A Promise Kept
The blood droplets ended near the top of the stairwell directly in front of the exit to the roof of the building. I didn’t have to open the door to know that he was out there waiting for me. Though the building was dying around me, beams collapsing and windows shattering, all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating in my eardrums.
My head swirled with every thought I’d had about what I’d do at this very moment, and with every thought I’d ever had of them. Every memory of my father, mother, and Jake, and the last time I saw them before I ran back into the mall. Of Blake and Lucy, whose lives had been taken from them way too soon. Not only did I owe my family the promise I had made to them, but I also owed it to them to put an end to this. I owed it to them and I owed it to Ian.
My body shook at the thought of Ian. A thought that I had been trying to push out of my head because the pain was unbearable and too much to handle along with everything else. But instead of the grief I’d been expecting, an all-consuming anger spread over my body, reminding me that there would be time to grieve later. Now was the time to turn sorrow into vindication.
With my gun drawn, I opened the door to the rooftop and walked out into the smoke-filled air. I was only able to take a handful of steps before the next explosion blasted through the building, shaking the ground underneath me. Directly to my left, a new plume of smoke filtered upward, which only added to the reduced visibility on top of the building and didn’t allow for me to see much of anything. Below, I could hear emergency personnel bravely making their way through the streets despite the danger and the uncertainty of where the next explosion would occur.
“Victor,” I called, certain he was hiding somewhere within the fog. Between the smoke, intermittent breaks appeared that allowed the light from the evening sun to break through. Determined, and with the light as my guide, I walked across the rooftop. “Come out and end this, you coward. You wanted me. Here I am.” As I spoke, I felt a presence, his presence. Heart pounding and body rife with anger, I turned around to see a pair of eyes coming toward me through the smoke. “No more running, Victor. This ends tonight, one way or another.”
“At least we agree on one thing, Ms. Stevens.” The distortion from his mask made his voice sound like a growl when he spoke. Without wasting time, he lunged at me, using the fog to his advantage to shield his movements. But I anticipated him making the first move and ducked to avoid him, kicking my leg out in front of him. Surprised, he tripped over my foot and fell to the ground, where I took advantage of his disability.
“How did you know my father?” I asked him as I struck him in the abdomen with the heel of my boot.
“Is that really important to you?” he asked, almost condescendingly, angering me enough to point my gun at his head. “That gun won’t hurt me.”
“If I shoot you in the neck, it will.” He glared at me, infuriated.
“Your father and I worked as doctors together at Hope Memorial, and we had a little—falling out, so to speak.”
I reared my foot back and struck him in the arm. Pain shot up my leg, causing me to stumble back enough for Victor to grab my leg and throw me to the ground. The gun fell out of my hand and landed inches away from Victor’s boot. A maniacal smile spread across his face as he kicked the gun away from my outstretched hand. It skidded across the ground and disappeared somewhere in the fog.
“It’s pretty difficult to hurt someone when the majority of them isn’t made of flesh and blood,” he said. He pushed up the sleeve of his suit, revealing an arm made of steel in place of human tissue. His foot pressed down on my arm, and I let out a scream, which only made him press more of his weight down on me as though he was taking enjoyment in the irony alone.
“What kind of falling out could you possibly have had with my father to make you want to kill him and his entire family? What kind of monster does that?” I asked through gritted teeth. Bide your time, Celaine. Look for his weaknesses.
“And what kind of doctor takes an oath to do everything he can for his patients only to turn around and reject research that could help extend their lives or, eventually, may be able to lead to our own immortality?”
“But at what cost? Look at you, you aren’t human anymore. You’re nothing more than a machine. A soulless, cold robot.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I see,” he sneered, bringing his foot back to kick me in the ribs.
I gasped, his sudden strike catching me off guard as my arm shielded my throbbing body. I could see him prepare to strike me again, and I knew that I couldn’t let him get in any more blows. A fire ignited inside me and, just as his boot was about to make contact with me, I threw my legs up, wrapped them around his waist, and threw him to the ground. The second his body struck the ground in front of me, I jumped to my feet, ignoring my discomfort.
“So, what was it?” I asked him, walking around him. “My father found out you were doing some sort of crazy experiments and decided to blow the whistle on you?”
“Something like that,” he grumbled. He rose to his feet, and we paced the roof, glaring at each other.
“Then, when you were fired, you decided to take it out on everyone responsible after you became The Man in Black.” Without him responding, I knew I was right, and that he’d spent the majority of his life harboring hateful vendettas against others to the point where hate was all he knew and his humanity had been stripped away.
“It will never be said that you weren’t astute,” Victor said. “You are definitely George Stevens’ daughter.”
My blood boiled at the mere mention of my father’s name by him. “Then why not kill them all at once—those doctors who wronged you? Surely, most of them must have still been at Hope Memorial by the time you perfected your alter ego serial killer persona.”
“But what fun would that be? By hunting them down one by one, the fear that alone instilled in them was the most exhilarating part. The what, the where and the when ate away at their souls until I finally got to see the looks on their faces when they figured it all out. Taking out Hope Memorial later was just icing on the cake.”
“Wait, you saw them before they died? You looked them in the eyes and you were still able to kill them?” The rage inside me began to boil over. My muscles became rigid as my body went into attack mode.
“Yes,” he answered matter-of-factly, almost as though he was bored with the question. “When your father saw me walking toward them, he got out of the car and locked the doors. He knew it was me before I even lifted my mask, and he was dead from a knife to the heart before the first blast went off. I still remember the sound of your mother screaming as he slumped over the outside of their vehicle.”
“You son of a bitch,” I yelled. In a rage, my body sprang forward, and I ran at him without so much as a second thought or any idea of what I would do when I reached him. Before he could react, I struck him in the chest, knocking him back. He countered by balling his hand into a fist and striking me in the shoulder, but instead of pain, all I felt was an increased urge to fight. I had to fight for my life and their lives. This evil couldn’t remain standing.
I brought my fist back and struck Victor in the neck. His Achilles’ heel, and the only way I could hurt him. He stumbled back in obvious pain, enabling me to strike him in the stomach with my fist and land a flying kick to his head with the side of my boot. Victor fell to the ground where his helmet popped off and rolled to the side. Without hesitation, I threw my body over the helmet, grabbed it and threw it over the side of the building.
Furious, Victor sprang back to his feet and charged at me. I threw my body backwards into a handspring and landed on my feet just in time to block an attack by him and land a direct hit to the side of his head. Somehow, without the protection of his helmet, he seemed much less menacing. I jumped and delivered another flying kick to his head, but he was ready for me this time, grabbing my leg in his arms and twisting both it and my body around. The impact of my body landing on the
ground stunned me. Get up, Celaine. Get up now.
As Victor approached, I jumped to my feet and ran toward him, hoping to build up enough momentum to knock him to the rooftop so I could try to gain an advantage over him. But, as I ran, I noticed a strange look overcome his face. A look that screamed sinister. Victor’s fist appeared out from behind his back and, moments before I came within striking distance, he punched me in the stomach.
My body fell backwards, and I landed on my back, my stomach throbbing as though it were on fire. It was then that I felt the wetness. The same wetness I’d felt after I was shot. Blood. I was bleeding. As though to confirm my suspicions, I looked up at Victor’s hand to see a knife in his grasp. He’d stabbed me in the stomach, and I was losing blood fast.
I rolled over, gripping my throbbing body in my hands, trying to stop my blood from pooling on the rooftop underneath me. Above me, I heard Victor chuckle. He’d finally done it. He’d killed everyone in George Stevens’ family.
I opened my eyes but noticed that the world around me was already beginning to fade out and Victor’s voice sounded as though he were standing at the opposite end of a tunnel.
“I didn’t think you would be taken out this easily,” he said, his voice not so threatening without his mask. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Your father didn’t put up much of a fight. He wasn’t even strong enough to save his own family.”
Rage, pure and unadulterated, raced through my veins. It brought my mind back from the brink, but the rest of my body refused to move; the blood loss stripped me of my energy. Get up. He only wins when your heart stops beating. Get up now.
“It’s a shame, losing two of my fighters tonight,” Victor continued. “But there will always be others to take your place. Others who will blindly accept an offer if the cause tugs at their heart strings enough.”
“Everyone at The Epicenter knows, Victor. Don’t you see? No matter what happens, it’s over for you tonight.”
“Oh, Ms. Stevens, you underestimate me. Do you believe that everyone on my payroll was in the dark? Do you honestly think I didn’t have a back-up plan in place or an alternate location in which to conduct my research in the event The Epicenter went under? I will rise again.”
Get up, Celaine.
Victor’s boots passed by my face as he circled my wounded body like a vulture waiting for its prey to take its final breath. “Now the question becomes, who should I get to replace you and Mr. Grant as I continue to perfect my research? Your friend Lucy was a spirited one, but I could have broken her. She wasn’t nearly as stubborn as you. It’s too bad I had to get rid of her.”
“You,” I yelled as loudly as I could through the groan that rumbled in my throat at the same time. “You killed Lucy?” Every fiber of my being screamed for me to get up, but all I could do was prop myself up on my elbows a couple of inches off the ground.
“Yes, well, those flyers she was passing around with your picture on them weren’t exactly in my best interests.” Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of Lucy’s final moments. Lucy, my best friend, had died because of me. Because she cared enough to try to find me, having seen through my fabrication. “You know, your ex-boyfriend’s sister seems promising. What is her name? MaKayla? Yes, MaKayla. She’s young now, but in a couple of years she’ll be a perfect candidate for one of my fighters. And she’ll already harbor so much hatred for The Man in Black for putting her family in jeopardy tonight that I’m sure she’ll readily agree to my proposal. Who knows, maybe I can arrange for the death of one of her parents beforehand to ensure her compliance.”
“No,” I screamed. Dizzy, I jumped to my feet. His threats had ignited a fire within me I didn’t know I had left, and I ran at him with renewed vigor. Caught completely off guard, Victor wasn’t expecting my body to collide with his. And the force of our bodies’ impact threw him backwards. Victor stumbled, and I took the opportunity to strike him again, the adrenaline coursing through my veins in one last ditch effort to overpower him.
The further back he stumbled, the more the fog cleared enough to enable me to see that we were close to the ledge of the building and a four-story drop below. A drop that neither one of us would survive. This was my chance. The last one I would ever have.
As Victor tried to regain his footing, I struck him in the jaw with my heel, throwing him back, but not before he grabbed my leg. He stumbled, his legs catching the ledge, which caused his already precarious balance to falter even more. This was it; now or never. With my foot still firmly in Victor’s grasp, I leapt into him using my other foot and, with the weight of my body, shoved him over the ledge.
His hold on me never wavered, and as he fell, he pulled my body along with him. My arms darted out to catch the ledge but, still, Victor remained attached to me in a death grip, severely compromising my hold. The weight of Victor’s body strained every muscle in my upper body. They burned and tore as they were pulled to their max, and I could feel my grip on the ledge loosening.
“If I go, you go,” Victor said. He struck my back with his fist, sending pain shooting up my spine and into my arms.
He was right. I needed to let go. It was the only way because I couldn’t keep my grip any longer. My will to live struggled with my dwindling strength and thoughts of giving up as I pulled myself up to try and shake Victor one last time. I pulled my body upwards and my arm slipped, causing me to slam my jaw against the ledge, but not before I caught a glimpse of something on the rooftop. My gun.
Victor struck me, catching me in the thigh this time. Resolute, I ignored the sting and, with the remainder of my strength, I pulled my body up just enough to stretch my arm out toward the gun. Never have I willed my arm to stretch so far, or my fingers to grow an extra inch. As the lower half of my body was being pulled downwards, my upper half stretched as far as I could, practically tearing my skin and pulling muscles in the process. Just a few centimeters. Just a little bit more.
Victor squeezed my ankle, the same one he’d injured earlier, and twisted it as he turned his body midair. While the pain was severe, I didn’t let it break my concentration as the tips of my fingertips brushed the gun and pulled it closer toward me. Triumphantly, my shaky hand wrapped itself around the handle.
“Hey, Victor,” I called down to him, the gun aimed squarely at his head. He looked up at me, the hatred on his face swiftly turning to shock. “I bet you never came up with a back-up plan for this scenario.” Without another word, my finger pulled the trigger and, with one sharp blast, a bullet pierced Victor’s skull. His limp arms released their hold on my body, and in slow motion Victor’s body fell from the sky toward the ground. He struck the pavement, and his lifeless eyes remained fixated upward in my direction.
Though my body wanted nothing more than to quit, I somehow managed to pull myself up and over the ledge, where I collapsed on the rooftop.
It was over. The Man in Black was dead.
*****
“Come on, come on,” Drew said. He fidgeted with his hands over the keyboard, waiting for the program to respond to his commands that were slowly uploading.
“Drew, we have ten minutes to get out of here,” Kara said. “Which means we need to get out of here now.”
Exasperated, Dew unplugged the laptop, stood up, and met Kara with it at the doorway. “We’ll know in a few minutes whether this worked,” he said.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to pray that it does.”
“Have the others already made it out?”
“Yes, Becca and Colby are waiting outside. Marcus and Kyle are planting more bombs in the lab. Now, pick it up. I don’t want to be here in the event one of them goes off before we intended it to.”
“Yes, boss,” Drew said, picking up his pace to run alongside her.
“And don’t you forget it.”
They ran down the hallways of The Epicenter, each occasionally stealing glances back at their home and the source of all the lies they had been fed. Kara’s heart sank when she passed Cel
aine’s room. Please be okay, she thought.
“It looks like they have a car waiting for us,” Drew said.
Kara peered into the garage at the end of the hallway to see a black sedan waiting for them. The rolled-down window revealed Marcus behind the wheel. “Hurry it up,” he called out to them. “The ones in the lab are set to go off in less than two minutes.”
Drew and Kara raced down the rest of the length of the hall. When they reached the car, Becca threw the door open and they jumped inside. Before Kara could shut the door, Marcus hit the gas and the car lurched forward, nearly throwing Kara out of it as she grabbed onto the handle to shut the door. Next to her, Drew opened up the laptop and smiled in relief mixed with disbelief.
“What is it?” Kara asked, her heart pounding. “Did—did it work? Drew, did it work? Are they being deactivated?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I think they are.”
The sedan sped up the tunnel as the first blast went off from within the laboratory in the depths of The Epicenter. By the time they reached the end of the tunnel and were safely coasting down the wooded path, several more explosions resounded from behind them as the rest of the bombs followed suit. Yet, none of them looked back to see The Epicenter’s demise, the chunks of earth being blasted upwards into the sky, or the smoke and flames shooting out of the tunnel.
From now on, there would be no turning back.
*****
“Have I ever told you how sorry I am about everything that went down between us?” Aron said.
“Really?” Jill said, irritated. “You pick now to finally admit you were wrong? Now?” She held her gun out toward the advancing soldiers.
“Now’s as good a time as any. Hell, it’s probably going to be the only time we have.”
“Then, apology accepted, asshole.”
“Okay, I deserved that,” he said, laughing.
“Yes, yes, you did.”
The soldiers steadily advanced toward them, their weapons raised, awaiting their command to fire. Their footsteps fell in perfect unison with each footstep creating a thumping sound that, together, sounded like drumbeats leading to their final execution. With nowhere to run, they were trapped, sitting ducks, ready to be picked off one by one. Jill felt a tear forming in her eyes, which she wiped away, not wanting them to see her cry. She would remain strong until the end.
Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) Page 30