The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  A click brought my attention back to Culling, and the gun he’d pulled. He brought a finger to his lips. “Shhhh. Is that … water I hear?” His thin eyebrows winged up with his laughter. ““I wish I hadn't cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!””

  Find a way out. Drowned. He had her trapped somewhere. I steadied the gun against his forehead.

  “You shoot me. I shoot you. She dies.” Only the faint outline of his movement could be seen by the light from the end of the tunnel, as he scrambled from beneath me and rose to a stand, the barrel of his gun pointed at me the whole time. “Who’s faster? Seems you’re not quick on the draw anymore friend.”

  In spite of the destruction to my hand, I flipped the safety on the other side of the gun, gripped the stock, and leveled the barrel. “I wouldn’t chance it.”

  “Hands in the air, Culling!” The shout came from a shadowed figure beyond him.

  “I called for backup” I told Culling. DeMarcus, to be exact. “This place will be swarming with police and FBI any minute.”

  “We got Brandon Malone in custody,” DeMarcus continued. “He confessed everything. We also received an anonymous chip of Julius Malone implicating you. You’re done. It’s over.”

  I didn’t need to hear anymore. Backing away from Culling, I bolted back through the tunnel from where he’d had come, blowing off the shouts at my back.

  At the tunnel’s exit, my heart kicked up with the frantic sweep for any sign of Aubree. She couldn’t have escaped over the barbed wire at the top of the fence. A staircase led to a large concrete structure, and I dashed that way and up the stairs to a small door at the top. Flipping it open, I peeked inside to darkness and what sounded like water rising toward me.

  “Aubree!” I shouted. “Aubree!”

  After shrugging out of my coat and kicking off my shoes, I climbed inside the vault. I’d descended no more than a couple of stairs, something hit my leg.

  Jesus. No.

  Slipping beneath the ice-cold water, I patted around. Limbs, an arm I presumed, floated outward, and I hooked my good arm beneath it, pushing upward, toward the surface. The body didn’t budge. I tried again, but no go.

  Patting down the body, I reached the legs and, finally, the boot that’d gotten caught between the ladder and a pipe.

  Gripping tight to the boot, I pulled, twisting as I tugged. It wouldn’t move.

  With seconds ticking by and a frantic trembling beating though my body, I fumbled at the laces, loosening them, and slipped the foot out of the boot. At once the body went limp, and I lifted what I hoped was Aubree to the surface, gagging and coughing when our heads breached the water.

  Up the ladder, I dragged her silent form through the hatch and back down the staircase, nabbing my coat along the way. Lying her on a bed of dirt, I tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and listened.

  No breath.

  Placing my lips to hers, I forced air inside of her mouth, then pulled away and pushed my palms against her chest, in quick compressions. Another blast of air and more compressions. I stopped and listened. No movement. No air.

  “Don’t you fucking die on me, Aubree! Don’t you fucking die!” Another round of air and compressions. Pause. Air and compressions. Pause. “No, no. C’mon, stay with me, stay with me, please!”

  My soul withered with each failed attempt. Numbness spread from my heart to my limbs, and blackness narrowed my field of vision. I felt light, as if I’d detached from my body, floating above the scene, urging the man performing CPR to keep going, don’t give up, because fuck if I knew what I’d do without her. I was touching her but couldn’t feel her, as if our connected souls had somehow peeled away from one another, leaving only shells.

  As I leaned down to press my lips to hers, I stopped just short, gripping her jaw in my hands. “Don’t do this. Don’t fucking die. I won’t have anything left if you die!”

  Cold spikes of pain stabbed my heart. I forced another round of air and pressed into her chest, mentally counting off, as each second beat a reminder in my head that she was slipping farther out of my grasp. The watery blur in my eyes made it damn near impossible to see her and I frowned, concentrating on her face, searching for any sign of life.

  Still nothing.

  No. No fucking way. Violence and madness crept my spine, numbing my body. The world spun around me, and I screwed my eyes tight, but the image of her cold, pale face burned inside my head.

  Five minutes must’ve passed. Who the fuck knew how long she’d been trapped before I found her? That old familiar sensation of hope fading before my eyes hit my chest and clutched my heart.

  One more time. C’mon, Nick. Save her.

  I bent forward and kissed her cold lips. “Please,” I whispered against them, then I blew a mouthful of breath into her lifeless body.

  Did she move? Fucking blur in my eyes made it difficult to tell. I blinked them, and her eyes flinched, mouth gaped, but only her neck bobbed, as if a cough sat trapped at the back of her throat. My chest expanded with a captured breath.

  Ten seconds passed in an eternity, while her body spasmed. When her brows came together at last, water burst from her mouth on a wet cough, and I turned her to her side, while she choked and gagged, working the fluid from her lungs.

  A crazy surge of laughter bellowed out of my chest, like I’d suddenly lost my mind. Maybe I had. I could hardly breathe myself. All I wanted was to scoop her up into my arms and squeeze the shit out of her, but instead I let her work the air back into her lungs.

  She rolled onto her back, and her eyes appeared heavy, still caught in a haze before realization must’ve struck. Hard. Her gaze fell to mine, and she broke into tears, lifting her arms out to me.

  Her body shivered in mine. I shivered against her, too, but dragged my coat up around her shoulders, wrapping her in what little warmth it offered.

  “Thought I lost you, Pistol Lips. Fuck.” I kissed her on the forehead and pushed the hair out of her face. “Don’t ever scare the hell out of me like that again.”

  Frowning, she let out a breathy laugh like it hurt, and she tucked her face down into my coat.

  A shot rang out, and I snapped my attention back toward the tunnel where I’d left Culling and DeMarcus . “Stay here,” I whispered, planting another kiss to her temple.

  Her ice-cold grasp tugged my arm, and when I glanced back, she frantically shook her head, a look of terror crossing her face. “No!” A cough followed the rasp of her words.

  “It’s okay. I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

  Wrenching my arm free, I took off back through the tunnel.

  Grunts and scuffling told me I was close, and I stumbled upon DeMarcus slumped against the wall, gripping his arm.

  I crouched to the police officer. “You shot?”

  “Yeah, I’m alright,” he said, his voice straining. He nodded toward a door that led back into the Ironworks basement. “He went that way. He’s got my gun.”

  “Back through the tunnel. Aubree needs help.” I didn’t wait for him to answer, but raced after Culling. “Get an ambulance!” I called over my shoulder.

  Inside the basement, light filtered in through the high windows, and I scanned the area, listening for sound. At a scrape of metal, I flanked right, but as I slipped through a second door, my body went light before I realized the floor’d given out from under me and I fell through the air.

  A cold, hard surface crashed into my back, knocking the air from my lungs. Grit slid beneath my fingertips. I looked up to the faint darkness above me and caught sight of a shadow hovering over the hole through which I’d fallen.

  “Sub-basement,” Culling said with a smile in his voice. “I visited this place as a child once, with my father, and I thought how horrible it would be to fall down inside of that black hole where no one would ever find me. Who knew what was in there?”

  I looked around at all
of the obscure shadows, of what appeared to be containers or barrels lining the back wall, but the room remained dark—too dark to see exactly what was down there. “It’s over. DeMarcus knows.” As I slipped along the wall nearest me, keeping to the shadows out of sight, an odd metallic smell hit the back of my throat. “The FBI knows. You’re finished.”

  “DeMarcus is nothing but a fucking fly in my ointment. I have connections, and let’s not forget, I had a highly motivated serial killer on my ass. Even if I didn’t shoot you, your ass would land in prison, and I would personally see to it that you didn’t make it past the first night. I will systematically bring every one of you fucks down. Your entire organization of rebellion, starting with you.”

  I caught the click of his gun as I laughed. I couldn’t help it. His ignorance was more than I could stand.

  “I’m glad you find humor, Nick. A man should always laugh in the face of tragedy. I laughed while I watched the pathetic story about your family. I laughed when your sweet little lesbian friend was tortured. And I’ll be laughing my ass off when I finally put an end to you.”

  Rage kicked in at the mention of my family and Lauren, but I swallowed it down and laughed harder. “You’re a stupid bastard, Culling. Conniving, but stupid.”

  The air in the room grew thick with tension, and as vapors filled my lungs, a cough tore from my chest, stoking the adrenaline pulsing through my veins at the dreaded sensation that we’d stumbled upon something dangerous. A place where neither one of us would stand to make it out alive.

  Gaze locked on him from my vantage point, I raised my gun, left fingers threaded through the trigger.

  “So, tell me. Where in the fuck can I find Alec Vaughn?” he asked, irritation clinging to his tone.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated. Why hesitate?

  I knew the truth. I always had. The night they stole everything was the same night I awoke as something darker, more dangerous. Fearless.

  “I am Alec Vaughn. I’m Nicholas Ryder. I’m Achilleus X. I am this entire fucking operation.”

  My own words echoed inside my head.

  Flashes of memory whipped behind my eyes. The fire. Ice cold snow against my cheek, and a voice telling me to get the fuck up. The hospital. Despair. Months of therapy. Whispers of Post-Traumatic Stress. A medical record. Dissociative Identity Disorder. Standing on the edge of the Penobscot building, staring down at the city, ready to jump. Alec’s voice inside my head. “Revenge.” Revenge. The blackouts. Aubree. Catching the sadness in her smile on TV. A bruise. A scar. A slap from Culling, away from the camera. The note she left behind for the priest at her father’s funeral, the one I keep tucked in my pocket, that read, ‘Save Me’. The desperation to help her. The urge to save her. Seeing through Alec’s eyes, as he stabs Marquise with the needle. Watching as he orchestrates the gruesome sculptures of those fucking pedophiles. The sounds of Jalen’s screams distantly ringing in my ear as the machine crushes his arms. Punching Alec in the face, staring down at my bloody knuckles, then back to my shadow and the hole in the drywall, where I was certain I’d hit him—certain I’d hit Alec.

  Out of body experiences. Almost like a dream, and I was the observer. Disconnecting from myself and handing the reins to Alec, my doppelgänger who crossed the line I feared to tread. The one that would make me more beast than man. The one that made me question how far someone could go to ease the pain of losing so much at once.

  His thirst for violence mirrored my own, but where I was bogged down with guilt, Alec was remorseless and ruthless. A cold-blooded killer, borne of my desperation to carry out the promise I’d made to my wife.

  He was the dark half of me. The one who had the balls to inflict merciless pain. To punish.

  “Alec is my design. The hero in a game. My revenge.”

  “Well, then,” Culling gritted out. “That changes everything.”

  Flashes of light preceded the crack of gunfire.

  I ducked behind a nearby barrel, but not before taking a shot to my thigh. My body, so numb with adrenaline, hardly registered pain.

  Sparks flew as the bullets pinged against steel, and a flame ignited, burning a puddle of fluid just a few feet away from me that lit up the sub-basement.

  After two more shots, Culling recoiled and gripped his throat, before stumbling forward and falling down into the hole.

  Landing in the flaming pool, his jacket lit up like kindling. He kicked in a violent seizure, as the blaze swarmed him, and in the flames’ glow, I spotted the hole in his neck where the bullet must’ve ricocheted back at him when he fired at the steel shelving behind me. Blood gushed into a widening pool around his head. Flames engulfed him, while he lay gasping for breath, a look of sheer horror on his face. He reached out for me, his mouth gaped to a silent scream. Within seconds, his entire body was covered in flames, and his body jerked, as the orange glow intensified, consuming his flesh like a ruthless predator.

  His gurgles broke into a pathetic sort of mewling. I lifted my gun, but hesitated. Not a single part of me wanted to offer him mercy. No one had offered my family mercy.

  Burn it. Julius’s words beat inside of my skull.

  Movement in my periphery guided my eyes to a shadowed corner of the room. Jay stepped forward, carrying his blanket, wearing his pajamas—so out of sync with the hell surrounding me, as he kept his distance, watching me.

  I knew he wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.

  “Daddy? Are you going to shoot that man?”

  It’d been a long time since I’d had waking hallucinations of my son. Tears filled my eyes, and frowning, I wiped the moisture away and double blinked.

  Still, Jay stood there.

  “Is he bad, Daddy?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I have to punish him.”

  “Why?”

  “For hurting you.” Falling to my knees, I let the agony tear out of my chest, breaking up my words. “And … your … mommy.”

  “But I’m right here, Daddy.”

  A choke of a sob escaped me, the vision of my dead son killing every corner of my soul. “No, Jay. You’re with mommy.”

  He shook his head. “Remember? You said I was here.” He pointed to his heart.

  A crushing ache inside my chest nearly stole my breath, and I echoed his movement, placing my hand over my heart. “Always, Jay.”

  I couldn’t stop the fucking tears. Not real. He’s not real. Except, I could see his face, so vividly. The small mark above his eye, where he’d fallen as a baby and hit his head on the coffee table. The faint birthmark on his neck, which I’d told him was a special gift that gave him super powers no one else had. The blue of his eyes, like my very own, staring back at me.

  “It’s okay, Daddy. I’m always right here.” His smile forced my own smile forth, his small frame blurred by the tears filling my eyes again.

  “I’ll always love you, Little Man.”

  “I love you, too.” His form faded into the flickering light from the fire. “I’ll see you in the night.” His whisper carried over Culling’s blood-curdling scream.

  What followed was the moment that separated monster from man.

  I wasn’t like them.

  I wasn’t a monster.

  Alec appeared, standing alongside Culling, smiling down at the poor bastard whose skin blackened with each passing second. “Go, Nick. I’ve got this.”

  “Not this time, Alec. It’s over.”

  His head craned toward me, cigar hanging between his teeth. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I want to start over. With Aubree. No more blackouts.”

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion, his shoulders bunched, and I could damn near feel the waves of anger rolling off of him. He spat the cigar into the flames and lurched toward me. “You ungrateful fuck.”

  “I’m sorry my friend. This is where it ends.” I lifted my gun and shot twice.

  The bullets passed through Alec, hitting Culling once in the skull, silencing the gurgles. With the
mercy shot, Alec fizzled away to nothing.

  A bright light flashed where Jay had stood moments ago, and my head snapped that way.

  Flames crawled along a strip of fluid leaking from one of the barrels.

  “Shit.” I rocketed up from the floor, and spun on my heel, as a blaze of fire trailed at my back.

  52

  Aubree

  I couldn’t remember the name of the stranger who held me down.

  The building exploded before my very eyes, and the only thing I knew was, the man I loved had gone back inside after the man I wanted to destroy. From nearly a block away, the stranger and I watched the old Ironworks building crumble as its foundation caved into flames and black smoke.

  The same thick black smoke that coated my airways and made a cough rip through my chest and my body turn numb.

  Wake up, Aubree. It’s just a dream. Wake up.

  Crystals of ice climbed my spine, freezing my nerves, and in spite of the surrounding heat, I went cold. Tears clung to my eyes but failed to fall. For a moment, I was frozen in time, watching fire lash out at the air, and swallow the building and my love, in one merciless scourge of destruction.

  Nick.

  Not even his name could summon the sobs lingering at the back of my throat.

  “She’s in shock,” someone near me said.

  A soft bed captured my fall, but my eyes remained glued on the burning building.

  “I’ll come back for you. I promise.” His words played over and over inside my head.

  A mask slid over my face, cool bursts of air filling my lungs, and though the air was cleaner, though it expanded my chest, kept me alive, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  Fingers snapped in my periphery as though to peel my attention away from the blaze. I fought them at first, but they were persistent. A woman’s voice talked to me as if I could hear what she was saying. As if I cared. As if I wanted to be saved.