by Monica Rossi
“But how are you going to find out?”
“A little ghostie is going to tell me,” he didn’t take his eyes away from the building.
The ghost thing again, she’d meant to ask him about that over lunch but she’d been… preoccupied. She was curious, but now wasn’t the time to have a long discussion about things that did or did not exist.
Demon spoke quietly to the man next to him, asking him to send someone named Crazy Shade to him. Minutes later a lanky man with long stringy hair and stained mismatched clothes walked up. Sidney consciously kept herself from wrinkling her nose because as soon as he came near the smell of dirty body combined with alcohol and smoke threatened to overwhelm her sense of politeness.
“Hey Shade, looking better man. Are those meds you were telling me about working?”
The man nodded silently and Sidney wondered what he’d looked like before if this were an improvement.
“See on the corners of the building there, and above the doors,” Demon pointed while he spoke, “We need to take out all of those lights and cameras before we try to break in, or they’ll see us coming.”
Crazy Shade nodded again, and began taking off his clothes as if she weren’t standing there, two feet in front of him. Sidney tried to look away, but like most things you don’t want to see, it was impossible not to look, no matter how much she wished she hadn’t. Then the air shimmered and crackled, just like it had when she’d seen Red shift, and she was left staring at empty space. No wolf stood in the place where the man had been.
“Where’d he go?” Sidney asked, searching the forest floor for any sign of him.
“He shifted.”
“But … he’s just gone. There’s no wolf.”
“Not all shifters change into wolves, it’s just the most common.” He didn’t seem like he felt like expanding on that so she silently pondered the repercussions of that particular revelation while she stood beside him in silence.
It seemed to take forever for the man to return, but when he did, Sidney came close to shrieking as he reappeared almost out of thin air right in front of Demon.
“I got them all, and the ones on the other side of the building too.” His voice was deep and crackled with disuse. “There’s a lot of dudes inside.”
Demon patted him on the back, “Thanks Shade, that’ll help out a lot.”
The man smiled back at Demon, showing a wrecked collection of teeth that made Sidney feel a little squeamish.
“We go in as soon as the sun’s completely down,” Demon said to the man next to him, who in turn passed the words on to the others within hearing distance.
Sidney’s insides coiled with nervous anticipation and fear. She hoped she hadn’t been wrong in coming along, she wanted to help, not get in the way, but what if she wasn’t able to use any of her powers? Or what if she tried to use them and it didn’t turn out like she expected and actually caused more trouble for them? Sidney mentally shook herself, she couldn’t let the doubts seep in. She was here by her own choice, and if she couldn’t help with magic she’d find some other way to contribute, but either way, she’d see Red safe at least.
The minutes ticked by, she watched the sun as the brilliant colors of sunset muted into the grey tones of dusk, and she waited. Demon was staring at the building as if he could somehow gather information from it by sheer will, and he didn’t seem to notice the shifting feet and impatient sounds coming from the people around him. She, like everyone else, wanted to get started so that it’d be over with.
Then, as if some switch had been flipped, Demon quietly said, “It’s time, let’s go.”
She’d expected a flurry of activity at the words, a wild rushing towards the building by everyone, but that’s not what happened. Instead, they just stepped forward, walking with the same noiseless care they’d shown in the woods. It was more disconcerting than the angry horde she’d been expecting.
Demon grabbed her hand, “Stay with me” he said as he started out from under the trees. They waited while someone brought out some sort of metal cutter and clipped the fence so that a door shaped rectangle was formed, easily letting everyone walk through with without having to scale the fence and deal with the razor wire.
This was almost too easy. What was the point of having a fence if someone could just come along and clip a door into it? She’d expected some action movie sequence of men running and scaling the wall, throwing their abandoned shirts over the sharp edges for others to climb over. Instead they just calmly walked through.
On the other side of the fence, they began making their way to the building, the ones that made it first planting their backs against the wall, waiting for Demon to give them further instructions. She stayed behind him as they went, her hand firmly clenched in his.
She followed his lead as he pressed himself up against the wall like the others, and side stepped until he got to what must have been the back door of the facility. There was no window, it was just a plain metal door. Demon stood it front of it, giving a nod to the guys directly around him, as if to say get ready. He tried the door knob slowly and it wouldn’t give. Under his breath he began saying something that sounded vaguely musical, but she couldn’t understand the words, and finally the door clicked, and he looked back to confirm he had it open.
There was no easy way to do the next part. Opening the door slowly and peeking in wouldn’t do any good if someone were watching, so instead he flung it wide, hoping to catch someone by surprise.
And he did. A man, well over six foot tall, in a black suit stood with his back to the door. The sound of the door opening caught him off guard and he turned with a look of surprise on his face but it didn’t last long.
“We’ve got – “ he started to yell as he lunged toward Demon, but a knife appeared from nowhere out of his throat. Demon pulled the knife out and let him fall to the floor, a gurgle of blood bubbling out of his mouth as he still tried to speak.
An alarm sounded and Demon cursed as men in black suits seemed to materialize from no where, coming down the hall at a dead run.
“Back up,” Demon shouted, “Take them down as they come out the door.” He pulled back from the door, giving the men plenty of room to exit, dragging Sidney with him, and planted himself directly in front of her.
The black suits came running out at speeds she’d never seen before, one after another colliding with the men and women she’d come with. Demon had a knife in each hand and went to work, sweeping out in elegant arches, dodging blows and landing one after another on the man he was fighting. His movements were almost memorizing, even though some of them were too fast to actually see. It was like a complicated dance and he was the dancing master. She watched him take down one after another in a graceful spray of blood and flashing silver.
But when she finally tore her gaze away from Demon and the destruction he was leaving behind, what she saw filled her with fear and horror. All around her men were falling, but it wasn’t the suits, it was the Dogs. The suits bashed and kicked with inhuman strength sending women flying with broken bones and men smashed beneath their feet. Even the ones who had shifted weren’t faring any better. All around her lay men who had come with her to help save Red, some badly wounded, some already dead.
Sidney’s hands covered her mouth. She couldn’t believe that even with so many people they were losing. And that’s what was happening, they were going to lose. The men would take whoever they didn’t kill and do to them whatever they were doing to Red, or they’d kill them.
She couldn’t let that happen. Her brain scrambled to think of something, anything, she could do to stop the slaughter that was happening before her and it came back blank, and the panic rose within.
She closed her eyes and raised her hands, and tried to recreate what she’d done in the clubhouse parking lot. She thought of her need. Her need to help these people, to keep them alive, to rescue Red. A ball of white hot energy formed in the center of her mind and she fed those needs to it, she fed her fear to
it, she fed her panic to it, she fed all of her love and uncertainty to it. She felt it grow and expand beyond her felt it encompass all of her and expand beyond. She felt it reach out and touch the earth and the sky and everything in between. She felt it grow so big she couldn’t hold it anymore. So she let it go, exploding forth from her like a nuclear bomb hitting the ground.
She opened her eyes to see what she’d wrought but instead of carnage and destruction she saw nothing. The world was completely still and silent. Nothing before her or behind, above or below, she was alone. Nothing existed except for her and the purest white light. And she smiled.
The light was fading, leaving everything blurred and tinged with grey. Sidney reached towards it, she didn’t want it to lose it, the warmth, the feeling of being safe. That cocooning glow felt like a shelter from everything bad that had ever happened to her or ever would. She wanted to call it back, to chase after it and never let it go.
“Sidney! Sidney!” she heard her name being called and vaguely sensed that her body was being shaken. She tried to focus her vision but her head was pounding and her eyes felt sore and grimy. She blinked and she still couldn’t see anything but smears of muted colors.
“Sidney! Shake it off,” she tried blinking again. She felt someone lift her shoulders as her head rolled back. She tried to put her hands under herself and straighten up, tried lifting her head but everything felt so heavy. Like gravity had suddenly increased a thousand percent and her muscles just weren’t up to the task of coping with it. She tried again anyway, every movement a monumental effort, everything inside her crying out for her to quit, to find the light again and linger in its warmth. She fought it, knowing she couldn’t go back, she had to go forward. She had to find… something.
“That’s it, get it together,” she knew that voice. Her vision finally began to focus. Hovering above her was a face that could only be described as beautiful, only inches away from her own she felt his breath brush her cheek. Jet black hair framed his features, making the contrast of his pale skin that much more striking, sculpted mouth turned down and clear green eyes full of concern, she’d seen this face before, she knew this man. Her mind searched for answers until it found the name that belonged with person before her.
“Demon,” she let the word go with a breath as everything came rushing back to her. She cleared her throat, it felt full of debris, “What happened, are the guys ok?”
“Look for yourself,” he said brushing a lock of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. She swiveled her head, surveying the damage.
Bodies lay scattered across the yard, some of them of men and women who had come with her, but mostly the men in suits. All of them lay dead, mouths open with blood trickling from their lips, eyes wide with red tears streaking their faces. Sidney covered her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t done this, it wasn’t possible, she couldn’t have done this, it was unthinkable.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice quiet, afraid she already knew the answer.
“You happened Sidney, Jesus,” Demon stared at her intently, probably seeing her with the same horror she was feeling inside. “It was incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it. One minute they were kicking ass and taking names… the next they were on their knees holding their ears and screaming.”
Sidney started shaking her head at his words. No, she wouldn’t accept that she’d done this. She couldn’t, she saved lives, that’s what she’d been trained for. Every day she went to work and did her best to keep someone’s best friend alive, tail wagging another day. She couldn’t stand to see animals in pain, much less humans. She saved lives, she didn’t take them. No, this couldn’t have been her. She hadn’t even been able to explode an apple, something else must have done this.
“Hey it’s ok , it’s ok. Don’t cry, you saved us. The guys were getting butchered and you saved them. If you hadn’t done it then everyone here would have died. Did you see how those assholes were throwing people around? Crushing their bones with one kick, breaking necks with a twist of their hands? It would have been a massacre if you hadn’t done what you did.”
Sidney tried to see it that way, tried to reason that she’d done what she had to do to keep them safe. It all felt hollow. It was a massacre, and she’d committed it. There was no justification for the loss of life that had happened, she could tell herself that she’d had done what she had to do but at the end of the day she was still a murderer. A mass murderer. And she was going to have to live with that.
She took a deep breath, she’d deal with it, she had to, but she’d deal with it later. Now there was work to do. “I should help them,” she indicated to the people who were hurt, the sounds of their moans redirecting her focus from self-loathing to more practical matters.
“They’re healing already, there’s not much you can do. Stay here and rest, I’ve got to go in and get Red.”
Red. She’d almost forgotten the entire reason they were here. She needed to find Red.
“I’m going with you,” Sidney moved to get up, bracing her hands on the ground and pushing up. She failed, her arms and legs were too weak to support her.
“No, I don’t think you are, I’ll be back in a minute,” Demon stood up, “and I’ll have Red with me.”
Sidney didn’t argue, she just waited until he turned to go, then she summoned all the strength she could muster and made herself stand. Her head swam and she felt like she was going to pass out but she stayed upright. Demon was heading across the yard to the door which was blocked by a mound of bodies. Taking another deep breath she followed, willing her legs to take one step after another. It took longer than she’d expected for her to cross the yard. Each step forward a testament of will, she felt like she could melt into a puddle at any moment, but she was determined to see this through, no matter how her tired body betrayed her.
“I told you to stay back and rest,” Demon said when she caught up to him at the door, where he was moving bodies out of the way so he could get through the door.
“And I told you I was coming,” her voice sounded a lot more steady than she felt.
Demon’s eyes hardened and he contemplated his words before he spoke, “You are a stupid, stupid woman. And sadly, you’re probably going to get yourself killed one day because of it.”
Sidney shrugged, she didn’t really care much about his opinion of her intellect at the moment, she just needed to see that Red was safe.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him, through the door. “Do exactly what I do.” He pressed himself against the wall and Sidney followed his lead even though she was pretty sure there weren’t any people left alive to care whether or not they entered the facility.
More bodies lay strewn across the floor down the brightly lit corridor. Sidney tried not to look at them, not to think about the number of lives she’d cut short without even knowing what she was doing. Slowly they made their way through the mess. Demon seemed to know where he was going, he didn’t pause to look in rooms or down hallways.
“We don’t have time,” he said, shaking his head. Sidney guessed he was talking to whatever invisible entity was feeding him information. “We get Red first and then we can see about your asshole ex boyfriend.”
“Your ghost?” Sidney asked, he was clearly not speaking to her.
“She’s not my fucking ghost. But yes, that’s who I’m talking to. She wants us to go get Frederick, the guy who is running,” he put his hand up to indicate the facility, “this nightmare. It seems he lived through your, uh, outburst and is trying to leave.”
Sidney nodded even though he couldn’t see her since she was behind him. Whoever he was and whatever his reasons were didn’t matter, he needed to be stopped. But she agreed with him, they had to get Red first.
Demon stopped in front of a room and looked inside the door before he turned the knob and entering. Sidney went in behind him, stopping cold when she saw Red. Or what was left of him.
He sat in a wheelchair against the wa
ll, his head lying back against the wall with his eyes closed. She could clearly see how badly he’d been beaten, he wasn’t wearing a shirt and every inch of his skin was covered in bruises or blood. His face was almost unrecognizable, the swelling causing his features to distort grotesquely. Tears sprang to her eyes, someone had taken pleasure in beating him.
Rushing to him she knelt and felt for a pulse. It was there but weak, she didn’t need a medical degree to know that he was too damaged to survive, they’d gotten there too late, something inside of him was broken. “Red. Red, it’ s Sidney, wake up.” The tears were coursing down her face, Demon came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, and she was thankful for the comfort his touch brought. Instead of electricity surging between them, she felt a warmth seeping through her, giving her strength.
Red’s eyes opened into slits, it was probably the most he could manage with the damage done to his face. He picked his head up, looking first at her then at the hand on her shoulder before his gaze travelled up to Demon.
“Hey,” he said, as if he weren’t sitting there broken.
“Hey,” Sidney wiped the tears off her cheek. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
Red gave a little shake of his head, “I’m dying.”
“No,” Sidney cried, “I won’t let you.”
Red looked up at Demon, ignoring Sidney’s words. “Hey man. Take care of Morgan. Make sure she knows I loved her, even though I was a shitty ass father.”
“You got it, brother,” Demon’s face was grim as he agreed.
Sidney looked between the two of them. She’d thought that when Demon called Red brother it was because they were in the club together, but now she could see it, the bond between them, however shaky, was one of family. And Demon was just going to let Red go.
