Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) (11 page)

For the first time since the bombing at The Lakes, I began to see the big picture. My focus had been set on The Man in Black, but he was just one piece to a much larger puzzle, and taking him out would only leave a small hole in the landscape, one that could easily be replaced by someone or something else.

“Ian,” I said into the microphone embedded in my helmet, “where are you?”

“I’m not too far from you,” he answered. “I was thinking about scaling one of the buildings to access the men on the rooftops, but it looks like they’re falling back for some reason.”

“Well, at least that’s some positive news tonight. It’s probably a good idea that you stay down here, anyway.”

“Always wanting me next to you,” his voice replied through my ear bud.

I felt someone grasp my arm, a firm, yet unsure hold that caused me to turn around. A soldier, his helmet missing, stared up at me, his dark eyes into mine. “Please, where am I?” he asked.

He must have been hit over the head.
His expression pleaded with me as though I possessed the answer he was looking for. “I...you honestly…” I began, unsure how to answer him.

“The last thing I remember is being in the briefing room back in the town hall, and then I woke up on the street.” he said, frightened.

“What’s going on over here?” Ian ran over to where we stood, grasping the man’s wrist in his hand and twisting it until he let go of my arm. The man bellowed in pain, forcing Ian to release him.

“It’s okay, Ian, he’s a little confused.”

“I’m not confused,” he answered. “Something isn’t right. Not with me, not with any of them.” He gestured to his comrades, his hand shaking. “I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I know who I am, and I know who most of them are, and they aren’t themselves right now.”

“What?” Ian asked, giving me a sideways glance.

“They’re running around like zombies. I tried talking to a few of them, but they won’t answer me back. It’s as though they’re not even in there, and I assume that I was like that too.”

“What’s the absolute last thing you remember?” I asked him, hoping that it would trigger some sort of memory.

“We were being issued new body armor, new boots, guns, and…”

The first thing I thought, quite selfishly, after opening my eyes was that I must have gone deaf from the explosion. Although my eyes took in the devastation around me, I couldn’t make out so much as a moan from the people lying broken in the street, nor could I hear the crumbling of the bricks as they parted ways with the building that had served as the source of the blast, striking the ground at its base.

I unclasped my helmet and pulled it up partially until my ears were free of its confines, then I took my finger and jostled it inside my ear, which sparked a ringing from deep within my eardrum. Several seconds later, my hearing began to right itself as though it, too, had to dig its way out of a pile of rubble in order to function again. Yet even though I could hear the world around me, it wasn’t the same. Every sound I heard appeared muffled, like I had cotton balls stuck inside my ear canal.

The second thought that came to mind as I remained prone in the street was of Ian. Where was Ian? My head throbbed when I moved it from side to side to scan the street around me. “Ian, where are you?” I said, hoping that he would be able to hear me through his ear bud. Nothing. Pain shot through my body, and a groan escaped my lips. I couldn’t stay here, I needed to get up, and something told me that I needed to do it now.

Despite the searing pain, my aching arms somehow managed to push my body upwards until I was in a sitting position. Bits of metal, glass, and concrete covered my legs, and I hoped the impact of them hitting the ground and the rubble raining down on them hadn’t been enough to break any bones. The last thing I needed right now was to have a broken leg or, worse, two broken legs. With pain coursing through my upper body, I lifted bits of cracked concrete from my lower extremities. Surprisingly, the discomfort in that half of my body wasn’t as bad. Still, I wasn’t fully satisfied that nothing had been broken until after I saw that I could move my legs with ease. Clearly, I hadn’t been injured too badly.

“Ian,” I called again, only to be met with an even more profound silence. A panic overcame me, further fueling the adrenaline in my body. This wasn’t Ian. He would have answered me if he were…alive. I stood up faster than I should have given the beating I’d just taken. Dizziness struck me, my body weakened, and it was all I could do just to remain standing on my own two feet. But I knew time meant everything in a life or death situation. Wherever he was, I had to get to him if I was going to be able to help him.
If time hasn’t already run out for him.
“Ian!” I shouted, more desperate than authoritative. Stumbling through debris, I choked back tears through the blinding dust that had managed to breach the outer shell of my helmet.

Though it seemed further in the state I was in, I’d only walked a matter of feet from where I had landed in the rubble before I felt something grab my boot, nearly tripping me. Looking down at my leg, I saw a familiar gloved hand. “Hey,” I heard Ian’s pained voice. He was almost entirely covered with bits of the decimated building. Only his head, upper torso and one of his arms remained free of the carnage.

“Shit,” I said, stooping down entirely too fast. Agony reared its ugly head once more, and the piercing pain crippled me. My body crumpled over Ian. “Ah,” I moaned, doing all I could do not to completely collapse on top of him.

“Celaine...”

“I’m okay…really,” I answered him, trying not to scream.

“You look real healthy.”

“Look who’s talking…And damn you!” I exclaimed, punching him in his arm. “Next time answer me when I’m frantically calling for you. I thought you were dead.”

“No. Not dead. I just had the wind knocked out of me. It’s not exactly like I’m used to being thrown into the air and almost buried alive.”

“Almost buried alive? Ian, you’re covered nearly head to toe.”

“I know it looks that way,” he said, wriggling himself out of the hole from which he was entombed. Grimacing, he stopped trying to free himself until the pain subsided. “I landed in a crevice. All this junk just landed over where I came to rest on the ground, but it didn’t actually make contact with my body.”

“I’m beginning to think you have nine lives.”

“I hope not,” he groaned. “Because if that’s the case, I just burned through two of them in the last twenty-four hours.” He finished pulling himself out of the fissure, groaning every inch of the way, until he stood on his feet again.

We surveyed the scene unfolding around us. Next to me, I heard a slight hitch in Ian’s breathing, and I could tell by his rigid stance that the memories he’d kept tucked away in the recesses of his mind were being unearthed at this very moment. “Son of a...gah…” he bellowed, walking through the remnants of the city, his fists clenched. A fire burned with intensity throughout the building that had been the source of the blast, casting a much needed, but nonetheless macabre, glow on the street. Both soldiers and protesters alike, dragged themselves out from under debris, some critically injured, others with nothing more than mere scratches. Much more prevalent, though, were the dead. Bodies lay in distorted angles scattered throughout the remains of the block. “Do you think he’s still around here?” Ian asked. “Or does he normally bail after the explosion?”

“No. He usually sticks around, though where he is now, I couldn’t even begin to guess.”

“We should have stayed on that roof,” Ian muttered. “We may have caught him.”

“Or we may have gone down with the building,” I corrected him.

“That’s a risk I would have been willing to take.”

“Help us, please,” a woman’s strained voice half yelled, half coughed from behind a cloud of dust.

“See, there’s a reason why we’re down here,” I said to Ian, running in the direction of the woman’s pleas for help. As I drew closer, the fog parted and the woman who’d made those cries came into view. Covered in soot from just about head to toe, she regarded me apprehensively, unsure of what to make of my presence. Without saying a word in acknowledgement, she motioned with her hands for me to follow her to a pile of rubble about four feet high, where she attempted to lift a concrete block from the pile. Her muscles strained under the pressure, the block refusing to budge no matter how hard she tried.

“Here,” I said to her, “we’ll lift. You can just stand back.” Ian appeared next to me, nodding in agreement.

“I will not stand back, not with my daughter trapped under there!” she cried, attempting to lift the block once more. Her small frame gave out in her further exertion, and she collapsed onto the pile of rubble. “Isn’t that why you guys were created, built, bred, or whatever you are, to prevent things like this from happening?” she yelled. “What good are you if these attacks keep happening? Hell, this one occurred right under your noses.” Tears streamed down her face; her arms gripped the concrete block as though it were her daughter.

“I’m sorry we failed you,” I murmured. “Trust me when I say that the last thing we want is for more people to experience the pain we have.” She remained sobbing on the pile of rubble as though she neither heard nor particularly cared for anything I had to say. Nodding at Ian, I grabbed a block of cement, effortlessly moving it aside, while Ian guided the woman off her resting place on the pile. He picked up a block, glancing at me as he lifted it, an unspoken knowledge existing between us, telling us that we were only unearthing further heartbreak.

Removal of a handful of additional blocks confirmed our grim conclusion. At the bottom of the pile lay the young woman who’d spoken to me just prior to the explosion. Her eyes were open, staring back up at me, their defiance still intact, her limbs twisted in unnatural angles. I gasped, forcing myself to turn around, the tears welling in my eyes. My stomach churned; a dry heave forced its way through my body. The sickening wail of the woman’s mother materialized behind me. Ian grabbed her in an attempt to hold her back, but the determined woman broke free, joining her daughter in her tomb.

Ian put his arm around me as another dry heave presented itself. “Let’s see what we can do to help elsewhere,” he said quietly. I nodded, but I knew that we would be presented with more of the same. More death, despair, and resentment towards those superheroes with whom so much hope had been placed.

As we walked back in the direction we came from, I caught a glimpse of something several blocks away, a lone figure in the darkness, whose exaggerated stature was illuminated ominously by the blazes that surrounded us. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my pulse quickened. Breaking away from Ian, I ran, which prompted the figure to do the same, only in the opposite direction.

“What is it?” Ian yelled, catching up to me.

“It’s him,” I answered. “Up ahead.”

“Him as in him-him? Are you sure?”

“Once you’ve been in his presence, you never forget it.”

We ran full speed, avoiding the falling debris and ash that rained down on us from the sky in a virtual Armageddon. The figure had disappeared from view, but my gut told me it was him, and that we were on the right track, if we could just keep moving.

If we could just keep moving.

I skidded to a stop, craning my ear toward the scene of the explosion. What had I heard? Were those screams, moans, or other signs of life? Yes. There was definitely someone in that building, trapped in the fiery tower.

“What?” Ian stopped next to me. “Celaine, we have to keep moving. We may actually have a chance to catch up to him if we keep up our pace.”

“Shh, Ian,” I said. “Listen. Do you hear what I hear coming from that building?”

Ian craned his ears, his eyes widening, telling me that what I had heard wasn’t merely in my mind. “So, I guess this is our chance to really be superheroes,” he acknowledged. I agreed, looking back forlornly at the horizon. “Don’t worry, we’ll have another crack at him,” he said, his arm draping across my shoulders.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

*****

He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, his legs giving out on him on his last jump. Coughing, he hung over the edge of the building adjacent to the one ablaze, allowing his worn body to decompress. Each attack was becoming increasingly more difficult to pull off, which was further intensified by his body betraying him, lengthening his recovery time. Sure, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. His body had seen better days, but his difficulties still troubled him, making his attacks further apart than he would have liked.

When his coughing fit finally came to an end, he was, at last, able to compose himself enough to admire his handiwork. The death toll was low, not as high as he normally would have liked, but his goal wasn’t to kill, it was to make a statement. A statement to those who dare challenge him and his power; a statement to those who needed to be reminded that he was still a force worthy of their fear.

Scanning the ground below, he saw her. She stood next to where her new partner lay, watching as he freed himself from the rubble.
I could jump down there right now and take care of them both with little effort
, he thought, a scowl forming on his face. He knew the blast wouldn’t harm her, for she was too well protected. Not to mention, he didn’t want her death to be quick. No, her death was going to be much…slower. A burning hatred welled inside him, invigorating him. Her death would be planned; calculated to the last detail.