“Maybe they weren’t sure what your dad knew,” Lauren said. “They were playing it safe, locking the whole place down.”
“And ten years later…”
“You came back,” Eva said.
“Alex, Ashley…you,” Brady said, “just to wipe it all away?”
“And with you dead, the cure would die with you,” Dr. Captain said.
“They’re doing it again,” Cole said. “That’s why people are sick. They’re trying to make another weapon, and I won’t be able to cure them.”
“They’ve had a month to…mutate it…change it,” Dr. Captain said. “Elder Mariah got better, but if all those people at the clinic are sick…”
“It can’t be too late.” Choch had said he had time. He was a trickster, not a liar. Not when it mattered, anyway.
“They’re guinea pigs,” Brady said. “Mihko’s experimenting on us like we don’t even matter. Like we’re not even human.”
“We matter,” Cole said. “Alex, Ashley, Maggie…they mattered.”
Tristan nodded, got up, and looked like he was about to head out onto the ice for a big hockey game. “You’re goddamn right they did.”
“Pam,” Cole said.
“My dad,” Eva said.
“All of them. We’re going to save them, and we’re going to do it tonight.”
“We knock those guards the hell out and get those people somewhere safe,” Tristan said.
“Now?” Michael said. “Don’t we need to plan? We can’t just run in there.”
“I have a plan,” Cole said. “And after what happened at Reynold’s place, we don’t have until tomorrow. Are you in?” He locked eyes with Lauren, Dr. Captain, Tristan, Michael, Eva, Brady.
He didn’t need to hear a response. He saw it in their faces.
18
ASHES
THEY SPLIT UP. COLE, TRISTAN, MICHAEL, BRADY, AND LAUREN headed to the clinic, while Dr. Captain and Eva set out to find two boats they could use to transport the rescued patients from the clinic to Elder Mariah’s cabin. It had taken some heated arguing to get Eva to agree. After hearing her part in the plan, while Cole still had more to go over with the others, Eva had stormed out of the trailer, slamming the door behind her. He followed her outside to find her leaning against the Mustang, arms crossed, her breath smoky in the chilly autumn air.
“That may as well be steam coming from your ears,” Cole said, leaning against the car beside her.
“You can’t keep me from going with you,” she said. “Look at what happened tonight when you went off without me again. You said you weren’t going to do that, right? And then what did you do?”
“We needed to get the others to the trailer. You know that.”
“We could have done it all together. I mean, I know I need a math tutor, but that hour you were unconscious? That was some free time, Cole.” She paused. She’d had her back to him, but now she turned to face him. “You could have died.”
“And you would have died, Eva.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Eva…” Cole’s voice softened, trying to reason with her. “…I can do things you can’t.”
Michael, who had followed Cole, walked over to face them both.
“I think Cole’s right,” he said.
“This doesn’t involve you, Mike,” Eva said. “Not anymore.”
“This isn’t about that,” Michael said. “I still care about you, and I…”
Cole decided to just stand there and stay out of it.
Eva kept her arms crossed, waiting. “You what?”
“I can’t lose anybody else.”
That had sealed it.
Eva and Dr. Captain went to find the boats, and Cole left with the larger group to the clinic. Cole, having reclaimed his hoodie and neck warmer from a pile of bloody clothing in the corner of Ashley’s trailer, led the group along the outskirts of Blackwood. As the clinic neared, Michael joined Cole at the front to walk with him.
“How did you escape? What happened?”
“They, uhh,” Cole thought up some details, “caught me snooping around the facility, trying to find out more about what was happening, what they were doing. There’s this, like, room in the basement they kept me in. Glass walls. Like, unbreakable walls.”
“So what did you do?”
“Faked passing out,” Cole said. “When they came in to check on me, I just bolted. Ran to Elder Mariah’s cabin until I figured out what to do.”
“Just bolted?” Michael asked. “That’s it? They didn’t…hurt you? Anything like that?”
Cole sighed. “What are you doing here, Mike?” He’d not been on their list of team members because Cole didn’t think Michael, upon finding out he was alive, would want anything to do with the team.
“Brady came to get Mom, and I’ve been trying to look out for her,” Michael said.
“Can’t lose anybody else.” Cole acknowledged what Michael had said earlier.
“She’s all I have now,” Michael said. “I told Brady we’re a package deal, so…I don’t know, I hope that’s okay.”
“I should’ve asked you from the start, I guess.”
“I don’t blame you, that you didn’t.”
“Well, thanks for coming anyway, man.” Cole patted Michael’s shoulder. “We could use all the help we can get.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d want to, after—”
“I was a jerk before,” Michael said quickly. “You didn’t deserve that. How I was treating you.”
Cole shrugged. “I was, too. But none of that matters anymore. What happened before doesn’t matter. Just now, that’s it. Okay?”
Michael nodded, paused, then said, “I’m sorry, though. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Cole said. “Sticks and stones, right?”
“Yeah, sticks and stones.”
“Hey,” Tristan called from behind them, “we’re here. You guys wanna bro hug and get it over with, so we can do this thing?”
They found a spot in the forest where they could stay hidden and assess the situation. It wasn’t good. With the incident at McCabe’s house, security at the clinic had been beefed up. Tripled. And the guards, just like at Reynold’s, had guns and rifles. Lauren had one gun, and Brady had the rifle. They were seriously outgunned.
“I’ll take them out,” Cole said. He wanted their help; the bullet wounds that hadn’t yet fully healed screamed for some assistance. But he didn’t want to be responsible for another death. “I need you guys to help get the patients.”
“No fucking way,” Tristan said. “I’m not here just to push wheelchairs out of that place.”
“I know, Tristan, but if we all go and get slaughtered, then who’s going to save the people in the clinic?”
“I’m going,” Tristan said.
“No, you’re not,” Cole said.
“What? Because I can’t heal like Deadpool?”
“Yeah, that’s actually exactly why. The patients are the mission here. This isn’t some revenge thing. It can’t be.” “Just listen to him, Tristan,” Brady said. “He knows what he’s talking about.”
“I can’t lose somebody else,” Cole whispered, trying to hold it together.
“You care about me?” Tristan asked, chuckling. “I tried to beat the shit out of you, more than once.”
“You were upset about Maggie,” Cole said. “I know what that feels like.”
“Because I thought you had killed Maggie. Now that I know who did, I’m sorry Harper, this is about revenge for me. Shouldn’t it be for all of you?”
“Seriously, get your act together. Like, now.” Lauren gave Tristan a long, hard look. She put on her cop face. “You’re staying. Got it? I’ll go with Cole.”
No argument there. She had a gun, and she had the cop face. Cole waited for one of them to say something again, but for the time being, they were all quiet. “Okay, Lauren and I will take those guards out. Once
we’re in, follow behind us.”
“Here.” Brady handed Cole the rifle. “Don’t say no this time.”
In hindsight, Cole admitted, a rifle would’ve been helpful at Reynold’s. He took the weapon from Brady.
Lauren cocked the hammer on her gun.
“I can help! Remember I did before?” Jayne appeared beside Cole, crouching in the bush, looking out at the clinic, burning hot and bright.
Cole nodded at her, and it was more than him just accepting her help; it was him thanking her for cauterizing his wounds.
“You’re welcome, Coley!”
“So what’s the play?” Lauren asked Cole.
Lauren and Cole (and an excited Jayne) looked over the scene. Two guards roamed the perimeter, two guards at the side door, two guards at the front door.
“I’ll take out the four guards at the doors,” Cole said. “You take care of the two walking around.”
“You know how to use that thing?”
“Point and shoot,” Cole assured them. “You go through the bush. I’ll come at them from the front. They’ll be distracted.”
“What do we do if you get shot?” Tristan asked.
“And you can’t heal from it,” Michael added.
“If anything happens to me,” Cole said to them, “you do what you’re supposed to do.”
“We will,” Brady said.
Cole took a deep breath and covered his face with the neck warmer. “Let’s go,” he said to Lauren. “Fast and hard.”
Lauren ran off into the bush, and Cole dug his heels in, ready to run at them as fast as he could, so fast that they’d hardly have a chance to shoot at him. Jayne was at his side. Her fire made it seem like daytime.
“What do you want me to do, Coley?” She was digging in as well.
Cole looked at the guards, awash in her personal sunset. He had seen that same light ten years ago. The image of the elementary school burning down flashed in his mind. Mihko was behind that, too. Cole knew it. They had to be. He’d heard the screams of his classmates. Trapped inside. The chains on the door handles. They’d been locked inside. Why? To cover up everything that Mihko had done? Cole felt that same fire in his chest. He looked at Jayne, resolute.
Burn.
Jayne didn’t question Cole. She just gave one quick nod, and her face scrunched up. “Okay, Coley.” She disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the night went black.
As soon as Jayne was gone, Cole was too. He pushed off the ground and propelled his body forward. He’d almost reached the guards when they noticed him. It was too late for them. They got shots off, but missed. Cole was moving too fast. He went for the guards at the side door. As he ran full-speed into one of them, the night lit up once more. He heard the guards at the front door shrieking. The guard Cole body checked collided with the clinic wall. A shot rang out somewhere behind the building. Lauren. Cole turned around to face the other guard, rifle raised, and found the muzzle of the guard’s gun staring right back at him.
“Drop it,” the guard said.
“Alright.” Cole lowered the rifle and raised both hands.
The guard approached Cole until he was only a few feet away, his gun never wavering, aimed directly at Cole’s heart.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” the guard said.
Cole threw his palm over the muzzle as it went off. He felt the bullet cut through his hand, and pulled the gun out of the guard’s grip. He threw an uppercut. The guard flew back several feet and collided with a tree. Out cold.
“Enjoy your nap, shithead.”
Cole turned in time to see guards, in flames, running away from the clinic. Arms flailing. Crying out in agony. Moments later, Jayne was at Cole’s side. Hand on his shoulder, watching him clutch the hand that had been shot. Blood was pouring onto his lap from the bullet wound. She tried to cauterize the wound, but couldn’t.
She had no flames.
“I’m sorry, Coley.” Tears were falling from both her eyes.
“It’s okay.”
“I never wanted to hurt anybody like that.” Her voice was shaking.
“I know,” he said, “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.”
“Did I do bad?”
“No,” Cole said, but what else could he add? That she’d done good? Had he done good earlier, at Reynold’s? Had the men he’d shot survived? He couldn’t see how. Lauren had said that Jerry saw bodies.
“They were bad, right?”
“I…” Cole reached up and touched the scarred side of her face. It was the clearest he’d ever seen it. “I don’t know, Jayney. We did what we had to do, okay?”
“Am I gonna get in trouble, now?” Her lower lip quivered.
“No, you’re not going to get in trouble. Promise,” Cole said. “Go, Jayney. Go see your friends. They always make you feel better, right?”
“Yeah,” she said unconvincingly, then disappeared. Not in her usual black cloud of smoke. She left in ashes. It was the first time she’d really hurt anybody. She’d made the gun burn in Scott’s hand, sure. But the guards she’d just burned for Cole weren’t coming back. Cole could see them now, lying in the field out front of the clinic. Charred remains.
“Cole.”
Cole turned around to see Lauren walking up to him from behind the clinic.
“You okay?” She holstered her gun.
Cole ripped the bottom of his shirt off and wrapped it around his hand.
“Yeah,” he said. “You get them both?”
Lauren shook her head. “Other guy got away.” She peered out over the field. Cole saw her do it, but couldn’t bring himself to look at the burned bodies again. “What the hell?”
Cole stood up and looked at the field with Lauren. “Crazy, right?”
“Cole.” He tried to ignore the fact that Lauren was staring at him, not at the bodies in the field now. “Hey.” But he couldn’t ignore her when she stepped right in front of his line of view. “I’m not an idiot, you know. You had something to do with that. Those guards didn’t just spontaneously combust.”
There was no way to explain it other than to tell Lauren exactly what had happened. But now wasn’t the time, so he told her the same line he’d repeated over and over since returning to Wounded Sky. Pretended like there was still a deal, when there wasn’t.
When there never had been.
“I can’t tell you, Lauren.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re going to tell me, Cole. If not now, then later. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I got it.”
“Right,” she said. “Now, let’s get our people out of here.”
19
EXODUS
TRISTAN, BRADY, AND MICHAEL MET Lauren and Cole at the front doors to the clinic. They had seen the guards burning; and they saw them now, lying in the field, lifeless. Cole told them what he’d told Lauren. Brady gave him a very familiar look in response to a very familiar refrain. But there were more pressing matters.
Inside the clinic, the lobby was quiet. Cole could hear the beeping of the heart monitors, muffled through closed doors.
“We need to split up,” Cole said. “There are people upstairs and downstairs. We need to get them all out and fast. There’ll be more guards coming.”
“Yeah, probably because you had a bonfire with them,” Tristan said.
Cole assigned each person several rooms and reserved himself for Eva’s dad, intending to guard Wayne’s life as though it were his own.
“We’ve got twenty minutes to get to Silk River,” Cole said.
Upstairs and down the hall moments later, Cole pushed open the door to Wayne’s room. It was dark and so quiet that it made the sounds in the room more pronounced. The ominous beep of the heart monitor. The drip of the solution feeding through the IV tube. Wayne’s shallow breath. Cole walked across the room and nudged Wayne’s arm. No response. He was middle-aged, a relatively young father, but his black hair had greyed, and he was pale and thin. Cole squeezed his hand to try again
to wake him up. His skin was burning up.
“Hey, Mr. Kirkness, wake up.”
The fluorescent lights coughed to life. Cole pulled his neck warmer back up and turned to find Dr. Ament standing by the light switch, just inside the door.
“If you think you’re saving these patients, you’re not,” she said.
She was clutching a radio in one hand.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Cole said.
“If you take them away from here, they’ll die. That medicine,” Dr. Ament pointed to the IV drip feeding liquid into Wayne, “that medicine is keeping them alive.”
“Are you insane?” Cole asked. “You’ve injected them all with a virus, and you’re probably trying to figure out a cure, but you obviously haven’t yet. You’re killing them.”
“The closer we get, the better the chance they’ll make it.”
“Well, you’re not getting any closer with the people here. We’re saving all of them,” Cole said. “And you’re not taking anybody else, either. It’s over.”
“This is in the national interest,” Dr. Ament said. “It’s bigger than Wounded Sky. It’ll protect this country and protect other countries, too.”
“Are you serious? The national interest is creating a biological weapon to kill a shitload of people? The national interest is deliberately taking Wounded Sky residents and making them sick, killing them?”
“I’ve radioed Mihko to send more guards. You and your friends better run.”
“We’ll leave,” Cole moved to take the line out of Wayne’s arm and carry him out if he had to, “but we’re bringing everybody with us.”
Dr. Ament stepped in front of the door, like she could keep him from leaving. “They’ll kill you.”
Cole shook his head and lowered his neck warmer. He gave Dr. Ament a half-smile. “They’re not too good at killing me.”
Dr. Ament fell backwards and hit the wall. She tried to collect herself, but failed. Her entire body was shaking, and she was ghost white. “Cole Harper?”
“Now.” Cole walked towards her. She recoiled, tried to dig her heels into the floor, but they slipped, making black streaks on the white tiles. He crouched in front of her. “I’m leaving and don’t try to stop me.”
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