Strays

by Justin Kassab

  As he began his own climb, he decided that he would attempt to be a better follower. Even though he’d always felt like a loner, it couldn’t hurt to learn how to interact with his end-of-the-world family. Most importantly, it would make things easier on Ashton.

  He hauled himself through the window, then John helped him pull the ladder up. Emma was in the entrance room, roughing around with Fenris.

  “Brit chick, I wanted to say thanks for the assist earlier,” X said.

  “Thank John—he taught me how to shoot,” Emma said.

  “And I appreciate you not shooting me in the face this time,” John said.

  As soon as the ladder was pulled in, X clapped both of them on the shoulder and set off to find his firecracker. He made his way through the dorm until he came to the medbay. Quietly, he opened the door in case one of the inhabitants was sleeping.

  Tiny was sound asleep in her bed, while Ashton’s green eyes were locked on him the moment the door cracked open. Ashton’s right arm was splinted, wrapped, and slung. Entering the room, the latent instinct in his genes told him a predator was getting ready to strike. He lifted his black hat and brushed his hair back before returning the hat to his head.

  “What do you want?” Her words came out as a growl.

  “To see how you’re doing,” X said.

  “Arm is fractured. Ribs are bruised. Don’t you have another grocery run to go on?”

  “Not at the moment,” X said, approaching her bed.

  “Sorry, I forgot you just got back. It’ll be a few days. You should go find someone else to spend them with,” Ashton said, sliding as far against the wall as she could.

  “I want to spend them with you,” X replied.

  “You don’t get to leave and come back, leave and come back,” Ashton said.

  “I’m sorry I volunteered to go,” X replied.

  “It’s bad enough when you go on your damn grocery runs, but do you have any idea how crazy it makes me when you leave? No, probably not, ’cause you’re a selfish asshole.”

  X took off his cowboy hat and held it over his chest. His hat-holding hand began to shake. The shakes—this girl must have turned him into a loser.

  “I’ll never leave you,” X replied.

  “And how can you promise something as asinine as that?” Ashton rolled her eyes.

  X dropped on one knee and pulled the small box from his pocket. Opening the box like a clam, he revealed the pearl inside: a two-carat, princess-cut diamond engagement ring, offset by two half-carat oval cuts, mounted on a white gold band sprinkled with more diamonds—a ring that would have cost a fortune in the Old World.

  “Ashton Zerris, I promise to never leave you, if you will be my wife.”

  Ashton crossed her good arm over her chest. “Put your hat back on.”

  X looked up at her, fear gripping every inch of him. His composure was tested as he fought the water that wanted to well into his eyes.

  She slapped the box out of his hand, sending it clattering under Tiny’s bed. “I said, put your hat back on.”

  X glanced at the discarded ring, then back at the woman he loved. He let out a long sigh, feeling his shoulders slump in defeat, and situated the hat back on his head.

  “Yes, you stupid cowboy, I’ll be your wife,” Ashton said as she threw herself on X, knocking him flat on the ground. As she sat up, straddling him, she pulled the hat from his head and put it on herself. X grabbed her behind the neck, making certain to avoid her injuries, and pulled her in for a kiss.

  This firecracker was his from now until forever. All the fear in his body dissipated, and the only thing he could do was smile his stupid smile.

  “Kade is so going to kill you,” Tiny said with her eyes half-opened.

  Ashton put her good hand on the side of X’s face. “Please tell me you aren’t such a pussy you asked Kade’s permission for my hand?”

  “Of course not,” X said, now wishing he had asked Kade’s permission. He hoped this would come as less of a shock to his friend than the last time, when X had sprung on him his love for his little sister.

  “Great. So, where to for the honeymoon?” Ashton asked.

  “I was thinking Bermuda or the Bahamas,” X said.

  “I hear they’re lovely this time of year,” Ashton said, kissing X again.

  He held her tight, feeling her beating heart. She had become the sun of his existence.

  * * *

  Mick’s adrenaline was de-escalating when Jem took Kade’s knuckles. Yuzuki sat with Kade, and a few feet away lay the red-and-white heap of Cunningham. Opening the glove compartment, Mick pulled out a basic first aid kit that had belonged to the car’s previous owner. It was basic to the point he didn’t think it had much more than Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment, but it was better to do something than nothing.

  Mick got out of the Jeep and joined Yuzuki. At seeing Kade, he tried to hide his shock, but he was sure his face gave him away. Luckily for him, Kade was in no state to notice. His friend looked like he had been run through a meat grinder.

  Yuzuki tapped Kade’s face, causing his eyes to shoot open.

  “No sleep,” she said.

  “We win?” Kade asked.

  A crack that resembled a tree branch snapping echoed down the road. Mick’s attention would have been drawn to the trees if the sound hadn’t come so clearly from the center of the road.

  Cunningham was on her stomach, one arm stuck crooked at her side while the other reached out, trying to pull herself away. Jem kicked her onto her back, then hoisted her up by her neck and landed a fist into her face, knocking her out of his grasp.

  She slammed into the ground, but instead of screaming, she laughed. “Is this the foreplay?”

  Jem lifted her by the hair and landed another punch into her face, sending her crashing to the pavement. She scooted herself back with her leg and propped herself up on her good arm. “That all you’ve got, big boy?”

  Mick tossed the pouch to Yuzuki and rushed toward Jem, who landed another fist into her face. Her head rolled back like she was going to go unconscious, but snapped back with a bloody smile.

  She had tortured him, and Jem, and countless others. She took great pleasure in her task. There wasn’t a single second of the entire ordeal that wasn’t rapture for her. Every cut, every impact, every action, was born of pleasure. He should want her dead.

  But he didn’t.

  Like every human being, she didn’t just magically appear as a complete person. She may been evil, but she wasn’t the devil. She had been made into who she was and had been influenced to do what she did.

  Mick intercepted Jem’s cocked arm.

  “You better have stopped me because you wanted some for yourself,” Jem said.

  Mick shook his head. To a lesser degree, he had seen this in the Old World as a police officer. Criminals had a history that led them to become the people they were. Occasionally, you would have a true psychopath, but most of them had been formed in their youth by terrible experiences that they recreated in their adult life. It was the nurture side of the nature yin-yang.

  “Does the faggot not have the stomach for violence?” Cunningham spread her knees open and closed. “Or doesn’t this do it for you?”

  His eyes never left Jem’s. Cunningham wasn’t just a product of her youth—she had likely been recruited by the government because of her disposition, her traits turned into a tool. On top of that, the president had spread so much propaganda that the entire DC group was brainwashed into believing anyone who wasn’t with them was a terrorist who had caused the fall of America.

  “We’re better than this,” Mick said.

  “Maybe you are,” Jem said, and added a swift kick to Cunningham’s ribs.

  Mick knew Jem’s pain. This wasn’t about the torture. It was about the woman he had loved, whom he had lost because of the president’s men, just like Grace had become the target of Mick’s pain when he lost Lucas.

  “You’re better than this,”
Mick said.

  “I won’t help you remove the tracker,” Cunningham said.

  “Bitch, will you shut up?” Mick snapped. Maybe he wasn’t that good of a person after all, he thought, but he wasn’t going to let Jem kill her.

  “We should just let her go and hope she decides we were nice enough to leave us alone? Oh wait, you hit her with a car. We leave her here, she is as good as dead anyway,” Jem said, yanking his hand free of Mick.

  “We bring her with us,” Mick said.

  The words sounded much crazier aloud than they had in his head.

  Jem scratched his forehead with the knuckles. “Is this some kind of inside plan we made up that I’m not remembering? You lull her into a feeling of safety, and then we kill her?”

  “She’s got months until she’s fully healed. We patch her up, show her we aren’t the bad guys, and then see what she does,” Mick said.

  “What she will do is go back to DC and bring the full force of the president to our doorstep,” Jem said.

  “I will,” she confirmed.

  “She won’t. Let’s take her with us for now, and get moving before they’re after us again. When Kade is functional, we can discuss it with him. Not like you can’t kill her later,” Mick said.

  “Better kill me now. You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she said.

  Jem looked from Mick to Cunningham, then back. Mick thought Jem finally saw her the way he did: with pity. He slid the knuckles off of his hand and gave them to Mick.

  “I’ll get the duct tape,” Jem said.

  “I’ll get Yuzuki to do that. I need one more favor from you,” Mick said.

  “You really are pushing it today,” Jem said.

  “We need to cut the tracker out.”

  Cunningham let out a shrill laugh. “Good luck.”

  “Would you just shut up,” Mick said.

  Jem gave him a nod. “I’ll go find a knife.”

  Mick called to Yuzuki to get the tape and then traded places with her. Yuzuki seemed just as mad at Mick as Jem was, but if Mick didn’t hold on to who he was, there wasn’t a point in going on.

  Kade gradually became more coherent as minutes passed. He would need to rest for a few weeks. Mick scoffed at the thought—like he could ever get Kade to rest for a day, let alone weeks.

  By the time Jem came back, Yuzuki had used almost all of the tape on Cunningham, who was bound so many different ways Houdini couldn’t have escaped. Jem didn’t just return with a knife, but also with weapons and gear from the soldiers. He explained that he didn’t want to let it go to waste.

  Mick took his shirt off and placed his hands on the hood of the car as he was used to making people do when he arrested them. Jem stood behind him, wiping down the blade of a combat knife with an alcohol swab. Yuzuki had moved Cunningham closer to Kade so she could watch both of them at the same time.

  “I’m not a surgeon, but if I was I would tell you I couldn’t operate on this,” Jem said.

  Mick couldn’t see his own back, and with the number of wounds and bruises he didn’t know where the tracker was.

  “Why not?” Mick asked.

  “I think it’s under your spine,” Jem said.

  Just above Mick’s tailbone were two incisions, one on either side, each about an inch long. The cuts oozed yellow pus.

  “I can’t go home unless you cut it out,” Mick replied.

  Mick felt the tip of the knife push against the stitches. He didn’t know if it was blood or pus, but something warm soaked into his pants. Pain seared up his back, and his body shot forward, as if trying to run away.

  “Mick, hold still. I don’t want to stab you,” Jem said. Mick thought that he might like to stab Jem at the moment.

  Yuzuki took the knife from Jem and disappeared into the Jeep for a moment. She came back with a strip of seatbelt, which she folded and held for Mick to bite. Mick bit down and put his forehead on the hood.

  Jem must have gotten the knife back because the pain resumed. Mick tried to take his mind somewhere else, but he still couldn’t find a memory to hide in. There was so little in his life that didn’t have some tarnish on it. The hood felt like it would crumple under his hands, he was pushing so hard.

  There was a strong pull, followed by a quick slide where the tip of the knife reentered the wound. One after the other Jem worked through the stitches. By the time Jem finished with the stitches, Mick was screaming his throat raw, even with the belt between his teeth. The pain was only just beginning.

  Jem had to part the swollen incisions to look for the device. The entire procedure was accompanied by Jem’s apologies and Cunningham’s cackling—at least until Yuzuki taped her mouth shut.

  Finally, the pain subsided.

  “I think I’ve found it. I don’t really know what else to do besides use the knife to get it out,” Jem said.

  Mick spit the saliva-soaked belt onto the hood. “Get it over with.”

  “I just wanted to say sorry if I paralyze you or something,” Jem said.

  “Do it,” Mick said, and once again bit down on the belt.

  He felt Jem peel an incision open, then two fingers push inside his body. The knife fished around until the blade trapped something solid. Then there was a quick yank as the object slipped out of his body. A blinding pain rose through him, and he collapsed to the ground.

  * * *

  John’s bow lay across his bed, along with three other compound bows. Fenris had found her way into the room at some point, but since she was content to lie and watch him work, he let her stay.

  The good news was the cams and strings had survived the blow without damage. The bad news was his whisker biscuit—the part that guided the arrow—as well as his sight and stabilizer had been snapped, shattered, and otherwise removed. The fixes were simple. All he had to do was remove a few pieces of hardware with pliers.

  The issue was with the pieces themselves. None of the other bows had identical parts on them, and though they would fit his bow, they wouldn’t fit in the same way. For the last few months this bow had become an extension of himself. He put the new whisker biscuit into place, and compared to the black ones he was used to, the brown whiskers of the new piece stood out as if they were hot pink. The new sight had an extra pin, which would allow John to sight it at farther distances, but it still felt strange to get away from what was comfortable.

  When he finished screwing the stabilizer into place, a knock came from behind. Grace stood in the doorway.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  John waved her in and cleared the bows off the bed so she could sit.

  “I just wanted to see if you were okay. I know you were pretty beat up last time you killed someone.” Grace took a seat on the bed.

  John stood and paced while Fenris tracked his movements with her eyes. “I feel okay, but I feel different.”

  “Please, don’t shut me out,” Grace said.

  John stopped pacing and leaned against the dresser. “I didn’t even think about the fact that I was going to kill that last man. He was dead before I knew what I was doing. That scares the shit out of me. I know I’m changing, but I want to be in control of myself.”

  Grace got up and closed the distance between them. His hands began to sweat as she drew closer. He became fully embarrassed as she took his now sweaty hands in hers.

  “You’ll always be a good guy. At heart you’re always going to be a goofy kid who trips over himself,” Grace said.

  “I don’t always—sometimes—usually—trip over my feet,” John said.

  “I’m not just talking about your feet.” Grace pulled herself up to his height and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Are you done fixing your bow?”

  John couldn’t find words, so he nodded.

  “I have a project I could use some help with. I want to get it done today, if you’ll lend me a hand,” Grace said.

  “Sure!” he squeaked.

  “Get cleaned up and meet me in my room.” Grace released his hands and ste
pped back into the hallway.

  John picked up the bows he had used for parts and headed for the armory. Grace didn’t seem mad at him about Emma, which John fully expected. Then again, maybe she was just hiding her anger from him. Perhaps even the job she wanted help with was just a cover to hurt him—or kill him.

  He wrangled in his imagination and came to the conclusion that she wouldn’t kill him. Hurt him, maybe. But she wouldn’t kill him. Maybe she could forgive him eventually, but then he’d have to think about Emma. Emma had said she only wanted to be friends. She could have been lying. Then he’d have his hands full.

  His head hurt.

  He put the bows in the closet of the armory and tried to clear his mind before he went to see Grace.

  The walkie on his belt rang, followed by Victoria’s voice: “Everyone available to Meredith.”

  Grace would have to wait. John ran down the corridor to the living floor.

  When he arrived, Victoria and Wright were still there, as well as X and Emma.

  “Sorry, guys. Dr. Wright said everyone should be present when she wakes up to see what she has to say,” Victoria said.

  “And as you can all see, the guilty doctor is not here. Probably planning to make a run for it,” Wright said, putting his fingers into his vest pockets.

  Meredith was still unconscious, but she was showing signs of waking. Her breathing was becoming regular.

  “He isn’t planning to run,” Victoria said, glaring at the psychiatrist.

  “Human behavior is my specialty,” he said.

  X tipped his hat. “And last I checked none of you are in charge, so I’m going back to the medbay.”

  X disappeared through the door at the same time Grace came running in, out of breath.

  “What’s going on?” Grace said, huffing and puffing.

  “We’re waiting for Meredith to wake up and pronounce Damian guilty,” Wright said.

  Grace crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what interrupted my—project?”

  Victoria tapped her foot on the floor. “I know. Blame the quack. Highest probability even if she wakes up is that she’ll be a foamer.”

  John realized that he didn’t have any of his weapons on him. He wasn’t sure if a foamer version of Meredith would fall into Kade’s no-kill policy or not, but he’d rather be able to defend himself.