Order of Vespers

by Matilda Reyes

  “Someone needs a new nickname. Tiger? Champ?”

  “You can’t leave.”

  Jordy wrapped his arms around me and dropped his head on my shoulder. “Don’t do this to me, not now. I need warrior Jasper, not the one who likes my sweaty hugs and eats my post-workout snacks.”

  “And you don’t get to be hardheaded about this, not after…” I closed my eyes and bit back a sob. “Earlier. What you did.”

  “Fine.” Jordy returned to his position watching the door. After a few moments, he raised a hand and signaled for me to move deeper into the corner. Freddy was one room away.

  Three, four, Freddy’s coming to the door.

  We lifted our weapons and trained them on the door. The knob whined as Freddy turned it clockwise. I took a deep breath and held it, ready to exhale when it was time to pull the trigger. Jordy’s face had gone blank, but the wheels were turning beneath the surface. He’d probably mapped out every scenario while I’d contemplated filching his sweatshirt permanently.

  A sliver of light appeared.

  “Psst.”

  What the hell kind of assassin said, “Psst?” That guy was clown town, and we were the goddamn League of Assassins.

  “J?” Freddy waited for a beat. “Jordy? There’s blood on the knob. Are you okay?”

  Jordy was gone and with him, all traces of compassion. His features hardened as he aimed in the general direction of the person’s head. He said nothing and waited.

  “J, don’t shoot. It’s Hugo. Josh told me that he was down here with Jasper.”

  Bingo. Definitely a bad guy.

  Jordan coughed weakly and groaned. “Hugo, thank God. I thought I was going to bleed to death down here. I can’t walk without help.”

  “And Jasper?”

  The door opened wider but not enough to give either of us a clear shot. Hugo wasn’t stupid, but he was desperate and filled with a sick glee that saturated the air. If he killed Jordy, nothing would be beyond his reach.

  “Who the hell do you think did this to me?” Jordy coughed and spat. “Ah, shit. That’s a lot of blood.”

  Hugo exhaled with relief, yet didn’t come inside. “Sorry about that. Had to make sure that you were al—” The door moved another inch and the barrel of the gun came into sight.

  The cracking sound of a shot being fired should have drowned out the explosion of the right side of Hugo’s face. But all I heard and saw was the flesh being torn and bone shattering on both sides of his skull. Brain matter and blood rained down in sickly reddish and gray chunks.

  I swallowed down the bile and lowered my weapon. “He would have hurt you. He wanted to kill you,” I said quietly.

  Jordy stowed his gun. His expression was bleak as he plopped backward and tugged me onto his lap. “It was too soon. I didn’t want you to — ”

  “Neither did I, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. A million times if it meant keeping you safe.”

  I shut my eyes and buried my face as my body trembled from the force of the sobs that wanted to explode just like Hugo’s head had exploded when I’d decided to put a bullet in it.

  “You made the right call. He mentioned Joshua in the present tense, so he saw the body and lied or hadn’t found Joshua yet and lied.”

  “He would have killed you. I protect mine.”

  PART FIVE

  Endings

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IRETREATED TO THE CORNER and huddled against the wall as I tried to erase the images of Hugo’s body from my mind. The bullet had pierced the bone between the bridge of his nose and eye socket and had made a mess on its way out. After I’d finished crying, I explained to Jordy that I wasn’t upset that I’d killed him. I wasn’t even upset that I’d taken a life. I was angry that these monsters had come into my home, again, and threatened to destroy the people closest to me. I hated them, and I wanted to lash out at something. Anything.

  Jordy squatted in front of me and squeezed my shoulder. “Hey. I took care of everything and cleared the next few hallways. Can you walk?”

  “Did he have any information on him? A business card?”

  “No. Do I need to carry you? I need to make one more stop before we can get out of here.” He brushed a traitorous tear from my cheek. “It’s almost over. We’re almost there.”

  “It’s been hours.”

  “Honey,” he said carefully. “It’s been less than an hour. I know you’re exhausted, but we have to keep moving. I need to make sure you’re safe, and people are waiting for me. Some decisions need to be made that can’t be done over the phone.”

  Right. There was an entire compound of people who depended on him as much as I did. I climbed to my feet and tested my legs. “Good to go, boss.”

  “Don’t. Just don’t act like nothing happened. It only makes it worse.”

  “What do you want me to say? That I wish I’d shot him until every magazine was empty? That I wish I’d done that with Joshua? Hugo was going to hurt you, Jordy. That’s not happening on my watch.”

  Jordy chuckled and guided me away from yet another one of my bloody scenes. “I’m yours to protect now? Last time I checked, you’d demoted me to that stupid-asshole-jerk face.”

  “Last time I checked, you were a stupid jerk face who loves to ruin a moment. Jordy?”

  Jordy slowed and jerked his head toward a door on our right. “Circuit breakers. It’s grimy in there. Never mind. Just don’t… I don’t know. Don’t eat anything off the floor.”

  “You’re adorable,” I drawled. “Want to remind me not to pick my nose and eat the boogers?”

  We walked into the dank room and spun around slowly. It almost dark, with the only illumination there being what little was coming off the dials, buttons, and gauges of the aisles of computer equipment. The floor showed years of neglect. What must have been dirt and grime had been stepped on so often that it had turned into muck.

  “Like I said, don’t eat anything.” Jordy frowned as a light bulb went off in his brain. “Wait, did you actually do that? Eat your…”

  He leaned a hand against the wall to steady himself as the first heave wracked his body.

  “Jordy?”

  He mumbled something from behind the hand he’d clamped over his mouth and gagged like I’d served him a plate of said boogers. The next wave of nausea hit him harder, doubling him over as he spat.

  “Ugh. Disgusting. Don’t ever talk about that in front of me again. Come on.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a mini bottle of mouthwash and one of those tongue Swiffer things.

  Seeing him brush his teeth while opening a laptop near one of the main computer stations was too much. He was covered in blood but brushing his teeth was too important to delay. He finished quickly and then turned his attention to a program I didn’t recognize.

  “What are we looking at, boss?”

  He scowled at me, perfect teeth and minty fresh breath. “What? I’m checking the security system’s programming. What is so goddamn funny?”

  I erupted into giggles. Not the maniac’s cackle from earlier. It was the peal of laughter of someone who’d been tickled too hard and was about to wet themselves. The sight of him walking down the aisle and setting up with the toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth was so incongruous with the situation. It was ludicrous.

  “You,” I gasped. “You’re… blood… mouthwash!”

  “Shut up.” Jordy’s face was redder than a ripe tomato. He diverted his gaze. “Do you want to learn or not?”

  “Of course I want to learn. Will you answer a question first? About everything?”

  “I’m searching through the programming line by line to see if I can find the command. Whoever did this was good.” He pointed to a row of words and symbols strung together. “This is what the code should say.”

  “Can you find it?”

  “Don’t know, but I have to try if we want to regain control of the building. Let me think.”

  Giggling aside, this was an eye-opening experie
nce. Jordy typed rapid-fire commands that should have been able to reboot the security system override from there. The program had other ideas.

  I scooted over next to him. The interface was unfamiliar. “Did you check your TCP/IP settings?”

  “What?” Jordy glowered. “Of course I checked the TCP/IP settings. I figured out that they inserted a virus, a line of code that automatically attacked the system. Unfortunately, it’s time for help desk option number two: doing a manual reset of the entire program and power cycling the whole goddamn building.”

  “Isn’t it a fifteen-second blip?”

  He rubbed his eyes and exhaled. “It’s a million different connections in a compound denser than most city blocks. It’s phones, hospital equipment. Pick a worse scenario. What if—?”

  The what-if game had become my constant companion since the death of my family. I’d only directly killed one person. Jordy had killed hundreds if the stories were to be believed. He’d just thrown on the weight of responsibility for every last person and pet in the compound. Jordy knew the cost and would have taken on the guilt everyone else felt.

  I moved next to him and dropped my arm around his shoulders. He stiffened at the touch. It could have been the stench of gym clothes, sweat, blood, and brain chunks. Maybe it was discomfort at my familiarity. He relaxed a fraction.

  “Hey. Stop that. How many people are alive because of everything you’ve done today? If Joshua and Hugo were telling the truth, they’re not here to torch the place.”

  Jordy exhaled and typed in a few more commands. “Found it. But I don’t know how to remove it. If I reset the entire network, we’ll lose some established protocols.”

  “Is that a big deal?”

  “Months of work and personal time dedicated to learning something I have no natural aptitude for will go down the drain. Certain alarms won’t work. There’s a slight chance I’ll royally screw up any device connected to the network. So, yeah, big deal.”

  “Ah. What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing at the moment. Sit down with me.”

  I rolled my eyes and pointed out the obvious fact that there was only one chair and his butt was firmly planted. Jordy solved that problem by pulling me around and sitting me on his right thigh. One hand continued to peck out commands while the other held me in place.

  “This is so unprofessional.”

  “Ask me if I give a damn. Take the keyboard and follow my instructions. You’ll learn faster if you’re doing it yourself.”

  I typed for several long minutes. “It’s not working.”

  “Hell. It was a long shot. I’m wiping everything and power cycling the building.”

  Perching on his lap was the single most uncomfortable position I’d ever tolerated. Yoga had nothing on trying to evenly distribute my weight while not sitting down hard enough for him to feel my actual weight.

  “What can I do?”

  “Stupid people don’t listen to anything I say. I warned them. I told them this was a possibility.” He shook his head with frustration and squeezed his eyes shut. Swallowing hard, he looked at the screen. His hand hovered over the keyboard indecisively. “I don’t know if… screw it. I’m taking everything offline. In 3. 2. And 1. This is going to be the longest thirty seconds of my life.”

  “Jordy, if I somehow manage to live through this, we’re going to find a quiet place to talk. I’m going to scream at you until I lose my voice. Then I’ll do some text-to-speech thing on my phone. I’m probably going to throw things at you.”

  His eyes remained on the countdown on his cell phone. “If? Not an option. You haven’t trained this hard to roll over like some spineless wimp. What do we say to death? Not today.”

  “Are you seriously quoting George R. R. Martin? Right now?”

  “Hold on.” Jordy held his breath as the power came back. He watched data scroll on the screen. “Come on, come on, come on. Please let this work.”

  “The power came on. That’s a good sign. Right?”

  His eyebrows furrowed even deeper than usual, making him look like a kid trying to play a villain. He hushed me and switched to another program that showed him the layout of the building. The instant that first room lit up, he exhaled with relief and smiled. “It’s promising. The power is coming back right away. Now we wait.”

  “For?”

  Jordy entered a command that zoomed in to a classroom. “Right now, it says zero out of three. If any of the devices fail to reset, we’ll see a red dot on the layout.”

  “I hadn’t realized you manage the technology end of security.”

  “I don’t have a natural aptitude for networking or programming. Hell, I don’t like or enjoy this work, so we have someone to handle it. Since the intruders hacked the system, we can’t ignore the possibility that one of our best guys is involved. I’ve learned enough to keep things going in case of an emergency.”

  In my previous life as a popular high school student, I’d been an organizer. Jordy made my exacting lists and plans look like child’s play. He’d taken on a complicated field of study for the minute chance that something like this could happen. He was in charge of the security force, an instructor, the director of the armory and apparently monitored the entire building’s power and network connectivity.

  I was a lazy lima bean. I bet he had twelve jobs by the time he was my age.

  “What else are you monitoring?”

  “Indoor and outdoor cameras, the alarm system, and the sprinkler system. I want to run reports to see if anyone tried to access our networks. It would be great if someone could review security footage. I don’t have the time.”

  Jordy flipped between windows rapidly, giving the illusion of watching an old television with static. The screen stayed in focus less than a second before it switched to the next image. I closed my eyes and tried to fight off a headache it was already giving me. But I couldn’t keep them shut for long because I was too curious.

  “Wait, wait. Go back a screen.” I pointed to a cluster of three black dots that appeared on the image of the layout. “What are those dots? And why are they moving?”

  “Sonofabitch.” Jordy stabbed at his phone. He typed furiously as he waited for someone to answer.

  “Jordy? Thank goodness.”

  “Dakarai. Three cars are being taken from the garage as we speak. The garage doors haven’t gone back online yet. Get someone to track them.”

  Dakarai shouted to someone in the command center. “Done. I’m running downstairs to see if I can find anything.”

  “Stay put. We’ll be there soon enough.”

  “Jasper is well? Has she been injured? Where is Joshua?”

  Jordy growled. “Yes, yes, and dead. I expect a full report when I get there. Make sure that happens?”

  “Yes, of course. What else?”

  “Medical.”

  “Fine.”

  I frowned and poked his arm, hoping for a quick translation of their abbreviated conversation, but Jordy ignored me. There was something vaguely guilty with the way he averted his gaze. “The other thing we discussed?”

  Dakarai sighed. “Already handled.”

  “Bad?”

  “Not great. I’ll explain when you arrive. Hurry.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  At first glance, it appeared that the command center was in chaos. It was packed with the remainder of Jordy’s men, some High Council members, and a few of the injured.

  “I need to find Mikael.”

  “Last I heard, he’d gotten down here early on, so he’s fine. Dakarai too.” Jordy hesitated, then pulled me into another of his bone-shattering hugs. “Don’t leave this room without me.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” I wheezed. “Please stop breaking my bones. I may have a badass tolerance for pain, but even I have limits.”

  He chuckled as he stepped back. “Agreed. Try not to get the crap kicked out of you. It makes my job easier.”

  “If I recall correctly, I’d inflicted plenty of damage. Thanks
for the kettlebell, by the way. There was something perversely satisfying about it.”

  He spotted Mikael across the room and asked him to keep an eye on me. For my protection, of course. Someone needed to make sure their favorite brawler was well rested for the main event. Jordy chucked my chin and was swallowed by his security team and the logistics folks.

  Sighing, I shifted my attention away from him to Mikael and the rest of the command center. I’d been wrong. The room was organized chaos. Someone had sorted those who had taken shelter into logical units.

  The children had been directed to play in an empty corner, but they were mostly silent. Whatever they’d seen had been too much for their brains to handle. They were shutting out the world and trying to process the last few hours. The smallest of them huddled next to their siblings or temporary sitter, their expressions vacant. A few of the oldest children had streaks of blood on them and competed to tell the best story of their heroism.

  At least the bravado of teenagers was still intact. The world was allowed to move again.

  As bone-chilling as the children had appeared, the injured were the worst. Nurses provided the best care possible in this unsanitary environment, but it couldn’t have been enough. Survivors were morphing into casualties. A little girl, no older than seven or eight, saw me watching and smiled. Her head was wrapped in bandages, and her right eye was shrouded by gauze and tape.

  I had to turn away. It was only a matter of time before grief threatened to overwhelm me. A few feet away, a couple leaned against the wall and held one another. I recognized them from the dining hall. They went with their children on Fridays. Their teenage son sat on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest. He stared ahead, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. When a nurse offered him water, it was clear that he’d disappeared into whatever images played in his head.

  “Their daughter, Yana, she didn’t make it,” Mikael said. “She was… injured in the stampede when the assailants took a teacher hostage.”