Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2)

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “No. He usually sticks around, though where he is now, I couldn’t even begin to guess.”

  “We should have stayed on that roof,” Ian muttered. “We may have caught him.”

  “Or we may have gone down with the building,” I corrected him.

  “That’s a risk I would have been willing to take.”

  “Help us, please,” a woman’s strained voice half yelled, half coughed from behind a cloud of dust.

  “See, there’s a reason why we’re down here,” I said to Ian, running in the direction of the woman’s pleas for help. As I drew closer, the fog parted and the woman who’d made those cries came into view. Covered in soot from just about head to toe, she regarded me apprehensively, unsure of what to make of my presence. Without saying a word in acknowledgement, she motioned with her hands for me to follow her to a pile of rubble about four feet high, where she attempted to lift a concrete block from the pile. Her muscles strained under the pressure, the block refusing to budge no matter how hard she tried.

  “Here,” I said to her, “we’ll lift. You can just stand back.” Ian appeared next to me, nodding in agreement.

  “I will not stand back, not with my daughter trapped under there!” she cried, attempting to lift the block once more. Her small frame gave out in her further exertion, and she collapsed onto the pile of rubble. “Isn’t that why you guys were created, built, bred, or whatever you are, to prevent things like this from happening?” she yelled. “What good are you if these attacks keep happening? Hell, this one occurred right under your noses.” Tears streamed down her face; her arms gripped the concrete block as though it were her daughter.

  “I’m sorry we failed you,” I murmured. “Trust me when I say that the last thing we want is for more people to experience the pain we have.” She remained sobbing on the pile of rubble as though she neither heard nor particularly cared for anything I had to say. Nodding at Ian, I grabbed a block of cement, effortlessly moving it aside, while Ian guided the woman off her resting place on the pile. He picked up a block, glancing at me as he lifted it, an unspoken knowledge existing between us, telling us that we were only unearthing further heartbreak.

  Removal of a handful of additional blocks confirmed our grim conclusion. At the bottom of the pile lay the young woman who’d spoken to me just prior to the explosion. Her eyes were open, staring back up at me, their defiance still intact, her limbs twisted in unnatural angles. I gasped, forcing myself to turn around, the tears welling in my eyes. My stomach churned; a dry heave forced its way through my body. The sickening wail of the woman’s mother materialized behind me. Ian grabbed her in an attempt to hold her back, but the determined woman broke free, joining her daughter in her tomb.

  Ian put his arm around me as another dry heave presented itself. “Let’s see what we can do to help elsewhere,” he said quietly. I nodded, but I knew that we would be presented with more of the same. More death, despair, and resentment towards those superheroes with whom so much hope had been placed.

  As we walked back in the direction we came from, I caught a glimpse of something several blocks away, a lone figure in the darkness, whose exaggerated stature was illuminated ominously by the blazes that surrounded us. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my pulse quickened. Breaking away from Ian, I ran, which prompted the figure to do the same, only in the opposite direction.

  “What is it?” Ian yelled, catching up to me.

  “It’s him,” I answered. “Up ahead.”

  “Him as in him-him? Are you sure?”

  “Once you’ve been in his presence, you never forget it.”

  We ran full speed, avoiding the falling debris and ash that rained down on us from the sky in a virtual Armageddon. The figure had disappeared from view, but my gut told me it was him, and that we were on the right track, if we could just keep moving.

  If we could just keep moving.

  I skidded to a stop, craning my ear toward the scene of the explosion. What had I heard? Were those screams, moans, or other signs of life? Yes. There was definitely someone in that building, trapped in the fiery tower.

  “What?” Ian stopped next to me. “Celaine, we have to keep moving. We may actually have a chance to catch up to him if we keep up our pace.”

  “Shh, Ian,” I said. “Listen. Do you hear what I hear coming from that building?”

  Ian craned his ears, his eyes widening, telling me that what I had heard wasn’t merely in my mind. “So, I guess this is our chance to really be superheroes,” he acknowledged. I agreed, looking back forlornly at the horizon. “Don’t worry, we’ll have another crack at him,” he said, his arm draping across my shoulders.

  “That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

  *****

  He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, his legs giving out on him on his last jump. Coughing, he hung over the edge of the building adjacent to the one ablaze, allowing his worn body to decompress. Each attack was becoming increasingly more difficult to pull off, which was further intensified by his body betraying him, lengthening his recovery time. Sure, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. His body had seen better days, but his difficulties still troubled him, making his attacks further apart than he would have liked.

  When his coughing fit finally came to an end, he was, at last, able to compose himself enough to admire his handiwork. The death toll was low, not as high as he normally would have liked, but his goal wasn’t to kill, it was to make a statement. A statement to those who dare challenge him and his power; a statement to those who needed to be reminded that he was still a force worthy of their fear.

  Scanning the ground below, he saw her. She stood next to where her new partner lay, watching as he freed himself from the rubble. I could jump down there right now and take care of them both with little effort, he thought, a scowl forming on his face. He knew the blast wouldn’t harm her, for she was too well protected. Not to mention, he didn’t want her death to be quick. No, her death was going to be much…slower. A burning hatred welled inside him, invigorating him. Her death would be planned; calculated to the last detail.

  He jumped down from the building, landing on the fire escape, where he climbed down the rest of the way to the ground. From there, he traversed the alleyway, coming out onto the road, far enough not to be seen by those he didn’t want to see him, but not far enough to prevent her from seeing him. In the darkness, partially illuminated by the blazing wreckage, he stood, daring her to look his way. In the back of his mind, he knew she’d see him, that she would sense his presence in the depths of her soul. And it was no surprise to him when her gaze met his icy stare from several blocks away.

  She took off running at him like he suspected she would do, her partner following in her footsteps. With a yawn, he turned around and ran halfheartedly down the street, scaling rooftops to keep him out of their view, but it wasn’t long before they quit coming after him. Something or someone in the wreckage had distracted them, it appeared, forcing them to back down from their pursuit of him. Taking his place safely atop a relatively squat, four-story structure, he watched her intently as she turned around and ran into the burning building.

  Enjoy the power while you still have it, he mused. It may serve you well now, but it’ll be rendered useless against me when we meet again. The Man in Black leapt down onto the ground below, his heavy body sinking into the mangled concrete. He’d done what he’d come to do. It was now time for contemplation. Simple physical torture would not suffice when it came to her. He needed something more. Something that would rock her to her core; something that would make her long for physical assault; something that would break her.

  A thought occurred to him while he trudged down the pitch black street, forcing a crooked grin to crack his face. He’d strike her in the one place he knew would cause the most damage: through the heart.

  *****

  Ian and I ran into the depths of the blaze, the smoke overwhelming us. “This is going to be next to impossible,” he coughed
. “Whoever was still alive in here has to have succumbed to this smoke by now.”

  “Not necessarily,” I replied. The soot entered my nose, sticking to the inside of my nostrils like tar. “From the looks of it, the bulk of the explosion was confined to the front of the building facing the street, almost as though the bastard was expecting the riot.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, “and head to the back of the building.” Ian and I ran back outside, taking fresh air into our lungs. We ran down the alley until we reached the back of the building, which was fairly intact; its gray concrete exterior barely reflected the carnage raging from within.

  Ian kicked the door open, unleashing a fury of smoke to greet us. “There’s a stairwell,” he observed. “Over to the right. I think that may be our best bet.”

  “It’s probably our only bet,” I agreed. “We’ll just have to stick close and hope for sources of fresh air.”

  Ian nodded. Catching our breaths one last time, we ran into the building. Although not as blinding as it had been in the front of the building, the smoke, coupled with the darkness, reduced our visibility, making our climb up the stairs all the more interesting.

  “Hello?” I called as we ascended the first flight of stairs. “Is anyone still in here?” Silence greeted my inquiry. “We need to scan as many floors as we can. All eight of them, if possible.”

  “We can’t check every apartment, you know that, right?” Ian asked apprehensively.

  “I know, but we at least have to try.”

  Taking as many steps at one time as possible, we ran up, flight after flight. About halfway up, we stopped on a landing, breaking a window so that we could stick our heads out of it to gather fresh air into our lungs. Once we reached the eighth floor, we ran down the hall, stumbling over drywall, pipes, lighting and the virtual skin and bones of the dying apartment complex in the process.

  “Is anyone up here?” I called, my throat growing sore from the smoke. Ian broke through the locked doors, doing a quick cursory search, while I glanced inside those apartments that were left open. Our only source of light streamed in through the windows from the ambiance of the flames scorching the front of the building, giving us the tiniest iota of light. “I think this floor is clear,” I announced.

  We repeated the same procedure on the seventh and then the sixth floor, opening windows for air, receiving no response to our pleas. It wasn’t until we reached the fifth floor that we found what we were looking for. I ran down the corridor, headed to its end so that I could quickly begin my assessment. About halfway down the hallway, however, I felt my feet catch on something, causing me to stumble and crash to the floor. Stretching out my arm, I patted the carpet in the direction of my fall where a familiar softness appeared at the end of my gloved fingertips.

  “Ian!” I shouted. From a unit nearby, I could hear his rushed footsteps running down the hallway. “Over here,” I called, directing him to my general location. His footfalls fell lightly, so as not to collide with me. “It’s a person. Down here, on the floor.” He knelt down on the carpet, while searching for confirmation of his own.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why stay here when you could just as easily have gotten out?” The person on the floor moaned, a masculine tone to the voice suggested a man, young, and potentially full of answers to Ian’s questions.

  “Maybe it’s not that simple,” I answered. “We better make sure we check out each room thoroughly before we leave.”

  “Let’s start with this one.”

  I looked up, seeing the open door to one of the units directly in front of where the man had fallen. “Yeah, I think that’s a good bet,” I said. Ian stepped into the room, with me following close behind. The light from the blaze cast an eerie orange-red glow in the unit. It didn’t make for much light, but it was a lot more than we had been working with.

  The unit had been shaken by the explosion. Furniture lay strewn about, overturned, making it difficult for us to guide ourselves through its interior. In the middle of the living room, I found myself having to duck to avoid smacking my head against a ceiling fan that had fallen from the roof and was hanging precariously by a lone wire. Under my feet, what may have once been precious heirlooms crunched beneath my soles like bones. Near me, Ian coughed before he punched his fist through a window and cleared its pane of the glass. He bent down to poke his head through it.

  “You know, you could have just as easily opened the window,” I said, rolling my eyes behind my mask.

  “Yes, that was an option, but for some reason, I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “Of course, who doesn’t want to risk lacerating their hand?” He pulled his head back through the window and motioned for me to take his place to gather fresh air into my lungs. “Let’s go look in the other rooms,” I said. “If there’s no one here, then one of us should take the victim downstairs.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ian replied. “What if The Man in Black comes back? It would leave one of us against that monster. Even by your standards, those aren’t great odds.”

  I had to admit that what Ian said made sense, but it still didn’t set well with me knowing that the man in the hallway could succumb to injury or smoke inhalation soon if he wasn’t treated quickly.

  We walked down the hallway that contained the unit’s bedroom and bathroom. I could feel my forehead sweating. The temperature was rising, signaling to us that our search should come to an end soon before the back of the building met the same fate as its front. Turning into the bathroom, I did a quick search, while Ian walked into the bedroom.

  “Celaine!” he yelled, causing me to bolt into the room he was in. He stood next to a bed near where a bookcase had fallen over on top of it. At first glance, I couldn’t see what had gotten him so upset, but then he moved to one side and I caught a glimpse of a foot sticking out from underneath the bookcase. Instinctively, I leapt onto the bed, and took the bookcase into my hands, lifting it off the figure in the bed. It was heavy, made of solid oak, practically impossible for one person to move alone. And as I looked down at the woman it had encased, a vivid picture of what must have transpired played out in my head.

  “I bet he stayed with her until he realized that his only hope was to try and find help,” I observed.

  “But he also realized that help was nonexistent and didn’t want her to spend her last minutes alone,” Ian added.

  “They weren’t her last minutes,” I answered, feeling a slight pulse in her wrist. “She’s still with us, though I suspect not for much longer.”

  “We need to grab them and go, then,” he replied. “And hope they were the only ones still alive in here.”

  “I’ll grab her, you grab Sleeping Beauty in the hall,” I said. I lifted the woman up, resting her on my shoulder as I jumped off the bed and ran to the door. When I reached the hallway, Ian had already picked up the man and, from the sound of it, had just reached the stairwell.

  “Come on, Celaine,” he called back to me. “I honestly don’t believe we have much time left in here.”

  He was right. Just as I reached the top of the stairwell, a second explosion rang out from the floor above us, burying Ian in his descent down the stairs.

  Chapter Twelve

  Abandoned

  Crack, crack, crack. The building around me began to crumble and groan. Smoke and dust quickly saturated the air. There wasn’t much time left before the whole structure would collapse, before we would be buried within the rubble. My ears rang once more, and I wondered how much more my hearing could handle before the damage would be too severe, or too permanent, to take. I looked down the stairwell at the pile of debris; fluorescent lighting, drywall, concrete, and bits of insulation had fallen where I’d last seen Ian. No sign of life was evident.

  Shaking, I steadied my grip on the woman balanced on my shoulder, my head throbbing, my equilibrium compromised. Ian. It was the second time in le
ss than an hour that losing him seemed like a very real possibility. I took one step down the stairs, nearly losing my balance in the process, knowing that I needed to find him. Managing to reorient myself, I stepped down one, then two more steps before a rustling in the debris pulled my heart out from of the depths of my stomach. Ian’s hand emerged from the heap, and I stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs to meet him. With my free arm, I pulled the light fixture off the top of the pile, revealing him. He’d been lucky, the bulk of the heavier wreckage had missed him entirely.

  “Well, there’s three lives down,” he said, pulling the man he’d been carrying out of a crevice at the base of the stairwell where he’d shielded him from the blast. “Seriously, is that the best you’ve got?” He motioned with his fists in the direction the blast had come from.

  “That’s not funny, Ian. Honestly, how can you even joke about that right now?” I asked him, my knees beginning to shake.

  “Because I’m not dead, and I need to make light of a shitty situation right now,” he answered me.

  The building creaked once more, a sign of its impending death. Particles of drywall fell upon us. “We’d better get out of here before he answers your challenge,” I said, annoyed by his callousness.

  “Celaine…I…” I rushed past him, feeling the complex begin to shake, the force of which threw me down the rest of the flight of stairs. Dazed, I picked myself up, hoisting the woman back over my shoulders while pain rippled through my body. And then I heard it, the sound of the world collapsing, of a freight train barreling down upon me.

  “Celane! Run!” Ian shouted, running down the stairs. Above me, I could see the stairwell beginning to collapse, its railing snapped off and hung over the edge as though it were pleading for mercy. Ian grabbed my arm and pulled me down the stairs after him. Together, we ran as fast as our feet would allow, as fast as our bodies could manage given the extra weight we were carrying. But the sound of the dying building drew nearer, threatening to crush us under its weight with each passing second.