“Maybe,” Ray allowed after a moment. “I’m just glad you’re going to be OK. Daniel told me you’ll make a full recovery.”
“I’ll be good to go in a couple of weeks,” Pro announced, turning to face him. “Doc Adams said so.”
“Great.” Jason flashed him a thumbs-up. He reached over, grabbed a book from the pile on the side table, and tossed it onto Pro’s bed between his legs. “In the meantime, . . .”
“Come on!” Pro picked up the book and read the title. “Nostromo?”
“It’s a good book,” Ray said. “I used to have to sit around with nothing to do for days on end. Everything that guy wrote is good.”
“It’s like five hundred years old.”
Jason was about to correct Pro’s math, or maybe it had just been an assumption.
“Sure, it’s old,” Ray said. “People don’t change, though. That’s the point.”
Pro looked between them for a moment, regarding both of them with nothing but suspicion. “Daniel sent you?” Pro’s eyes narrowed. “Or was it Rachel?”
“No idea what you mean.” He smiled, having no problem whatsoever with letting one of them take the blame for forcing Pro to make time for some semblance of an education.
Rachel came into the room a few minutes later, pausing at the door when she saw Ray. She took a deep breath and let it out slow.
Ray nodded a greeting in her direction. “I’m told you’re one of the two I need to worry about. I am sorry this happened.”
Rachel took a moment to digest the words and lifted her chin towards him and Pro. “If they can forgive you, so can I.”
Jason spent longer than he probably should have just looking at her. Her hair was still wet from a shower, and she had an armful of clothes. She looked beautiful to him, and he was proud of her for giving Ray the benefit of the doubt.
Rachel offered a smile. “As for Michelle, I’d hire a food taster if I were you.”
“She’s fine,” Pro assured Ray. “I talked to her.”
Rachel flashed him a smile full of promise, and he found himself suddenly interested in getting this day over with as quickly as possible. Elsa had enough friends at the Ritz that she wouldn’t mind spending the night here again.
“You two should go,” Rachel said to him. “Pro isn’t nearly as strong as he thinks he is.”
“I’m right here . . .” Pro’s protestations aside, he agreed. Business first.
Once they were back in the hallway, Ray turned and stopped walking. “Thank you for that. People kept telling me the kid didn’t blame me, but . . .”
“I get it,” he answered. “Besides, that was a lot easier on both of us than hooking you up to a car battery or removing fingernails. I trust Daniel’s judgment; he’s developed a highly attuned asshole detector. I just needed to see for myself.”
Back in the elevator, Ray turned to him. “Maybe you should.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tune me up,” Ray said with a straight face. “That crazy bitch you guys have me locked up with doesn’t know what to make of me. She needs a new friend.”
“You’re serious?”
Ray chuckled to himself. “Maybe we could skip the whole fingernail thing, but rough me up a little and throw me back in there. I’m sure there are plenty of people here who think you will anyway.”
“Not my style,” he answered, shaking his head. “Daniel made sure everyone here knows what we are doing with you. No one blames you.”
Ray was silent for a long time. “That’s more than I expected.”
“These are good people,” he answered. “Which is why I’ll do anything to keep them safe. If I thought you were a threat to this place, I’d take you out. No fanfare, no torture, just—”
“Problem solved.” Ray sounded to him like he was speaking from experience.
“Something like that, yeah.”
They rode the rest of the way back up in silence until the elevator chimed on opening. “I meant what I said,” Ray offered. “I was taking punches in Scottish pubs when you were still in high school.”
“You worked there?”
“North Sea oil rigs; I was an undersea welder. My colleagues weren’t exactly choirboys.”
“You’re sure?”
Ray let out a slow breath and pointed down the hallway. “Outside their door. Let her hear it.”
“What about the others?”
Ray shook his head. “The old man is solid; he’s just worn out. He thinks Carla’s hiding something too. Tina?” Ray twirled a finger around his ear. “The girl’s criminally naive or just broken. I’m not sure she even realizes the world has moved on. Whatever they had going on, it was just Carla and Tom. I’m sure of it.”
They stopped a few doors away from the penthouse. He signaled Gabe and Reed to join them.
“Ray’s just volunteered for a discussion. You guys stay out of it. When it’s over, toss him back in the room . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
He just looked at Ray and cocked his head. “You’re sure?”
“Stop talking ab—”
Jason’s punch snapped Ray’s head back into the wall. He followed up with a quick jab as his target’s head rebounded. Ray, bleeding from a cut lip and nose, instinctively tried to move out of the way and then seemed to remember what was happening. Jason feinted high and drove a fist into the man’s gut, doubling him over. He delivered an open-hand slap to the face that nearly spun Ray around and left Jason holding his hand in pain.
He nodded at Reed, who grabbed Ray by the collar and frog-walked him up against the penthouse suite’s door. He held Ray’s face between his hands and looked at the man, who smiled back at him with bloody teeth. “You hit . . . like a girl.” The man drooled blood as he said it.
“Sorry,” he whispered back. He stepped in and delivered an elbow to the side of Ray’s face. His volunteer sagged against the door. Gabe had seen enough and pushed him away with one hand as he waved his keycard against the reader and flipped the door handle. Ray was barely on his feet, halfway to his ass, when his weight pushed the door open. He fell into the room, his legs still sticking out into the hallway. Reed gave him a confused look as he squeezed by and grabbed Ray by the armpits to pull him the rest of the way into the room.
Jason stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the other three occupants, the bloody knuckles of his right hand gripping the door frame. The old man glared back in anger, while his granddaughter sat in numbed silence. He looked at Ray on the floor like he was a dead mouse some cat had left by the front door. Carla was looking right at him, wheels turning behind a look of surprise.
Jason followed Reed into the room and knelt over Ray. He slapped the man hard enough to bring him back around. He glanced up at the others in the room before refocusing his attention on Ray’s bloodied face. “We’ll try this again tomorrow, and keep at it until one of you steps up and comes clean.”
“That was hard on you, wasn’t it?” They were finally alone, and Rachel sat with him on one of the couches in Dagman’s living room. She’d lifted the bag of ice off the top of his hand and frowned at the bruised and cut knuckles.
“It’s not too bad.” He tossed the bag of ice off and tried flexing his fingers. Nothing was broken, but he knew he’d gotten carried away with Ray. The frustration and blame for what had happened to Pro had come to the surface. If Gabe hadn’t intervened, he wondered if he would have stopped.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He knew what she’d meant. What did she want him to say? That for a moment, Ray’s face had become a stand-in for the fear that was gripping him? He wasn’t going to go there. It was bad enough that he knew it for the truth.
“I know.”
“Are you going to talk to me about it, or am I back in the land of people you don’t let in?”
He tried to smile. Those brown eyes of hers saw right through him. “I’m not that bad.”
Rachel reached out, grabbed his
bruised right hand, and cupped both of hers around it. She gave it one shake before holding it in her lap. “I’ve never seen you like this. You seem . . .”
“Scared?” He caught himself nodding. “You’re in, Rachel, believe me.” He reached up and pulled her into a long kiss. He felt her flinch in surprise as his half-frozen hand gripped the back of her neck. She fell against him as he wrapped his arms around her, and he pulled his face back.
“I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way again, and it scares the hell out of me. Not like you think, Rachel. I can’t imagine losing you. What we are doing here? I can’t keep you safe here; we’re just a big juicy target. We need to get small, or at least disperse—”
Rachel reached up and put a finger tight against his lips. “Stop talking.” She leaned back, pulled her shirt up and off in one quick motion, and dropped it to the floor. She leaned into him and kissed him again, this time longer.
“You’re sure?” he managed between breaths.
“About everything,” she answered with her face buried in his neck. “We have to do something about the ice-cold hand though.”
Chapter 12
Northern Virginia
“I’m going to bed,” Tina announced to the room. She was like that; didn’t matter if the girl had to pee, was hungry, or had a headache—the young woman assumed the world had a desire to know. When they’d been on the road as a group, it had annoyed Ray to no end. A week or so without having to deal with her inane comments must have lowered his tolerance. He caught himself biting down on what he wanted to say. Her grandfather was already asleep in the other room.
“You do that,” Carla fired back. Tina showed no sign that she’d even heard the comment. Once the bedroom’s door shut, Carla looked up at him from the opposite couch with as much concern as he’d ever seen on her face.
“Can I get you another glass of water? More ice?” The suite’s tiny freezer had one ice tray in it that he’d put to good use on his face.
“I’d kill for a real drink.” His scabbed-over lips felt swollen and pulled tight with every word.
“You and me both.” Carla tried to smile. It looked as unnatural as it did awkward. At the moment, she reminded him of one of the nuns from his childhood. There’d been a couple of them at St. Bart’s Catholic school, who had apparently felt that smiling or speaking a kind word were akin to breaking their vows. He’d complained once about them to his mom, and she’d said they were a type—all they had was their faith, and it was so strong that anything else felt like a betrayal to them. “It’s all they have,” his mom had explained.
It was a strange thing to recall right now. He hadn’t moved off the couch all day, and his fellow prisoners had left him alone. It was as if speaking to him would somehow throw them under suspicion. Carla, though, had cleaned up his face, and when dinner had been brought up to them, she’d told him to stay put and had brought his tray to him. It was so out of character for the woman that she’d seemed embarrassed by the simple act.
What is it that you believe in, lady? “I’m good, thanks. Not the first time I’ve had my face danced on.”
“Was it Jason who did that to you?”
He gave a short nod in answer.
“What did he ask you?”
He shook his head slowly. “I think something might have happened to Tom; they can’t find him. He figured I might have heard something from you all. They know I wasn’t here when he went missing. I was with Gabe and Reed.”
“He thinks we did something to him?”
He shrugged in response and let out a deep breath. “He didn’t do a lot of talking.”
Carla just looked at him for a moment. She reached for his water glass and walked away with it into the kitchenette. When she brought it back to him, she tried that forced smile again.
“We’ll get out of here . . .” Carla nodded at him as if reaching a decision. “I’m going to need your help.”
“We get out of here, I’m on my way to Georgia.”
“I can beat Georgia.”
“No offense, but I doubt that. I know I haven’t been anything but an extra gun for you, since Sammy found me. Don’t bullshit me, Carla. What is it you want?”
She nodded at him again. “When we get out of here.”
“What makes you think we will?”
“Because I know we didn’t do anything to Tom.”
He tried to smile as he pointed at his face. “I get the feeling they already know that. It didn’t stop the asshole from going to town on my face.”
Carla leaned down and patted his knee like he was the new neighbor’s dog. “Mark my words, when we’re out of here, you and I are going to have a talk.”
Wonderful. One more thing he didn’t want to wait for before he could be on his way to Georgia. “If I get out of here,” he repeated, “I’m gone the first chance I get. You’ll have to do better than that.” He’d been right; with Tom gone, the woman was desperate for a partner in whatever they’d had going. He closed his eyes, figuring he’d let Carla stew for a while. He wasn’t going to show the least interest in whatever she was hinting at. Carla was so squirrely it would be the worst thing he could do.
“Right now, I just want to sleep.”
“Oh, OK. Sure,” Carla agreed, sounding almost surprised that he didn’t want to talk to her. “If you need anything, just yell. I’ll be up for a bit.”
He didn’t answer, just flashed her an upraised thumb.
The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by Carla.
“I need to talk to you . . .”
He rubbed his eyes against the harsh light of the lamp she’d turned on. “Can it wait till morning?”
“It really can’t.” Carla sounded almost desperate. She’d worked herself up with worry. “If they come for me tomorrow, I might not come back.”
He didn’t have to pretend he was clearing cobwebs out of his head as he rubbed his face, looking at her between his splayed fingers.
“You said you didn’t know anything about Tom.” He threw her own words back at her.
“I don’t know what happened to him. I just know what he was doing.” Carla stood up and paced in a circle at the end of his couch.
“What are you talking about?”
She stopped her pacing and turned to face him with her fists planted on her hips. “Tom and I are from a community in Charlottesville.” She nodded to herself excitedly and held her arms apart. “A really big community.”
Ray opened his hands on his lap. “So?”
Carla smiled again; it was the first time since he’d met her months ago that the light behind her eyes truly came on. And then she started talking.
By the time she was done, Ray was certain of three things. One, Carla was shit-house-rat crazy. This was not new information to him, but the woman had talked about Charlottesville like it was some sort of heaven on earth, led by the female version of George Washington. Carla could have been one of the nuns his mother had warned him of; messianic was the word that sprang to mind.
Two, this community of Tysons was on the New Republic’s to-do list, and there was shit-all these people here could do to stop them. Three, any sliver of a chance he’d maintained, regarding sticking it out with these folks, evaporated. He was halfway to Georgia in his head as he told Carla he’d keep her secret.
*
East of Richmond, Virginia
“I saw the same drone footage as you did.” Captain Naylor waved at the now blank screen at the head of the classroom, in the otherwise empty and quiet junior high school that they had made their temporary base. “I still don’t know what to think. For all we know, what we saw . . . was a reprisal for something we didn’t. Are we supposed to play judge and jury here?”
“We know what we saw,” Gunny Bruce spoke up. “There is no way that group in Richmond was big enough to have started any shit with the group that rolled on them. I think it’s clear who the aggressors were.”
Drew nodded at both men’s comm
ents. They were both right. The gunny and Pavel’s recon group had made it back to them in time to watch the drone catch the last of the vehicles in the line leaving Richmond turn off of I-64 at Charlottesville. The lowboy tractor trailer carrying the Abrams was far too heavy for the interchange overpass, and they’d watched it unload directly from the interstate and then follow the tank as it rolled the final three miles across terrain to the UVA campus. The tank had rolled into a field full of military vehicles; most of them were older Humvees and some JLTVs, but there had been a line of Bradleys sporting different configurations next to another Abrams.
By then, it was evident that a significant population was making the former college campus home. It was by far the single largest concentration of humanity they’d seen or heard of since arriving back in the continental US. To Skirjanek, it was a blessing, what he’d been hoping for; somebody else had preserved something, kept people together. Then the drone had observed and transmitted the images of the school buses unloading the former Richmond residents into the tent city set up within the football stadium at the edge of campus. They’d all seen the armed guards surrounding the stadium.
He turned to Pavel. “What do you think?”
“The gunnery sergeant is correct. The people within the city concentrated on defensive fortifications. They were not effective against those who attacked. They did not have capability for offensive operations.”
“Sir, the stadium?” Gunny Bruce asked. “What’s that all about? Nobody was given a choice between staying and getting on the fu—freaking bus, sir. They were POWs.”
He could think of several ways to explain the stadium. Not all of them were as laden with negatives as the gunny was intimating; many were, but not all.
“Triage?” he suggested and gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Call it induction processing, separating out the troublemakers, or medical quarantine. From what we can tell from the drone, everyone walking freely around the campus appears armed. This looks like a community, not a prison.”
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 11