Crack.
The landing lacks her usual finesse. The pain in her ankle overrides her reflexes, and her feet are increasingly unable to maintain a steady balance. She drops onto her knees. The unsettling swirl of the world returning to her, a Chimera bolts out of a doorway on the other side of the courtyard, on fire and screaming in pain.
Another Chimera pushes out of the doorway behind it, unharmed but frightened. It spots Silver instantly, and she locks eyes with it, an instant surge of adrenalin preparing her for an attack.
Relax.
Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, the Chimera chooses to move on, darting away from its dying friend and off into the smoke filled streets. Relieved, Silver tries to pick herself back up off the ground, but she’s too weak. The last of her energy expended, she feels the approach of darkness as it sweeps over her again, and this time, she’s powerless to stop it.
She collapses, falling back into unconsciousness.
*************************
Alex throws open the door into the Governor’s board room, interrupting a meeting between the Governor and the man in the suit from the Division meet-and-greet. Red, having accepted the Deputy General position, is sitting at the Governor’s right.
Alex’s eyes drift from the Governor to the man in the suit, then to Red, then back to the Governor, and finally to the two security guards with their guns now aimed at his head.
Waving them off, the Governor rises from the table and fixes Alex with a fierce glare of outrage. “There’d better be a good reason for this intrusion, Deputy.”
“You have to call off the incineration.” He points at the man in the suit. “And he can fuck off.”
The Governor shakes her head. “That’s completely impossible. Why?”
“The Hunter General is out there.”
Realizing that this interruption is not one that’s likely to be easily swept away, the Governor sighs and looks somewhat apologetically toward the man in the suit. “You’re excused.”
“Are you serious?”
“We’ll resume this at a more appropriate time.”
Making his displeasure known, the suit snatches up his jacket and prepares for a gruff exit. “I’m not done with this.”
“I imagine not. Feel free to call my office and reschedule.”
He shoves roughly past Alex, and Alex happily closes the door behind him, slightly tapping his backside with it, making the door quite literally hit his ass on the way out.
“Is he for real?” Alex snorts.
“Are you?” the Governor draws the conversation back. “Where’s Silver?”
“I just told you: she’s in the Out District.”
“Doing what? For god’s sake, we just turned that place into an oven.”
Alex doesn’t wait for an invitation, and takes it upon himself to approach the table. “We have to stop it.”
Red shakes her head. “The city doesn’t have a water supply large enough to meet the demand of putting out a fire that big. And even if we did, we could never sanction such an action to save the life of just one person.”
“Why not? You’re looking for a promotion already, Deputy?” Alex growls.
The Governor holds up her hands to prevent them from bickering. “What’s already begun cannot be stopped. Never mind anything else, these were her orders. So until I see a corpse, she’s still the Hunter General of this city and her orders will remain. Now, where precisely is she?”
Rather too boldly, and crossing all lines of propriety, Alex gets right in the Governor’s face. “Were you not listening?”
Instead of responding with a chastisement, which would be her prerogative, the Governor simply refuses to back down. “Aren’t you? Trace her tag. Where is she?”
“The signal’s being scrambled.”
“By whom? And how did this happen?”
“One of Phaeden’s old puppets, Ethan Raine. He’s the one who engineered the virus.”
“And where is this Ethan Raine now?”
“The morgue.”
“Old age?”
“Justice.”
Silence.
Maydevine bursts in on the room.
“Rein in your Deputy,” the Governor snaps at him.
“I apologize for the imposition, ma’am.”
“When you’re done cleaning up after him, make sure his trigger finger is under control before you let him out of your sight again. You understand?”
Red gets up from the table, making sure she’s heard. “Has anyone considered how Ethan Raine was able to transport the body of the Hunter General outside city walls without being detected?”
“Of course.” Alex nods. “He must’ve used the transport trucks.”
“If that’s the case, there must be some sort of collusion. An accomplice,” Red deduces. “The drivers have to sign off on the contents of any vehicle before they drive it out of the DDH, so he didn’t do this alone.”
A symphony rings out inside Alex’s head. “Carter!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Storm Comes
Alex finds Sterling Carter in the parking lot of the DDH transport bay. Flanked by two other Police Division Agents, their weapons already drawn, he sets on him.
Carter is alerted to their presence when the friends he’s with begin to back away, aware that something heavy is about to erupt. He spins around just in time to see Alex’s fist, a moment before it hits him in the face.
He hits the concrete, chipping a tooth.
Alex hauls him back up to his feet and throws him into the side of the nearest truck. Pressing him up against it, Alex forces Carter’s hands behind his back and cuffs him. The metal shackles pinch and scrape against his skin, forcing a wince of pain to crease his brow.
Alex flips him around and pins him against the truck.
“Sterling Carter, I’m arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting in the kidnap of the Hunter General, and just generally for being a bit of a prick. You are hereby advised that your rights to citizenship have been suspended, pending a hearing to determine your sentence.”
“My sentence? You haven’t even proven my guilt.”
“I won’t have to. You’re going to confess.”
Alex pulls him away, taking more than a little pleasure in the public nature of the arrest. On the other side of the room, Maydevine’s deep in conversation with Luka, one hand resting on his shoulder.
As Alex draws near, Maydevine preempts his question.
“Kinsella’s coming, too.”
“What? No.”
“It’s not up for discussion.” Maydevine tips his head to Luka. “You’re driving.”
Luka acknowledges the order and leads the way outside, amidst a growing parade of photographers and journalists, each vying for one more tidbit of information than the other—anything to help their version of events make it to the front page.
Luka pushes and shoves his way through, ousting the usual driver from his seat behind the wheel of the Police Division van that’s been waiting there for Carter.
A crack of thunder rolls over the darkening sky as Alex drags Carter outside, Maydevine not far behind them. Wincing against the glare of flashbulbs, Alex doesn’t make it more than a few feet before he’s blindsided by a determined Celia.
“Is it true that she intentionally left McKean to die?”
Wrong question. Wrong time.
Alex explodes.
“I’m hauling the dishonorable former Deputy Commissioner away to the detainment corridor on an attempted murder charge, while the Hunter General’s missing—possibly dead—and your only concern is that she—my future wife—may not have done her absolute best to save the life of a traitor who tried to kill her?”
Celia doesn’t even try to respond; something in his words has silenced her.
Moments later, the first drops of rain begin to fall, and Alex bundles Carter into the back of the Police Divisions van. He shackles him d
own and takes a seat opposite him, soon joined by Maydevine.
Rain beats down on the roof of the van.
Maydevine casually lights up a cigarette. “More rain in one night than we’ve seen in six months.” A puff. “That’s what they’re saying.”
Alex won’t stop staring at Carter. “Good.”
Silence.
Within the first few hundred yards of their journey, Alex notices that they’ve already gone off course. Judging by the path they seem to be taking, they’re heading straight for the Fringe District.
Alex leans in to Maydevine. “Where’re we going?”
“We’re taking the scenic route.”
Now Carter starts to notice the deviation, and quickly becomes anxious. “This isn’t the way to the detainment corridor.”
More silence.
Sure enough, they hit the One Way Bridge.
Alex suddenly gets it, and he looks to Maydevine for confirmation.
“You’re not the only one here with balls, son.” Maydevine tosses his cigarette butt out of the window. “I don’t have a problem going off protocol, you know that. But at least I know how to do it without leaving behind a trail of bloody corpses. Not to mention witnesses.”
“Ethan Raine deserved what he got.”
“And I’m not arguing with you, but your methods are unrefined, to say the least.”
Every muscle in his body tense, Alex’s heart rate almost doubles when Luka pulls the van up in front of the enforcement bay.
Yes, that’s right.
The enforcement bay.
Carter realizes it and starts to panic. “No … you people can’t do this. I don’t care what I’ve done, this isn’t right!”
Nobody gives a shit.
Alex releases him from the seat and drags him out of the van, literally kicking and screaming. The intensity of the storm is growing now, and waves are crashing against the sea wall, splashing up over the railing and onto the road.
Luka swipes his wrist over the tag plate that secures the main entrance, and he lets them all inside. Carter refuses to walk and pulls backward, forcing Alex to grab hold of him by his handcuffs and pull him into the building.
Carter trips in the doorway and falls into the dirt, his face narrowly missing a hard, crusty pile of human feces, where the last victim of enforcement shit himself before being led up the staircase.
The man had sharted, and the chunky, wet, trickly ooze had slid down his pant legs and dripped out onto the floor around his ankles.
Alex kicks the crumbly pile of human waste into Carter’s face before picking him up and heaving him up the stairs. Not given a chance to get back on his feet, Carter is dragged up there on his ass, catching splinters and scrapes along the way, his head bashing against every step.
Luka watches, impressed. For an older man, Alex has real strength. There’s only six years between them, but Luka’s always thought of himself as the superior model of the male human form.
But he’s never seen Alex with his shirt off.
Alex drops Carter down in the middle of the enforcement bay floor.
Everything going according to his plan, Maydevine checks the clip in his gun.
Full.
“This is against regulation,” Carter barks at him.
Not bothered by his bitter attitude, Maydevine steps closer. “So is the kidnapping of the Hunter General.”
Carter looks for an escape route, but finds none. “I didn’t kidnap her. The only thing I’m guilty of is agreeing to look the other way.”
“Well, there’s that, and the murder of Jennifer McAllister.” Maydevine aims his gun at Carter’s head. “I’ve got a lot of different reasons to want to put a bullet in your head. Laying your hands upon my little girl just happens to be at the top of the list.”
Carter backs up, holding his hands in front of his face for some sort of protection, maybe also so that he won’t see the shot coming. “You don’t want to know where she is?”
Maydevine lowers his gun. “I did everything I could to help you, and you repaid me by trying to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for. I think telling me where I can find my daughter’s corpse is the least you can do.”
Alex’s brow creases with intrigue at his boss’s choice of words, but Maydevine remains oblivious to it. For so many years, Alex has tried to convince Silver that Maydevine doesn’t measure her worth by her successes or failures, yet he implies now that her accomplishments are attributable to his own achievement in raising her. For the first time, Alex sees where her deep rooted cynicism of parenthood stems from.
Silence.
A subtle change in Carter’s expression reveals the briefest hint of regret. “Sector Twelve.” He drops his head. “We left her in Sector Twelve.”
Maydevine gives a sharp that’ll-do-pig nod, but he doesn’t raise his gun.
A bullet between the eyes would be too quick and painless, and that wouldn’t be satisfying at all. He holsters his gun and strikes Carter across the face before kicking him in the stomach.
Alex snatches a broom from the corner of the room and breaks off the handle.
Luka pulls out his knife.
While they take it in turns slowly beating him to death, dragging the punishment out, Alex goes over Carter’s words in his head.
Carter said ‘left’ not ‘dumped’.
Alex hangs on that like the last breath of life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sector Twelve
Dawn breaks over the horizon, and an unshaven, bedraggled Alex gets into the back of an open-top SUV—a Police Division vehicle, not usually intended for use in the Out District—and waits for the gate onto the City Bridge to open.
In his regulation Police Division uniform, he’d look like a real muffin were he not so utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. Two other Agents in full regulation uniform, including headgear, are in the front seats of the SUV. In front of their vehicle, an armored Hunter Division truck prepares to escort them into the Out District.
The rain has only just stopped, and the fires have been reduced to smoldering ashes and towers of smoke. Visible would’ve-been-refugee corpses from the hurried evacuation—those found to have been infected with the virus and dispatched—are nothing more than bones and dust.
Corpses of Chimera that tried to flee from the inferno lay scattered throughout the streets. Other Fusion and human corpses are scattered here and there. Either those who never made it to the scheduled evacuation on time, or had refused the offer of help.
As they arrive upon Sector Twelve, the convoy slows. The land designated as S12 is a small, one mile square chunk of Old World Manhattan not far from the gate, and they begin a systematic search of it. Crawling through the streets, searching for any signs of life amongst the shells of the Out District buildings, they concentrate their search in areas where the corpses are most abundant, on the basis that these areas more likely represent those in which the transport trucks would’ve dumped the evacuee corpses as fuel for the fire.
Suddenly, the convoy stops.
Mourning whines and whistles from a large pack of Chimera fill the hollow, crisp air, and the Hunters in the armored truck exit the vehicle with their weapons ready.
Following the sounds of the eerie, sing-song cries, they make their way toward a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by large brick buildings, creating a small horseshoe of protection from the fires. Alex gets out of the SUV and follows them inside.
As the Hunters breach the entrance to the courtyard, the Chimera—lucky survivors from the fire—move into a protective formation around their young. A few of the biggest and strongest males step forward from the group and make their own formation—one that indicates they’re ready for the hunt, and are eager to feed.
Strong and defensive, they start posturing. Swaggering their muscled bodies slowly from side to side, they rumble a guttural purring noise used to express dominance, but the Hunters are undeterred. Growing more anxious every second, the male Chimera
begin to huff, and behind them, the agitated females open their mouths wide to display large, fierce teeth.
No match for the Hunters’ powerful weapons, they’re dispatched in seconds, leaving what remains of the protective formation—mainly females, and some younger males—vulnerable. The Hunters raise their weapons to strike again, but Alex holds them back. He steps closer toward the group of Chimera, noticing something unusual in their midst.
Behind the protective line, there are a handful of immature Chimera, frightened and cowering. One of the youngest is hiding behind something bigger than itself, curiously peeking its terrified head out above its protection for a split second, then diving behind it and out of sight.
Alex moves steadily toward it, the Chimera pack keeping a watchful eye on his progress. Any Chimera that moves offensively toward him is immediately dispatched by one of the Hunters behind him, and this keeps their attention strongly focused on the biggest threat to their safety: the men with guns.
Young Chimera scatter for the cover of their mothers as Alex disrupts their hideout. Kneeling on the wet asphalt, a thick layer of ash covering everything in sight, he reaches out with a shaky hand and wipes damp, dirty hair away from the creature lying motionless on the ground before him.
Brushing ash off her face with his thumb, Alex reveals what he already knew.
He’s found Silver.
Though her Hunter Division uniform is badly tattered, the rain has washed away much of the blood. He rolls her over onto her back, her left hand falling limply down to her side.
No engagement ring.
Reaching for her neck to feel for a pulse, he dislodges her Hunter Division dog tags that are caught beneath her Kevlar vest.
Ta-da!
On the chain with her tags, all smeared with dirt and her dried blood, is the engagement ring.
His stomach somersaults.
His heart goes into overdrive.
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