Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1) (11 page)

              “Do it.”

              Alice said nothing, but looked into his eyes with a furious and blood-thirsty passion unmatched by the strength of Silas’ hand.  She breathed faster, feeding off of the thrill of the hunt and anticipating the excitement of revenge.

              “If you’re a killer, then kill me,” he challenged.

              Alice willed herself to drive the knife into his chest, but her hand did not move.  She exerted all of the willpower she could into dropping her hand onto his chest, but despite all of her efforts, she could not bring herself to do it.  She looked in his eyes and saw a killer, but in that killer she saw a human being.  She lost all of her blood-thirstiness in favor of the morality that was instilled within her and dropped the knife.  It bounced off of the ground with a metallic echo that rang through her ears with crystal clarity.

              In the same moment, Lilly tackled an unaware Rodge from behind, forcing him to drop the gun.  As Silas slowly rose, Alice collapsed and started sobbing violently.  Tears flowed down her cheeks in an overwhelming flood.  Rodge walked to her and they embraced.  Alice looked with fear at the others and then recognized Eli.  Through her tears, she was able to utter a few words.

              “I . . . I thought you were—”

              “Naw.  Death sounded too boring.  I figured I’d stick around for a while.”

              Rodge smiled slightly, but it was not the same smile Alice had come to know.  It was lacking in both humor and compassion and seemed both foreign and sinister.  He mumbled a few words into his collar and stood up .  Alice looked at him with confusion.  Something appeared different about him.  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but his stance and demeanor appeared different than it did the entire time they were together. 

              Alice started to back away from him.  She heard a strange clapping noise.  It was boots against the side of the building.  She saw a few men in blue uniforms climb onto the roof.  Then more blue uniforms.  The soldiers swarmed the roof.  They climbed up the side of the building and burst through the door leading onto the roof.  In a matter of seconds, they were surrounded.  Walking calmly behind them was a thin middle-aged woman, head held high with dignity.  She had brown hair bound in a tight bun and her face wore the wrinkles of a long career dedicated to the acquisition of power. 

              Surrounded by AK-47s, they had no choice but to go to their knees with their hands behind their heads.  All, that is, except for Rodge.  He slowly walked to his commanding officer and knelt before her in respect.

              “Well done, Roger,” the woman said.

              “Only doing my duty, Prime Minister.”

              Alice stared at him with incredulity and anger as her jaw dropped.

              “What are you doing?!”

              “My job.”

              “You’re working for HER?!”

              “Yes.  A pretty good performance even if I do say myself.”

              Alice’s head dropped and she refused to make eye contact with him.  Rodge stood and turned to her curiously, and uncertainty plagued him.  After a few moments of looking at her, he spoke.

              “You—you thought I was in love with you, didn’t you?”

              Alice said nothing, but looked up at him with wide eyes full of heartbreak.  Rodge initially appeared genuinely surprised.  He looked at her with confusion, perhaps even sympathy.  For a moment, Alice started to believe that he cared for her even beyond the service he was giving the Prime Minister, but then Rodge smiled and shook his head slowly, destroying the last remnant of what Alice had believed him to be.  One last tear, far heavier than all those preceding it, flowed down Alice’s cheek and struck the ground.

              “Coleman, that’s enough,” said the Prime Minister.  Her voice was full and dignified, so much so that it sounded slightly feigned.  “Alice, what were you thinking?  You’ve shamed me, my guard, and the entire host of the United Nations!”

              Alice wiped her tears and bit her lip so that she could respond.

              “Good.”

              “Good?!  What has gotten into you, child?!”

              “A conscience,” Alice said.  “You should try it sometime.”

              The Prime Minister slapped Alice with the back of her hand.  The ring on the Prime Minister’s hand left a square-shaped mark on Alice’s face, and the metal had cut her skin.  Blood trickled down her cheek as her mother spoke again.

              “You will learn respect!”

              She turned her back on Alice as quickly as she had come to her and faced Silas.  He was holding a violently sobbing Lilly in his arms.

              “Mr. Knight,” said the Prime Minister.  “What a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” 

              He said nothing, but scowled at her with hatred as she continued.  She paced back and forth as she spoke, always keeping her head upright.  She was not a tall woman, only about five feet and three inches, but she held her head high with an air of self-confidence that practically screamed narcissism.  He didn’t understand why she was so interested in him specifically, especially when Eli, who he assumed was the leader of the operation, was in the same place.  He dared not play into her hands by asking questions and making her the authority figure, so he remained silent and watched closely for clues.  He reached out with his mind, frantically searching for any explanation, as well as any weakness that might allow them to escape.  His search was unfruitful, as the soldiers were little more than empty slates.  They had little thought other than waiting for the command to kill.  Silas found it frightening how truly empty they were, but assumed that was what the minds of the heartless and violent were made of.

              “The Knight family has played a very special part in our history,” the Prime Minister continued.  “They have always interfered.  And they have always died.” 

At this revelation, Silas tipped his head slightly, intrigued.  When he was a young boy, his father had told him that many of their family had been rogues, but had never mentioned anything else on the matter.  As he thought about it, Silas realized that he didn’t even know who his grandparents were.  The thought troubled him, and he realized that he was traveling in uncharted waters.  The Prime Minister assumed that he knew about his family and whatever role they had played in rebellion against the United Nations government.  In reality, he knew nothing.

Silas concentrated and tried to get a hold on her mind.  It felt like he was journeying through endless clouds of fog.  The experience made him dizzy.  After a few moments, he knew he had reached her consciousness.  Then her eyes grew wide.  She knew.  How could she know?  They never knew.  But somehow, she did.  She turned and shouted orders at her soldiers in a foreign tongue that he didn’t recognize.

              In a moment of impulse, Ishmael pulled a hidden knife from underneath his shirt and rushed for the Prime Minister.  The soldiers saw him, but Eli saw him faster.  Eli grabbed Ishmael and did his best to cover him. Gunfire pierced through his skin like a thousand nails being pounded through paper.  Eli cringed and stifled a scream from the pain.  He clenched Ishmael as tightly as he could, tears streaming down his face.  He opened his eyes and the bullet wounds started to heal.  The soldiers were momentarily stunned, not believing that Eli could possibly be alive.  Silas took the moment of confusion to take control of one of the soldiers.  Using his body like a puppeteer uses a wooden puppet, he turned the soldier on another next to him and huddled over Lilly in order to protect her, anticipating a breakout of chaos. 

At the same moment, Tariq caught the soldier behind him with an elbow in the gut, rose and kicked him in the crotch, then ran behind him and snapped his neck in one swift move.  Tariq spread his gunfire across the roof, driving the soldiers back.  Salah picked up Ishmael’s bleeding body as Alexander fell to his death next to him and hid behind Tariq and the soldiers that Silas was controlling. 

Eli stared at Ishmael helplessly.

I was covering him.  How could this happen?  How could I let this happen?

Silas, Lilly, and Salah climbed down the ladder on the side of the building while Tariq gave them cover.  Zeke took a gun from one of the dead soldiers and fired as quickly as he could.  Eli crawled towards Tariq, his body healing steadily.  Silas waited for Lilly to climb down the ladder and then saw Alice with her head down, hoping to survive.  He contemplated the situation for a few seconds, and then ran briskly in a crouched position and pulled Alice up.  She responded quickly and ran with him to their escape. 

As Tariq pulled back and they all jumped down the ladder rungs, Zeke was shot in the head and his body fell from the top of the building to the ground beneath them. 

Eli wanted to scream.  He wanted to climb back up, to kill every last one of those soldiers, to execute his wrath on them for even trying to kill his friend.  He wanted to run to Zeke’s body, to shake him awake, to know that he couldn’t be dead.  Yet he couldn’t.  He couldn’t do any of that, because the lives of others were depending on him.  He was useful, and yet he felt helpless.  Completely and utterly helpless.

Once on the ground, they ran into the streets.  They saw a parked SUV by the street.  Tariq broke the driver’s side window with the handle of his gun, and then tossed the weapon to Eli.

“Make yourself useful and give me cover.  Everyone else get behind the car.” 

They did as they were told while Tariq pulled out an array of wires from beneath the car’s steering wheel.  In a few seconds, the car started up with a roar.  Everyone piled into the car without a word and the tires squealed as they sped off and quickly merged onto the highway, gunfire sounding behind them. 

After about fifteen minutes of driving, when they were sure that they had lost the U.N., Eli directed them to an abandoned warehouse off of the main road.  They broke inside, cleared off a large wooden table, and carefully set Ishmael on it.

“Give me some space, guys,” Eli said.

“Oh no, I’m not letting some bug-eyed hippie operate on my brother.”

“Dude, when you’ve been around for a couple hundred years, you eventually find the time to go to medical school.  I know what I’m doing.  Over thirty of my friends have been killed in the last two months.  You don’t want to find out what I’m capable of.  So stay out of my way, because I’m the only chance your brother’s got.  Now come on bro, help me out.”

Tariq grudgingly decided to help and found an old first aid kit.  Eli poured hydrogen peroxide onto a wad of paper towels and pressed it hard against the gunshot wound in Ishmael’s abdomen.  Ishmael screeched at the top of his lungs in pain.  Salah shivered as he sensed Ishmael’s distress and Lilly hid her face in Silas’ torso, tears flooding down her face unbidden as she sobbed violently.  Tariq watched Eli closely, determined not to let his younger brother die on his watch. 

As Ishmael’s life hung in the balance, one thought ran through Silas’ head:
Do things always have to be like this?

20.

“I don’t know if he’s gonna make it, guys,” Eli said to Salah and Tariq in a hushed corner of the abandoned warehouse.  Towers of boxes separated them from Ishmael, but Salah could feel the agony of his younger brother, while Tariq fixed his highly distressed gaze at Eli.  “I’ve stopped the bleeding,” Eli continued. “But he’s lost a ton of blood and he’s still got the bullets in him.”

“Couldn’t we give him our blood?” Salah asked.  Eli shook his head regrettably.

“I don’t have the equipment to do that.  We’d have to go to a hospital and I’m pretty sure you guys don’t want the attention.  All U.N.-sanctioned hospitals are required to report any and all gun-wounds.  He’d be whacked within the hour, as would we.”

Silence lingered in the air with a painful presence. Tariq looked at the ground with his fists clenched and Salah looked with compassion on their younger brother.  Both felt helpless.

“How long?” Salah asked.

“A few hours,” Eli replied.  “If you’ve got anything to say to him, bro, say it soon.”

A couple of rows behind Eli, Salah, and Tariq, sat Alice.  As soon as they had reached the warehouse, Alice found a solitary place so she could fully comprehend everything that had happened to her in the past few hours.  She sat with her hands around her knees, staring into space with extreme intensity, expending all of her focus on that one place, because it was the only thing she could do to stop herself from bursting into tears. 

She never could admit it to herself out of pride, but she had been sincerely falling for Rodge—or who she thought Rodge was.  His cold unveiling revealed that he really didn’t care about Alice at all—he was only there to serve her mother, the Prime Minister. 

Her mother was a cold and heartless woman, whose insistence on control and order had nearly killed Alice.  She remembered clearly her mother’s murderous attempt on her father’s life, his hand stopping the knife in hers, and her father running for his life.  She remembered her mother beating her for accidentally letting the dog out, yelling at her when she had accidentally killed that ugly rose bush, and pushing her down the stairs after she ran away the first time.  Alice placed her hand on her lower back and felt her scar, fresh as ever.  It was about six inches across, from when she fell on the knife at the bottom of the stairs.

She wiped a tear that escaped her left eye and sniffed, and then released a long, shaky breath.  A few seconds later, however, tears began to flow unbidden down her cheeks.  She did not stop them but made no sound, muffling her sobbing and sniffling by hiding her face in her sleeve.  She might have been closer to Sage than before, but she no longer believed it was worth it.  Even in her despair, though, she wiped her tears and looked at the same spot on the wall with renewed rigor.  Somehow, some way, she would find a way to survive.  She always did.

On the other side of the building, Silas sat against the wall, looking down at the AK-47 in his lap.  He remembered what he said when Eli rescued him:
I’m just fighting to survive
.  His decision to backtrack and find Eli was a result of a pretty radical change of heart.   Ever since being separated from his father, Silas had only one objective: stay alive.  In the past month, however, that had grown increasingly difficult.  The key to his survival was always apathy.  If he didn’t care about anything or anyone, it was easier to stay alive.  That became impossible when Eli interfered and he met Lilly.  It became even more problematic when he watched Zeke be slaughtered before his eyes. 

As Silas wiped a tear from his eye, he realized that he could no longer rely on apathy.  The recent tragic events had resurrected his stone-cold heart.  Others would be hardened and embittered, but Silas was finding himself softened.  It was a steep down-grade, for he now felt responsible not only for Lilly, but for everyone in their company, though they had only been together for a few short hours.  His abilities were escalating and now without effort he could feel the torment and despair of every individual in the warehouse: their physical wounds, their new horrifying memories, and their emotional trauma.  Apathy was no longer an option.  He cared.  The problem was that he didn’t have a clue what to do about it.  It was like a sickness that would drag him down; a weakness that would certainly kill him.  Could he manage looking out for them and survive himself?  It was unlikely at best. 

Lilly sat next to Silas and rested her head against his shoulder.  Upon entering the warehouse, it had taken her a full hour to completely calm down, and she hadn’t left Silas’ side since.  Now she was doing as she always did, running back through her memories for every important detail.  She closed her eyes, reliving every moment of the traumatic event, occasionally cringing as bullets flew through the air in the surrealism of her own mind.  As Silas turned the two soldiers on each other, Lilly slowed her memory to slow-motion.  She walked around the roof, observing every detail she could.  The edges of her vision at the time faded into a blur, but she studied those details that remained intact.  The soldiers’ pristine blue uniforms.  The hidden com behind Rodge’s ear.  The woman’s pursed lips. 

The woman . . .

As Lilly focused on the Prime Minister, she paused the memory completely and observed her, soaking up every detail, examining her for any inconsistency or peculiarity.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but then she spotted the necklace.  The necklace itself was gold, but joined at a medallion carved of a black metal.  The engraved figure was the head of an orange bird, its head rising from what she thought was a pile of dirt.  She didn’t know what it meant, but she had an inkling that what she had discovered might be important.  The feeling left as quickly as it had come, however, and she reminded herself that she wasn’t a hero in some epic adventure tale.  She was simply a small girl afraid for her life.  Lilly retreated out of her memory and opened her eyes.

She curled up a little closer to Silas.  She feigned a shiver, but she was really quite warm.  Silas was withdrawn and distant, and she was always afraid he might eventually grow weary of her continued need for emotional security. As always, she was afraid, vulnerable, and useless. 

              Ishmael lay on the makeshift operating table, breathing slow and calculated breaths to manage the pain.  When Eli had placed him on the table, Ishmael’s arm had been underneath of his body, and had since fallen asleep.  However, he was too afraid of his body’s certain painful reaction to move.  Eventually he gained the courage to do so, and shifted his body over to pull his arm out.  The sharp increase in pain made his entire body tense.  He whimpered for a few seconds as he waited for the pain to recede to the level it was at before he moved.  It didn’t.

He was fully aware of the conversation between Eli and his brothers.  With his side searing with pain as though on fire, he looked desperately for any distraction.  Eli’s words had chilled him to the bone.  Since their getaway, the only struggle in his mind was the task of enduring each moment; of making it from one minute to the next.  He never thought that his true struggle would be whether or not he would live at all. 

Flares of pain shot up his side and shoulder.  It took a great deal of self-discipline for him to not scream in pain, but he kept his jaw set firmly, despite the agony.  Tears seeped from the corners of his eyes and dripped down the sides of his temples.  Desperate for distraction, he again focused on listening.

              He could hear Salah and Tariq talking in hushed voices, but the pain was too distracting for him to concentrate enough to pick up any specific words.  After what felt like decades to Ishmael, Salah approached his bed and spoke softly to him.  Ishmael had always found Salah’s gaze strangely comforting, and tonight was no different. 

                “How are you, brother?”

              “I’ve been better,” Ishmael responded.

              Salah smiled.  It wasn’t an ignorant smile.  It was one of pity.  Ishmael hated those. 

              “Do you remember that time that we tied sleds to the dogs’ tails?” Salah asked.

              That was more like it.  A good memory.  A distraction.  He allowed himself a smirk as he remembered the Huskies running through the snow-covered woods, irate at what they had done.

              “I didn’t think Mom was ever going to stop yelling at us,” Ishmael responded.

              “And Dad just sat in the corner smirking.”

              Ishmael smiled as he thought about their parents, but his smile soon faded.  Even in the midst of his own struggle for life, he couldn’t help but be worried about them. 

              “What do you think happened to them?”

              Salah hesitated before responding.

              “I don’t know.  But I promise you that I’ll find out.”

              Ishmael’s gaze shifted uncomfortably to Tariq, who was standing off at a distance, watching the two of them with deep concern.  Salah sensed the shift in his brother’s attention.

              “He wants to talk to you,” Salah said.

              Ishmael nodded silently and Salah stood up.  Before he left, he said one last thing to his younger brother.

              “I love you, Ishmael.  I always will.”

              Ishmael cringed, but this time it wasn’t from the pain.  It was too much like goodbye.  It was like Salah was saying that he knew he wouldn’t have another chance to talk to him again.  Like Salah knew he was going to die and soon.

              “You don’t need to say it,” he replied to his older brother.

              “Yes, I do.”

              With that, Salah turned and walked away as Tariq walked to his brother’s makeshift bed and sat down next to him.

              “Great accommodations, eh?”

              Ishmael chuckled, and his whole body ached as he did so.

              “You never did learn to branch out from humor.”

              A smile tugged at the corner of Tariq’s mouth, but it quickly failed as Tariq looked at his younger brother’s pale face.

              “You’ve been angry at me for a long time, Ishmael.”

              Ishmael sat in silence for several seconds, and then responded.

              “Yes I have.”

              “I want you to talk to me about it.”

              Ishmael inhaled and exhaled slowly.

              “Are you sure?”

              “Yes.”

              Ishmael looked at the ceiling as he continued, and felt a flood of emotions coming over him as he relived the horrid memories from his young childhood.

              “You know it took Mom and Dad two years to tell me you were in prison.  I remember being a little kid and running behind you and Salah.  Salah always involved me, so sure, I liked him alright. But you—you always had guts.  You never let anybody boss you around, no matter how outmatched you were.  I looked up to you.  A lot.  Then you left.  I just came home from school one day and you weren’t there anymore.  For two years I thought you just didn’t care enough to come back home.  Then Dad told me the truth.  You killed a man.  I was furious.  I didn’t ever want you to come back.  I felt like I didn’t know who you were.  The Tariq I knew wouldn’t kill anyone.  Then you came back and you killed left and right.  I’m angry because the Tariq I knew and looked up to is dead.  It feels like some devil has stolen his body.  I want my brother back.”

              Ishmael’s words pierced through the air and Tariq sat in silence as he realized what he had done to his impressionable younger brother.  He waited a few moments before continuing the conversation.  He knew that the information would help Ishmael, but he struggled with how to say it. 

              “Did Dad tell you why I killed him?”

              “No.”

              “He threatened Salah and you.”

              Ishmael looked for words to say in response, but he had none.  Their father, who barely mentioned Tariq, more out of pain than anger, had never mentioned the motive for his crime.

              “He loaned some money to me and when the time came to pay it back I didn’t have the money.  He said if I didn’t have the money within the week he would go after you and Salah.  I decided I would rather go to prison than see harm come to you two, so I killed him.”

              “Was it worth it?”

              Tariq sighed before responding.

              “You must understand, Ishmael, that I’m not proud of who I am.  I don’t want to be the guy that kills people to get what he wants, but I just don’t see any other way.  The guy I was before . . . he was in a different circumstance.  It’s too late for me.”

              “You know that isn’t true.”

              Tariq’s eyes glistened with tears as he looked Ishmael in the eye.

              “What are you saying?”

              “Tariq, I know that everything you have done, no matter how awful, has been out of good intentions, but that doesn’t make it okay.  But I also know you can do better.  I forgive you.  But I want you to do something for me.  Try to find that part of yourself again that isn’t a killer.  Can you do that for me?”

              Tariq nodded silently as he squeezed Ishmael’s hand tightly.  He released his grip a little when he saw his brother’s hands turning white.