Echoes of War

by Cheryl Campbell

  Xander slammed his fist into Miles’s already wounded jaw, and Miles was stunned by the fresh wave of pain. He blinked a few times, and his vision cleared enough to see the stone Xander was holding in his hand. As he swung the stone downward, Miles got one arm up, just in time to keep the blow from connecting with his skull.

  Pain filled his arm at the impact. He swung his uninjured arm up and grabbed Xander’s throat. He squeezed as hard as possible before realizing Xander had stopped fighting. The young man’s staring eyes turned toward the blade lodged in his chest.

  Jace grabbed Xander from behind and pulled him away from Miles. He let the dying MP fall.

  Miles sat up and tried to catch his breath and process everything.

  “Think you’ll live?” Jace asked him.

  “Uh, yeah.” Miles’s jaw and arm throbbed, but he was still alive.

  Jace picked up Miles’s knife and stooped to pick up Xander’s as well.

  “Stop!” Miles snapped. “Don’t touch his blade.”

  Jace’s hand hung in the air a moment before he righted himself. “You and me, we’re deep in the shit now. MP kills a Brigand, Brigand kills the MP. Folks are coming after all that noise.”

  Miles held his injured arm close to his body as he stood. People were indeed approaching. Three people came out of one of the buildings and joined two others heading toward the river. Xander’s eyes stared lifelessly at the sky. Miles placed his hand on the knife still lodged in Xander’s chest. He moved his palm and fingers over the grip, replacing Jace’s fingerprints with his own and transferring Xander’s blood to his hand.

  “Do you have any of his blood on you?” Miles asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Remove my sheath from my belt and put it on yours. Put your sheath on my belt. Hurry. Stop thinking so much, and do it!”

  Once Jace’s sheath was attached to his belt, Miles used the lower part of his shirt to wipe it clean of any of Jace’s fingerprints. He then smudged the sheath with his own fingers. “Now wipe my knife and take it as yours.”

  Jace nodded. “What about you?”

  “The MPs would execute you for killing an MP, but I think I can get myself cleared as acting in self-defense.”

  “So, you want me as your witness?”

  “I want you to send someone to Hattie’s to contact the MPs and keep the Brigands from hanging me until the police arrive.”

  Jace squinted at him.

  “What? We don’t have much time left before the civilians get here.”

  “You’re really taking the blame?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you need to be around for Dani, not executed and in a grave.”

  “Huh,” Jace said.

  Miles wiped at the blood dripping from his jaw and winced at the tenderness around the laceration. “What?”

  The footsteps neared, now only twenty or so paces away, and Miles raised his hands, palms out, to show he held no weapon. His arm throbbed worse with the movement, but he still held it up.

  “Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought,” Jace said.

  Miles would have smiled at the sideways compliment, but his face hurt and the Brigands had arrived. Jace intervened while Miles remained silent, his hands raised. One of the men left for Hattie’s immediately; he increased his pace from a walk to a sprint when Jace yelled at him.

  It seemed liked forever before the MPs arrived in their trucks. Miles was exhausted and sore from his fight with Xander. Two officers interviewed him and Jace while others examined the bodies and gathered evidence. They scanned the weapons, and the blood and fingerprints matched the story Miles had given them of Xander’s collaboration with the Brigands that attacked the MP families. They also bought the slightly concocted version of the fight he told them. Jace, deemed merely a witness to two MPs fighting, was allowed to leave, and Miles rode back to the barracks with the officers and corpses.

  To keep Jace out of an MP jail and away from the executioner, Miles needed to take this secret to his grave. It would torture him to lie to Oliver and Dani, but Miles mostly wanted Dani to continue to believe her brother was just an overprotective curmudgeon—not a killer who would stab another man when he wasn’t looking. Jace had saved Miles’s life, but Miles didn’t think for one second that Jace had done it out of goodness. Jace had wanted Al dead; Xander had just beaten him to it. He’d been after blood, and he’d gotten it.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Instead of the twice-a-day training Dani assumed she’d be getting, Gavin insisted on working with her all day. He began teaching her how to shoot, beyond what Jace had taught her as a teenager, and showing her how to set traps to take down people, not rabbits. She enjoyed the first day. The second day she hated him. He made her run with him to establish the route and pace he wanted her to complete every other day. Following the run, she found a place to sit and rest. He barked at her to get on her feet. When she did, he charged and tackled her. Fighting while standing was a different matter than fighting on the ground, and he pummeled her.

  He didn’t coach her as before, by showing her a technique and then letting her try it; instead, he flattened her, told her everything she was doing wrong, made her get up, and then clobbered her again.

  Brody wasn’t concerned with the punishment Gavin was giving her—though a couple of times, when she was on her back, out of breath, and in pain, he did come over and lick her face. She appreciated his support but secretly wished he would bite Gavin at least once when he pulled some crazy Judo shit and sent her crashing to the ground.

  “You’ll learn to protect your exposed sides, or I’ll break every one of your fucking ribs,” Gavin told her that morning.

  She did finally protect her left side, and when she did, he drilled her left thigh with a vicious punch instead. She cursed him while lying crumpled on the ground. She was pretty sure getting kicked by a mule would hurt less than taking his punches.

  “There are no rules when you’re fighting for your life, Dani,” he said. “You need to play dirty and expect the same from your opponent.”

  She grumbled in response.

  “You have four hours to scavenge or lie on the ground,” he said. “Be at Hayford Park by 1300. We’re meeting Javi to start work with Brody.” With that, he walked away.

  After two full days of training with Gavin, plus this morning, lying on the ground sounded like a great idea. Dani couldn’t imagine what kind of permanent damage one of his punches to the head could cause. Or what a kick from him would feel like. Thus far he’d only tripped her or swept a leg out from under her. Dani figured a kick to her middle would forever transplant her spleen into her neck. But she’d asked for this torment, and Gavin was just delivering.

  She forced herself to her feet and limped to her pack, cursing him with each step. She took a long drink of water and decided to use the next four hours, time she now regarded as a break between beatings, to find food and her brother. Brody had eaten more than she had in the last two days. As for Jace, he was probably in town. She shouldered her pack and started the three-and-a-half-mile walk to Aunt Hattie’s. It was on the way to Hayford Park, so she could take a break and rest before venturing into MP territory.

  The knot in her thigh eased the longer she walked; by the time she started up the gentle hill that would take her through the middle of the town, her limp was almost gone.

  Brody had quickly learned the way to Aunt Hattie’s, and he raced ahead. By the time Dani arrived, Mary was standing at the back of the brothel. She rushed to meet Dani in the street.

  Dani frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where have you been?” Mary demanded. “Shit hits the fan and you vanish?”

  “I didn’t vanish. I’ve been training”—getting tortured—“by, I mean, with Gavin. What happened? Where’s Jace?”

  “He’s not here. He said he had business in Waterville and borrowed Aunt Hattie’s car. He left the morning after Miles killed that MP
.”

  Dani shook her head. “What?”

  “God, you’re clueless … as usual.” Mary took Dani by the elbow and ushered her toward the house. Brody bounced around them as they walked, expecting food, but they ignored the dog.

  Without a word, Mary led Dani to the same room she had borrowed before. “Sit.”

  Dani was alarmed by Mary’s urgency, but she gladly dropped her pack on the floor and put her rump in the offered chair.

  Mary closed the door and sat on the other side of the small, round table in the room.

  “When did you last see Jace?”

  “Uh, what’s today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  Dani stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking back over the last few days. Today is Tuesday, so Monday was the ass kicking from Gavin. Sunday was weapons training. Saturday, Gavin tried to kiss me. “Saturday morning, or midday, something like that.”

  “Saturday night there was a fight in Hell. This MP named Xander murdered Al after Al said something about how he was working for the Wardens.”

  Dani blanched. Xan, a murderer?

  “Miles was there and tried to arrest Xander, but everything went wrong. He killed Xander. Jace saw it happen, told the MPs his side of things, and they let him go. Miles is back at the barracks, confined to quarters, until the investigation is complete, but he should get off with acting in self-defense.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Jace came here that night, and I brought him something to drink while he told Aunt Hattie what happened. He said Miles should be cleared of any charges. He was sweaty and pale, Dani. When he thought no one was looking, I saw him put his hand on his chest like this. …” Mary placed the palm of her hand on the center of her chest with her fingers splayed. “He took several deep breaths every time he did it.”

  “Heart attack?”

  “I don’t know. Aunt Hattie wanted to call the town doc to come see him, but Jace refused. He went to Aunt Hattie’s room for the night and left early the next morning for Waterville.”

  “Anyone with him?”

  Mary shook her head.

  Dani ran her hand through her hair. She and her brother fought often, but she didn’t want him dropping dead from a heart attack. Until he died, there was no way of knowing if he would heal like an Echo. He was having chest pain and leaving town alone. She didn’t have a way to track or catch up to him.

  “There’s more,” Mary said. “It didn’t matter to the council that Al was a piece of shit; they were pissed that an MP killed him. Even if you could get the CNA to meet with them, the council would still reject the merger now, based on the Commonwealth’s interference in Brigand matters.”

  Dani leaned her elbows on the table and dropped her head in her hands. Everything had unraveled in a matter of hours—and she hadn’t found out until days later.

  Mary stood and placed her hand on Dani’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to hit you with all this at once. Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, thanks. I need time to think.”

  “Stay as long as you like. Aunt Hattie’s blocked this room for non-brothel-related business.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary left, and Dani leaned back in the chair. Her mind raced and her thoughts collided with each other, creating a jumbled mess. She reached into her pack and removed an item wrapped in cloth. Dani unwound the fabric, revealing an antique revolver. Despite his prior, repeated refusals to let her carry a weapon other than a knife, after the Standpipe incident, Jace had brought her the weapon and told her to keep it with her.

  She didn’t like the weapon: it was old and heavy, and if she needed more than six rounds, she was out of luck. She wanted a plasma pistol, but Jace said he didn’t have one. The weapon now lived in her pack, since she never planned to use it.

  She removed another cloth from her pack and began the task of dismantling the weapon. The pistol was clean, but she didn’t care. The tedium of cleaning or tinkering with things engaged a different part of her brain, which helped her think. Her racing mind kept her up many nights, so when she couldn’t sleep, she tinkered.

  Brody settled on a rug on the floor and napped while Dani removed the shells from the weapon. She set them aside and turned her attention to the other parts of the gun. As she manipulated the parts, she ran through the list of things Mary had told her, sorting through them one at a time.

  Miles killed Xan. Why? Xan was a prick, sure, but killing him seemed extreme, even if he had been working for the Wardens. She’d have to talk to Miles about that, assuming Miles was cleared and released. Shit. What is Oliver doing during all this?

  Jace might have heart issues and was too stubborn to see a doctor. Shocker. Brigands lived a hard life, but they could still obtain medical care with the right connections. And no one was better connected than Aunt Hattie. What the hell is in Waterville?

  She had no ideas on how to salvage the CNA–Brigand partnership that hadn’t even had a chance to begin.

  Dani placed the cleaned gun on the table with the cylinder open. She wiped one of the shells with the cloth and rolled the shiny, brass-covered bullet in her fingers. The ultimate sleeping pill, she thought. For a human, not an Echo.

  A soft knock on the door diverted her attention from the shell.

  Brody leapt from the rug to the door and yipped.

  “Go away, Oliver,” Dani said.

  He opened the door and stepped in, welcomed by the dog.

  Dani wiped the shell to make sure it was free of any oil from her fingers before inserting it into the pistol’s chamber. She picked up the next bullet and held it between her thumb and fingertip.

  “Mary told me you were here,” Oliver said.

  He moved to stand next to the table but kept his hands away from the weapon and ammunition. Dani figured the boy had watched his father clean his service weapon many times, and knew better than to touch anything. She shook her head. “I need to talk to Mary about what ‘time to think’ means. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at the barracks?”

  “Dad’s not arrested, but he can’t leave. I waited every day for you at Union Street, but you never showed.”

  “I didn’t know any of that stuff happened until today.”

  “I sent you a message.”

  Dani inserted the second round into the gun and wiped her hands with the cloth. “What message?”

  “The comm Dad gave you.”

  “Oh.” Dani dug through her pack. She removed the unit and a light on it blinked. “Sorry. I haven’t been in my bag at all the last couple of days.”

  She tossed the comm on the table and set to work cleaning the remaining four shells. Once they were loaded back into the gun, she snapped the chamber closed. “What does your mother think of you bailing on school so often? Neither you nor Miles ever mention her.”

  “Her name is … was … Emily. She died three years ago trying to save Brigands from Warden capture.”

  Dani softened. “That must have been difficult.”

  “She always told me it was her job as an MP to help the Brigands, because one saved her life a long time ago.”

  “Hmm, MPs and Brigands helping each other. Too bad that idea has been shot to hell.”

  “I wish she was here to help you, Dani,” Oliver said quietly. “You would’ve liked her.”

  Dani winced. “Shit. I’m sorry, Oliver. I’m sure she was a great person. I didn’t mean to make a bad day worse by dragging your mom into it.”

  “It’s okay to have bad days, but I don’t think you should be messing with a gun when you’re neck deep in a pity party.”

  Her temper flared at this remark, but Oliver didn’t say anything else to her. He had turned his attention to Brody. He rubbed his head, and the dog’s tail wagged in a blur.

  Dani wrapped the weapon back in its cloth and slipped it into her pack. “Ready?” she asked.

  “For what?”

  “I’m taking you home.” She stood. “Shit!” She leaned a
gainst the table for a moment, crippled by a thigh cramp.

  “What’s wrong?” Oliver asked.

  “My leg is sore. It’s fine.” She straightened.

  When Oliver scooped up her pack, she didn’t argue. Her limp had returned, and she hobbled her way out of the room. Brody trotted ahead, followed by Oliver.

  They passed through the back of the building, and Mary met them before they left. She tossed a palm-sized piece of bread to Brody, and he snatched it from the air. He trotted outside to lie in the grass and chew on his treat.

  Mary handed a sack to Oliver. “There is another piece in there for him so the two of you can eat without him drooling at you.”

  “Mary, you shouldn’t—”

  “Don’t bother, Dani. I like fixing a little extra food for you, Oliver, and even Brody.”

  “You don’t need to spend your money on us,” Dani said.

  “I’ll spend it where I like, thank you.”

  “Thanks, Mary.” Oliver hugged her and left to join Brody.

  “I put an extra flask of water in the sack for you,” Mary told Dani. “I’ll need it and the sack back.”

  “I’ll come by after I’m done returning the street urchin and meeting Gavin. Thank you for the food.” Dani stepped forward and hugged Mary for a moment before releasing her.

  Mary smiled. “Better. Still some work to do, but you’ve been practicing.”

  Dani’s face flushed.

  “Gavin? You spend a lot of time with him.”

  “Brody.”

  “You’re a piece of work,” Mary said with a laugh. “I’ll get you moved up to practicing on people. I’ll see you later and let you know if I hear any word on Jace.”

  “Thanks. I’m worried about him.”

  “Me too.”

  Dani’s pace remained slow until the knot in her leg relaxed. Mary had given them a pair of baseball-sized tomatoes that Dani and Oliver ate like apples. Dani couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a tomato. Oliver dug in the bottom of the sack and passed her a piece of bread and a cucumber, keeping one of each for himself. He bit into his cucumber, chewed a few times to force the lump in his mouth into smaller pieces, then spoke. “This is great!”