by LC Champlin
Red yanked the tac knife from his chest and turned on Nathan.
He had moved no more than a step when Albin pulled the dagger free with a sucking squelch, keeping one hand over the wound in his neck. Blood pulsed between his fingers. He half lunged, half fell, sinking the dagger into Red’s right side, into the liver.
Red stopped. He blinked.
Nathan struggled to his feet and caught the pommel of the dagger. Putting all his weight behind it, he thrust it deeper, his hand over Albin’s. Rage hot as lava, as molten steel, roared in Nathan’s veins. “Not my family, motherfucker!” Shove the blade in, toward the center. Some resistance, then through the abdominal aorta. Blood gushed from the wound. It continued to spurt gouts with each heartbeat. Nathan ripped the blade free horizontally.
The bastard sank to his knees, clasping his gut. Involuntary seppuku. His intestines spilled between his hands and onto the grit like a purple snake. The stench of blood, bile, and gut contents filled the air.
Nathan pried Albin’s grip from the dagger. “Esau, you deserve a more painful death than this.” The cannibals crested the wall, mouths open in expectation. “They’ll take you.”
“You fucking—”
Stepping back, Nathan swung the tomahawk with all his weight, strength, and fury. The spike crunched through Red’s nose to bury itself deep in the brain. Spasming, gurgling, the dead meat pitched forward. Gravel met face.
“Burn in hell.”
Breath rattling, Red curled into the fetal position.
Three yards away, Albin sank to one knee, face blank as blood pulsed between his fingers.
Shit, shit, shit! Albin would die. He would bleed out. Here. Now.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! It was easy when he couldn’t see the blood and—What sort of hell-bound degenerate murdered his best friend? “What the fuck was I doing?”
And now he could do nothing. No, there was always something.
Nathan scrambled forward to hold pressure on the wound. Struggling to his feet, Albin pushed his former opponent away.
“Easy! I’m going to help.” He caught Albin as the injured man staggered. Warm blood soaked into Nathan’s shirt. “Stay with me. We’re going to get you out of here. Just breathe. Like you told me.” His voice cracked.
Eyes closing, Albin leaned heavily against him.
At the wall, the cannibals left their perch to descend upon Red. All about the building, they hissed.
What do I do! What—
Red-gold eyes opened in the darkness of his panic. Get to safety. Call for help.
There! The hatch Red had thrown open. At least the murderer did one thing right. Well, he died, too. The cannibals pawed over his corpse even now.
“Hang on, my friend. We have to keep your heart rate down.” Teeth gritted, lats tensed, Nathan shouldered under Albin’s upper body. “Hold pressure.” Albin had enough strength left to wrap his legs around his mount’s waist, piggyback style. Pain blazed through Nathan’s chest, stole his breath.
He trudged to the opening. Agony darkened the edges of his vision as he squatted before the hatch.
Below, a ladder-like stair common to attics waited. Wincing and growling, Nathan maneuvered down. Albin remained tense, flinching now and then. He held pressure on his wound, but his strength would not last. Blood saturated them both now.
Call for help. 9-1-1? No, stupid, the radio! He scrabbled for it, hands slippery with red. “Amanda, Josephine, this is Nathan.” Forced calm.
“This is Josephine. Cannibals are all over the place. Are you on the roof?”
“I’m in the station’s main building. Albin’s been injured by Red. If I don’t get him to the medics in the next few minutes, he’ll die.”
Albin growled in his ear.
“Oh my God! Hang on; I’m coming. Look to the south.”
It’s look to the east, fool, the irrational part of Nathan’s mind screamed. “Hurry.”
“Nathan, this is Marvin. Badal’s with me. We’re coming.”
Thank God, thank God! “Meet me at the back door.”
Albin began to struggle. He pushed away from Nathan to lean against the wall. His breath came rapid and shallow as he grimaced. “Can’t . . . breathe. Chest hurts.”
Flashlight out. Nathan’s heart choked for three beats at his friend’s appearance: cadaver-gray, sweat beaded on his forehead, eyes wide. He was going into shock. Albin clutched his chest with his left hand, still holding his neck with his right.
“Stay with me. Our ride’s almost here. We have to get downstairs. Come on.” Albin offered no resistance as Nathan heaved him into a fireman’s carry. Panic overwhelmed pain as he stumbled down the hall. Just like Kate back in St. Regis, but now I’m saving family. And it’s all my fault.
Down the stairs to the ground level, his pain increasing and Albin’s condition worsening with every step. “Keep breathing. Understand?”
Around the corner, down another hall, to the rear door. What am I supposed to do now?
Nathan spared a hand to squeeze the PTT. “This is Nathan. Wall off the back door and keep me covered. I’ll need help to get him into the vehicle.”
“Hang in there,” Jo responded, voice tight. “We’re almost there.”
“Good.” Thank God!
Albin’s breathing grew more labored. He snarled, tensing, then began to relax. Not good. “Stay with me. Stay awake.”
No reply save for faint, irregular breathing.
Chapter 95
Love Thy Enemy
Breakdown - Seether
Leaning a knee against the wall beside the door, Nathan squinted out the peephole. Cannibals crowded the parking lot, alert for prey. Their faces’ looked practically tan compared to Albin’s.
“I’m sorry, Albin.” Nathan’s throat tightened. “I’m a rabid dog. I turned against my best friend.” The guilt distracted from the rib pain. “You should have put me down when you had the chance. But no, you had to play the hero and sacrifice yourself. I thought we agreed heroism only gets you killed? Now look at you.”
Albin grunted as he struggled for air.
Two vehicles—SUV and pickup—roared in, scattering cannibals. Behind the Acura came the Tacoma, which Albin had driven away days ago. Then the monsters washed in over the vehicles. Gunfire sounded, opening a path in them. The SUV pressed its nose to the building to form one wall of the wedge, while the truck formed the second, its front bumper to the Acura’s rear. They created a clearing, but only for a moment.
“Hang on, Albin. We’re almost to the medics.” Don’t die, don’t die, don’t—
The back door to the SUV swung open. Mikhail jumped out, alert for attack. Marvin bailed out of the Tacoma, shotgun raised. He fired a few rounds to drop a pack of cannibals coming over the bed of the truck.
Shouldering the door open, Nathan hurtled out. Mikhail aimed him toward the Acura’s back seat. Between the two of them, they situated Albin in the right rear seat. Keeping a wound above heart level decreased the blood loss, but a wound to the neck might already be too far gone for that to matter.
“Get us to the military pickup zone,” Nathan barked, pressing his hand to Albin’s wound. The man had lost consciousness, and appeared a hairsbreadth from death.
“Almost everyone’s gone already,” Josephine informed him. “If we don’t get there soon, the military will leave us.”
“Then move!”
Sweat dripped down Nathan’s face. He shook it off. Shit, shit, shit! He couldn’t do anything except watch his friend bleed out like Chas had. Holding pressure only did so much. There was no knowing what else the blade had lacerated. Perhaps if Albin had left the knife in the wound, they could have stabilized it and used its presence to prevent extra bleeding. The same concept applied to not pulling a nail from a tire. But the heroic bastard had opted to sacrifice his life in exchange for . . . for mine. When I was still his enemy. Idiot, playing Aslan and dying for the betra
yer.
Albin’s eyes opened to stare ahead, unseeing. Then he began to gasp, clawing at Nathan’s hand on his throat.
“Mikhail, get on him. He’s-he’s—I don’t know. Delirious maybe.”
Albin continued to struggle but grew weaker by the nanosecond. Then he slumped back and fell still.
Everyone started yelling instructions, which turned to static.
Bleeding—it bled inside, too. A person could bleed to death internally without spilling a drop outside. And Albin had already spilled more than a drop. The blood might have filled the sack around the heart, or the one around the lungs. Or maybe everyone who lost liters of blood behaved this way.
Shit, what were they supposed to do for first aid for this? Without the proper equipment, even Jim couldn’t help the victim.
But what about an internal bleed that choked off the heart’s ability to beat within its protective membrane, or stole the lung’s room to inflate? On TV, you shoved a needle into the heart area for blood around the heart. Or was it for air in the chest? Fuck!
The vessels in Albin’s neck bulged as he gasped for air. A blue tint colored his lips.
Shit! Nathan ripped the victim’s blood-soaked shirt open. There, an inch-long slit between the ribs on the left. A sucking chest wound? What happened with those? Right, a tension pneumothorax—a collapsed lung and air coming into the chest cavity but not leaving.
The left side of the chest rose a fraction less than the right. Ear to Albin’s blood-soaked chest . . . Nothing. Or maybe he just couldn’t hear over his own pulse in his ears.
“I think he has a collapsed lung. Or maybe the blood is filling its space.” Would a chest tube work? Even if it would, he didn’t have a kit at hand.
“What do we do?” Mikhail yelped.
Nathan closed his eyes. “Everybody shut up and let me think!”Air in the chest? Then he had to let it out. And the convenient hole in Albin’s side would be the vent.
“Mikhail, shut up and hold him down.”
“I—”
“Move!” Fucking time ticked as Albin’s life ebbed.
“What are you doing?” Josephine demanded from the driver’s seat. “Can’t it wait?”
Albin stopped breathing.
“No.”
“Hang on, Albin, this is going to hurt. Just stay with me.” Albin likely didn’t hear a word of it. One, two, three—“Sorry about this.” Nathan pushed his index finger into the stab wound. Warm, slick, like a raw steak. Albin twitched but otherwise didn’t react.
“What are you doing!” Mikhail cried in Nathan’s ear.
“Shut the fuck up, Mikhail. I’m trying to save his life.” A little farther, past the muscle. Blood gushed from the wound. It saturated the seat and Nathan’s pant legs. But Albin’s chest began to rise again. He took gasping breaths.
“Yes!” Nathan held pressure over the wound.
“All right, we’re here!” Josephine reported, the most beautiful words that had ever left the woman’s mouth.
“Finally some good news.”
Outside, the last rafts pulled away from shore with their payload of Redwood Shores residents. Behind rolled the cannibal horde.
“Hold pressure,” Nathan ordered Mikhail. “I have to get us a ride.”
The instant Mikhail’s hand slid in to replace his, Nathan threw himself out of the vehicle. “Wait!” He waved his arms over his head to gain the attention of the last raft’s pilots. “There’s an injured man. He’s bleeding to death. There are also five more people who need transport.”
The Soldiers at the tiller glanced at his colleague, then back at Nathan. “We can’t take on any more. It’ll take time to get another raft here.”
“Then have some of them”—pointing to the unfamiliar passengers, who likely hailed from Foster City—“get out and wait for the next raft.”
“We can’t ask them to do that.” The Soldier gestured to the incoming horde.
“Then get one of those damn helicopters up there to help!” A Black Hawk thudded away, toward two Coast Guard cutters that floated in the distance.
“Sir, I’m sorry. But—”
“I don’t have time for this.” God hadn’t brought him and Albin this far to abandon them at the threshold of safety. Only one course remained. If God sent Albin to humble him, so be it. Surrendering to justice also offered the only hope of regaining a modicum of respect in Albin’s eyes. “I am Nathan Serebus. The DHS and military are looking for me, or they should be if they have any sense. I was the one who caused the cannibals to swarm over the wall. I instigated the looting raids. I am the person you’re looking for. The wounded man inside the vehicle”—he pointed to the open door and blood-soaked Albin—“apprehended me. Arrest me, but take him to surgery. Please.” Please, God, make them listen. “Contact the DHS. Talk to Director Washington. Talk to Lieutenant Colonel Jim Wozniak in the Army National Guard. He’s a trauma surgeon.” He spread his arms. Why couldn’t they understand! “Please!”
The Soldiers looked to each other again. One nodded, and the other reached for his radio.
“Thank you.” Nathan’s head fell back as he looked to Heaven. But they had yet to come out of the Hell-cursed woods.
He trotted back to Albin’s side. “Thank you, Mikhail. I’m . . . I’m sorry.” He made eye contact with the Russian, who looked away. Too little, too late. He dug in his pockets to produce his phone and wallet. “Take these.” He shoved them against Mikhail’s chest. “Give them to Janine when you see her. I won’t be needing them.”
Mikhail said something, but the helicopter rotors overwhelmed the words.
Chapter 96
Repentance
Wolves - Down Like Silver
Elbows on his knees, Nathan sat forward on the bunk, studying his fingernails. Blood still crusted under a few. Whether it belonged to him or Albin, he’d never know. It didn’t matter.
He closed his eyes, blocking out the mold-gray steel walls around him. The events of the past several hours formed a montage of confusion and depression. Images blurred, repeated, jumped each other in the timeline: Him and the others on a Black Hawk approaching an aircraft carrier. Him clamoring to know Albin’s status. The service personnel restraining him while reassuring him that the trauma team performed its job.
Then the medical staff taking charge. The jittery, spastic nature of the memories calmed after the nurses gave him an injection of Ativan. But while the benzo made him more cooperative, it also warped the memories more. The staff had promptly stripped him, then made him shower off the blood. Crimson swirling in water against white—
Next they set to work stapling and suturing the lacerations and puncture wounds he’d sustained from his exchange with Esau. The adrenaline had masked them during the fight and during his escape with Albin. One to his right thigh, one to his back, one to his left upper arm. By now the local anesthetic had faded, leaving throbbing aches in the areas.
Now he sat on a bunk in a cell, a resident of the brig. He wore the scrubs they had issued him. The security forces were in contact with the DHS and the FBI, among others. The domestic agencies, not the military, would have the honor of charging him. Not that it mattered.
Nothing mattered. Nothing except Albin’s fate. Nathan’s throat had gone raw from asking for updates during the interminable hours since the Sailors locked him up.
The door opened and a tall, red-haired man entered. Jim.
Nathan bolted up—then sat down as a wave of dizziness struck. “How is he?”
“Nathan.” Jim wore a reassuring smile. “He’s in recovery.”
“Thank God.” Nathan leaned back as relief flooded him. Then he snapped upright with a jolt of panic. “Did the surgery go well? Were there many complications?”
“It was straightforward for the most part.” Shrug. “He was very lucky. A few millimeters in any other direction—up or down, left or right—and he’d be having a much worse trip. He might not have
survived. You—and he—will be happy to know I didn’t even have to crack his chest. But he did have a nice hemothorax, punctured lung, and the start of cardiac tamponade. That’s when the blood—”
“I know. When it fills the sacs around the heart and lungs.”
“What are the odds I’d have to fix up both you lunatics?” Jim grunted half in amusement, half in disbelief. “Let’s make this the last time, all right?”
“I’ll try. Thank you, Jim.” He held the Lieutenant Colonel’s gaze, sharing the odd camaraderie of saving a life together. Not to mention now owing Albin’s life as well as his own to the surgeon.
“It’s my job.”
“When can . . . when can I visit him?” Perhaps they would let him see his friend one last time before the government stepped in to bring charges. “I wasn’t the one who stabbed him—”
“Easy, bud.” Jim held up his hands. “I know. You wouldn’t have carried him to safety, and you certainly wouldn’t have turned yourself over to the Law if you wanted to kill him.”
“But I did want to kill him.” Shame crawled over Nathan, made him cringe. Face in his hands, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His eyes burned. “I tried to kill him. But in the end, he sacrificed himself, saving my life from Red Chief. If he’d cared more for his own neck, he wouldn’t have a knife in it.”
A sigh escaped Jim. “I told you to leave the belly of the beast, remember?”
“Yes. This is my penalty for disregarding doctor’s orders.” Grunt of defeat.
Jim’s footsteps tracked across the floor, then a presence appeared at Nathan’s left. The bunk squeaked as Jim sat. “Why did you do it, Nathan?” Quiet, gentle even.
“I . . . It was momentum. I went down a path and continued. I couldn’t turn back. I thought I was doing right, that the ends justified the means. The ends justified the motives, too. I was too stubborn. Then—God, I tried to kill my best friend.” Pain unrelated to physical trauma stabbed his heart with white-hot knives. “I’ve done so many things that no decent human should ever do. He should have killed me. He at least should have let Red Chief kill me.”
