Chapter 21 #4
I kicked it out. The metal clanged onto the concrete landing, the noise dangerously loud.
I dropped down first, my boots hitting the floor with a wet smack. My left hand was shaking the barrel of my weapon, but my right hand, my trigger hand, remained steady. Priorities. You can fall apart later. Right now, kill or be killed.
“Move.”
Hellhound dropped beside me, breathless but controlled. Havoc followed, landing with a graceless thud and a curse that echoed too loudly.
We didn’t need stealth anymore. We needed speed.
I led the way. My body knew the turns before my eyes saw them. Down three flights. Left through the heavy fire doors. The muscle memory was nauseating, a ghost guiding my limbs through the architecture of my own torture.
“Contact rear!”
The heavy thud of boots hammered on the stairs above us. A lot of them.
We burst through the emergency exit and into the freezing Geneva night.
Wet, heavy sleet slashed sideways, stinging my face.
“Go right! Main strip. We need witnesses.”
We sprinted.
My lungs burned. Every impact sent a shockwave of pain through my ribs and shoulder, but I pushed it down, locking it away in the compartment labeled Ignore Until Safe.
Behind us, the heavy steel door banged open. Shouts erupted. A crack of a suppressed round snapped past my ear, chipping the brickwork ahead.
“They’re bold. Shooting in the street?”
“They own the police. Keep moving.”
We rounded the corner onto a wider avenue. Streetlights reflected off slick, black puddles. It was early, approaching 4:00 AM, but Geneva wasn’t a ghost town. A delivery truck rumbled past. A taxi idled near a closed café.
The footsteps behind us faltered. Dresner’s men were conditioned killers, but they weren’t stupid. A firefight in a service corridor was easy cleanup; a firefight on a public boulevard...
“They’re holding back.”
“They’ll track us. We need wheels. Fast.”
“On it.” Havoc peeled off toward a dark sedan parked under a flickering streetlamp.
I turned back to the street, scanning the perimeter. My breath plumed in white clouds before my face. I was shivering, the adrenaline crash hitting me hard.
I forced my legs to lock, forced my spine straight. I became a statue in the sleet, watching the approach vectors while Havoc worked a slim jim through the sedan’s window.
“Hurry.”
“I’m going as fast as my frozen fingers allow. Unless you want to shoot the lock and explain that to the local gendarmerie.”
The lock popped. The engine turned over seconds later.
“Get in.”
I collapsed into the leather interior. It smelled of stale cigarettes and pine air freshener.
Hellhound took the wheel. He threw the car into gear, the tires screaming against the wet asphalt. We fishtailed, corrected, and shot forward.
Out into the streets.
The city blurred past, gray buildings, yellow lights, black sky. In the distance, the wail of sirens began to rise, a mournful chorus closing in on the facility we had just violated.
I twisted in my seat, staring out the back window. The glass and steel monolith of CuraNova receded into the dark, swallowed by the sleet.
We had done it. We had the drive.
But looking at that building, feeling the phantom itch of the restraints on my wrists, I didn’t feel like a victor. I felt like an escaped animal that had bitten its master.
The car swerved hard, taking a sudden right turn down a narrow side street.
For the next twenty minutes, silence reigned. It was a heavy, pressurized silence, broken only by the rhythmic thwack-hiss of the wipers and the hum of the engine.
Hellhound drove with skill. Random turns. Doubling back. Hopscotching through neighborhoods. He watched mirrors with a predator’s intensity, looking for headlights that lingered too long, turns that matched ours too perfectly.
I sat in the dark, clutching my bleeding arm.
The adrenaline was gone. In its place, the sickness came rushing back.
It started in my hands. The tremor in my left hand jumped the gap. My right hand, resting on my thigh, began to shake.
I stared at it.
No. Not yet.
My vision flickered.
It wasn’t darkness. It was light. A sudden, blinding white sheet dropped over my eyes, erasing the car, the street, Havoc’s silhouette.
White-out.
I gripped the door handle, grounding myself. Count. One. Two. Three.
The vision cleared, leaving grainy static at the edges of my sight.
Nausea rolled in my gut, hot and oily. The pressure inside my skull wasn’t a headache anymore, it was a vice being tightened by a giant hand. My brain felt too big for my skull.
I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the cold glass of the window.
I tried to picture holding her, but my mind betrayed me. I saw my hands, my shaking, scarred hands, and superimposed over them was the number from the file.
Fifty-five.
I had killed fifty-five people for Dresner. Maybe they were bad men. Maybe they were innocent. I didn’t know. I had just erased them because a voice in my ear told me to.
What right did I have to touch Clare? She was healing. She was light and stubborn resilience. I was a graveyard walking on two legs.
She’ll leave. When she knows what you really are. When the memories come back and you’re drowning in blood. She’ll look at you with horror, not love.
A lump formed in my throat, hard and painful.
I pressed my hand against the tactical vest. The folder was there. The proof of my monstrosity.
I wanted to burn it. I wanted to throw it out the window and let the snow bury it. But I couldn’t. I needed to know. I owed it to the fifty-five ghosts to know their names.
“Xavier.”
Hellhound’s voice came from the front, cutting through the static in my head. He was watching me in the rearview mirror. His eyes were bordered by exhaustion, but sharp.
“How you holding up back there?”
I opened my mouth to speak. My jaw felt stiff, uncooperative. “I’ll make it.”
The lie tasted like copper. I wasn’t making it. I could feel the threads of my consciousness fraying, snapping one by one. The chemical overdose from the implant was reaching critical mass. My system was crashing.
“We’re clear of the city. Two hours out. Can you hold on?”
The wipers beat out a rhythm. Time. Out. Time. Out.
“I’ll make it.”
I shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make my shoulder scream.
Outside, the sleet had turned to snow. Heavy flakes rushed at the windshield, hypnotic and relentless. The world was turning white.
Just get me to Clare.
It was a prayer. I wasn’t a religious man, you can’t be, doing what I did, but I prayed to whatever was listening.
Just let me see her face one more time. Let me tell her the truth. Let me tell her I love her. Then I can burn.