“Don’t know.” I tuck myself deeper into the dark by the brick. “No one’s answering. I’m fine. I’m out. Mine are all set inside. Have you heard anything?”
“Sylvie called, said they were in Eighteen. There was a loud noise before, like a crash, but nothing else. If they don’t answer in a few minutes, we’re coming in.”
“No—”
“Yeah, fuck this shit. Be there in a few.”
Someone walks from the Public Safety building to the path and is joined by two more people. All three light up. Smoking without a care in the world, and they’ll see me if I head in. Either Paul’s stuck inside, his radio is dead, or he is. And I can’t leave the shadows to find out.
116
Sylvie
Indy and I weave through the dark, avoiding cameras and the First Avenue gate, and sneak into building Eleven. Two hundred people are crammed into the second-floor apartments farthest from the café building, with only a few lamps lit and all the curtains drawn. Even out in the hall, it smells of cold, sweaty anxiety.
Rissa runs to us with Lucky and April on her heels. Lucky scans us with a hanging jaw. “Auntie, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Indy says. “Why?”
Lucky motions at where Ed’s blood is thick in her curls. Her brown coat is smeared with it. I look down. I’m no better. “It’s not ours,” I say, and hand them the three pistols Eric brought in, plus our two rifles from watch. “Use these if you have to.”
Micah has one of the pistols Roger supplied. The other is being used, by a few of StuyTown’s biggest and most fearsome residents, to hold Walt’s three families hostage in their building until this is finished, when they’ll get the option to leave with their children or come to Central Park. I know for sure Brother David would approve of that.
Rissa gives two pistols to a couple of dads who practically rip them from her hands in their haste to be armed again. They move to the stairwells, ready to fight. Sharla slaps Kitty’s hand away and takes the third. “You’re blind as a bat.” Kitty mutters an obscenity that makes Sharla hoot. “You tell me who to shoot, and I’ll do it. How about that?”
Kitty grumbles as if she’s not delighted at the prospect of offing someone. I feel better that they have a few more weapons, though they won’t hold them for long if Walt and his arsenal arrive.
“We need to get to Eighteen,” I say. “Have you seen Roger?”
They haven’t. We leave, skulking past the greenhouse and through the Court of Cuteness. Knuckle rattles his cage when we pass. I’ll feed him all the grass in the world if this works. I’ll make sure he survives to sire millions of bunny babies and live a happy bunny life.
We reach the fifth-floor apartment unseen and set our things by the window, though the battery-powered LED light goes in a far corner. We call on our communications radio to say we’re in place and get three clicks from Guillermo to acknowledge. Our vantage point is high enough to see through and over the few trees to the café. “How long until next check-in?” I ask.
“Twenty minutes,” Indy says, her eyes on the building and her hand in her mouth. I don’t say a word. If I chewed my nails, I’d be gnawing, too. She crams a new finger in. “Please protect them.”
It’s a whisper, maybe a prayer. I clutch the bomb radio and stare at the quiet comms radio on the windowsill. We knew they likely wouldn’t work in the stairwells, but that fact doesn’t make me feel better about the silence.
A few minutes pass. We leap into the air when the apartment door opens. Roger comes into the foyer, looking more agitated than he did this morning. His hair is wild and his face greasy with sweat. “Did you get the gates?” I ask.
Roger shakes his head. “Paul sent me for you, Indy. He’s hurt. He’s in the greenhouse.”
Her hand drops from her mouth. She stands perfectly still, already resigned to the worst. “What happened? Where’s his radio?”
“I’m not sure, looked like a fight. He said to get you.”
Indy tenses as if ready to run. If he asked for her, it’s bad, and the fact that there’s been nothing from Eric has taken on an ominous foreboding. “Go,” I say. “I’ll be fine.” She hesitates. “Go!”
She grabs her bag and runs out the door. Roger walks to where I stand, and I ask, “Where is Paul hur—”
“I saw Eric,” he says.
My mouth goes dry. I knew this would happen, but I was hoping for tomorrow. Maybe next week. Possibly never. My stomach clenches at the hurt in his eyes and the fact I’ve been caught before I could come clean. I wasn’t expecting this now, and I wasn’t expecting to do it alone.
“Roger, I didn’t know he was alive at first. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I wasn’t sure…” I trail off. Admitting I don’t trust his motives is a bad idea. “Eric’s getting your insulin, and then we’ll all leave together.”
“You lied to me,” he says, almost wonderingly. His nostrils flare. “What the fuck?”
With all the lies he told, he has the audacity to pretend he didn’t do the same. To act like he didn’t start it in the first place. “You lied to me, Roger.”
“I told you the truth!” he shouts.
“Some of the truth, you mean.” Anger heats my face, and I barely restrain my impulse to smack him. “You conveniently left out the part where you told your brother to kill Eric.”
A vein pulses in his temple. Kate said he lashes out when hurt, and that fury is apparent in his flat lips and knotted muscles. I need to defuse this situation, swallow my pride. “I’m sorry, Roger,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice soft but steady. “I really am, and I want you to come to Central Park. It’s the same plan as it was before. Nothing’s different.”
He stands immobile, considering my words, and then slowly shakes his head. Nothing’s different for me, but I know that’s not the case for him. I knew it as I led him along, let him believe, though I hoped he’d find his own way when this moment arrived.
Roger keeps his eyes fixed on mine and lifts his radio. “Hey, Ginger—”
I smack the radio from his hand. It hits the floor with a crack. We stare at each other in the tense silence, but it’s Walt who gazes back from Roger’s face, and my pulse races with the terrifying certainty he plans to kill me. He might not have decided until this second, but it was an option. It’s why he sent Indy away.
My hand moves for my pistol. Instead of going for his own gun, he lunges forward, grips my throat with his hand, and slams me to the wall hard enough to rattle my brain. My gun flies into the room, announcing its landing with a clunk. Roger fumbles at my waist with his other hand and tosses my knife after it. My chisel follows.
Roger says something I can’t hear over the thrum of my heart, the thud of my head, and my lungs’ frantic call for oxygen. He shakes me by my neck. “Are you really pregnant?”
I can’t answer. Only a trickle of air makes it through my obstructed windpipe. I rip at his hands, try to kick, but I’m imprisoned between him and the wall. I nod instead, tears leaking. I’m going to die, and it won’t only be me who does. It’ll be this baby and possibly everyone in StuyTown. It’ll be Roger’s fault. Again.
“I was right the first time,” he spits, his face inches from mine. “You’re a bitch. A lying bitch.”
My vision darkens. My arms drop to my sides. I’m far from innocent, but I’ve tried to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. I hoped Roger would, too. I wanted him to choose redemption. He came all this way, that spark of humanity attempting to blaze, but it’s fizzled out so close to the end.
“No one’s getting my insulin, are they?” he snarls. “You were going to leave without me.”
I shake my head and try to speak. He won’t meet my eyes. He won’t look at me because he knows it’s not true, but he needs justification for what he plans to do. Walt is a murdering bastard, but at least he has the balls to be what he is with no apologies. Spineless, needy Roger can’t even do that.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s a movement
of lips rather than a sound.
His hand loosens slightly. “You’re sorry for what?” he asks, like a parent schooling an unruly child.
I would try to appease him, but we both know he’s gone too far. No one will let him live after this. Therefore, he won’t let me live. I pull at his hand like I want to answer, and he loosens a bit more. Magnificent cold air rushes into my chest and restores life to my arms and legs. His body eases off mine when I fill my lungs again.
I’m sorry I ever met you, I think, and drive my knee into his groin. He gasps, momentarily stunned, and I wiggle out from under him and take off in the direction my gun flew. I would leave, but I can’t let him call the gates. If he does, he’ll kill us all.
The room is dim with only the light from outside and the light in the corner. I fumble on the floor near the couch, grope under the side tables, but I can’t find a weapon. My breaths are raw, whistling through my throat, half from Roger’s hand and half from panic.
His boots thump the wood floor with his approach. I leap to my feet and punch him in his stomach. A good punch, like the one I gave Paul, but it barely registers. His boot cracks my bad knee. I stagger to the side, knee bones grating, and he shoves me into the wall. My shoulder blade creaks and my neck whiplashes. He’s stronger than me, and he’s showing no mercy. I can’t win this. I won’t win this without a weapon.
I push off from the wall, but he pins me to the plaster. His breaths come in whiskey-soaked blasts on my neck, and his muscles strain against my writhing. Every trace of Roger is gone, leaving only dark eyebrows, blazing eyes, and a straight, cruel mouth. I snake a hand between our chests and rake my nails down his cheek. Blood oozes to the surface. I do it again, this time going for his eye. He grabs my index finger, twisting it backward, and I scream at the sharp pop of pain that courses up my arm to my shoulder.
“You piece of shit,” Roger growls. He slaps my cheek with his free hand. Yanks my hair and slaps me again. Maybe it’s what his mother did to him. Maybe he’s using me to punish her the way his brother tries to save her.
Fuck him. I’m not his savior, and I’m sure as shit not his scapegoat.
I have two choices of where to run—the radio or the apartment door. The radio means I’m dead, but the door means everyone dies. I slam my forehead into his face, then bend to ram the top of my skull into his chest. He loses his hold on my finger and falls over the arm of an overstuffed chair while I run-limp toward the radio. Guillermo is listening in, waiting to come to our aid, and Farina must have another radio that will detonate the bombs. All that matters now is that the others make it out.
Roger hits me from behind. The floor comes up fast, striking my temple. A hundred dots of blackness dance in my vision. Through the haze, I see his boot swing for my stomach, and I curl into a ball.
Eric’s voice blasts from the radio. He says my name, calls again. I would scream at him to leave, call for help, but we turned off VOX on our end so we didn’t distract them. I’ve always hated asking for help, but I would beg for it now. I don’t want to die. I don’t want this baby to die.
Roger’s boot strikes my shoulder. My hip. My arms. Each kick is aimed at my stomach, and he curses at every failed attempt. I hate Roger the way I’ve never hated anyone, not even Walt. To purposely kill the baby before he’s killed me is more than a blow to my body. It’s a strike at my mind. My heart.
His steel toe connects with my vertebrae. I instinctively arch to ease the agony, and the sole of his boot lands squarely on my middle. Air whooshes from my lungs. Pain explodes in my center and radiates out to every finger, every toe. I clasp my aching abdomen and roll to my side, breath coming in gusts, and spot my pistol in the corner by the light. Six feet away, though it seems like sixty. Roger’s boot rises again. This time, the thick black treads might kill me along with The Parasite, and I won’t lie here waiting to die.
I put every bit of strength I have into the dive for my gun, seize it in both hands, and twist onto my back with it raised. Instead of moving forward with an incoming boot, Roger crashes to the floor. His limbs are splayed and still, his golden eyes lifeless. Blood gushes from a deep gash in his neck.
Casper stands above him, sword in hand and long hair lank with sweat. He looks less valiant than ever in his fleece jacket and down vest, but he’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen. My knight in outdoor store clothing.
He drops his sword and skids to kneel on the floor beside me. “Sylvie, are you okay?”
I’m not okay, but I’m not dead. Casper helps me to my knees, his arm cradling my shoulders, and I stagger against him as I rise to my feet. Everything aches. If it doesn’t ache, it throbs, and the telltale wetness in my underwear suggests something has gone very wrong. But there’s nothing to do about it now.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice raspy. I might’ve gotten Roger before he got me, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out the hard way. I’d rather be saved than dead.
Indy rushes through the door. “Paul’s not—” She gapes at Roger’s body, at me, and then rushes to my other side. “What the—”
I shake my head and point to the window. “Radio. Eric was calling.”
Indy runs for it while Casper and I stumble after her. Gunfire bursts outside by the Avenue C gate, echoing through the radio speaker a split second later.
“Eric? Paul?” Indy yells into the radio. There’s no answer.
I’m battered and bruised, but adrenaline is numbing me for now. I pick up the radio that will arm the explosives and press the talk button. “Testing,” I say, and clear my throat. “Calling all bombs.”
I switch to the detonation frequency and wait for the okay.
117
Eric
I can’t move for the café, but I can crawl in the shadows to the door of Eleven. I run up the stairs though my side aches and my leg is on fire, then burst into the hall and find myself face to face with Micah’s and Lucky’s guns.
I raise my hands. “Is Paul here?”
“No,” Lucky says, rifle lowering. “We thought he was with you.”
Shit. “He was. We separated.” I turn back to the door. “Guillermo’s coming in any minute. I’m going to C Loop and to check on Sylvie and Indy. I can’t get them either.”
Lucky grabs my arm. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Not sure.” I try to keep the worry from my voice. The last thing we need is Lucky dead out there. “Maybe something with the radio.”
“What about the plan?” Micah asks.
“There is no plan. Sit tight.”
I run down the stairs and out the opposite side of the lobby, then work my way around the Oval. A barrage of bullets comes from the outer gate on Avenue C. The three people outside Public Safety run toward the commotion, and I lope after them.
I duck behind a tree as they reach the basketball court garden, then lift my pistol and fire three times. All three fall. I’m good, but I’m not superhuman, and a quick glance to my right confirms Micah and Lucky have followed me with their rifles.
“What do you want us to do?” Micah yells over the shots from the inner gate.
“Go back!”
Micah shakes his head. Lucky doesn’t bother answering. We stay along the buildings as more figures run for the courts, maybe from Public Safety or their watch posts. It doesn’t matter—they’re coming. We duck behind blueberry bushes to wait until they’re close enough or motionless enough to shoot.
An engine roars and the glare of headlights comes through the inner gate to our left. The Parks Department dump truck busts through the iron bars, flinging the metal into the dark, and screeches to a halt on the path. Guillermo and Kearney hop from the passenger’s side door to use the truck for cover. Guillermo holds a rifle, and he proceeds to fire into the dark by the gate, then at the buildings across the court. If he turns this way, he’ll hit us.
The radio. My earpiece is out again. I stick it in and yell, “Guillermo, it’s Eric! We’re by the building at your five o’clo
ck! Don’t fire!”
The assault stops. A dozen people climb over the sides of the truck’s tall bed and move toward the front. I count Julie, Chris, Susan, and Dennis among them. They race back to cover when shots come from the building across the courts, where muzzles flash in the dark.
Micah, Lucky, and I return fire from the bushes while our people advance around the truck again and join in. Shouts and a high-pitched scream weave through the steady boom boom boom of bullets. There’s no question the residents of the café building are awake now. If they haven’t escaped yet, it won’t be long until they find a way.
The shooting stops from across the courts. Ours peters out. Only the loud hum of the truck remains, with the smoke of spent gunpowder drifting in the headlights’ beams. Someone lies on the ground below—a dark, stationary form.
“You won’t get past that truck!” a woman calls from the shadows. “Turn around and leave.”
“Fuck you!” Guillermo yells. It reverberates both in the air and in my earpiece.
“What do you want to do?” I whisper over the radio.
Micah and Lucky murmur beside me. “We can do it,” Micah says. His dark hair merges with the shadows, making his ghostly face appear to float. “We don’t have time for this. They’ll be in Eleven as soon as they figure it out.”
His voice is insistent, laced with dread. Rissa’s in there along with everyone else.
Lucky stands in a low crouch. “Tell Guillermo not to shoot.”
“What are you—” I begin, but they scuttle into the dark. “Don’t shoot, Guillermo.”
“I heard,” he says. “What the hell are they doing?”
Before I can answer, the two come into the dim light of the path across the court with their rifles raised, as if they’ve arrived from the other end of StuyTown. No one stops them, though I want to stop them from over here. Whatever their plan is, it’s likely also madness and certain death.
“Hey, I think they left,” Micah calls toward the building’s shadows. “What the hell’s going on?”
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 79
