Lynx

by Matt Rogers

  The first guard made it a few more feet, and then a silhouette reared up out of the darkness, and there was a flash of movement, and the punch of a broken visor and the squelch of a sharp implement being thrust through flesh, and then the silhouette vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the guard stood on his feet for another couple of seconds, as if in denial of the fact that he was already dead, and then he toppled back with the front of his helmet shattered and a metal stake driven through his eye socket, already pouring blood onto the dusty concrete.

  The other pair froze, limbs locking, eyes widening, hearts pounding.

  92

  And then the silhouette appeared again, this time darting between a slim gap in the metal shelves, and it waved an agile limb over one of the pair, like casting a spell with an invisible wand, and then it disappeared for a second time and the second guard twirled in a sick pirouette, hands flying to his throat, arterial blood spurting from the long thin line drawn across his neck. He made eye contact with the green-eyed man holding Slater, and his eyes said, No fucking way, and then he died gruesomely, his pupils rolling up into his sockets, exposing two milky whites, and blood ran from his mouth and nose and he pitched forward and face planted the ground, already a corpse.

  At which point the green-eyed man tensed up, still holding the Beretta tight against Slater’s head, but with all his concentration fixed on the third guy, who seemed destined to succumb to a horrific death seconds from now. It was the next inevitable course of action, obviously. It was as if they were both watching a twisted theatre performance play out in front of them. Slater watched the guard too, suddenly all alone a dozen feet away from them, surrounded by shelves and shadows. He seemed to sense the same thing, and he spun three hundred and sixty degrees, far too fast to see anything, rattled to the core.

  Slater tensed up.

  The green-eyed man tensed up.

  And then the silhouette came out of the corner, a couple of yards to Slater’s right. He flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, aware there was nothing he could do with the green-eyed man holding him in a vice like grip, and his entire right side fundamentally useless in a combat situation. He shifted on his left foot, stamping it into the concrete, and waited to die.

  Blood hit him across the upper back, hot and powerful, like a jet.

  That’s it.

  Here comes the pain.

  You’re dead.

  But it wasn’t his blood.

  The grip around his throat slackened, and the Beretta’s aim wandered a few inches downward and Slater thrust his chin back, a violent purposeful motion that brought him a few millimetres out of the line of fire when the green-eyed man yanked on the trigger in his death throes and fired. The gun went off right in his face, ruining what little hearing he had left, and then the rest of the incident played out like some kind of bizarre silent film from the twentieth century.

  Slater accidentally put weight on his broken foot and the nausea sent him toppling to the concrete, and the corpse of the green-eyed man collapsed on top of him, blood streaming from his cut throat. The final guard spotted the silhouette and turned to adopt a firing position, and the small figure pitched their arm back and hurled the knife through the air. The blade tumbled end over end and entered messily, nothing like the clean kills you see in the movies. It struck in a downward sweeping motion, tearing a line down the guard’s face. It didn’t end up embedded in his forehead — instead it fell to the floor between his feet, leaving him disfigured and bleeding and forgetting about his weapon entirely.

  At which point the silhouette leapt over Slater and pounced on the guard, taking him down with a dexterity that was instantly recognisable.

  Slater spotted full amber eyes staring down at the last guard, who was bleeding and whimpering.

  She put him out of his misery, fetching the knife from where it had fallen and plunging it through the top of his head.

  She crawled off the body, cat-like.

  Slater said, ‘Was all that really necessary?’

  ‘Remember,’ Ruby Nazarian said. ‘I grew up here. I know what these guards do when no one’s looking.’

  ‘Christ.’

  Slater lay back, in a world of agony, and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Hoping it was all a bad dream.

  Then Shien came sprinting out of the shadows and put her hands on his chest.

  93

  She whimpered.

  He opened his eyes, and smiled through bloody lips. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘You okay?’

  Shien frowned. ‘I’m fine. Look at you.’

  Slater turned his eyes to Ruby, completely at her mercy.

  She wasn’t at a hundred percent capacity. Nowhere close. Slater eyed her twisted nose, pointing in the wrong direction, freshly broken. And she seemed to be hunched over, tender around the mid-section. He wondered if he’d broken any of her ribs after all. Perhaps she was made of steel. Then again, it was entirely possible. Adrenalin was a miraculous thing. She could crash at any second, the stress chemicals replaced by the awareness of the damage inside her. But for now, she was holding up okay. And that was all that mattered. It seemed she hadn’t needed functioning ribs or the ability to breathe through her nose in order to kill the four men around them.

  Slater held his hands up. Palms out. Fingers splayed. Same gesture.

  Vulnerable to anything.

  She studied them both with a keen interest, her glowing eyes analysing and computing and figuring things out, and then she removed the knife from the last guard’s head, and she wiped it on her tracksuit and slotted it into a special holster at her waist.

  She said, ‘You two do what you need to do. I’ve given Shien the garage code.’

  And she walked straight past them, heading for the stairs.

  ‘Wait,’ Slater mumbled through bloody lips.

  She turned.

  Impatient.

  Eyebrows raised.

  She said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t you … want to talk … about all this?’

  She shrugged. ‘What is there to talk about?’

  ‘I mean … you had a change of heart … shouldn’t we at least discuss what happens now?’

  ‘Nothing happens now. Take the girl, and get the hell out of here. Isn’t that what you always wanted?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Ruby put her hands behind her back, and bowed her head, and locked those amber eyes onto his. Cat-like. ‘This isn’t your fight, my friend. This isn’t your story. You don’t get all the answers.’

  ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘There’s a narrow window, only a few inches above ground level, up the back. It’s not big enough for a man to fit through. But I got in okay.’

  ‘That’s what I thought about,’ Shien muttered. ‘When I said there might be another way out. But it was banked up with snow the last time I checked. She … must have cleared it. Before she did all this.’

  Shien lifted her gaze to the bloodbath all around them.

  ‘Don’t look at them,’ Slater said. ‘Look at me.’

  ‘I’ve seen dead men before.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘I’ll be okay.’

  ‘This isn’t what I wanted you to see.’

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ she repeated.

  He coughed, nearly hacking up blood, and she put a tiny hand behind his head to support him.

  He said, ‘This isn’t a world for a nine year old.’

  ‘Well, that’s good then. Because I’m ten.’

  He looked at her. And managed a weak half-smile. ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re a month late.’

  ‘I would have got here sooner … if I’d known.’

  Over Shien’s shoulder, Slater noticed Ruby shrinking into the shadows, creeping toward the staircase.

  ‘I know why you did it,’ he called.

  Ruby turned, and cocked her head. ‘Do you?’

&n
bsp; Like Mother had.

  ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘You might scratch the surface. But you’ll never really get a grip on all of it. Living in a place like this for most of your teenage life and being taught day and night that it’s the best thing, the right thing, the only thing. And then going out in the world and putting everything you learnt into practice and learning that there’s others, people like you, people who seem to have an off-switch. And suddenly realising that maybe spending your whole childhood around this particular set-up might have scrambled your wires. That’s just a sliver of what I’m dealing with.’

  ‘I didn’t kill you in that parking lot,’ Slater said. ‘That’s what tipped you over the edge.’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘You left a man by a tree. I passed him by on the way to the lodge. I left him there too. He’s not going anywhere. I think I’m going to pay him a visit. I think I’m going to have a one-on-one chat about all the things he did to me. The choices he made for me. I’m starting to realise a lot.’

  ‘If you need to talk…’

  She smirked, the amber blazing hot. ‘You’re just as screwed up as I am, Will. Maybe even more so. Because you chose this life all on your own. You weren’t manipulated into it like I was. No … talking’s not going to do it. But I’ll deal with the man who thought it was a good idea to put me here, and then I’m gone. Maybe back to Colombia. Or somewhere even more remote. I can support myself. It’s time to try and carve some kind of a life out of these circumstances. A normal one.’

  Silence.

  She said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. Maybe I don’t deserve it. Maybe I deserve a bodybag. After all the people I’ve killed. But that’s just something I’ll have to deal with. And if that’s really what you’re thinking, then you’re on no pedestal yourself.’

  ‘Actually,’ Slater said. ‘I’m not thinking anything at all. I don’t know what to think.’

  She nodded. ‘Good call.’

  ‘What about the rest of the kids?’

  ‘I’ll take care of them. Until the clean up crew arrives. They’ll probably have a few senior figureheads with them. I’ll have a talk to them about the program.’

  ‘You think you’ll change their minds?’

  ‘I doubt it. But I’ll try. They had to know it would lead to something like this eventually. All roads pointed to a bloodbath. Sooner or later.’

  ‘Watch out for yourself,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust anyone in Command. It’s a sociopathic career choice. In every sense of the word.’

  ‘I’ve always kept my wits about me.’

  ‘Just be careful.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Can you promise me one thing?’

  Ruby shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Stall them for long enough to let us get away. I’ve made an enemy of an entire country. At least, the only part of it that matters. The covert section. I’m dead to them, perhaps even worse than I used to be. I need a head start.’

  ‘I can give you that.’

  ‘And then get out of here. Don’t play around with them. You know as well as I do how they function.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous world.’

  ‘One last thing.’

  She said, ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to visit your family?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Seems like you already did that for me.’

  ‘They deserved to know.’

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ Ruby said. ‘I’m intent on getting as far away as humanly possible from that part of my life. I’ll cross half the world if I need to.’

  ‘You still hate them?’

  ‘I never hated them. Now I realise I never deserved them in the first place.’

  ‘They’d want to see you.’

  She smiled a sad smile, her broken nose twisting upward. ‘Not like this. Not what I am now.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Are your parents around?’

  ‘No,’ Slater said.

  ‘If they were … would you ever tell them the things you’ve done?’

  He looked around at all the blood. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to lie to them. So I should never see them again. They deserve my life to be an eternal “what-if.” Because anything they imagine is better than the reality.’

  ‘Okay,’ Slater said. ‘I hope you make peace with yourself.’

  ‘You too. Seems like that’s not your style, though.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘Maybe I need to change my ways.’

  Ruby paused, a long poignant quiet. She stared at Shien, her gaze intense. She didn’t blink.

  She said, ‘No. Don’t. Your ways are fine. You’ve saved one life, at least.’

  ‘Maybe two,’ Slater said.

  Staring at her.

  Ruby stared back.

  Then she nodded, slow and controlled, and it said everything that needed to be said.

  She turned her back on them and disappeared up the stairs.

  Never to be seen again.

  94

  Slater managed to pull it together long enough to feed Shien instructions.

  She retrieved a first aid kit from one of the shelves up the back of the room, and did her best work to stop the bleeding in his shoulder. Her hands shook as he pulled his jacket off sleeve by sleeve, and he reassured her as best he could, even though the crimson pooling around him on the concrete left ample room for worry. He couldn’t confirm whether the chill in the air was really as severe as he thought it was. The mind conjured all kinds of cheap tricks when it was depleted.

  He sat hunched over and warned her the results would be grisly.

  She shook her head, as if there was nothing more ludicrous.

  She peeled his stained undershirt up and gasped at the sight of the ragged flesh.

  ‘Told you,’ Slater said.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Can you push the skin together and wrap the gauze around it tight?’

  ‘Is that good enough?’

  ‘It’ll do for now.’

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘Until I get myself to a doctor.’

  ‘What will you do with me?’

  ‘I’ll figure that out on the road. For now, all we need to focus on is getting away from here.’

  She took a deep breath, suddenly pale in the weak light, and did her best to follow his commands. She jammed the skin together and looped the gauze bandage around it once, twice, three times, and Slater stared deep into the shadows and did everything he could to take his mind off the wound. Shien cut off a small piece of medical tape and sealed the bandage.

  He lowered and raised his arm.

  Good enough.

  It wouldn’t fall off for the next few days, at least.

  He wiped sweat off his brow, despite the chill, and put a hand on Shien’s shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I need to lean some of my weight on you.’

  He clambered to his feet. There was none of the athletic energy he’d utilised before — the threats were neutralised, and the danger had passed. His body had already dipped uneasily into the reserve bank, searching for something to latch onto, coming away with nothing.

  He tried not to look at his foot.

  ‘Where’s the garage?’ he muttered, lucid.

  ‘Do you need food and water?’ Shien said.

  Slater nodded, smacking his lips. ‘That’d be good. Garage first, though.’

  She nodded too.

  ‘Do you need to go upstairs for food and water?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Then don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Why? There’s no-one left. Just the other kids.’

  ‘That woman who just saved us is a complicated puzzle that I don’t want you running into again, even by chance. There’s no guarantee she’ll feel the same five minutes from now.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘She grew
up here.’

  ‘I don’t want to turn out like her, Will.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Slater said. ‘Not anymore.’

  Shien stood smaller than usual, her shoulders hunched.

  She’d seen a hell of a lot for a kid.

  But the shock would set in all the same.

  Slater aimed to be in a vehicle and on the open road by then.

  He hopped along the basement floor, heading for a darkened stretch of the room. Shien guided him by the hand, taking a considerable amount of his weight — far more than he ever expected.

  He grimaced and said, ‘You’re strong.’

  ‘Mother makes us exercise. Push ups and sit ups and running. So much of it. I was so sore, all the time. Then I got used to it.’

  ‘You get used to everything.’

  ‘Why did they make us do it?’

  ‘They wanted you strong. Suits the job they had in mind for you.’

  ‘What were they training us for, Will? Mother never said. She never explained. Some of the older girls knew, but they’d been told not to talk about it. I hate not knowing things.’

  ‘Maybe it’s best you never know.’

  ‘To be like you?’

  Slater nodded. ‘Something like that. Close enough.’

  ‘Is this how you became what you are? You’re a good guy, but I don’t like this.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be fun.’

  ‘Did you start as young as I am?’

  ‘No. I was an adult.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s why I came. To get you out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘If you want to be like me, that’s a choice you’ll have to make. But not for a long time.’

  ‘Thank you, Will.’

  ‘Where’s the garage?’

  ‘Right here.’

  Shien let go of his arm and darted over to a barely visible cutout in the wall, just large enough for a doorframe. He eyed a sleek metallic keypad, and her finger hovered over the buttons.