Blackout

by Robison Wells

Page 53

 

  “What about me?” Laura said.

  “You’ll be bodyguard,” Rowley answered. “And you’re backup to pass information to and from the primaries. ”

  “Now,” Captain Rowley said, staring at the Lambdas. “You have your genuine I-Don’t-Have-the-Virus bracelets so that no one will question you out there. But if you think those are your tickets to run away or betray us, remember that I have this. ” He pulled the ankle-bomb detonator from his pocket and held it up. “I’m sure I won’t need it. But you can never be too careful. ”

  FORTY-FIVE

  “I’M SURE I WON’T NEED it,” Aubrey said, mimicking the captain’s voice. “But you can never be too careful. ”

  She sat on a bench, eating her lunch—a Subway sandwich she’d bought at the only open shop in sight.

  “You can probably hear me chewing,” she said to Jack. “That’s got to be disgusting. Sorry. ”

  She was bored out of her mind. She’d been sitting in the park for hours, patrolling while invisible and sitting visible while resting, and she hadn’t seen a thing. Maybe the Green Berets had spooked the terrorists. Maybe they’d seen the snipers. Maybe they wondered why one teenage girl was wandering around the Seattle Center in the middle of a war, when everyone should have been too paranoid to be outside.

  She took a bite of her sandwich. She felt ravenous—eating always seemed to renew her energy after being invisible—but she was trying to make it last. At least chewing on a sandwich made it look like she was doing something.

  Aubrey glanced up toward the Children’s Museum, but didn’t see any sign of the Green Beret snipers. They were good at what they did, even if they treated her like crap.

  Well, she’d saved their butts at the school. They were good at what they did, but she was good at what she did, too.

  “Hey Jack,” she said, clearing her mouth with a sip of soda. “About yesterday. Well, a lot happened yesterday, but I’m talking about the beginning—about the morning. I’m talking about the kiss—I’m talking about our kiss. ”

  She paused. She suddenly didn’t know why she’d brought it up. This was stupid. He had better things to be doing right now.

  She took another bite of sandwich and wiped a glob of mayo from the corner of her mouth. She tried to think how long it had been since she’d seen someone—anyone—out by the Space Needle.

  “Wait,” she said quickly. “Jack. I just realized I’m totally leaving you hanging. I don’t want you to think that anything I have to say about the . . . about the kiss is bad. I’m glad we kissed. I’m not saying, ‘It was a moment of foolishness and we need to pretend it never happened. ’ That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m definitely pro-kiss. ”

  She wondered if anyone was watching her. If the terrorists had someone on a roof nearby, they’d see her. Then again, if someone was up on a roof, then they’d see the snipers before they’d see her.

  “The thing is,” Aubrey said, “I’m sorry about everything back home. I probably should be saying this to your face—and I’ve wanted to. You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to. But I’m just so sorry that I ditched you for Nicole. It wasn’t right, and it only led to trouble. Every time I tried to do something good I screwed things up even more. I treated you horribly, and I did horrible things. Nicole wasn’t buying stuff for me all the time. I was stealing it. I was stealing just because I could and because I wanted to be pretty like Nicole. Maybe you already guessed that, but I wanted you to hear it from me. Assuming you’re even listening, which I don’t know if you are. ”

  She walked to the Space Needle for the tenth time and looked up at the structure. No one was there, doing whatever a terrorist would do.

  “You were always there for me,” she continued. “And I turned my back on you. I betrayed a lifetime of friendship for—”

  There was a pop, and then three more pops. She knew the sound the instant she heard it. Gunshots. She spun in place, trying to look for the shooter, but it was too much of a bowl—the shots echoed off every building.

  “Jack?” she said. “Jack!” She started running for the music museum. Before she got far, she saw Jack running toward her, blood streaming from his head and down his shirt.

  She reappeared as she ran, and Jack altered his course to meet her. He seemed to be running fine, but there was blood everywhere.

  Aubrey threw out her arms to hug him, but when he reached her, he just grabbed her and kept running.

  “They tried to kill us,” he said, panting.

  “Are you okay?”

  “We have to get out of sight—away from the snipers. ”

  She tried to look at him as they ran, but her eyes were too blurry to see his wound. He seemed to be bleeding above his right ear, but he was moving too much to be sure.

  “Why?” she shouted.

  “I don’t know. ”

  They ran in between two buildings, out of the view of snipers—or at least, she hoped so. It should have been out of the soldiers’ view if they didn’t move. Jack began to stumble, and pulled her behind a Dumpster with him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her hands on his head, trying to stave off the bleeding. His blood leaked through her fingers and down her arm, dripping from her elbow onto the pavement.

  “I don’t know,” he panted. “Everything was fine. It was quiet. We were watching, and Rowley was getting routine checks from the snipers. And then all of a sudden he was pulling the detonator from his pocket, priming it. ” Jack paused and wiped blood from his eye.

  Aubrey couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. She pulled her sweater up over her head, ignoring the cold, wet Seattle weather in her flimsy military T-shirt. She mashed the sweater against his wound.

  “The detonator?” she asked, panicked. “You mean, like, the ankle detonator?”

  He nodded, and then winced at the movement. “It was all of a sudden. He didn’t say anything—he just heard something on his radio and pulled it out of his pocket. I swear, he was about to push the button. ”

  “How did you stop him?”

  “Laura did,” Jack said, leaning his back against the filthy Dumpster. “She hit him and took it—she’s so fast—and I think she broke his arm. That’s when the fighting started. ”

  Aubrey peeked around the edge of the Dumpster toward the way they’d come, and then glanced up at the rooftops. She couldn’t see anyone. But she needed Jack’s eyes. She wouldn’t have been able to see a sniper on a rooftop even if her head wasn’t filled with adrenaline.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.

  “McKinney tried to shoot me,” he said. “Right as Laura tackled him. I swear, she saved my life. Twice. ”

  “Where is she?”

  She could feel him try to shake his head, but her hands wouldn’t let him. “I don’t know. The captain gave the order to the snipers to take out the Lambdas. ”

  “What? Why would he do that?” She felt herself starting to cry, and she pushed the feelings down. “Did you know why? You could hear the radio in his ear, couldn’t you?”