Vigilante (22 page)

Building after building, block after block, he fired, jumped, swung, and reeled himself in. Some jumps were easier than others, taking him at a better angle to tuck and roll his way to a decent landing, but even these proved a harsh challenge to his spent muscles and fatigued body.

As the minutes ticked away, he slammed into concrete walls, broke windows, crashed through miniature satellite dishes, bounced off of air-conditioning units and old brick chimneys, and stumbled across crumbling roof tiles. Encountering one particularly long, flat rooftop, he used the grappler to propel himself straight across it, trying to run with the retracting line but ultimately being dragged the last hundred meters or so, his skin burning as his clothes slid roughly across the surface.

The pain was searing, but he pushed it down every time. Not once did he allow himself to slow down. He had to keep going, no matter what.

By the time he neared the downtown neighborhood of storefronts underneath which his home and friends were waiting, he was all too aware of the agonizing, swelling pains stabbing throughout his body. His compartmentalized mind estimated he’d suffered at least eight broken bones—a few ribs, some fingers, possibly an arm and a shoulder, and a toe or two—but he pushed on.

His speed had diminished a few blocks back. He couldn’t remember exactly where, but he was limping at a half-run, half-walk now. Propelled forward by a blind, numb momentum, Nolan was a hiker caught in a blizzard, frozen and starving but determined to make it to safety. Only there would be no safety for him or his friends anymore. The sanctity of his home had been violated, his friends traumatized, and his secret was out, all by this evil man Vasko.

At last, after what felt like hours of running and jumping and crashing and being pulled along by Arjay’s blessed invention, Nolan lowered himself quickly to the ground and managed to reach a marginally faster pace one last time for his final push to the subway platform. As he rounded the last corner, wobbling, blood soaking through the black linens of his combat fatigues as well as the white hood, he came into view of the perpetually-under-construction façade that served as his surface entrance to the subway.

And it still stood.

His heart felt a glimmer of hope, and he willed his body to run, to
go go go
until he reached the tarp covering the scaffolding at the front of the vacant building.

His eyes were bleary, his skin saturated with sweat and blood, as he pulled off a glove so he could place a trembling hand on the metal plate beside the door to trigger the lock.

Nolan’s heart threatened to escape his chest as he descended the stairs at the back of the building, into the dark. Was it the concussion he thought he’d suffered a few minutes ago that was making everything look so dark? Or was it just the absence of light in the stairwell?

He stumbled into the heavy metal door at the bottom of the steps, expecting to spot Vasko’s timer device somewhere in the open empty space at the center of the platform, waiting to be disarmed. His friends would be nearby, probably tied to chairs or posts or something.

But when he flung the door open at last, the soul-shattering sight before him did not resemble anything he expected.

The subway platform he’d come to call home was gone and again he’d entered hell. This was a place of heat and flame and darkness.

The cobwebs in his head prevented him from entirely processing his surroundings. What was this place? Had he gone down the wrong stairs?

“Nolan . . .” someone said, a faint moan.

Nolan was delirious, unable to discern whose voice had called to him, or where. It was so hot down there, and there was
stuff
everywhere. No, not stuff. Rubble. Debris. Broken bits of
everything
. It was all over. Gone. Pieces of mortar and brick and stone that had fallen from the ceiling, or been blown free of the walls. Glass and metal and wood from Arjay’s work area, Branford’s Cube, the living spaces, his training area.

Months ago, or maybe years, he and Branford had reinforced the old walls, ceilings, floors, and supports. And it appeared that the supports had helped. There had been no collapse or cave-in above ground. Anyone who felt the blast probably thought it was a rare New York earthquake. But his home was dead. Gutted and destroyed.

He hobbled across the cracked floor, just managing to get clear as a bowling ball–sized piece of cement broke free from the ceiling and shattered on the ground. The sound startled him, and he tripped over a piece of metal railing that had probably come from the Cube. . . .

On the ground, he spun violently as a hand wrapped around his ankle. It was a brown hand, and it was bleeding badly . . . and missing a ring finger.

Arjay
. It had to be Arjay. Hadn’t Vasko said he’d cut off one of Arjay’s fingers? His memory was fuzzy, he couldn’t recall the exact details.

Nolan was sure, however, that the heat from the piles of burning wreckage felt good to his cold, clammy skin. He knew he needed to finish what he’d come to do—whatever that was—but the heat beckoned him to sleep and he could resist it no more.

N
olan felt as cold as ice when he came to, and he glanced around, wondering where that wonderful heat had gone.

His senses returned to him with a jolt as he realized he was seated on the cold cement floor inside the fake storefront up above the subway platform. Someone had propped him against a side wall and tried to incline his feet atop . . . something. What were his feet resting on?

He looked down at his watch. Only minutes had passed. He’d returned from the Battery to find he was too late.
Of course
he was too late. Vasko was probably lying about how much time was left on the timer all along. Nolan was never going to make it, because Vasko wanted Nolan to feel exactly what he’d felt that day when he came home to a destroyed house and a dead family.

And it worked. Nolan had never felt so undone, so completely without solid ground to support him. Not even in the prison camps had he felt so destroyed.

He was still in shock, he could tell that much. He was bleeding from several points, including somewhere on top of his head, and his body was broken and battered. Horribly, horribly battered. He’d inflicted considerable damage to himself, and whether it was from the smoke inhalation from the viaduct or the relentless bludgeoning from his frantic race home to save his friends, he was completely trashed.

The pain came from countless points all over his body, but it had melded together and he couldn’t tell one hurt from another. Trying to sort it out required too much effort. He needed to get out of there, to get to a hospital. No, that was wrong. He couldn’t go to a hospital, because he was officially a dead man. He had to get patched up somehow, but he was having a hard enough time merely commanding his muscles to stretch out of this awkward position. What
was
that beneath his feet down there?

Nolan finally summoned the strength to sit up away from the wall, and his blurred eyes came into focus, resting on the makeshift footstool. He jerked his feet back when he saw it was Arjay, passed out in a heap. A washrag had been wrapped around the stub where his finger had been, and his face was swollen, bleeding, and discolored all over.

How had the two of them made it up here? Did Arjay somehow manage to drag him up the stairs before passing out? Were they the only ones to survive?

“Arjay . . .” he tried to shout, but the word came out in an anemic, breathless monotone.

The stairway door burst open and Branford appeared at the threshold, carrying Alice in his arms.

Nolan tried to shout Branford’s name, but all that came out was a guttural yelp.

He tried to get to his feet to help, but found it impossible to shift his weight. He only succeeded in falling over onto his side, where he remained. Any more movement was impossible; he simply had no strength. Branford shuffled slowly over to where Nolan and Arjay lay, his face bearing very similar marks to Arjay’s from Vasko’s cruel interrogation. He also favored his one side as he hobbled, and Nolan’s thoughts returned to Vasko’s comment about Branford having a ruptured spleen. Was it true?

“Are you okay?” Nolan asked, finally getting words to emerge from his mouth but his voice no more than a whisper. “Is Arjay alive?”

Branford gave no reply beyond a deadened, weary look, and there was a lot more communicated in that look than Nolan was expecting. Branford and Arjay were down but not out. That much was immediately clear. Yet there was sorrow etched into the old man’s features the likes of which Nolan had never known from him, and Nolan’s breath caught in his throat. He knew that it wasn’t himself or Arjay, or even their underground home that Branford was grieving.

Nolan looked up at the woman in Branford’s arms, whom he was lowering slowly to the ground beside Nolan.

“She caught the worst of the blast,” Branford whispered, and as she finally came to rest on the floor, Nolan saw it for the first time. An ugly, shiny piece of metal was sticking out of her side.

“No,” he tried to say, but no sound came out. His throat had constricted in an instant, pools welling up in his exhausted eyes.

Nolan crawled a few inches closer to Alice, and he awkwardly lay sideways next to her.

“Alice?” he said, his voice offensively weak. Two trails of tears carved through the grime and sweat and blood that stained his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but the tears came effortlessly now. “Alice?”

Her body lay limp on that cold floor, but then in a start, she began to cough.

When the hacking, furious coughing subsided, she took a wheezing, labored breath and opened her eyes. Her frail eyes stared into Nolan’s face. She smiled as much as she was able, but even this brought a faint grimace to her pained features.

“You found it,” she said with a smile, before letting out another brutal cough. “See? There it is.”

“There what is?” Nolan whispered.

She placed a cold, limp hand on his chest. “Your heart. It was always here. Right here. I knew it was. I knew it.”

She smiled at him again, and he tried to smile back, but his face wouldn’t obey his commands. It was insisting on producing a stream of steady tears, even though he wanted it to do
anything
else.

Alice closed her eyes, and Nolan gasped.

“Alice? Alice!”

She swallowed hard, possibly the last time she would ever do so, and Nolan had a hard time focusing his eyes due to the burning sensation they produced. He worked his feeble muscles as hard as possible to take one of her hands in his, and he prayed desperately to God to spare her, to give her a miracle. To take his life instead of hers.

She deserved better than this. So much better.

Slowly, a truth came to Nolan that he’d never known until this moment: he loved her. It wasn’t romantic love, nor was it the way one might feel toward a surrogate parent. Alice was something else. She was his friend. His confidante, his rudder.

Somehow, this woman he barely knew, who was never in any way a part of his grandiose plans, had become crucial to those plans. Crucial to
him
.

Breathing became harder for her, taking on a raspy edge.

Alice shook her head faintly. When she spoke, he could barely hear her. “Promise me . . . you won’t . . . give up. Promise.”

Nolan didn’t even consider giving up. He paused not one second in his reply. “I promise. I won’t give up. I’ll make a difference.”

She smiled. “Say it . . . one more time.”

“I promise,” he whispered. “I’m not giving up. No matter what.”

She closed her eyes, and Nolan held her hand until long after her soul departed the earth.

O
ne week later, the bones and flesh of Alice Regan were lowered into the ground at a private graveside service at Brookville Cemetery. Located in the rural neighborhood of Glen Head, east of Manhattan Island, Brookville was a lovely graveyard park situated in a heavily wooded area, far from the overpopulated parts of New York City.

Nolan’s body was wrapped in bandages, casts, and braces, but he refused a wheelchair, insisting on walking across the cemetery’s rolling hills under his own power. Arjay was able to walk without hobbling, but Branford had to use a cane to avoid putting too much strain on his abdomen. The emergency surgery to remove his spleen had come not a minute too soon. Both men still sported black eyes, cut lips, and faces covered in other bruises. Arjay’s hand was wrapped in gauze to cover the wound where his finger had been severed by Vasko.

No one blamed Arjay for succumbing to Vasko’s torture. Withstanding such methods of interrogation was not something he was trained for, and even with the very best training, many soldiers eventually gave in and told their captors whatever they wanted to know. And it wasn’t like anything Arjay had told them had contributed to their losses. Vasko would have torched their home regardless.

The climate had changed with the arrival of autumn, and a welcome breeze blew gently across the green grass. The cloudless sky delivered warm sunlight onto the graveyard.

From their vantage point several hundred feet across the cemetery, hidden within the greenery, the three men watched the funeral in silence. There were fewer than ten people in attendance under the tiny green tent, Alice’s drunk, abusive husband among them. Nolan had no idea who any of the others were. Maybe sisters, or other extended family.

After the funeral ended and the officials lowered the casket into the ground, Nolan, Branford, and Arjay waited until the other mourners left. Then they finally made their way across the open field to stand before Alice’s headstone.

Nolan wanted to kneel before the grave, but couldn’t get down on one knee. He didn’t know what to say, or what to feel. His tears had dried up days ago.

The other two men took turns paying their respects. It was Branford who finally broke the long silence.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” he said quietly.

“Vasko won,” Arjay confirmed.

But Nolan was surprised to hear his friends talk this way. “It’s not over. Not remotely.”