by Redding, Mae
“Yes you can, you need it to get us out of here. Please, Gage, you won’t win this! I'll hide behind you, put it back on!”
His brows furrowed as his jaw tensed, reluctant to put it back on, and then nodded in agreement as he saw my logic.
“Okay, Jade. Keep your head down! I want you on my left, closest to the building. If anything does happen to me, I don’t want you to stop! Do you hear me! You keep going!” He yelled firmly over the chaos, then pointed to Joel. “If something does happen, I have told them to make you go!”
I couldn’t bear the thought of him left wounded or dead out here. “No!” I pleaded.
“Yes! That’s just how it is… You won’t win this one, Jade!” Gage made sure to stress his last sentence. I thought I saw a faint smile curl at the corner of his lip and I gave him a scowl. He shook his head then smiled.
“Are you two done fighting yet?” Joel butted in.
“Yeah,” Gage replied, and then turned to me with a smirk. “See… you still have a lot of fight left… you ready?”
I sucked in air, breathing life into my lungs and energy to my muscles. I wasn’t sure where it came from but suddenly, I felt stronger. I could do this. I could leave the jail and Damian behind.
“Ready.”
I got to my feet but stayed huddled behind the protection of the car as I waited for the okay from Joel. He gave the signal and Joel and the other two ran shooting rounds of fire. Gage and I followed behind them. I reached the side of the car and ducked down behind it.
I looked back at the other two men as a bullet hit the one behind me, exploding into his head. Terrified, I screamed as he fell next to me. Gage grabbed my arm and we ran again about twenty feet and stopped again.
I couldn’t breathe as the smoke from the gunfire filled the air. I didn’t have more than a few seconds to stop and think about this man who just got shot defending me, another man dead. Tears flooded my eyes. I looked around. The men shouted but I didn’t hear them.
We ran down another thirty feet when a big explosion detonated behind me. The sound deafened my ears as the ground shook underneath me. Debris flew through the air as we ducked behind another car. Shots continued from both sides. The whistling sounds of a bullet whizzed by and I crouched lower. Gage grabbed my head and covered me with his body. He ducked his head as another grenade exploded close to us. The blast blew and knocked us to the ground. My head hit the cement. Gage wore gashes on his arms and cuts on his face. He grabbed my hand and we ran to where Joel waited.
Joel fired as the three ran to the next car and we followed behind. The man just in front of Gage fell from a gunshot as we found cover. I turned and watched him as he writhed and bled on the ground. The man behind us grabbed him as he ran by and dragged him to us. A gaping wound in the side of his neck spewed blood and he choked on it, gurgling in the back of his throat. The dark red blood spurted out of his body like water from a garden hose. They held pressure on his neck as he gasped for air one last time. His eyes wide with the same lifeless stare.
Gage pulled me to the next car as bullets flew overhead. A bullet grazed Joel’s shoulder. Blood soaked his shirt and ran down his arm. His face, red and sweaty from exertion along with the other men. They spent every ounce of energy they had to get us through this alive. Cuts and burns littered their bodies. I watched them as they checked their guns, reloaded and prepared for the next round.
A fragmented voice broke through on the radio and Joel answered back.
Kane.
“They have Trey!” Joel reported. “Militia surrounds the front of the jail now. Kane said they headed up the other side of this block for their escape, and we'll meet at the corner. We need to move,” Joel said, as he started to fire again.
As we moved, another grenade exploded and threw me to the ground. Dust and smoke filled the air and I couldn’t see Gage. I coughed as I gasped to breathe. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as I tried to look through the smoky cloud. My eyes burned and my ears deafened from the sound of the blast. Muffled tones filtered through and I rubbed my ears to stop the ringing. Disoriented, I wasn’t sure which way to go. As the dust settled I saw him, face down on the ground. My heart sank, I screamed as I reached out!
“Gage!”
CHAPTER 33
I turned over the body only to stare in horror. The charred remains of the face and upper body made him unrecognizable. Blood seeped from his body and soaked into the settling dust.
Dead.
Someone grabbed me.
“Get down!” Gage yelled. We dropped for cover behind a cement structure. I lay on the ground with him over me as he shielded me from the blasts.
“I thought…!”
The weight of his body pressed firmly against me as we breathed the same air. With his tense biceps at either side of my face, he ducked his head next to mine as bullets whizzed by overhead. His exertion-forced breaths warmed my icy cheek. His face black, with char from the blasts mixed with his own sweat. His beautiful, soft blue eyes unchanged as he looked at me, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lip, inches from mine.
“I’m right here,” he said, his husky voice all encompassing, surrounded me with warmth, suspending us in time. At that moment, nothing could hurt me. Nothing could touch us. A strangled whimper escaped me as moisture burned my eyes. My eyelids drifted closed as a tear squeezed through. I felt his thumb brush it away. I already accepted that I could die at any moment. But for him to die, to leave me here to exist alone, I couldn’t accept.
A deafening blast shook the ground and woke me from my reverie as he ducked around me again. Glass and debris blew everywhere from the explosion and landed around us. The rounds of fire ceased briefly and it was quiet. The thick dust caused us both to cough uncontrollably and I gasped for air muffled in his sleeve.
He looked around for the next stop. Joel was ahead of us behind a cement flowerbed. The other two men, gone, and I knew they died. Joel, Gage and I were the only ones left.
“Chale we need more help down here, we’re getting slaughtered! We have four down!” Joel yelled into the radio.
“We are going to run to the corner… to that car over there!” Gage yelled. The warmth from his body suddenly left me chilled as he moved off and helped me sit against the cement wall that shielded us. “I know it’s a long way but there isn’t another shield until there! So you have to run hard… Don’t look back! Don’t stop, Jade!”
“Okay!”
“Don’t stop until you get to the car!” He said, firmly. “No matter what!”
“Okay!”
He paused for a minute. “Let’s go!” he yelled, over the gunfire as Joel ran first. With a swoop of his arm fired with such ease like his rifle was merely an extention of his hand at the men on the rooftop. My tired legs moved. I heard him behind me as we neared the car. Gunfire whizzed around me. I ducked and I looked back only to watch Gage jerk back and fall not even ten feet away as I landed behind the car next to Joel. Panic surged through me as my heart beat wildly out of my chest.
“Gage!”
He struggled for air and wrenched himself painfully onto his elbow. His taut skin stretched over his stressed muscles as he fought to get up. I watched as bright red blood seeped into his shirt and trickled down his arm. He shook his head and warned me to stay where I was. His body jerked, thrown to the ground again as he ducked his arms around his head. I lunged after him but Joel caught the sleeve of my jacket. I pulled away and let the jacket fall as I ran into the street after him. I scanned the buildings across the street at the serried ranks of militia that marred the rooftops and windows. Fear rushed through me as loud popping sounds from rifles fired and bullets pelted the ground in a patterned stream. I reached him just as Joel caught me and I fell to the ground next to him. “Get up! Come on, get up!” I yelled. Bullets whizzed overhead as Gage pushed himself to his feet.
He still struggled to breathe as we reached the safety of the car and he gasped for air as he ripped open his bulletp
roof vest. He writhed in pain as I searched his body to find where he took the hit. Two wounds that I could see. There was one to his right arm and the other one just under his right collarbone next to his shoulder. The shoulder was the worst and I hoped it missed his lung. I looked frantically and found three bullets lodged into his bulletproof jacket across the front of his chest.
“Can you move?” Joel yelled, as he shot with a swooping motion from his rifle then dropped down next to me.
“Yeah,” he gasped, as his breathing slowly recovered.
“Three of them hit your vest!”
“Why did you do that?” He yelled, angry. Blood dripped through my fingers and down his arm as I put pressure on the wound and he flinched and writhed, his jaw clenched with seething pain.
Joel butted in. “We don’t have too much farther to go... Let’s move!”
We were maybe fifty feet with a large gap between the next stop and us. Gage wouldn’t look at me. His furrowed brow offset his blue eyes, icy with the anger obvious as he gritted his teeth. Movement drew my attention across the street and I saw Kane and Casey with Trey as they ran under gold lettering that read Bank of America, wrapped around the corner of the building. It stood, out of place, bright and shiny surrounded by the ugly and drab, muted grey that engulfed our surroundings.
“Gage! There’s…”
“What!” he snapped.
He startled me and I jumped. I didn’t expect his reaction. My heart raced into panic mode as the tears came. I couldn’t contain them any longer.
“There’s Kane.”
Joel radioed Chale over the sound of gunfire as he sat next to me, his glance softened for a moment as I wiped my eyes.
“This is the last stretch, Jade,” Joel said calmly, as he glared at his brother. “Let’s move.”
Gage grabbed my hand and I trailed behind him. We managed to make it across the street to where Trey and Kane were and I jumped down behind the car next to Trey, throwing my arms around him. He looked at me, stunned, unable to hide the shock on his face. For some reason he didn’t look as thin as I was. We didn’t say anything, there wasn’t time. We needed to get to the end of the road.
I scanned our temporary cover for Kane. He crouched down behind a car and fired rounds at the building across the street. I heard the clinking sound of metal as something hit the side of the building behind me in the entryway and rolled into the corner. Someone yelled, “Grenade!”
“Jade! Watch out!” Trey yelled, as I looked back.
Before I could do anything, Trey grabbed a hold and pulled me back as he forced me to the ground and covered me. I hoped we were far enough away. The grenade detonated with a blinding flash. A heat wave flashed over us. The roar of the explosion deafened my ears. The ground moved underneath us from the blast. Glass and debris flew everywhere. A crushing weight landed on top of us, the air forced from my chest. I gasped through the dust as I tried to look for the others. Toxic smoke filled my lungs. I choked as I tried to breathe but couldn’t. Everything within fifteen feet, charred with part of the sidewalk gone, exposing the dirt underneath. Rebar and chunks of cement dangled from the damaged building with piles of it scattered from the blast.
I could barely see Kane and Gage through the thickness of the smoke. Kane yelled something but I couldn’t understand him. My ears rang. Trey covered me still, unmoved.
“Trey!”
My voice deafened to my ears, echoed loudly through my head. Kane attempted to pull the heavy ruins of the wall off us. Trey grimaced through his teeth, and then cried out as he tried to move and grabbed his side. Shards of glass and a spike of rebar connected to a slab of cement impaled into the left side of his body. I noticed his left arm, shoulder and part of his back, badly burned as Gage pulled me out from underneath him.
“Are you hurt?” The distant sound of his voice flowed in slow motion. I shook my head as his eyes searched over me with frantic purpose. Once he saw I wasn’t seriously hurt he turned to help Trey.
Under fire, I looked around at all of the chaos and sheltered myself against the tire of the car. Everyone seemed to move slowly, arms and legs sluggish by heavy weights. Kane and Gage were next to Trey as Joel yelled across me that we needed to move. Bullets whizzed by as they strained with their might and lifted the solid mass. He yelled out in pain as Casey pulled out the rebar that pinned him. Blood seeped instantly from his side and they moved him into the blown out doorway as Casey and Joel provided cover.
“Jade… move!” I watched Gage yell at me, I barely heard him as he begged me to move but I sat frozen as ash floated in the air like flakes of black snow settling around us. My arms and legs numb, unable to move as my chest tightened. Casey continued to shoot next to me from behind the shelter of the car. Joel grabbed me and ran as another grenade exploded in the street and threw us inside the doorway.
I collapsed to the floor as he pulled me to the wall and he yelled at someone on the radio for more cover then headed back to the entrance to cover Casey. They both made it inside the doorway with guns firing out, the last ones to make it inside the safety of the building, safe from gunshot, at least for now.
Dazed, I sat with my back against the wall as a prop. I noticed directly in front of me, a newspaper stand, tipped on its side. I tilted my head to look at the paper through the cracked glass. Dated across the front page, September 1st, headlines stood out centered in bold letters, ‘Deadly Outbreak! Claims Lives World Wide!’
“Jade… Move away from the front!”
Casey’s distant voice woke me from my trance as he rushed to me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I sat stunned, traumatized and unable to move. I couldn’t believe Trey was hurt, I couldn’t believe that it happened right before me, because of me.
Was this how war was? Did men really die this way? I never gave my safe and secure surroundings of home much thought before the virus and it almost seemed too late to reflect on it now. The more this battle waged, the further away we slipped, from a chance at ever seeing that life again.
“Jade.”
“Casey… I can’t…” my voice trailed off, barely a raspy whisper as he pulled me again from the nightmare that refused to go away.
I brushed my tear stained cheeks with my dusty hands, unable to wipe the confused look off my face. I glanced up at him, unfazed by the violence as he helped me stand and I stumbled out of the doorway. I turned my head to look out the window. It looked like the shooting had stopped for now.
I scanned the inside of the building. Everything seemed so surreal and strange as we were in what appeared to be a restaurant.
The spacious room held beautiful glass chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. Paintings still hung against the gold and maroon floral wallpaper. Dark mahogany wood trim framed doorways and base along the floor. There were rows of tables that barely looked disturbed, tablecloths still in place. Plastic plants lined the reception desk with a lamp behind it. With the exception of the front entry way and a thin layer of dust, the place looked untouched.
Gage and Kane pulled Trey to the back of the building and set him up against the wall. Blood seeped into the plush golden carpet. From the looks of how they moved him, I knew his injuries were bad.
Gage looked around and spotted me as I stood against the wall. He held my gaze. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and watched me but the only response he got back, my blank stare. I couldn’t pull myself from the fog that surrounded my mind. I had to look away. This had to be either a terrible nightmare or the long lasting effects of Damian drugging me less than an hour ago. I tried to convince myself, it wasn’t happening.
“What the hell happened?” Kane yelled. I whirled my head around to look at my oldest brother. Red faced and smudged with black char, fury in his eyes.
“We’re outnumbered Kane, you knew that going in!” Joel yelled back, as he tossed down some towels he found in the back. “I’m going to look for another way out.”
Kane removed pieces of glass and Trey winced
as Gage pressed the towels onto his wounds then took off his bulletproof vest. His shirt, stained from his own and Trey’s blood.
“Trey,” I managed through tears as I walked over and sat next to him. He cringed in pain as they worked to put the vest on him.
“Hey, Jade. Where have you been?” He asked, as he gasped for breath. He gritted his teeth through a forced smile as a bead of sweat rolled into his brow. I managed a smile back.
“You’re hurt.”
He looked over me closely and smiled again. “I’m okay… I’m glad you’re not.”
I had some minor scratches and cuts on my arms and face but for the most part the explosion didn’t get to me. Trey made sure of that and now he was badly hurt. A helpless gnawing settled into my gut and wished I could do something.
“Kane… He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. We’re doing everything we can,” he said, then glanced over at me as I moved close to him.
“What?” I couldn’t hide the shock on my face. He was supposed to say he would be okay. He had to be. I looked at Trey again. He struggled for air as color drained from his face. “Kane…” I pleaded and turned back to him with a frightened stare. My voice barely an anguished whisper as a knot formed in my throat.
He turned his attention to me. His jaw tensed as he struggled to force his emotions back then pulled me into his arms.
“I heard you that night!” His voice rumbled in his chest against my ear.
Tears brimmed in my eyes as my jaw trembled. “I tried to get away! I couldn’t… Damian said he would shoot you!” My body shuttered as I sobbed into his chest. I gripped his shirt and clenched it into my fist as he smoothed his hand over my hair.
“I knew you were out there somewhere. I’m sorry I couldn’t find you.” My eyes grew heavy and I let them close. I didn’t want him to let go as my panic waned and I breathed a ragged sigh. “I will to everything in my power to make sure they pay for this, Jade…”
I looked up at him, his jaw clenched tight full of restrained rage as resolve formed in his eyes. He met Gage’s dogged glare, equally filled with hate while he worked on Trey. I shuttered at the sight of them.
