by Kyle West
She was relieved to make it to the command center. As she stood in the center of the marble lobby, she looked around to make sure Raine wasn’t here first. Currently, he was overseeing the construction of barricades at some of the extra entrances, so he might not even be here.
She went for the defunct escalator, allowing her thoughts to drift as she made her way up. When she was younger, she had seen Raine almost every day. Even now, at twelve years old, she still thought of him as an adoptive father. She felt guilty about that; after all, her own father had died to see her safely onto the last copter out of Bunker One. She still remembered his face on the tarmac, with the snow coming down, and the demonic screams of the monsters. It was the stuff of nightmares.
That had been the worst day of her life. The white-glowing eyes of those demons still haunted her dreams, sometimes. She could never forget them, however unreal they had seemed. She didn’t even think Raine fully believed her story, despite saying he did to help her. They didn’t talk about that much now. Raine didn’t even come to visit her and Sam in their apartment all that often, such was his busyness.
When she reached Raine’s office door, it was shut. Either he was in a meeting or he wasn’t here, otherwise it would have been ajar. Raine wasn’t really an office man, but he said that having an office was useful for meetings, and it gave him a place to put his personal belongings, especially the books he had collected over the years. Makara wasn’t much of a reader, but she liked the stories written before the fall of Ragnarok. The Old World was incomprehensible to her, but that incomprehensibility was part of the fascination.
Makara knocked, and stood straight, military fashion. She had seen Dan stand like that.
She was just about to turn away when, to her surprise, the door opened. But it wasn’t Raine who answered.
“Dan?”
His face had been wary, but upon seeing that it was her, his blue eyes softened.
“Better get inside,” Dan said.
He opened the door wider, opening Makara’s view until she could see Raine sitting behind his desk, his fingers steepled. His dark brown eyes were lost in thought, and his forehead scrunched deep. He broke from his reverie, his features softening.
“Makara. You all right? What’s wrong?”
She walked forward, swallowing before speaking. “There’s something I want to talk to you about. Alone.”
“If it’s about my brother, I already know,” he said.
That gave Makara a start. “What?”
“My brother’s gone, Mak,” he said, ominously. “And some of my best men with him. Now that the deed’s done, I’m just wondering how I went wrong . . .”
“Boss . . .” Dan said. “Maybe we should discuss this a bit more before letting . . .”
Raine waved one of his large hands. “She’ll find out, anyway. Everyone will, eventually.”
Both men looked at her, each of them probably wondering the same thing. How she had known. And just how much she knew.
“Do you know why he left, Raine?” Makara asked.
“He talked about starting a settlement east of the mountains,” he said. “Never thought he’d actually do it.”
He didn’t know the reason, then. She had to tell him. No matter how much it hurt him.
“There’s more to it,” Makara said.
She told him, in as little words as she could, about her exploring the old Macy’s and how she’d overheard him and a man named Cyrus. After every sentence, Raine’s expression grew darker. Makara couldn’t bear to see him like that, but he had to know the truth.
“Ohlan did arrive late to the meeting yesterday,” Dan mused. “Guess we know why, now. We can’t let him get away with this.”
“I know, Dan,” Raine said. “I know that. He’s already gone, and with him ten of my men. I thought some of them were my friends.”
Raine’s eyes looked lost. Makara couldn’t imagine the hurt he was feeling. She wanted to do something to help, but what could she possibly do? For the moment, it seemed as if he had forgotten she was there.
“If they went with him, then they aren’t your best men,” Dan said, finally. Dan’s face was angry, in contrast to Raine’s look of loss.
“Cahors was one of them,” Raine said. “So was Albright. Each one of them knows exactly where we are, our weaknesses, the munitions we have stored . . .”
“Well, there’s no avoiding that,” Dan said. “Give me a few jeeps and thirty guys and we can hunt them down.”
Raine shook his head. “No. They’ll be expecting that. Ohlan’s too smart. He’d have left last night by some unused way.” He chuckled darkly. “Ohlan was the one who discovered this place. Maybe he fed that to me, acting all surprised when I brought it up in that meeting six months back . . .” He shook his head.
Dan looked at Raine seriously. “Now that we know he’s working with Black, it’s likely he knows something we don’t about this place. Some weakness.” Dan shifted his feet. “Raine . . . we’re going to have to move again.”
“Move where, Dan? This is a good spot. If we can just close all the entrances, it’ll serve.”
Raine’s eyes returned to Makara. There was a look on his face Makara had never seen before. Regret, maybe. She knew she should have excused herself, but neither had told her to go.
“Thank you, Makara. You did the right thing telling me. I know that wasn’t an easy thing to say since you were doing something I told you not to. But I don’t want you ever going off on your own in this place again. It isn’t safe.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
It was quiet for a moment, but before Makara turned, she plucked up the courage to ask a question.
“Are we safe here, Raine?”
Raine smiled, but there was sadness in the smile. “We’ve got a lot of good men, and plenty of weapons and food stockpiled. And we got more info on Black than you might think. In the end, they’ll find out they’re not as slick as they thought.”
Makara didn’t say it, but she knew Ohlan was slick, too, and there was a deviousness to his slyness. And deep down, she was scared. If people Raine considered friends had betrayed him, then how could anybody be trusted?
As that question ran through her mind, Dan was showing her the door. Makara followed his lead.
“Be careful, Raine,” she said, turning to look at him.
He gave a small, almost bitter smile. “Not a day over twelve and you’re acting like you’re grown. I’ve been nothing but careful my whole life, Makara. It’s one of my strengths. But even so, I have my blind spots.”
Makara knew the rest, so he didn’t have to finish the uncomfortable thought looming over them all; that despite Raine’s carefulness, it couldn’t guard him from his own brother. The brother he had chosen to trust, against his better judgment.
The walk back to the apartment was a long one, and when she was halfway there she realized Samuel had never joined her. She felt a lot of things on the way – fear for Raine’s life and fear for the Angels’ future, but more than anything else, anger at Ohlan’s betrayal. Hundreds of people had worked hard to survive, to make this place a safe home, and all it took was one rotten apple to mess everything up.
Whatever Raine might think about it, Makara resolved in that moment to do whatever she could to stop Ohlan. And that meant finding out who was working for him here. Surely, he had left some informants behind to weave their webs. And if she was truly undiscovered in the Macy’s, then they might use that as a meeting spot again.
Makara didn’t like breaking promises, but Raine clearly needed help. And, Makara thought, who better than she?
Chapter 25
WHEN MAKARA LEFT THE office, Raine let out a heavy sigh. He couldn’t let her know how truly worried he was about Ohlan.
“What’s our course of action?” Dan asked.
Raine cracked his knuckles one by one as he considered.
“You were right earlier. We got to go after him.”
“If he’s been go
ne a few hours, he’s halfway to Black by now,” Dan said. “He knows just about everything we do.”
“Everything that matters, in any case,” Raine said. “It’s still a question of whether they can assault this place. We gave ‘em a licking last time.”
“They’re warring the Hills Alliance still,” Dan said. “Ohlan picked a bad time to leave.”
“Someone must have tipped his hand.”
“Makara?”
She had overheard Ohlan and Cyrus discussing his betrayal. It was possible that Ohlan had figured that out. He was clever, but there was no way of truly knowing.
Suddenly, Raine stood, his senses going on high alert. Raine had a way of knowing when something was off.
Last time he hadn’t listened to that instinct, his wife and child had died.
Dan reached for his handgun, but before he could get a word out, Raine was out the door.
He checked both directions, but he couldn’t see Makara either way. She had left two minutes ago, but Raine already kicking himself for letting her go in the first place.
He ran up to nearby guard. “Corley, did Makara go by?”
Corley pointed toward the mall concourse. “That way, Boss. What’s up, something wrong?”
“Lock down Command,” Raine said.
Corley’s eyes widened. “Sir?”
“You want to explain what’s going on?” Dan said, running after Raine.
Raine was about to when an explosion rocked him from the direction of the concourse. Raine’s skin went cold even as the floor vibrated beneath his feet. He instinctively threw a hand in front of his eyes and knelt to shield himself, but it was all for nothing. The explosion had come from the direction of the market, where Makara had likely gone.
Once things settled, Raine sprinted for the escalator, taking the steps two at a time. When he reached the bottom, a cloud of dust rolled over him.
He covered his mouth with his arm, hacking and coughing even as he pushed forward. As the thunder of the explosion dissipated, he could hear the screams of both the frightened and the wounded.
The dust cleared just enough for him to see ahead into the concourse, where rubble had piled onto the floor. There were several unmoving bodes trapped beneath the concrete, and the sun shone through a large gap in the wall.
“We’re being bombed!” a female voice wailed.
Someone was trying to pull up a slab of wall that had pinned an elderly man to the floor. Raine rushed over to assist.
“Let me help you with that,” he said.
Together, he and the man lifted the concrete up, just enough for the man to escape, his left leg dragging behind him.
“Can you see him to the clinic?” Raine asked the man who had helped him, only now taking note of his face, since the dust had cleared a bit.
He froze.
“Ohlan?”
His brother looked back at him. “I’ll get him to Darlene right away.”
As he turned to go, Raine grabbed his shoulder. “Wait! I thought you . . .” Raine considered, wondering whether he should be reaching for his gun.
“It was all an act, Raine. I’m on your side. Always have been. When I learned about this attack, I was a minute too late. I rushed back to warn you, but . . .”
He trailed off helplessly. Raine just watched him, stunned.
“It was a bomb. A plot. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it in time.”
Raine only now found his tongue. “Someone overheard you speaking to this man named Cyrus. I thought . . .”
“I’ve always been on your side, Raine. I don’t agree with everything you do, but . . .” He coughed from the dust, which was still thick. “Maybe we can talk about this later. Even if I couldn’t stop this, I learned a lot that will be of use.”
Raine nodded dumbly. He had been prepared to go out and kill Ohlan at the first opportunity he got. But now, he didn’t know what to think. There was no way to deal with this because of the current situation.
Once again, Raine realized he was forced to trust Ohlan.
“If you really were with me the entire time, why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why hide this from me?”
“You would have never agreed. I had to get down and dirty.” Even as Raine wanted to protest it, he realized that his brother was probably right.
“We all have our talents, brother,” Ohlan continued. “If all I’m good for is sneaking, then that’s what I should be doing, right? I’ve always worked better in the dark.”
“And my men? I thought you all were deserters. Ohlan, I was about to go out there and hang you myself!”
“Well, you know now. As far as your men, they never really left, obviously. They were watching my back in case my meeting with Cyrus went bad. I can report that one of Black’s top lieutenants is now dead by my hand.”
“This won’t happen again,” Raine said. “Not ever. Even if you’re still loyal, and a big part of me doubts that, you can’t do shit like this and expect to get away with it.”
Ohlan watched with his cold, blue eyes, even as the world around them seemed to fall away. “You have to trust me, Raine. I’ve got this under control.”
“Whether you do, or you don’t, I’m in on everything you do from now on,” Raine said. “Play spy if you want to. Just let me in on what’s going on.”
Ohlan finally nodded, and it was all Raine could do not to heave a sigh of relief.
“Let’s clean this place up. Makara came down this way. We need to find her.”
Chapter 26
RAINE AND OHLAN RAN on ahead, thinking to check the apartment Makara and Samuel shared first. It wasn’t far.
They met Makara on the way, who had come out to see the disturbance.
Her eyes became furious at seeing Ohlan, but standing next to Raine, she didn’t know what to think.
Her solution was to run forward and start leveling punches at Ohlan’s gut.
“Makara, stop,” Raine said, pulling her away. “The situation is more complicated than it seems.”
“He’s a rat, I know he’s a rat!” she screamed.
“Get inside, Ohlan,” Raine said. “You still have a lot of explaining to do.”
Ohlan shrugged, and stepped into the apartment.
“What is he doing here?” Makara asked, her face red with anger. “I thought he left with ten of your best men!”
“He did, Makara. But he came back. He just went out to kill Cyrus, that’s all.”
She blinked at the news. “What?”
“He went behind my back, Makara. You’re right about that, and I’m very angry. But he went behind my back to help me. He got a lot of information about the Reapers, and managed to use those men to kill Cyrus. It’s hard to explain, but Ohlan works like a spy for me.”
“I don’t believe him,” she said. “He should’ve told you if that was his plan.”
“I agree, Makara.” He didn’t have time for this. He needed to be at the site of the explosion, but he couldn’t leave the kids alone with the likes of Ohlan. He’d have to take care of this, first.
“What a day,” he said. “Let’s step inside real quick.”
Still fuming, Makara walked into the apartment, where Ohlan was making himself comfortable in a chair, while Samuel stared at him angrily from the corner.
“Now,” Raine said, “Explain yourself, Ohlan, beginning to end. You’re not out of this yet.”
Ohlan looked at Makara, and then at his brother. “I went behind your back, Raine. I know. But you would have never let me deal with the Reapers the way I thought best. To do that, I had to act like I was on their side. I had to even lead them here, to show them I meant it.”
“I already know that,” Raine said. “I have sources, too.”
Ohlan smirked. “What, the girl? We saw her. I told Cyrus I would take care of her, but obviously I didn’t, since I’m on your side. I let him believe I would, though.”
So, Ohlan had known Makara was there. “And after Cyrus left?”
&
nbsp; “I took some men and followed him out. We tracked him to his campsite. We acted like buddies, so I could learn more. We killed them after they went to sleep.”
“You got proof of that?” Raine asked.
Ohlan frowned. “You’ll find their bodies north of here. Corner of Artesia and Cherry.”
Raine made a note of it. The location was about a mile northeast. Not easy to get to, and neutral territory at best. It was far enough for Raine to have difficulty checking it out, but not too far to arouse his suspicions.
“I’ll be sending Dan there, trust me,” Raine said. “Until then, you’re on probation until I can be surer of things. You said you came back because you learned about the bomb?”
Ohlan nodded. “I didn’t know about that. Cyrus joked about it when we caught up to him. I couldn’t leave right then and there, so we had a few drinks, talked a bit, until they fell asleep. We killed them. Had to wait a long time for the right chance, because they always had a couple guys on watch. Finally, I realized we wouldn’t get any better opportunity, so we booked it back here as soon as we could.”
“And got here a hair too late to stop the bomb, I noticed,” Raine said.
“Unfortunately,” Ohlan asked. “When I asked how he got it inside, he said he’d sent Reapers disguised as refugees, each of them packing a few parts. The powder was hidden somehow. They assembled it inside the mall.” Ohlan nodded outside. “The rest is history.”
Raine watched his brother’s eyes. If Ohlan was truly betraying him, then why on Earth would he have come back here in the first place? He would have gone over to the Reapers.
None of it made sense. None of it made sense, except for the fact that his story was too incredible, too improbable, to be made up.
But Raine couldn’t make any more mistakes. “Your story will be verified. Until then, I’m going to have to keep you in a holding cell.”
Ohlan nodded, seeming to accept that graciously enough. “That’s fair.”
“He’s lying,” Makara said, heatedly.
“We’ll find out the truth of things soon enough,” Raine said. “I’m going to have to share this with the whole council, Ohlan.”