The Devil You Know

by Sam Sisavath

  But Sarah didn’t answer her. She had already closed her eyes, and this time she didn’t open them back up. She might not have even been able to, even if her chest was still rising and falling, if just barely.

  “Sarah,” Quinn said. “My father. Who is my father?”

  “Oh man, what’s that smell?” a voice asked behind her.

  Even through the haze of confusion and adrenaline, and the hundreds of questions bouncing around inside her head, Quinn recognized the voice. The anger that immediately rose from the pits of her stomach exploded into her legs as she jumped up to her feet and spun, and swung—

  He intercepted her fist in midair like she was little more than a petulant child trying to throw her first punch and chuckled in her face.

  “You fucker,” Quinn hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Hey, come on,” the man said. “We used to be friends.”

  He let go, and she pulled her hand back and stumbled, tripping on her own feet and falling to the ground on her ass but was too inflamed with anger to be embarrassed by it. He was wearing the same black commando uniform as the half dozen others standing around him, but where they had kept their helmets and masks on, he had removed his.

  Pete Ringo looked down at Sarah and wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t worry too much about her. A little spew and she’ll be bright and shiny all over again. I mean, look at me.”

  He flashed that smarmy grin that made every inch of her throb with anger, but before Quinn could act on it, a gunshot rang out—bang!—and one of the commandos staggered forward, blood gushing from his right shoulder.

  Ringo spun toward the source of the shot, as did the others around him.

  Quinn did too and saw Owen stumbling out of the grass on the side of the road. Or what was left of him. Half of his clothes had been scorched away by the same blast that had reduced the RV to little more than an overturned skeletal metal frame, and one side of his face was blackened. He was still moving somehow, despite one leg being twisted at an impossible angle, and he seemed to be having great difficulty just keeping the handgun raised.

  Owed fired again—too high—and the bullet sailed over Ringo’s head.

  He didn’t get off a third shot because the Rhim operatives unloaded on him, dozens and dozens of bullets riddling Owen from head to toe, and Quinn’s last sight of the man was his face, the untouched half now covered in a thick layer of fresh, bright blood, as his body vanished into the stalks of grass.

  “Damn,” Ringo said. “Now that’s what I call going out in a blaze of glory.”

  You bastard!

  Quinn used the distraction to jump up from the road and lunged at the nearest commando. The man’s back was turned to her, but he either sensed or heard her coming and spun around almost in time. Almost. He was fast, but not quite fast enough, to stop her from pulling the gun out of its holster.

  “What—” the man said a split second before she shot him in the shin, his leg snapping underneath him with a sickening crack.

  The others were turning, including Ringo, when she got off her second shot and hit Ringo in the side of the neck. The man grunted and staggered, his hands reaching up for his throat even as blood spurted out through the half-inch-wide hole she’d put into it.

  The head! Go for the head!

  Quinn jerked the gun up another inch, but before she could pull the trigger, they were on top of her. One body, then two, until they drove her to the pavement and one of them grabbed the gun and jerked it, and she screamed as her finger broke in the trigger guard.

  But that pain was quickly overshadowed by a sharp prick from somewhere in her right shoulder. It was almost instantaneously followed by waves of nausea and darkness, and soon she couldn’t even feel the heavily-armored bodies holding her down with their weight.

  From the other side of the universe, Ringo’s voice, continuing to torment her: “Dammit, Quinn, I’m starting to get the feeling you don’t like me anymore.”

  Go to hell, Pete Ringo. Go to hell!

  But she could only manage to think those words because nothing else about her was responding, not even her eyes.

  As the darkness intensified and she lost consciousness, Sarah’s words echoed in her head, over and over again:

  “Your father would be so mad at me right now.”

  “Your father…”

  “…father…”

  Chapter 23

  Xiao

  “Xing lai, Xiao. Xing lai!”

  She opened her eyes to a woman’s face. She had dark black hair and soothing blue eyes, and was telling her to “wake up” in heavily-accented Mandarin.

  “Xiao,” the woman said. “Can you walk?”

  Walk? And where exactly would I walk to?

  She didn’t know if she had actually said those words out loud (or if she was even capable of speaking), but it led to the woman frowning. “We have to get out of here. Do you understand?”

  No, I don’t understand.

  “I can carry you,” the woman said, “but I need one of my hands free. So you’re going to have to help me. Do you understand?”

  Again with the questions. What made the woman think she could even answer? She could barely pry her lips open to breathe, never mind form sounds.

  “Okay,” the woman said. “Here we go.”

  Where are we going?

  There was a feeling of weightlessness, of rising in the air almost as if someone was lifting her. Xiao didn’t know how, but her arms were suddenly wrapped around a warm body.

  “Here,” a voice said. Still just the woman.

  Better a woman than a man, because a man might mean Hofheinz.

  Or worse, Porter.

  Speaking of Porter—you bastard. You goddamn bastard.

  “Good, good,” the woman said. “Hold tight.”

  Hold tight onto what? she thought, forcing her fingers to clench anyway.

  A hand. No, a wrist. Someone’s wrist. Her own? Was she holding onto her own wrist while both arms were encircling a body?

  Oh. Neat.

  She was riding on the woman’s back, holding onto her the way a child would her mother. Xiao didn’t even know how any of this was possible, but it was happening. It was definitely happening.

  Unless, of course, it wasn’t, and all of this was just in her mind. Another product of the chair.

  Stupid chair, trying to trick me again.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…something, something.

  The woman was moving and carrying her on her back as if Xiao weighed under a buck and not the—

  Hey, hey, a woman never tells her weight!

  She might have laughed or chuckled, but definitely made some kind of noise because the woman said, “Did you say something?” A beat, then, “Hold on.”

  French. There’s definitely a slight French accent somewhere in there. She got rid of most of it, but you can never get rid of all of it. I should know.

  Then they were moving, traveling across…white floors.

  Was she still inside one of the white rooms? Then that would mean the chair was behind her somewhere.

  Wait. If the chair was behind her, then that meant—

  I’m out of the chair! Eureka!

  Xiao managed to somehow turn her head and look back, and there it was—the chair. A gleaming silver piece of furniture that should have been uncomfortable to sit in.

  How did she get out of it?

  The woman. She must have shut down whatever was holding Xiao in place, and suddenly it made sense.

  Quinn. She had mentioned something about being saved by a woman when she was held captive in a chair under the Wilshire service center. Quinn hadn’t known who it was, and according to her, neither had Porter, but the woman made it very clear she was risking a lot to free her.

  Unless this is all in my head.

  Unless Hofheinz is still screwing with me.

  The click of a door opening, but instead of a monotonous white hallway, they stepped out of the room
and into a corridor with scarred gray concrete walls and ceiling lights that buzzed loudly above them.

  This isn’t a Rhim service center. This is…some place that could definitely use a new coat of paint. Or two.

  Xiao looked around her. Or as much as she could without losing her grip on the woman. A part of her felt embarrassment at being carried around like one of Aaron’s much-too-big-for-him backpack, but the other part, the one that wanted to get the hell out of here and as far away from Hofheinz as possible, couldn’t care less how she looked.

  I’ll die of embarrassment when I’m dead.

  Hah, joke.

  She might have chuckled again because the woman stopped momentarily and turned her head slightly. “I can’t tell if you’re still asleep back there or if you’re just playing with me.”

  Is there a third option?

  “Hold on,” the woman said, and changed up her grip on one of Xiao’s legs before starting to move again.

  A hallway. A very ugly concrete hallway. It was nothing like the white walls of the Wilshire service center, where she’d had to fight her way down to rescue Porter and Quinn with the SOPs. This place looked more like the abandoned buildings that Porter’s secret benefactors “loaned” him. That didn’t make any sense, because she swore the room she’d just come out of was white and had a chair in it.

  So where the hell was she, if not in one of the service centers? How many chairs did the Rhim have, anyway? And did she really want to know the answer to that last one?

  Nah. Ignorance is bliss. Let’s go with that!

  They were moving pretty fast—or she thought they were, anyway—with the woman still breathing normally. Which was amazing, because Xiao was pretty sure she was bigger than her savior, and yet the woman was carrying her like it was the other way around. Heck, even if it were the other way around, it still shouldn’t be this easy given Xiao’s extremely useless physical state.

  Okay, this is definitely embarrassing. I hope no one sees me.

  If all this is real.

  If all this isn’t just another elaborate ruse.

  But if all of this was real, then things were looking good, because they were making steady progress along the ugly corridor. Walls that hadn’t seen some TLC in God only knew how many years flashed by (What is that, blood? Semen? Both?), as did the many holes in the floor below them. The lights continued to buzz loudly, and the only thing that would make her environment more of a horror movie was if the fluorescents flickered every few seconds—

  Gunfire.

  Bang! Bang!

  It was very soft, like wet firecrackers, though Xiao thought she could feel the heat of the gunpowder discharging nearby

  For something that’s only taking place in my head, it’s awfully detailed!

  They had stopped, though she didn’t realize this until they resumed moving and her savior stepped over a man lying on the ground with a hole in his chest and a second one in his forehead.

  I spy with my little eye one dead Rhimmer.

  The man was bald and wearing a cheap black blazer and slacks. He was still clutching onto a pistol with one hand.

  Hey, I could use that, Xiao thought as the woman stepped through an open door and out into—

  Gunfire. Again!

  This time it was much louder, either because her senses had begun clearing up or because there were so many of them at one time.

  A gun battle. Taking place in front of her!

  All dressed up, and me without a gun!

  She grunted (or again, thought she did) when her body crumpled rudely (Ouch!) against an oil-stained floor just as a bullet casing bounced an inch from her head. She landed on her back and didn’t have to do anything to see the woman standing above her as she fired again and again with a pistol. Her savior looked appropriately angelic—either that, or it was the lights on the cavernous roof playing tricks with Xiao’s eyes.

  You go, girl!

  She tried to roll over, to look for a weapon. Surely (Don’t call me Shirley!) there had to be something she could use to help out her newfound friend. A gun would be ideal, but Xiao would have settled for a knife. Or a screwdriver. Maybe even a stick, if that was the only thing available.

  Gun. Come on, gun!

  Except there were no guns to be had. Or none that she could find once she managed to roll over onto her side. There were plenty of oil stains, and the smell of said oil assaulting her nostrils and making her eyes sting. Then, just for good measure, a red-hot bullet casing bounced off her temple before clinking to the floor.

  Talk about adding injury to insult!

  Or is it the other way around? I bet Aaron would know.

  But at least her savior was still standing and shooting, which was a good sign, because if she stopped that meant they were both dead. So long as the gunfire continued, there was a chance she could get out of here—this place that clearly wasn’t a service center. So what was it? Some kind of temporary setup? Maybe she and the SOPs had done more damage to the Wilshire facility than she had thought. Certainly drawing the world’s attention to it hadn’t helped them keep it secret.

  My bad, guys!

  Xiao assumed her chances of getting out of here, with or without her savior, depended on how many Rhim operatives were standing in their way. Given how easily the woman had lifted and carried her, it was easy to conclude she was also Rhim, and like Porter, she was stronger than the average person.

  Let’s hope she can shoot better than the average person.

  And isn’t like Porter…that backstabbing bastard.

  Xiao was still trying to gauge her chances when the gunfire finally stopped without fanfare.

  Uh oh.

  Hands grabbed her and lifted her back into the air, and Xiao was prepared to fight—or at least try—but she instead relaxed when she heard the familiar voice: “Hold on tight. We’re almost there.”

  She lives!

  Xiao wanted to jump for joy but settled on clenching her arms around the woman as they rushed through—a warehouse? Some kind of warehouse. Old and stained from years of use, and just brightly lit enough for her to make out two more bodies on the floor. Both men, one lying on his stomach while the second one was on his back. There was a bloody mask where the man’s face should have been, along with a metal rod, pristine silver against the scarred floor, clutched in one hand.

  I know what that is. Shouldn’t have brought a staff to a gunfight, sucker!

  A door opening, then Xiao was suddenly flying through the air—

  What the hell?

  —before landing, bouncing a bit, and then settling on her side with her cheek pressed against soft upholstery.

  Doors slammed, then an engine came to life, and they were moving again.

  Free! Free at last!

  That time she was sure she must have managed to actually laugh, because her savior glanced back at her from between the two seats and smiled. “What’s so funny?”

  Oh, nothing. Just glad to be alive, that’s all.

  Unless, of course, I’m still in the chair and this is just another one of Hofheinz’s mind fucks.

  What were the chances of that? She put it at fifty-fifty. After all, the day she’d spent with Porter in that house had seemed pretty real, too, but it’d turned out not to be the case.

  Fifty-fifty sounds about right.

  Xiao decided to go ahead and close her eyes so she could ruminate on the question. Hell, if this were just an elaborate ruse, then at least she was going to enjoy the slight back and forth rocking of the vehicle while she could. That way she could stick it to Hofheinz.

  And Porter, that bastard. That bastard.

  She woke up in the backseat of a car, with a woman holding a syringe leaning over her. The fear must have shown on her face, because the woman said, “Relax, it’s just to help you fight the after effects of the chair faster.”

  Xiao groaned and stared up at the car’s stained roof. “Where are we?”

  “I had to park and take care of
some things,” the woman said. She tossed the syringe out the window, and as she did so, Xiao noticed that her hand was covered in dried blood.

  “What happened?”

  “They put up a fight.”

  Xiao sat up—and fell right back down.

  “Give it time,” the woman said. “You’ll get everything back in an hour or so. Don’t push it.”

  She didn’t listen and did push it, and this time managed to sit up by using the seat to slide into an upright position. Or almost one, anyway. Enough that she got a better look at the woman sitting across from her, along with the bloody patch around her right shoulder and side. Despite that, her savior didn’t look to be in any pain.

  “It looks worse than it really is,” the woman said. “The wounds have already closed.”

  “You’re one of them.”

  “Amelie.”

  “The Rhim.”

  The woman smiled. “I know what you meant. My name’s Amelie.”

  “Like the movie?” Xiao said, when there was a stab of pain.

  “What’s wrong?” Amelie asked.

  Xiao pulled her shirt up and peered down at her side. There was a fresh bandage over the spot where the throbbing pain was coming from.

  “They sewed you back up after the school,” Amelie said. “You were shot, remember?”

  “I guess it was too much to hope the chair might have fixed me…”

  “The chair can do a lot of things, but it can’t mend bullet holes.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  She pulled her shirt back down and leaned against the seat before letting out a tired sigh. Maybe she should have stayed on her back after all…

  They were in a four-door sedan parked somewhere in an alley between two brick and mortar buildings. It was quiet outside, with only the occasional vehicle passing by on the street about thirty yards in front of them.

  “Where was I?” Xiao asked. “It didn’t look like a service center.”

  “It was a temporary hub. You guys sort of made a real mess when you exposed the Wilshire facility. They had to move everything. It was chaotic in the beginning, but things are settling down now. There are a dozen temporary hubs like the one we just escaped from around the city. It’s going to be like that until they can rebuild a new service center.”