The Shift: Book II of the Wildfire Saga (20 page)

Chad turned and made his way around the rusty, blood encrusted exam table.
 
Good God, is this where they’ve been drawing my blood?
 
He stood next to her as she hastily examined a large padlocked metal cabinet.

A crude red biohazard symbol had been spray-painted on the door.
 
He could tell by the hum coming from the wall that the cabinet was refrigerated.
 
A quick look told him that it hadn’t been there long—the scuff marks on the floor looked awful fresh.
 
Wherever they were, it was not a medical facility.
 
The Russians had brought the refrigerated cabinet with them and threw it in this room.

To hold my blood.
 
What are they doing with it?

13 swung the butt of her rifle down and smashed the lock off the front of the cabinet.
 
Chad pulled the door open and a light turned on, illuminating ordered rows of vials, each full of dark red blood and stacked neatly onto shelves.
 
Each vial had been labeled in Cyrillic, but most started with the number 14.
 
On the third shelf, however, there were a handful of vials labeled 13 and one
 
at the back labeled 12.

Chad looked at her.
 
"So you're 13, huh?"

She nodded and poked a finger gently at Chad's chest again.
 
"14."

"Who’s 12?”

13 reached out and gently picked up the lonely vial. “She was my friend.”
 
She stared wistfully at the vial for a moment.
 
“The Russians killed her.”
 
13 threw the vial against the far wall where it shattered, the blood blossoming into a red flower.

“We can't let these bastards have this stuff…"
 
Chad said.
 
“I don’t know what they want it for, but I sure don’t want them to have it.”

"Agreed."
 
She reached into the cabinet and scooped one whole shelf full of vials onto the floor.
 
Chad watched as they shattered at his feet.
 
The next two shelves quickly followed and the floor was covered in broken glass and crimson splatters.
 

Loud voices clamored outside the door again.
 
Someone began to pound against it with what sounded like a sledgehammer.
   

"Well,” said Chad, looking down at the blood on his boots, “that ought to do for that.”
 
He scanned the room again.
 
“Now, how the hell do we get out of here?"

Someone screamed in Russian on the other side of the door.
 
"They will shoot through the door soon," 13 announced.

It was the only door into the room.
 
Chad looked and saw no windows.
 
His eyes lingered on the examination table, covered in rust and dried blood.
 
His blood.
 
How many times had he been flat on his back, strapped to that thing, staring at the stained acoustic tiles on the ceiling…

The Russians were pounding on the door again.
 
Chad shook his head.
 
"I don't know how we’re going to get out of here."

13 stared at the door.
 
She looked at Chad, then up at the ceiling.
 
She moved over to the table and gracefully climbed on top and stood to reach for the ceiling tiles.
 
"How many?"
 
She said in her softly accented voice.

"How many what?"
 
He stared up at her as she ripped down one of the half-rotten panels.

"Soldiers.
 
In the hallway."
 
She pulled down another tile, creating a nice rectangular hole in the drop ceiling.
 
13 stretched until her head and shoulders disappeared into the darkness above.
 

Chad blinked some of the dust from his eyes and stepped back, coughing.
 
"Two–two people came out down the hallway behind us.
 
That’s all I saw before they started—"

More shouting and pounding on the door interrupted him.
 
Chad turned and the whole door shook in its frame.
 

Chad looked up in time to see 13's leg disappear.
 
"Be right back."

Chad looked down at the knife in his blood-encrusted hand.
 
Be right back
.
 
Chad had heard that phrase so many times during his youth.
 
Mom walking into the kitchen, interrupting family movie night to get a drink:
 
Be right back.
 
Dad heading out to the grocery store to pick up steaks for
 
dinner:
 
Be right back.
 
He looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling.
 
A mysterious woman with a Swedish accent, shooting Russians with her stolen AK-47, climbing up into the ceiling to find a way to escape a prison compound:
Be right back.

Chad dropped to a crouch when he heard 13 start shouting on the other side of the door.
 
An AK-47 barked three times and he heard scuffling.
 
He shifted the knife to his left hand, wiped the sweat from his right hand onto his grimy pants.
 

Someone slammed into the wall near the door and Chad heard a grunt.
 
Chad moved closer to the door and listened.
 
In the sudden silence between explosions and gunfire outside, he heard what sounded like a body drop to the floor.

"13?" he whispered.
 
No response.
 

Another deep rumble shook the room and dust trickled down through the hole in the ceiling.
 
Chad swallowed, his mouth dry.
 
He switched Yuri’s knife back to his right hand and stood.
 
He leaned his head against the door again and listened.
 

Chad swallowed again, then whispered, "13?"
 

Again, no answer.
 
He screwed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.
 
Time to man up—open the damn door!
 

Chad opened his eyes and grabbed the doorknob.
 
Trying to muster as much confidence as he could, he turned the knob and threw open the door.
 
He stepped forward and raised his knife,
 
preparing himself to stab whoever might be waiting for him.
 

He looked down in horror at 13’s body.
 
There were two Russians crumpled on the floor near her.
 
Her eyes were closed, but she was groaning softly and struggling to catch her breath.
 
He marveled that someone so slight had been able to take out two bigger opponents so quickly.
 
Movement out of the corner of his eye resolved into a third Russian with a rifle struggling to his feet.
 

Chad scrambled to grab 13’s AK-47 but his hand found a pistol instead, dropped by one of the unconscious—dead?—soldiers at his feet.
 
He stood, swinging the pistol toward the last Russian—

“Ne dvigaysya!”

Chad froze and closed his eyes—too slow.
 
God damn it.
 

“Ne dvigaysya!”
the Russian repeated in a stronger voice.
 
The young man adjusted his grip on his AK-47 and steadied himself.
 
His face was flushed and he was breathing hard, but his rifle pointed at Chad and that was all that mattered.

Trapped again.
 

The Russian repeated his phrase in a more menacing tone and shook the barrel of his rifle at Chad.
 
He had no idea what it meant, but Chad guessed it had something to do with not moving.
 
The soldier said something different in Russian and jerked the end of the rifle from pointing at Chad’s chest to the ground.
 

He wants me to drop the pistol.
 
Chad stood there, frozen, staring dumbly at the cavernous business end of the AK-47.
 
His mind screamed to drop the gun and surrender but some part of him refused.

He glanced down again and saw 13 look up at him.
 
There was a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth where the rifle stock had kissed her.
 
She looked apologetic, as if they’d already lost.
 

Chad turned to the Russian again, who screamed something and pointed with his rifle once more.
 
You just want my blood.
 
You’re not especially afraid of me.
 
Everybody wants my blood—the North Koreans, the Germans, the Russians, even my own country.
 
Maybe you all want to conquer the world and use me to do it somehow.

His blood.
 
They needed it.
 
They wanted it.
 
They would kill—had killed—for it.
 
He felt powerful and helpless at the same time.
 
It was infuriating.
 
He looked at the gun in his hand.
 
I don’t even know how to use this thing.
 
Fat lot of power I have—

A sudden realization struck Chad like a baseball bat to the gut.
 
He had the most powerful weapon in the country—maybe the world.
 
The Russian screamed again and took a step forward, closing the distance.
 
He motioned for Chad to drop the pistol, but Chad wasn’t listening.
 

He realized the Russian was sweating.
 
You’ve got the machine gun and I’ve just got this pistol—it’s not even pointed at you.
 
Why are you scared?
 
Chad smiled.
 
You’re scared because you know what they’ll do to you if I get hurt.
 
As he watched a drop of sweat roll down the side of the young Russian’s face, Chad knew what he had to do.

 
He stared down the invader and brought the pistol up under his own chin.
 
The cold steel of the barrel pressed into the soft flesh under his jaw.
 
Chad felt suddenly invigorated—powerful.
 
"You drop
your
gun, Ivan, or I’ll pull this trigger and
nobody
gets my blood."
 

“No!” gasped 13.

The Russian froze.
 
Unmitigated fear flashed across his face.
 
His eyes locked on the gun under Chad’s chin.
 
He licked his lips and reached out with one hand.
 
“
Ne dvigaysya
,” he said quietly in the tone used to talk a jumper back from the ledge.

Now we’re getting somewhere.
 
Chad’s smile broadened.
 
“You probably don’t understand me, but I’ll say it anyway.
 
May as well give up, Ivan.
 
You blink first and I escape.
 
I pull this trigger and there’s no more pain, no more doctors, no more guilt—it all ends.
 
I still escape and your buddies will probably execute your ass–maybe torture you first.
 
You’re not going to let that happen, are you?”
 

"Don't do this!"
 

Chad ignored 13 and smiled in satisfaction as the Russian’s eyes remained focused on the pistol.
 
He licked his lips again.
 
The end of his rifle wavered a little and moved just a bit to the right.
 

It was all 13 needed.
 
She leapt off the floor.
 
The Russian started to scream but 13 threw her fist into his throat.
 
Her momentum carried her forward and she spun, swinging her left leg around and behind his knees.
 
He went down choking and she began to pummel him.
 
A knife appeared in her hands—one second it winked in the lights of the hallway, the next it was red.
 
Only when she stood and wiped the small blade on the Russian’s chest did Chad remove the pistol from his own throat.

She picked up the soldier’s AK-47 before moving to Chad.
 
She stood there in front of him, barely breathing hard at all.
 
Chad stared into her blue eyes and saw nothing but a killer. A drop of blood trickled down her cheek, a parting gift from the body on the floor.
 

Jesus Christ, you just killed that guy before I could—

She slapped him across the face.
 
Hard.
 
"Do
not
do that again.”
 

Chad felt a wave of shame wash over him.
 
He’d only wanted to survive on his own, to prove he could take care of himself.
 
Okay, so deep down he wanted to show he was more than just a pincushion, a weakling.
 

It was like she’d read his thoughts.
 
Her expression softened.
 
“You are the Source.”
 
She reached out and squeezed his arm.
   
Her touch sent a wave of fire up his arm.
 
“You’re far too valuable,” she whispered.
 
“Too many people will die without you.”

“I…” he rubbed his cheek where she’d slapped him.
 
“I didn’t know what else to do…I just…”
 

"Just what?" she asked, watching him closely.

"I just got mad."
 

13 narrowed her eyes at him, as if regarding him in a new light.
 
She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the Russian bodies.
 
She grinned.
 
A few stray locks fell in front of her eyes and she casually tucked them behind her ear.