Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2)

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “Okay…sure.” The ease in which she relented took him by surprise.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Ok…wait. No. No, you’re not, Paige. You’re going to go with Trey and get as far away from here as you can.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Matthews, but my decision is non-negotiable,” she smirked, exasperating him further.

  “Not fair using my own words against me,” he sighed. “Fine, but just stay somewhere off to the side, away from the wounded and the people who made them that way.”

  “Deal.”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” he said. Chase noticed Trey eying the crowd. “Go, Trey, we’ll be behind you shortly.”

  Trey nodded his understanding. “Actually, it looks like they could use someone to help make it orderly up there with all the pushing and shoving going on.”

  “Well, get on it then,” Chase said. “Paige and I will meet you by the car soon.”

  “You’d better,” Trey said before he disappeared into the crowd of people fighting their way out of the venue.

  “Come on.” Chase grabbed Paige’s hand and led her back with him to the stage. An opening in the satin skirting along the edge of the platform revealed a crevice underneath. “Here,” he pulled the skirting back and motioned for her to crawl underneath it. “If you insist on staying near me, at least humor me by staying as safe as possible.”

  “No. I can’t just hide like some coward while you go out there dodging bullets and saving lives.”

  “You’re not a coward. Please, Paige, if not for me, then for your dad. I promised him that I would take care of you. Don’t make me break that promise.”

  “Fine,” she glared at him, “but I’m not too happy about it.”

  “I’ll stay close.” He kissed the top of her head and stood up to survey the casualties. Dozens of bodies, those of the dead and of the dying, lay on the ground. Most—not surprisingly—belonged to members of the rebellion. Nearby, a man moaned on the ground in pain. Chase ran over to him, having to quickly duck and cover as more gunfire exploded around him. Crawling the rest of the way, he reached the now silent man and placed his finger on the carotid where he picked up a faint pulse. Further assessment revealed that the man was breathing, though it was labored. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible given the circumstances.

  He located the two bullet wounds, one through the man’s left shoulder, near the clavicle, and the other underneath the rib cage on the same side. Chase removed his jacket and, with a small Swiss Army knife from his pocket, he proceeded to cut through the material until the jacket had been cut in half. Taking one half of it, he wrapped it around the man’s shoulder and tied it off, applying pressure to the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. The remaining half was tied off around the midsection, wrapped as tightly as possible. The injured man needed emergency medical attention in a hospital equipped with the proper medical equipment if he were going to survive, as Chase suspected internal bleeding for which a blood transfusion would be needed.

  “How does he look?” Chase looked up to see Marshall looking down at him, concerned.

  “Not good,” he answered. “He needs emergency medical attention with equipment I don’t have.”

  “Well, then he’s as good as dead, because there’s no way Brooks is going to allow any hospital to touch our wounded.” Marshall knelt down to the ground beside him.

  Chase could feel the anger surging up inside him. “I’ve taken the man for a lot of things, but never a murderer.”

  “That’s the purpose of today, my friend,” Marshall responded. “We may suffer casualties in the process, but if the people’s eyes are opened, it’s worth the sacrifice.”

  “I highly doubt this man’s family would agree with that sentiment.”

  “Perhaps if they were still alive themselves, they would agree with you,” Marshall eyed the slowly dying man mournfully, reliving his life for him in a series of memories that flashed through his mind. “Charlie here lost his entire family in a blast in Baltimore a couple of years ago. The more you lose, the less you care about your own life. Revenge is a fire that can never be put out. It’s a burn that slowly consumes you until there’s nothing left of you but the dark thoughts it implants in your mind. It drives otherwise normal people mad. Hell, we’ve had people leave their lives to join us, removing themselves entirely from everyone they knew and loved.”

  Chase’s heart skipped a beat. A thought clicked into his brain with the familiarity of the story. “Celaine Stevens,” he stated urgently. “Do you know anyone by that name?”

  “Celaine Stevens? Nope, can’t say that I do. But that doesn’t mean anything. We have members across the country. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” he sighed.

  “There’s more wounded down at the end of the stage. As much as I hate to say it, I think your expertise would be better suited down there with victims who may still have a chance.” Chase nodded in acknowledgment. “I’ll make sure my people take the wounded to you. Thank you, my brother.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “No, it’s your character. You are one of the few good ones left.” A cry for help resounded nearby. As it echoed into Marshall’s ears, he leapt back up to his feet and was gone, disappearing into the crowd just as a new wave of soldiers came ashore.

  This will be over soon, Chase thought. He surveyed the fighting going on around him. The rebels were dwindling down in numbers at a rapid pace, and there were no more reinforcements coming in to fight on their behalf. Keeping low to the ground, Chase crawled over to the end of the stage where the wounded lay just as Marshall had said. Around the wounded knelt other rebels who were rendering aid. One of them, he could tell, obviously had experience in trauma care with the way she had dressed the wounds and the questions she was asking to the ones who were still lucid.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said to the few conscious enough to hear him.

  “You could be God for all it matters right now,” the woman who was rendering most of the aid said. “Without proper equipment and care, not to mention a sterile setting, many of them aren’t going to make it, no matter what we do right now.”

  “Well, we can only do our best, right?” Chase looked at the wounded men and women and smiled. “It looks like they’re all pretty stable right now. We just need to wait for paramedics to arrive and…”

  “You honestly believe there are going to be paramedics?” The woman raised a dark eyebrow at him, almost amused. “Please. Brooks isn’t going to allow our men and women to be treated. We’re all going to be left to rot.”

  “He can’t dictate who gets medical treatment and who doesn’t.”

  “You want to bet on that?” She glared at him “Of course, handsome doctor like you, you’ve probably led a sheltered kind of life. Your hope for the future is probably still alive and well, too.”

  “Without hope, you have nothing.”

  “Well, then, consider me a vagabond.”

  “Christyn, we have another one,” a man in fatigue cargo pants ran over to the medic with a man slumped over his shoulders. He knelt down and Chase assisted him in setting the wounded man down onto the ground.

  “Ace,” the man said, extending a hand to Chase. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Chase,” he said, taking the man’s hand in his. “That’s because we haven’t.”

  “He’s not one of us,” Christyn answered. “Probably a member of the Brooks Fan Club just like the rest of the spectators.”

  “If that were the case, I wouldn’t be helping a member of the group who attempted to assassinate him this evening, now would I?” he said, becoming increasingly irritated. Chase assessed the man on the ground. His injuries, though in need of treatment, were minor with only a bullet wound to the upper arm. Most likely, the man was in shock from both his injury and the events of the evening.

  “Whoever shot Brooks wasn’t a part of our group,” Christyn said.
She reached into a utility bag and pulled out a tourniquet. “None of us in the first group had weapons. It was only if things went downhill that the second group would come in with the firepower. The person who fired the gun, whoever they were, was either one of you or one of Brooks’ men.”

  “But if it was one of Brooks’ men, that would mean…”

  “Exactly,” Christyn cut him off. “This was all a setup.”

  “And one of the many, many reasons why our group exists,” Ace finished her thought before running back into the action to retrieve more of the fallen.

  Christyn tossed the tourniquet to Chase. “Care to do the honors?”

  “My pleasure.” He caught the tourniquet, which clearly was once a piece of clothing, and proceeded to wrap it around the man’s arm. “He should come to soon, especially if his blood loss is slowed and…” Christyn’s sudden gasp startled him, forcing him to drop the man’s arm. Chase looked up at the woman to see the color completely drained away from her face. Right when he was about to ask her what was happening, he felt the unmistakable feeling of cold metal brush the back of his head.

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to stop what you’re doing right now,” the soldier commanded him.

  Without looking at the man, Chase raised his arms into the air. “With all due respect, I’m trying to help the injured. I’m not doing anything illegal here.”

  “President’s orders are that no one shall aid the rebels. They’ve committed an act of treason against our country and shall pay the consequences of their actions.”

  “It wasn’t one of our people who took the shot at Brooks,” Christyn yelled back at the man, jumping to her feet. The soldier removed the weapon from the back of Chase’s head and struck her with the butt of the gun. She dropped to the ground unconscious.

  “What the hell!” Chase yelled at the soldier, who quickly turned around and pointed the gun at his face this time. He could feel his heart skip a beat. From underneath the stage, he heard a pained whimper. Looking down, he saw Paige, eyes wide with fear. Shooting her a look as if telling her to keep quiet, he once again faced the soldier.

  “President’s orders are that no rebel will receive aid,” he spoke again, more mechanically.

  “I know what you said, but the rebels are people, too. This guy was still alive and may have bled to death. All I was doing was giving him a fighting chance.”

  The soldier peered down at the man, his face becoming blank as though his mind were being sent a message that the rest of him was trying to process. After a brief pause, his expression hardened; and to Chase’s horror, the soldier removed the gun from his face, pointed it at the man’s head and fired. With no remorse on his still blank expression, the soldier looked back up from the man’s body and faced Chase, again aiming the gun at his head.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Chase tried talking to him. “It wasn’t like he was going to be able to resist you.”

  “President’s orders are that no rebels receive aid,” he said in the same flat affectation.

  “Yeah, I got it.” He raised his arms again to show that he meant no harm. “Look, I understand. Please lower your weapon and I’ll leave now.”

  “Anyone who violates the President’s order will be killed on the spot.”

  “No!” Paige gasped.

  Chase closed his eyes, the bile rising in his stomach. In front of him, he could hear the gun cock. Please let this be quick, he thought as he prepared himself for the coming blast.

  *****

  I flung myself at the soldier, throwing us both to the ground. The gun flew out of his hand and landed on the grass just inches away from Chase’s feet. Within seconds, the man was on top of me, punching at my chest, narrowly missing me. Quickly, I regained my bearings, blocking his assault and launching one of my own. My second punch landed squarely in his gut, temporarily disabling him. Upon seeing him in the fetal position, clutching his stomach, I seized the opportunity to remove his helmet in the hope that his rage would still.

  With the helmet in my hands, I looked back at Chase. From underneath the stage, the same blonde girl I’d seen him with several times before came running out, practically tackling him to the ground when she took him in her arms. Together, the two sobbed. It was a private moment, a moment that I shouldn’t have been there to see, but perhaps needed to. Unable to move or look away, I watched the love of my life embracing another woman as though I were mesmerized. My body, my very being, went numb. If not for the tears forming in my eyes, I would have questioned whether or not I was even attached to a physical body at all.

  “I love you,” Chase said, wiping the tears away from her eyes before kissing her forehead. That’s when the sickness overcame me, and the world around me began to spin. Any hope that I may have had of being anywhere in his thoughts or his heart was vanquished in that instant. With her still in his arms, he opened his eyes, meeting mine through my mask. We stared at each other for an eternity played out in only a matter of seconds, until his lips finally moved, mouthing, “Thank you”. I nodded, the tears clouding my vision before I motioned for him to take the gun that was still at his feet. He stared at it for a moment and looked back up at me, and I nodded at him to take it again. After some hesitancy, he let go of his grip around the girl to bend down and pick the gun up from the ground.

  Next to me the soldier groaned. His hands firmly grasped his head in pain. Before crawling over to him, I looked back over my shoulder once more to see Chase and the girl running together away from the action. In his hand, Chase still held the gun. In that instant, intermingled with my sadness, I became flooded with relief. Chase would be safe. At least I had that going for me. On the ground, the man groaned again. Cautiously, I crawled over to him.

  “How did I get here? Why does my head hurt so damn much?” he moaned.

  “You honestly don’t know how you got here?” I asked. “Do you even know where you are?”

  “No.” He released his head from his hands to look up at me. I was stunned by how much his face already showed more character than it had before. No longer did he appear robotic. His soul had finally returned to reclaim his body.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brad,” he answered definitively.

  “Okay, Brad, where are you from?”

  “Gaithersburg, Maryland.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “We were in the locker room, getting ready to go into a briefing. They handed us new uniforms, told us to try them on. They gave us our helmets and asked us to try them on as well. And…that’s it…I can’t remember what happened next.”

  “Son of a bitch, Cameron,” I became enraged.

  “What? Who’s Cameron?”

  “A dead man. Look, you’re going to be all right. Just don’t put this helmet back on, okay?”

  “Why?’ he asked, confused. “I kind of need it.”

  I paused, unsure of what to say to him, whether the truth—or what I thought the truth was—would be too much for him to take in. “Because I think that’s why you can’t remember anything. Something in your helmet grabbed hold of your thoughts.”

  “You mean like mind control?” he asked.

  “Exactly like mind control.” He sat up, stunned rapidly turning to anger.

  “Are you done chatting it up over there, because I could really use some help over here,” Ian called out over my ear bud.

  “What, you can’t take on a few thousand angry, gun-wielding soldiers on your own? Wow, they really don’t make superheroes like they used to.”

  “Yes, they broke the mold when they made you. Just get over here…now!”

  “Remove as many of your comrades’ helmets as you can,” I instructed Brad. “The sooner the helmets are removed, the sooner this chaos starts coming to an end.”

  “Oh…okay,” Brad stammered before I took off back into the fray.

  Ian was lost somewhere in a mob that was now more soldier than rebel, fighting to try and re
gain control. A part of me felt guilty for having left him to the task, but that part was a much smaller piece of the pie than the part of me that was relieved in knowing that Chase was safe. Fighting my way through the mass, I spotted Ian near where I’d left him, which was also now the source of the action. There were still a few remaining members of the audience trying to find their way out of the newly blocked exit, while wounded rebels fought desperately for their lives. In between the rebels and the soldiers, Ian fought off an onslaught of attackers, attempting to give the wounded a chance to escape. While fighting off the soldiers, he made it a point to try to remove their helmets. He’d succeeded in removing roughly a handful of them, leaving confused soldiers cowering at his feet. I sped up to reach him, almost making it to him when my feet slid to a halt.

  “Marshall,” one of the rebels called to their leader, the man who’d killed Lucy. “More soldiers just reached the shore, and many more are advancing from the north. Our numbers are dwindling as much as our ammo. If any of us are going to make it out of here, we need to retreat now.”

  “Get as many of the wounded out as you can and have our men begin to draw back. I think we made the statement we aimed to today,” Marshall answered him.

  The man nodded, taking a walkie talkie-like device out of his pocket to give the order, while Marshall weaved his way through the rest of the rebels with me hot on his unsuspecting heels. In my holster sat my gun, something I had repeatedly told myself I wouldn’t use on anyone except The Man in Black, but at this instant, with memories of Lucy playing in crescendos in my head, I was willing to make an exception. My hand, seemingly with a mind of its own, removed the gun from the holster and drew it upwards until it was pointed directly at Marshall Leitner, who at that very moment, happened to turn around to face me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Wounded

  Marshall Leitner looked from my masked face to the gun in my hand, surprise quickly giving way to shock. “It would appear I was wrong about you,” he said, maintaining a level of cool. “Based on the actions that you and your partner displayed here this evening, I was beginning to believe we shared the same vision.”