Saint/Sinner

by Sam Sisavath

  She didn’t have as many qualms going through Jones’s pockets, but unfortunately the man didn’t have anything very useful to find. Jack’s body yielded the Ka-Bar knife, but that was overkill when she already had Womack’s handgun and rifle. She opened one of his pouches and pulled out a roll of gauze tape, then tried turning on the laptop, but it was smashed beyond repair.

  She left the guest bedroom and met Lucy as she was coming out of the room at the end. Allie closed her door so Lucy wouldn’t have to see Jack’s body a second time.

  Allie already knew the answer from the look on the teenager’s face, but she had to ask anyway. “Anything?”

  Lucy shook her head. “What are we going to do now?”

  She glanced at her watch. “It’ll be morning soon. This house”—And all the death inside it—“is still safer than running around out there in the open against all of Dan’s men. At least in here we have some protection.”

  Besides, I’m tired of running, she thought. You want me, Dan? Come and get me, you bastard.

  But she didn’t give voice to those rebellious thoughts, not with Lucy standing in front of her, looking cold even though everything was warming up around them.

  Instead, she led the girl back to the living room, where Apollo had perched himself on one of the bullet-riddled couches, looking at nothing in particular. He had both floppy ears raised, so she knew he was on high alert.

  “You, come here,” she said.

  The dog gave her a confused look.

  “Now.”

  Apollo climbed off the sofa and limped over to her. She took out the roll of gauze she’d gotten from Jack’s body and wrapped it around the dog’s leg. She thought Apollo might resist or run off (or, worse-case scenario, bite her), but he simply lay down on his stomach, chin against the debris-strewn rug, and watched her cover up his injured leg.

  When she was done, she scratched him on the head and smiled. “Okay.”

  He got up and walked, this time with less of a noticeable limp, back to the couch and hopped onto it, floppy ears immediately going back up on full alert.

  “Thank God for Apollo,” Lucy said.

  “Come on,” Allie said, and led her to the adjoining back hallway, the one with the basement at the end.

  “Oh wow,” Lucy said when she saw the destruction in the passageway, the result of two thirty-round magazines unleashing into the wall and floor and ceiling at close range. It made her harrowing escape back at the two-story house seem almost quaint by comparison.

  “Yeah,” Allie said.

  “What happened here?”

  “An Uzi.”

  She took Lucy into the bathroom, where the big man she had shot earlier still lay on the floor, staring up at the bright lights. While Lucy watched, strangely expressionless, Allie dragged the body by the legs over to a corner.

  “You’ll be safe in here,” she told the teenager. “Lock the door, and if there’s shooting, go into the bathtub and lie down.”

  “The bathtub?” Lucy said doubtfully.

  “Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  “Good.”

  Allie kissed her on the forehead. It was, she realized, the first time they’d actually shared such an intimate moment. Lucy hugged her back and didn’t let go, until Allie had to pry her off.

  “Be careful,” Lucy said.

  “I will,” she said, and smiled at the girl.

  Lucy returned it, and this time there was nothing forced about her response.

  Well, Walter, you said you wanted me to bond with your daughter. I guess this means mission accomplished.

  Lucy stepped back, careful to avoid the puddles of blood, and closed the door between them. A few seconds later, the sound of the lock sliding into place on the other side.

  She turned to Apollo. “You hear anything yet?”

  The dog seemed to consider the question for a moment before looking away.

  “Keep your ears open, because they’re definitely coming.”

  She unslung the rifle and pulled out the Kalashnikov’s banana-shaped magazine. She hadn’t fired a shot yet, and it was still full. She patted the spares in her back pockets, hoping she wouldn’t need them, but knowing she probably would. She had no delusions that Dan was going to take off and leave them be. He had every reason to come after them—after Lucy. Forty million reasons.

  She should have been scared, and the fear should have forced her to abandon the house for the wide-open woods outside, but she wasn’t, and it didn’t.

  Damn you, Dan. Damn you and Walter.

  She was angry. She didn’t fully understand what she was feeling until now.

  She was mad. No, more than that, she was pissed.

  Come on then. You want Lucy? You want me? Come and get us, you bastard.

  She looked around her, at the living room on one side, then at the door that led into the basement behind her. There was a reason she’d chosen this hallway and not the bigger one to her left. That one had three bedrooms, and three possible points of entry. She couldn’t hope to cover all of them at once, and the idea of the burglar bars stopping Dan’s people if they wanted to come in that way was laughable.

  Besides, walking back and forth across the debris-strewn floor of the house had given her an idea of how to even the odds…

  Chapter 23

  “Allie!”

  Even when she could only hear his voice, Allie felt the smugness coming through. It was hard to reconcile this Dan with the one she had worked with for so long. Was this really the same man? Dan had never been the caring type, but not in her wildest dreams did she think he was capable of this.

  Maybe he’s saying the exact same thing about me right now.

  “We can still make a deal!” Dan shouted. “Give me the girl!” Then, when she didn’t respond, “Can you hear me in there? Didn’t fall asleep while waiting for me to show up, did you?”

  She didn’t bite, because it was a trick. Dan’s voice was coming from somewhere in the front of the house, but that wasn’t what she was focused on. It didn’t take a genius to know Dan’s mercenaries weren’t going to take the obvious approach. No, they wouldn’t come through the front door, even if it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. The back door, facing the kitchen, on the other hand…

  “I don’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed you came back here!” Dan shouted. “I’m leaning toward the former! If I’d known you were this impressive, well, who knows what might have happened!”

  Like hell, she thought, the very idea of being another one of his conquests making her want to vomit in her mouth. And that was even before she knew this side of him. Dan had an ideal type, but he rarely discriminated when it came to the opposite sex.

  “Allie! Come on! Let’s talk!”

  She had the AK-47 aimed at the back door, her body leaning slightly out from the back hallway, just enough to see the entire living room. Beams of sunlight poured through slots in the destroyed door that the long sofa she had pushed up against it couldn’t entirely block, and the curtains kept most of the windows covered.

  In front of her, Apollo hadn’t left the couch; he had found it to his liking ever since they arrived at the house. Both ears were raised, and he seemed to be trying to track Dan’s voice through the walls. Every now and then he would look over at her, as if asking for permission. She would shake her head back at him, and he would stay put.

  “It doesn’t have to end this way!” Dan was shouting.

  No? she wanted to ask him, but didn’t, because it was pointless. She knew exactly how it was going to end, and it didn’t involve either her or Lucy giving up.

  “I just want the girl! What’s she to you, anyway? You don’t even like her!”

  Allie glanced over at the closed bathroom door to her left, wondering if Lucy had heard that last part. Dan had a booming voice, so it was possible.

  “Hand her over, and you can walk out of here! Don’t be stupid! Remember what Walter did. You don’t owe hi
m anything!”

  No, but I owe the girl, and there’s no way in hell I’m running from the likes of you.

  “Allie! I know you can hear me in there! Let’s make a deal!”

  Had he gotten closer to the house? Maybe. It wasn’t like she could tell, because she had no view of the front yard. She only had eyes for the back—where all the most obvious points of entry were—and ears for everything else.

  “I’m willing to give you half of Walter’s share!” A brief pause (for dramatic effect, she guessed), then, “Consider it your retirement package, courtesy of Gorman and Smith. What do you say?”

  Then, when she still didn’t answer:

  “We can work this out! But you have to come outside and talk to me! Let’s do this the civilized way! After all, we used to be friends, right?”

  Bullshit, she thought, when Apollo suddenly whirled back toward her at almost the exact time she heard the tell-tale crack! she had been waiting for. The sound came from one of many lightbulb fragments she had spread across the darkened top landing of the basement stairs behind her, crushing underneath a heavy boot.

  She dropped to the floor and rolled over onto her back, debris crunching under her, a half-second before the basement doorknob started turning and the door flew open—

  She saw only darkness on the other side, but she didn’t wait to see what came out before she put half a dozen rounds into the door, aiming high, exactly where an adult-size man’s chest would be.

  The door kept opening as a black-clad figure collapsed through the doorframe, careening forward as if he had fallen asleep while standing up. Before the man even hit the floor, a second figure appeared behind him—except the man’s forward progress was impeded by his comrade, and he had to jump to get past. The man was partially in the air when Allie squeezed the trigger again, jerking her rifle up and from side to side until the man fell, landing comically on top of the first.

  Allie didn’t wait to see if they were dead or if more came out of the darkness behind them. She rolled onto her stomach and looked out the hallway, and found Apollo with his mouth locked around another mercenary’s right arm. The sofa was on the floor, leaving the back door gaping open, morning sunlight pouring through in large swaths.

  She had never seen the man before, though for just a brief second she thought it might have been Womack. But he was taller and skinnier, and he was struggling to free himself from Apollo’s teeth. When the man realized it wasn’t going to work, he reached for his sheathed knife with his free hand. He was wrapping his fingers around the weapon’s hilt when Allie shot him in the chest. The man fell, pulling Apollo down to the floor with him.

  The dog let go as soon as the man stopped struggling and snapped back up on all fours, spinning toward the open back door, ready for more.

  Allie scrambled up from the floor and dropped the Kalashnikov, pulling out the Colt 1911 and aiming it at the ajar basement door behind her. She would have preferred to use the AK-47, but she could tell by the weight that the magazine was almost drained, and the three to four seconds it would have taken to reload was likely three to four seconds more than she could afford.

  She stopped moving completely and listened, but it was impossible to hear much of anything through the loud pounding of her heartbeat in her chest.

  Click! as the bathroom door opened to her right, causing her to swivel her head around.

  “Jesus!” Allie snapped at the sight of Lucy peering out at her. “Get back inside!”

  Lucy quickly closed the door and locked it back up.

  Allie returned her stare to the basement door. She could sense Apollo prowling the living room behind her. She would have smiled if she could force the muscles around her mouth to form the gesture at that very moment, but she was almost paralyzed with anticipation.

  How many men did Dan have with him? Five? Six? She recalled the four in the woods with them, then two more back at the house. Lucy had taken out Womack, and she’d disarmed (but not killed) one more back at the other house.

  That left…four? Maybe four and a half, because she didn’t think the one she’d kicked in the face would stay down—

  Crack! as another pair of boots involuntarily crunched more pieces of lightbulb fragments sprinkled on the other side of the basement door. She fired and didn’t stop pulling the trigger until she had sent six rounds into the door, aiming for almost the exact same spot where she had put the first volley with the rifle.

  She jerked her hand down and put two more holes into the bottom of the door, about three feet up from the floor, just in case the person on the other side was crouching.

  The last gunshot echoed…then silence.

  She waited to hear the sound of a body falling—or maybe it had already tumbled and she hadn’t heard because she was too busy shooting. That was the best-case scenario, anyway.

  In the living room, Apollo remained silent, with only the soft tap-tap of his bare footsteps to interrupt the eerie silence as he continued to move around. That, more than anything, reassured her. A quiet Apollo meant no encroaching danger from behind.

  Allie counted to five, then put the handgun away, picked up the rifle, ejected the magazine, and slapped in a new one. By the time the charging handle clacked! into place, she was breathing much easier, even with adrenaline still pulsing from her toes to the tips of her fingers.

  The basement remained dead quiet as she approached it, the only sound coming from the clinking of brass casings as she kicked them out of her path. She peered forward at darkness within the room through the foot or so of space kept pried open by the two bodies lying in the doorframe.

  The quiet unnerved her, and Allie stopped and stitched the door up and down with a new volley, then for good measure, side to side, until she had carved a jagged cross made up of bullet holes into the slab of wood.

  As soon as the last clink of her spent shell casings stopped echoing in the corridor, Allie moved forward, jerked the door open, and aimed the rifle inside, sunlight from behind her glinting off the remaining glass shards she had spread across the landing as an early warning device. It was primitive, but highly effective, especially in the pitch darkness of the top staircase landing.

  There was just enough morning sunlight coming through the open window at the back to give her a good look at a third man, also wearing black military fatigues, lying in the middle of the stairs. Blood dripped against the concrete steps under him, and his rifle had slid all the way down to the floor behind him.

  The dead man in the basement made three that she had killed. Four, counting the one in the living room. Womack made five, and then there was the one she had kicked in the face. She couldn’t tell if the man on the stairs or the two collapsed in front of her was that man, and didn’t particularly care, either.

  Allie grabbed one of the bodies and pulled it out of the door, then did the same to his friend. Despite all the holes she had put into it, the door still closed just fine. She rushed back to the other side of the hallway, reloading the AK-47 with the second and last spare from her back pocket as she went.

  Apollo was already perched on the same couch, his coat of white fur covered in a fresh paint of red. Light from the back of the house flooded freely inside now that there wasn’t a sofa to blot it out. She leaned into the living room, glanced toward the back door and windows, and satisfied that no one was coming through, pulled back into the hallway and leaned heavily against the wall. Slowly, very slowly, she allowed her breathing to calm down.

  She slid to the floor, when the bathroom door across from her clicked open a second time and Lucy peered outside.

  “Are you okay?” the girl whispered.

  Allie wanted to be mad at the teenager, but she couldn’t summon the strength. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  Lucy nodded. “Are they gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I guess that’s up to Dan.”

  “I thought he was Dad’s friend,” the girl
said, frowning.

  “Me too.”

  “I guess you can’t trust anyone these days.”

  “You can trust me.”

  Lucy smiled at her. “I do.”

  “Good. Now go back inside, and do not come out again until I tell you to.”

  The girl nodded and closed the bathroom door. That was followed by the familiar clacking of the lock moving into place.

  Allie leaned back against the wall and sighed, allowing herself to close her eyes for the first time in…all night? She didn’t remember the last time she’d had such a long night. Well, that wasn’t entirely true…

  She opened her eyes back up and waited for Dan to shout something. Another smug comment, maybe.

  But there was just silence.

  She looked over at Apollo, perched unmoving on the couch. His head snapped toward the front door when they both heard the sound of a car starting up, then seconds later, fading into the distance.

  It’s a trick, she thought, and didn’t move.

  An hour later, it was still ghostly quiet outside except for the chirping of birds and the calm beating of her heartbeat.

  “Hey,” she said, getting Apollo’s attention. When the dog looked over, “Go outside and see if they’re still out there.”

  Apollo stared back at her, but didn’t move.

  “Go outside. Now.”

  He lay down on the couch and licked himself.

  “Stupid dog,” she smiled.

  Apollo bounded off the sofa and walked over to her, then slid down onto his stomach. She checked his bandaged leg and saw a little bit of blood had seeped through the gauze, but overall her handiwork wasn’t too bad.

  “You deserve a treat after this, boy. Or a dozen.”

  She scratched his head, prompting Apollo to roll over onto his side to present his belly.

  “What am I, your personal scratcher?”

  He let out a pitiful whine.

  “Okay, but just this once.”

  She scratched his belly.

  “Never again, Apollo. We are never, ever going into the woods ever again. Agreed?”

  He closed his eyes and began tapping one of his legs against the floor.