“Chief, hold on,” Jim said. “I’ll back you up, we’ll get your old man out of there.”
Deacon turned away from Jim in time to see a large, naked man running toward him, belly jiggling, eyes crusty and crazed. Deacon pumped the shotgun and blasted the man directly in the chest, and the attacker rocked backward as if snatched away by a great wind.
He pressed on into the parking lot. He didn’t wait on Jim. He wasn’t going to wait on anyone. Hot currents of fury sizzled through his blood, and the twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands felt like a natural extension of his own limbs, an instrument of unbridled rage.
The heat from the conflagration warmed the sweat on his face. More cars were ablaze than he had thought at first glance. Flames rippled across his own car, a late-model Jeep Grand Cherokee. Technically, it was Falcon’s vehicle, loaned to Deacon as a perk of his employment, but the destruction infuriated Deacon nonetheless.
In the apartment complex, something exploded and blew out a window.
He saw the window of the ground-level unit he shared with his father. It was dark but intact, no flames guttering from it, but that meant nothing, as the fire was on a path to devour the entire complex.
Two frenzied came at him from opposite directions. A man and a woman. He blasted the man, the closest one, in the chest, swung around to drop the other one, but she moved fast and was right in his face in a blink. She sliced at him with a chef’s knife. The blade slashed across his neck, barely missing the jugular vein. He shoved the shotgun barrel in her stomach and squeezed the trigger.
She collapsed at his feet with a sigh.
Blood trickled from the gash in his neck. He put one hand against the cut, felt that it wasn’t deep, and moved on.
On the ground, he saw a red gasoline can, a trail of flames leading from it to various vehicles in the parking lot. One of the frenzied, in one of their bizarre obsessive fits, must have thought it was a bright idea to dribble gasoline all over the place and take a match to it. He was certain that the flames consuming the apartment building were borne of the same pyromania.
He stepped around a flaming truck. A couple was copulating on the ground. Like dogs. Their skin glistened in the firelight. The man noticed Deacon and sneered. Deacon swung the shotgun and whacked the man full in the face with the butt of the weapon, and heard the crunch of the guy’s teeth cracking.
He reached the alcove of the apartment building. This close, the heat was intense enough to singe the hairs on Deacon’s face.
He hurried down the corridor. Wraiths of black smoke billowed along its length. Deacon coughed, but kept moving. The exterior hallway hadn’t yet been touched by the spreading inferno, but flames glowed at the top of the staircase that connected the three floors of the building.
As he neared his apartment, he saw the door was already open. Black smoke poured from the doorway.
No . . .
His knees got weak.
Maybe Pops got out, he thought. Maybe the door is open because he escaped.
Deacon charged inside. He screamed: “Pops!”
Smoke and flames were everywhere. The smoke stung his eyes, brought forth tears. His chest burned.
He was at risk of poisoning himself with smoke, but he pressed on.
He didn’t see his father in the living room. He rushed down the hallway. A tongue of flames slowly lapped across the ceiling. He swung into his father’s bedroom. The bed was empty. Flames danced on the bedsheets and pillows. Fire crawled across the ceiling and walls.
His father’s wheelchair stood next to the burning bed. Empty.
“Pops!” Deacon shouted, hoarse.
A muffled cough. From across the room. The closet.
Deacon moved so fast he wasn’t conscious of crossing the distance. In the next heartbeat his hand was on the doorknob of the closet. The brass knob was hot, and scalded his fingers, but he barely felt the pain as he flung open the door.
His father was crumpled in fetal position on the floor, half-hidden underneath a pile of old clothes. He coughed weakly.
His gaze found Deacon. His eyes looked watery and red.
“Fell . . . asleep,” Pops wheezed. “Fell asleep . . . woke up when everything . . . was burning . . .”
Deacon dropped to the floor and gathered his father in his arms.
“Hold on to me,” Deacon whispered, but his father was too weak to comply. Deacon slung his father over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry position.
He staggered out of the bedroom.
Behind them, the ceiling collapsed with a boom.
In the hallway, Deacon paused. The route to the doorway was impassable. The flames had advanced. He couldn’t see his way through them.
He swung around and stumbled to the end of the corridor. A bathroom on the left, his own bedroom on the right.
He turned into his room.
Fire slowly chewed through the space, and smoke churned through the air, but the path to the large window on the opposite wall was clear.
Deacon moved toward it. It was a short distance, but it felt like a mile, like a scene from a nightmare in which a hallway keeps lengthening no matter how fast you run. The smoke was getting to him, making his throat and lungs ache. His father felt as if he weighed five hundred pounds, a ton.
The bed was calling him. He could drop his father on the mattress and lie beside him and they could lie there together and let the flames and smoke fold over them . . .
Grimacing, he kept on.
He reached the window. He blew a hole in the glass with the shotgun, used the barrel to knock away jagged shards.
Come on now, Pops . . .
He heaved his dad off his shoulders, and pushed him through the window. His father offered no resistance or support. It was like shoving a bundle of laundry down a chute. His father dropped into the bushes outside the glass.
There was a crackling noise behind him. Deacon turned. All around him, the bedroom ceiling was falling apart. The smoke had gotten thicker, more toxic. The heat inside was tremendous—Deacon was completely saturated with sweat.
He reached forward to climb out and a blood-streaked hand thrust toward him. He was about to raise the shotgun when he heard a familiar voice.
“I’ve got you, chief,” Jim said.
Deacon clasped his hand, and his partner pulled him outside.
Fresh air had never tasted so good. Sucking it in, Deacon was overcome by a painful fit of coughing. He doubled over. His lungs felt as if they were full of shattered bones.
“Get Pops . . .” Deacon gasped, but Jim was already on it, had lifted his father over his broad shoulders.
Jim moved his father out of harm’s way, near an elm tree in the courtyard. His carefully placed him on the ground.
“Jesus, he’s not breathing,” Jim said.
Deacon stumbled toward them. He dropped onto the ground next to his dad and shoved Jim aside.
His father’s eyes were shut. His face was ashen, and slack.
No, no, no, no, no . . .
Deacon began to administer CPR. He put his hands on his dad’s frail chest and pushed hard and fast.
“Wake up, Pops,” Deacon said in a raspy voice, pushing. “Hey, old man! Wake up!”
He pinched his dad’s nose shut, covered his mouth with his, blew in twice, and then started pushing on his chest again. Pops was unresponsive.
“You’re missing all the fun, old man!” Deacon said. He laughed, hot tears streaming down his face. He was crying and couldn’t stop. He was trying to bring his dad back and couldn’t stop. His father had never given up on him, even when he had given up on himself. “Come on, Pops! Pops! Get your ass up and let’s get down to business! You’ve got work to do, old man! Pops . . .”
Behind them, the apartment building sizzled and smoked, while the frenzied danced and rutted around the flames.
Chapter 29
After she had connected with Deacon via the two-way radio and gotten word that he was coming their way once he picke
d up his father, Hannah dared to relax for a spell.
She had found some plain white candles and matches in a drawer beside the refrigerator, lit them, and placed them around the kitchen, trying to strategically eliminate as many dark pockets as possible. The group sat around the circular wooden table in the breakfast nook, eating crackers, sipping water and soda, and talking about everything except what was going on outside the walls of the house.
The mystery man, Alex, was the only one who wouldn’t sit still. He paced the stone tile floor and circled the large granite island like a mouse trapped in a maze, scratching his arms and neck as if phantom insects swarmed over his skin. He had eaten his share of crackers and kept eyeing the food the rest of them were still consuming; he looked as if he desperately wanted to steal their portions and was struggling to control himself.
He kept looking at Hannah and Emily directly, too, with long gazes simmering with desire. Hannah imagined that he was undressing them in his mind and fantasizing about what he could do to them. Like most women, she was accustomed to similar looks from other men, but the searing heat in his eyes took her aback.
Then, Alex abruptly left the kitchen, muttering under his breath. She heard him stomping upstairs.
Hannah looked at Emily. The young woman’s face was crinkled with worry.
“There’s something wrong with him,” Hannah said. “I know you see it, too.”
“He saved our lives back at the clubhouse,” Emily said. “If he hadn’t been there to guide us, we wouldn’t have made it out. He saved your life, doctor.”
Hannah would never forget the Amazonian woman who had nearly choked her out on the roof. She had the purple-black bruises on her neck to remind her.
“His skin is clearly irritated, his eyes are beginning to look inflamed,” Hannah said. “We both know what those symptoms indicate.”
“What do you want to do about it then?” Emily asked. There was a challenge in her gaze.
“I’m not the enemy here,” Hannah said. “Neither is he. I’m only saying, he’s not well, and we need to be cautious.”
“Fine.” Emily got up and went to the counter island, where they had placed the shotgun Alex had taken from the dead man in the bathroom. She brought the shotgun to Hannah. “Here you go. Stay on high alert.”
“You keep it. I don’t know how to use a gun.”
“Of course you don’t.” Emily placed the weapon back on the counter. “Maybe it’s time you learned something useful, doctor.”
“Girl, what the hell is wrong with you?” Hannah rose from her chair, arms crossed over her bosom. “What’s the deal with all the attitude you’re throwing at me?”
Emily sneered—and smacked Hannah in the face. The blow was hard enough to snap Hannah’s head sideways. Her cheek stung, tears blurring her vision.
I don’t believe this girl hit me, she thought. Has she lost her mind?
Emily grabbed a fistful of Hannah’s hair. “You were going to let us die here, you bitch! You were going to leave us!”
Shifting her weight, Hannah broke Emily’s hold on her. She expertly wrangled Emily around, got her off balance, and tossed Emily over her hip, a perfectly executed hip throw. Emily crashed against a chair, knocked it over. Sitting on the floor, she looked dazed.
“I don’t know how to use a gun, true, but I know how to use my hands quite well,” Hannah said. “Cool out, girl, or I will make you cool out, believe that.”
Shrieking, Emily rushed her. Hannah sidestepped, got her hands on Emily, and hip-tossed her again, sending her hurtling against the cabinets.
She didn’t want to hurt the girl, but she had to let Emily get all of this out of her, or else they wouldn’t be able to move forward.
Emily was as tenacious as a bulldog, though, she would give her that. The girl got up again and came at her, flailing, and Hannah easily grappled her into a submission hold of pure dominance: Emily’s arms pinned behind her back like a pair of chicken wings, Hannah bracing her against the edge of the counter.
“You’re hurting me!” Emily said.
“You started this, now I’m finishing it.” Hannah didn’t relinquish her hold. Instead, she tightened her grip a notch.
“My arms . . .” Emily whimpered, her body shuddering.
“I am a judoka, Emily,” Hannah said calmly. “I’ve trained since I was six years old. I could easily dislocate both of your shoulders right now—it would be like breaking breadsticks to me. I’ve done it before. I do know a few useful things. Don’t ever raise your hand to me again. Are we clear?”
“Let me go!” Emily wailed.
“Wrong answer.” Hannah applied slightly more pressure, and Emily let out hiss of agony. “I said, are we clear, Emily?”
“Yes . . . yes . . . clear, clear!” Crying, Emily bobbed her head.
Hannah let her go. Sniffling, gently rubbing her shoulders, Emily set upright one of the knocked over chairs, and slumped into it. She cast a glance at Hannah. Her eyes held a little fear, but mostly, they reflected a newfound respect.
Hannah closed her eyes for a beat. She felt worn out, physically and emotionally. She hated that this had happened between them. She hated everything that was going on, to all of them, and figured stress was pushing them to the breaking point.
“I’m sorry for what happened at the clubhouse,” Hannah said. “You were right, I was going to hop onboard that chopper and go on my merry way. It was selfish and wrong. I never should have agreed to the extraction in the first place, not without a plan to help those who are healthy.”
“You were only here to do a job, right?” Emily asked. She brushed hair out of her face. “Your job was over, doctor.”
“Please, call me Hannah, okay? I think we’re well past all the formalities now that we’ve tried to beat up each other like a couple of boys on the schoolyard.”
“Beat up each other?” Emily smiled through a faceful of drying tears and rubbed her shoulders again. “That was a pretty lopsided fight. I had no idea you knew how to handle yourself like that. Wow.”
“It’s not something I discuss often. I’d rather let someone underestimate me.”
“I’m sorry about slapping you and calling you a bitch,” Emily said, cheeks flushing red. “I’m not a violent person. That’s so unlike me. I don’t know what got into me.”
“We’re both under more pressure than we’ve ever felt in our lives,” Hannah said. “But we can’t ever turn against each other. We’ve got to have each other’s backs.”
“We’ve got enough enemies out there already, for sure,” Emily said.
“So.” Hannah indicated the shotgun on the counter. “It sounds like you know how to use this?”
“Zack is—was—sort of into guns,” Emily said, and looked sad for a moment. “He took me to the firing range with him every now and then.”
“Mind teaching me?” Hannah asked.
***
Alex felt seriously ill.
His head hurt. His mouth was dry. His skin itched, and felt hot, as if he were under the constant glare of a heat lamp.
And he was starving. Famished.
He couldn’t bear to be in the room with the two women, not while they were eating. He had to restrain himself from snatching the crackers out of their hands and licking the crumbs off the floor.
What most disturbed him was the way he was beginning to think about the women, too.
In the glowing candlelight, both of the women looked absolutely delicious, Emily with her smooth olive skin and Hannah with her honey-brown complexion, both of them clearly exhausted but still unbelievably attractive. He kept imagining them naked. He saw himself running his tongue across their fine bodies.
He saw himself taking a bite out of them.
Taking a bite out of them, what the hell am I thinking?
He couldn’t handle being near them, and fled the kitchen, wandering upstairs to the darkened second floor. He groaned.
I’m sick, I’ve got that shit they all do, the b
ug neurotoxin or whatever it’s called . . .
He had long suspected he was sick, ever since he had awakened in a cage in crazy Wayne’s house and found evidence that the man had injected some of his diseased blood into his bloodstream. A tick had never crawled into his nose. Apparently it hadn’t needed to; someone else’s bad blood was sufficient to do the trick, given enough time.
He stormed into a bathroom. Using the flashlight on his phone, he examined himself in the big mirror above the dual-vanity.
He was beginning to look like one of them.
“Ay dios mio!” he said.
He smashed the butt of his Beretta against his reflection. The mirror broke, blades of glass clinking into the sink.
He heard a commotion from downstairs; it sounded like the ladies were arguing. Someone screamed, and there was the crash of what might have been overturning furniture, and a shriek of rage.
Let them fight, he thought. Let them kill each other. Better for them to kill each other than for me to go down there and tear into both of them.
He moaned. He pressed his hands on either side of his skull, squeezing, as if he could apply enough pressure to eventually force these murderous thoughts out of his head.
I am not a killer. I don’t want to hurt anyone.
But how many people had he killed during his life? Dozens? He had been an assassin for the cartel for much longer than he had ever done anything else. How could he claim that a talent—an urge—to kill had not been in his nature all along?
He stumbled out of the bathroom, into a large furnished bedroom. The room should have been darker, as there was no visible light source, but he was able to clearly make out lines of furniture, shapes of artwork hanging on the walls, as if he’d been granted a measure of night vision.
Was that a symptom of the affliction? The enhancement of nocturnal predator traits such as being able to see in the dark?
He didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of it.
He had to end this.
Gnashing his teeth, he levered the barrel of the Beretta against his temple. His finger inched to the trigger.
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