Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (34 page)

“Britta, watch out!” Jill screamed. Without another thought, Jill took aim at Brianna and fired, striking her in the head just seconds after Brianna had raised her gun at her own sister and fired.

In shock more from seeing her sister lying in the road with a hole in her head than from the fatal wound she’d sustained to her chest, Britta stumbled backwards, eventually collapsing onto her knees in the street.

Jill shook, her face soaked with tears. Using the back of her hand, she wiped her eyes, gasping when she saw soldiers gathering around Britta. “They’re like vultures circling a wounded animal,” she said, enraged. The gun still trained in Britta’s direction, Jill closed her eyes as more tears began to fall, realizing there was only one humane thing left to do. She took in a deep breath and did her best to control the water from clouding her vision. “Forgive me,” she whispered as she aimed her gun directly at Britta’s head and fired.

Before Britta’s body hit the ground, the soldiers located the source of the gunfire and focused their attention on the car concealing them. Jill crouched down and began crawling along the sidewalk, motioning for the others to follow her to the rear of the car in an attempt at finding an escape route. But when she peeked around the corner, all she saw were more soldiers approaching, boxing them in.

“Oh, shit,” Drake said, steadily retreating back behind the car. “We’re surrounded. What are we going to do?”

“The only thing we can do,” Aron said, trying not to let the others hear the fear in his voice. “Fight our way out of it and hope we take most of them out in the process.”

The four of them exchanged solemn glances. “No matter what happens,” Jill said, breaking the silence, “I just want you to know that it was a privilege getting to fight alongside you all today. Even you, Aron.”

“Ditto,” he said as a small smile crept across his face. After exchanging a final glance at one another, the four of them stood up with their guns drawn toward the soldiers.

Jill shuddered as the first shot was fired and she saw one of the soldiers fall, but instead of coming from one of them, the shot was fired from down the road. Confused, the four of them glanced down the road in the direction the shot had come from.

“It’s the Boston unit,” Aron said, relief suddenly returning to his voice. “We all thought they bailed on us.”

From down the street, a group of men and women, roughly half the size of their group, marched toward them. Though the numbers they would add were nowhere near adequate to compete with the number of soldiers left standing, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, Jill felt a sense of hope return to the remaining rebels, who all began storming out of hiding with their weapons drawn, ready to fight instead of accepting defeat.

Chase hesitated outside the door to the women’s dressing room. Inside, the sound of laughter had shaken him halfway between his walk from the men’s dressing room to the door of which he now stood before, and he found himself consumed by guilt once more. In just a matter of minutes, that laughter would cease, replaced with anything from crying to screaming, or all of the above, all because of him. Because in the end, his heart had been the driving force behind the voice he’d heard above all the others.

He raised his hand to the door, taking in a deep breath before he rapped on its wooden exterior with his knuckles. All rustling that had been going on in the room came to a stop. Muffled voices, too hushed for him to discern any intelligible words, appeared from inside as a lone pair of footsteps drew closer to the door. Seconds later, the door opened just wide enough for him to make out MaKayla’s face in the opening.

“Can I help you?” she asked sarcastically.

“I need to talk to Paige,” he said.

“Why? Have you had second thoughts or something?” She laughed at the thought, only to find herself silenced by the serious expression her brother’s face projected. Wide-eyed, her mouth fell open. “Oh—okay, then.” She opened the door wide enough to let her body pass through it. “Paige, Chase is coming in,” she called back to Paige inside the room. “I did everything in my power to stop him.” She tried in vain to rein in the smile that had crept across her face as she skipped down the hall toward the room their parents were in two doors down.

Chase rolled his eyes as he watched her enter their room and close the door. Then with a sigh, he pushed the door open and saw Paige peeking from behind a privacy screen. Her blonde hair was piled up into a bun with the veil secured around it. She wore little makeup, yet her peaches and cream complexion remained flawless, and he couldn’t remember her eyes being any bluer than they were at that moment.

“You apparently don’t believe in superstitions,” she said, mildly irritated. “I guess it’s only fitting since my other bridesmaid has yet to show up.”

Without taking his eyes away from her, he closed the door, making sure it latched shut behind him. “You look absolutely stunning,” he said, the guilt gnawing away at him.

She smiled, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks. “Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I can forgive you.”

Chase chuckled nervously at her choice of words. “Listen, Paige,” he said, his mind struggling for the perfect words to say. “Everyone has their one. The one person in their life who makes them feel whole; the one who is able to put the pieces to their puzzle together and make them fit. The One…”

“Seriously, babe, your speech sounds really sweet,” she interrupted him. “And I’m thrilled that I could be that person for you, but can’t this wait until we’re at the altar?”

“No, Paige, you don’t understand. Let me finish—”

“What’s that?” she asked.

He craned his ears to listen, hearing what he thought was screaming coming from the outside. “I don’t know,” he said, walking toward the window. “It’s probably just—” In that instant, a loud blast shook The Woodland Lodge, knocking them both off their feet. Chase looked up just as plaster fell from the ceiling, striking the carpet inches away from his head. Outside, a loud series of explosions reverberated around the block, shaking the foundation of the building even more.

“Oh, my god, what’s going on?” Paige cried, crawling out from under the privacy screen that had toppled over her. She stood, gathering her wedding dress in her arms to prevent it from dragging over the plaster. “Do you think we’re under some sort of attack?”

“I’m not sure,” Chase said, trying to suppress the fear in his voice. He stood up and grabbed her by the hand. “But I’m certain we don’t want to be in here any longer.”

They ran toward the door, jumping over overturned furniture on their way. When his hand found the handle of the door, Chase threw it open, instantly noticing the cloud of dust filtering through the hallway. In the hall, Trey stood with Carrie, Jim and MaKayla in a huddle.

“Dad, what’s going on?” Chase called out to his father.

“I was looking out the window,” he said, shaken. “And all of a sudden, explosions began occurring throughout the city. It’s as though they were all timed perfectly together, each one going off just seconds after the other.”

“Are you both all right?” Carrie asked.

“Yeah, as much as we can be,” Chase said. “We need to make our way out of here. Let’s head down the hall and find an exit—”

No sooner did he finish his sentence than the earth beneath them began shaking once more and chunks of ceiling fell down on them like rain. From the opposite end of the building, an explosion sounded, louder than the others, and they dove to the floor, covering their heads with their hands.

“Come on!” Chase commanded. “We need to get out of here. I’m not sure this place can handle another one like that.”

They all stood up in a hurry and began running through the fog of dust, squinting their steadily watering eyes to see.

“It’s blocked,” Trey said upon reaching the exit first. A portion of the ceiling had collapsed, completely blocking it.

“We need to try the other side,” Chase said. “If that’s blocked, then we’ll find a win—”

“What’s that sound?” MaKayla asked, shaking.

The group fell silent, listening to the sound that caused MaKayla to pause.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

“It’s coming this way from the other end of the hallway,” Carrie said, rubbing her eyes to try to see through the smoke.

“It sounds like metal scraping the floor,” Trey offered. “Like a giant robot or something.”

In a huddle, they watched the fog down the hallway, listening to the steadily approaching noise. The closer it drew, the more the fog seemed to separate as though making a point to part specifically for its presence. At first, all they could make out was a shadow, a large, dark figure with indiscernible features. But, little by little, the closer it came the more of its features came to light, eliciting a scream from Paige when she realized its identity.

“Dr. Chase Matthews,” Victor said in the rough, mechanical voice that had become known as belonging to The Man in Black, “it’s nice to see you again.”

I saw the smoke from the road even before the city came into view. Its existence sickened me to my core; for because of it, I could no longer hold onto the hope I’d had in a death grip the entire way here. Because of it, I knew that all my worst fears had jumped out of the recesses of my mind to wreak havoc on the world I’d loved in my former life. Because of it, I knew that my world was about to be turned upside down by Victor again.

Thick and black, the smoke cloud swallowed the sky, transforming day into night. Below its ominous veil, the devastation raged on. My heart raced in my chest nearly as fast as my motorcycle raced down the street. All I could picture was Chase, Carrie, Jim and MaKayla in danger, held captive by Victor as The Man in Black. Or worse. I shook my head at the thought, knowing that I couldn’t allow myself to think of them as anything but alive if I was to remain focused. Enraged, I gripped the throttle tightly, but the motorcycle was already running at its full capacity and would not be abiding by my impatience any time soon.

At my side, Ian looked around the city that lay ahead of us, and though I couldn’t see his face, I sensed he was just as tense as I felt. From the appearance of the different groups of smoke clouds scattered about, it was obvious that there had been more than just one explosion, and more than likely, there would be more to come. This attack was personal; Victor’s last attempt at fulfilling a vendetta he’d harbored against my father for decades. After he was finished, there would be nothing left. No traces of my existence or the life I once led.

Moments later, we entered the city limits, racing down the streets while avoiding the debris that littered them and the people who’d just gone through more chaos in the last hour than they’d experienced in their lifetimes. Some sat slumped against the rubble, their expressions blank as though their minds had been erased with their inability to process the evil they’d just lived through. Others ran like they believed their feet had the ability to carry them away from here. Through the fear in their eyes, I saw a raw, primal need to survive. A determination that had fled from the souls of those slumped on the ground.

We were less than two miles from The Woodland Lodge and getting closer by the second. Not wanting to waste any time, I edged myself ahead of Ian and led the way down the streets that were so familiar to me that I could navigate them in my sleep.

People, both singular and in groups, ran down the road in the opposite direction so that it gave the appearance that they were running toward us when in fact they were running in terror away from their homes. Still, I couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t be beneath Victor to have equipped one of them with a bomb for the sole purpose of detonating it as we passed. A cold shudder wound its way quickly down my spine at the thought.

In two more blocks, we would need to make a right hand turn at the library to take us to the road on which The Woodland Lodge was located. A matter of minutes was all that separated me from Chase and the family I’d abruptly left behind with nothing but a vague explanation for them to process in my absence. No matter what happened to me when everything is said and done, I hoped that I would at least be able to redeem myself in their eyes. To let them all know that they had meant something to me, and that my leaving them had been painful but necessary. Next to putting an end to The Man in Black, I wanted closure.

But as I approached the block where we were to make our turn, an explosion rocked the streets, and all three stories of the library crumbled in front of us. I watched in horror as it fell apart before my eyes, my motorcycle going too fast to stop in time to avoid striking its remnants. Determined to keep going, I accelerated as fast as the motorcycle would go, dodging as much of the debris as I could. The plume of dust and smoke that followed in the wake of the library’s demise clouded my vision. Blinded, I didn’t see the motorcycle-sized chunk of concrete until it was too late to stop or do anything but try to take evasive action.

I jumped from the motorcycle moments before it crashed into the concrete barrier. A pile of jagged concrete and twisted metal greeted me to break my fall. Unable to stop after striking the ground due to sheer momentum, I rolled down the pile, feeling every piece of concrete and the metal beams as they dug into my body on my way down. At the bottom of the pile, I rolled a couple of feet more, until I finally came to a stop on the roadway. Stunned and in more pain than I thought I should be, I lay there waiting for my body to give me the okay to get back up to my feet.

Off to the side, I heard the sound of another motorcycle signaling that Ian was fast approaching. To my horror, when I turned my head to find him, I saw him barreling toward me through the fog. Frantic, I tried to pick myself up from the ground, but found my body unwilling to move at the same pace my mind was traveling and, by the time I was able to sit up, it was too late for me to take any action, but to brace myself for impact.

In that moment, Ian must have seen me, too, because the tires on his motorcycle emitted an earsplitting screech against the pavement as though he was trying to bring it to an immediate stop. When he realized that it wasn’t going to stop in time, he used the force of his body to angle the motorcycle into an abrupt turn, which propelled it into a chunk of concrete. The force of the impact rendered his motorcycle useless and sent Ian sprawling into the debris. Like me, he rolled down the pile and landed with a bone-crunching thud on the ground.