Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Dammit man, I told you if you are patient I will give you Roxanne Sanchez on a silver platter. Listen to me man—no shut up. I told you that she isn’t going anywhere. That voice in her head might tell her to run but right now she’s wrapped up in a matter of the heart which gives her a screwed up sense of purpose. She ain’t leaving the Atlanta city limits any time soon.

  -Two unidentified parties speaking on an unsecured cellphone on April 11

  Thomas

  Downtown (Street level), 26th Day

  He questioned any man who could sleep through the remainder of the night the way that he had done so.

  Lucy was still dead. She was very much so. He’d returned to her hotel room just as quickly as he’d abandoned it and found it on the bed where he’d left it. Her body had begun to rid itself of its body fluids. With all of the dead bodies on this floor between here and the elevator a horde of flies had flown in and were buzzing about. Thomas Pepper was thankful that he had wrapped the majority of Lucy’s corpse securely before he’d left. It is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. He sat on the bed for a second and noted that the air right here didn’t smell any better either. The scent of blood and torn flesh and marrow pushed away the scent of anything else.

  Thomas took the time to shroud Lucy’s remains with the sheet and blanket from the bed to protect her from the pest. Satisfied, he got to his feet, stretching out the soreness from all of last night’s tribulations of combat, running and sleeping on the couch in the next room. Instinct kicked in next: He pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket and exhaled in jubilation when he noticed that he had service once more. Internet access was limited, but he shrugged it off, not upset with the lack of access of that particular luxury at this moment. He didn’t need to see what was going on outside of this room to take a wild educated guess. In his mind’s eye Thomas could picture hundreds upon hundreds of first responders pouring into the city. Atlanta had suffered through a series of events in a short span of time that this country had never seen before even during wartime: Every event from 411, Deliverance, Rapture to Scar and a moderately severe earthquake had hit this area—

  Thomas walked to the bedroom window and saw a series of trees bending in the wake of a strong and prevalent wind gust.

  Meteorologists were calling it the Storm of the Century.

  If I believed in God then that means I believe in Satan—and that would mean that I believed that the latter was farting on us when we are already hurting the most.

  He turned away from the window and found his way back to the bed without realizing that he had moved at all. He shooed a dozen flies away. He looked at the temporary coffin that he’d made for his former lover. He did not cry. There were no tears left to spare. Perhaps he’d grown dispassionate to this world while he slept. Perhaps all the fleeing he’d done from threat after threat and unseen danger to immediate harm over the past night—over the past weeks had robbed him of emotion.

  It had already robbed him of so very much.

  He used the remote and switched on the TV. Two CNN reporters that he’d seen around and about over the years were on the screen in a live shot street level in an area he couldn’t immediately place. They looked fatigued themselves, though experience told him they’d probably been on the air a less than a couple of hours. He recognized the somber look that was weighing their eyelids down. People outside of his business were quick to criticize the media for over dramatization of high profile events. They blamed the media itself for making themselves part of the very stories that they actually covered. He knew these professionals. And Thomas Pepper could more than appreciate the inhumanity that they’d seen overnight. They had every right to be spooked.

  The first shot their director showed the viewing audience was a panoramic view of different parts of the city. Atlanta looked like a warzone. What was particularly effective—what one professional could appreciate coming from another in his field—was the network’s use of file tape of what these neighborhoods and sectors and streets looked like in the days before the Zero Hour and all the subsequent events including the earthquake occurred. Thomas saw several buildings leveled. And yet, what was particularly disturbing is that he could quickly know that it was a House in Chains’ suicide bombers that had done the damage and not mother-nature. Atlanta residents…young and old, rich and poor, black and white, innocent and guilty who had entered churches, schools, gymnasiums and other places of supposed shelter and died a horrid death.

  Another camera crew had focused a street side shot on the near south side. One reporter walked down a long alley where she scooped up one empty shell casing after the other after the other after the other and put them up screen level so that Thomas and everyone else could see all of them.

  And then Thomas Pepper saw something he would not soon forget.

  A female reporter saw something just out of camera range that caught her attention. The camera angle switched to the number 3 which was just above her left shoulder. Thomas knew this was one of a director’s favorites as to allow the viewing audience to see what the journalist did almost simultaneously. It was a more than effective tool to give viewers the most intimate viewing experience that technology and human instinct could provide.

  So Thomas Pepper and everyone else across the country saw what the reporter saw that had drawn her attention almost the same moment she did.

  There was one arm hanging out of a dumpster. A stranger helped the reporter lift the heavy lid and all of the viewers saw the connecting body and nearly a dozen more dead people twisted in every direction in that dumpster as well.

  The cameraman turned his camera away but not before the audio technician picked up the unmistakable sound of the reporter cursing and throwing up in the streets.

  The feed switched to a BREAKING NEWS shot and it proved to Thomas Pepper without any doubt that things could and had gotten considerably worse. Fire seemed to be engulfing the Westside of the city off of I20. Thomas’ first guess was that this was the result of the lethal combination of a fire from a suicide bombing and these wicked winds thrusting the flames into the heavy wooded areas out there.

  And then he heard these same strong winds shaking this foundation at the core.

  And then he smelled a burning sensation that was nearly overwhelming.

  Although ignoring it was nearly impossibly, Thomas concentrated on what was being shown on the TV now. CNN had switched to some of the telecast from of its sister stations all across the country. He saw hundreds of dead bodies lying on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Triage centers were being overrun and overwhelmed in Harlem and Miami. Displaced refugees from all around the Beltway were camped out outside the gates of the White House in Washington, D.C. Reports of casualties, looting and suicide bombing during the night was being filtering in from Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Houston and countless others. The still photography shots were pouring in from all. The professional shots were telling; the amateur pictures mostly taken on cell phones were far worse: Men of color had been lynched and hung naked from trees in Montgomery. Four white school teachers had been raped and killed by the very students they thought they were protecting in a school house in St Louis. White Supremacist had torched a Mexican restaurant with the owner, every worker and several dozen patrons who had barricaded themselves inside in Glendale. And then he saw the frightening image of residents in Detroit waking up hundreds of yet to be unidentified naked white men and women hung to wooden X’s with their throats cut.

  Thomas Pepper didn’t remember going to his knees and throwing up but there he was. He stabilized his weight as best as he could be squeezing Lucy Burgess foot. She didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t look up…he didn’t need to… he heard could hear the last report as CNN had returned to a local feed once again.

  The APD—or what was left of the civil servants who had begun calling themselves Protect and Serve—were confirming the rumored reports that the FBI had discovered the remains of t
he Circle, the Board, high level Peacekeepers and several civilians inside the dining room of a mansion here in Atlanta.

  The cornier was verifying what Protect and Serve already knew—the highest remnants of a House in Chains had committed a mass suicide.

  Thomas sprinted out of the hotel room leaving the door opened, the TV playing and Lucy’s still dead body behind.

  He finally halted his progress when he reached street level for the second time in many days to catch his breath. He slid as silently as a man of his bulk could manage along the hotel’s wall. There were tears clouding his vision. He swiped at them angrily. Once he was able to focus on what was in front of him he could see one of downtown’s tallest buildings glaring back at him from behind the haze of smoke.

  And then he had a thought…or I being cursed with one of your visions, Serena.

  If she were still alive could she would be headquartered in a building just like that one so she could look down and see her handy work. People were suffering because of her. He had suffered because of her.

  Someone should make her suffer for her major role in this nationwide catastrophe.

  He tried to shake off this uncomfortable—this unwanted sensation that had washed over him the way a thunderstorm rolls in over a city after a hot summer day. And it is like a heat. He’d never felt of burning of hate at the core of his being like he had at that moment. He couldn’t explain it.

  Thomas did know that he was hungry. He needed food. He looked south. And thankfully he saw almost immediately what he needed and thankfully it wasn’t far away. A man and his wife of Middle Eastern descent were handing out soup bowls on a nearby corner. Yes, yes he could smell the food despite the heavy brushfire aromas that nearly drowned out every other smell in the world right now.

  The man did not speak English but the warmth in his eyes and the smile on his lips moved mountains—and the line forming on that corner just as importantly. Thomas flashed his own smile when it was his turn to be served. He cooled it enough and spooned it back and forth into his waiting mouth until the delicious meal was gone. He turned to leave…not quite sure where he would go…but spied a crowd of people gathering in front of a nearby restaurant. I don’t want any more trouble. Do you people understand that I don’t need anymore—?

  But to his relief, Thomas noticed that this crowd was far from unruly. They were, in fact, surprisingly pleasant as they used the particular landmark to start the line and patiently wait for their turn at breakfast.

  Thomas made his way behind where the serving couple was standing, rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and arms—and began to help them serve those who had come in hunger as he had.

  After a few minutes the familiar stench of something fresh burning struck Thomas.

  He could see the flames forming over one of the building’s roof tops from the direction that he’d run from when he first attempted to reach Lucy Burgess and find her alive.

  He ran towards the flames.

  When he cleared the building that was obstructing his view Thomas saw it. And it broke his heart and his spirit all over again.

  The church that had housed him when his life was in the most peril along his trip to Lucy’s hotel room was consumed with flame.

  Once again his mind and his body seemed to be on different planes of existence. He didn’t remember someone tackling him along his way to the church’s entrance. It had to be someone of considerable size and strength considering his own size and weight. When he finally tore his eyes away from the burning church to finally see his assailant—first in anger then curiosity…and finally in curiosity, his body went limp. He was looking into the dark face of the minister who had welcomed him into his church where his congregation would have gladly shunned him otherwise. The older man had tears in his own eyes but he did not loosen his grip on Thomas.

  Thomas relaxed himself enough to hold the minister close to his own bosom…and soon found himself crying with the man.

  After he had gathered himself enough, Thomas asked the man all of the obvious questions: Who would try and burn his church down? Did they use gasoline or some other form of ignition? Most importantly—was he able to get all of who had come to the church as a source of refuge out in time?

  The bald headed minister nodded. Thomas Pepper hoped that the gesture was in response to his last inquiry—

  And then both men reacted as they heard a nearby explosion.

  Before either of them could fully react or even begin to comment Thomas heard two more nearby blast and turned just in time to see a fourth detonation with his own eyes. Some people hit the ground while others covered their heads not knowing when or where the next pipe bomb would ignite next. Thomas grabbed for his ears as the latest one did its thing to close by for comfort.

  A stiff wind caught the flames and pushed them all around until fire engulfed entire street corners in a heartbeat.

  It was Serena’s Whirlwind. Thomas bit his knuckle hard enough to hurt. The pipe bombs are hers, nothing else makes any sense.

  Thomas peered in the distance at the five star hotels that served as one of Atlanta’s tallest buildings.

  And then he looked down at his ringing cell phone.

  “If you are alive, if you get this message in time, see me. You should know where to find me.”

  The text message was from Serena Tennyson.

  He thought as long and as hard as conditions allowed him to. Thomas had entrusted years’ worth of Oracle’s personal profile to memory and all of that work, all of that study was paying off this morning. Again, if and when Serena had unleashed her long prophesied version of a Whirlwind—Pandora’s final act of contempt against this city—she’d want to witness the Dragon’s feast from the most panoramic view possible.

  That high rise hotel, Thomas mused. She has to be there.

  Thomas’ first inkling was to try and reach local authorities…but after his third attempt at dialing them he realized that the lines had gone down again. Either the servers were being been overloaded with calls about these new rounds of explosions or the placement of the bombs themselves targeted city services.

  He handed the minister who had befriended him one of his cards and promised to return when he could. And then he ran as fast as his large frame would carry him towards where he could only guess Serena was.

  And somewhere along his long run, his allegro, Thomas decided that he would do something that he dreaded far more than watching his father slowly dying from his disease when the son was just a young man.

  And between heavy breaths of exhaustion and smoke poisoning his lungs, Thomas decided that he would do something that he dreaded far worse than the memories of his mother abandoning him and his sisters just before his father died.

  And after he was bent over and gagging from exhaustion at the footstep of Serena’s supposed hotel, Thomas had decided that he would do something that he had dreaded far worse than when he held his press conference and told the world his findings about Pandora and the probable fate of Atlanta’s missing children knowing that it would serve as the ignition of this literal firestorm his adapted home city that he loved so much was facing right now.

  If Serena Tennyson was in this building—

  If he could reach her…

  Instinct once again instructed him to look down at his cell phone.

  “I can see you. I am in room 1202 if you would like to see me for the last time as well.”

  Serena Tennyson was in this building.

  He could reach her.

  Thomas Pepper had decided that he would do the one thing that he most dreaded in the world:

  He would find Serena and kill the only woman that he’d ever loved.

  Angel

  Georgia Dome (Triage Center), 26th Day

  Christopher had told Angel that her husband Seth was here, somewhere, in this gigantic makeshift triage center that the Georgia Dome was serving as.

  Seth is alive. He has been here in Atlanta all along.

 
Angel’s entourage followed within a few steps of her in every turn. Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan, who was now serving as the interim head of the FBI, had assigned one female agent and two more male agents to her since they’d left Stone Mountain and Hugh Keaton’s dead remains behind. Christopher told her that she’d better move quickly. Fulton, Cobb and most of the surrounding counties here in Northern Georgia were being placed under Martial Law indefinitely. The President of the United States was due to meet the governor of the state Georgia and the city’s mayor here within the next 24 hours.

  Overall, the earthquake’s impact on casualties in the regional had been held to a minimum. Still, the extensive damage to property and infrastructure made an already hard job of transporting medical personnel and supplies into Metro Atlanta all the more difficult. Officials were far more concerned with the breakout of fires consuming entire blocks of the city from hundreds of unexplained explosions along the perimeter of the city limits.

  As for her new found bodyguards, Sheridan told her they were here in part for her protection from retaliation from Serena Tennyson and her Pandora agents for her involvement in the safe recovery of Atlanta’s missing children.

  Those children returning to their homes and their parents are the lone reason that I’m not presently placing you under arrest, Doctor. Sheridan whispered in her ear on the way here.

  Angel doubted it—that Serena had the time or the resources to spend on finding her. Pettiness wasn’t Oracle’s way. And yet these bombs and fires are. Angel hugged herself, suddenly cold. Had she finally filled her long awaited prophecy and unleashed the Whirlwind on the city. Everything that woman had done was manipulated or calculated to serve some preordained goal or goals no matter how randomized it seemed.

  So Angel had thanked Sheridan kindly for his gestures but warned him at the same time that he, Christopher and any FBI forces available to them had better exhaust any remaining resources to find Serena before she fulfilled these goals.

  She politely asked a staff member about the whereabouts of her husband. The woman shook her head no; she’d never worked with a Dr. Seth Dupree. A second staff member, a stout man, hastily excused himself saying he had no time for this right now. Both looked as if they’d worked for hours on end without relief.

  Victims of the previous nights’ events were still being wheeled into the facility at an alarming rate. Whether they were all local or regional Angel could not readily ascertain. All she did know is that she was at least partially responsible for this mess. And Sheridan has every right to want me under heavy surveillance.

  The Georgia Dome floor was a bustle of activity. Doctors and nurses ran here and about. Angel’s personal detail struggled to match her pace even with her damned limp growing more and more pronounced as she tired. She thought it might even be fun to try and ditch them, but chose not to—at least for now.

  She finally garnered a young woman’s attention who was taking a smoke break in an unauthorized area. One of her escorts flashed his badge at the woman. And Angel vowed not to take no for an answer regardless to the consequences of such a stand.

  The woman exhaled smoke through her nose while nodding yes, she knew Dr. Dupree and informed Angel that the surgeon himself had become one of the dome’s patents after passing out and suffering a concussion. She used her cigarette to point Angel in the general direction where he would be recovering and Angel began to limp on with her security detail still in tow right behind her.

  As she neared the next door Angel actually started running.

  The doctor stopped only when she’d reached the section that housed 20 beds nearly side by die in what the duty nurse termed non-life threating injury status. Angel heard her threesome halting their progress behind her. One of the men was cursing beneath his breath; the female agent got close and reminded the doctor that they were here for her protection. How in the hell could they do their jobs effectively if…

  Angel ignored the federal agent. She was doing her usual job of pissing off the FBI and doing it well. She scanned the room and the sick people in those beds as best as she could. Angle didn’t see her husband in one of them—at least at first glance. She took a long second look and wasn’t having any better luck.

  What if that nurse had been in error?

  What if Seth were on another floor in this facility alone, or hurt, or even dead?

  Angel wanted to apologize to him for the way she talked to him before she embarked on this adventure here in Atlanta with the FBI. She figured that he’d come here because of her, he had come to Atlanta to be close to her.

  She wanted to tell him that she loved him for it.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late for her to be a better wife, a better woman.

  Maybe she was saving the best of her for last.

  Maybe she could come home again.

  “Seth…”

  She saw him lying in the fifth bed to the left and wondered how she missed seeing him before. She felt tears dropping down wetting her cheeks with his recognition. She’d cried more in the past 24 hours than the last 24 years of her life, but that was okay. It proved that she was human after all.

  And if her husband was following a script, Dr. Seth Dupree opened his gray eyes when he heard her crying. She could see him twisting his head around to locate where in the hell he was.

  “Angel,”

  She got to her husband’s side as quickly as the obstacles of the other beds and the working medical personnel allowed her to. She reached over and hugged him gently at first…but it was Seth how squeezed her tightly with all of the love and expectation of a man who thought that he’d lost someone that he loved dearly.

  But she knew that it was even more than that.

  Angel knew that her husband Seth never had seen her cry before.

  “My sweet Angel, I never thought that I would see you again. There were so many times that I thought that you’d…so many times that I wondered if you had…

  He didn’t finish his thought. Instead he pulled her close to him and they shared a long passionate kiss.

  “Are you hurt, Angel?” Seth looked her over, forever the doctor. “Did they hurt you? Did she hurt you?”

  Angel wondered if Seth meant the FBI or Pandora when he asked his first question. The second question caused her to arch a brow. He must have been talking about the female agent that Sheridan had assigned to her side right now. There was no possible way that he knew about her issues with Roxanne Sanchez. Anyhow, there was plenty of time to satisfy their curiosity over the others activities since their last meeting later.

  “I’m fine, sweetheart.” She brushed the gray in his hair and felt the knot there from his fall. “Trust me, Seth, I’m fine. How are you?”

  “I’m good, really. How did you find me?”

  “Christopher,” She smiled and pointed at the FBI Agents with her. “He told me that he saw you here earlier.”

  Seth looked as if he was searching his memory banks and they were beginning to overflow with recollections that he’d experienced over the past hours.

  And then the dark shadow of trepidation looked to consume the Gray Man…but the moment passed as quickly as it came.

  My God, Seth, Angel kissed his fingers. My God what have you seen?

  “I blacked out.” He said as quickly as he could manage. “I can remember that much. One of the attending physicians recommended that I rest.”

  Seth laughed and Angel joined him.

  Well, maybe you’ll take the doctor’s advice this time” Angel said as she felt more tears fell. She ran her fingers along his hairy cheeks and jaw. He had purple bruises there. There were bruises over his left eye and on the side of his neck and head. One mere fall hadn’t caused all of this. What have you been through? Who hurt you? Had any of this have to do with his search for her over the past days? The mere thought of the potential truth caused her to ache inside even more.

  “I don’t know how to apologize to you enough, Seth. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry enough
for the things that I said to you the last time we quarreled.”

  Seth shook his head.

  “Just know that I love you, Angel.” He said. “That fact has only grown stronger since the last time I saw you.”

  “I know.”

  Another memory stirred him enough to cause him to sit up. He glanced over her shoulder and saw the FBI Agents and intentionally lowered his tone.

  “New friends of yours,”

  “More like old ones reincarnated,” Angel matched his tone. “It’s a long story.”

  He nodded, said, “My last patient was your friend Christopher Prince’s partner, one of them, Agent Tabitha Blue. Do you think your friends could inquire about an update of one of their own?”

  “No change,” Angel confirmed with the female agent after she’d returned ten minutes later. Seth bit back a smile. Her husband was one of the finest surgeons in this region and even working while nearly exhausted she knew he was more than competent in his duties. “The doctor who assisted you during the procedure complimented you on a wondrous job. Christopher talked with the man personally. He said that you more than save Agent Blue’s life, your work guaranteed her a full recovery. That fact was up in the air for much of the procedure.”

  Seth’s look turned sour as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

  “I hope that I haven’t delayed the inevitable.”

  Angel hugged his head again.

  “You did your very best, Doctor. That is all that any patient could ask of her physician.”

  He nodded in acknowledgement of the reminder of what they both knew well. And yet his frown returned. Seth was sniffing the room’s air.

  “What’s with the burning smell?” He asked. “I know it’s been a faint cloud hanging over the city from the brushfires since I arrived but it’s stronger than ever now. Did something rupture during the quake that caused a new round of fires or something?”

  Angel only looked over to where a wall blocked any and all views of the city from the belly of the Georgia Dome. You’ve done it haven’t you, Serena. Goddamn you woman, you’ve gone and done it.

  “The city is burning.” Angel told her husband.

  “What,” Seth’s gray eyebrows rose as his voice had and betrayed the depths of yet another bruise on his chest that Angel failed to see before. “What in the hell do you mean that the city’s burning?’

  Angel stood fully erect and held Seth’s hand using his strength to balance her weight against her own mounting fatigue.

  “Only a nuclear blast could truly level a city of this size, Seth,” She said. “But for all intents and purposes the city’s burning. I’ve heard the mention of hundreds of pipe bombs being detonated around the city’s perimeter. We’ve also experienced wind gust equivalent of a category 2 hurricane over the past 4 to 6 hours. When you combine that lethal amount of explosives and the raw power of mother-nature you get…you get a Whirlwind effect.”

  “Could it have been more suicide bombers?”

  Angel fixed her husband with a hard stare that the female officer standing behind her shared with her. Seth’s last words felt more like a statement than a question. And he sounded as if he’d experienced the devastation of Scar not through television or internet but on a far more personal level.

  Once again Angel Hicks Dupree wondered what terrors her husband had been exposed to since he’d arrived in Atlanta.

  “No, she told him. “I believe that this—all of this is about Serena Tennyson and the vast belief she wields for her Dragon and her flames.”

  “Oh my God in Heaven,” Was all that Seth could manage to say.

  Seth attempted to lift himself out of his bed and stand up. Angel didn’t fight him. She helped her husband to his feet. The open areas of his gown exposed more blemishes, scars and bruises on his lower back, thighs and calves. From a mere physical sense, he looked as if he’d suffered far worse in this ordeal than even she had. She knew of her husband’s past traumatic episodes involving the boast accident and the loss of life as he reached early adulthood. She knew that he was strong but where her husband was at from a mental standpoint she could only guess without a thorough examination. She was as professional with her medical practice as Seth was at his—and professionals didn’t guess about such a prognosis. But all she could do is guess at this point.

  “I know about Roxane Sanchez,” Seth said as a matter of fact. “I know that the two of you had unique relationship that bonded you together the rest of your lives,” They watched each other—waited on the other to react to his news.

  Angel said, “She’s okay. I think that she’s okay for the moment. We’ve spent some time together since you last saw her. We talked through some of our differences. I think it’s highly unlikely that we will ever be besties but I think we reached some level of acceptance of whom the other woman is and where she is coming from when it comes to the unfortunate death of her sister. I respect her, Seth. I can’t argue with the decisions that she’s made. I can respect them.” She saw a reflection of her big brown eyes in his gray ones. She could only guess what Seth and Roxanne were doing together. “I respect your decisions as well, Seth.”

  “For a time I was angry with you, Angel,” Seth said to her. “I was confused about my own feelings. I knew that she wanted to kill you. I did everything that I could to reach you but you wouldn’t answer my calls. Like I said, I was confused but I knew that I couldn’t hurt you. I wanted to save you.”

  Angel nodded.

  “You wanted to save me from Roxanne—“

  “I wanted and still want to save you from yourself, Angel.”

  She pulled him close again. She closed her eyes and blocked out everyone and everything in this room…and soaked in all of her husband’s love like a well overflowing with water.

  “I know that you do, Seth. I know that more now than ever before. Even after everything that I’ve said to you, even after everything that I’ve done to you—done to us…

  Seth lovingly placed his index finger on top of her thick lips to silence them.

  They embraced and anyone in this room who was uncomfortable with that be damned.

  Perhaps Angel could go home again.

  Perhaps.

  Roxanne

  MLK Memorial Center, 26th Day

  She felt the eyes of God watching her in this place.

  They weren’t, not in a physical sense at the least.

  Hundreds of Atlanta residents of all races, creeds and colors had turned, as she had, to the Martin Luther King Memorial Center as a center of refuge, of solitude and for prayer in the hours before Martial Law was to be imposed on the city.

  She’d remembered learning in middle school about the great Civil Rights leader and how he’d spoken to a crowd even more packed than this place was today. Roxanne Sanchez hadn’t minded the intrusion of all of these other strangers—at least half as much as she would have believed she thought would have.

  God’s eyes weren’t on her but the glaring of someone seemingly as powerful was.

  Victor Gonzales had found her.

  She was unsure of how she knew…but she knew nonetheless.

  Roxanne limped out of the main building as quickly as her cast around her shattered ankle had allowed her. She heard her former lover walking up behind her…and perhaps a second set of heavier footsteps coming up behind her. If this man was to kill her she knew that he possessed the means to do so silently and discreetly enough not to disturb the other refugees. It was all that Roxanne Sanchez could wish for now. The other residents had been through so very much. They didn’t deserve to be exposed to further violence in the one place where they thought that they’d it here—under the roof of a man who spent his life preaching the importance of non-violence to achieve equality.

  They followed her into an area that served as a balcony to that you could look east into the heart of the city. The smoke out on the deck was near suffocating levels and Roxanne coughed into her hands. Time to die; and so she spun around quickly to face
her executioners at last. She was right when she felt the Victor’s presence here. She was also correct when she guessed that his man Gonzales was one step behind him. All of the events, all of the business of death and living over the past days hadn’t dulled her instincts at the least.

  Roxanne bit back tears despite the danger and the smoke present. Or at the least she’d convinced herself of such as the first tear threatened to run down her cheek. She cautioned herself against making any sudden movements in Victor’s presence. She was unarmed. Even with her injuries she was more than a match against any of the residents foolish enough to attack her in the group below them. Victor and to a lesser extent Gonzales were another matter.

  Victor gave their surroundings a once over. He seemed to especially find the statue of Martin Luther King Jr himself interesting. Roxanne felt a sudden bout of shame wash over her. On one hand she didn’t want the refugees below to witness yet another murder in this city but an act of senseless violence here in front of a great man’s statue felt wrong as well.

  “I find it funny that you would seek asylum in a place like this one, Senorita,” Victor spoke in his raspy voice at last. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You do like the company of powerful men.”

  Roxanne felt herself tense at the authority that his voice ushered out even with the simple words he was saying. It amazed her of how much that same voice had comforted her doing their lovemaking frightened her so much now.

  “I can’t say that it doesn’t surprise me as well, Victor.” She then acknowledged Gonzales with a curt nod but dared not take her dark eyes off her former lover for long. “Sometimes desperation forces us to search for strength and courage in places where we least expect to find them.”

  “Perhaps it does at that, but that fact alone won’t save you from what’s coming now, Senorita.” Victor reached into his jacket pocket for his cigar—Roxanne tensed as she’d mistaken the gesture for him reaching for a mall gun. He gave the place another long once over and decided that this wasn’t the place to share his Cuban experience. “If I in fact have chosen to kill you, Senorita, this place will do as well as any other.”

  “How did you find me, Victor?”

  “The devils, as they say, are in the details. Those details also tend to be long and drawn out.” He flashed a curt smile that Roxanne could remember adoring. “But you do deserve an answer. Let’s just say that you danced once too often with a devil named Andre Knight of the Carver Street Apartments. He turned out to be an expensive but invaluable asset in finalizing my search.”

  Roxanne laughed aloud to hide her embarrassment.

  “How could he?” Roxanne said as she pounded the smoky air with her fist. She’d held that little bastard when he’d lost his friends in the Peacekeeper’s raid on Carver. How could he turn her over to a complete stranger to him? “One of the lasting things that you told me is that trusting people would be my undoing.” And Maria had trusted Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and she’d seen what the price her sister had paid for that trust. “I can’t help but wonder how much of a reward he got for selling me out?”

  Gonzales grin grew lopsided and disgusting looking. He pulled his jacket back far enough so Roxanne could see the butt of his gun without much effort.

  “Don’t worry about that, young lady.” He said with his heavier Spanish accident shining through. “He asked for $5000 and we paid him every red cent.”

  Victor took a step towards her. “And then Gonzales here slowly killed him. Your boy died screaming leaving this world much the way I’m sure he did when he was brought into it. I got my refund but I will credit him with being right about one thing: he promised me that you weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Even after you found Agent Prince’s step daughter in that dumpster you weren’t going anywhere.”

  “I want you to leave Chris out of this.” And for the first time Roxanne allowed her voice to slip into her more familiar dangerous tone that matched Victor’s own. “This business is our business no one else’s.”

  “I’m glad that you’ve taken my words to heart if not into practice, Senorita.” He said. “If you’ll remember me also telling you that showing mercy would also be your undoing.” Roxanne was unsure if Victor’s failure to comment on her last words meant that the man she now loved was safe from this former lover or not. She’d only spoken to Chris by phone after Angel sent the help that she promised that she would for her and the other victims of the Marta upheaval. “I’m disappointed that you haven’t learned that for yourself by now.”

  “And what about honor, duty and family,” Roxanne asked Victor but was thinking of Chris. She made him a promise that she would return to him when she could—if she could once she settled some old personal matters. He didn’t argue at least that long. And she guessed that he needed the time to settle his own affairs with the FBI, this Serena Tennyson woman, and A House in Chains, especially after the murder of his brother Xavier. God, I want so badly to be there for you during this hard time you are facing, Chris. “Do these virtues mean anything to you, Victor?”

  “Family causes us the most grief,” Victor answered quickly and honestly. “You know that better than I do, Senorita. Duty is always a subjective matter not easily interoperated by the naked eye. And as for honor…well, our kind doesn’t serve the most honorable men and women.”

  Roxanne stood her ground—even on her one good leg.

  “Christopher Prince is an honorable man. Serena Tennyson and Pandora spread lies about his relationship with his step daughter to discredit him at a critical moment with their war with A House in Chains and the FBI. They were ready to go on the offensive against the citizens of Atlanta. I was foolish enough to believe these lies…if only for a short time. I redeemed myself by defending Chris and his cause.” She cut her eyes at Victor. “But I’m sure that you know most if not all of this already.”

  Victor nodded but held back a grin.

  “I do. What I don’t know—what I want to know is this: Do you love him, Roxanne?”

  “So you have been keeping even closer tabs on me than I already suspected, Victor Roxanne applauded his efforts. Her mockery echoed off of the nearby stones through the smoky air. Gonzales shifted in his stance tired of this game of words and innuendo. “How close have you truly been?”

  “I’ve been close enough to smell the dirty stench of Joseph Champion lies every time the man opens his mouth.”

  Roxanne’s dark eyes became slits.

  And she a new revelation swam up to the surface in her mind.

  “It was you in that black car that chased us down state,” She sneered more than said to him. “You tried to kill us.”

  “No, if I wanted you dead you would be a corpse already.” Victor’s calm demeanor betrayed no need for deceptions here. He was in complete control and knew it. “I knew that you were getting some semblance of the truth out of Champion when you left for the state prison, so I thought I’d help you along.”

  “By chasing my only lead away?”

  “I know your instincts for survival, Senorita. But your business was with Erica Lovings and her family. Champion, I believe, is involved in something much more profound and dangerous. I think I know a truth about him that you or anyone else in this city only suspect and have yet to fully digest. If you have dove any further into him you would be dead right now, Senorita, and not by my hand.”

  Roxanne heard the seriousness in his voice and worse than that—she suspected that he was right about Champion. Pride caused her to mask those feeling as best as her dark eyes would allow her. Victor had lost the privilege of seeing her like vulnerable like that long ago. Yet, it made her chest hurt nearly as badly as her ankle to know that she’d expended her time and energy seeking out retributions against Angel instead of staying on a larger threat: Joseph Champion.

  How and when did I lose my objectivity? I should have kept this entire episode professional and not let the personal cloud my thinking and my judgement.

  And in speaking of the perso
nal—

  “You unimaginable bastard,” She said but the lack of venom left everyone standing here unconvinced. “Where else have you been tailing me?”

  Victor stood with his legs spread apart, enjoying himself.

  “I’ve always thought that funeral were overly dramatic and anticlimactic event, especially for the deaths of people who vastly underachieve in life. I will admit this however, that in this one circumstance, I thought that the burials of Denise Prince and Erica Lovings were a picturesque and dignified service. And then you’re extended offer to the Doctor Seth Dupree to actually join you in as a coconspirator in the murder of his own wife is something so diabolical that even I wouldn’t have indulged in. You’ve told me before that you were a monster, Senorita. I believe you now more than ever.”

  “I don’t take pride looking back on the many things that I’ve done, Victor. I can’t change the past. I’m going to move forward with whatever time that I have left. I’m not going back to the person that you met in Mexico, or even the woman that you knew that rose as the sun rose this morning. I’m not ever going back.”

  “You are doomed if you do not, Senorita.”

  Victor went for his cigar once again. He had his lighter out and had a good smoke going. Just another man and his vices, she thought. Gonzales looked almost bored as if rage and confrontation were normal human virtues and conversation and civility were alien concepts he could not understand.

  “Perhaps I am doomed, Victor,” Roxanne found her voice. “Perhaps I am doomed at that. I’ve said my peace now. We need to get on with our business at hand. If you are ready to kill me then I am ready to die.”

  “No, you are not ready,” He took a long drag off of the Cuban and played with the smoke. “None of us ever are ready, Senorita, not really.”

  Roxanne only shrugged at his words.

  “I don’t understand this. You’ve proven to me as well as yourself that I can’t outrun my past, Victor, you’ve shown me that I can’t outrun you. I am through running, Victor. Andre told you before I died that I’m not going anywhere and he was right. I’ve been running from one thing or the other my entire life. I’m done running. So like I said a minute ago—we have business with each other. You said that I would live just long enough for you to see me suffer.”

  Victor took a long last pull from his cigar and then stamped the flame out on the post nearest to him.

  “And I have seen you suffer,” He pulled a pair of shades out of another of his jacket’s pockets and cover his eyes with them gave her a long last look—and then turned to walk away. He stopped long enough to say: “My chase is over, Roxanne…but you are not through running, Roxanne. You’ve chosen a path that will keep you running as long as you continue to pursue it…as long as you continue to pursue him.”

  “And what does that supposed to mean, Victor?”

  He turned back to her.

  “It means that you never answered my question about your love for Agent Prince? Your non answer told me all the truth that I needed to know. There is darkness within him—and I’m not talking about his skin tone, Senorita—that will keep you running, that will keep you suffering for as long as you are with him. I know the type, Senorita; I am the type so I damned sure can recognize my brethren when I see it. You deserve better than either one of us could give you, Roxanne.”

  And then Victor Castillo turned and walked away.

  “What,” Gonzales said as exasperation flowed through his Spanish almost making him impossible to understand. “You pursued her all of this way, spared no expense only to walk away from her? Do you remember how much Mexican blood has been spilled because of the actions of this woman?”

  Victor stopped walking, removed his shades and fixed Gonzales with a glare that could have melted artic ice.

  “She did not heed my words, Gonzales. I did tell her not to dip her hands into cartel business and did nonetheless. I did tell her that someday when the time was right, that we would stop what we were doing and find her.” And then Victor turned his attention away from his partner o Roxanne one last time. “I wanted to see you suffer for what you did down below and I have. I wanted to see you suffer before you end—and I have. But I expected to see you at the end of your suffering and not at the beginning of it.”

  Victor Castillo walked back from the direction where he’d come without looking back at her. Gonzales flashed a momentarily look of confusion at this entire episode and his role in it, buttoned his jacket and mirrored his partner’s footsteps as he soon disappeared from Roxanne’s sight.

  And in the second or third minute of her solitude, Roxanne looked towards the fires that looked to consume much of Downtown Atlanta and wondered what hellfire that Victor had left her alive to face.