by David Yates
"No!” Braden shouted and took a step forward. Silas immediately placed his left hand under Sam's chin and yanked upward, exposing her throat. He put the point of the clippers against her carotid artery.
"Stay where you are, my impetuous young friend,” Silas said. Braden stopped in mid-step. “If you cooperate, I may be generous and decide to just cut one of her fingers off. Surely she'll live through that, don't you think?"
No one moved. Silence reigned in the room. Silas was completely confident that he was in control of the situation. He had successfully disarmed the little bastard, and he had twelve of his men in here to back whatever play he made.
He certainly would have liked to have known that Braden was still holding pocket aces. For when Silas had disarmed him, he had missed the Beretta .380 in the small of Braden's back and the short, sharp, custom-made sword that Braden wore in a special sheath below the nape of his neck.
Braden stood with his arms raised to waist level, palms facing out. “Let's just calm down, Silas,” he said. “There's no reason to hurt her. This is between the two of us. Just leave her and Manny out of this."
Silas’ eyebrows went up. “Oh, but they're already in it,” he replied. He walked out from behind Sam, pocketing the clippers again. He stopped directly in front of her, facing Braden. “What you should have done is left my brother out of it. If he were still alive, none of us would be here right now."
"He was trying to kill me!” Braden exclaimed.
"He was my brother,” Silas said simply.
"I didn't know he was your brother!” Braden yelled.
"That doesn't make him any less dead,” said Silas. He pulled a large hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. “And now it's time for you to begin paying for that.” He turned calmly around and opened Sam's throat with the hunting knife.
"No!” Braden screamed, and something flashed out of him; something that he had never felt or experienced before. He felt his mind...clench. He actually felt something leaving his body. A fraction of a second later, the back of Silas’ jacket exploded into flames. He was thrown by whatever force had hit him. He flew through the air and landed hard on his left bicep, separating his shoulder. A couple of the men closest to Silas shook themselves out of their shock enough to start beating on the flaming jacket of their boss.
Braden started toward Sam at a run, but he was driven back as several shots were fired at him. He reversed course and ran back toward Manny, purposefully crashing into the wheelchair and tipping it over. For the second time in 30 minutes, Manny was spilled onto the floor.
"Stay down!” Braden hissed at Manny. He rose to one knee as the door opened and the two guards came rushing in, drawn by the gunshots. The two men appeared directly in front of Braden. In a flash, he had drawn the sword from behind him. The blade was paper-thin and sharp enough to cut through a small tree branch with one stroke. Braden lashed out and made several passes through the air so rapidly that the human eye could not follow the flashing blade. In a span of three seconds, Braden had cut leg tendons and opened the femoral arteries of both men. Their weapons hit the floor and their bodies followed, screaming in pain.
Braden didn't stop to admire his handiwork; he was already on the move. He dropped the sword and drew the .380. He moved quickly along the shelves next to the wall, running hunched over to make himself as little a target as possible. He saw that three or four of Silas’ men were still trying to put out the fire, which was for some reason stubbornly refusing to go out. The other men were arming themselves and racing for cover. Braden raised the .380 and began firing on the run. Although both Braden and his enemies were both moving, the bullets went where they were meant to go. It was as if the hollow point rounds were little heat-seeking missiles, searching out their prey unerringly. Men dropped like targets in a carnival shooting gallery.
Braden fired the clip empty and dropped the .380. He took one more step and reached to the shelf where Silas had put his weapons. He grabbed a gun in each hand and was hit by what felt like a sledgehammer in his back. He was driven into the shelf and bounced off, falling to the floor.
Part of his training had included instruction from a law-enforcement specialist in what the instructor had called “Officer Survival". This instructor had told him that many police officers who were killed in the line of duty died simply because they gave up. In a combat situation, the instructor had said, the number one rule of officer survival is this: never give up. If you're outnumbered, out gunned, even if you're injured; never, never give up. He had then quoted a Kevin Kostner line from “The Untouchables". Never stop fighting until the fight is done. This rule, as with all of his training, had been drilled into his head over the years.
Braden knew he had been shot in the back. As he lay there on the floor gasping, the voice of his old instructor spoke in his head. Don't you give up, kid. Don't you dare give up. The fight's not done yet.
When Braden's body had hit the floor, Silas’ men had stopped firing. Their number had been severely reduced by Braden's .380. Four men, including the ones who had finally succeeded in extinguishing their boss, approached Braden slowly, weapons at the ready. They surrounded him, two at his feet and one on each side. He lay on his back, the instructor screaming at him inside his head. As one of Silas’ men opened his mouth to order Braden to drop his weapons, he raised his guns and killed the men at his feet, then used his peripheral vision to sight in on and kill the ones at his sides. It took him less than a second.
He rolled his head to the left and looked across the room at his nemesis. Silas was lying on his back, unmoving. His men had turned him over and left him there. Braden rolled painfully onto his left elbow and raised his head. His gaze moved to Sam. She was lying on her side in a large pool of her own blood. Her hands were still bound.
"Braden, you okay?” It was Manny. Braden didn't answer. “Braden!"
Braden rose slowly to his feet wearing a grimace of pain. He staggered over to where Sam lay unmoving. He dropped to his knees beside her, placing his guns on the floor to either side of him. He knew deep down that it was far too late to help her, but he tried out of desperation. He tried to staunch the bleeding, which by now had almost stopped by itself. As he belatedly tried to stop any more blood from leaving her body, the tears began to course down his cheeks. By the time he began a useless attempt at CPR, he was weeping uncontrollably. He knew his efforts were useless, but he couldn't stop. Later the pain from the gunshot wound would return at full force, but for now it was totally forgotten in Braden's complete despair. His body was wracked with sobs as he repeatedly compressed her sternum; with every compression, another jet of blood shot from her severed carotid arteries. Her eyes were open and glassy. For Braden, that was the worst of it. Her eyes seemed to accuse him. You didn't help me, they said. You let me die. In the nightmares he would have on and off over the next days and weeks, it was her eyes he saw the most. Her beautiful, emerald, accusing eyes.
A hand fell onto his shoulder. He grabbed the gun lying at his right side and spun on one knee, cold murder in his eyes. He had already squeezed the trigger almost as far as it would go when he saw Manny recoil and raise his hands. Manny had apparently struggled back into his wheelchair on his own. “It's me, Braden,” he said. Braden stopped the trigger pull just before he would have killed his only remaining friend. He lowered the gun and turned back to Sam, bending over her again.
"You have to help me, Manny,” he said with a desperate edge to his voice. “You have to help me with her. Maybe it's not too late yet...” He trailed off.
"Braden."
It was only one word, but it spoke volumes. In that one word Braden heard all that he needed to hear, all that he already knew in his still-breaking heart.
Braden turned slowly back to Manny. The older man was shaking his head with indescribable sadness. “She's gone, kid,” he said softly. He glanced toward the door. “I know you won't want to hear this right now, but we really need to get out of here. Someone may have heard th
e shots, and you know we can't afford to be caught here."
Braden took his own look at the door. It had been left open when the two guards had come in, but Manny had closed and locked it. He looked back at Manny and nodded. “Just let me say good-bye to her."
Braden turned and looked down at her. Dead green eyes stared back at him, convicting him of her murder now and forever. He bent and kissed her temple lightly. He picked up a jacket from the top of a nearby case of tissue and placed it over her face. He rose slowly to his feet with a small grunt. The pain was returning to his right shoulder. He looked down for the first time and saw the hole in his chest where the bullet had exited. It was right next to the shoulder joint in the meaty part of his upper right chest.
"Come on, kid, let's go,” Manny said, and the sledgehammer hit Braden in the back again. He was propelled forward and ricocheted off of Manny's chair. As he was falling to the ground, he heard two more shots and saw Manny bouncing in his seat. Braden hit the concrete floor head first, and everything faded into blackness.
Consciousness returned to Braden in stages. The first thing he became aware of was that he could hear some piece of machinery running in the far distance, possibly an air-conditioning unit. The second thing he noticed was the cold concrete against his cheek. The third thing was a strong coppery smell in the air. The fourth thing was the pain. His chest was hurting and his head was hurting worse. He cracked his eyes open to slits. He could see an expanse of white concrete before him, but his far vision was blurred. He tried to remember where he was through the increasing throbbing in his head. He closed his eyes again and tried to raise his hand to his head. The resulting sharp stab of pain that he felt caused him to lower his arm again.
He rolled slowly onto his back, his body crying out in protest to the pain that he was putting it through. He opened his eyes again and looked up. He could dimly see a blurred light bulb above him. He raised his head (to which his head promptly and strenuously objected) and looked down at his body to try to find the source of the pain there. He saw a bloody hole just to the left of his left nipple. He saw another hole in the upper right corner of his chest, next to the shoulder. The sight of this second hole caused the wiring in his brain to first sputter and then make the connection. Recollection flooded in, and he remembered everything.
He tried to sit up too quickly and didn't make it. He took it slower on the second attempt, rolling onto his left side and coming to a sitting position. His vision had cleared when his mind did, and he looked around the room.
Dead men littered the floor from one side of the room to the other. Sam's body lay where he had left it, hands bound behind her back, head and shoulders covered with the jacket. Braden's guns were still on the floor beside her. Manny was slumped over in his wheelchair, two red blossoms visible on the front of his white dress shirt. Of Silas there was no sign.
It took Braden about a month to rise to his feet. He made his way over to Manny and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He suddenly felt more tired than he had ever been in his life. He staggered backward and bumped into a case of bathroom tissue. He sat down hard on the box, trying to ignore the pain which this caused. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head. He would have cried over the death of his last friend, but he felt completely dried out and empty. It felt like someone had opened him up and scooped out his insides like a jack-o'-lantern.
He sat that way for some time, not thinking about much other than the fact that he was now totally alone in the world. Sam was dead, Manny was dead, the Doc was dead. It occurred to him that he was cursed. Everyone who came in contact with him died. It was then, sitting on a case of toilet paper in a room full of dead enemies and dead friends at the Kansas City International Airport, that he determined never to let anyone get emotionally close to him again. It wasn't a conscious decision on his part; his mind simply did the math and came up with the logical conclusion without informing him.
He forced himself to rise to his feet. He shuffled over to Manny and bent, placing a brief kiss on top of Manny's head. He crossed the room and picked up his sword, sheathing it. He walked down the length of the shelf unit and picked up the two guns and the knife that were laying there. He holstered them, then bent and picked up the .380. He crossed the room to where Sam's body lay, reloading and holstering the .380 as he went. He knelt and picked up his guns from the floor beside Sam. He looked down at Sam for a long time. Finally he said softly, “I'm sorry, Sam. It's my fault, and I'm so sorry.” He turned and staggered dry-eyed to the door, guns still in his hand. Just before he stepped out, he gazed back at Manny, then at Sam. “Good-bye,” he said under his breath, and walked out.
Braden staggered out the door marked Authorized Personnel Only. He crossed to about the midpoint of the wide corridor. He stopped in the middle of the corridor and just stood there. His mind was completely blown out by what had just happened. He felt confused, undecided, and most of all, completely alone. He looked around blankly.
The people passing by gaped at him, giving him a wide berth. They saw a young man with wide, blank eyes, blood on his chest and on his clothing, carrying a large gun in each hand. Braden's empty gaze met theirs. Some of them sprinted away from him; others backed up and raised their hands. There was more than one cry of “He's got a gun!” and “Look out!". Of course, it wasn't long before the inevitable happened.
"Freeze, mister!” a voice cried from behind Braden. “Put the guns slowly on the ground!"
Braden slowly pivoted around to face the owner of the voice. There were two airport cops facing him. They were about thirty feet from Braden and stood six feet apart from each other. Both had their sidearms aimed at him.
"I said put the guns on the ground!” the first cop ordered again.
Braden just stood and looked at them, guns hanging at his sides. In his current mentally- disconnected state, he was having trouble trying to figure out what was going on. Are they talking to me? he thought. I didn't do anything wrong.
"Mister, you don't want to make the wrong decision here,” the first cop said. His voice had calmed down. “Nobody has to die here today.” How ironic, Braden thought. “Just put the guns down, nice and easy."
Four more cops had arrived on the scene. Braden could hear feet pounding on the floor of the corridor and knew that more would arrive very shortly. He looked around slowly at the crowd, at the officers, at the people crowded up to the windows of the snack bar as if they were watching a very good television show.
He looked back at the first cop. The cop must have thought that Braden was giving up, because he nodded and said, “That's right, just ease them down to the floor and everything will be all right. You have my word."
Braden inhaled a deep, shaky breath and let it out. He winked out of sight instantly. The thunder of his passing caused the tall windows in the snack bar to explode, spraying a large number of people with flying glass.
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Chapter 12
Braden stood on the deck and looked out over the Gulf of Mexico. He had made it to the beach, but not in the way that he had planned. He had found this beach cottage on a small island off the northern Florida gulf coast and had used its seclusion to lie low and mend. His physical wounds were mostly healed. The emotional wounds were still bleeding. Braden had an idea that they would continue to bleed for a long time.
Braden had access to the money that Manny had stashed in the Spanish bank. He had used some of it to lease this cottage and to purchase a small speedboat. The boat was necessary, since the only access to the island was by water. He could have traveled to the mainland, but people would have wondered how he was getting there without a boat. He had started taking strolls around the island as soon as he had felt strong enough. The walks were short in duration at first, but he walked farther and farther with each passing week. The island was only about three miles long by one mile wide. Braden had found that his was one of only six homes on the tiny island.
Once he was well enough, most of his
time was spent either walking or working out on the white sand which stretched out in both directions below his deck. He had no television, no computer, no telephone (except for the cell phone that Manny had given him so long ago; it now rested in the drawer of the night stand beside his bed, collecting dust). He had no contact with the outside world, nor did he want any. The only human contact he had had since his arrival here had been with the clerk in the tiny, rustic grocery store on the shore of the mainland. The clerk (he had introduced himself as Gus) was a nice enough guy, and the store had easy access via the attached boat dock. If he needed supplies, he could just jump aboard the boat and he would be at Gus’ little store in ten minutes.
In his seclusion on the island, Braden's thoughts had of course been on Sam and Manny and Archer. However, he had also given a great deal of thought to what had happened when he had suddenly lashed out at Silas with his mind, and the resulting...well, fireball, for lack of a better word. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He hadn't even known he was capable of doing anything like that. And that he was responsible for Silas catching on fire, he knew without a doubt. He remembered feeling a “clenching” sensation in his head, as if his brain was contracting like a muscle. He also remembered feeling something, some force, leave his body in the fraction of a second before Silas’ jacket erupted in flames. Although it had been almost three months since the events had occurred, Braden could still remember vividly what it had felt like.
In recent weeks he had tried numerous times to repeat the “fireball” effect, but with no success. At times he had tried to light different items; a bush, a newspaper, the briquets in the small barbecue pit behind his house. He never even came close.
He had mused at length on this failure to duplicate the event. At the time it had occurred, he had been under stress. Adrenaline had flooded into his system. His heart rate had dramatically increased. And if he was to be honest with himself, he had been terrified and panicked at the time. He hadn't been able to pinpoint the reason that he had been able to do what he had done, and that was largely because of Sam. Whenever his mind began thinking about the incident, it naturally recreated the scene just as it had happened. And the central pivot point of the entire scene (the “star of the show", one might say) was Sam's death. Every time he thought about it, he would see the blood jetting from her neck as Silas’ knife passed easily through it. And he saw her dead, accusing eyes. Inevitably, he slammed the door on the scene and was understandably reluctant to revisit it.
