Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (37 page)

A hand suddenly appeared on my shoulder. Even without looking, I knew who it belonged to. Chase knelt down next to Ian. His lips curved upwards into a sad smile that was enough to tell me what I already knew.

“I’m a doctor,” he said, still believing he was nothing more to me than a stranger. “Let me get him out of here and I’ll do what I can for him, I promise.” Just by looking at his expression, I knew that he already knew there was nothing more that could be done, that Ian was gone. “You injured him—The Man in Black,” he said. “It was impressive what you did, how you dominated him.” He paused, mulling over what he wanted to tell me in his head. “That maniac could have killed me and everyone I care about, and I know this is a lot to ask considering you’ve already saved my life before. At the address, if you remember.” I nodded, sensing the guilt in his voice. “Go after him. Stop him. From what I’ve seen, I think you can do it. He’s injured. The blood he’s losing from that wound on his neck is only going to weaken him. So I beg you, end this tonight. Not just for me, but for all of us.”

As I stared into his pleading blue eyes, I couldn’t help but wonder what he would say if he knew who I was, whether he would still be pleading for me to risk my life to stop Victor. It was something I wouldn’t find out. “Okay,” I said softly. Numb, but with more resolve than I had ever had before, I stood up.

“I’ll take care of him. You have my word.”

He didn’t have to tell me that. I already knew he would. “Thank you,” I whispered, simply. “Get out of here safely as soon as you can.” Without waiting for him to respond, I walked away from Chase and Ian, picked my gun up from the floor, and scanned the ground for the blood trail that was sure to be there, locating it just outside the doorway. I picked up my pace and followed the erratic trail down the hallway and to a stairwell where blood dotted every other step. Of course, Victor would pick the roof. It would be too risky to travel down the streets in the state he was in where there were mobs of people waiting to pick him off.

From the far end of the building, another explosion shook the structure, signaling that my time was running short. I closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath, knowing that the fight for my life was just moments away. My feet sprang forward and, ignoring the shooting pain in my ankle, I bounded up the stairs.

Jill fired, hitting and disabling another soldier while Brad snuck up from behind him and tore his helmet off. The confused redhead clutched his bleeding hand as Drake led him to a curb to sit with some of the others they had managed to restore back to their former selves.

“Is that it?” asked Drake. “Did we just make it out of this alive?”

Jill slumped down onto the curb, looking down the roadway at the bodies that lay strewn in the street and the bullet holes that dotted buildings and vehicles indiscriminately. “Yes,” she said. “It would appear we have. Had the others not joined us, though, it would have been a different story.”

“But they did, so that’s all that matters,” Aron said. He took a seat on the curb next to Jill. “No need to be all glass-half-empty, Jilly Bean.”

Jill elbowed him just hard enough to get her point across, yet gentle enough to deflect any malice from the action. “You know, I always hated that nickname, almost as much as I hate the candy it sounds like.”

“How come you never said anything, then?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like the time to start living for myself. To surround myself with only the things I want around me, no matter how insignificant the details.”

“Maybe there’ll be room for me on the list of things you want around you someday.” Though he spoke directly to her, he kept his eyes focused on the cracks in the pavement as though avoiding eye contact with her would take the sting out of any rejection.

“Maybe someday,” she said, her lips curving upward into a smile.

“Oh, shit,” one of the members of the Boston unit said, drawing the attention of the other rebels.

Fear penetrated their eyes; bile rose from the pit of Jill’s stomach. On shaky legs, both she and Aron stood up. “No,” she gasped, stumbling backwards into Aron. A line of soldiers steadily advanced toward them from the north as though they’d been told to remain on the ready in the event the first group failed.

“There’s more coming from the south, too,” Brad said, defeat evident in his voice.

Jill and Aron turned their heads to see the devastating truth with their own eyes. In perfectly straight, tight lines, they marched beat for beat in the exact motion as the others.

“They’re boxing us in,” a young woman from the Boston unit said. “Look how they’re beginning to angle themselves around. We’re going to be completely surrounded.”

“Then we need to group together and attack them from all angles, too,” Jill said. “Everyone, form two straight lines, back to back, facing south and north. That way we’re not running around, bumping into each other and wasting bullets. Reload if you can, pick your targets, and make your bullets count. If we’re going down, at least let’s try to go down swinging.”

Brad, Drake, Gage, Tucker, and Aron joined Jill in the roadway, forming the beginnings of a line facing south. Exhausted yet determined, the rest of the rebels fell into place, joining the others in forming two back-to-back lines. Jill took in a deep breath and silently watched the approaching threat. Next to her, she could hear Aron’s breaths catching in his throat as he tried to maintain the outward appearance of having it altogether, even though all of them were breaking inside.

With their guns drawn, they waited for the soldiers, trapped and unable to do anything but fight for their lives.

“How’s it going, Eric?” Finn asked the bald man behind the television screen of the broadcast control room. After entering the room, Finn locked it and proceeded to drag a shelving unit across the floor, fitting it underneath the doorknob.

“Brooks has gone live now that he’s begun speaking,” Eric said. “The screen has been turned on at the execution site so he can see himself being broadcast across the country, and between the rebels fighting to regain control of the power grids and Brooks all but forcing us to watch the execution, I would say we are in a good position for sabotage.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” Finn said, removing a disc from the inside pocket of his suit coat and handing it to Eric.

“Someone has been attempting to hack into the system with some sort of battle footage. Rebels, I think.”

“Let some of that footage filter through our interruption of the broadcast. I want the people to see everything,” Finn said. “I want them to see what’s been going on in their world from every angle, not just Brooks’.”

Eric nodded. “Can do. What’s on this disc, anyway?” he asked. “What kind of footage could you possibly have got Brooks to divulge?”

“With the help of others on the staff, I have caught numerous utterances on hidden cameras over the years that, though vague, will still cast him in a less than favorable light if the public were to hear them. But there is one thing I caught a couple of weeks ago that I think will enrage them. Brooks’ days are numbered, my friend.”

“I hope so. Because if his aren’t, ours are.”

The blood droplets ended near the top of the stairwell directly in front of the exit to the roof of the building. I didn’t have to open the door to know that he was out there waiting for me. Though the building was dying around me, beams collapsing and windows shattering, all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating in my eardrums.

My head swirled with every thought I’d had about what I’d do at this very moment, and with every thought I’d ever had of them. Every memory of my father, mother, and Jake, and the last time I saw them before I ran back into the mall. Of Blake and Lucy, whose lives had been taken from them way too soon. Not only did I owe my family the promise I had made to them, but I also owed it to them to put an end to this. I owed it to them and I owed it to Ian.

My body shook at the thought of Ian. A thought that I had been trying to push out of my head because the pain was unbearable and too much to handle along with everything else. But instead of the grief I’d been expecting, an all-consuming anger spread over my body, reminding me that there would be time to grieve later. Now was the time to turn sorrow into vindication.

With my gun drawn, I opened the door to the rooftop and walked out into the smoke-filled air. I was only able to take a handful of steps before the next explosion blasted through the building, shaking the ground underneath me. Directly to my left, a new plume of smoke filtered upward, which only added to the reduced visibility on top of the building and didn’t allow for me to see much of anything. Below, I could hear emergency personnel bravely making their way through the streets despite the danger and the uncertainty of where the next explosion would occur.

“Victor,” I called, certain he was hiding somewhere within the fog. Between the smoke, intermittent breaks appeared that allowed the light from the evening sun to break through. Determined, and with the light as my guide, I walked across the rooftop. “Come out and end this, you coward. You wanted me. Here I am.” As I spoke, I felt a presence, his presence. Heart pounding and body rife with anger, I turned around to see a pair of eyes coming toward me through the smoke. “No more running, Victor. This ends tonight, one way or another.”

“At least we agree on one thing, Ms. Stevens.” The distortion from his mask made his voice sound like a growl when he spoke. Without wasting time, he lunged at me, using the fog to his advantage to shield his movements. But I anticipated him making the first move and ducked to avoid him, kicking my leg out in front of him. Surprised, he tripped over my foot and fell to the ground, where I took advantage of his disability.

“How did you know my father?” I asked him as I struck him in the abdomen with the heel of my boot.

“Is that really important to you?” he asked, almost condescendingly, angering me enough to point my gun at his head. “That gun won’t hurt me.”

“If I shoot you in the neck, it will.” He glared at me, infuriated.

“Your father and I worked as doctors together at Hope Memorial, and we had a little—falling out, so to speak.”

I reared my foot back and struck him in the arm. Pain shot up my leg, causing me to stumble back enough for Victor to grab my leg and throw me to the ground. The gun fell out of my hand and landed inches away from Victor’s boot. A maniacal smile spread across his face as he kicked the gun away from my outstretched hand. It skidded across the ground and disappeared somewhere in the fog.

“It’s pretty difficult to hurt someone when the majority of them isn’t made of flesh and blood,” he said. He pushed up the sleeve of his suit, revealing an arm made of steel in place of human tissue. His foot pressed down on my arm, and I let out a scream, which only made him press more of his weight down on me as though he was taking enjoyment in the irony alone.

“What kind of falling out could you possibly have had with my father to make you want to kill him and his entire family? What kind of monster does that?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Bide your time, Celaine. Look for his weaknesses
.

“And what kind of doctor takes an oath to do everything he can for his patients only to turn around and reject research that could help extend their lives or, eventually, may be able to lead to our own immortality?”

“But at what cost? Look at you, you aren’t human anymore. You’re nothing more than a machine. A soulless, cold robot.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I see,” he sneered, bringing his foot back to kick me in the ribs.

I gasped, his sudden strike catching me off guard as my arm shielded my throbbing body. I could see him prepare to strike me again, and I knew that I couldn’t let him get in any more blows. A fire ignited inside me and, just as his boot was about to make contact with me, I threw my legs up, wrapped them around his waist, and threw him to the ground. The second his body struck the ground in front of me, I jumped to my feet, ignoring my discomfort.

“So, what was it?” I asked him, walking around him. “My father found out you were doing some sort of crazy experiments and decided to blow the whistle on you?”

“Something like that,” he grumbled. He rose to his feet, and we paced the roof, glaring at each other.

“Then, when you were fired, you decided to take it out on everyone responsible after you became The Man in Black.” Without him responding, I knew I was right, and that he’d spent the majority of his life harboring hateful vendettas against others to the point where hate was all he knew and his humanity had been stripped away.

“It will never be said that you weren’t astute,” Victor said. “You are definitely George Stevens’ daughter.”

My blood boiled at the mere mention of my father’s name by him. “Then why not kill them all at once—those doctors who wronged you? Surely, most of them must have still been at Hope Memorial by the time you perfected your alter ego serial killer persona.”

“But what fun would that be? By hunting them down one by one, the fear that alone instilled in them was the most exhilarating part. The what, the where and the when ate away at their souls until I finally got to see the looks on their faces when they figured it all out. Taking out Hope Memorial later was just icing on the cake.”

“Wait, you saw them before they died? You looked them in the eyes and you were still able to kill them?” The rage inside me began to boil over. My muscles became rigid as my body went into attack mode.

“Yes,” he answered matter-of-factly, almost as though he was bored with the question. “When your father saw me walking toward them, he got out of the car and locked the doors. He knew it was me before I even lifted my mask, and he was dead from a knife to the heart before the first blast went off. I still remember the sound of your mother screaming as he slumped over the outside of their vehicle.”

“You son of a bitch,” I yelled. In a rage, my body sprang forward, and I ran at him without so much as a second thought or any idea of what I would do when I reached him. Before he could react, I struck him in the chest, knocking him back. He countered by balling his hand into a fist and striking me in the shoulder, but instead of pain, all I felt was an increased urge to fight. I had to fight for my life and their lives. This evil couldn’t remain standing.