Gone (10 page)

A pipe came swinging for his head, but he ducked under it, grabbing the pipe in one hand and the psycho's arm in the other. He twisted his attacker's arm right out of its socket and hurled him over his head, smacking his wiry frame against the wall.

Two more came at him with knives, but he threw his elbow deep into one of their stomachs—cracking his ribs—and then spun into a roundhouse kick that connected with the other's face, knocking him into two more Droogs as they collapsed in a confused heap.

And then he went on the attack. He twirled the pipe in his hand, distracting one of their feeble minds just before he jabbed it into the guy's gut. Then he grabbed one of the skinny bastards' necks and smashed his face straight into the wall.

But with each one that went down, two more seemed to pile on—louder and less daunted than the last. Their bloodstreams were coursing with Invince. They felt no pain, no fear. And there were so many….

Jake took another three of them down with a swift combination. He smashed the pipe against two of their faces and smacked two more faces with a highflying kick and a swift elbow. But he could feel reality creeping up on him. His one adrenalized moment was
passing and he knew it. He could feel the pain again, dismantling his hand—wrecking his coordination.

And then they all drove at him en masse—a swift, powerful blitz that flattened him up against the wall. They all began pummeling his body with kicks and bashes until they'd driven him back down to the ground.

There were too many of them. Too many to see. Too many to fight…

Their howls and chants echoed off the walls of the empty lot.

“God hates you, asshole! God hates you, asshole!”

Their voices started to meld into a hellish chorus of deafening noise. Jake could no longer see, and he could hardly hear. Lying there semiconscious, kicked in the head again and again, he could only make out the last few words….

“God says , goodbye….”

I've
been sitting in the same chair for about an hour, trying to figure out why I agreed to take Heather Gannis to her prom when I've barely even talked to the girl for months and months. I admit it's kind of an odd decision. After all, things didn't exactly end well between us. Or rather, I should say, our breakup was a total disaster. A ten-car pileup, soap-opera-from-hel1 kind of disaster. A disaster that left the odds of us ending up as prom dates somewhere in the “hell-freezing-over” category.

But then again, I've pretty much given up on the concept of odds and probability. Once you've died and come back to life, you kind of stop asking yourself questions like, “What are the odds?”

But maybe that's the point.

I mean, I went ahead and considered every possible reason I could think of for saying yes to Heather.

1. Maybe deep down, I felt I owed
her something after dumping her for Gaia in the worst possible way.

But I don't think it's that.

2. Maybe it's really just a subconscious excuse to see Gaia again, even though we've drifted almost completely apart. (I'd put the odds on her even going to her prom at about 50-50…. Oh. right. I don't do that anymore.)

But I don't really think it's that either.

I think maybe what it really comes down to is probability. Because Heather and I have both beaten the odds.

The thing that ultimately binds us is that we're both survivors. We went through the fire, and somehow we've come out on the other side.
Alive.
And I have to say, there's something extremely compelling about the idea of spending one truly normal evening with Heather Gannis again-just as a shining symbol to us both that we've made it back. We made it back to the real world-where an organic chemistry final
is
the
main thing to worry about, where true bravery can be an act as simple as calling up your old boyfriend whom you haven't spoken to forever and asking him to your senior prom.

And Heather wasn't just brave, she was… humble. There was just a certain sweetness that I hadn't heard in Heather's voice since… well … ever. Heather Gannis… humble and sweet. What were the odds?

I'm not blaming the pain Heather and I went through on Gaia. I mean, all the decisions in my life were my own. I take full responsibility. And you can't say that Gaia didn't warn me. She did. She warned me time and time again not to get too close to her life. And as much as I'll always care for the girl and as much as I would climb out of this chair right now and risk my life for her again, I must finally admit that she was right….

Getting close to Gaia Moore can be dangerous.

He slid his hand over her collarbone and grabbed the back of her neck, pulling her closer. bringing their lips too close, too fast.

THE REPORTS WERE FLOODING OLIVER'S earpiece faster than he could handle.

“Sir, there are at least twenty of them, maybe thirty,” the voice crackled in his ear.

“Sir, we need to move in
now,
sir!” another voice shouted, nearly blowing out the receiver.

Oliver's binoculars nearly fell from his hands at the sight of it. He had never seen such chaos in all his years as an agent. So many of them pouring out of the dark alley like demons. All of them as mad as savages, fixated on one mission and one mission only: to murder Jake Montone.

“
Move in!
” he hollered, dropping the binoculars to the floor of his car. “
Move!
”

He kicked open the car door and raced across the dark empty street, listening to the sound of his own heavy breaths as he searched for a sign of Jake amid the flailing bodies and brutal blows.

His army of gray-suited agents stormed the lot with their guns cocked and ready. They fired rounds of warning shots into the air, but that seemed to have no effect. These demons were so deranged that nothing seemed to faze them. No amount of gunshots or commands seemed to sway them from their singular mission. They just kept on giggling—howling and scratching at Jake's body like a pack of rabid dogs.

“Take them down!” Oliver ordered. “Go for the legs!”

His agents started firing into the ground, puncturing the savages' legs as blood splattered across the gray asphalt. Some of the boys finally began to fall.

Oliver grabbed onto one of their backs and jabbed his knee deep into his spine, throwing him aside. He grabbed another by the neck and hurled him over his back, sending his writhing body crashing against the brick wall. His agents followed suit, laying into the boys with swift, incapacitating blows—a kick to the windpipe, blinding punches to the face. There was so much blood building up in puddles on the ground. But Oliver's eyes stayed fixed on his target.

Jake. He had to plow through the pack and get to Jake.

After stabbing his elbow into the back of one of their necks and bashing one of their heads with the barrel of his gun, he finally saw Jake's body. Unmoving. Bruised and bleeding and limp.

But still conscious. Thank God, still conscious.

Oliver fired two bullets into one of their legs, sending him to the ground, and then he grabbed Jake's shoulders, dragging him from the fray and propping him up against the wall.

“Jake!” he shouted. “Jake, can you hear me?”

“Okay…,” Jake mumbled through his swollen lips. “I'm okay….”

Oliver's agents were finally managing to contain the savages. Many of them were strewn out across the blood-soaked pavement, dragging themselves along the ground with their hands—still laughing gleefully, uttering nonsensical ramblings.

“God says eat me.” They laughed. “God says goodbye….”

A few of them finally scurried off back down the alley in retreat. Their giggles were echoing off the enclosed walls, floating up high overhead.

But it was over. The carnage was over.

“That son of a
bitch,
” Oliver muttered, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the blood from Jake's face. “I
knew
it. I knew it was a trap, and I let you walk right into it. I should have known better.”

Oliver's entire crew had been staked out in positions all over the perimeter of the lot for this very reason: the likelihood of a possible ambush. But still… it had taken them too long. Oliver had gotten there too late. They should have been on the scene in less than five seconds, not thirty. Jake shouldn't have had a bruise on him. Oliver never should have even let Jake walk into this trap in the first place.

“I'm sorry,” Oliver breathed with a noxious combination of anger and guilt.

“Not your fault…,” Jake uttered, pushing his hands down on the ground to pick himself back up. “We didn't have a choice,” he grumbled, using all his effort
to rise. But he was still too weak. His first two attempts failed.

“Don't move” Oliver insisted. “Just be still, Jake. Be still.”

He checked Jake's body, trying to assess the severity of his cuts and bruises. And then he felt a sudden hitch in his heart. Some inexplicable swelling of emotion in his chest. For Jake. It was a feeling Oliver couldn't decipher. Some bizarre mix of failure and loss and responsibility. The deeper he searched his feelings, the more he could only liken it to certain feelings he'd had for Gaia.

Paternal feelings. That's what these were. He felt like a father trying to tend to his child's wounds—trying to overcome his guilt for somehow failing him, for not being there when he needed him the most. After all those arguments in the loft—all that insistence that Oliver was anything but Jake's father, there were apparently some very real feelings to the contrary.

But Oliver blocked them out. He regained his senses and shook off the foolish burst of emotion.

This is ridiculous,
he shouted at himself.
Jake is no son to you, he's just a pawn. That is all. He is nothing more than a necessary pawn in your quest to regain Gala's loyalty—to bring her back into the fold, alive and unharmed. Stop acting like such a fool.

“Sir, this is KS5 reporting, sir.” The voice of Oliver's operative piped in through the earpiece still buried in his ear. “We have a development on the perimeter.”

Oliver pressed his hand against his earpiece and spoke up. “Come back? I didn't catch that.”

“Repeat, we have a development on the perimeter of the scene, sir. WeVe got military presence. I repeat, we've got military presence on the scene. Two soldiers in fatigues, sir—I'd say PFCs. They are currently staked out in a military vehicle approximately twenty yards from the lot. Binoculars, sir—both of them are observing the scene.”

Oliver's brow furrowed with deep confusion.
Military?
What the hell was military doing there? What interest could they possibly have in this nightmare on Twelfth Street? He was going to find out, that was for goddamn sure.

“Monitor their actions,” he ordered. “Do you copy? We are contained down here. I want you observing those men. I want
everything.
I want visual surveillance, I want audio surveillance. Monitor every communication they make, everything. Do you copy?”

“Copy that sir,” his operative replied. “Surveillance is under way.”

“What's going on?” Jake croaked, staring at Oliver's confused expression.

“I don't know yet,” he said, trying to think it through. “But I'm going to find out. Can you stand?”

“Yeah.” Jake's breathing was still labored.

“You're sure?”

“Yes” he insisted. Jake clenched his teeth, fighting
off the pain, and he climbed back to his feet slowly, stumbling to stay upright. Oliver threw Jake's arm around his shoulders and began walking him back gingerly toward the car.

“I'm sorry,” Jake said, pushing Oliver away and forcing himself to walk unassisted.

“For what? I never should have let you walk into that trap.”

“I could have
taken
those assholes,” Jake said. He stumbled again and Oliver quickly propped him back up, keeping his arm wrapped around his shoulders. “If I'd known what was coming, I could have taken every one of them.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Oliver said. “There were too many of them. You did everything you could. You impressed the hell out of me.”

“I did?” Jake turned to him.

“You did,” Oliver said. “You reminded me of someone,” he uttered under his breath. He hadn't meant to say it out loud.

“Who?”

“What?”

“Who did I remind you of?”

“Forget it,” Oliver said. “He was a Green Beret. A fighter. Brilliant with hand-to-hand combat. You reminded me of him.”

“But who was he?”

“Never
mind
that,” Oliver snapped, carefully helping
Jake into his car. Oliver didn't want to think about that man. It was the last thing he wanted to think about right now—the pathetic sob story of a young fool named Oliver Moore—who had never had a child of his own. And never would.

“Our only focus is Chris Rodke,” Oliver said coldly. “He's all we need to talk about right now—he's all we need to think about. And when I get my hands on that little bastard and I get all the information I need… I will not be held accountable for the actions that follow.”

memo

From:
KS5

To:
L

Monitored all aspects of military presence as ordered. Witnessed the following:

The soldiers completed their observation of the incident and then placed a call to a “General Colter.” Below is the soldier's cell phone conversation (recorded and noted):

Soldier: General Colter? Yes, sir. We have witnessed the incident, sir. There were injuries, no casualties. But it was an ugly scene, General. There was a rescue of the victim by an unidentified party, but the evidence is sufficient. The Rodke boy was not lying to you, sir. This drug is bad news. Extremely ugly, sir. They were like animals on the stuff. Deranged. Subhuman, I would say, sir. They would have decimated their victim, and then I think they would have decimated each other. I'm a Christian man, and this was some unholy stuff, sir. [Pause] Yes, sir. Reporting back to base now.