The Age of Embers (Book 5): The Age of Defiance

by Schow, Ryan

  “We don’t know what we’ll run into up there,” Marcus said, referring not to these clowns but to Maria.

  “Still have to get through the guys out front,” Gregor replied.

  “I was thinking about Maria.”

  “Gonna give her my best regardless,” he said. “Best to go now while I’ve got the rush.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, wiping his bloody hands on the thighs of his pants. “Just don’t get me killed doing something dumb like that again.”

  “Don’t say anything to the others,” he said. “Please.”

  Marcus nodded.

  “Hey!” Rock called out. “The other vehicle is just waiting outside. They got guns. Carbines by the look of them.”

  “Do they look like former military?” Marcus called out.

  “No, but neither do you or Rider,” Rock said. “Well maybe you.”

  “There’s another way out,” Rider said jogging down the concrete lane. “A back exit out of this place.”

  “They’re going to hear the truck start up,” Gregor said, standing and rolling his arm.

  “You get shot?” Rider said.

  “Knife,” Gregor replied.

  “We can push if you can steer,” Rock said to Gregor. “That way we’re out quietly.”

  “That’s going to suck up a lot of valuable energy,” Rider said, not that any of them had another idea.

  “Let’s take the Hummer,” Marcus suggested.

  They all agreed.

  Marcus got in, started it up, righted it and headed straight for the exit. The second he saw the other vehicle blocking the entrance, he shouted over the Hummer’s engine noise saying, “Grab something!”

  Everyone hunkered down and he gunned it. Bullets started flying but it was too late. He t-boned the SUV so hard, the entire thing toppled over. Marcus and Rider were out fast, crawling over the vehicle quickly, efficiently.

  Rock was faster.

  He leapt on the truck behind them, dropped down, ripped a gun from the nearest man and emptied the entire mag into the four hostiles inside.

  “Thanks for stealing our fun,” Rider said.

  Rock handed the weapon to Rider who looked at it and tossed it aside. He then began searching them for more ammo.

  “Carbine’s out,” Marcus said. “You get anything?”

  “No one’s got any ammo these days,” Rider complained. “Sign of the times.”

  “Sanctuary state,” Marcus said. “What did you expect?”

  “I’ll get the truck then we’ll see about gas,” Rock mumbled. He retrieved the Chevy, returned to the site of the accident, then pulled out the gas can and siphoning hose. He couldn’t get much from the overturned rig, but it was enough to almost top the Chevy’s tank. He didn’t bother with the Hummer since this one ran on diesel fuel.

  When they got to the apartment towers, they stopped short a few blocks. There was no reason to alert them to the onslaught.

  “Everyone ready?” Rider asked as they all piled out.

  “Carver is not to be shot,” Rock said.

  “That goes without saying,” Marcus added. “Unless he drew us in to this trap, and then it’s weapons hot, shoot to kill.”

  “Fire and Ice vouched for him,” Rock added. “They won’t be wrong about him.”

  “Draven vouched for him, not your brothers,” Gregor said, holding his arm where the wrap was spotting red.

  “He saved my brothers’ lives a few times, so do not shoot,” Rock said, stern.

  When they got inside, they moved quickly and quietly, the carbine and weapons out. They had no ammo, but the threat might be enough of a bluff to slow the action and give them the upper hand.

  When they went in the apartment tower Carver identified earlier, they came upon a dead guy out front with a ripped-off arm.

  “Welcome Wagon,” Rider said.

  Together they moved inside, startling a man sitting down with a gun over his lap. Marcus moved swiftly, coming in hard with the carbine. He was dead to rights when Rock told the man, “You move, you die.”

  The bald guy didn’t move. Marcus disarmed him, pulled back the slide and saw it was empty. He popped the mag, found dead space, too.

  “So you’re the guy on duty and you are armed with an empty gun?” he asked.

  “Not the best bluff ever,” he admitted.

  “What’s your name?” Rock said, moving up on the guy, empty gun on him like it was loaded.

  “Danny.”

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Aaron is out back wiring up the building for solar, two of the guys are asleep in the other room, there’s a girl, Ruby, on the fourth floor I haven’t seen since yesterday and Maria, Carver and the kid are on the tenth floor, end of the hallway. Everyone else is out scouting. Look man, we haven’t got much. Certainly nothing of value. Maybe the woman, but you don’t want any part of her.”

  “Yeah, and why’s that?” Marcus asked.

  “She…she’s sick, I think. And mean. A total hell hound, that one. Never seen nothing like her in my life and I honestly don’t want to see her again.”

  “Give me the football,” Gregor said to Rock, referring to the grenade.

  “No,” Rock said.

  “They were my guys,” Gregor argued, his eyes dancing with need. “That’s who she roasted on the way out.”

  Rock looked at Marcus and Rider, both of them nodding.

  Reluctantly, he handed Gregor the grenade and said, “Only Maria. If she’s not alone, you don’t toss it, got it?”

  “Got it,” he said, taking the grenade.

  Gregor headed upstairs, moving in stealth, preserving his energy where he could but knowing by the time he hit the tenth, he’d need a breather. He prayed all the way up that he wouldn’t run into anyone. All he had left on him was the knife, an empty gun he might be able to run a bluff with, his two legs and a good arm.

  Oh, and the mean green pineapple.

  He made it to the tenth without incident; he was more winded than he thought. He popped his head through the stairwell door, saw an empty hallway, then sat down and caught his breath in the dim, late afternoon light.

  His head was a flurry of possible scenarios. It was like this when they went on raids back in LA. You hope for the best, but plan for the worst and pray to God that after it all goes down, you won’t have to bury anyone you love.

  When he was ready, he crept down the hallway to the room at the end of the hallway. He opened the door slowly, quietly, found it empty. There was only a bare mattress and the smell of abandon.

  He opened the door across the hallway, found Maria asleep on the bed. He drew a deep breath, couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. Studying the beautiful woman, she looked somewhat sickly. It was just as Danny said. Maybe they wouldn’t have to gut the guy on the way out after all.

  He searched nearby, found a broom and dustpan, and then he found a pillow. It was old and disgusting, but the pillow would serve its purpose.

  Heading back to the studio apartment, he set the pillow down inside the room, turned the broom over so he could use the stick to push it.

  Rock said this was a fuse ignition rather than an impact ignition. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then pulled the pin and set the grenade on the pillow. With his heart hammering in his chest and his shoulder on fire where he was cut, he shoved the pillow in to the room, then closed the door and sprinted down the hallway where he hit the deck and clapped his hands over his ears. Aside from the nearly unbearable pain in his arm, the explosion itself was deafening.

  The door flexed but didn’t blow off the hinges. Even though the hallway was a puff of dust and debris, the explosion didn’t do as much damage as he thought. Then again, a long run of exterior wall had already been blown out and exposed to the elements. He pulled his blade and waited for someone to come out of the room.

  No one came out.

  He went to check, but the dust was too much. He didn’t know what was in the d
ust, if there was asbestos, but he wasn’t taking a chance with his lungs.

  Satisfied, he made his way downstairs, saw the explosion alerted others inside the building and that Marcus, Rock and Rider had it under control.

  To Gregor’s surprise, there were more men than he thought. Rider had the stolen carbine on them. They were on their knees complying.

  “If we ever see any of you,” Rider growled, “the first thing we’ll do is shoot. Am I clear? And if you see us first, you run the other way as fast as you can.”

  Everyone nodded, then one of the guys said, “I guess we won’t be going to Idaho.”

  “Guess not,” another replied under his breath.

  When they left the apartment and headed for the truck, Rock said, “You sure you got her?”

  Gregor nodded. “I’m sure.”

  They piled inside the Chevy, Rider cranked the engine to a steady rumble, then they eased out of there in no obvious rush.

  “So no one else was in the room?” Marcus turned to Gregor and asked.

  “It was just her,” Gregor said, looking at the wound on his arm, and the sizable blossom of red beneath the makeshift wrap.

  “You’re positive?” Rider asked, checking the rear view mirror. Gregor nodded. “Alright then, Carver should be back with the girl today or tomorrow.”

  “I guess we were right to trust him,” Marcus said.

  “Told you,” Rock replied.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Carver had been asleep in Ruby’s bed when it sounded like a bomb went off upstairs. He heard the guys from Loomis ordering Aaron, Tim and their respective groups around and decided to stay put. When they were gone, he hustled upstairs where he found Maria stumbling around, bloody and enraged.

  “Where’s Sally?” he shouted at her.

  She looked at him, her face covered in blood, her hands shaking. There was drool coming from her mouth and it looked like her arms suffered a fair amount of burn trauma.

  She mumbled some garbled gibberish.

  “Where is she?!”

  He waved off the smoke and debris, then checked the couch. She wasn’t there. He looked behind it, and then he looked under the bed and that’s when he saw her.

  She was in such bad shape, he had to turn away. The screaming started in him before he could get ahold of it.

  He got up and started throwing things, the hurt and rage exploding out of him until he saw Maria had fallen still. Rushing over, he cracked her in the jaw with everything he had.

  She fell over, unconscious.

  “I’m tired of kids dying around you!” he screamed at her knocked out body. Her clothes were still smoking, the flesh of her right arm in bad shape. He finally dropped down and looked at Sally again, the sight of her little mangled body murdering entire parts of his soul.

  He began to cry, then to half scream again, and then he began to pace the small space. Maria started to move, her mouth opening and shutting on its own, her eyes closed, burnt, the thin skin around them raw.

  “She’s dead,” Carver said, his voice so wounded, so raw, his body weak from the shock. “She got blown up because she was too scared of you to sleep on the couch.”

  “Carver,” she said, her voice trashed beyond belief. The way she said it, it sounded like “Aahver.”

  “What?” he snapped, wiping away his tears.

  She looked up at him, cracked her eyes open and said, “Beaten, but not broken. If I don’t get food, I’m going to die.”

  “Then DIE!” he bent over and roared right into her face.

  She managed to stand up, although it didn’t look easy. Was she going to kill him? He wanted her to. First she killed his men, then Ruby left, and now Sally was dead. Not to mention everyone she murdered in Loomis.

  Everywhere this menace went, death and heartache followed.

  Before he knew it, he snapped a fast roundhouse kick off the side of her face. She couldn’t even block it, but she stumbled sideways enough to let him know he’d rocked her.

  “No liquid Kevlar there,” he said about her skull as he walked out.

  He wasn’t two feet to the door when she grabbed his arm, hauled him around with a long pull, then drove a forearm strike right up the middle of his arm. Both bones snapped like they were twigs. He took a giant, sucking breath as he looked down at the tips of both bones where they’d punched through his skin. With a bloody, wasted grin, she let go and his arm hung limp at his side.

  Her grin quickly fell away to anger. “Leave me!” she roared, meat and bloody spittle spraying out of her ruined, scaled lips. He didn’t want to leave her with Sally, but he couldn’t stay. And his arm hurt so badly, he felt himself going into shock.

  He made his way downstairs, trying not to look at the damage, but when he got to the first floor, Aaron was on his way up from the lobby.

  He saw Carver’s arm and startled. “Good God!” he said.

  “I need you to reset my arm and give me something for the pain,” Carver told him.

  Downstairs, he laid down on the floor just after Tim and Amir helped him take off his shirt. Aaron wrapped part of it in a cigar shape and stuck it in Carver’s mouth as a bite.

  “This is going to hurt,” Aaron said. Then he began working on getting the bones back in place. Carver growled and bucked his torso. The feeling of the bones grinding back together had him squirming big time.

  “Hold him still!” Aaron shouted. A couple of the guys steadied his legs. Looking up at the man, Carver knew what his eyes were saying. He was desperate and teeming with pain, almost like he was waiting for permission to pass out. Aaron looked down and nodded, and that’s when Carver lost consciousness.

  When he woke back up, his arm was in a splint and wrapped tight. Carver sat up and the agony was incredible, not to mention his head was a throbbing mess.

  “Do you have anything for the pain.”

  “I’m sorry,” Aaron said.

  “Actually, I have a small mountain of speed for a rainy day,” Danny said, looking around and gauging the reactions of the other guys. No one said anything, nor was there judgement in their eyes.

  “That’ll stop the pain?” Carver said. He’d never done drugs before.

  “Take a bump of the whizz,” Danny said with a hollow grin. “In five minutes you’ll feel like Superman.”

  “Where’d you get that from?” Aaron asked.

  “Myron was a tweaker,” Danny said. “Hard not to notice, once you got past the teeth.”

  “I’ll take it,” Carver said.

  The second he snorted the white powder, it was like a shot of nitrous oxide to his otherwise sluggish heart. The pain began to fade, and before long he felt euphoric, supercharged.

  “Okay, thanks guys,” he said, his voice back. “I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?” Aaron asked.

  “Out, out, out,” he said as he got up, left the apartment towers and went to the garage. He fished the key out of his pocket, started up the truck, then let himself really wind up high. He wound up so on top of the world, though, it scared him.

  He didn’t know how much higher Danny’s speed would take him, so he dropped the truck in gear, buried the accelerator, dumped the clutch and high-tailed it to Loomis. On the way there, he knocked in to things on the right and left of the truck. From his vantage point, he imagined these were more than a few curbs, a couple of derelict cars, maybe even a body in the street that may or may not have been dead before he ran over it.

  When he finally arrived in Loomis, all the wonder of the drug—a drug Danny promised would fill him with euphoria—began to have the opposite effect. He was so angry and emotional he could cry. He even started confessing all his sins to Jesus, as if the man was listening.

  When he skidded to a stop in the homestead’s main driveway, he was greeted by a handful of concerned faces.

  He recognized Macy and Atlanta, but there were a pair of boys with them he wasn’t sure about. Unless they were Jagger’s sons. His eyeballs d
idn’t feel right, especially when he tried to focus.

  Draven rounded the corner of the house a second later, in time to meet him at the truck. Carver kicked his way out of the Ford and started screaming, “She’s dead!” at him, but not in a triumphant way.

  “Carver, calm down,” Draven said, trying to restrain him.

  “She’s DEAD!” he howled, his eyes watering, the seams of his body feeling like they were coming open. Any minute now and his guts would come dumping out of his body. Would they be mangled and red, or would they just be bright flowers?

  He didn’t know, that’s how high he was.

  Marcus, Gregor and Fire were out of the house with Indigo in tow. “You!” he roared at Marcus. “I saw you there!”

  Marcus, it seemed, told everyone they’d killed Maria. He didn’t know she was still alive, but that Sally wasn’t. Gregor was on Marcus’s six, his arm in a sling, a small blood spot at the shoulder.

  The tears in his eyes boiled over as he said, “You killed One, not Maria. You BLEW UP ONE!”

  And that’s when he collapsed in Draven’s arms. His friend held him up as he sobbed and flew out of the psychedelic slums and into some unbelievable heights at the same time. Suddenly, despite the high, and all the tears leaking from his eyes, his mouth was as dry as the driest desert on earth.

  “I need water,” he said, fighting cottonmouth. Indigo gave him hers. He guzzled down the entire bottle, still crying, still zinging, then handed it back and thanked her.

  “Sally’s dead?” Margot said, coming up alongside Indigo.

  “Grenade,” Carver said.

  Marcus looked at Gregor and said, “You said the room was empty.”

  “It was!”

  “Sally was asleep under the bed,” he said, almost as if the revelation itself dragged whatever adrenaline the drugs had artificially pumped into his system right back out. “She was scared of Maria. That’s why she slept under the bed.”

  He sagged against his friend, not even concerned with the audience. He lay there against Draven’s shins and started to cry.

  “What happened to your arm?” Margot said, sitting down beside him, so beside herself Carver felt like she was saying something just to speak. He looked up and realized Indigo was there, too, a deep sadness in her eyes.