“What’s going to happen to us if this goes bad?” Joe asked quietly from the side of his mouth.
Neither Cara nor Jack were ready to think about it, but they knew their only chance was to have left when Mac told them to. They all became lost in their thoughts for themselves and Mac. Behind them some people slid into the row and there was a tap on Cara’s shoulder. She turned to see Melody and Violet sitting behind her.
“Where’s Mac?” Melody asked cautiously.
Cara didn’t want to say, but the look on Violet’s face told her the older woman already knew. She sighed, and put her hand on the young girl’s knee, looking into her eyes. Melody’s shoulders sagged, and she sat in mournful silence.
“How does this go?” Jack asked, turning around to face Violet.
The woman took a deep breath and explained, “I believe, right now they have her in one of the smaller locker rooms below us that lead to the dugouts. There she is allowed to prepare herself, but it’s mostly waiting. When Carmichael enters, he’ll have it begin.”
They looked out to the baseball diamond. It was smaller than the ones at major and minor league games, of course. Now where each base would’ve laid were large torches, flames blazing to illuminate the space. Only a few windows laid in the lower portion of the walls, dotting its entire span just enough to let some of the natural light in to show the way to the seats. The huge overhead lights hung over them useless now. The orange dirt was stained in spots, dark pools of rusted garnet here and there. The astroturf was worn away from home base to the pitchers mound from continuous traffic.
“Excuse me,” Melody said from behind them. They watched as she slid back out and made her way across the mouth of the entrance to the other side. She took a seat next to her father, Garret. They watched as she whispered to him, and his face fell. He looked to them and gave a little nod, lowering his eyes.
“I have to be honest here. I’m not feeling very confident in this situation right now.” Cara was trying to seem casual about it, but the way her hands were clutching the front of the bench gave her away.
“Is this Solomon guy one of the ones in the gym?” Joe asked Cara, figuring she knew more than him.
Cara turned to Violet who answered, “No. He has his own room in the red market.”
“So, he’s not a black circle guy, a dark fighter, then?” A little hopefulness leaked into her voice.
“No. He’s their head. But occasionally, when it suits him, when it’s something he wants, he fights.” She was looking out onto the field, but looked back down at them in front of her. “Today, it seems, he chose to fight.”
“Shit,” Joe muttered as he rubbed his forehead. He of all people knew that Mac could handle herself, but this was a different situation. The set up was favored for the house, and he had no idea what she was playing at. The weak woman she portrayed to get in here made no sense to Joe.
Jack turned again to Violet, about to ask her more of Solomon, but he didn’t have to. Another ring of the silly gong, and the crowd grew silent. From below them out on the field, they saw a few heads bobbing out from the dugout on the other side. Carmichael walked in, now clad in a ragged black sweater, and sat at the table facing the field. He set a pistol out on the table.
“What’s the gun for?” Joe said so softly it was barely audible.
Cara sighed, remembering what Violet had told her of the arena. “To end it.”
The guard from before who seemed to know Mac, stood at his side, half turned to the crowd. The silence in the huge space was deafening. Everyone in the arena watched in sorrow, knowing what was ahead. From out in front of them, two heads emerged from the other dugout below. The guard pulled her out by the arm and around the backstop, then gave her a push out to the mound.
Mac walked, her back to the stands, her head sunk into her shoulders, her arms clutched around herself. They had put her in a black pinnie over her T-shirt. The bandage covering her wounds at the top of her arm showed from under the sleeve. When she turned to them, her face broke everyone who looked. Every head dropped down to the floor when they saw who would be fighting that day. Her panicked, tear stained face covered the spectators in shame. Jack sat, body clenched and rigid, knowing there was nothing he could do unless he wanted four people dead instead of one. Joe unconsciously stood as if he was about to go get her, but Violet quickly put her hand on him and brought him back down. Cara looked at those three lines on his jacket again. Mac had been through too much, too soon, to do this. Her face was full of regret and fear. She rubbed at her bare arms in the chill of the open space, her sleeve getting caught up high on her bandage, revealing a matching set of three lines that had seeped through the old gauze days ago.
Out from the same spot Carmichael appeared came his assistant, bringing their attention away from her. He stood off to the side, right behind Carmichael, and then came Solomon. At the sight of him Jack’s eyes went wide, and he heard Cara give a little gasp while Joe stiffened and froze.
The man was a tower. A few inches over six feet tall, his shoulders made his upper half look like a wall. He was even beyond what they had seen prepping at the gym. He wore a black muscle tank, a few tattoos peaking out on his back and down his arms. A rendering of the Virgin Mary looked out from his right shoulder. He sauntered out onto the field on his own accord and laughed to himself at the sight of Mac. She was now trembling, eyes wide at the sight of him, seemingly incapable of either fight or flight, but there was only one she was allowed to do at that point anyway. Solomon turned to the crowd and raised his arms up, letting out a terrifying roar. The people clapped for him with absolutely no enthusiasm. It was just what they were supposed to do.
Cara looked back into the crowd again, unbelieving, when she heard them clap. She started to spot a few children in the stands, following suit with their little hands, clapping along with the same sorrowful face, just at a smaller scale. They watched as it began. There was no gong to sound its start, just Solomon turning back and going for her. Carmichael wasn’t even watching. Bored, he was cleaning his finger nails at the table, legs crossed and leaning back. The guard who stood by him watched the scene, his professional expressionless face now showed the same sad eyes that everyone else had.
Mac jolted to attention as he came at her, and her fight or flight seemed to kick in. Suddenly she darted past him towards the backstop. He didn’t even try to grab her as she flashed by. He simply chuckled to himself again. She ran to where the guard pushed her in, looking to run out of the stadium all together, but the guard pointed his gun at her in warning even as his eyes fell when she looked at him for help. It had to be finished. She looked behind her as Solomon grinned, turning for her again. She sprinted to the chainlink behind home plate and clung to it, her shaking voice pleading to Carmichael.
“Please, please! I’ll work here. I will. I’ll stay. I’ll stay! I don’t need the food.”
He continued to dig under his nails, never even looking up to acknowledge her. His guard’s eyes darted all around, unable to look at her in front of him. A few audible gasps sounded from the crowd as Solomon drew down on her. At the sound, she whipped back around, pushing herself into the fencing behind her, still clutching at the links. Like a charging bull he came right for her and wrapped his hands around her throat.
At first she clawed at them as her face began to redden. She stared into his smiling face, and he watched as the whites of her eyes suddenly began to bloom with little red stars as the blood vessels burst from the pressure. Her hands jerkingly went up his arms, trying to reach for his face, just making it to his biceps. She felt a bump on his skin and noticed a large scar that looked like a strangely shaped cross, branded on his arm. Slowly she grew limper and limper, until he pulled himself into her to whisper in her ear as she began to fade away.
“Don’t worry, you’re a keeper. I have a lot worse planned for you.” As he pulled back again to look into what he assumed would be her unconscious face, he stopped.
She still loo
ked back at him. Her one eye almost entirely red now, matching the shade of her face. But it was her smile that startled him. She was locked on him with a maniacal grin that would’ve thrown anyone off course. With their faces inches from each other, her back pressed against the backstop, she made her move.
Like a flash she grabbed the sides of his head, gripping around the back, and kicked off from the fencing. She drove her knee hard and fast up into his throat. Once, then twice, her other foot standing on his thigh for leverage. He dropped her, clutching his throat and stumbling backward. Her body dropped to the ground, and she coughed, trying to get the air back into her lungs. She rose onto her hands and knees, her chest heaving to compensate for the lack of oxygen. Her head was tingling, a faint throb were she was struck last at the back. Then she heard the gasp of the crowd, and looked with a satisfaction at Solomon.
He was still gripping his throat, but through his fingers oozed bright red, bubbling blood. The crowd was now standing trying to see what had happened, how it was possible. Then he coughed, and red splattered out and onto his chin. He dropped to his knees, his arms falling limply to his sides revealing jagged tears and punctures all along the one part of his neck where she had driven her knee. He tried to stand, his knee jerked up and down as he struggled, and then he stopped. His body fell back and away into he dirt. He was dead.
Mac staggered back on to her feet, holding her own throat, an imprint of Solomon’s hands still pronounced on her skin. Then she turned to the backstop, the right knee of her pants soaked with blood. The people in the arena were still standing, all looking to each other, unsure of what to do. The guards who stood at the openings turned towards them, and they all began to sit. Silence filled the arena.
Mac took a shaky step up, then a steadier one, until she reached the backstop and stared at Carmichael. He sat stiff in his seat glaring at her. His guard looked back and forth from him to her, waiting for instruction. Then his assistant spoke from behind him.
“Sir. It’s done. She needs to end it. For all our sakes.” The young man nervously looked past Mac at the large, dead body behind her, trying to discern any movement.
Carmichael cleared his throat. “Looks like you have secured your goods. We’ll have them waiting at the front for you.” He started to push the pistol in front of him towards her at the backstop. Where the table met the chain there had been a slot made from clipped away fencing, just big enough for the gun to fit. “Now clean up your mess.”
One bullet. She took the gun, giving him an exaggerated innocent, but extremely pleased look before she turned around and made her way to Solomon’s body.
Behind her she heard Carmichael address his assistant in a whisper in the tense silence. “That fucking bitch. Have her and her group taken care of at the trees.”
Mac’s jaw clenched. She heard the man’s foot steps echoing in the dugout as he left, and before she could even think it through, she turned back to Carmichael and put the single bullet in his head.
The guards turned their guns on her, but didn’t fire. She let the pistol fall to the ground and stood there waiting. Everyone waited. She looked to the head guard who was responsible for Carmichael. The other guards looked to him too. He gave a once over to Carmichael’s body, head dropped back over the top of the chair. His brains dripped down the front wall of the bleachers behind him from the gaping hole at the back of his skull. Then his gaze finally made its way to her.
Cara, Jack, and Joe stood at the front, mouths agape, with no idea what she had just done. Or what they could even do from there.
“You heard what he said,” she spoke to the main guard. “I thought you had rules here.”
No one else said a word, as her voice echoed to the outfield. She didn’t take her eyes off the guard. His hand fell to his belt, and he pulled a knife from its sheath. Mac raised her chin to him and walked to where he stood at the backstop, the chainlink between them.
The guard looked at her, then he pushed the handle through. “This is quite the mess you’ve left for us,” he whispered harshly. She took the handle, but he didn’t let go. “I hope you at least stick around long enough to help clean it up.” He let go of the blade. “You can start there,” he motioned with his head behind her.
She turned to see Solomon’s body, his hand twitching at his side in the dirt. She walked to him, standing directly in front as his body sat up. The huge black circle of his eyes looked right at her. Then she drove the blade of the knife up to the hilt into the top of his skull. He dropped back down into the bloody dirt, and she turned back to the people.
Every eye was still on her, but the guards guns weren’t anymore. Cara, Jack, and Joe stood at the front looking at her with mixed emotions. Then someone stood up, off to the side behind them in another section. Her eyes focused in on Melody, standing rigidly, her arm across her chest, three fingers spread against the top of her left arm. She watched as her father, Garret, looked at what she was doing. His gaze fell to Joe’s jacket and then to Mac’s arm. He rose and did the same. Then more, all over, here and there in the stadium stood, giving a salute that they thought showed solidarity. A respect they unknowingly just created from a false symbol.
“What the fuck?” Joe said, his head turning to look at the large community standing up for Mac, though it wasn’t all of them. The ones who weren’t behind the cause began to slip out, skittering from the arena like roaches, and most likely out of the center and back to where they had come from.
Jack was surveying the scene too. “I don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, I think we just participated in a coup.”
“Holy shit,” Cara said, watching as Mac bent down and tugged the blade back out of Solomon’s head, wiping it on the leg of her pants. Then she walked it back to the guard, returning it to him.
Violet was the last to stand behind them, the only four without their fingers to their arms. “It appears that’s exactly what has happened. Planned and executed by the likes of one person.”
Mac looked to the guard again. “Can I have my pack and knives back now, Officer Taylor?”
His dark eyes looked hard at her, but his face just showed exhaustion.
“Go get her things,” he called over to the guard that walked her out, standing at the other end of the table. He turned and headed into the dugout. “You could’ve come to me first, you know,” he spoke low, towards her, inconspicuously, as he scanned the still standing crowd in their salute. He nodded to another guard standing at one of the tunnel exits. He turned and started waving the people out. Finally their hands fell back down as they left.
“I didn’t know about this until now.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he scoffed at her and watched as the other guard returned with her backpack. She could hear her knives clacking against one another in the bottom. He passed it to Taylor who pointed his chin at the dugout, and they made their way over, standing right in front of her group and Violet after Mac rounded the backstop. “No plan at all? Just coming in here and hoping for the best?” He handed her pack to her, and she started to pull her knives out, putting them back on her where they belonged.
“It seemed to work out.” She looked back out on the field to where two men were attempting to drag Solomon’s body out of the stadium. She shouldered her pack and looked back at Taylor.
He shook his head at her. “Yeah, looks like.” He gestured to her eyes riddled with petechial hemorrhages. “What the fucks gotten into you? So much for anonymity. When we asked you to get the girls back, you were all for silence and namelessness. Not wanting to put a target on your back or a business sign on your chest. Now you come in and kill the head of the Center?”
“And the other fucking monster,” she added giving a quick look back over her shoulder.
Jack was watching their interaction unsure of what they were so intently discussing, though he was sure he had a few ideas. Violet gently touched his shoulder.
“I have to get back to the blue circle. Thin
gs are going to get even more interesting now. Care to walk out with me?” she asked the trio. They looked back down at Mac. “She’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Violet began to sidestep out from the bleachers, the three of them following, looking back at Mac and Taylor as they left.
“Yeah. And now what?” Taylor asked as he followed her back through the dugout, then into the small locker room. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her around, lowering his voice in the cavernous, tiled space. “Evie! You have forced our hand here. Most of us have been planning something, and now it’s been done without a plan at all. We’re not ready to move this place forward right now.”
“You weren’t moving fast enough. From what I heard it was only getting worse, and you’re right, it’s now been done.”
He scoffed indignantly at her. “Well, we don’t have the luxury of just dropping in, and then walking out. We all actually live here.”
She said nothing back. Her eyes roamed the walls around him. Then she sighed, “My plan was to come here, settle up, and go take care of something else. For myself. I wasn’t planning on doing any of this, but I can’t stay here. I can’t really stay anywhere right now.”
“I get it.” His eyes softened and he slid his hand over his shaved, sweat speckled head. “But these two aren’t the only ones we have to worry about here.”
Mac looked at him suddenly standing at attention.
“Solomon answered to someone else. I heard some conversation between him and Carmichael before. The women he takes out of here go to him, and he’s choosy. Plus, this is not the only place he gets them from. He has people all over collecting for him. Even the girls brought it up when they came back. Those fucking pieces of shit were talking about handing them off to someone too. For what, God only knows.”
Evangeline, Alone. (Book 1): Evangeline, Alone Page 47