Scar Tissue

by Samantha Simard

  “Fuck me,” Wolfe muttered before he put the comm in his ear, doing his best to ignore the sticky feeling of someone else’s earwax touching his own. “Aiden? It’s me, it’s Jim. Listen to me, you don’t want to do this—turn around and walk away.”

  “I can’t,” Aiden replied, a thin quality to his voice that Wolfe didn’t like. “This is my fault, it’s all my fault.”

  “The only person to blame is Anton, man.” Wolfe felt sweat on the back of his neck and under his arms and yanked off his jacket, rolling up the sleeves on his dress shirt. “And I promise you, I’m going to find a way to bring him to justice. But stepping in front of Laine right now? That’s suicide and you know it.”

  No response. Aiden had dropped the comm.

  Wolfe dragged a hand over his mouth and ripped the comm from his ear, handing it back to Peter. “Goddammit, the last thing we needed was another freewheeler. He’s going to get himself killed.”

  “Peter,” David started, patting Wolfe on the back, “where did your guys store their extra gear? You must’ve brought SMGs—” subcompact machine guns “—at the very least, right?”

  “We did,” Peter said as Frankie and Jake slipped back into the ballroom, rejoining the huddle when they got close. “There should be bags of weapons stockpiled in all the closets off the main hallways.”

  “I’d say that sounds like overkill, but right now I’m grateful for it,” Lottie commented.

  “Power won’t be coming back on anytime soon,” Frankie said, holding up a large knife by the handle. “She drove this into the middle of the breaker box and fried everything.”

  Everyone was quiet for as they absorbed that.

  “As much as I don’t want to be the guy in the horror movie who suggests we split up to cover more ground,” Flynn said, “I think that’s exactly what we need to do.”

  “Are you sure that is a good idea?” Sebastian asked, raising a critical eyebrow. He was twirling a butterfly knife between his fingers, the blade spinning in a gleaming arc but never touching his skin. “It’s usually how everyone except the B-list celebrity dies.”

  “You’re both right.” Wolfe wasn’t wild about the fact that Sebastian was there—and from the look on Constantin’s face neither was he—but he was capable of defending himself. “We’ll split up into pairs—I’m presuming there’s extra comms in these caches?” When Peter nodded, he continued, “Then when everybody finds comms, get online and we’ll coordinate from there. If anybody’s not online in ten minutes, we presume they’re engaging a hostile. Be careful.”

  ~***~

  “You know, when you asked me to be your date to this wedding, I thought we’d at least get to dance,” Diana said as she and David crept down a carpeted hallway. She had a stun baton held down along her leg, a long lock of black hair hanging over her shoulder where it had slipped free of her chignon. “But no, somehow these formal events always end in bloodshed.”

  “Maybe we bring the violence with us?” David suggested, regretting not ignoring Caitlin’s decree against guns. Something occurred to him and he put his free hand out to stop Diana. “Wait… you wanted to dance with me?”

  Diana glanced at him before quickly looking away to peer around the corner. “Yes, I did. I have wanted to… dance with you for a long time, actually. You just never noticed.”

  David was ninety percent sure he wasn’t misinterpreting what his partner was telling him and felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. “D… I want you to know, it hasn’t always been like this. When you were younger I never would’ve—”

  She smacked him in the gut. “David, don’t be stupid—I know that. You’re not some creepy old man, and I am not a little girl anymore.” They reached the closet and she tried the knob, both of them breathing a sigh of relief when it turned. Slipping into the closet she tugged David with her and turned on the light inside, shutting the door behind them before looking up at him with those big hazel eyes. “I am not good at feelings, you know this.”

  David’s mouth was dry and his palms were sweaty. “Dijana…” he said softly, reaching out to push that errant lock of hair behind her ear. “Maybe once this is over, we can—”

  An explosion rocked the building, making them stumble and almost fall on the oversized black duffle bag on the floor.

  “That must be Laine’s idea of a distraction,” Diana said, unzipping the bag and pulling out two M4 carbines and a couple of in-ear communicators. As soon as she had her comm in, she tapped it and asked, “Peter, do you copy?”

  “I’m here,” Scarlett’s father replied. “I’m with Frankie and Jake, we were headed to block the main entrance when we heard the explosion.”

  “Keep going,” David told him, slipping an extra magazine of ammo into his pocket just in case. “We’ll go check out the blast site.”

  ~***~

  In a closet off the hallway that ran behind the hotel kitchen, Scarlett knelt down and unzipped a duffle bag exactly like the one David and Diana had found. She heard Wolfe’s sharp intake of breath when he saw the weapons the bag contained—M4 carbines, the same kind of gun he used when he was a Ranger. She grabbed one and held it up to him, trying to be casual about it even though she knew this was a delicate situation.

  Wolfe took the gun from her after a moment’s hesitation, one scarred hand folding around the grip, the other one settling in the groove between the magazine and the handguard around the barrel. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Scarlett, I…”

  She stood with her own gun held at port-arms and looked into his eyes. “Haven’t held one of these bad boys since the Sandbox, huh?”

  He shook his head and licked his lips. “I started carrying a handgun—never even crossed my mind to get one of these.” Wolfe’s voice dropped to something low and pained: “I spent so much time trying not to stick it in my mouth and pull the trigger back then.”

  Scarlett knew that already, but hearing it said aloud still made her shut her eyes briefly, an ache behind her breastbone. “Well, I’m damn fucking glad you didn’t,” she said, her own voice staying miraculously steady. “And the sooner we figure out where Laine is, the sooner you can put that thing down. But she’s got high-powered weaponry, so it’s only fair that we do too.”

  Wolfe cleared his throat. “Whatever rifle she has isn’t as big as the last one—can’t be if it’s silenced—but it was enough to take out all of Peter’s men and knock Patrick halfway across the ballroom. She’ll be up high, probably waiting to see if Christopher reappears… the question is where?”

  Scarlett stuck a comm in her ear and did the same for Wolfe, pinching his cheek at the same time. “I don’t know, but we need to find her first. That boob isn’t getting shot on my watch.”

  ~***~

  “What did Scarlett and Wolfe say when you told them about Sang’s plan?” Constantin asked as he and Sebastian walked cautiously down a hallway near the interior balcony on the second floor, which overlooked the lobby. Neither of them had turned on their comms yet. “I know that is why you wanted to meet with them at their office.”

  “They were surprisingly amenable,” Sebastian said, adjusting his hold on the M4. He’d done some target shooting with a gun like this in the past, but being prepared to use it on a person was a different animal. “Anton has caused Jim plenty of grief, and Scarlett is loyal to him—plus in case you haven’t noticed, she understands what is like to have a father who’s an asshole.”

  Constantin nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. Are they going to help us?”

  “Yes.” Sebastian glanced at his bodyguard as they rounded a corner. “They said they could get Frogger to—rahat!” The slip into vulgar Romanian was caused by a collision with two people that he recognized as Flynn Walker and Lottie Tran—and thankfully he and Constantin were recognized in return, so nobody got shot. “Damn, you scared us. I take it you have not found her?”

  “Nope,” Flynn said, the lines around his eyes tightening grimly. “Heard that explosion, though. C
an’t decide if it was a distraction or her blastin’ her way outta here.”

  “She doesn’t have demolitions experience, right?” Lottie asked. She shifted her stance and Sebastian saw the faintest shadow of movement behind her. “Because if she does, then—”

  The butt of a modular rifle struck Lottie in the back of the head before Sebastian could warn her and she hit the floor, unconscious. Flynn was turning when the gun cracked against Lottie’s skull, but he was at a bad angle to use the M4 in his hands. Laine dropped her gun in favor of grabbing the barrel of his and used it to yank him forward so she could head-butt him hard enough to stun and followed that up with a chop of her hand to his throat.

  Constantin shouted for Sebastian to get behind him, but that was all he managed to do since Flynn’s body blocked his shot in the instant it would’ve been effective. Laine wrenched Flynn’s M4 out of his hands and swung it around like a bat, clipping Constantin across the face and sending him careening into Sebastian, who couldn’t fire without risking hitting someone else. He went down in a heap underneath Constantin’s considerable bulk, the wind knocked out of his lungs.

  Laine turned the M4 around and shoved the stock against her shoulder, raising it so it was level with Constantin’s head, but someone rounding the corner caught her attention and she froze. Sebastian twisted around as much as he could and saw Aiden Parker standing at the end of the corridor, his hands raised in supplication and sweat shining on his forehead under the flare of the emergency lights.

  “Lainey,” he said, his voice cracking with what Sebastian suspected was fear given his last encounter with his sister. “Please, stop. You don’t have to do this.”

  Laine’s head tilted to one side, and while her aim at Constantin did not waver she was looking at Aiden with an unsettling, almost reptilian stare. “I don’t know you. Go away.”

  “But you do—” Aiden started, and then he made a frustrated sound. “I’m your brother, you idiot! God, why do you always have to be so stupid—?”

  BOOMBOOMBOOM from the M4 in Laine’s hands, so loud Sebastian thought it burst his eardrums for a moment. He watched in horror as Aiden’s body was riddled with bullets—two in the chest and one in the head, right between his wide-open eyes. Movement at the end of the hall beyond Aiden’s corpse as it fell signaled the arrival of Wolfe and Scarlett, their big guns raised and aimed at Laine who turned and fled at the sight of them.

  Wolfe started to run after her but paused for a half-second at Sebastian’s side, fingertips grazing his forehead. “You okay?”

  Sebastian nodded, gasping in a relieved breath as Scarlett moved Constantin off of him. “I’m fine. Go.”

  Wolfe touched Scarlett’s shoulder. “Help them.”

  Then he was gone.

  ~***~

  Sometimes when Jim Wolfe was awake, he was terrified he was dreaming.

  This was one of those times.

  Running down a cramped corridor in near-darkness surrounded by doors that could conceal any kind of threat felt exactly the same in New Hampshire as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a second he forgot he was wearing the remnants of a tuxedo and instead felt the weight of a helmet on his head and gear on his body, the rifle in his hands merely an extension of a tool designed to kill.

  He turned another corner and ran into Laine, who had her feet planted for the impact and her stolen M4 raised horizontally to fend off Wolfe’s incoming body weight. He put the brakes on at the last second but while he stumbled to try and keep his balance Laine was throwing her gun aside and wrenching Wolfe’s away to do the same. He feinted back in time to avoid her fist as it swung at his face, but just barely, and her follow-up kick caught him square in the chest and sent him reeling.

  “You,” Laine snarled, throwing another kick that Wolfe managed to sidestep. “Why do you keep showing up in my head? Why are you so fucking important?”

  “Because you saved my life,” Wolfe replied. The next time she swung a fist his way he blocked it and grabbed her wrist, spinning her and bending her arm behind her back. “You need to remember, Laine—if you don’t Anton wins, and the woman I knew would never want that.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” was her response, and then she flipped him forward over her shoulder to break the hold. “And you’re going to die that way.”

  Wolfe rolled to avoid the boot she tried to stomp down on his head and sprang to his feet, adrenaline flowing now, every part of his body tuned to the fight like an antenna. While it was true that Wolfe was larger and stronger than Laine, her smaller size made her quicker and being female put her center of gravity much lower than his own. The latter was something Wolfe could exploit, but he’d only get one opportunity to do it, and if he fucked up he had no doubt she would make good on her promise. He stepped backward and turned abruptly, so the roundhouse kick that Laine aimed at his head fell short—but not short enough that Wolfe couldn’t grab her leg with both hands. He pivoted and threw her to the ground, wincing when her head hit the concrete floor.

  She didn’t move right away, and for a second Wolfe was afraid he’d killed her. He also thought she might be playing dead, so he didn’t approach her prone form, choosing to call out to her instead: “Laine?”

  Her body twitched and she pushed herself up with her arms, slow and unsteady, head bowed toward the carpet.

  “Wolfe?” she asked, and that flat quality in her voice was gone, replaced by the kind of trembling horror that made the hair on the back of Wolfe’s neck stand up. “Where am I? What…” She trailed off, one hand going to her forehead before moving higher, fingers fisting in her hair. “Oh God… oh my God, I k-killed him.” Her next words came out as a barely-audible whisper: “I killed my brother.”

  “Laine, it’s not your fault, it wasn’t you—” Wolfe started.

  Her hand was reaching, stretching out pale-white against the green of the carpet as she grasped for one of the M4s. Wolfe felt a spike of fear race up his spine and took a half-step toward her but because he was so far away, and it seemed like he lurched in slow motion while she moved at full speed. He knew what was going to happen and couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it, his mouth opening to beg her to change her mind—

  A single BOOM from the M4 that Laine stuck under her chin, and Wolfe was sprayed with blood and brains and bone as he watched her body fall backward, the gun following suit a second later. He fell to his knees beside her and was helpless to do anything but stare as the wail of police sirens filled the air.

  ~***~

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When the sun rose the following morning, the wedding party plus a few others crowded into Patrick’s room in Memorial Hospital in North Conway, about thirty miles from the Mount Washington Hotel. Haphazardly packed suitcases leaned against the walls or served as beds for small children, and several people were asleep on the floor. Orderlies and nurses stepped over them to get in and out of Patrick’s room, miraculously not waking anyone in their non-skid shoes.

  After what happened at the reception some of the guests—including Jake, Lacey and Samuel, and a few others—chose to rent cars instead of waiting for the chartered buses that would come to get them later in the day. Those who chose to stay as moral support but didn’t fit in the room were relegated to a waiting area down the hall, and from what Wolfe had heard the chairs were uncomfortable but they were close to the coffee machine.

  He sat in the hall right next to the door with his phone in his hands when Scarlett approached him with a couple of generic paper cups in her hands. “Josh grabbed a car and head back to Boston early too,” he reported, taking the ridiculously hot cup of watery coffee from his partner. “Philanthropy never rests.”

  “Is he going back to Greece?” she asked, sitting next to him on the floor. Licking her thumb, she wiped away a speck of blood Wolfe had missed when he cleaned himself up. “Hear it’s nice this time of year.”

  He shook his head. “Nope, says he’s done with Doctors Without Borders, but he has an
interview with the American Red Cross later today.”

  “Good for him.” They lapsed into silence for a moment. “How are you?”

  “Honestly? Shitty as hell.” Wolfe cradled the cup in both of his hands and shifted enough to rest his head on her shoulder. “Watching Laine… kill herself, it was like the cherry on top of a PTSD sundae. And I don’t like sundaes.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sebastian said, coming out of the room across the hall, where Constantin was being treated for a grade three concussion. “Everybody likes ice cream.” He sat down on Wolfe’s other side and peeled one of his hands off the cup to kiss the back of it. “Scarlett, back me up here.”

  Wolfe saw Scarlett’s lips curl into a smile out of the corner of his eye. “Our intern is right, Jimmy. Even Timothy McVeigh liked mint chocolate chip.”

  “That was his last meal,” Wolfe countered, but he felt himself smiling too. “I don’t know if that helps or hurts your position. How’s Constantin, Bash?”

  “Whining, as you can imagine,” Sebastian replied with a roll of his eyes. “He has gotten your mother to agree to play nurse for him… I think he plans on staying over at her house once they release him from here.”

  Wolfe shuddered theatrically. “I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole. Like… if Ma’s happy, I’m happy, but I don’t need to know what’s happening there.”

  “I don’t think anybody wants to know about a parent’s sex life,” Christopher commented as he and Melissa came back from their own coffee run, Kamienski and Silent Mark trailing behind them. The Republican gubernatorial candidate had fired Peter as soon as the cops showed up at the hotel, and the men from Vaughn Securities had gone back to New York with their tails between their legs. “Well, except maybe in every Greek myth ever.”

  “You have a point,” Scarlett said, “and it’s not on the top of your head.” She raised an eyebrow when Christopher took in a breath to speak, adding, “To answer the question you’re about to ask, no, Jimmy and I won’t work for you again. No more jobs for family, even if they’re the black sheep.”