Her body shook; a drop of water fell and struck my suit, sliding down its exterior. A tear. “I refuse to say goodbye,” she said. “Because that would imply that there’s a possibility I’ll never see you again. That’s not something I’ll ever acknowledge. So, I’m going to say see you soon.”
“See you soon,” I answered her, smiling.
“You’d better kick some ass out there.”
“I’ll try not to let you down.” With that, I let her body slide away from my grasp, stood up from her bed, and after a final glance back at her, walked out of her room.
*****
“If I turn myself in, it would buy you all some more time to regroup and formulate a cohesive plan,” Marshall Leitner pondered. He stared out of the partially boarded window of an abandoned factory to which his small group of rebels had made a hasty retreat. Outside, soldiers stormed a bookstore—the rebel’s former hideout—just blocks away. An informant for the rebellion had made it to them with news of the raid only minutes before the first shots were fired and the door kicked in. Too close for comfort for most of them.
“Don’t say that,” Brad , a former soldier turned rebel, said in response. “You’re the heart of this organization. If we were to lose you, I’m afraid what little hope we may have of winning this war would be vanquished, along with the rebellion completely.”
“They want me,” Marshall said, “and they’ll kill you all to get to me. Brooks wants to make an example out of everyone who has spoken out against him. If he were to have both Delaney and I in custody—if he were to execute us in public—he’ll most likely gain complete control over the country indefinitely. I’m the final nail in our group’s coffin.”
“Which is exactly why we need you alive.”
“All the people he’s killed while looking for me in just the last several days, it’s not worth their sacrifice. I can’t allow myself to be the reason for the slaughter of innocent people.”
The sky lit up, glowing a bright orange, as the bookstore was set ablaze. Other members of the rebellion slowly trickled to the windows along the side of the factory to catch a glimpse of the action.
“Look at them,” Brad said. “Each and every one of them depends on you. Even my own soldiers have grown to look up to you in the short time they’ve known you. Your death would kill more of them than Brooks ever could.”
Marshall nodded, still watching the mayhem unfold outside. “Then I will try and stay alive for as long as possible.”
Chapter Ten
Choices
I ran down the halls of The Epicenter, not bothering to look back; not because I thought it would change my mind in any way, but because I thought it would slow me down. When I first arrived here, I thought I would be making a difference in the world. Sure, I’d based most of my decision to come on my own selfish desire to be the one responsible for stopping The Man in Black, ultimately avenging my family’s murder. But at that point I hadn’t experienced even a fraction of what was really going on in the world. I’d allowed my own emotions to blind me to the pain around me, not realizing that there were others who were suffering just as much—if not more—than I was. That’s the funny thing with insight, it makes you completely change the way you look at things. Pain turns to healing. Despair turns to compassion. Anger turns to determination.
My feet hit the concrete of the garage, and the virtual fleet of vehicles was spread out before me. I knew I wanted something that was not only fast, but small and easily maneuverable. A motorcycle. That was my only choice. The lines of cars flew by me in a blur before I veered off to the right toward the line of motorcycles. It was hard to believe that I wouldn’t even have considered riding one of them almost a year ago, let alone sprinting to a cluster of them, trying to determine which one would make the fastest getaway.
And then I saw it. The motorcycle I’d ridden on with Blake the night my life changed forever. If that wasn’t poetic justice, then I didn’t know what was. I grabbed the bike’s handles and pulled it out from its place in the line. In a hurry, I threw my leg over its seat, nearly toppling it and myself over in the process. When I’d regained my composure, I found the keypad and began typing in my passcode. The screen on the keypad glowed green as it processed my number.
“Come on. Come on,” I urged it impatiently. Seconds later, a message appeared on the screen: Unauthorized. “What?” My fingers rushed to key in the numbers again. Perhaps I had hit a wrong number or missed one by mistake. But just as soon as I reentered my numbers, the same message appeared on the screen. “Shit,” I fumed, striking the exterior of the bike with the palms of my hands. “No, this can’t be. Why doesn’t my passcode work?” In an act of desperation, I began typing in the passcode again, only to be cut short by a hand forcefully tugging my arm away from the keypad.
“The least you could have done was say goodbye,” Ian said, anger, frustration and hurt all evident in the tone of his voice.
“Ian, I –Wait, how did you—” Anger rose from within me. I’d been betrayed by my sister. “Damn it, Kara.”
“Maybe you weren’t going to give me the right to choose, but she had no qualms about it.”
“You can’t go,” I said in desperation. The pain in his eyes was evident, which made my heart sink into the pit of my stomach. “If you go, you’ll be hunted down, if not by Victor, then by Brooks and his soldiers. Ian, your life from here on out will be nothing short of hell.”
“Don’t you understand?” he said, a small laugh escaping his lips. “If I let you go without going with you, my life will be nothing short of hell. Either way, I’m condemned to damnation, but it would be a far more bearable fate if I could face it with you.”
“Well, when you put it like that—”
“I just don’t understand why you don’t see that.” He squatted down so that we were face to face, our masks raised, hiding nothing. My heart beat erratically from the combination of adrenaline and feelings my brain didn’t want to process quite yet. “We’re partners, Celaine. And even though I appreciate you looking out for me, I want to at least have a right to make my own choices.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Ian, I’m leaving. Do you want to come with me?”
“Oh, wow, that’s—that’s quite a decision,” he said, standing up. “Can I have a little bit of time to think about it?”
“We’ve been partners for far too long, I think I’m starting to rub off on you.”
“There’s no such thing as too long with you.” He smiled, pulling his mask down over his face as he strode to the motorcycle next to where mine had been. “By the way,” he called back to me, “if I die, I’m totally holding you accountable.”
“That’s crossing the line there, partner,” I said, trying not to laugh. Ian pulled the bike—a black one that appeared iridescent in nature, turning almost blue in certain angles—out of the line and walked with it until he was positioned next to me. “So what am I supposed to do? Ride with you? Hitch hike?”
“Try keying in your passcode now.”
I glanced up at him inquisitively and noticed the unmistakable smirk his lips had formed. Annoyed, I followed his instructions and keyed in my code. This time, the motorcycle roared to life.
“Kara temporarily disabled your code to give me time to catch up to you,” he said.
“What? That sneaky, conniving—”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Point taken. We need to get going. I want to put some distance between us and here before Victor finds out we’re gone.”
“Agreed.” Ian typed in his code, prompting his motorcycle to spring to life. “What’s the plan?”
“We’ll make it up as we go.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to get us killed.”
“Remember, it was your decision.” I sped off on the bike, with Ian taking off right behind me.
We rounded the corner, passing the rows of Epicenter cars, heading toward the tunnel to make our escape. But as we got closer, a
figure stepped out in front of us, forcing us both to brake and the motorcycles to skid to a stop just feet from the tunnel.
In front of us stood Cameron, sweat beading on his forehead, a gun held firmly in his hand, aimed directly at us.
*****
Chase glanced up at the clock in the cafeteria of Hope Memorial Hospital. Eight o’clock; only three hours remained before his shift was scheduled to end. Outside the various food stations, vendors lowered the barred doors to their establishments, locking them for the night.
Nearly all of the tables around where he sat by himself, picking at the remnants of a turkey sandwich, had emptied as visitors left for the day and hospital staff went back to their posts. Minutes later, only he and a lone straggler remained seated in silence.
On the outside, he seemed to have it all together, but on the inside, his mind was racing. In a few weeks, he would no longer be able to check ‘single’ on his tax forms; in a few weeks, his last name would be given to someone else; in a few weeks, everything he always told himself he ever wanted would come to fruition. Then why am I not happy? he thought, pushing away the sandwich he’d managed to absentmindedly mangle between his fingers.
She left me, his mind told him again. She left me, and I moved on. I have moved on, haven’t I? It’s jitters. I’m having last-minute jitters. That’s all it is. I would have had the same feelings if I had married her. I would have had the same feelings—
Would I have had the same feelings?
Chase closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and held it for a moment before he let it back out. This is right. This is right. I know this is right. I love her, and she loves me.
I love her?
“Ah,” he moaned.
“Everything okay, doctor?”
Chase opened his eyes and turned his head in the direction of the man’s voice. Next to him, a man—middle aged, possibly older—had taken up residence one table over. “Yeah,” he answered him, embarrassed. “Just a migraine.”
“Dreadful, those things are,” the man answered him. “I get them from time to time myself.” He was unusually well-dressed for a hospital visitor, leading Chase to surmise that the man had probably stopped in to visit his loved one after a day at the office. As if noticing Chase’s assessment, the man removed his hat and placed it on the table near the seat next to him. “I was actually going to grab a bite to eat,” he said, “but it appears as though I’m a few minutes too late.”
“I know a few of the vendors,” Chase said, sliding his chair away from the table. “Maybe I can pull a few strings and see if I can get one of them to open up their doors so you can grab something real quick.”
“Oh, no, no,” the man said. “Really, that is very kind of you, but I couldn’t ask for such a favor. Besides, I’m really not that hungry; nothing that a vending machine won’t cover, anyway. I was just here visiting my dear mother. She suffered a heart attack yesterday, but seems to be recovering quite well, and I just lost track of the time.”
“Are you sure?” Chase asked, pulling his chair back up to the table. “Really, it’s not a problem at all.”
“Certainly, but I do appreciate your asking. My, my,” the man said, looking around, “they’ve really done an impressive job rebuilding the hospital since the explosion last year.”
“Yeah, it’s remarkable how quickly they were able to pull it off, but Hope Memorial is a very well-respected hospital, so everyone banded together to bring it back better than ever.”
“Yes, it would have been a shame to see this place turn to ash,” the man muttered. “So tell me, young doctor, what’s on your mind?”
“What?” Chase asked, the man’s question having caught him off guard.
“I’m sorry to pry. You just looked so intense sitting there by yourself.”
“Oh, you know, the usual.”
“Women? Someone in particular, perhaps?” The man pressed on. Chase remained silent, his head bowed as though contemplating a response. “I’m sorry,” the man spoke again. “It appears as though I’ve overstepped my bounds. I was just trying to see if I could be of any help. I’m a doctor myself, actually.”
Chase looked up at the man, his expression softening. “That’s okay,” he said. “Yes, you could say it involves a woman. I’m getting married in a few weeks.”
“Oh?” The stranger seemed unusually shocked by his answer. “Have you been with your fiancé long?”
“No, that’s just it, I haven’t. You know, it’s funny because only a year ago I was planning on marrying someone else, but that—that didn’t work out.”
“She broke it off?”
“You could say that,” he answered. “She more or less disappeared off the face of this planet.”
“Really? How so?”
“I don’t know. One day everything’s fine; the next day, she’s telling me she’s been offered a job across the country and she’s leaving me.”
“Well, that is certainly suspicious.”
“I don’t know about suspicious. You just have to know her. She’s impulsive, but she knows who she is and what she wants. I just wasn’t it.”
“She sounds like a real character,” the man muttered. “So, this marriage is something you want?”
“I want marriage. I just—”
“Wanted it with her?”
“Yeah,” Chase admitted after some hesitation. “That’s exactly what the problem is.”
“Interesting.” The man smiled. “And when is the wedding to take place?”
“In June. June seventh.”
“Here in town?”
“Yeah, at The Woodland Lodge a few blocks down.”
“Well, that is a conundrum. But who knows, maybe it will all work out in the end, and your ex-girlfriend will return to you somehow.”
“No. She’s gone. I’m sure I’ll never see her again.”
“I wouldn’t say that just yet,” the man said, standing up. “If I may ask, what is your name, doctor?” he asked, extending his arm out toward Chase. “We’ve been chatting for long enough now that I feel we should be properly introduced.”
“Chase,” he answered. “Chase Matthews.” He took the man’s hand and shook it. “I’m sorry, what’s your name, sir?”
“Victor,” he answered. “You can just call me Victor.”
“Victor, I appreciate the chat, and I wish your mother a full recovery.”
“Thank you, Dr. Matthews, that’s very kind of you,” he said. “I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.”
“Well, let’s hope not,” Chase replied, laughing.
“Indeed.” Victor smiled sardonically as he turned around to walk out of the cafeteria.
“Nice man,” Chase said to himself. He pushed his chair in as he turned around to pick up the dismembered sandwich, noticing an object out of the corner of his eye. The man had forgotten to take his hat with him before he left. Swiftly, Chase grabbed it off the table and ran in the direction the man had gone. But when he reached the hallway, there was no sign of him, even though he’d only left seconds before. “Wow, he’s fast.”
An idea occurred to Chase, and he did an about-face to head toward the elevators, where he rode up to the intensive care unit. When the doors opened, he strode up to the nurses’ station, hat in hand.
“Hello, Dr. Matthews,” one of the night shift nurses, Laura, greeted him. “What brings you our way?”
“I met a man in the cafeteria just now. He left and forgot to take this.” Chase plopped the hat down on the counter. “He said his mother is up here recovering from a heart attack, so I’m sure he’ll be coming back here soon to see her.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Matthews, are you sure he said that his mother is here recovering from a heart attack?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, it’s just that the only two people we have here for that kind of condition are both men. One is in his forties, and the other one is in his fifties.”
“So you’re saying you don’t have
any elderly women here recovering from a heart attack?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Dr. Matthews.”
Chapter Eleven
Escape
“Just return the motorcycles, go back to your rooms, and we’ll forget all about this,” Cameron said. His hand shook, causing the gun to quiver precariously in his fingers.
“Cameron,” Ian said, “What are you doing with that gun? You know you’re in over your head here, so I suggest you let us go and tell Victor we overpowered you. That way, no one gets hurt, and you can still say you did all you could to try to stop us.”
“Shut up, Ian,” Cameron said, his voice shaking nearly as much as his hand. “You may be able to overpower me, but don’t underestimate me. I’ll shoot you both before I let you leave here. If you haven’t noticed, those suits aren’t nearly as indestructible as you’ve been led to believe.”
“No kidding,” I muttered.
“I mean, seriously, real superheroes have a much longer lifespan than you’re expected to have. So the way I see it, I have just as good a shot of overpowering you as you do me,” Cameron proclaimed.
“Why, Cameron?” Ian asked calmly. “What kind of screwed-up hold does Victor have on you? Don’t you see what you’re becoming because of him? Can’t you see what kind of man you’re defending, the evil he’s ordering us all to do?”
“Victor is a good man, and you owe him your lives. He made you who you are. And, actually, you both should be thanking me, too. If it wasn’t for my editing of the footage of the address, President Brooks would have had both your heads for deliberately disobeying his orders and siding with the rebels.”
“We will never thank Victor,” I interceded, “or you, for that matter. Victor only created us to fulfill his own agenda. We owe him nothing, most certainly not our lives. If anything, he’s taken our lives away from us.”
Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) Page 7