Kaeden

by Naomi West

  “What’d you think?” Shotgun grins at me. “Yeah, this is the place. Like I said, though, I don’t know if she’s in there. All I know is that she probably is … might be … let’s say might be.”

  “Well, shit.” I shrug. “The fuck else are we going to do? ‘Might be’ is a better chance than we had half an hour ago. So yeah, brother, let’s go with might be.”

  “Hey!” The man who I thought wasn’t paying attention suddenly pays attention. He’s a short, stocky prick with dyed green hair gelled into a Mohawk. He aims his rifle and then rests his face on the butt, looking down the scope. Which could mean death for us.

  “Shit,” I growl, raising my own rifle. In the scope, I see the man’s magnified face fill with panic. He goes to squeezes his trigger; I shoot quickly, without time to put my silencer on. There’s a near-deafening crack and the bullet tears right through the man’s neck, sending him stumbling toward the edge of the roof. He drops his gun and falls right off the roof to the sidewalk below, landing with a scream. He starts to scream louder until I put another bullet in him.

  The music in the bar goes dead.

  “Shit is right,” Shotgun mutters, hefting his own weapon. “I guess we’re not going to need those silencers.”

  “I guess not.” I lay out all my weapons at my feet, within grabbing distance, and then turn my scope to the door and watch it carefully. Shotgun doesn’t look down his sights, but instead surveys the whole area. “It’s time for war, Shotgun. See you on the other side.”

  “Yeah.” He laughs. “I guess I will.”

  Just then, two Nine Circles come barreling out of the bar. They look down at their fallen man, and then fall right on top of him as my bullet takes the one on the right and Shotgun’s takes the one on the left, causing them to fall like boneless things. They collapsed atop the corpse, making a three-man pile, and then about four more men come running out. This time they don’t gawp down at their men, though. They immediately start firing at us.

  We roll back and duck down as the bullets thump-thump-thump into the wooden scaffolding, tearing right through it and pinging off metal beams all around us. I retreat to a stone pillar where I can just see the street; Shotgun follows close behind, our vision obscured now with the gunfire.

  “Throw a flashbang,” I tell him.

  “Yeah,” he mutters, taking one from his belt. He tosses it overhand, but then the goddamn impossible happens, which’ll often happen in a gunfight if a man is paying attention. One of the Nine Circle bullets gets lucky and catches the grenade midair, exploding it when it’s not quite over the edge of the scaffolding. It explodes in searing white; my world turns to screeching hell.

  I make myself breath slowly and try to see through the blaring whiteness that has suddenly filled my vision. I don’t move around, I don’t panic, but it’s hard when I can’t see a goddamn thing except fading white spots on my vision. Soon the white spots fade to nothing and then my vision returns … just in time for the Nine Circles bastard to level his gun at me from across the room. They’re running up the stairs!

  I fire a shot at him and miss. He fires one back and misses as well, small chips flying away from the stone pillar. I duck my head and charge at him when he gets closer. He’s a big bastard, but I’m used to fighting with big bastards and anyway, they’re never much bigger than me. I grab hold of his gun hand just as he makes to fire his pistol again. Then I twist his arm around and jam his own gun into the flesh of his neck. He has a tattoo of a woman’s name there, next to a small angel and then a picture of a devil. I ignore that shit. This is war. I pull the trigger; the bullet carves a chunk out of his neck, and the man falls.

  “Watch the rear,” I say, spinning on Shotgun. “We can’t let these bastards swarm us. They’re below us, Shotgun. Can you hear them?”

  I jog across the room to Shotgun, who for some reason has decided to sit his ass down on the floor when we’re in the middle of a gunfight. He’s done some pretty crazy things during gunfights before—screamed out war-chants, made grim jokes, once charged headfirst at a man who was aiming a shotgun at him—but he’s never just laid down like this before. More men are running up the stairs behind me, too many to count. I spin before I get to Shotgun and fire a spray that hits a shoulder, a neck, a forehead, and a cheekbone. The man at the front, a barrel of a fella wearing a black vest with sweat making his mutton chops stick to his face, falls on top of the man behind him, sending them both sprawling.

  “Come on,” I growl, spinning on Shotgun. “The fuck are you doing?” I reach down and grab his shoulders, trying to shake him out of whatever the hell this bullshit is.

  Then I see that he’s got a bullet-shaped hole in his forehead and blood is dripping down his scar right into his eye, where he’s propped against the pillar, and his eyes are blank and his mouth is twisted in that way dead people’s mouth sometimes do. I stare down at him for far too long; long enough for several more men to spill into the building underneath me. I hear them, barreling toward the staircase, and yet it’s like I can’t move. I just keep staring at my dead brother; my dead friend.

  “Shotgun,” I whisper. “Shotgun?”

  I let him go and stand up just as a man wearing a bike helmet pokes his head up the stairs. I don’t know what good he thinks that helmet’s going to do against a rifle, but he learns his lesson pretty damn quick when I hurl a shot his way that sends the helmet, and some of his skull, smashing against the wall behind him. I jump to my feet and return to the scaffolding, pushing Shotgun from my head for the time being. It’s a damn mean thing to have to do, but if I want to survive—or save Fiona—I have to. I look down into the street to see how many of these fucks have me surrounded, but there’s only two. Some still hide in the bar and more are underneath me. The two in the street stand facing the building, their rifles aimed, but they don’t see me as I creep along the scaffolding off to the left.

  I’m seriously fucked here. More men than anybody can be expected to fight are moving in on me. Shotgun … But I can’t think about Shotgun; can’t think about all the times we had together, all the jokes, all the brotherhood. If I start thinking about Shotgun, I’m liable to do something stupid like charge these assholes and just take as many of them out as I can without caring if they take me out too. I’d do it, as well, if it wasn’t for Fiona. Right now I’m gladder than I can understand that I met her, because she’s saving me from myself.

  “Where is she?” comes from the bar. “Where the fuck is she?”

  It’s Reaper’s booming roar, the same one that made the people in the restaurant cower in fear. Suddenly the men underneath me stop making for the staircase, and the two men outside half turn toward the bar. I could use this opportunity to take them out but that’d mean revealing where I am. Maybe they think they got us both; maybe they’re more scared of their boss than they are of me. I scan the building.

  Holy fucking shit … Fiona squirms out of a side window, landing on top of a trashcan in the alleyway that runs alongside the bar. She makes a loud banging noise, causing the two fellas outside to turn in that direction. My mind does a quick calculation, the type it only ever does when outlawing. My bike is parked two streets over, the same direction that Fiona is walking; if I shoot these bastards, grab her …

  It’s a crazy plan, but it might just work. The men make to walk toward her, leaving their posts now as Reaper roars out more and more, stomping around the bar. Apparently he won’t leave the bar, though, and I’m guessing that’s because he’s either smart or a coward, depending on how you look at it. I take a deep breath and look one last time back into the room where Shotgun lies, chewing the inside of my mouth. Leaving a brother behind is not something any outlaw wants to do, dammit, but if I go back for him I’m leaving Fiona to be killed.

  This is a choice I never dreamed I’d have to make; only a few days ago, it would’ve seemed ridiculous. But time is running out and now it’s time to decide what sort of man I really am.

  I crawl right to the ed
ge of the scaffolding and then lower myself as quietly as a man like me can. The men in the building are walking up the stairs now, meaning nobody’s in the lower floor to see me creeping across the street. I get as close to the two bikers, as silently as I can, and then I take out my twin blades from sheaths strapped to my back. I leap; they turn—and I bury the knives in the sides of their heads, twisting them savagely so that they drop their guns and the knives become handles for their skulls. I lower them by the knives to the ground and then jog across the street.

  “He’s outside!” men roar. “He’s fucking outside! Quickly!”

  “Whoa!” Fiona cries as I grab her and throw her over my shoulder. I can’t think about carrying her gently right now. I just sprint through the alleyways, past a reeking trash can and a homeless man and a bunch of rats fighting over a discarded chicken drumstick, and then I place her down and jump onto the bike. It doesn’t take her much time to figure out what I want from her. She leaps onto the back of the bike. I start it, the engine erupts, and then I pull away.

  Then it’s just Fiona’s hands on my belly, gun-smoke in my mouth, and the crushing sense that I’ve betrayed the only man I could ever call a friend. Shotgun, just lying there, lying there for Reaper’s goons, lying there with their goddamn bullet in his head. Lying there knowing that his best friend left him behind to be picked apart like carrion.

  12

  Fiona

  “Where are we?” I ask, as he takes me by the hand and leads me up the driveway to what looks like an overgrown jungle: the garden clawing out onto the driveway, the trees overhanging, and the weeds wrapping around the fence post. Some of the weeds are so thick and wild that they’ve broken the fenceposts, twisting them.

  “A safehouse,” he replies, distant now after the craziness at the bar. I still find it hard to believe that I’m here and not back there, that cutting the rope really worked, that Kaeden saved me when there were so many Nine Circles everywhere. I squeeze onto his hand for comfort, drawing what strength I can from him.

  “Yeah, but where?”

  “Oh, we’re down near Cedar Park. Don’t worry about that, though. You just worry about … damn, I don’t know. Just don’t think about shit, all right? Just make your mind empty. That’s the best thing to do after a thing like this. After—” His jaw goes tight as he lets go of my hand and reaches under a plant pot—lopsided, with its overgrown plant unbalancing it toward the ground—and takes out a small rusted key. He jams it into the lock and turns it roughly. “Just don’t think. What is there to think about, eh? What is there …” He shakes his head. I feel like there’s something more going on here, something he’s not telling me, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is.

  “Come on.” He takes my hand again and leads me into the living room, which is surprisingly well-kept and not dusty at all. “We employ cleaners for our safehouses,” he says, laughing slightly. Though there’s something unhinged about the laugh. “But not gardeners, apparently.”

  He takes me to the couch of an old-fashioned but clean living room and sits me down. “Wait here,” he tells me. “I need to make some calls.”

  I want to say something else—so much else—but then he’s gone and it’s all I can do to stay awake. My eyes become heavy, dragging down to the floor. It takes all my effort to keep them open, but then the couch is too comfortable and I can’t help but lie down and stretch out. I sink into the old cushions and stare at the large, box-shaped television, the sort I haven’t seen in a long time now. I bring my knees to my chest and close my eyes, losing the battle.

  “Yeah, I know!” Kaeden snaps from the next room. “Do you think I fucking wanted to leave him? Fucking hell, man. Just head down there and see if you can get his body back. We both know I never would’ve left him if there was any way around it, but they were closing in and … You don’t need to hear excuses, and I can’t be fucked giving them. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  He stomps back into the living room and stands over me. With an effort, I sit up. “Is everything okay?” I ask him, which is maybe the stupidest question I could ask right now. But something is going on here, something separate to me. “Who did you leave behind?”

  “My friend Shotgun,” he says tightly. He picks at the scar under his left eye, his broken nose wrinkling. Then he runs his hand through his curly black hair and sighs heavily, a sigh that could bring this house down if it was just a few years older. “He took one right in the head, right in the fucking forehead. Died instantly; a shot like that’ll do that easy enough. He’s dead now, so … But I left him behind, which a brother should never do. I had to, though.” He looks at me hungrily, expecting something.

  I touch his hand. “You had to,” I tell him.

  “Wait here,” he says, withdrawing his hand and turning quickly away. “I’ll run you a bath. Then you can get some sleep.” He paces to the door.

  “Kaeden,” I call, when he’s right at the door.

  “Yeah?” He half turns.

  “Are we … okay? I mean me and you?”

  He turns back to the door. “I’ll run you that bath. Don’t worry about anything right now, all right? Just try and relax as best you can.” He takes a step and then pauses, as though he’s going to say something else. He stays like that for several long moments, my anticipation building, and then he walks through the door and up the stairs.

  I roll onto my back and bring my knees to my chest, my heartbeat still thrumming like I’m back there at the bar. Worms crawl over my skin as I relive what Reaper said to me, but I got off lightly considering that all the torture was yet to happen. Still, it’s difficult to convince myself that it’s not still going to happen any minute now. It’s like when I was a kid and I’d get let out of school early once every couple of years—the weather, a bug—and I’d still be convinced right up until the phantom school-bell that I was still going to have to head to last period.

  “Come on,” Kaeden says, standing at the door. “Let’s get you cleaned up, eh?” He offers me a hand.

  He can’t know how much that hand means to me right now. I nod and then struggle to my feet. He supports me well, his arm as solid as a tree trunk: unyielding.

  “What a gentleman,” I say, smiling at him. It takes an effort.

  He tries to smile back, but it falters a second later. His pain about his friend is the clearest emotion I’ve ever seen him display. It etches into every one of his features, the slowly rising sun making it even clearer as it rests on his pain-stricken face.

  He leads me up the stairs and into the bathroom. “There are towels on the rail,” he says, “and soap and everything you need. So just, yeah, I guess just try and relax. Okay?”

  He makes to walk back down the stairs.

  “You know you can talk to me, right?” I say. “I know maybe that might seem silly to you, considering that we’re just … well, considering that I’m not really your old lady like I told Reaper. But you can talk to me, if you want. I know—I’m guessing you might not have anyone else you can talk to about this sort of stuff.”

  “Just try and relax,” he says, walking down the stairs.

  I bite down on my lip to suppress a shout, and then go into the bathroom. It reminds me of a grandmother’s place, the type I’ve seen in Hollywood movies with the floral tiles and the cream-colored toilet and sink, the old wrapped soap and the towels fringed with more floral patterns. Steam rises from the bath along with a healthy amount of bubbles, almost toppling over the edge. When I climb in they do slide over the edge, but the warm, soothing water is too much like the world’s hottest blanket for me to care right now. I slide into oblivion.

  But relaxing is easier said than done, especially when a sizable part of my mind is still telling me that I’m back there at the bar, that Reaper’s going to violate me with the barrel of his gun like he threatened. But I also keep thinking about Kaeden and the pain he’s clearly going through: pain he won’t share with me—

  The bathroom door swin
gs open and Kaeden walks in. He’s changed into sweatpants and a vest, displaying arms that are so huge, it defies belief. His muscles bulge like they might burst from his skin, and his forearms are covered in one or two thick veins, as though his blood is so hot it might just burst out. He sits down, leaning his back against the toilet and staring off into space.

  I don’t say anything, just sit up in the bath and stare at him. What does he want from me? Does he want something sexual now? That can’t be it, can it? The bubbles cling to my nipples as I sit up, water dripping down them and making them tingle. I feel my body reacting simply to his presence beside me, but especially to those monstrous arms: arms that can protect me from anybody, from anything, arms that will never let bad things happen to me. I’m about to reach outside the bath and put my hand on his arm when he turns to me, and I see that he doesn’t want anything sexual today. His eyes are red, yet he’s not crying.

  “Shotgun was my best goddamn friend,” he mutters, seeming to force the words out.

  “Go on,” I whisper, sliding back down into the tub, hiding my breasts.

  He laughs gruffly. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Just tell me how you feel. Let it out.”

  He laughs again, this time harsher. “I feel like it’s not really happening, is what I feel. I feel like there’s no way Shotgun’s lying back there with a bullet in his head.” He clenches his fists, trembling slightly. “I feel like the world must be one unfair place for a stray bullet to catch Shotgun on the type of job we’ve done a hundred times before. That’s what I feel.” He shakes his head bitterly. “I guess I feel like I got him killed, since he wouldn’t’ve been on such stupid job if it wasn’t for me. It doesn’t matter what sort of man you are, you can’t take on the world; he said that to me once, when we were drinking whisky.”