by Elodie Colt
“Come with us…”
“I’ll come with you, Ricky, I won’t leave you alone.” I didn’t know where he wanted me to go with them, or even what ‘us’ meant exactly, but it didn’t matter at that moment.
“Sarah!” I shrieked in panic as valuable seconds were ticking away.
“I’m trying!” she cried back, nearly on the edge of losing it.
“Shit!”
“Don’t… too late,” Ricky croaked again.
“Shut the fuck up, Ricky!” Sarah shouted at him.
“Jesus, no,” a deep voice rumbled behind me, and I looked up to see the black man called Jimmy hovering above us. He, too, dropped to his knees, and we all waited anxiously for Sarah’s healing powers to save Ricky.
“He was hit by a bolt. It would have hit me, but he…” I tried to explain to Jimmy, but he just put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know.”
I nodded, tears streaming down my face. Sarah’s hands fumbled over Ricky’s body as his eyes shut. Jimmy put two fingers to his artery while I waited impatiently for his verdict.
“No pulse. Sarah?” he asked gently, his voice oddly calm.
“I don’t know. It’s not working,” she whined as she concentrated on activating her healing abilities. Jimmy exhaled. I dared to look up at him. I knew this look of defeat.
“It’s too late,” he stated, confirming what we already knew but wouldn’t accept.
“No, no, it’s not. Sarah healed my knee. She can…”
Jimmy grasped my shoulders and yanked me up with him. He must have been very strong if he didn’t have difficulties heaving up my unresponsive body. “No, she can’t. Nobody can bring back the dead.”
It took everything to pry my gaze away from Ricky’s body to return Jimmy’s intense stare. There were seconds of silence as his eyes flicked between mine, his expression morphing into one of utter shock.
“Jaylior…” What? “You may have found one, Dorian, but you won’t get her,” he mumbled to himself, but I didn’t have the energy left to question anymore.
Another bolt erupted, and we all spun around in unison. This time, it shot straight to the sky.
“Cassie. She’s still fighting him,” Sarah muttered.
A sharp pull from Jimmy’s arm brought me back to the brutal reality. “You have to leave now. I would go with you, but we have to get to Cassie. She may not be able to take him alone.”
“But Ricky…”
“There’s nothing you can do for him. He passed onto his next life.”
“It’s my fault. I… I killed him. If I hadn’t left my hide-out—”
“It wasn’t your fault!” Jimmy raised his voice. “You didn’t kill him, it was them. You have to go before they come after you.”
“Who will come after me? There’s no one left, they’re all dead!” I screamed in madness, pointing at the dead and mangled corpses surrounding us.
“They have backup forces. They’ll come back for you. Go home, lock the doors, and don’t go out. I’ll find you, I promise. Go!”
He gave me a hard shove, and I stumbled a few steps back. I shot Sarah one last pleading look expecting to see hatred and malice, but instead, I just saw a sad girl crying, the look in her eyes nearly one of pity for me. Sarah nodded once, indicating I should follow Jimmy’s order. I looked back again at Jimmy.
“I will find you, I promise.” What was he talking about? Why would he want to find me? “Go now, please go and stay safe,” he pleaded with me.
My gaze fell one last time on Ricky’s motionless body. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I apologized, although I knew he couldn’t hear me.
I pivoted on my heels and ran. When I reached the nearest building, I jumped to grab the fire ladder and pushed myself up to the top. Sarah was running in search of Cassie as another bolt lit up the sky. Jimmy had Ricky’s body in his arms and gave me a silent nod goodbye.
It was all I could do to step back and try in vain to escape the fate that had already caught up to me.
I sat in front of the monitors emptying my second Red Bull. Crushing the can in my hand, I threw it into the garbage a few feet away while keeping my eyes on the screens. A few minutes ago, Jimmy had informed me via headset that everyone was in position and everything was clear so far.
I moved my gaze to the monitor currently showing the entrance of Joey’s bar—it was the same camera that had captured Dorian the first time.
The owner, Joey, entered the bar. A few seconds later, the lights of the logo above started to glow opening the bar for the night. I watched the bartender—Lauren, the one I’d interrogated the day before—enter about ten minutes later. People started to fill the place, the first customers going in for a drink.
Another figure came up the sidewalk with shoulders hunched. Gathering from the clothes and some long strands of hair swaying in front of her face, it was a girl, but I couldn’t see her face under the hood pulled low. One hand gripping her waist, she suddenly stopped and tapped her foot as if testing it. Red stains dotted her jeans. Blood? She took off again and entered the bar. That was everything of importance so far.
Yeah, it would be a long, long night.
Lighting a cigarette, I leaned back in my seat and rested my feet on the desk, ankles crossed. With my free hand, I retrieved the dumbbell I’d brought with me and used the time doing a few pumps.
The following hours, I was in contact with Jimmy or Cassie about every forty-five minutes. There was no news so far—Ricky also confirmed there was nothing out of place as far as he could hear. Time dragged by slowly, and I threw the next empty can on top of the other three already filling the garbage.
At about four a.m., the last customers left Joey’s, then the owner himself, and at last two girls. One of them was Lauren, and the other one was the girl with the slight hobble. Was she the bartender Lauren had told us about? Must have been the case because the girl took out a set of keys and locked the door behind her. They both took off into the night.
I contacted Jimmy once more. “They closed the bar. The bartenders just took off for home. No sight of a Hunter so far.”
I was annoyed and fucking bored. I’d hoped to catch at least one of them, preferably Dorian himself. What the hell were they up to?
An hour later, I contacted Jimmy again, but unlike last time, he didn’t answer. Strange. I waited another twenty minutes before trying to reach Jimmy again but without success. Same with Chris and Cassie.
Impatience started to make me restless. I observed the monitors carefully, my eyes roaming quickly to capture every single detail.
A flash of light in the distance caught my eye. I didn’t hear any sounds of bad weather down here in the compound, but heavy rain blurred the camera lenses, and occasional thunder lit the area. A signal flashed in front of me—Cassie was calling.
“Cassie, what’s going on?” I demanded to know on the first ring.
Cassie panted heavily when she announced, “We’ve been ambushed. They are everywhere.”
I jumped out of my chair making it topple over. “Fuck!”
“Yeah, they came out of nowhere. Not even Ricky heard anything before it was too late. Wait a sec,” she muttered. Two clashes and a muffled sound echoed through the speaker. “Sorry, just had to get rid of that one… Dylan, I don’t know what’s going on,” she added after sending the enemy on to his next life.
“Where’s Jimmy?”
“Currently fighting three of them.”
“The others?”
“Busy. We wanted to build a group to help Jimmy and Ricky, but then we had to split up. A Hunter came out from behind me and knocked Josh out cold.” I groaned, putting two fingers on the bridge of my nose. “I killed him, but couldn’t leave Josh behind, so Sarah sent Phil to carry Josh to Chris, who was paired with Paul. Chris said he’d keep them all safe and fight the Hunters off if they should come.”
Made sense. Chris was a Fighter like me. Roes with active abilities could easily take more than thr
ee men at once. Still, we always tried to stay at least in pairs. I didn’t like knowing Chris was handling a bunch of Roes by himself while I was a sitting duck here.
“Chris isn’t answering.”
“Don’t worry about him, he can defend himself. I’m currently here with Jimmy, Ricky, and Sarah. I’ve already shifted twice to disorient them. Oh, and Sarah has a girl with her. She’s the one the Hunters attacked in the first place,” she informed me.
A girl? Roe or not? And what did the Hunters want with her? “Who is she? Is she one of us?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have the chance to see her eyes yet.”
“Why can’t I see either of you on the monitors? Where are you?”
“In a park two blocks away from the bar. They attacked the girl there. There won’t be any cameras nearby. Shit, Dylan, I’ve got to help the others. The enemy seems to have a special weapon.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in alarm. Somehow this whole thing didn’t work out as planned. At all.
“I don’t know. Someone is shooting with crazy things like… bolts of lightning at us. It looks like they’re made of electricity. I don’t know of any Roe with that ability so maybe it’s a weapon, I don’t have a clue.”
I didn’t have either. A Roe who could shoot bolts? Unlikely. “Okay, where are you? I’ll come and get you out of this.” I was already out of my seat ready to jump into action.
“No, we’ve got this, Dylan. We need someone behind the screens. Jimmy can take at least four of them, Sarah is with us in case someone gets hurt, and yeah, you know you don’t have to worry about me,” she boasted.
I would have smiled if it wasn’t for the fact that all of them were caught up in a dangerous situation at the moment. Cassie was a permanent bitch inside the compound, but she was a great fighting partner in the battlefield.
Still, it drove me nuts that I was stuck here. I debated to just up and go, but I couldn’t be as irresponsible as to leave the compound housing dozens of students unprotected.
Dammit, if I could just see what was going on! I had access to the town’s entire traffic system, for God’s sake, but not one of the cameras was of any help right now.
After my brief call with Cassie, silence followed. No call from the others, nothing to be seen in the recordings. Some time later, the lightning flashes stopped, too.
Then, I saw movement on one of the monitors in a dark alley. I zoomed in. Black uniforms. My crew!
I sighed in relief. They were back.
It took me less than a second to count them and just as long to realize that the number didn’t match. Seven. I looked closer. Jimmy was carrying someone, but I couldn’t make out more than a dark training suit. Was someone wounded? No, that didn’t make sense. Sarah was with them. Or was Sarah the wounded one?
I pushed the dumbbell in my hand faster the worse my impatience grew, pacing back and forth until a beeping signal finally let me breathe again. They’d entered the compound. Thank God.
I took off to meet them halfway crossing the aisles in quick strides. From a distance, I heard them shouting in agitation. My stomach churned. Something had happened. Something bad.
I saw Chris and Cassie first. Chris was covered in cuts and bruises while Cassie looked a lot worse. Her clothes were scorched in some places as was her hair, the current red color matted and blood-crusted on one side. Next to her stood Josh, an Intermediate from Cassie’s class, sporting a huge black eye. Behind them was Phil, his arm wrapped around Sarah’s shoulders. She was crying. A bad sign.
“Tell me,” I barked in a loud voice, and they all stopped short as I appeared in front of them.
For a few seconds, nobody said anything. I watched their faces closely, but no one said a word. Then Jimmy came forward, still carrying someone over his shoulder. My eyes roamed over my crew again. There was every face.
Every face, except for one.
Ricky’s.
My heart sped up, and a heavy lump formed in my throat. “Where’s Ricky?” All of a sudden, my voice was so strained, I was surprised I got out the words at all.
“Dylan.” Chris took a step forward, apparently the only one daring to approach me. “It was an accident,” he croaked with a hoarse voice. He held up his hands in surrender as if trying to calm someone pointing a loaded gun at him.
My hands fisted at my sides. My nostrils flared. My blood started to boil. And my voice got lower and lower. “What was an accident? Where the fuck is Ricky?”
“I’m sorry, we couldn’t do anything,” Jimmy finally said in a low and calm voice, bending the figure he was carrying over his shoulder and lowering it carefully. The figure’s hood fell away, and my world flashed red.
Cuts. Bruises. Pale skin.
Eyes closed.
“Dylan, we tried to…” Chris started to explain, but I held out a hand to stop him without removing my eyes from the face in front of me. Nobody dared to speak—occasional sobs the only sounds echoing through the empty walls.
I didn’t know how long I stood there unmoving. I just stared. When my chest started to constrict, suffocating me to the point of pain, I slowly trailed up my gaze to face the rest of them. I tried to find answers in their faces, answers to the million questions currently running through my head, but there was only one who could give me the answers I needed—Jimmy.
He stared back at me completely calm as usual, the only one not afraid to face me. That pissed me off. Jimmy was responsible for Ricky. He’d promised to bring him back alive and in one piece.
Now Ricky lay dead and unmoving next to me.
Jimmy was a Racer. He was faster than any of us. He could have gotten out of my way easily when he saw the blow coming, but he didn’t. Instead, he braced himself for the fist aimed at his face.
My knuckles connected with his jaw. Jimmy flew sideways hitting the tunnel wall and tumbling down with a grunt. His back hit a lamp on the wall, and its glass broke into pieces, the remains trickling to the floor. Then, all things happened at once.
“Jimmy!” Sarah shrieked and bolted toward his crumpled form. Unfazed, I watched him wipe away the blood gushing from his mouth.
“Shit,” Phil cursed.
Then I felt hands on my chest as Chris was trying to stop me from going on a rampage. “Dammit, man, stop that shit! You know what could happen!” He tried to calm me down, but it only enraged me further.
“It will stop when I want it to stop!” My voice boomed through the hallway, causing everyone to gasp in shock. Sarah started to sob louder. Chris knew he wouldn’t be able to hold me back if I lost it completely but stood his ground determined to keep me in check.
“It’s okay, Chris, stand back,” Jimmy assured, but Chris didn’t move. Sarah lifted her hands ready to heal Jimmy’s injury, but he denied. “No, leave it.”
I carefully watched Jimmy as he strolled toward me. We glared at each other the entire time, the tension building like two wolves circling each other ready to attack. If Jimmy dared to say one wrong word, there would be no one to stop me this time—leader or not.
It was me who spoke first. “He was your responsibility.” My voice was low and predatory. It shook so much with anger, it took everything to keep my control.
“Yes,” Jimmy answered with his chin held high.
“You promised to get him back. Alive.” My voice got louder with each word.
“Yes,” Jimmy confessed again, still calm and collected.
“You told me it was nothing more than a simple guarding routine, and Ricky would be perfectly fine!” I shouted.
“Yes.”
“Then it is your fault he’s dead!” My voice rumbled through the tunnel, the last word echoing eerily through the darkness.
“No,” Jimmy retorted, crossing his hands in front of him.
“No? Whose fault was it then?” I fumed, already spitting in my rage. I needed to be careful, or I’d fall into that mindless stage where there would be no point of return.
“It’s no one’
s fault. It was an accident, Dylan.” Sarah sobbed, her face smeared with dirt, blood, and fresh tears.
“Bullshit!” I pointed a finger accusingly at each of them. “You were responsible for him. All of you were responsible for him. And you.” I turned to face Cassie, hoping she felt my emanating fury. “You told me everything was under control. You told me there was no need to come and help you, and I was such a stupid idiot to listen to you!” At least Cassie had the decency to flinch.
“Dylan, we weren’t prepared for—” she started to argue, and for the first time, she seemed clearly afraid of me. I didn’t hear her out.
“I don’t want to hear your stupid excuses. Ricky’s dead. You let them kill my brother!”
And with that, I spun on my heels and left. I couldn’t stand their shameful expressions any longer. My mind reeled. My aggression was dammed up. One wrong move, and I’d explode.
I lost track of time. Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours, I didn’t know. The new punching bag I’d bought for Chris lay mangled on the floor after I’d hit it relentlessly, but this time, it was in far worse shape.
The only problem was that there wasn’t anything left to punch, and I still had too much rage threatening to consume me. So, I exited the compound aiming for the woods. With purposeful strides, I closed the distance to the trees and started to punch them one by one, every strike fueled by endless agony.
After I had ruined four trees now lying broken on the ground, and my knuckles were already bruised and bloody, there was only one thing left for me to do.
With a heavy heart, I made my way through the headstones in the cemetery over to the little cottage owned by the cemetery keeper. I took a shovel, went back to the compound exit, and started digging near a big willow. Ricky had loved sitting under the long branches for hours, so it was a spot where he would be happy to rest in peace. Burning ceremonies were too complicated. We just dug the graves ourselves. None of us were religious anyway.
It was a tradition that the deceased person’s nearest family and friends would dig the grave together, but I didn’t want any help. Not from my friends who let Ricky die in the first place. It was the least I could do to dig a grave for my brother myself.
