Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (37 page)

Among a pile of moving limbs and loud moans, Sean saw the reddened sight of the doctor’s
handgun he’d dropped. Sean grabbed the weapon, then went for the flashlight. Once
it was in his hands, it felt like a Ruger 9mm. He swung it toward the men just in
time to see the doctor stumbling out the door with his arm favoring the back of his
neck. Sean squeezed the trigger of the gun, but all the bullets caught were the door
quickly swinging shut from the wind.

Sean quickly climbed to his feet. He was about to take off in pursuit of the doctor
when the beam of his flashlight exposed a pool of blood swiftly spreading across
the floor. Sean found Adam. He was alive at the moment, but his face was already
turning pale as his wide, scared eyes scoured the ceiling.

Sean fell to his knees, setting the gun on the floor as he held the flashlight between
his legs. He unzipped Adam’s jacket and peeled it from his body. His shirt was saturated
with blood. A fountain of it poured up through a hole in his chest. Sean placed his
hand over the wound, trying to control its flow with hard pressure. He knew it wouldn’t
do much good.

The loudening buzz of the snowmobile engine cut through the wind. The doctor was
escaping. Blood streamed from between Sean’s fingers as Adam breathed his last, shallow
breaths. Sean lifted Adam’s head with the cup of his hand. In Adam’s eyes, Sean saw
defeat.

“It’s okay,” he said out of instinct, hoping his words brought a little bit of peace
to the man who had gone to such great lengths to save the life of his precious little
niece.

Sean didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what else a man could possibly
want to hear on his way out, even though he’d imagined a thousand times what last
words he might have uttered to his uncle had he been there with him the day he was
killed.

In the end, it seemed to make sense that just not being alone would likely be the
final wish of a man about to leave this world. So Sean held Adam’s hand, even as
the snowmobile sped off into the night. He nodded at the man who lay on the floor,
hoping that the realization that he’d see his niece again soon, healthy and in a
better place, might be of some last possible comfort to him.

Chapter 33

I
crawl out into the hallway, dragging my weak legs behind me as my tears fall to
the floor. I can’t take it anymore. All the blood. The shouting. God, please let
them save Andy.

I love Andy. He’s so kind to me. He’s like a daddy. Just before I fell asleep in
his arms as he read me that story of the fish that wouldn’t stop growing, I heard
him whisper that he loved me, too. Please, God. Keep him alive to read to me again
someday. He can’t die.

I can’t breathe well without my oxygen, but I hate wearing the mask. It makes me
feel like a kitten wound up with a ball of yarn. It also makes me feel closer to
the end of the journey, the one that will put me in God’s arms.

The farther down the hallway I crawl, the less I can hear them. There’s my
Barbie
nightlight plugged into the wall. Barbie’s smile is always so warm and fresh. Mommy
calls her an
optimist
because she doesn’t have a single care in the world. I wish
I could be like her.

Uncle Adam’s office door is open. He must have left it open when he ran outside after
the big man who swore so many times, the first one who had held the gun in his hands.
Uncle Adam was in a big hurry. He didn’t even say goodbye to me.

I’m not supposed to go into his office, not without knocking first. But since the
door’s open, and he isn’t here, it’s probably okay. I slide along the floor until
I’m through the doorway. I see the coffee mug I gave Uncle Adam is broken on the
floor. I’m sad that it’s broken. I pull the wet pieces of the mug together and look
at them closely. I
can fix it. I know I can. I’ll use glue. Maybe Uncle Adam and
I can do it together. A project. A fun project.

When I look up, I see that all of the little television sets are turned on. I smile.
They’ve always been shut off when I’ve been in here before. Uncle Adam never wants
me to know what he’s watching on them, for some reason.

I look at the different screens, and my grin goes away. These shows are boring. Blowing
snow. No sound. There’s something happening in one of the pictures, though; it’s
on the TV that’s farther away than the others. I climb up on my uncle’s desk chair
to take a closer look. It’s hard. My arms are weak, but they work better than my
legs. It’s so hard to breathe now. Maybe I should have my oxygen after all.

I push aside a glass jar of white liquid that’s sitting on the desk. It’s in my way.
A sticky note is underneath it. I like sticky notes. I like the way they wrap around
my fingers when I play with them.

I stick the note on my pointer finger and look at the television again. On the screen
is a man sitting up in his bed, looking around the room he’s in. I’ve never seen
the actor or the show before. He seems angry and confused. He pulls some tubes from
his arms and chest. He must not like tubes around his body, either. He’s acting like
they are tying him down, like an angry puppet who doesn’t like his strings. The man
suddenly slides off the side of the bed and crashes down to the floor.

I smile. I always think it’s funny when people fall down.

Now the man is crawling to his feet and pulling himself up on his bed. He looks weak
and wobbly. I wonder if he has amyloidosis, too. He’s wearing the same kind of gown
that I wear when I’m in the hospital.

I play some more with the sticky note and notice that there’s some writing on it.
My lips move as I try to read it.

Hook up propofol before 10:30 or he’ll wake up!

Chapter 34

A
lex Martinez screamed and snarled in lunacy, repeatedly tucking his knees to his
chest and then launching both feet into the car door that faced the forest. With
the front of his shirt sopping wet from the slobber that poured from his mouth, he
dropped to his back and dealt out the same punishment to the door’s window. As hard
as he connected with each blow, the glass would neither break nor even grant him
the sympathy of a crack.

He needed to see what Lumbergh was doing. It consumed him to his very core. He needed
to watch the chief kill those people who’d gone after his family. It’s what his mother
demanded from the grave.

He let out a piercing howl when he heard something crack in his ankle and felt crippling
pain jet up his calf. What started out as desperate crying transformed slowly into
hideous laughter as he succumbed to the binds that kept him trapped in his cage.

“Lumbergh!” he wailed with all of his might. His body arched like a bridge with his
pelvis pointed toward the ceiling.

When he collapsed back to the upholstery, he lay there for a moment, sniveling and
mumbling to himself. He choked a little on his own phlegm as his warm breath lingered
in the air. He soon found himself glaring at the dome light that hovered above him.
Though it wasn’t on, it seemed to cast a peculiar radiance.

Martinez tilted his head, examining the glow and wondering what it was trying to
tell him. Lights spoke to him every so often. Sometimes they were a beacon of hope
and comfort when he felt
lost and afraid. Sometimes they scorned him, mocking him
for his weaknesses and torturing him for his incompetence.

This light was something different. Its luminosity was inviting and forgiving. It
was calling on him to do something. It was a red light—a dancing red light that became
more pronounced as the seconds ticked by. Its glow widened beyond the plastic cover
and began spreading its way along the entire ceiling of the car.

Martinez lifted up his head and twisted his neck, and saw that the light had somehow
moved outside of the window. It lit up the falling snow, making the flakes look like
hot, glowing lava dropping to the earth from the mouth of a volcano.

A wide grin spread across Martinez’s face. “You’re beautiful,” he breathlessly told
the light. It was drawing him to it.

He spun on his butt and faced the opposite door. Like the other, he had tried several
times to force it open to no avail. But it looked different now—flared up in the
almost neon blanket cast by the red light. The light was begging him to try the door
just once more. He was sure of it.

He cocked his uninjured leg and heaved it into the center of the door. When it connected,
the sound of a loud snap and the clatter of metal pieces dropping to the bottom of
the door panel bought new life to Martinez’s eyes. He kicked the door again and it
flew open, helped by the strong wind that then held it wide.

The entire area outside was aglow in red, fluctuating with passion while the wind
reached inside the car and pulled at him. Unbounded exuberance bubbled up from his
legs to his neck and he lunged for the door. With his arms still bound behind his
back by cuffs, he scrambled to get outside. When he did, he understood that the light
wanted him to follow Lumbergh and bask in the fury of his vengeance.

He bolted across the road, limping as he did. “I’m coming!”

A half a second later, nearly two tons of metal moving over thirty miles per hour
smashed into his body. He felt his spine snap before
he was pulled to the frozen
ground and dragged underneath the monster he had not seen. Through the immeasurable
pain of crushed limbs and flattened organs, he heard the monster’s victorious roar,
and then heard nothing else.

Chapter 35

B
ooth snarled as he crashed down to the cold cement floor for the third time. It
was as if the large man couldn’t remember how to walk, and the small room he knelt
in seemed to taunt him over the deadness he felt in his limbs as its spinning walls
and bright lights whirled. His hands went to his face and he felt a straggly beard
he didn’t remember growing.

Where was he? What had happened to him? He was wearing a hospital gown but he was
definitely not in a hospital.

He tried again. On shaky legs, he stood and straightened his back. He took another
couple of steps before he felt his bare right foot drag. He grabbed onto something
with his hand to maintain his balance, realizing that it was the handle of a refrigerator.
When its door swung open from his weight, he nearly went down again. A second later,
he found himself glaring at several rows of clear containers that sat inside. Each
was filled nearly to the top with a rust-colored fluid.

“Those motherfuckers,” he muttered. His nostrils flared and his dark eyes burned
a hole through the wooden door he spotted at the far wall.

A stiff shot with his shoulder splintered the door’s frame and he crashed through.
Falling to the white, frozen ground, what felt like an arctic windblast quickly tore
his gown from his body, leaving him naked and prone to the brutal elements. Yet,
the rage that scorched its way through his soul kept him warm.

When he pulled himself back to his feet, his eyes narrow and
tearing from the wind,
he saw a white van parked just yards away, outside of a large building. He hobbled
his way toward the van, cursing and growling until he reached the passenger side
door. He yanked it open and pulled himself inside. There weren’t any keys in the
ignition, and his visible breath filled up the cab and steamed up the windshield
as he searched for them. When he popped open the glove box, he found what looked
to be a handheld taser. He snatched it out and pushed its button. A wicked blast
of bright blue light lit up the interior of the van. He’d found himself a weapon.

The people that had done this to him were somewhere inside the large building. He
couldn’t leave without settling that score. They had to pay. But just as he opened
the van door, a small, intense light in the distance near the corner of the building
pierced its way through the night. He closed the door.

The light sped closer for a few more seconds before it went dark. It had to belong
to a vehicle. Perhaps a snowmobile. Seconds later, the figure of a bundled up man
emerged, running toward the van.

Booth grinned and clumsily climbed over the seat and into the back of vehicle. He
hunched down behind the driver’s seat, waiting like a stalking predator.

The van door swung open and the bundled up man slid into the driver’s seat. He quickly
reached across the cab for the glove box, his body freezing at the sight of it already
hanging open with the taser gone.

“What the blooming hell?” he said with a thick accent.

When he spun his head to look behind him, Booth lunged forward and drove the taser
into the temple of his head, lighting up his face with its blast. The man’s body
convulsed violently. The frozen, horrified expression on his face made him look as
if he wanted to scream, but couldn’t. All the man could do was listen helplessly
to the haunting words that suddenly poured out from behind him.

“Your blood won’t save lives like mine, shitberg. But I’m going to have fun taking
it anyway.”

Booth kept the juice turned on until the man looked to be on the verge of passing
out. When he finally let up, the man’s limp, weakened body fell forward. Booth dropped
the taser and latched onto the man’s head with his bulky hands. He screamed with
effort as he slammed it repeatedly into the van’s steel dashboard. Warm blood oozed
down through Booth’s fingers, widening the sadistic grin that stretched across his
face as he continued the man’s torment.

With insane glee, Booth shoved him into the dashboard with such malevolent force
that the knobs and levers quickly whittled away, along with the doctor’s face.

Chapter 36

L
umbergh stood bent over at the waist. He was holding both of Carson’s legs at a
sharp angle to try and drive more blood back toward his brain, while Jessica placed
her ear near Carson’s mouth to listen to his breathing and check his pulse again.
Carson had stopped seizing.