Strays

by Justin Kassab

  “Guys!” Mick blurted. Everyone’s attention turned. The lights of their pursuers were still in sight, but besides that, Kade couldn’t find anything.

  “I think it’s me,” Mick said. “I’m what they’re tracking.”

  Yuzuki took the wheel. Jem shook his head. “They were supposed to execute you. That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  Mick ran a hand through his hair. “During my last session they told me they were going to let me go once they executed you. They didn’t need me for anything, and my only crime was knowing you.”

  “And you didn’t tell me this because?” Jem snapped.

  “I was so out of it, I didn’t know if it was true or some delusional dream I had while they were working me,” Mick replied.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “They stitched up a wound on my back. I’m guessing they put something in first,” Mick said.

  Yuzuki aimed her pistol at Mick. “I’ll give you two choices: I shoot you and then roll you out of the car, or I’ll slow down enough for you to bail out.”

  Mick popped his seatbelt and hung his head like a whipped dog. “Mind getting me closer to the grass.”

  He grabbed the handle as Yuzuki moved the car closer to the berm.

  “No. Yuzuki, don’t slow down,” Kade said.

  “You want me to shoot him?” she asked.

  “Jesus, no. Tiny got shot. Zack and Drew gave their lives. We’re not losing anyone else,” Kade replied.

  “Drew’s dead?” Jem asked.

  Kade ran a hand over his buzzed hair. That probably wasn’t the best way he could have told Jem—he had completely forgotten that Jem didn’t know. He had been so wrapped up in the tragedy of his impending fatherhood that he’d neglected to mention to Jem that someone he had freed had died trying to save him.

  “We were ambushed. I’m sorry,” Kade said.

  Jem shook with anger while pointing a finger at Kade. “I told you not to come. I told you not to come. How is it fair to trade those lives for ours? We made our choice knowing the risk. First my dog, now my friends. Can’t I trust you to keep anything I love safe?”

  “I told you not to go. If you hadn’t gone, no one would be dead. No one,” Kade snapped back.

  “I gave my word, like you did to watch Argos. I keep my word.”

  Kade wasn’t sure who this person was, but he didn’t like him. Jem had always been a calm and collected person. This was not the person he knew.

  “You want to have this out, we can don some gloves when we get home. Right now, we need a plan,” Kade said.

  Jem’s eyes narrowed, like he wanted nothing more than to rip into Kade’s chest at that moment, but he settled back into his seat. “It’s not my home.”

  Kade pulled the magazine from his rifle and slid the shells out one by one. He split them in half and handed a pile each to Jem and Yuzuki.

  “Does this plan involve you charging an armed convoy yelling bang, bang, bang?” Mick asked.

  “Yuzuki, trade seats with Mick,” Kade said.

  The two looked like a pair of mating snakes while they jostled to trade positions without losing speed or control. Kade dug into the bag of food and pulled out the bottle of vodka, then tore his sleeve off. Jem and Yuzuki loaded Kade’s rounds into their rifles.

  “Going to tell us what the plan is, or just gonna yell surprise?” Yuzuki asked while Kade stuffed his sleeve into the bottle.

  “Same movie, different actors,” Kade said, then proceeded to explain. Mick would slow down enough for Jem and Yuzuki to bail out. Kade would hit the lead vehicle with the Molotov cocktail, then they’d start a fight. They were outnumbered and low on ammo, but Kade hoped as long as their eyes were set on chasing Mick, they could use surprise to their advantage. Then, if they won the fight, they could get around to removing the tracker from Mick.

  Mick had slowed down, and the other two were getting ready to bail.

  “If this plan goes to shit, just get away on foot,” Kade said.

  Jem tossed his rifle, then himself, out of the Jeep.

  Yuzuki pulled Kade to her and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck.” Then she followed Jem.

  Kade climbed over the backseat and opened the half door. He held the Molotov cocktail in one hand and the lighter in the other.

  “Can I protest this idea?” Mick asked.

  “Ruling on the field stands,” Kade said, watching the headlights as they approached.

  When the headlights were about fifty yards away, he leapt from the back of the Jeep, hitting the ground at a run to keep his balance. As he charged into the blinding light, he lit the alcohol-soaked fuse. Three more steps and he hurled it against the windshield of the oncoming vehicle. The bottle shattered, and flames spread over the hood. Kade dove to the side as they skidded past. He pulled the two Judges and rushed for the burning vehicle. Between the two pistols he had five shots left.

  The other two vehicles in the convoy squealed to a halt. Kade met the flaming vehicle at the same time as the driver’s door flew open. Kade rounded the door and slammed a knee into the person exiting. As they both fell back into driver’s seat, Kade delivered a point-blank shot from the Judge into the person’s face. The blast splattered blood and bone all over Kade.

  As he moved toward the back, the passenger door rocketed open, catching Kade in the side and sending him sprawling toward the ground. While he fell, he didn’t fight his body’s momentum but kept his focus on his sights. Before he reached the ground, he popped off one shot. He hit his target far lower than he had planned but ended up shooting the man in the groin.

  The man collapsed to the ground with an ear-splitting scream. Kade wasted no time delivering a second blast that silenced the soldier. He holstered his empty pistol and retrieved the man’s rifle.

  Two soldiers rounded both ends of the vehicle at the same time. Kade sprang over the dead body and into the backseat as the two opened fire. Judging by the yelling, they might have saved him a bullet. But Kade didn’t take time to check and launched himself out the open door on the other side.

  The convoy had stopped in a triangle formation, with the flaming car in the lower left corner. When Kade emerged out the other side, he found himself in the center of four soldiers taking cover between the vehicles. One of the four was dressed in what appeared to be Navy whites. The woman in white’s long hair gleamed in the headlights.

  Kade scrambled to his feet, unloading his last three shells from the Judge and firing poorly from the hip with his rifle like he was in some sort of Schwarzenegger movie. He doubted he’d hit anything, but he used the volley to cover his escape as he fled the triangle. Clearing the cars, he saw the bodies of every soldier that had tried to exit on that side.

  “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me,” he hollered as he ran toward the side of the road.

  Kade threw himself to the ground, using the natural runoff grade of the road as cover. A shot came from a few yards up the road, and Kade wormed his way there. Jem and Yuzuki were lying side by side with their rifles trained on the convoy.

  “How are we doing?” Jem asked, not taking his eye off his sight.

  “Four or five to go,” Kade said, bringing his rifle up.

  “Anyone dressed in white?” Jem asked.

  “Yeah,” Kade replied.

  “That’d be that bitch Blaire Cunningham. I’m going to see if I can’t get downroad of them, keep them occupied,” Jem said as he scrambled away in a hunched form that resembled a foamer.

  Kade and Yuzuki fired irregularly at the convoy. Since Kade couldn’t see anyone, he aimed for the windows to get an extra burst of glass to keep people down. Jem must have reached his position, because a volley of shots rang out through the darkness. Kade couldn’t tell if Jem was even aiming, or if he was just emptying the magazine. The front vehicle in the convoy began to move.

  “Don’t let them shoot me,” Kade said, jumping over Yuzuki and running toward the moving truck. The passenger door was flapping back and f
orth as Kade closed the distance. Through the broken window, he grabbed the frame of the door and pulled himself onto the running board as the vehicle accelerated.

  Kade hoped the driver hadn’t yet realized they had an extra passenger. His rifle swung around his shoulder as he clung to the door and the truck to keep himself from falling. Wind whistled by as they reached sixty miles per hour. Kade was trying to figure out how to lift his rifle, but he couldn’t give up either handgrip without ending up as roadkill.

  A bullet tore through the door, swinging it open wider and pulling Kade off the running board. He lost his grip on the car and threw all of his weight toward the door, clinging to it with both arms and legs like it was a vertical mechanical bull.

  The road whizzed by under him. The door flapped in the wind, and Kade kept his focus on the inside of the car, hoping he would swing back within reach. While he swung toward the cab, he got a look at the driver, all dressed in white. Cunningham held a pistol across her right driving arm, but she was focused on the road. A beep that reminded Kade of a radar in a bad submarine movie sounded, and her eyes snapped toward Kade. Her eyes made Kade wish he was staring at the devil instead. They carried such hate he was sure they could eat his soul.

  Her finger touched the trigger, and Kade did the only thing he could: he let go of the door. Kade put his arms protectively around his head and tucked into a ball as the bullet missed him by a millimeter.

  Kade landed not on the ground, but on his rifle. The metal sparked and shrieked as he slid along the road. The strap broke, and Kade rolled down the road. The pavement tore at his arms and legs, shredding his suit and skin indiscriminately. Kade didn’t know how far he rolled, but by the time he stopped he felt like he had been run through a washing machine filled with cheese graters. He tried to get to his feet, but fell to his knees.

  Blood dripped from his body as he crawled toward the side of the road. His body was illuminated as Cunningham turned the truck and came back toward him. Kade never looked at the truck, but focused on the trees off the side of the road. He put one painful hand in front of the other. One knee, then the other. He fought for each painful inch.

  He never even made it to the berm, let alone the trees.

  The truck came to a halt a few feet away. The door slammed as Cunningham exited. Her high-heeled leather boot, the type a dominatrix would wear, smashed into Kade’s face, flipping him onto his back. His appendages searched for a hold, but he was as helpless as a turtle on its back.

  The sharp heel came down on his chest, and he felt the same impending sense of death he’d felt during his fight with Sarge. Maybe Alpha would appear and save the day again.

  She looked down at him, her raven eyes alight. A coy smile spread across her face. “If you ask me nicely, I will kill you now. Just say I am a traitor terrorist who deserves to be put down like a dog with rabies for the crimes I committed against the US of A.”

  Kade thought this must have been what a gazelle felt like when a lion sank its teeth in.

  “If not, you will find I am very skilled at dragging every moment of pain into a millennium,” she said.

  The radar beep sounded again.

  She aimed her pistol at his head. He didn’t know if it would be that bad if she pulled the trigger. He’d never have to face fatherhood. His child could grow up believing whatever it wanted about him.

  His child. He was going to be a father. Fatherhood was a duty, a privilege. His child deserved to know him, if only for a few years. Tiny deserved to have someone share the burden. He didn’t want her to pull the trigger.

  So he gave her the same answer he’d given Sarge: a nice, wide, happy smile.

  “You’ll be a fun one, won’t you?”

  Another beep. Then another. And another. They kept coming faster and faster.

  Her coy smile turned to bared fangs as she spun and opened fire. The Jeep barreled toward her, and Mick must have seen Kade lying across his path at the last moment, because the Jeep locked up into a skidding slide. The Jeep slammed into Cunningham, sending her flying over Kade. But it stopped so close to Kade’s face he could lick the tire.

  His white shirt was flayed and covered in blood. His arms were rubbed raw from using them as a helmet, but his head was still swimming. The front bumper of the Jeep became his focal point to control his swirling vision.

  The black flashes of spinning tunnel vision dissipated, and a pair of hands grabbed Kade’s ankles and hauled him out from under the Jeep. Kade screamed as his wounds were once again dragged across the pavement.

  “He’s alive. You can relax, Mick,” Jem hollered, setting Kade’s feet down.

  Mick relinquished his grip on the steering wheel and put the Jeep in park, which caused it to roll two inches forward. “I didn’t want to hit him with the lurch.”

  Kade was caught in an undertow, being dragged out to sea. He fought to stay where he was, but he could feel his strength conceding to the force of nature. His mind swirled chaotically, so much so that he was glad to have his back to the ground, or he wouldn’t have been able to figure out which direction was up.

  The chain holding his knuckles lifted off his neck, and Kade feared he was being thrown into the sky by his own momentum. With a tight jerk, the chain was free of his neck. His arms flailed as he tried to find the chain, but not even a pinky would move where he told it to go.

  Jem put a hand on his chest. “Relax. You’re pretty shaken up. I’m just borrowing your knuckles. You’ll get them back.”

  Nodding for Yuzuki to approach, Jem walked toward a white pile on the ground.

  Chapter XI

  Long Way Home

  X and John had buried the bodies by the light of the truck, behind the only church in Houghton. The church was across the stream from Lambian Hall. It looked like an old square schoolhouse, except with a steeple and stained glass windows. The white paint had pealed so badly X doubted the structure would be safe by next winter.

  John tossed a shovel full of dirt on the mass grave they had dug for their attackers. “This was the church I had to go to when I was at prep.”

  X had been to church a few times in his life. Before X’s mom was comfortable leaving him home alone and whenever she couldn’t find someone to watch him while she worked, he would end up at church. He could sit through an entire day of mass without anyone knowing he was there, a little boy by himself. Though he’d listened to hundreds of sermons that way, the thing he learned from church was how to lift money from the collection plate without getting caught. Some days he could make more than his mom did at work. His churchgoing days ended when she caught him with his pockets full of offerings.

  “I’m sorry. That should be classified as cruel and unusual punishment,” X said.

  The light from the truck cast their shadows across the stone wall of the church graveyard. “I hated it then, but I think I miss it,” John said.

  “You think?” X added another shovel to the grave.

  John tapped his chest. “Something’s been missing. I just killed three people because I believed they were a threat. I don’t feel bad, but I don’t feel anything. There’s an emptiness.”

  “You did what you felt was right. I can imagine whatever supreme being there may or may not be would understand your actions.” X patted the earth down on the grave, then the two got into the truck.

  “I’m not worried about how my soul will be judged. I’m worried about what I believe anymore,” John said.

  X wasn’t sure what to say. There wasn’t a modicum of religion in X. A crisis of the mind he may have been able to assist with, but over a crisis of the soul, he had no jurisdiction. The best idea he had was a distraction.

  He pulled a small square box out of his pocket and handed it to John.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  John took a look inside at the massive engagement ring and let out a laugh. “I never even saw you take this.”

  “It was a quick detour,” X said.

  “I think y
ou did good,” John replied.

  Doing good was something that unsettled X. Doing bad was something he was good at, but doing good always made him suspicious of his own motives. He wanted to earn his white hat back, but he didn’t know if that would ever be possible with the trail he had left behind. Maybe the best he could hope for would be a gray hat.

  John climbed out of the truck to move the blocking cars out of the way. They traveled through the defenses, then parked the car with the rest of their motor pool at the student center.

  “We’ll come back for the food in the morning. I don’t want to push our luck and run into a foamer tonight,” X said as they walked toward Lambian. X had his .357 at the ready; John kept a hand close to his machete.

  “How damaged is the bow?” X asked. He was great at keeping his nerve in dark buildings and civilized areas, but he still found the vast openness of a country night unnerving.

  “It’ll take a lot of work, but I’ll be able to put it back together,” John said.

  X scanned the darkness as they crossed the road leading up to Lambian. “Why not just take another one?”

  “This one has been mine since I got here, and I was told it was Lucas’s before me. It only feels right to keep it,” John said.

  “I can understand that. I’d be heartbroken if I lost either of my weapons.”

  They approached the entrance side of Lambian, and John walkied for the ladder.

  “Can you think of anything else I can do instead of going up?” John asked.

  “Who are you avoiding?” X asked as the ladder clanged down the side of the building.

  “You’re not the only one with girl problems,” John said as he began his ascent.

  While he braced the ladder for the lanky teenager, X realized how little he knew about not just John, but the cohort in general. He had never been close to anyone but Kade in the Old World, and since then he had only gotten to know Ashton. So much of his time had been spent away from Houghton, he hadn’t really had a chance to get to know the rest of them.