19. GENESIS
19
GENESIS
Blair pressed his back against the end of a bunker. Phantom had done well hiding until the right moment despite there being so many of them. The next largest room to the receiving bay was the motor room that housed the breaker boxes, generators, and the like. They must have been in there, he didn’t remember another space large enough on the blueprints. He didn’t know how many he had taken out but looking at the shell casings littered on the cement… there had been a lot.
He heard someone attempt to step quietly around the corner and pointed his gun to the left. The steps faltered and he pulled the trigger. He didn’t bother looking up; even with the ringing in his ears from firing so many rounds in a confined space, there was no mistaking the sound of a shot connecting. He checked his guns. Five left in each and then he’d be out. They had come prepared, but loading themselves down with an arsenal’s worth of ammunition hadn’t been practical when it was still supposed to be a mission for intel.
“Kennedy,” Felix said above him.
He looked up to see Felix’s coat whip out behind him as he leaped from the balcony railing and onto the top of the bunker Blair stood against. The steel bars vibrated against his back. Another streak of green was right behind Felix, the glow of their mask illuminating the assault rifle in their arms.
“Get out of here, get back to the others,” Felix barked, not slowing even as he reached the end of the bunker.
Blair paled. “Boss!”
“I said go!”
A spray of ammunition from the assault rifle pelted the bunker but Blair was on the move. So was Felix, having jumped clear to the next one with a CLANG of boots on metal that was still echoing when Blair reached the door. The short hallway blocked him from seeing the boss when he looked back. He heard a series of shots that had to belong to the Glock, and the crash that followed had to be the other man’s body falling. He couldn’t accept any other option. Of course it wasn’t the boss, he wouldn’t lose to these guys. He held on to that, took strength from it as he pushed open the door to the outside. He would die if he got distracted now.
A shoe scuffed against pavement around the side of the building. He kept the M9A3 tucked against his chest and led with the 92 around the corner. The other person was even faster, as Blair found himself with a muzzle pressed squarely between his eyes before he could get a shot off.
It was a good thing he couldn’t, though, since he immediately recognized the silver barrel. He knocked it aside with a deep sigh. “Spencer,” he breathed.
Spencer clapped his shoulder. “Damn, I’m glad to see you. Felix?”
“Inside.”
“Of course. Come on, I had them dropping down from the roof but I think they’ve divided their remaining forces between the inside and the shopping center. We have to get down there.”
Blair nodded and fell in step at his side. “There can’t be many left inside, me and the boss had a pretty big pile of bodies in there.”
Spencer nodded. It was only when they stepped out from under the shadow of the warehouse that Blair saw the rip in his blazer, the damp material clinging to his shoulder. “You’re hurt.”
“It just grazed me, I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about the others down there. Marie is the only fighter out of the three of them. I heard gunshots but I had my hands full here, I couldn’t...I tried to—”
“Spencer,” Blair said, clapping a hand on the taller man’s back as they walked down the short hill. “I’m scared for them, too. But we have Marie down with them, the boss taught her everything he knows. They’re okay.” They had to be okay.
Wren… it wasn’t even his fight. Incindious had all come ready to bleed and die for the same cause, but Wren was only there because Blair asked him to be.
Blair tightened his grip on his guns to keep them from slipping out of his sweating palms when he saw the shattered windows. They were across the parking lot from the shopping center but he saw no glass on the sidewalk, so they had been shot from the outside. At first Blair had wondered why they took the slightly longer way back to the front of the strip but seeing the darkness that enveloped the space behind it, he realized it was the perfect place for an ambush especially when their enemy had night vision.
He walked with Spencer across the parking lot, feeling horribly exposed, but they made it to the door. Blair pushed the door open and raised the M9A3 in front of him. The room was as silent as he’d left it earlier, though it was now littered with broken glass that twinkled and crunched under his feet like snow.
“Wren? Julian? Marie?” he called, stepping far enough into the room that Spencer could follow and close the door behind them.
The door to one of the offices crashed open and a man came stumbling out of it. The green light emanating from his mask made Blair raise his gun, but a second figure followed him. Even in the patchy moonlight coming through the broken windows, it was clearly Wren. A rush of air left Blair’s lungs. Wren was okay. Blair opened his mouth to call out to him, for Wren to get out of the way so Blair had a clear shot, but one of Wren’s legs arced off the ground and kicked the man squarely in the jaw. The man struck out with a knife and Wren merely tapped the man’s arm in two different places. That arm immediately went limp and fell to the man’s side, the knife clattering to the ground. Pressure points, Blair realized.
Anxiety struck him when that man threw himself forward, then Wren caught his non-immobilized arm and flipped him to the ground. There was an audible crunch and then a garbled shout of pain as the Phantom member landed in the broken glass on the floor.
The counter obstructed the man from Blair’s view, but he could see Wren rake his hair out of his face with one hand, looking remarkably calm. The hand Wren ran through his hair came away bloody and Blair finally remembered how to move. He went behind the counter and found the man on his back, held down by Wren’s boot on his throat. There was a trail of blood on Wren’s face coming from his hairline.
Blair stopped on the opposite side of the man and Wren took his boot from his neck. Blair stared down the crimson slide of the M9A3 as he pulled the hammer back. “I would usually go for a kneecap or something,” he said, something ugly and dark roiling in his gut. “But you hurt Wren.”
The mask shattered to pieces as the round entered his head. He was dead on the first shot but the image of blood on Wren’s skin was burning behind his eyelids and Blair unloaded the Beretta into the man’s chest. Wren didn’t flinch as the man’s blood splattered his jeans. Blair dropped the empty magazine and reached numbly into his pockets. Shit, that’s right. I’m out. He dropped his gun. Slowly, he went down with it. His ears were ringing, his anger being pulled down by the icy tendrils of fear and guilt. Wren was bleeding. He still hadn’t seen Julian or Marie.
“Blair.”
I just killed someone .
He didn’t know the fate of those he’d shot in the warehouse, but the man before him was undeniably dead. Blair had made sure of it.
Three years, Blair had been part of Incindious without killing anyone. He’d never seen the need to end a life if the same result could be achieved by threatening or incapacitating them instead. Until he’d seen Wren’s blood. That was all it took for Blair to forget all his reservations about removing another person from the world, and even now, his only regret was that he didn’t get there in time to keep Wren from getting hurt.
He looked up to see Wren stepping over the body to stand in front of him. “I’m sorry you had to see me do that. I’m so sorry for all of this, I never wanted you in danger, I just—” Blair sucked in a breath that took the rest of his words with it as Wren dropped to his knees and grabbed his shoulders.
“Shut up. I’m okay.”
“But you got hurt,” Blair said, looking at the hair matted to the side of Wren’s head. He ran his thumb over the blood that had dripped down to his cheek, cooling just enough to be sticky. “And now I can’t even stay, I have to go up and—”
“Then what are you still doing here?” Wren asked.
Blair blinked but Wren didn’t look upset. Quite the opposite, his expression softened as he stood and gave Blair a push. “There’s no one else in the building and I haven’t heard anything on the roof in awhile. Go check on the rest of your pathetic gang, I’m fine.”
Blair took Wren’s offered hand to get back on his feet. He picked up the M9A3 and traded it with the 92 at his back. The M9A3 was of no more use to him since he got reckless with the rest of the clip, but he would do it again. He wiped away the last of the blood on Wren’s face with his sleeve.
“I’ll be right back.”
Wren waved him off, and Blair’s anxiety set back in as soon as he pushed through the door to the back of the building. The ladder mounted to the building about twenty feet away was more intimidating than it should have been. He went down to it and found even the first step up to be a trial, with his arms sore and his leg screaming at him the worst it had done since he was shot. It felt like hours before he pushed himself onto the roof.
He got to his feet and recognized the now too-familiar feeling of blood around his shoes. At the center of the pool was a crumpled form that he almost couldn’t will himself to approach.
Spencer knelt at the edge of the roof, holding someone against his chest. The person bleeding out became irrelevant as Blair recognized the sandy colored hair under Spencer’s chin. There was a bloody knife laying no more than a foot from them.
“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” Spencer said, voice strained from trying to sound calm.
Marie sat next to her rifle with her knees pulled to her chest, watching with watery eyes.
“Julian?” Blair said. He forced himself forward. “Hey, Julian.”
The limp hands on Spencer’s shoulders clenched and a cry split the air that made Blair go cold. “I didn’t mean to!” Julian wailed. His words began to come as gasps between sobs into Spencer’s chest. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“He was just trying to get the knife away from him,” Marie said, looking at the body Blair had first noticed.
Blair knelt down and rested his hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Jules, he was trying to kill you.”
“He was a person just like me, which side he was on doesn’t make him any less human!” Julian cried.
Blair shared a look with Spencer, who shook his head. Leave it for now , Spencer’s expression seemed to say. Blair backed away and dropped down next to Marie. The relief he felt at finding Julian alive was belied at the sight of his suffering. Julian wanted to be part of Incindious’ violence least of them all. He just wanted to be with his friends. Blair found that killing someone was a small price to pay for Wren’s safety, but Julian… he probably would have forfeit his own life to keep from taking another.
“Let’s get down from here,” Spencer said and stood, gently pulling Julian up with him.
Marie folded the bipod on her rifle and pulled the strap over her head, letting the AXMC sit between her shoulder blades. She went down the ladder first, then Blair. Felix was on the sidewalk when they climbed down. He crushed his cigarette out under his boot. “Seems like whatever they did to the electronics and our phones has been working in our favor for people nearby not bein’ able to call the cops, but they’ll show up eventually. We need to split while we can. And Spencer,” he said, looking back as Spencer stepped off the ladder. “Take Marie with you, Jules is gonna ride with me.”
“Got it.”
Blair jumped as a door came open, but it was just Wren coming out to join them. He slid his arm around Wren’s waist. He didn’t know who was leaning on who at that point, or if it mattered.
“It’s been a long night,” Felix said, taking his keys out of his coat. “Everybody just...go home. We’ll meet up tomorrow.”
There wasn’t much else to say as they walked down to where they’d left their cars. Spencer had them all check under their seats for explosives—which Blair didn’t think was Phantom’s style, but there wasn’t much left that night that could have surprised him—and said they would get all their vehicles scanned for tracking devices the next day just in case. Blair stared after Julian as he lowered himself into Felix’s Mustang; his eyes were red and puffy, and Blair hoped it was only because he was looking from a distance that they also seemed so empty.
He sunk into the passenger’s side so much as the rigid bucket seats would allow. Even Wren got behind the wheel with less grace than usual.
“Let’s go back to your place,” Wren said, starting the car.
Blair put his hand on the console. “Sure, why mine?”
Wren took it, as sweaty and filthy as it was, his fingers cold between Blair’s. He made an odd sound that was something like a laugh. “There’s a lot of lines on the road.”
“Wren, do you have a concussion?”
“Probably.”
Blair squeezed his hand, eyes widening with alarm. “You should let Doc check you out, it’s dangerous to go to sleep if you have a concussion.”
“It’s minor, if I have it at all. But you know, Blair.”
Blair looked at his profile. “Yeah?”
“All that knowledge you have about concussions is really an inspiration for me to learn more about them. Maybe I should go to medical school or something.”
Blair groaned and dropped his head against the back of the seat. “Shut up.”
He was glad they were making the much shorter drive to his place rather than Wren’s, since he really didn’t want to risk Wren passing out on him for real, whether it be from a concussion or exhaustion. He told Wren where to turn in for the resident parking behind the building and let out a relieved sigh when the Audi came to a stop. Somehow they had mostly stayed in their lane, but it didn’t make the ride any less nerve wracking when he knew Wren could hardly see straight.
Blair felt like his feet were dragging as they walked into the apartment. He punched his code into the alarm system and flipped the light on. Wren closed the door behind them, standing in a decent amount of light for the first time since they left the bar earlier that night to go to the warehouse. It felt like so much longer ago than a couple of hours. Having such a clear view of him brought Blair’s guilt back tenfold.
Blair took his hand. “C’mon, let’s get cleaned up.”
Wren mumbled what could have been assent or protest, but Blair couldn’t understand him. It couldn’t have been anything too negative since Wren was following him without having to be forced. That was good, too, since Blair’s leg seemed fully prepared to give out at a moment’s notice in long overdue payback for the way he had mistreated it.
He laid his guns on the bathroom counter and began pulling Wren’s shirt over his head despite him muttering about how he could do it himself. Blair’s heart dropped to the floor right along with that black tank top. Wren’s left side was littered with bruises, in addition to the state of his head that Blair had finally seen back in the living room, his hair clumped and matted to his temple. He trailed his fingers as close to Wren’s hairline as he dared.
“What did he do?” he ground out.
Wren removed his hand, pushed it back down to Blair’s side so he could start working his jeans down his legs. “It doesn’t matter. Having a mental image of what he did is just going to make you angrier at someone you already killed. If I’d been able to see I would have been fine,” he added, a bit sulkily.
Blair stripped out of his own clothes and set the taps running. He left it alone, if only for a couple minutes while he adjusted the water temperature and turned the shower on. Once they were standing under the spray with rust colored water coursing down their bodies, he asked again.
Flatly, Wren said, “He bashed my head against the edge of a desk. Once I fell backward he started kicking me. None of my ribs are broken, I already checked,” he added, like that would make Blair breathe a sigh of relief and say Oh thank goodness, as long as that’s all.
The thought made Blair ill down to his core and reignited his anger all at once, but he knew Wren didn’t want to hear any more apologies. So instead he settled for picking up the shampoo and saying, “Turn around.”
Blair was careful to avoid the injured side of Wren’s head, since it was harder to identify the wound now that his hair was wet. He watched a stream of red pour down when Wren ducked his head under the spray to rinse it. Blair would have done anything to take the pain, absorb it into himself where it belonged, as the one who got Wren into this fucking mess. He didn’t care if Wren had a freakishly high pain tolerance or not.
Wren was the first one out of the bathroom and made a beeline for the stairs, his towel still tied loosely around his hips. Blair stayed behind him but far enough back that he could try to steady him if he started to waver. He made it to the top fine, though, and fell unceremoniously onto Blair’s bed. The light downstairs didn’t bother Blair enough to go back down and turn it off. At least it let him see to load the 92 before laying it on the nightstand.
“Make sure you stay off that bad side,” Blair said, pulling the blanket over them.
Wren was laying on his back but he mumbled something incoherent and turned towards Blair, laying fully on his good side. He fell asleep at an alarming speed. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, thankfully. Blair would just have to take him at his word if he didn’t think he was bleeding internally. Blair curled his hand around the side of Wren’s neck, just to comfort himself with the thrum of Wren’s pulse beating under his fingers.
Everything they planned had gone to shit. Taking Wren along in the hopes they could end the fighting, cut Phantom off at the head, had all been for naught. Sure they had taken out a nice chunk of them but there had been no Isaac, not even Jinx or the motorcyclist that first led them there. For all the heads they cut off that night, two more would grow back in each of their places. They’re always one step ahead of us.
He almost wished he hadn’t proved Wren’s worth to Incindious, because now Wren was stuck in the middle of this until it was over.