THE ALL-PRO (56 page)

The room seemed to turn cold, a lethal tension that drowned out the flickering candles’ warmth.

Fred’s eyes glanced to the dangers, then back to the blackfurred Quyth Leader. “You recognize me, Gredok? You’ve got a good eye.”

“It’s the
smell
, actually,” Gredok said. “Pungent and offensive, as always.”

“I would have bathed for the occasion, but I was in a bit of a hurry.”

“Perhaps because you were late from visiting your psychiatrist,” Gredok said. “For only mental deficiency could explain why you would
dare
to show your face in front of me
anywhere
, let alone at a private function to which you were not invited.”

Fred smiled. “But Gredok, you invited
family
.” He looked at Quentin, then at Cillian. “See? Isn’t that the father you found for Quentin?”

Quentin noticed that Cillian was stirring in his seat, acting nervous.

“Dad, it’s okay. Fred won’t hurt us. He’s just got some business with Gredok. Let them work it out.”

“Wrong,” Fred said. “This business involves all of us.
Cillian
included.”

“Gonzaga.” Gredok spoke in a tone so low it was barely audible. Sentients held their breath to listen. Everyone seemed afraid to move. “You may turn around, right now, and leave with your life. Say one more word, to me or to anyone in my organization —
ever
 — and that life is forfeit.”

Fred stared. Quentin saw him swallow, saw his jaw muscles twitching. Fred was afraid.

Quentin looked at the woman. She was quite beautiful, in a working-class way. She stared at Cillian.
Glared
was more like it.

Fred shook his head, slowly, as if he were arguing with himself, trying to find the courage to continue. But if he did continue, whatever he said could cause his death — Gredok did not make idle threats. Quentin didn’t know what could bring Fred out here to cause such a ruckus, but Fred’s history with Gredok appeared to have caught up with them both.

“Fred,” Quentin said quietly. “Look, why don’t you just go, okay? Whatever it is, I’ll try and help.”

“Barnes,” Gredok said, “stay out of this.”

Fred looked at Quentin. Fear in those eyes, but the fear seemed to fade, replaced by determination.

“Quentin,” Fred said, then gestured to the uniformed woman on his left. “I want you to meet your sister.”

The room seemed to vanish. All was blackness, nothingness, all except for her. Her face. Memories flared, memories triggered by that same face, but from when it was younger, full of smiles, looking down at him. Memories of a splinter in his hand, of her gently holding his wrist, pulling out the splinter, then softly kissing the wounded spot.

The fleeting, partial memories of his mother — those weren’t of his mother at all, they were of his older sister.

His sister. Standing right there.

New memories flared up, memories of a much younger version of that woman — of his
sister
 — angry, screaming, her cheeks streaked with tears, yelling at someone else, Quentin’s mother, although he couldn’t remember his mother’s face.

Family. Real family. “Jeanine?”

She turned to look at him. Her hard eyes softened, just a bit. She nodded. “Yes, Quentin. I am your sister.”

Then she turned to face Cillian. She pointed at him. “And that man is
not
our father.”

Quentin’s needs split down the middle — half of him couldn’t look away from Jeanine, half of him had to turn and stare at Cillian. And when he did, everything fell into place.

She was his sister. No question. He
remembered
her. He did
not
have memories of this man, not a single one and that should have told him something. There could be no second-guessing Jeanine — she was right.

And somewhere, deep inside, Quentin had known all along.

Gredok had played him. Quentin had thought himself good at the manipulation game? Good at seeing the true emotions of others? He saw nothing. Gredok had been setting this up since last season. Quentin never saw it coming.

Now, Quentin’s full attention focused on Cillian Carbonaro.

Rage had always been Quentin’s tool, the source of his on-field power, the driving force behind his relentless work ethic. Then, he’d learned to control it, to channel it, to push it down for the good of the team. He’d learned that he couldn’t solve all of his problems with his fists.

Not all of them.

But for
this
problem?

And that man is not our father.

Yeah, fists would work just fine.

BLINK

He reached past Cillian, toward Gredok, grabbed the edge of the table and ripped it backward, sent it sailing through the air. Food flew, drink splashed, candles spun and snuffed out in mid-air.

Quentin stepped toward Gredok the Splithead. Cillian stood and put his hand on Quentin’s chest. The older man’s head shook in slow motion, his lips started to form the word
don’t
, but they didn’t finish because Quentin head-butted Cillian right in that hateful, lie-spewing mouth.

The older man sagged. Quentin again reached for the Quyth Leader, but Gredok was already scrambling away and a well-dressed HeavyKi was rushing forward, club in hand. The HeavyKi swung — so pitifully slow — but Quentin side-stepped, grabbed Gredok’s chair. The club hissed through empty air. Quentin lifted the chair, twisted and brought it around in a fast, wide arc, smashing it into the HeavyKi’s vocal tubes. The 750-pound thug let out a low-toned squeal of pain, black blood already streaming from its head, its front-right and right-side eyelids shut tight against splinters that jutted forth from the torn eyes beneath. Four arms spread wide, too wide to dodge — it rushed forward.

Ju Tweedy blind-sided it, his oversized Human shoulder smashing into the HeavyKi’s head. Both sentients fell to the ground, fists flying.

Quentin had only one thought:
Kill Gredok
.

The black-furred Quyth Leader ran for the exit. Quentin hurdled Ju and the HeavyKi. He saw the Sklorno bodyguard drawing a gun, a gun that looked like the one he still had in his pocket, draw it and point it at Quentin.

Two bodies flew through the air — Bobby Brobst, the Human bodyguard, bent over at the waist because he had John Tweedy’s shoulder in his stomach, John’s arms wrapped around Bobby’s back, John’s big legs driving forward. John screamed a scream of joy, then drove the Human right into the Sklorno, the three of them crashing into the wall hard enough to splinter wood and crack plastic.

Hate. Kill. Hurt. Kill.

Quentin ran for the door. Virak the Mean appeared in front of him, blocking the way.

Virak held up two pedipalp hands —
just stop, don’t do this
 — but Quentin didn’t slow. He stepped forward and threw a big overhand left. Everything else, the fist included, seemed to be moving in slow motion, but not Virak. The big Warrior stepped inside the punch, drove both of his lower fists into Quentin’s stomach. The air shot out of Quentin’s lungs. He dropped to one knee, tried to get up, but before he could, a shelled fist
cracked
into his right ear.

BLINK

Quentin fell face-first into a broken plate, bits of shredded meat smearing on his skin.

“Stay down,” Virak said. “If you get up, I won’t hold back.”

Quentin grabbed the broken plate and threw it in one quick motion. He saw Virak’s armored eyelid close just before the plate smashed against his face, driving the linebacker back a step.

Virak opened his eye, then reached into his gray pants — he pulled out a foot-long knife. “You side with that genetic reject, then turn against my
Shamakath
? I’ll
make
you stay down.”

A shadow passed by Quentin’s head.

Choto the Bright, diving over him.

Virak seemed surprised, as if he didn’t know how to process an attack by his teammate and fellow bodyguard. Choto slammed into Virak, driving him backward. The two big sentients crashed through a table.

Quentin stood, looked around. The restaurant vibrated with fists and knees and grunts of pain and John Tweedy screaming
wooo-woo! It’s the Pain Train!
over and over again. Ju and John were on top of the bodyguards, beating them senseless.

Gredok was gone.

Quentin shook his head, tried to clear his mind. He had to stop this. He looked for Fred and Jeanine, but he couldn’t spot them.

His sister was gone.

He could find her, figure out what to do next, but first he had to stop all this fighting.

Then Quentin saw
him
.

Cillian Carbonaro. Entering the kitchen doors, making a run for it.

And that man is not our father.

Quentin covered the fifteen feet in a second and a half. Cillian pushed through the kitchen doors, which swung back as Quentin hit them, his mass smashing them open, tearing them from their hinges. Quentin put a shoulder into his “father’s” back, driving the man face-first into the hard kitchen floor.

They skidded, leaving a streak of red blood to mark their path.

Cillian flipped over, hurt but struggling.

Quentin straddled him.

Cillian stopped moving, his body suddenly rigid like a frozen corpse.

Quentin blinked once, twice, three times. He was holding a small gun, pressing the barrel hard into Cillian’s squeezed-shut right eye.

Only if you press it right up against a sentient’s brain case and pull the trigger.

The trigger. Quentin felt springs resisting his finger’s pull. Resisting it, yet
welcoming
it, the strong handshake of a lifelong friend.

“Please,” Cillian said. “Don’t kill me.”

Quentin partially heard the words. They sounded distant, faint, drowned out by a roar that played endlessly, a monotone that told him to
do it do it kill him kill him
.

He squeezed the trigger a little tighter. He could
feel
the mechanism inside, sense it was at the final release point when something would give, when springs would slam a hammer against a primer, when an explosion would drive a bullet through Cillian’s eye and into his brain.

A tap on his shoulder.

Quentin jumped, waited for the gun to go off, but it did not. He looked up to his right. John Tweedy stood there, gnawing on a steak bone.

“Hey, Q,” he said. “You gonna kill that shucker?”

Quentin blinked. The roar faded away. He looked down at Cillian, who remained stiff, trembling on the floor.

“I don’t know,” Quentin said.

John chewed. “Do you want me to kill him?”

Quentin again looked up at his friend. John used his back teeth to scrape a scrap of meat off the bone. It was like they’d never left the dinner table. Fun-and-games John Tweedy had another side entirely, a side that could do bad things — like
kill
 — without thinking twice.

“No,” Quentin said. “I don’t want you to kill him.”

John shrugged. “I’ll kill him for you, I don’t mind. He’s got it coming, Q. He deserves it.”

Quentin shook his head. “No. He deserves something, but not that.”

John nodded, held out his left hand. “Well, then give me the gun. If you’re going to whack this guy — I’d whack him if I were you — he deserves it by beating, not quick with a bullet.”

Quentin looked at John’s empty palm. Streaked with blood both red and black. A tiny shard of glass plate was sticking out of the base of his thumb. John could kill so easily. Was that what Quentin could become?

No. Killing was a sin.

He handed John the gun.

“Thanks,” John said. “I’ll be right outside. Whatever you do, Ju and I will take care of you.”

John walked out, leaving Quentin alone with the man he’d thought was his father.

Quentin stood up. He slid aside some food-filled bowls, then sat on a metal counter.

The rage vanished, pushed away by something worse.

Pain. Heartbreak.

Quentin coughed. A thin breath snaked into his lungs. “How could you do this to me?”

Still shaking, Cillian raised up on one elbow. Blood dripped from his mouth to pool on the tile floor. He was missing his frontright tooth. Quentin saw the like-father-like-son irony but didn’t appreciate it.

“Can I sit up?”

Quentin nodded. It seemed oddly difficult to do even that — his head felt heavy, every muscle exhausted beyond the point of failure.

Cillian slowly pushed himself to his butt, his feet in front of him, shoes resting in a puddle of his own blood. The man hurt physically, of that there was no question considering the beating Quentin had laid down, but there was a deeper pain.

A pain of the soul.

“It was just a job,” he said through split lips. “I’m an actor. Gredok offered me all this money. I got to pretend to be your dad. It was supposed to make you happy.”

“Do I
look
happy?”

The man winced, flinched away. Quentin realized that he’d come off the metal counter and was standing over the beaten man, screaming the words, bloody fists clenched into weapons.

He forced his hands to open.

“What’s your name?”

“Rick,” the man said. “Rick Vinje. People call me Sarge.”

The man’s name was Sarge. Somehow, that made it even worse. A normal man with a normal nickname. A man with a real past, a real life — a life that had never involved Quentin.

Once again, Quentin Barnes was an orphan.

He’d
always
been an orphan.

Quentin could barely stand. So weak. He again sat on the metal counter.

“I believed you,” he said. It hurt to speak. It hurt to
breathe
. How could it hurt to breath? “I believed that you were ... my
father
. What kind of a demon are you?”

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t know it would turn out like this. I didn’t think ... ” he lifted a hand to his face and wiped away a tear, leaving a streak of thinned-out blood on his cheek. “I guess I just didn’t think.”