Asher leaned in to get a better view.
He recognized the woman.
Not the one being attacked.
But the Wolf.
“It can’t be!” He didn’t know if those words were out loud, or in his head. The kid behind the counter flinched though.
His voice stuttered, “I, uh, I know right?”
“No, you don’t know. You have no idea. But you will. Soon.” The words were frantic and Asher’s eyes began to tear as he slid the gas money under the glass. The emotions of Shelly’s death, Ben’s death, and the blame in which should be laid on Asher brought a rush of heartbreak. He didn’t know how to feel, other than sad. Most of all, the heartsick feeling of seeing Lucy again.
Lucy was the Wolf murdering the hopeless woman.
Lucy was in San Francisco.
*******
Tink
Night
Union Matis, WV
Tink tip-toed down the empty hallway. He had no memory of arriving here, but there had to be more soldiers than just Jerry and Nino. A place like this would have crazy-strong security. It was a matter of time before Tink ran into another soldier. The white walls were only interrupted by the black doors of bright white cells. Small glass openings where soldiers could monitor the captives also looked white. Tink carefully looked inside each door, but found no one.
Mona was close. He knew it. As the Pulse grew, he began to feel his sister’s life in the building. She was near, but far enough and hidden so he didn’t know how to find her. Tink’s baby sister was waiting for him to save her. He was coming. His attitude and pride weren’t going to get in the way anymore. He’d rather burn the building down than fail her again.
As Tink rounded the corner, he heard Mickey scream from a nearby room.
The heat grew again. Tink looked down at his hands and saw the deep blue fire shake from the middle of his forearms to the tips of his fingers. They weren’t thick flames, maybe an inch from his skin, but the heat was stronger than anything Tink ever felt.
“What are they?” another person shouted.
It was Jordan.
Mickey answered back with more screams. Jordan was torturing him.
Just a few minutes ago he was nervous about fighting a Jerry on guard duty. Now, he was ready to light Jordan on fire. Tink was finally going to get the fair fight he wanted.
*******
Acacia/Sherry
8:23 p.m. (Western time)
Las Vegas, NV
She crawled over the bar as his eyes looked back into hers. Her body reacted before her brain realized she was in danger. Her focus wasn’t on wondering how he was alive, but more about how she could stay alive. Hadley’s mass blocked out the front entrance so she was going to exit out the back.
She didn’t see Hadley as she climbed over the bar. She heard her empty glass follow her to the ground. She saw Pam’s shoes when she landed. She heard Pam shout, “Stop!” as she knocked over the vat of fruit punch under the bar. She heard the jumbled combination of two men struggling and Pam screaming. Pieces of wood flew over the bar.
It all moved so fast. Acacia slipped off her heels and planned to run out the emergency exit. Hadley and Big Bo’s fat bodies crashed into one another, but she didn’t look back. She bent down and tried to run as fast as she could. There was no turning back; Big Bo didn’t have a chance and she couldn’t stand to see another dead body.
She made it halfway before Big Bo’s throaty grunt stopped her. Something about the sound turned her legs into stone. She was so close, but too afraid to continue. Was this really how she would die? No. It couldn’t be. She was a fighter. She was too strong for this.
Big Bo’s mumbled begging echoed into her ears. Moments ago, she was several shades of drunk, but Hadley’s appearance sobered her instantly. She didn’t have time to be drunk. Survival didn’t wait for the booze to wear off. Her only chance of survival was to move forward.
Her body continued to betray her as she involuntarily turned and looked back.
She gasped. The air felt like it was sucked out of her lungs.
Hadley stood over Big Bo, pushing his right arm, shoving his hand down Big Bo’s throat. Blood and saliva squirted into the air. Pam stood, frozen, beside them. Hadley was so focused on mutilating Big Bo, he was oblivious to her. If she was going to live, Acacia needed to act quickly.
“Pam. Pam.” she whispered. Acacia didn’t know what to do, but Pam was going to die if she didn’t run away. It went against everything Acacia felt inside her, but she whispered again, “Pam. Come on, honey.”
She had the choice; either walk closer to try to break Pam out of the trance, or let her die.
Acacia stepped forward and continued whispering. The sound of Hadley’s arm being jammed down Big Bo’s throat was hypnotic. She refused to look at them, instead peering out the corner of her eye at Pam. “Please, Pammy, come on.”
After three steps, she stopped. She saw over the bar and noticed Pam’s feet were dangling off the ground. The wooden pillar was wedged in-between her face. Pam was dead.
And then, Hadley yanked his arm from Big Bo. Saliva and blood slopped onto the floor. They looked at one another, his eyes were disjointed and pitch black.
Acacia wasted no more time and ran out the exit.
Hadley followed.
*******
Jake
Darkness
West of the Salt Lake
The smell of burnt sulfur and salt filled the air. It was the urge to vomit that woke Jake up. His hands dug into wet, rocky sand as he pushed himself into child’s pose. The taste of acidy meatballs erupted with thick, soggy chunks of stomach tissue. Jake’s body acted like it was pushing out poison.
He tried to wipe whatever was painfully clogging his vision, but his hands jerked back at the pain of his own touch. It felt like his eyelids were sunburnt.
“Ahhhhh. Ah. Phhhhhhh,” sounds cried out from Jake’s throat. He looked around and saw only faded white and blue. The sound of the waves and wind followed his cries. He blinked, but it didn’t help. The fear of being blinded came over him. Stranded somewhere off of the Great Salt Lake, blind and dying.
His legs wobbled as his feet dug into the sand with a sturdy enough foothold to stand. He squinted around the beach, searching for Molly. He didn’t know where he was, let alone how he arrived there. To the left was a trail, to the right the empty the beach. No boat. No sail.
No Molly.
“Moll—” His shout was interrupted by another surge of vomit. The depths of his stomach exploded and made his eyes feel like they were going to bug out of his skull. His abdomen cramped causing him to fall down to one knee.
The vision in one eye became clear as he closed the other, and looked down at his hand. It wasn’t his normal white skin, instead his flesh looked like a dried up grape. The color lightened as it went up his arm to his shoulder. What was left of his shirt exposed raw, pink skin.
“Mo—”
Again, vomit came.
He lunged forward to the beach, swaying back and forth as he looked up and down the coastline. There was nothing but tan sand and white salt. If she survived, she wasn’t going to be found here. There weren’t even footprints matching his shoes, let alone her flip-flops.
The waves swept softly onto the beach. The water was a dark blue, almost black. Jake couldn’t tell if it was from the sun setting or if the bomb caused it.
Thick grey clouds hovered over the water fifty yards off the beach. As if an invisible wall blocked it from coming any closer and forced the rolling smoke to bunch towards the sky. It moved in its own grey shaded waves. Jake stared into the smoke, remembering just enough to be afraid. This kind of smoke didn’t come from a fire, it came from an attack. It was the same kind of dark clouds that hung over Salt Lake City just a few days ago. The same texture as what came into Brigham yesterday. Jake hated that stuff.
He turned around and walked back towards the mountain. There was a path covered in white from the salt
with patches of grass and dirt. There was a high rock poking out of the side, about forty feet up. Jake decided it would be the best place to search for Molly.
The path was steeper than it looked and Jake thought his legs were going to give out after only a few steps. The stale musk continued to fill in his nose causing the taste in his mouth. He tried not to think about the pain, or the smell, or Molly. He tried to think about his wife.
She was his reason for being alive. She was the reason he walked up the path and slowly climbed over onto the high rock. She was the reason he searched for Molly. Elizabeth and Molly could become friends someday. Elizabeth would say Molly reminded her of her younger self. She always did when the girl was young and flighty.
He looked along the empty coastline. He only saw rocks, salt, and sand before water and clouds. If Molly was alive, she was not here.
Jake knew she wasn’t alive though. His last memory was cloudy, but he began to believe it was accurate. He remembered enough to know it was real.
The wind picked up as soon as they entered water. The sail made a large flap noise and they were off to the other side of the Great Salt Lake. The seasonally irregular water levels were good fortune for two people with no idea of how to operate a sailboat. Molly was experienced enough to get them into the water, but not enough to help after they got out of Willard Bay and into the Great Salt Lake’s high winds.
Bright, white lights shined from the east as they rowed to what felt like a midway point. The force caused a rush of heat and a massive force of wind. Jake was knocked out of the boat as he turned away. The entire right side of his body was struck by the rush of fire and heat from the bomb.
He was left with two options; leave now or wait for Molly. The idea of giving up on her felt wrong. She was willing to try something different to save him. Jake might not have liked it at the time, but she tried. And it worked. At the same time, waiting for someone on an empty beach was a waste of precious time when Jake’s real goal was to find his wife. Would Molly understand if he left now? Maybe, if Jake had the chance to explain himself. Would she be heartbroken if she felt abandoned by him? Yes, she would.
The slim chances of seeing her again, in this life or the next, was worth the risk. She was gone and he could go find his wife without fear of running into her again. It was worth the risk. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t wrong. It was what needed to be done.
Jake jumped down off the rock and headed back to the trail.
Hopefully, it would take him west.
*******
Mickey
Time: Unknown
Some underground lab
The pain was too much. Mickey should have never ran his mouth, never tested Jordan. The soldier wasn’t going to kill him, but death would be better than this. The needle stabbed into him eleven different times along his left arm. His fingers were numb, his bicep pulsing. Blood crusted from one wound to the next.
“What do you want?” Mickey cried. “I’ll do anything. Please.” His pride was gone, his fight was up, anything Jordan wanted to know, he would say it.
“It’s too late for that, boy,” Jordan replied, pushing the needle into his thumbnail. It was worse than any of the others. Mickey stared ahead and screamed.
His cries stopped as someone passed by the front of the door. Was the pain making him hallucinate? What was happening?
Tink was standing in the doorway. His hands were blue.
Blue?
“Ay! Got somethin’ for ya.”
A streak of white and blue followed his fist as Tink swung at Jordan.
Whoosh.
It sounded like a tidal wave. Brightness sparked as the punch landed.
Jordan crashed to the ground. His blue uniform scorched to black.
“Whoa! Dude! You? How? Tink? Is this real life?” thoughts raced out of his mouth faster than his pain could catch up. Mickey was in bad shape, but not bad enough to realize Tink just lit Jordan on fire with his blue hands. Jordan was dead. Mickey would recover.
Eventually. Somehow.
“Are you okay? Do you know where Mona is?” Tink said, running his index finger through Mickey’s straps. He moved slowly, trying not to let the melted rubber stick to him.
“You have the Pulse? No way!”
“Yeah man. What did he tell you?”
“Nothing, he just…” Mickey looked down. Jordan’s mouth hung open to show his black teeth. “He tortured me. I didn’t get anything outta him.”
“Alright. We got to find her.”
“And Jenna.” Mickey stepped away from the table.
“That’s right. Let’s get out of here. Okay?”
“Wait… how do, uh, you make the Pulse work?”
Before Tink could answer, the light turned off.
“Tink, Mickey, can you hear me?” Marshall’s voice came into the room. The men looked around the darkness, confused.
The light turned back on to show the door was closed.
“Gentleman. You’ve made a very, very bad decision.”
“Marshall!” Tink yelled. “I’m coming for you! Imma light you up! You see this?”
“I can’t see anything, you idiot. This is radio, not television.” Marshall answered, laughing at his own joke. “Tink, I advise you to go back to your room and wait for further instruction. Otherwise, I’ll cut the scalp of little Mona, right now.”
“You won’t!”
“Tempt me! I’ll bleed her out and make you listen to her screams. Tempt me, boy! I want you to.”
Tink looked to Mickey, he nodded back. The chance would come. Not now, but soon.
They were going to burn this building down.
“I’ll be seeing you around, bro. Raincheck?” Mickey said with a smile.
“Just like that?” Tink asked.
“Yeah, dude. No use in fighting back. At least, ya know, not yet.”
*******
Acacia/Sherry
8:32 p.m. (Western time)
Las Vegas, NV
She didn’t turn back, but Hadley’s heavy footsteps pounded into the pavement behind her. Her old track experience was no match for the cobwebs in her joints that have grown in the last twenty years, but she still sprinted in a straight line with good form. Not fast enough to escape him for long, but fast enough to get down the next two blocks and into the police station.
Each stride felt a new wound open up along the bottoms of her feet and toes as the pavement cut open her skin. Her impeccable running would have been better with running shoes.
She tried to distract herself from his enclosing footsteps. She thought about the similarities of anything in her past, but all she could think of is the old scary movies. This is what it feels like to be chased in a horror movie. She was the dumb blonde running through the backwoods while the ogre of Crystal Lake gives his slow, methodical chase. Instead of being a virgin, she was a hooker.
In the movies, the dumb blonde hooker never made it to the police station, but Acacia was just fast enough to be able to outrun him. The streets were empty, thankfully no one got in her way and ended up his next victim. Acacia just needed to make it to the police station and hide behind a bunch of men with guns. It doesn’t matter if it’s late. Someone would be there. Either that, or she would find a gun and kill Hadley herself. Again.
She turned back. It broke the rule of never looking back when sprinting, but she needed to know where he was.
He was moving faster than her. His form was better than hers. The streetlights shined on his bloody and black-coated face. He was dead. She saw half his brains spilled out on the floor. No one lives through that and then chases their murderer through the street. This was crazy.
He might not be alive, but he wasn’t dead either. Fortunately, there was enough distance between them for her to make it inside before he caught her.
She opened the door and raced up the police station steps.
*******
Jake
Darkness
West of The Sal
t Lake, UT
Jake limped along the empty trail. The cold night air caused his breath to come out in vapor clouds. There was a shrub at the top of the hill, and it looked about half of his height. He was going to stop there to catch a break. He didn’t make it very far, but he was growing weaker with each step. If this was a marathon, his body acted like he was sprinting. Elizabeth was hundreds of miles away, he couldn’t get to her if he passed out on the trail and died from exposure.
The cool wind stung the tender right side of his body. His hands were shivering, but he didn’t have any pockets. The nights were cold this close to the water, his sunburned skin hurt as he clenched his fists. He was only a few steps from the shrub, but his legs buckled with each step. He tried to think through the pain and distance himself from the effects of having a city destroying bomb go off on the right side of his face.
Elizabeth was still alive. She was waiting for her husband to come home. Right now, the world would tell her that he was dead, but Jake knew his wife well enough to know, she wouldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t give up on him. She believed in him. She knew there was more strength in Jake’s body than he currently felt on the trail. His body might be broken, but thoughts of her made him whole.
Jake made it to the top of the hill and looked over the rolling white mountains. He couldn’t tell if it was more salt, or snow. From this view, Jake saw a road one mile to his left. It had to be the interstate, the road that would take him almost directly to Elizabeth. There were many miles to go, and no road sign ahead, but Jake finally knew exactly where he was going. He crouched down beside the shrub and promised to give himself only a few minutes rest. She was out there, waiting for her husband to come home.
“I’ll be there soon, my love.”
*******
Dark Divide (Shadow and Shine Book 2) Page 28
