by Gary Sapp
afraid of you. My new found friends behind me aren’t afraid of you either. All I have to do is count to ten—and then kill you and the rest of your congregation will run. Your types always do.”
The Bishop had to shake his Deacon back into the now.
He said, “You want to take that chance with your life, boy, you want to risk the lives of everyone here?”
“I do. I will. There will be no surrender here. There will be no retreat.”
And then the countdown began.
Angel
The Doctor laughed until it hurt.
Roxanne Sanchez fixed her with one of those vicious glares that only she could manage — which wasn’t much different from any of her normal gazes actually.
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree ran her fingers along her tender side where she’d been stabbed. Roxanne had gotten her alright, but she was still ahead of the game because the wound wasn’t going to prove fatal no matter how much the other woman wished it upon her. Angel’s semi normal breathing assured her of that. It was superficial at best but just deep enough to be superficial. She was most likely to feel it if she did any running in the near future.
And along with her limp she would be quite the sight.
And that thought set her off on a new round of nearly uncontrollable laughter.
Roxanne looked tired.
“What in the hell could you possibly find funny about any of this?”
“Only a few hours ago, I put a pistol in my mouth,” Angel replied and arched a brow at the dark memory. “I wanted to end it all—and not for the first time in my miserable life.”
“And what do you feel now, Doctor?”
Angel ran her fingers near he wound again without looking at it.
“I’m hoping that this isn’t worse than I think it is. I pray that I’m not already bleeding to death as we speak.”
Roxanne fixed her with that stare again, the one that could melt artic ice for a long minute, before breaking it off—with a laugh of her own. Angel thought the other woman had a wondrous laugh, one that lit up all of her dark facial features on like a flashlight against the night. Is this the one, Christopher, she thought about her best friend. Is this what you had fallen for?
Angel put her hands on her knees.
“I want to live, Roxanne,” Angel said to the other woman who nearly killed her minutes ago. “I want to live. I want the chance to see if I can make things right again.”
“Are you sure, Doctor, are you really sure that’s what you really want?”
“I do,” Angel answered simply and lay back in her seat. The question and answer served as an intermission session between the two of them. I’ll bet my pension that you still want to kill me don’t you, Roxanne. Are these the final minutes of my life are going to look like…before you finally fulfill your destiny and kill me?
“Don’t tempt me, Doctor?” Roxanne rubbed a knot growing on her own forehead.
“That’s what this is about isn’t it?” Angel knew she was disadvantaged in any physical confrontation with this other woman. It was time to challenge her on Angel’s own playing field. “If you kill me then all of your pain magically disappears inside the coffin they bury me in.”
The Marta stopped at its next preordained location. No one got on board.
Roxanne pointed a finger at Angel and cursed.
“Save the psychobabble for someone who truly gives a damn about it.”
Angel cocked a brow.
“It doesn’t take any measure of professional training to see that you are hurting inside, Roxanne. You are full of guilt. It’s the only thing that makes sense that you once tried to join the very organization that you felt ambushed Maria in the first place.”
Roxanne sat back in her own seat and her body seemed to grow limp.
“She made me promise to bring her back.”
“Who,” Angel got to her feet and stretched, while keeping her distance, “Who made you promise, Roxanne?”
Roxanne made a half turn and looked out of the window into the Atlanta darkness. It had already been a long night. It was the longest night ever. “’Don’t let them hurt my baby’” she made me promise. My mother told me that she knew what Maria was doing was wrong—and that’s not to mention the whoring and stealing that came before. She told me that the police needed to put her away for a very long time. On the inside she could get treatment. On the inside she could deal with all of the hate she had for all men because of our father leaving us the way that he did. She told me that she wanted her baby to live…despite all of the evil that she’d done, she wanted her baby to leave.”
Angel nodded in understanding. A painful past was a difficult beast to bury.
“Most mothers would want the same for their children, Roxanne. Would you want that for me, Mama? There is no shame in that.”
And when Angel saw that Roxanne Sanchez could fight back the tears no longer… she gave her space, she gave her silence and she gave her the dignity that she knew the other woman would want.
“I just can’t get her voice out of my head. I hear her every day, every night. It is relentless.”
“I’m sorry—“
Roxanne spun back around.
“Shut up, Angel. I don’t need you to say anything. You can’t possibly—“
“Understand,” Angel matched the fury in Roxanne’s tone with fire in her own. “Of course your dilemma is your own; we all have our own troubles. But of course I can understand. I can’t reach inside of you and pull out your feelings, Roxanne. I can emphasize. You feel that you let your mother down. I killed mine and have relived my father’s sad legacy almost like I’m his image in the mirror.”
“I didn’t know…”
Angel grabbed the other’s wrist and pulled her close until they were face to face.
“You need to understand that neither of us is directly responsible for what happened to our loved ones.” Angel said to her. “But I am not responsible for what happened to Maria Sanchez either, Roxanne, any more than you are. I don’t have any reason or motivation to lie to you. But I will ask you—I will beg you to believe me when I say that I had no knowledge that the FBI was planning to ambush and kill your sister.”
“And why should I believe you, Doctor?” Roxanne said without anger.
Angel dared to move closer.
“Roxanne, if you didn’t know this already I will share it with you: I am a terrible human being. I deserve to be held accountable if not die for the things that I am responsible for with the crisis that this city and our country is facing this hour. The other thing that I have done in my professional and personal life isn’t much better. My day of reckoning is coming. Don’t you understand, Roxanne, I have nothing to lose anymore by exposing my sins to you, to the world. Most importantly, I have no reason to lie to you about what happened to Marie.”
And then Angel released her grip on Roxanne’s wrist.
And then the Marta—and the world at large shook beneath them.
Angel was tossed on her butt at the start…she immediately felt the hole in her side split open further. Roxanne screamed—and the sound of it was as terrifying as her laughter was a glorious sound in Angel’s ear. Yet, she managed to reach her arms out in front of her face before she crashed and broke the car’s glass.
Angel grasped for the nearest hand post and held on with everything that she had. She could faintly see out of the corner of her eye that Roxanne was struggling for survival even more than she was. Angel couldn’t help her even if she had wished it.
The next thought she had was to pray that this car wouldn’t skip the track and plummet downwards at an incredible velocity.
And then a minute later the earthquake was over.
The Marta—or least this car was thrown on its side. Angel gathered herself, the best way anyone could considering the circumstances, reached out for Roxanne to see if the other woman who wanted her dead mere hours ago, was still alive. She saw movement. She heard grunts, but was happy that she wasn’t left alon
e here in the dark.
After a time Roxanne finally made eye contact. Fear was etched in the other woman’s dark eyes. Or was it Angel’s own fear only being reflected in the other woman’s pupils. Angel reached out for Roxanne’s wrist for the second time in minutes, reached her and held her close.
After a moment, Roxanne Sanchez at long last began to cry.
And Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree cried with her.
Louis
For now, all was quiet on the eastern front.
All was quiet except for Moses Jackson who was finishing the final verse of his prayer for two of the boys who had perished from events that transpired from the earthquake that happened nearly an hour ago now.
Louis Keaton didn’t offer any words in the prayer and kept his distance from Moses and the other six boys he’d put in tremendous jeopardy first by kidnapping them in the first place and now with this botched escape attempt.
The total of them were driving alongside the mountain when the quake struck. Louis had tried to break, but not so hard that it toppled the pickup truck. He’d managed both. The boys in the unsecured bed went flying out of the truck. Louis’ last turn caused the truck to land on top of two of the boys killing them instantly.
The God that Louis knew, but had never served, would not have let them suffer.
Now, Louis finally found the strength to move back towards his troops that he was leading. And he was their leader whether he wanted it or not. He was there leader whether they wanted it or not.
He walked up behind his general and planted a firm hand on Moses shoulder. For once the boy did not flinch.
“Thank you,
