Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2)

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “Just three more flights,” Ian said. “We can do this, we’re going to make it.” The building, apparently, didn’t adhere to his words, because no sooner did he finish his sentence than the stairwell above us buckled, the bulk of which hit me in the back of my shoulder, throwing me off my feet.

  “Ah!” I cried, cradling my arm in sheer pain.

  “We have to go. Get up,” Ian ordered. He bent over, picked up the woman and threw her over his other arm. “Up. Now,” he commanded. With the pain flowing through my upper body like a raging river, I pulled myself up and resumed my run down the stairs, directly behind him.

  How we made it out of that apartment complex before it finally collapsed—whether it be by the grace of God, or otherwise—I’ll never know, but as soon as we crashed through the door to freedom, the building fell, emitting one last death rattle on her way down. Undaunted, Ian and I continued our run until we were a safe distance away from the aftermath of the fall.

  In an alleyway, we collapsed to our knees. Ian set the man and woman down on the ground. Taking my mask off, I wiped away the tears threatening to fall from my eyes. My shoulder throbbed, but for some reason it didn’t bother me anymore. It was as though the added danger had exacerbated the injury, and now that it had passed, the pain was allowing itself to subside.

  Ian took off his mask and coughed with such an intensity that I thought I would see bits of lung hit the pavement.

  “You’re going to need to be treated for smoke inhalation when we get back,” I stated.

  “Nah,” he replied. “I’m tough.” As though challenging his last statement, his body jerked forward in a series of coughs that forced his hands to the pavement to brace himself.

  “We’re only as tough as our bodies allow us to be,” I said.

  “I object to that. My mind is a heck of a lot more resilient than the rest of my body.”

  “Yeah? Try telling them that.” I gestured to the unconscious couple on the ground. “I bet their tough brains are just fuming over how weak their bodies are.”

  “Speaking of,” Ian began, “we need to find them some help, and fast.”

  As though on cue, I heard the sound of distant sirens. Flashing red lights caressed the walls of nearby buildings. “It’s about time,” I said, putting my helmet back on.

  Ian snapped his helmet into place and got back up onto his feet. I walked over next to him and carefully turned the woman over on the ground, removing her arm from her face. For the first time, I was able to get a good look at her features. She was pretty with auburn hair that fell just slightly over her shoulders. Soot from the explosion kissed her face in patches, nullifying the natural perfection of her complexion. Leaning over, I checked to see whether she still had a pulse. It was weak, but there was still one present. Whether she lived or died, recovered or not, was now out of our hands.

  “I have them,” Ian said, picking them both up and slinging them over his shoulders. “You seem a little broken,” he observed.

  “Just an old injury.” My shoulder throbbed at the mention of it, and I was secretly grateful to Ian for recognizing the pain I was in. Though, as he walked away, I noticed a slight limp in his step. “Ian, your leg. Are you injured?”

  “It’s nothing a good night’s rest won’t fix,” he said.

  “Don’t play the big man, Ian. If you need help, ask for it.”

  “I’m fine.”

  We rounded the corner of the alleyway that led back out into the street. On either side of us, police officers and emergency technicians were arriving. Their boots crunched across the debris as they scoured the scene.

  “Hold on right there,” an officer called to us.

  “We have two people who need medical attention now,” I called back to him. “Please allow us to approach the ambulance.”

  “Who are they, and where are they from?” the officer asked, suspiciously.

  “What does that matter?” answered Ian.

  “It matters a great deal. We’re under explicit orders. No medical assistance shall be rendered to rioters.”

  “What!” Ian and I both exclaimed, incredulously.

  “These people weren’t rioters,” I called back, gesturing to the wounded in the rubble. “They were holding a peaceful demonstration, not looting storefronts or overturning cars in the streets.”

  “Same difference,” the officer sneered. “They’re breaking curfew. By order of the Brooks’ administration, no one is to touch them.”

  “Why? Are you making examples out of them?” I asked. “Why don’t you forget your presidential orders for a moment and dig up the one shred of humanity you still have left.” The officer approached us, his figure foreboding and ominous. He was tall, roughly six and a half feet by my estimate, making even Ian seem average by comparison.

  “Are you suggesting that I violate a direct order from our commander-in-chief?” he asked sternly.

  “No, she’s not,” Ian said. “We’ve just had one hell of a night, officer. Like you, we just want to do our jobs and get back home.”

  “Huh,” he grunted. “I didn’t think your kind had a home. Aren’t you engineered or something, like robots?”

  “No, sir,” Ian answered with a placating chuckle. “We’re flesh and blood just like you and your comrades over there.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” he stated in disbelief.

  “Even if you don’t believe we’re real, these victims are.” Ian looked from the man draped over his shoulder to the woman situated on his other shoulder. “They weren’t rioters, protesters, or anything in between, just law abiding citizens who were trapped when a bomb went off in their apartment.”

  “A bomb?” The broad man raised an eyebrow.

  “An attack by The Man in Black,” Ian answered obediently.

  “Just what we need,” he sighed. “It’s bad enough we have the rioters blowing things up, now he comes back.”

  “Sir, can we please bring these citizens to the ambulance before it’s too late?” Ian attempted to mask his irritation.

  The officer stood for a moment, eyeing the victims slumped over Ian’s shoulder. “Go ahead,” he finally answered, stepping aside and allowing us to pass through.

  Upon approaching the ambulance, I noticed the surviving soldiers being treated by medics while the injured protesters were passed by, left to their moans of agony and cries of defeat that pierced the chilled night air. In my veins, my blood began to boil, and although I knew I needed to keep my cool, my resolve to do what was right—what was in my heart—was beginning to win the war being waged inside me. Soldiers passed us, their helmets off, the glazed look in their eyes replaced by looks of utter confusion. Many seemed to have no idea where there were, how they got there, or why they were even there. They’re in shock, I mused. But was it shock? Surely, that should have dissipated to some degree by now, and their expressions, their genuine confusion, were all too similar. Shock, as I had experienced in the past, had a tendency to affect everyone differently. Shock was tailor-made to the individual. No, this wasn’t shock. This was something else entirely.

  I looked over at Ian, trying to gather any hint of an expression on his face from underneath his mask. Did he sense something afoul too, or was I being paranoid because of the events of the night?

  “What do we have here?” one of the EMTs, a woman with hair the color of an ember on the verge of fading out, asked.

  “We pulled them out of an apartment complex the next street over.” Ian answered her. “They both most likely have smoke inhalation. The woman was found underneath a bookcase. She may have sustained internal injuries—broken bones and the like.”

  The EMT motioned for us to follow her to a waiting ambulance where she called to her partner to come out and help her load the new patients. “We’re going to have to stick them both in one,” she said. “It’s not exactly protocol, but we’re short on staff and equipment.”

  “A part of me believes they wouldn’t want to be separa
ted anyway,” I said.

  While I watched Ian assisting the redhead’s partner in securing both victims safely inside the ambulance, a sudden commotion behind me caught my attention. Protesters, the ones who could walk, anyway, were being herded together by those soldiers who still seemed to remember who they were and what they were doing. Even while being herded like cattle, the civilians continued with their protests over their mistreatment and made sure that they were being heard loud and clear, until they were ultimately drowned out by the more forceful tone of the commanding police officer. The same officer who’d rolled out the welcome mat for Ian and I.

  “Come on,” Ian said. “There’s nothing more we can do here without getting ourselves arrested.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s plenty more we can do here.”

  “No, Celaine, we need to go, and we need to go now.”

  Something in the tone of Ian’s voice told me that he was right. Although it was against my moral code, I knew that we needed to pick our battles, and this battle would prove to be nothing more than a minor spat compared to what we would surely be up against later.

  But as we reached the car, the gunfire erupted, and my prior rationalization was shattered with the realization of what we’d just walked away from. I sank to my knees in the alleyway, shaking. Shaking from anger, shaking from grief, shaking from the overall injustice of it all. I remained on my knees in the alleyway, knowing that we’d failed them. My breathing became labored, forcing me to remove my helmet when the tears began streaming down my face.

  Ian cursed loudly before running back to the roadway, hoping to discover that we’d both been mistaken, that what we both knew to be true had been nothing more than a figment of our nightmarish imaginations. “Damn it!” he shouted, bashing that hope into the ground. He ripped his helmet off and threw it down the alley. It struck the ground and rolled just a foot away from where I sat motionless on the pavement, coming to rest unceremoniously next to our car. I heard the crunch of loose asphalt beneath Ian’s boots as he drew nearer. In the next instant, his hand met mine, removing it from my dampened face. I looked up at him, noticing that no matter how hard he tried to hide them, tears were forming in his eyes as well.

  “This is our fault,” I said. “We should have done something, but instead, we just walked away from them.”

  “There was nothing we could have done. Brooks would have had them executed regardless of what we did or didn’t do. Any perceived safety we would have given them would have only lasted for as long as we were around. And any intervention by us would have only jeopardized our cause and put targets on our backs.”

  “Those targets are there already, Ian. That fact has become increasingly more obvious.” I noticed that he still held my hand firmly in his own. His touch was strangely soothing despite the bleakness of the moment.

  Ian noticed me staring at his hand on mine. “Sorry,” he said, quickly removing it. “Celaine, what happened here tonight was intended to be a statement to all those who dare have the courage to stand up for themselves. And if Brooks has his way, it’s a message that’ll be heard loud and clear by every news venue tomorrow morning.”

  “Then it’s time we make a statement of our own,” I said.

  A familiar smirk returned to his face. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  No Room for Heroism

  “I can’t even fathom what was going through your heads last night.” Victor angrily paced the floor of the training center like a father scolding his children. “You’re given a mission. One mission. One.” He held up his index finger as though the solitary gesture would be enough to drive his point home. “You do not deviate from the mission just because something shiny begs for your attention. You were told to stake out the neighborhood and prevent The Man in Black from carrying out his attack. That was your mission, and in case you couldn’t guess, you failed miserably.”

  “What were we supposed to do, Victor?” I interceded. “Let a war break out in the streets while we stood idly by with our hands in our pockets?”

  “You do as you’re told and nothing else,” he growled. “And really, Ms. Stevens, what good did you and Mr. Grant actually do out there? Not only did The Man in Black successfully carry out his attack, but the people you were trying to protect were killed in the process. There’s no room for heroism in the age we live in, only compliance.”

  “No,” I interrupted him again. “It wasn’t us who killed them, nor was it The Man in Black, it was Brooks who had the final say over their lives.”

  “And that’s the other issue I wish to address with the both of you. Your blatant show of sympathy for those knowingly breaking the law has not gone unnoticed.”

  “Knowingly breaking the law?” Ian asked. “They were staging a demonstration. A peaceful one, at that.”

  “Sometimes chaos can masquerade as peace, Mr. Grant. Your insubordinate display of sympathy is being broadcast around the country as we speak. Those protesters you protected were streaming the events prior to the explosion live over the internet. Millions of people saw it, and now millions believe that their beloved superheroes support the rebels’ defiance. Cameron has been doing all he can to erase the footage from the web permanently, but the damage has already been done, unfortunately.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing they didn’t see the events that transpired after the explosion, because if they had, there would be an all-out war right now.” I glared at Victor, never wanting to strike someone more than I did at that very moment.

  “You speak of treason, Ms. Stevens, and I beg you to hold your tongue.”

  “Or what, Victor, you’ll throw me against the wall again?” Ian stiffened next to me, his fists clenching as though readying himself for a fight.

  Victor stared at me, an icy gaze which told me that what he was going to say to me conflicted heavily with what he actually wanted to do to me. “I lost my temper that day,” he acknowledged. “But you have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under right now. If the rebels believe you’re on their side, there will be a call to arms. The country will be thrown into utter chaos, which will invariably result in more deaths. Is that what you want? Because I can guarantee you there will be more bloodshed than there was last night.” He stopped his pacing around the room, choosing to stare us down instead. “President Brooks will be publicly addressing the country in one week. You both will undo the damage you did last night, is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Ian answered.

  “Good.” Victor began to turn around as though preparing to walk out of the room, when another thought occurred to him, stopping him in his tracks. “I implore you both to remember what brought you here in the first place,” he said, making it a point to glance back at the both of us. “If Brooks cuts our funding, there will be no more Epicenter. The Man in Black will go on a rampage, making any attacks carried out by the rebels seem like mere child’s play. Everything and everyone you cared about in your former lives will be compromised. If you want a shot at peace, you will do exactly as you’re told, right down to the letter.” He stood for a moment, glaring at us, daring one of us to challenge him again, until he was satisfied that he’d finally gotten through to us before he left the room.

  Ian and I stood watching the doorway, waiting for him to come back, waiting for another point to be drilled into our heads. “Joke’s on him,” Ian finally spoke, “my former life was crap.”

  “Do you ever think we’re playing for the wrong team?” I asked, not taking my eyes from the doorway. He didn’t answer me, though the subsequent look on his face told me that he was taking in my question, saving his thoughts for another day.

  *****

  “What a day,” Madison said, meeting Chase in the hallway of Hope Memorial on the way to their lockers.

  “That it was,” Chase answered her with a yawn. “But we can’t complain about being busy. We need all the job security we can get.”

  “I think
your job is pretty secure, Dr. Matthews. Any hospital in the country would be happy to have you.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right, because I may be testing your theory soon.”

  “What? You’re thinking about leaving Hope Memorial?”

  “It’s just a thought for now. With everything that’s been occurring lately and my apartment burning to ashes, exploring my options elsewhere doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at the moment. Paige and I are going apartment hunting on Saturday morning near my parents’ home.” He paused, realizing that he’d just opened up a can of worms with Madison that wouldn’t easily be sealed again.

  “Oh, so you and Paige are moving in together, then?” she asked in an unsteady tone.

  “Again, I’m just exploring my options,” he answered as he paused outside the locker room. “Look, Madison, there’s really nothing here for me anymore other than memories and pain. If I’m honestly going to move forward with my life, I need to embrace change. I need to take every opportunity I can to forget.”

  “About her,” Madison said, more of a statement than a question.

  “About her,” he confirmed.

  “Well, whatever you need to do to heal yourself, Dr. Matthews, you have my support,” she said, surprising him. “Just don’t rush into anything you’re not ready for.”

  “One day at a time,” he mused.

  “That’s the best way to go about it,” she agreed. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached into the pocket of her scrubs and pulled out an envelope, promptly handing it to him. “Misty from Human Resources gave me this to pass on to you.”

  “What’s this?” he asked, opening it.

  “Tickets. A few of us were given complementary tickets to the President’s address in Potomac Park next Saturday evening. Apparently, ticket holders are given first priority for entry over the general public. We’re among the VIPs, if you will.”

  “Thanks, Madison,” he said, tucking the envelope in the pocket of his lab coat, “but the last place I want to be is anywhere near that man.”