Chapter 5 - Mars #2
One of the soldiers looks around warily. "We heard on the radio that seismic activity has increased all over the world due to the stronger gravitational pull from the moon being closer."
"Great, let’s just add that to the shit show list we’re dealing with."
Charlie gets in the back with us while the other two get into the cab. As the engine starts, Charlie leans toward us.
"The rest of the patrol is one street over. There’s four of them, plus whoever they've loaded. Corporal Thenton is running that section." His mouth tightens into a grimace. "He's one of the hardcases I mentioned. Ashford didn't have to force him very hard."
Torrin looks at me and I nod. This probably isn't going to stay easy for long.
The truck rolls around the corner before stopping behind another military vehicle.
Two soldiers are forcing people out of a blue two-story house at gunpoint.
An elderly couple stands near the curb beside a teenage girl wearing pajama pants and a man who is still holding a spatula.
A third soldier waits beside the truck with a clipboard, and the fourth stands near the cab with a radio handset at his ear.
The stripes on the fourth man's uniform tell me he's Thenton.
Charlie and Foster march Torrin and me toward them with their rifles positioned to sell the prisoner act. Torrin's shoulder brushes mine once as we walk.
Twenty feet away, the soldier with the clipboard notices us. "Charlie's lot found two more, Corp."
Thenton lowers the handset and turns.
I understand Charlie's warning as soon as I see his face. There's nothing confused or reluctant about him. He looks us over slowly before smirking.
"Where the hell is Davey?" He clips the radio back onto his vest and starts toward us. "And why aren't these two zipped? Charlie, you thick..."
Torrin steps forward. "All four of you, lower your weapons and then remain still. Do not touch your radios. You can speak when I ask you a question."
Every weapon lowers. Then all four soldiers stop moving.
Momentum causes the clipboard to fall to the ground because the soldier holding it can’t move his hand. Thenton freezes mid-step with one boot slightly forward, his entire body held in position.
Torrin doesn't waste time. "The orders Colonel Ashford gave no longer control you. You will ignore them. The people you were ordered to round up are not your enemy."
I watch them for their reaction, ready to call my shadows if it looks like something is wrong.
"Fuck," one whispers.
Thenton glares but says nothing.
Torrin changes the command. "You can move and speak normally now. You cannot touch your weapons or radios, leave, warn Colonel Ashford, or hurt anyone here unless I tell you otherwise."
Three of the soldiers sag immediately. One grips the side of the truck while another bends forward and drags in several hard breaths. The third rubs both hands over his face.
Thenton stays standing but his expression doesn't show relief, it shows irritation.
Then he smiles darkly at Torrin.
"Well, aren't you a useful little party trick."
Torrin goes rigid beside me as Thenton studies him more closely, his head cocked to the side.
"I know that face. You're the Colonel's boy.
The one who wouldn't take the commission.
" His smile widens. "He kept your school photo on his desk at Larkhill.
He used to tell us his greatest failure was raising someone as soft as you. "
The color drains from Torrin's face and I've heard enough.
Anger hits, and the shadows answer before I even call for them. Darkness spreads from beneath the truck and across the pavement toward Thenton. It wraps around his boots and climbs his legs, then tightens around his arms and torso causing him to look down in shock.
"What the fuck?"
I pull and the shadows force him onto his knees. His body hits the pavement hard, and he swears.
"You can shut the fuck up." I step closer.
"You want to talk about soft men? Torrin is standing here trying to save people while you spent the last week helping a psychopath hold civilians at gunpoint.
I know exactly which one of you is stronger.
" I spit as the shadows reach up to wrap around his throat.
"Mars." Torrin says my name with a hint of warning in it. His hand closes around my shoulder. "Don't kill him, yet. He might know something we need."
I hold the shadows where they are but stop tightening them.
Thenton laughs. He actually fucking laughs.
"You think freeing their minds changes everything?
" He looks at the soldiers around him. "Some of us followed the Colonel with our minds already free.
He's building something useful out of this mess while everyone else sits around crying about what they lost. You want the warehouse?
Go ahead and try for it. He'll be delighted to see you.
He's been waiting for more people with abilities to show up.
" His eyes move from Torrin to me. "Reports have been coming in all week.
He has ways of dealing with you freaks permanently. "
That gets my attention and Torrin catches it too. What the fuck has his father been doing to people?
Foster and Charlie restrain Thenton with his own zip ties, remove his rifle, sidearm and radio, then drag him into the back of the second truck. They're not gentle about it but nobody complains.
Freeing the civilians goes faster now that several soldiers are explaining what happened. Most people head home, but three more decide to come with us because they think family members are being held at the warehouse.
The man with the spatula is named Bernie and he stays but refuses to give up the spatula. It’s weird, I don’t know why exactly, but I like him.
While the trucks idle, the freed soldiers gather near the tailgate where Torrin goes over the plan with them.
"We're going to pick up a couple of our people and then to the warehouse next. Tell us exactly what we're driving into."
Charlie and Foster exchange a look before Charlie answers. "Two trucks returning from a sweep won't raise questions as long as we're back before shift change. Patrols radio their count and go through the gate. There’s two guards at the entrance, usually four to six in the front yard."
"The radios are the real problem," Foster adds, tapping the handset clipped to his vest. "All it will take is one man keying his mic before you stop him, and everyone on the site knows something's wrong.
There are hundreds of civilians inside already.
If shooting starts, they're in danger of being collateral damage. "
Torrin nods slowly. "Then we don't start with the whole unit. We take the gate first and use them to draw my father outside."
The soldiers look doubtful.
"We tell him you've captured me. If he believes I'm there, he'll come out. He won’t be able to help himself from gloating."
Charlie grimaces. "Probably."
"As soon as he's in range, I lock him down. If he's controlling the others, he can't be allowed to keep giving commands. Once he's contained, we use the radio to bring the soldiers away from the civilians in groups and free them from his orders."
Foster looks toward the end of the street. "And once they're free?"
Torrin looks around at the British soldiers. "Then you decide what you want to do. If you want to go home, go home. There has to be someone in your regiment who can fly. Find an aircraft, get back to England and find your families."
Nobody answers immediately but most of them look hopeful as they exchange looks.
Charlie finally nods. "I'd like that."
The others slowly agree so Torrin turns to me. "Let’s get the others and go."
I nod. "Let's finish it."
We swing back past Luna's house. Gage comes down the front steps first with his rifle slung and his eyes already counting everyone in the trucks. Luna follows him, while Penny presses her face against the front window behind them and looks deeply offended that she's staying home.
Gage boosts Luna up over the tailgate. She settles onto the bench between him and Torrin, and Torrin immediately puts an arm around her. Luna looks over the civilians who decided to stay, notices Thenton restrained on the floor, then wrinkles her nose at him before turning toward Bernie.
"Hi. I'm Luna."
"Bernie."
Her gaze drops to the spatula still clenched in his hand.
"Are we cooking something?"
Bernie looks at it as if he's forgotten he's still holding it. "It's all I had."
Luna smiles. "Then I feel safer already."
The man relaxes a little and gives her a soft amused smile.
She's always done that. Luna sees someone frightened, lonely or uncomfortable and finds a way to make the situation easier without making them feel weak for needing it.
Her eyes pass over me for less than a second before returning to Bernie and it fucking kills me that it makes the few feet between us feel like miles.
She's holding one of Torrin's hands while Gage's knee presses against hers.
When I left, we were all close, but this is different.
I don't know how different yet, and I'm not sure I want the answer.
The trucks pull away and through the openings in the side, I watch the streets where I grew up slide past. Ahead, the warehouse fence comes into view with chain link and barbed wire exactly where Gage said it would be.
Thenton looks up from the floor and catches me watching.
"He’s going to put you down like the mutant freak you are."
I glance down at him and roll my eyes, but the shadows gather around my boots again, and this time I let them stay.
Colonel Ashford can try whatever he wants.
It won’t matter because the only thing that matters to me is Luna.
I walked away from her once, and I know I don't get to undo the last two years just because I finally came back but I can make sure I never do it again.
Whatever is waiting behind those gates for us, it isn't getting through me to reach her.