by Gary Sapp
Moses.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“You have turned out to be the leader just like I thought you were. You are the leader that your family thought you were. You weren’t named Moses for nothing. He led the children of Israel out of Egypt. You’re going to continue helping me lead the rest of these boys back home.”
Moses teared up.
“That was a beautiful sermon that you gave for our lost companions. But we have lost a lot of time, but hopefully so have Pandora in their search for us. I believe that we can still reach the interstate—even without a ride. We need to go.”
No one moved.
“I can’t,” The youngest living boy who’d broken his leg in the crash said. The bone was more than a clean break actually; it was likely shattered from kneecap to ankle. “I can’t walk any further.”
Louis swallowed hard.
“Well, that only means that we will have to take turns carrying you. I’ll volunteer to go first. Solders never leave anyone behind. All you have to do is to try. You can’t give up.”
“No,” The boy cried out. “It hurts to bad. And I’m so tired and hungry too.”
“We all are.” Another boy said.
“You were told to get to your feet, solider.” Louis said sternly.
“We don’t want to play solders anymore.” A third boy offered. “We want to go home. But I don’t think any of us knows the way now.” The group of them seemed to be focusing their complaints on Moses. “We’re scared.”
Moses looked from the boys to Louis back to the boys again.
“We need more time—sir.” Moses said partly in urgency, partly in a calm tone. “Can you give us 30 minutes to gather ourselves?”
In thirty minutes we will have returned from which we came. And we will never leave this world to the weak and impotent again.
Louis shuddered with that familiar voice from deep inside of him trying to swim up to the surface once again.
“I don’t think I have 30 minutes, Moses.”
Moses Jackson must have seen the look in Louis’ eye, because he instantly caught the man’s meaning. He scooped the boy with the shattered leg up underneath his arm as to take the first shift.
Louis stood and watched it all nearly helpless. Hugh told him to quit this nonsense now. The weakling that was Louis Keaton was had taken these boys as far as he could. He’d fought off Hugh’s natural instincts as long as any weakling had any right to. It was over now, finished. He’d failed these boys long before now. Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and all of her therapy wouldn’t save him now. And Serena Tennyson and Pandora’s long arm of influence was always reaching out for him. And now even Mother Nature was working against him. The earthquake was devastating. Even if they were to reach the outskirts of downtown who knew the devastation that and obstacles they would face then? He had failed in his final chance to save these boys.
Give them to us. Give them to me, Louis.
In my last visit, I learned much, Louis. The Dragon Witch has helped me in strengthening my resolve. The next time that I return to your world I will not settle for anything less than eternal life, Louis.
And in my life, you must be vanquished forever.
It is only a matter of time.
It is not a matter of if but when.
Louis Keaton recovered enough from his living nightmare that he though he saw a movement in some nearby trees. He took a hard longer look and was positive that he saw something, but was unsure of what. Moses Jackson and his younger eyes must have seen it too, because he nearly rammed into Louis with the other boy in tow to escape it.
“Did you see it?” Moses asked him.
“I did, Moses. Get our troops together. We will either leave here now or die here now. Our greatest escape is still to come.”
Moses and the others all eased away from the pack of wolves as they were bid and continued towards home.
Roxanne
They were both in survival mode.
Roxanne Sanchez tried to get to her feet to no avail. Stubbornly, she gave it a second attempt, got further along than she did the first time, then crashed to the side of the Marta car (which served as the floor now) when she failed to steady herself by putting pressure on her ankle. It was tender. It was maybe even fractured or severely broken.
She bit her lip and watched Angel rise from her own unconsciousness. She cocked a brow and gave her surroundings and their plight in general a once over before rising to her feet. She worked her way over to where Roxanne was and she could see bruised blood caked on the doctor’s blouse.
A stab of guilt washed over Roxanne. And yet, feeling the emotion was cool. It meant that all of her humanity hadn’t abandoned her yet. Roxanne still found herself angry at Angel, at least a little. But the harshest feelings were subsiding. Thankfully, she still had managed to separate what was right and what was wrong—at least in her own mind.
And this pursuit of the doctor had proven fruitless.
What about Chris? Where is he now? Is he alright?
And to what extent had the earthquake enhance the city’s suffering or alter it to one degree or the other. Was there still an active investigation for Atlanta’s missing children?
Angel had finally pushed her way over to where Roxanne was sitting,
“Lean all of your weight on me, Roxanne.” Angel got her arm around her. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let go.”
Roxanne grunted and then struggled to her feet again. Once there, she peered back over her shoulder only to see multitudes of other Marta riders from other overturned cars that were in various states of stress. There were obviously dead people among them. Yet, there had to be at least handfuls of them who were injured but would survive if they were treated to adequate medical attention.
“What about those people over there,” Roxanne asked Angel. “We can’t just leave them here.”
She felt the doctor nod.
“We are going to do just that. I’m sorry, Roxanne. We are in no shape to help them—at least in any adequate sense. We’ve got to concentrate all of our energy and efforts on ourselves right at this moment. If there are any emergency services or responders available they will show up here sooner than later.” Roxanne parted her lips in debate. “Come on, we are leaving this car.”
Roxanne felt a surge of new anger rising up out of her chest to her temple that she could direct at the doctor…but it quickly passed. Damn you, Angel, you are right here. They were blessed enough to be able to escape this car, they weren’t in the condition to aid anyone else.
They took one measured step at a time, each seemingly slower and more ponderous than the one that proceeded it. Roxanne’s ankle was busted up good alright.
And then she felt a buzzing.
It was her cell phone ringing.
Angel must have felt it too and halted both of their progress, reaching over and then past Roxanne to slide it out of her side hip pocket; maybe it was Chris calling her.
Damn. Angel couldn’t reach it before it stopped buzzing. When the doctor showed her the number on the screen Roxanne didn’t immediately recognize the phone number that the call had originated from. She snorted while she waited the long minute it usually took for any left message to work its way to voicemail. She had to think a moment or more to remember what her password was and entered it into the phone while Angel held it up for her.
And then both women waited.
“I will see you suffer before your end,” Was all the voice on the message said. It was all that it needed to say. Roxanne felt a cold shiver of fear run through her shoulder blades and down the length of her spine. Not now, I can’t deal with this now. I can’t deal with him now.
Roxanne must have seen the look on her face.
“Roxanne,” She asked in a gentle voice. “Are you alright? Who was that voice on the phone? He sounded foreign, maybe of South American origin from my distance? Roxanne can you hear me?”
Roxanne surprised both women…by laying her head on A
ngel’s shoulder. They sat on a bench nearby.
Roxanne wasn’t sure why she did—she was unsure of most everything now but she told Angel the story of Ricardo Silas, the story of her time in Mexico in its unfiltered entirety. She told Angel how she’d been warned not to pursue the business man’s missing girls. She remembered how Ricardo had warned her of the consequences of her actions for the villagers after she rescued them. She told the doctor the story of putting a gun to the girls ‘head and threating to shoot them instead of letting them be returned to their corrupt mother.
She told Angel how she would have done anything to survive the moment.
And that her former lover Ricardo had promised to see her suffer before her end.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Roxanne.” Angel said when the fires of this maddening story had turned to embers at last. “You were desperate and vulnerable. Sometimes people put in such dire situations sometimes do desperate things in return.”
Maybe;
And the tears rushed out of Roxanne.
Were these tears the continued sorrow over Maria’s death or the first ones she’d ever shed over her own situation in Mexico?
Anyway, she couldn’t believe that she was behaving this way—especially in front of Angel, this stranger who she’d grown to hate for so very long.
Was there a power epiphany at work here?
After a time Roxanne asked Angel about Louis Keaton?
“I think that I can still reach the humanity that lives within him. Louis is a troubled soul but is had a moral base.” Angel said. “The persona known as Hugh is partly my responsibility, partly my