As I was being pushed forward by Mark toward the car, I struggled more and my steps became stumbled and awkward.
On one stumble, Mark’s hand dropped lower on my arm and wrapped around my wrist. He guided my hand to his waist, inside his jacket, where the gun sat on his left hip. I stilled for a moment before, while still pretending to struggle, I pulled the strap on the holster and unclipped the gun, taking hold of the handle and pulling the heavy, cold weapon out.
When it was free of the holster, Mark’s foot pushed mine forward, causing me to stumble and allow him to grab the gun.
“Alright, got it. Bring them—”
Before the man turned around completely, Mark’s arm was over my shoulder and he shot the man in the temple, the silencer effectively minimizing the noise.
“What the fuck?!” the other two gasped, watching their friend fall. One of them didn’t even complete the sentence before Mark shot him in the head also, and then turned the gun on the third one, killing him instantly.
My mind turned white. It was the first time I had seen someone killed. When we had broken people out of the Commission, I had seen the dead bodies of the security guards, and I saw the dead woman at the parade two weeks previous, but watching these men fall limply to the ground as the life left them was something else entirely.
The driver started reaching for his gun, but Josh had had time to release Clark and get his own gun, shooting the driver in the head on the second shot.
Mark quickly pulled me behind him to shield me as the remaining three Commission men screamed orders at one another, but they never tried to round the corner of the car. Through the tinted window across from the open van door, I saw two of them press their backs to the car, readying their guns as the third one ducked out of sight.
Mark pulled me, motioning with his gun to the van.
“Come on, get in,” Josh told us sharply, pushing Clark and me before climbing in after us.
I crouched between the two seats in the middle of the car, feeling my heart beating against my ribs, trying not to stare at the dead man slumped half-way in the van. Josh locked the already-closed side door, crouching by it, his gun ready as Mark grabbed the collar of the dead man and pulled him out. He took the door handle with the bottom of his jacket around his hand, nodding once to me and shutting the van, sealing us in the bulletproof vehicle.
“What about Mark?” I gasped, whirling around to Josh. Josh glanced at Mark’s silhouette as he pressed his back to the window and carefully stepped toward the back of the van.
“He’s fine,” Josh assured with a tight nod. “He’s the best, remember?”
“Are you fucking insane?!” Clark snapped. “They can trace the bullets of the Commission guns!”
“Not a Commission gun!” Josh retorted, moving the gun in his hand for emphasis.
I watched Mark as he reached the back of the car, ignoring how Clark angrily asked to see the gun to be sure it was not from the Commission. One of the Commission men was moving along the back of the car, his gun extended. They were stalking closer to one another and I felt my heart rise in my throat. I could not hear the argument between Josh and Clark as I watched the two get closer and closer. Mark did not have his gun outstretched, and I was beginning to fear the worst.
The Commission man hesitated before inching just barely forward so that his gun was just past the edge of the car.
Suddenly, his hand fell out of place as Mark reached forward and pulled the gun away faster than I could blink. Before he had time to notice his weapon was gone, Mark rounded the corner and grabbed the man’s arm, twisting his body and elbowing his bicep. I heard the cry of pain and then saw the two shadows move, circling. Mark’s hands were around the man’s jaw and, with a quick movement, the man’s head jerked in a way I had never seen a human head move before and he fell out of Mark’s grasp.
Before I had time to let out my sigh of relief and realize that Clark and Josh were still arguing about how they were going to cover this up, the side window of the car shattered inward, causing all of us to jump and me to let out a scream.
The man laughed, pushing the lock open as he dropped the crowbar and reached for the handle.
The hand on the side of his head kept him from succeeding in opening the door. Mark violently bashed the man’s head into the side of the half-broken window. Even though the glass was polarized, the force caused shards to embed in the man’s temple and chin as he let out a cry of pain.
Mark turned away briefly, lifted his gun and shot at the final man, who I assumed was hit in the arm because he let out a loud yelp of pain then began shouting profanities into the air.
Mark dropped his gun and pulled the one man out of the window, punching him a few times so hard that his head rolled back into the broken car window before he bashed his forehead against the bottom of the window frame, finally snapping his neck as well.
As the man fell to the ground dead, Mark ducked to retrieve his gun, running to the final man, who was still screaming angrily in pain. Josh peeked out of the broken window and opened the car door, ignoring the dead man below. I also tried to pretend he wasn’t there as I stepped out of the car on shaking legs, watching Mark as he ran after the man limping away with a bloody hole in his leg.
Mark tackled him to the ground and rolled him over, smacking him across the face with the gun repeatedly. The man’s screaming made me feel sick. Mark dropped the gun, resorting to his fists as he pummeled the man until he stopped screaming.
When all seven were dead, Mark was very still, sitting on top of the man he had just beaten to death while the three of us studied his tense back.
I became aware of a quiet buzz that sounded like static. It caused all of us to whirl in the direction of the dead driver, who was laying on the ground by the front tire.
Mark stood and grabbed his gun, jogging to us when Josh whistled to him. Josh dropped to a crouch beside the dead man. With one hand keeping his gun ready, he used the other to pat the front of the man’s suit, stopping when he found something. He reached into the man’s jacket and grabbed a small, clear communication device, pulling it carefully, watching as the wire unwound from the back of Craig’s ear and pulled loose.
Josh turned to us and stood slowly, his eyes wide with fear that the slaughter had been heard and we were going to have other Commission employees on us soon.
We all leaned closer to the earpiece.
“…nmit, what the fuck, Craig? What happened? What was that screaming? Report!” a male voice snapped urgently.
We looked at each other, not sure what to do.
Josh nudged Clark, looking at the earpiece expectantly as Clark blinked.
“What?” he mouthed. Josh nudged him harder and Clark cleared his throat, dropping his voice.
“Craig! Fucking answer!”
“Alright!” Clark snapped, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Can you fuckin’ hear me now?”
“Finally, what the fuck, Craig? What was that screaming?”
“Just Zac fuckin’ around,” Clark tried to sound annoyed. I was thrilled to hear the man’s response because it proved that he could not hear us very well.
“Zac’s fuckin’ a cow?”
“Fuck! No!” Clark snapped, though Josh and Mark pursed their lips against their laughter. “Scarin’ off some teens. They’re drinking up here.”
“What the fuck, Craig? We got other shit to worry about. Get the fuck out of the park and go to your section, now.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Clark groaned. Mark grabbed the device from Josh, tossing it to the ground and shooting the thickest part.
“Quick,” Josh nodded. “Clark, pull up the section map.”
“What?”
“In the front!” Josh snapped, pointing. Clark was about to reach for the driver’s door handle when Mark grabbed his wrist and shook his head, reaching into his pocket. He pulled a black glove over his hand and opened the door for Clark.
Clark climbed into the front seat, look
ing at the screen on the front of the dash.
“Lily, ropes,” Josh ordered, motioning to the other side of the car. I nodded without question, climbing through the van and opening the door, covering my hand with the sleeve of my sweater. I looked at the ground to see the dead men, their heads only slightly bleeding from their wounds now. Their eyes were open, staring under the car or up at the sky in glassy fear. My eyes were wide, locked on their chalky, dead faces, terrified and sick.
“Got it!” Clark called, breaking me out of my stupor.
I saw Clark move away from the driver’s seat, being careful not to touch anything and turning to help me. I slipped my sweater off my shoulders, wrapping it around my hands before extracting the rope from the dead men’s hands, trying not to look at them or think about what I was doing.
By the time Clark got over his shock at the men and took his sweatshirt off to help, I had gotten the ropes back in the car.
“Hey!” Josh called, standing at the other side of the van with one of the dead men. “Help.” Josh pulled at the limp man’s arms and tried to pass him off to Clark, but both of us froze, staring at the dead man stupidly before Josh lowered his arms again, rolling his eyes. “Now!”
Clark took a deep breath and reached forward, taking the man’s wrists with his arms still wrapped in the sweatshirt, pulling the corpse into the van. I tried to keep myself from passing out as the dead body was brought closer to me.
“Back! Back!” Josh snapped, motioning for Clark to move the body as Mark stepped awkwardly into the car, carrying the dead man’s feet. Clark followed Mark’s nods to sit him in one of the back seats where Mark, wearing gloves, buckled the corpse in. My stomach was turning at the morbidity of the situation.
Mark backed away and stepped out of the van as Josh began ordering us.
“Get them in the car,” he snapped, motioning to the dead men on our side of the van.
“What?”
“No time! We need to go!” Josh yelled, pointing harshly again.
“But—”
“Do it!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Clark snapped. “Fucking hell! What are we going to do with them?!”
“Explain later!”
“No!” Clark protested.
Josh began yelling very strongly in his native language, which took us aback and we blinked at him, shocked at how angry he was. Mark, who had been trying to move another man, whirled around with appalled eyes before walking to Josh and smacking him sharply across the back of the head. Josh’s head snapped forward as he caught himself on his hands on the floor of the car.
With a whine, he rubbed the area on the back of his skull and turned to Mark, who stared at him expectantly before grabbing his elbow and bringing him to the man he was trying to move.
Clark turned back to me. I was horrified at how quickly the situation got to the state it was in. I was not sure how Mark and Josh planned to cover this, and that made me nervous, even though it seemed like they knew what they were doing.
Which, of course, made me remember that they had hidden bodies before when they had killed another team of Commission people in order to save Mark’s older sister nine years previous.
Steeling myself for my task, I grabbed Clark’s arm and pulled him to the other side of the van, wrapping my sweater around my hands and lifting another man into the van, though I was not sure where to put him. I moved him to lay between the two seats and as I was about to step out, Mark and Josh brought the man in who had been shot in the leg before beaten to death, setting him on top of the dead man we had carried in. I assumed we were just piling the bodies in the car now, rather than strapping them in like the first.
I decided not to question why the one corpse got a seatbelt and the others didn’t.
Clark and I pulled another body we were charged with into the van, trying to lay him on the other two, but he fell limply to one side, wedging between the seat and the other two bodies. I cringed and quickly got out of the way as another body came in from the other side.
Clark and I had one more body that we tried to curl to fit in the space behind the front passenger’s seat. When we finally got him to fit, both of us closed the door and moved around the back of the van, picking up the boxes and tools and replacing them in the back of the van, taking special care not to touch anything with our bare hands.
Once that was complete, Josh and Mark loaded the driver into the van and closed the door, sending some of the broken polarized glass from the window scattering to the ground.
Josh turned to Mark, who nodded once and went to the driver’s seat, climbing in and starting the van.
Josh ushered us out of the way and Mark peeled away, driving down the dirt road out of sight.
“What now?” Clark asked, pale and shaking.
“We find other Eight Group members,” Josh said, motioning to his car.
“Could…could I have a second?” I breathed, feeling my stomach turn sickly as I replayed the memories of the men falling dead to the ground and then the horrific scenes afterward as we loaded the dead men in the van.
Josh did not look willing to wait, but when I crouched to the ground, putting my head between my knees to quell the nausea, he remained quiet, waiting for me to collect myself. Clark darted away and threw up behind a tree.
* *** *
No matter how many times I had heard about the structure of the Eight Group, it still startled me how organized they were.
Josh drove Clark and me to another part of town, near the main branches of the banks, where another black van was parked on the curb. I never thought to question what the Commission teams were doing during the day, but I felt my stomach tighten in apprehension when I saw the other van.
“Come on,” Josh said as he turned the car off and got out, walking quickly to the other van and knocking twice on the door before opening it without waiting for an answer.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the van. Ichiro and Rin were the first ones I noticed. Minsoo was in the front seat and Yi Ling was driving, finally back from her Sweeps run in the Western Region.
“Lily, get in!” Rin said with an exasperated chuckle as Ichiro turned on the scrambler he was carrying. “You’re a wanted criminal. You can’t just stand in the middle of downtown.”
Both Clark and I clamored into the van, still feeling sick from what had happened earlier.
Rin closed the door and turned to Josh.
“What happened?”
“Another team found them…” Josh explained.
“Woobin…you didn’t…” Ichiro looked at him with wide eyes, allowing his sentence to trail off.
“Hyunwoo started it,” Josh defended quietly, looking at the floor of the van. Rin blinked at Josh incredulously.
“Are you insane?!”
“Where are the maps?” Josh asked. Minsoo reached forward and pulled the tablet off the dash, passing it to Josh.
“Josh, this is very bad,” Yi Ling whispered. “Where is Mark?”
“Driving to their section,” he assured, flipping through the various frames on the tablet as I watched, my brain numb and my stomach turning. Ichiro put a hand on my shoulder, which made me jump.
“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
“Yeah,” I answered before I had time to think. I could tell that no one was convinced, but I forced a smile, figuring I would need to get used to such horrors with the way the revolution was going.
Josh stared at one of the maps and then glanced at his wrist watch before rubbing his temple worriedly.
“What?”
“Huan-yue is going to be in the area…” he mused aloud. “But she is alone…”
Minsoo asked something over the seat and Josh lifted the tablet, pointing to the map somewhere.
“What does Mark plan on doing?” Rin hissed. Josh sighed and looked up from the tablet, turning it around.
“He’s taking the car here…and he’s going to stage it to look like an attack…”
“I
s that their section?” Yi Ling asked.
“Later today,” Josh nodded. “It’s more of a matter of someone seeing him…”
“You better go help, then. Why did you stop here?” Rin asked.
“If there was anyone in the area, there would be a problem,” Josh whispered, motioning to me and Clark. He handed the tablet back to Minsoo. “Carefully tell everyone,” he ordered.
Ichiro and Rin nodded before they turned to Clark and me, worry clear across their faces.
“Come on, I’ll take you to the fort,” Josh whispered, motioning for both of us to follow as he opened the door.
“What about Mark?” Clark blinked.
“I’ll pick him up after I have you two safe.”
* *** *
That night at the fort, I was anxiously waiting to learn if Mark and Josh had gotten away with the murders earlier in the day. I told everyone what had happened and though everyone was worried, many of the experiments, particularly Tori and Griffin, were telling me not to be concerned, assuring me that Mark was the best of the best and he could take care of himself.
Everyone started moving into one of the hallways on the far side of the strategy room. Sitting with Mykail in the main bunker, I turned to him, confused.
“What’s going on?”
“It must be almost seven,” he nodded. “Time for the news.”
“You guys watch the news down here? How do you manage that?” I blinked, standing when he offered his hand to me.
“Some people who are a lot smarter than me set it up,” Mykail chuckled. “We have some highly-educated people here, you would be surprised.”
“Why didn’t anyone watch yesterday?”
“They did,” Mykail corrected, taking my hand and leading me in the same direction. “You and I were in the medical room…” I was embarrassed, reminded of my breakdown the previous day.
I did not particularly care about what was going on on the news. I was still having difficulty processing what had happened earlier, which was why I was sticking so close to Mykail, holding his hand, grounding myself in reality. He knew what happened, but he didn’t press me to talk about why it was bothering me so much. I could not help but notice the difference in the way my friends at school used to comfort me, constantly asking if I wanted to talk about it, trying to get inside my head, telling me that everything was going to be alright, even though they had no real grasp on the situation.
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