Kennedy
Undisclosed location in the California desert, northeast of Barstow
Lexi looked out of the window towards the rugged and jagged mountains to the south. To her they represented freedom. Each morning she’d look longingly towards them, wanting a sign or looking for hope that her and Carey’s imprisonment would come to an end. She regretted not fighting back the day they were captured, but how could she have known this was to be their fate? How could anyone who grew up in America fathom this sort of thing? This was what happened in other places far away, not here, not in a first world nation. Just when she thought she was getting wise to the new world, this happened.
Their first day in captivity had been brutal. Their only reprieve being introduced to Rahab. When Lexi saw him she found him distressing, his deep dark brown eyes penetrated her soul. He nonchalantly strutted into the interview room, his black robe flowing and his jet black long hair pulled back tight into a ponytail. He smoothed out his well manicured beard before talking in that thick Russian accent that heightened her fear. He calmly told them they were an instrument of God and that their jobs were to be available to the men. Lexi had tried to dispute him with logic, but this wasn’t a debate, she wasn’t sitting in a classroom discussing theology. She and Carey were prisoners of a madman who had been liberated by the collapse.
Each day since that first they were subjected to a routine of rape, beatings and abuse. At first Lexi resisted, but her resistance only seemed to fuel the men and gave their attacks vigor.
Carey, on the other hand, had stopped resisting and allowed them to do to her what they wanted. This enabled her to become a favorite to some of the men who didn’t always desire a fight.
This confused Lexi until today.
Several men had taken Carey into a back room. Their cries of pleasure soon turned to pain.
Lexi was in the adjacent room cleaning when she heard the screams. She turned to see the door burst open. The first man ran out, his pants at his
ankles and his hand over his groin.
“Ahhh!” he wailed.
Lexi looked again and saw a trail of blood and the source was his groin.
He ran as best he could towards the door, but his feet became entangled in his pants and he fell to the ground hard.
Another man came out, his bloody hands in the air. He shrieked in agony and fell to his knees. Like the first man, blood flowed from his groin.
Carey stepped out of the room covered in blood from her face to her feet. In her hand she held a long knife.
Lexi looked at her in shock. She saw the knife and recognized it as belonging to the first man. “Carey, oh my God, what have you done?”
Carey replied, but Lexi couldn’t hear her over the wailing men.
Lexi ran to her and took her hand. “They’re going to cleanse you, you know that?”
“I know and I don’t care.”
“Come on, we have to make a run for it,” Lexi said and tugged her, but Carey stood like a statue. “Carey, come on.”
“No. I can’t, I’m done. I just want this to end.”
“So you’re giving up? This is suicide by madman?” Lexi challenged her.
Carey pulled Lexi close and said, “You go, don’t be seen with me. I don’t want them to think you were part of this.”
“No.”
The men crawled on the blood-covered floor in pain.
Lexi looked over Carey’s shoulder and saw the same scene playing out with the lone man left in the room. “You cut off their…?”
“Two of them.”
“What?”
“I bit his off,” Carey explained, pointing at the first man. She then looked at Lexi and said, “Take this, they won’t miss it in the chaos. Hide it, use it when you need to, get out of this place, Lexi. Go find a safe place when the timing is right.”
“I won’t, I can’t let this happen to you.”
“My journey is over.”
“No.”
Yells came from just outside the side doors.
“Go,” Carey urged, putting the knife in Lexi’s hand, and pushed her away.
Nemesis: Inception Page 15
