Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) (31 page)

“Look, we don’t want any trouble here,” a man spoke from the front of the boat.

Startled, Ian looked over my shoulder. “I didn’t notice anyone else in here,” he said. “We don’t want any trouble, either. All I want to do is get my partner some much needed medical attention. She’s been shot and has lost a lot of blood.”

“If…if we take you with us, we’ll be even more of a target than we already are,” the man said.

“Oh, Harold,” a woman spoke. “It’s not as though our group isn’t in deep already. Have a heart.” She walked over to where I sat and crouched down next to Ian. “Yeah, she’s pretty bad off. You need to apply pressure to that wound. It will help with the blood loss. And from the looks of it, she can’t lose much more. Harold!”

“What now, Candice?” Harold answered her, clearly agitated.

“Are there more of you?” Ian asked.

“Three more. They’re hiding behind the seats, but you didn’t hear that from me,” she said softly. “Harold, I need your sweatshirt.”

“What for?” he yelled back.

“Don’t ask questions, just throw me the damn shirt.” After a moment’s hesitation by Harold, Candice threw up her arms to catch the sweatshirt. She wrapped the arms of the shirt around my arm tightly to secure it in place over the wound, and then applied additional pressure with her hand. Taking a seat next to me, she kept her hand firmly in place, an act she no doubt intended to keep doing until we docked on the other side. “Do you know anything about hot-wiring boats?” she asked Ian.

“I watched my dad do it once as a kid.”

“Well, then you already know more about it than Harold. Do you mind giving him a hand?”

“If it gets us out of here, then sure. It’s only a matter of time before those soldiers figure out their boat is occupied.” I heard Ian’s footsteps disappear to the front of the vessel, while Candice began humming next to me.

“You know, before today I thought that you two were just tools in Brooks’ shed of destruction. But not now. After seeing you two working together, deliberately undermining Brooks while simultaneously showing members of our group compassion, I knew I was wrong about you. You’ve given me hope for our future again. That’s why you can’t die. We can’t lose what few good people we have left in this word.” Her eyes focused above my head to the front of the boat. “Besides, I have a feeling someone would be pretty heartbroken if anything were to happen to you.”

“Hey, superhero, we need to hurry,” Harold said urgently. “They’ve found us.”

“Oh, no.” Candice dropped her grip on the sweatshirt. “I’ll untie the boat.” Several feet away from the dock, but still close enough to cause concern for those in a disabled boat, a group of soldiers came running at us with guns drawn. “I’ll be right back,” Candice spoke next to me. She brandished a box cutter from her pocket and ran over to cut the ropes to free the boat. When she reached the side of the boat, the first shots rang out. Too far away to be accurate, they struck the dock with a sickening clang. As though in response to the sudden danger, the boat sprang to life.

“I’ve got it from here,” Harold told Ian, who ran to the back of the boat to sit next to me. He put his hand on the sweatshirt and took Candice’s place in applying direct pressure to my wound. Candice sat back down across from us right as the boat lunged forward. And it wasn’t a moment too soon. The soldiers raced down the dock, watching us speed away. Frantically, they fired shots at the boat, but only succeeded in striking its exterior, creating nothing more than an aesthetic eyesore. In the distance, more shots resounded, which prompted a scream from Candice.

“Oh, God,” Ian cried next to me. Mustering the last ounce of strength I had, I lifted my head to see the rebels being corralled line after line in front of a firing squad that wasted no time in carrying out the orders they’d been given.

*****

President Carver Brooks was escorted down the ramp of the yacht to the dock and the limo that awaited him on shore. “I’d like to be left alone,” he said to his entourage before getting in the back seat. Once he situated himself inside, he removed his cell phone from the pocket of his suit coat. After dialing the all too familiar number, he wasn’t surprised when Victor picked up on the first ring.

“I want her gone, and I want her gone now,” Brooks all but growled into the phone as soon as Victor answered.

“Don’t worry, Carver, I have big plans for Ms. Stevens,” he coughed.

“You’d better, Victor, or you can kiss all funding goodbye. She all but ruined me today. Her defiance, though understated, was surely heard by millions. She’s insubordinate, she’s…”

“Been shot,” Victor stated matter-of-factly.

“Shot? How? By whom?”

“By one of the rebels. When she was confronting their leader, brandishing a gun, no less.”

“Really?” A smile returned to Brooks’ face. “I hope that was caught on camera.”

“Yes, with a little editing added, Cameron made sure it was broadcast throughout the entire country.”

“Editing? Why editing?”

“To make it seem as though the rebel leader—Marshall Leitner—fired the shot himself.”

“Excellent, Victor,” Brooks laughed. “It would appear as though you have everything taken care of.” He slumped down in his seat, allowing his body to relax comfortably. “And what of the rebels? Were they able to intercept our television broadcasting signal?”

“They tried, but again, Cameron deflected them.”

“That boy of yours is worth his weight in gold.”

“Indeed, it’s too bad he only weighs seventy pounds dripping wet.”

“And what of Ms. Stevens? Was she mortally wounded?”

“I don’t know yet. She‘s hurt badly, but so far, I believe she‘s still alive. She, Ian, and a small group of rebels just left in one of the jet boats.” Victor coughed again, more incessantly than before.

“I’ll just have to arrange a little surprise for them when they reach the shore. You really need to get that cough checked out, my friend.” Brooks opened the mini-fridge, pulling out a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. “Seriously, stay healthy. You’ve been worth every penny I’ve paid you thus far.”

“I’m working on it. Marty will be over soon.”

“Good.” He took a shot of the vodka. “After all, The Man in Black can’t be taken out by a mere cold.”

“Trust me, I have too much to accomplish yet to die. I just hope Ms. Stevens survives to see what I have in store for her.”

“If she does survive, she needs to be put in front of the camera as soon as possible to prove to the people that she’s still breathing and that the rebels haven’t succeeded in terminating her.”

“She’ll never go for it.”

“Who said she’s getting a choice in the matter?” He poured himself another shot. Already, he could feel the last one entering his bloodstream, calming his depleted nerves. “I’ve been meaning to ask you what your big yank is with her, anyway. It seems like you almost have something personal against her.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Perhaps sometime I’ll find the time to hear it, but now I have a senator to tend to.” With that, he hung up on Victor and dialed yet another number from memory. “Has Delaney been brought in yet?”

“Yes, sir,” the voice at the other end answered. “He turned himself in shortly after the warrant was issued.”

“He did?” Brooks found himself shocked by the prospect of the senator turning himself in, knowing the fate that awaited him for his betrayal.

“Yes, sir, we have him detained in isolation as we speak.”

I shivered uncontrollably. Shivered from the wind whipping through my body from the boat speeding through the water; from the spray that jumped up and hit me every so often; from the rain that fell from the darkening sky; from the loss of blood in my body. Ian, by now, had wrapped his jacket and both of his arms around me as to valiantly try and bring my body temperature up, but due to the loss of blood, it would be nothing more than a fruitless effort. Right now, I was the most vulnerable I’d ever been. With no energy left to even hold my head up, I was not only afraid for my well-being, but angry with myself for being careless enough to get in this situation in the first place.

Ahead of the boat, the shoreline grew closer and closer—or as much as I could tell by the limited vision I had with my head propped against Ian’s shoulder. It was decided among the occupants of the boat—Harold, Candice, and the other three rebellion members, all younger women, who’d come out of hiding and took to staring warily at Ian and I—that we would try to anchor the boat several blocks north of where we’d boarded Brooks’ yacht so as to avoid any potential run-in with him or his cronies. Chances were he’d most likely already docked and left the premises by now. I locked eyes with one of the three women through my mask. Though obviously unnerved by us, she also seemed curious. All three women had roughly the same build with many of the same features. The one staring at me, however, had hair as black as night, while the others were a warmer shade of auburn.

“How is she doing?” Candice asked Ian, raising her voice above the roar of the motor.

“She’s hanging in there.” He squeezed my arm lightly to reassure himself that I was still in fact with him.

“Good. I’d hate to think what it would do to public morale if we were to lose one of you. They seem particularly fascinated by her, like she walks on water or something.”

“She’s pretty special.”

Candice smiled. “We’re going to get as close to shore as we can get so that you can carry her without submerging her in water. What hotel did you say you came from again?”

“The Park View.”

“If we’re anchoring where I think we are, you may actually be a little closer to the hotel had you been if you’d returned with Brooks. When you get up on shore, you’ll walk about three blocks west and then South another four or five blocks or so. We actually stayed not too far from The Park View last night.”

“Really? How did you get to the park today?” Ian asked.

“Hitched a ride with some friends,” Candice answered, looking up at the three women who sat stone silent.

“What happened to your friends? Are they all right?” By the agonized expression on Candice’s face, I knew that Ian was probably regretting asking that question right now.

“Not…not exactly,” she answered him, making a motion to the three young women with her eyes. “Their dad,” she mouthed sadly.

“Oh, jeez…I’m sorry for your loss,” Ian addressed the women sincerely.

“If you’re really sorry,” the darker-haired sister spoke, her eyes tearing up, “then you’ll turn your attention to the true monster in this country and not stand beside him like some loyal dog.” One of the other sisters—the eldest, I believe—elbowed her sister slightly. “What? Maybe they need to hear it. All I’m saying is The Man in Black isn’t destroying this country half as much as Brooks is.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you lost someone you cared about to that man, like both my partner and I have,” Ian said. The sisters seemed surprised to hear that Ian and I actually had normal lives once, like they were expecting us to have been created in a lab with no real ties to the human race. “They’re both dangerous, let’s just agree on that, and as long as we’re still drawing breath, we’re going to do everything in our power to stop them…
both
of them.”

“That sounds like our philosophy,” Candice said.

I could feel myself drifting off as though I’d been awake for a week straight, and my eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. My head slid down from Ian’s shoulder, prompting him to grab my arm and shake me. “Celaine. Celaine,” he jostled me, but I was too weak to even acknowledge him. “How much longer to shore?” He was frantic now, with a desperation in his voice that made me wish I could gather together enough energy to show him that I was still with him, even if it was just for a moment.

“Probably about five more minutes,” Candice answered him. “We’re going further up the river.”

In reality, we’d only been on the boat for a couple of minutes. The river wasn’t that wide, but Brooks had just prolonged our trip to make his appearance more ominous, like his impending approach were a source of power, a way of keeping the attendees of the address under his thumb that much more. My eyes opened slightly, which allowed me to take in the shoreline. Night was fast approaching, making for poor visibility. What was even more eerie, though, was the utter lack—or seemingly so—of civilization. We were in the midst of one of the largest cities in the country, yet it seemed barren. Lights across the shoreline had been shut off, and businesses as far as my eyes could see were pitch black. Roadways had no sign of any vehicles moving in any direction. Something was happening, repercussions were being carried out. After today, our world would never be the same again.

As we approached shore, Harold turned off the boat’s navigation lights and killed the engine. “The water is probably waist deep here,” he said. “Let’s exit the boat and hope that the shore is as empty as it looks from here.”

I felt Ian lifting me up into his arms and move to the back of the boat, where he positioned himself by kneeling on the edge of it near the ladder. Slowly, he inched himself into the water. All the while, he held me close to his chest and out of the river while he made his way to shore as fast as he could. Behind us, barely visible in the darkness, Harold, Candice and the three women entered the water as quietly as possible. The only sound around us in the unbelievably still evening was that of the spring rain hitting the frigid river. Thankfully, the journey to shore wasn’t long.