Chapter Eleven #3
“Pres!” City crashes toward me through the water, grabbing the beam, muscles straining as he tries to lift it. “Fuck. Fuck!”
I grit my teeth, the pressure unbearable, my ribs screaming as blood pulses hot through my fingers where my hand clamps over my side.
I don’t scream.
I won’t.
The beam doesn’t move.
Locking in my fate.
My jaw locks so hard it shakes. I reach up weakly, shoving at City’s chest, trying to push him back even as my vision swims.
“City… there’s… no time,” I growl, breath tearing in and out of me. “L-listen to me—”
“I’m not leaving you, you fucking cunt.”
“You d-don’t have a choice,” I bark back, my voice cracking despite my effort to keep it hard. “There’s a fuckin’ b-bomb. It’s still t-tickin’.”
I see it hit him—understanding, horror—the reason I stayed behind. The reason I wouldn’t move.
The realization gutting him. “We can get you out. We just—”
“You’ve got fuckin’ seconds, City,” I cut in, my breathing shallow, every inhale stabbing like a knife.
“She was rigged. The bird. She had a vest. When I killed her, the timer started. I’d say you guys have ‘bout thirty seconds. Maybe less now.” His face fractures with the realization. “I need you to go!”
The world tilts around me while the water rises higher, cold creeping up my chest. The women are still climbing. My brothers are still moving, still fighting.
This was always how it was going to end.
I turn my head toward the ladder, toward the last of the women being hauled up, toward my brothers getting out alive.
This was the mission.
I reach for City’s hand with mine, blood slick between our fingers.
“Go, brother,” I tell him quietly. “Take care of ‘em. Take care of Kaia. Take care of my k-kids…” My throat tightens. My eyes burn. “Even if I didn’t meet ‘em yet,” I add, voice rough, breaking despite myself. “They made me whole.”
“Pres—”
Hoodoo appears beside him, panting, eyes going wide as he takes it all in. “Fuck, Pres.”
“Hoodoo…” I rasp, forcing the command through the pain, “… we don’t have time. You gotta get City outta h-here. This place is rigged to go up.”
City lets out a raw, animalistic sound as he leans back into the beam, giving it everything he has left.
Then Hoodoo wraps his arms around him and hauls him back.
City fights it. He kicks and growls, grief ripping through him as he’s dragged away, boots scraping against the flooded floor.
“C’mon, VP,” Hoodoo says, voice breaking. “I fucking hate it, but we gotta go.”
I watch them retreat, my vision blurring, my body going numb.
Then Grit bursts into the corridor like hell itself, bloodied and wild-eyed, one woman cradled in his arms while two more stumble behind him.
“Wait, there’s still more,” he roars. “Move, move, MOVE!”
And I pray they make it out in time.
00:00:10
My mind shifts to my baby girl.
Oh God, Immy.
My little girl with her mother’s eyes and my wild spirit. She’s only a few years old, just starting to really know who I am, what I mean to her. She calls me ‘Daddy’ in that sweet voice that melts every hard edge I’ve ever had.
She won’t remember me when she grows up.
She’ll only know me through stories.
Through pictures.
Through the memory of a father who never came home.
00:00:05
And Kaia. Jesus, Kaia.
My wife, my old lady, the woman who tamed the fucking hurricane and made me want to be better.
We just had our honeymoon.
We just found out about the twins.
Twins.
Two more babies I’ll never get to meet.
Two more chances to be the father I’ve always wanted to be, and I’m going to miss all of it.
I’ll never see them take their first breath.
Never hold them in my arms.
Never watch them grow up alongside their big sister.
The pain in my chest has nothing to do with the knife anymore.
00:00:04
I watch them scramble up the ladder, watch my brothers carry the women to safety.
City is the last one up, and he looks back at me one final time.
I lift my hand. A salute. A goodbye. A final order.
00:00:03
And because I’m still me, even now, I manage to grin. “Tell Bayou he’s a pussy for me!”
00:00:02
The words echo in the corridor, and I hope they carry. Hope my twin hears them somehow. Hope he knows that even at the end, I was thinking of him.
As the ladder disappears from view and I’m left alone in the flooding corridor, pinned beneath steel and dying, I let my mind go to the only place that brings me peace.
Kaia.
I think about the morning of our wedding, the way she looked in that dress. The way she promised to love me for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
Death came sooner than we planned, baby.
I’m so fucking sorry.
I think about Immy’s laugh, the way she runs to me when I come home, the way she fits perfectly in my arms.
Be strong for Mama, princess. Take care of your siblings for me.
I think about the twins, the ones I’ll never meet. Never hold. Never teach to ride a bike, throw a punch, or stand up for what’s right.
I hope you have your mother’s kindness and her strength. I hope you grow up knowing you were loved before you were even born. I hope you know your daddy didn’t leave you by choice.
The water is up to my chin now. My vision is starting to fade.
But I’m not afraid.
I did what I came here to do. I saved them. The women, my brothers, they’re all safe.
That’s what being president means.
That’s what being a father means.
That’s what being a man means.
You protect the people who can’t protect themselves, even if it costs you everything.
00:00:00
My last thought is of Kaia’s smile.
Then a blinding white light sears through my closed eyelids. The shockwave hits like the fist of God, but there’s no pain.
Just heat.
Just light.
Just the sensation of everything ending all at once.
The ceiling collapses. The walls cave in. Fire, steel, and concrete all become one violent, churning mass of destruction. Everything moves all at once. The beam dislodges as the ground beneath me begins to fall.
And somewhere in the heart of that chaos, Hurricane, the president, the father, the husband, the brother, the man who lived like a force of nature, goes out…
… like a fucking hurricane.