“Did he come back?” Biden asked from somewhere in the dark.
“I didn’t wait. He died.”
Bear fought to banish the images from his head: Buddy, Chris, the baby, Julie.
“You know what he said to me?” Brent asked Bear. “He said if he was going to die and come back… He said he didn’t want you to see him that way.”
Brent lowered his head and his shoulders shook as he sobbed in the dark.
Julie.
“Are you alright?” Biden asked.
He had made up his mind.
“Biden, if you can, get Harris’ cat. Fred Turner’s got it. How do I open this thing? Let me out of here.”
As he walked down the ramp, his gear slung over his shoulders, Tris hailed him from atop the AAV. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Back to Clavius,” he said. “Biden can take you to Eden.”
“What?” Tris said. “You’re just going to leave here? You’re kidding me, right?”
He stopped.
“I need to go back.”
He started walking off into the night.
“Big man.”
He turned.
“Here.”
Tris removed the grenade she wore around her neck and tossed it to him. He caught it and considered it.
“Big man. You and me, when we get back, we gonna have a little talk.”
Bear ignored her, turned, and continued walking.
Tris watched as the night swallowed the giant.
“Mickey, wake up. Wake up!”
Someone was shaking his shoulder violently. He opened his eyes.
“What-Wh-Sonny? What the—”
“Where is he? Where the fuck is he?” Sonny’s voice was desperate and shrill.
“Who? Who are you—” Mickey squinted against the glare of the fluorescents.
“Sonny!”
The other man was fully dressed and wore his assault rifle on his back and his .45 on his chest. “Sonny, come in man!” The voice was coming from his radio.
“I’m here, Danny. Come in. What’s up?”
“I got him. He’s here! Over.”
“Where are you?”
“The commons.”
“Is Torrie with him?”
“No, she’s not—”
“I’m on my way,” ignoring Mickey, he walked out of the room, leaving the light on. “Don’t approach him,” Mickey heard him say. “Do you hear me? Do not go near this guy.” Then the door to the dorm slammed shut.
What the fuck?
“Mickey!”
Now Julie burst into his room. What time was it and what the hell was—
“It’s Buddy.”
He sprang out of bed and started pulling on his pants.
“What happened?”
“Sonny’s daughter is missing.” Julie had her winter jacket on over her jeans and a maternity sweater. “Buddy isn’t at the hospital—”
“Where is he?”
“One of the guards at the hospital is dead.” Singh popped his head into the room. “Come with me. I think I know where they are.”
Mickey started to ask “What’s going on, doc?” but had to hustle and lace up his boots as Singh and Julie were out of his room and down the hall. His eyes were still half closed as he fumbled with the holster of his 9mm. “Screw it.” He pulled the pistol from its leather, leaving the rig in his room.
He hit the front door of the dormitory. The doctor and Julie walked off in the distance under the stars.
“Wa—” he almost yelled wait but it had to be three or four o’clock in the morning and he did not want to wake anyone up. So he hustled as fast as he could to catch up with them.
Holding back his tears and fury, Sonny ran across the commons, towards the two figures that stood out in the moonlight. One figure was down, on its back, the other sat slumped a few feet from it.
When he got close enough to see who was who he came up short, huffing and puffing. Slow steps completed the distance between himself and the two men in the snow.
Buddy was half leaning over his saddle bags, his gaze darting around. He looked out of it, but was fully dressed and in his leather jacket.
Danny was on his back, dead. A bayonet had been driven up under his chin and through his head to the hilt. The snow was swept clear in the area around him like he had been struggling.
“Where’s Torrie?” Sonny screamed as he approached. “Where’s my daughter?”
Buddy sat still as if he didn’t hear him.
“You motherfucker.” He drew the .45 from his chest rig. He shrugged out of his M16A2 and tossed it to the side. “Where’s Torrie goddamn you?”
“Sonny!” Singh yelled.”
“Torrie, Kip!” Sonny was in tears. “He did something to her.”
“What are you talking about? How do you—”
“I know, Kip, I fucking know.” He walked around Buddy and stared down into the man’s blank face. “Where’s my daughter? Do you fucking hear me? Where is she?”
“Danny, oh god.” Singh knelt beside the fallen young man, checking for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one.
“Buddy!” Gwen rushed up to them. “What the…” She saw Danny and stopped. “Oh no.”
“Motherfucker,” Sonny straight armed his .45 and aimed it at Buddy’s head. “You better start talking to me you son of a bitch! Where the fuck is my—”
“Hey, don’t aim that gun at—” Julie and Mickey reached them.
“He took my kid,” Sonny shouted. “He took Torrie!”
“How do you know that?” Julie said. “How do you know it was him?”
“He killed Danny.” Singh stood.
“Oh fuck” Mickey put a hand on his head.
“Fuck this.” Sonny pulled back the slide on the .45. “You’re going to talk to me motherfucker. You’re out of it, is that it?” He was spitting and crying as he yelled. “I’ll make you feel. You ready to feel motherfucker!”
Buddy had a puzzled look on his face.
“Last chance, fucker. Talk.”
Bang.
The gunshot reverberated across the commons into the night.
“Motherfu—” Sonny dropped his .45 and reached for his thigh, grimacing in agony as his leg buckled under him. He collapsed on his side, his right arm going out to break his fall.
“I’m sorry,” Julie said, lowering her .380. “I really am.”
Sonny looked at her then squeezed his eyes shut. His head shook in frustration and pain.
Mickey stepped forward and kicked his pistol away. “Julie?”
“They’re gonna kill Buddy. Look at him,” she meant Sonny. “He was going to kill—”
“You should get your friends out of here,” Singh said. “Out of Clavius…”
“Julie,” Gwen said. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
“…for a few days, until this calms down. Otherwise they’ll never be treated fairly.” Sigh dropped down next to Sonny and started working on his thigh.
“You can’t go, Julie, look at you—”
“I shot him. I shot Sonny. I have to.”
“Nooooo!” Sonny bellowed in anguish.
“Come on,” Mickey said. “Gwen, give me a hand with—”
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t want any part of this.” She shook her head. “You go and take him with you if that’s what you want to do.”
“You’re serious?”
She didn’t answer.
“Come on, Mickey.” Julie tried to lift Buddy.
“My daughter, my little girl…” Sonny cried.
“Sonny, listen to me.” Singh bound the man’s wounded thigh. “If this man is responsible for Torrie’s disappearance, killing him won’t help you find her. You know that.”
“Get out of the way, Julie.” Mickey tucked the 9mm in his waistband and pulled one of Buddy’s jacketed arms over his shoulders. “Get his bags.”
“You’re never going
to get out of here,” Sonny promised between gritted teeth.
“Wait,” Singh said, standing and taking Buddy’s other arm, “I know a way we can go. Mickey, help me get Buddy there and then you stay. You stay and you help find Torrie. You talk to everyone and make them understand!”
“Yeah, okay,” Mickey sounded unsure.
“Kip!”
“Sonny, when calmer heads prevail—”
“Let’s go,” Julie said. There were voices and lights in the distance.
“Gwen.” The two women looked at one another. “Goodbye.”
Gwen didn’t say anything. She watched them go. Mickey and the doctor supported Buddy. Julie followed a few steps behind.
“Nooooo! Not like this—no!” Sonny howled and punched the ground. “Everything we went through—no! All that—not like this! No-no-nooooo!”
Gwen sat down in the snow next to him. Danny’s body laid a few feet away. She put her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and waited for the first of the people to arrive.
Panas sat in the break room at work the next night, alone at his table with a cup of coffee. Kieran, Sasha, and Mei mostly ignored him, talking low amongst themselves at another table across the room. He had his back to them and the door, alternating between staring into his cup of coffee and the bulletin board on the wall. When Eva entered the room, Kieran looked up at her, nodded, motioned to the others, then they all got up and left the room.
She walked over to the coffee pot and poured herself a mug.
“Panas.” She came over to his table and circled it.
“Eva.”
She sat down in a chair across from him. Eva placed her coffee mug on the table and unslung the assault rifle, placing it on its butt on the floor, the barrels leaning against the table.
“You like the nightshift?”
“It gives me time to think,” he said.
He knew why she was here.
“What do you miss most about that place Eden?”
Panas thought about it.
“We used to sit out in the evening, watch movies. Harmon—Mickey, that is—had a huge collection. Sometimes when we’d watch a film, I’d forget where I was. What was going on around me.”
“Mickey and his movies. I thought Lauren was bad, but that guy,” the door behind him opened and Panas noticed Eva didn’t look up to see who it was, “he takes the cake. You know he has the plague?”
“Mickey?”
“Yeah, it’s true. Sonny told me.”
“Well.” He noticed she did not drink her coffee. “Damn.”
“Mmmm. Let me ask you a question, Panas. You got a first name?”
“Nick.”
“Nick. Okay, Nick, let me ask you a question. You said you like the late work. Gives you time to think. When the doctor and the pregnant bitch carted that baby killer out of here, what were you thinking when you let them go?”
Panas picked up his coffee and sipped it.
“I thought someone would kill them. Kill Buddy. Sonny’s daughter?”
“Torrie is still missing. But you and I know, we know, she’s not going to turn up alive, is she?”
“I really hope she does.”
“Sonny is…He’s a broken man,” she said. “This Buddy—he that important to you?”
“The Buddy I knew—” Panas said, “if he is responsible—the Buddy I knew wasn’t a bad man. He came to Eden and he helped us all out. He—Graham, Markowski…” Panas knew she wasn’t listening to him. He knew she had made up her mind, so he stopped.
“Your friend, Mickey? He should have run while he had the chance. Nick, let me tell you what I’m going to do when I’m done here talking to you. I’m going to go and wake Mickey up, take him for a ride. Out into the woods. We’ll stop and we’ll go for a walk. Not too far. And then I’m going to kill him. Do you want to know what I’m going to do after that?”
Panas picked up his coffee cup and sipped.
“I’m going to hit the woods and track down your friend Buddy and his little entourage. They couldn’t have gotten too far. Not with your friend the way he is. Not with the pregnant bitch in the condition she’s in.”
“That’s what you’re here for now, isn’t it?” Panas asked. “You’re here to kill me too?”
“No.” Eva leaned her chair back against the wall and clasped her hands behind her head. “I’m not going to kill you.”
The garrote dropped around Panas’ head from behind and Hayden pulled it tight. The wire buried itself in his neck. His hands shot up to grab at it but it was already digging into the soft flesh of his throat and had opened him up. Blood ran down his neck and chest, his hands and forearms.
Eva put her chair back on all four legs, leaned across the table, and grabbed his wrists. She wrestled them down to the table and held them there while Hayden pulled back on the garrote. His face turned crimson, his legs kicked the table, his torso torqued in the chair, and the coffee mugs toppled, spilling their contents across the table top. Eva’s M16/M26 shifted and clattered on to the floor.
Hayden cursed between her clenched teeth. The veins in her forearms popped out.
Panas evacuated his bowels and died.
Hayden let him go and the corpse slumped across the table in a puddle of coffee.
“He stinks.”
“He shit himself,” Eva said. “Spilled my coffee too.” She bent over and picked up her assault rifle.
“You need a hand with that other guy?”
“No. I got help waiting for me.”
“Eva. Thanks.”
She looked at the younger woman.
“I know it doesn’t bring Danny back. But, I don’t know,” Hayden looked at the garrote in her hands, “it makes me feel better.”
“Mickey?”
It was the second time in as many nights that he was roused out of bed early, but this time he was pleasantly surprised.
“Lauren?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” She stood in the doorway of his room. She hadn’t turned on the fluorescents, but he could see her clearly from the ambient light in the hall.
“Hey, what’s up? What time is it?” He sat up in bed and pulled the sheet over his underwear.
“It’s real late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. I’m sorry to—”
“No, it’s cool.”
“I’d like to show you something, something beautiful.”
“Okay.” Mickey was eager.
“Put on something warm. We won’t be gone long. I’ll wait for you out here.”
“Okay.”
He watched her go. He stood up and stretched, his excitement mounting. How cool is this? The chick he was into, a chick he knew was into him, showed up in his room at three or four o’clock in the morning or whatever time it was. She wanted to show him something beautiful. Awesome. For a few moments he was able to forget about Julie and Buddy and the missing girl.
Crusade (Eden Book 2) Page 29
