Chapter Twenty Six
You believed and acted on the courage of your convictions, Serena.
And I believed in you.
Now, I can only believe that we were both misled.
-A dying Danielle Rohm whispers in Serena Tennyson’s ear on April 26th seconds before her death.
Serena
Bank of America Plaza, 26th Day
An inferno.
A city burning to the ground.
A whirlwind.
Whatever the media wanted to call it, it was occurring here, now, and there was no way to undo what had been done.
Serena Tennyson watched from her room on the highest floor that Raymond Rice had reserved for months, long before now.
She didn’t know how much time she actually had left to watch it all. She had no idea how long before the authorities descended on this hotel and took her away from all that she had labored and sacrificed much in her life to now see manifest itself in front of the one good eye she had left.
She’d lost half her face to bruises and burns when the driver of the runaway car plunged into the crowd when she was still at street level. She was still wearing a single cuff on her left wrist. The other cuff—and the officer attached to it—had been ripped away when the lethal combination of steel and velocity separated them from Oracle. She was still bleeding from her wrist and arm, from a hole ripped in her side and where the flesh itself was torn from the side of her face.
A service worker had approached her when she’d first arrived back at this hotel. He was spewing out warnings that barely calculated in her brain: He was advising her and any other clientele to reenter this place at their own risk. Considering the building’s height, the earthquake and now the prevailing hurricane force winds had made the hotel into a risky site to continue to patronize. In the interest of public safety—
And then he truly saw her condition…her face and all of his remaining thoughts and words lost their meaning.
Despite the terrible pain Serena was experiencing she was able to concentrate just enough to take the stairs and return to her headquarters several levels up. She did so without further communication or interference from hotel personnel.
She took several short pained gasp of breath when she reached her room at last. Once again her athletic background in cross country and marathons had served her well. Her parents would have been proud of her. Her father in particular had loved to watch her perform at the highest level at the meets. Always finish what you start, Serena, he had always instructed her, just finish what you start and everything else will be fine.
And I have done just that, Father, she would have smiled at self-consciously hearing her father’s voice in her ear if only she possessed the lips to manage one.
She stood at one window for the longest time. Serena peered in every direction that the view allowed and then back again as she scanned the horizon. Hundreds of pipe bombs were still detonating in strategic locations throughout the city. The heavy gust of wind were an added bonus that her Whirlwind had not anticipated or needed to succeed. But I will take it nonetheless. She watched an area far west of her location…the wind caught the flames just right and merged the bonfire with another and then another wall of flames as it danced along the ground. The dry conditions that had existed for months in this region had been the final component in aiding a firestorm in intensity and size that was more impressive than anything than she could have imagined.
Atlanta was indeed burning.
No, she reminded herself quickly, it is being purged. It is being cleansed from the inside out.
Serena had seen all of this in the Dragon’s flames.
She suddenly felt weak…her stomach…and her knees went wobbly.
Serena went down to a single knee and struggled to get back to her feet, exhaustion—or maybe something far more serious—nearly toppling her. Not now, She threw up then, not after all of this plotting and planning…not after all of the work that so many others have put in…all of the people who have sacrificed so that the Dragon could feast…
…and so that a new stronger Atlanta would rise from the ashes of the old.
When Serena at last pushed herself back to her feet she was amazed how much the same scenery she’d watched before…had changed. The firestorm looked to be burning out of control. This was no longer a controlled burn in her eyes. Closer to the hotels position she watched a family trying…and dying in a futile attempt to save their home from the flames. Two blocks over a convoy of firetrucks and the men responsible for operating them were blocked by fallen debris from the storm in one direction and by her Dragon’s flames on the other. They are doomed. Serena watched another man catch fire just below her. Fall to the ground you fool, she screamed at dying man eternally. Fall to the ground and roll. It is your only chance of survival—
“I said fall to the ground.”
“’He can’t hear you, Serena.”
Serena spun away from the window with all of the will and energy that she could muster and saw him standing there in the hotel room’s doorway alone.
Thomas Pepper was alive.
Serena wanted to approach him. Oracle wanted to run away. Serena wanted to touch his face and see that he was indeed real. Oracle hid her face which had been torn from its skull—and settled on turning back to the window. Only the pleasant side of her face, the one that had existed before was exposed to the intruder.
“You’re alive, Thomas. You are alive and got my messages.” Serena stood at her height and clasp her hands behind her back. She would exhibit poise and exercise control no matter how much it pained her. And yet, Serena could see raindrops of fresh blood puddling on the floor by her feet. “Somehow, I knew that you were alive.”
Thomas took a cautious step forward into the hotel room and closed the door behind him. Serena took a guarded glance in his direction. Once again Thomas appeared to have come alone…and unarmed. That doesn’t guarantee your safety though. Thomas or any of the hotel staff who have seen you could have contacted the authorities by now.
“My God, Serena,” He said to her, daring to touch her uninvited…and twisted her around just enough to get a full view of her injuries. When she saw him dart his eyes away she instantly knew that they were far worse than even she had imagined them to be. Most of my enemies and far too many of my allies have called me a monster—how timely that I look like one as well. “What happened to you? What caused…this?”
“An accident,” She managed a grin that held no humor but caused her a new round of eye popping pain. Danielle Rohm, her dear dead Danielle Rohm had taught her to smile but the pain… “In truth, it really no longer matters now does it, Thomas? It’s over now. It’s almost over now.”
“How can it not be over, Serena,” Thomas pulled her close until the two of them were nearly nose to nose. Until her near rape at the hands of the guard in her holding cell before Rapture she had never been this close to a man before. “It is already at an end, Serena. What else could there possibly be left for you to do here?”
She did not answer right away. She stood there wrapped in his arms wishing that he would let her free…and hoping he would not.
He finally did release her. She turned back to the window to witness a Whirlwind in all of its preordained glory.
And she turned away so Thomas Pepper would not see her tears burning in her eyes.
Look at what you’ve done.
She saw more firestorm and destruction in a Whirlwind’s wake.
She saw death and rebirth.
She saw prophecy and metaphor.
And she saw men and women and even little children reaching their end. And when that it was as terrible as they had all had imagined it would be. She watched as numbers of them were given to the flames.
Serena Tennyson thought she was looking out of her window in Hell itself.
And then she saw the devil who ruled there, but not the Dragon who had been promised to her …it was her own reflection that had glared bac
k at her.
Oh my God, she thought but she had never believed in their God. How could she call his name?
She yanked out the firearm that she’d taken off of the dead officer who had been cuffed to her. Thomas backed away from her—and then ducked for cover as she fired several rounds into the glass until it shattered into several thousands of pieces. She heaved back and tossed the weapon out of the opened window. She screamed then as the smoky air burned her exposed nostrils and windpipe. My lungs are on fire.
“I had hoped that this would all end peacefully,” Serena managed to say after a time. Thomas had finally risen up from behind his cover. She could hear sirens below…and hear her name specifically and the many curses that followed as the men exited those vehicles. “No matter what else that I’ve done here in this city, I want you to believe me when I tell you this.”
“Stop it,” Thomas screamed at her. He slowly rose to his feet again. And then he was standing over her again and she found herself sliding away from him. He pointed a thick finger at the space that the window once occupied. “Don’t you dare try and justify this carnage to me, Serena.”
“I petitioned for peace, Thomas. I fought with every fiber of my being. But there were too many adversaries in my path. Xavier Prince and a House in Chains wouldn’t hear of it. The FBI was just competent enough to delay me. And Thomas-- Thomas there are forces within Pandora not under my command who are attempting to piece together a future far dimmer than the ideals and the vision that Isaac Prince passed down to me. They are going to commit a gen—“
“Then you should have fought harder, Serena.” Each word the man said stung at her heart with more bile than the word before it. And then, as if his time of rage had passed, his tone lost much of his gruffness and it was if Thomas’ entire body went limp. “You should have pushed your people and theirs for more concessions. You should have done something,” Thomas looked over the window sill out into a Whirlwind. “You damned well should have done something to avoid this.”
Thomas joined her as they both turned away from the window. She could feel his closeness and did not move away from it. Serena wished that he would hold her. She never felt more alone than she did right now: She didn’t feel this kind of loneliness when her parents died…she didn’t feel this type of loneliness when either Raymond Rice or Danielle Rohm were killed…
Serena Tennyson had betrayed the Dragon’s love.
She was indeed alone.
And she wished more than ever that Thomas Pepper would hold her…before her own end.
Serena heard his breathing ease. His anger was soothing. And then he must have felt her hands quivering. It’s suddenly as if the world has gone cold. To his credit…Thomas squeezed her hand that was still hole and true. She squeezed his thick fingers and did not let go.
She did not let go.
“Before they come for me I need to tell you about a vision that I recently had. I want to tell you about a vision that you were an integral part of.”
And so she did. And when the tale had completed itself he said: “I can certainly believe that you thought that it was real, Serena. I know that you felt that it was. But ultimately, I believe that your visions as you see them are nothing but dreams. I think that your prophecies are little more than metaphors.” He took a deep breath but she did not interrupt. “Your own self-conscious knew of what your conscious self was capable of. The option of turning away was a conflict of character from within. I guess my role as the genesis of the speaker for yourself conscious came from the time we spent together in my townhouse, nothing more—“
Dozens more pipe bombs explode in rapid succession as an angry wind simultaneously blows by. Thomas slid down the wall screaming in anguish as he frees Serena’s hand.
And yet it is she that finds her voice first.
“What have I done, Thomas?” A single tear burns her eyelids as it runs down her exposed flesh. “What have I done?”
Thomas sits there and bites at his balled up fist.
“You have made some grave errors in judgement, Serena,” Thomas Pepper said. He found enough of his own strength and dignity to rise to his full height. “But you were not alone. The Prince Brothers, the FBI, all of us involved in this have made terrible mistakes, Serena. Many lives have been lost as a result. I wish that I could put on a single reason why that came to be.”
“We were misled,” Serena said simply.
“What do you mean?”
“Once, a friend of mine told me with her last dying words something that I will always remember,” She heard herself say. “And she told me something that I will never forget.”
“Tell me,” Thomas urged her to continue.
“I will always remember her telling me that your God…that our God forgives us no matter how severe our sins if we submit ourselves to his will and ask forgiveness.”
“I believe that as well, Serena.” Thomas darted his eyes away again. “Although I have not spoken to him in a great number of years.”
“But even more, I will never forget what she told after that. She told me that she truly believed that her lord was working through me. And then she told me…” Serena no longer hid her tears from Thomas Pepper. “In her very last breath Danielle Rohm told me that she’d been misled.”
Both of them paid heed to the dozens upon dozens of heavy footsteps marching on the floor towards the hotel’s room door.
The FBI wasted little time bursting in and sliding to their knees and finding cover as they entered.
Special Agent Christopher Prince had taken the point.
Serena Tennyson released Thomas Pepper’s hand quickly as she found the will and the way to slide to her knees as quickly as Prince ordered her to. She could see out of the corner of her eye as the large silhouette of Thomas as he obeyed the order as well. We are caught in a time loop, Thomas. We are at your place again before my Rapture—before Tempest Rising, before the Whirlwind consumed Atlanta with its hunger.
Agent Prince barked instructions out to the other agents to secure Thomas as he was not to be considered a combatant at this time. All of the remaining agents—too many for Serena to count—surrounded her and closed in step by step. All of my past charades have caught up to me at last. And yet, the mere thought of her sore, aching wrist suffering though a new round of being shackled caused her to slide back as far as the wall would allow her to.
They twisted her body until her lips kissed the floor beneath her as they cuffed her once again over her body’s vibrant objections.
Thomas protested.
Serena screamed.
They stood her up quickly and Serena found herself facing out of the window one final time at a Whirlwind feasting on the countryside as far and as wide as her one good eye could see as Agent Christopher Prince read her rights to her once again.
It was glorious indeed.
It was haunting for sure.
The long prophesized Dragon had taken flight had feasted on the impurity of those below…but where the resurrection and order that was promised to her was.
Danielle Rohm had paid a terrible price for being misled. What price would she pay?
And as the agents walked her towards the hotel’s door and her pending destiny—she learned that the Dragon had not forsaken her completely as the flames had provided her one final vision:
Serena Tennyson saw her own face in the flames and then the Dragon’s betrayal was at last complete.
And then her flames extinguished themselves forever and the world went dark and cold. She could no longer see and she felt herself began to tremble.
Serena’s death was mere heartbeats away and it was nothing left she could do to prevent it from happening.
Thomas
Bank of America Plaza, 26th Day
“Relax, Serena,” Thomas Pepper watched Agent Nicholas Sheridan step towards Serena Tennyson who had escaped from the agents who had her in custody. She had dove towards the ledge where she’d shot out the window earlier. Several
agents had drawn their guns but Agent Christopher Prince had instructed everyone in the room to hold their fire.
Sheridan held up a hand for peace: “I want you to listen to what Mr. Pepper has said, Serena and I want you to listen what I am saying. These men are not executioners. I will not sanction that sort uncivilized behavior here. Our job is to bring you to justice in a manner that protects you and my people. Your fate is to be decided by a jury of your peers. Do you understand me, Serena?”
“Forgive me, Agent Sheridan, if I am not comforted by your words.” She leaned over the ledge further and Thomas gasped in horror. Everyone gun in the room was drawn on her, every safety lifted. “I saw Hugh Keaton’s demise myself on TV or should I just ignore how he was brought to justice?”
Thomas shook off the agents holding him back and took a step forward. He could see Agent Prince shaking his head in a dangerous factor…but he did not most of his focus of a Pandora’s field leader.
“What happened to Keaton was unfortunate, Serena, but I want you to remember that those were an independent body out of anyone’s chain of command. And we also had an outside source of the media which contributed to his demise. Those factors don’t exist here.” Sheridan gave the room and Prince’s room a once over. Thomas knew the seriousness and the volatility of this situation. Everyone in this room, including Thomas himself, had lost someone to Serena’s schemes and treachery. Two police helicopters could be heard…and then Thomas could see them as they clearly came into view. Serena looked as if she heard the birds as well—but she looked as if she were struggling to see where they were at all. Serena’s condition has worsened. My God, I think she has gone blind.
“Serena, do not panic, do you hear me?” Sheridan shouted to be heard over the already blistering wind being stirred up worse by the twins’ thundering blades. “Those birds are mine. They are under my command. I am in command of every man and woman in this room. I know what happened to Hugh Keaton. I was informed of what nearly befell you in that holding cell while in the custody of the APD. I give you my word that you will leave this room alive. I also give you my word that you will make it to trial alive and unharmed. But I do need your help. I need you to surrender peacefully and without further incident right now.”
Serena looked in the general direction of where the copters should have been. They hovered nearby but never penetrated past a certain barrier. He had not doubt that Sheridan meant every word that he said.
But he was not the one that Sheridan had to convince.
And Sheridan’s men—including Agent Prince had Serena’s spectacular escape from that same Atlanta courthouse that she was nearly raped at. Each of these men and women would also remember the deaths of each and every death that was caused at his townhouse by the mines that were laid on the path there at her instruction. They weren’t privy to the conversations that you and I just had, Serena. They didn’t see you remorse. And if they needed any further reminders of who Serena Tennyson was what she had been about before—all they needed to do was look past those helicopters out there and look the hellfire that she ignited.
“Step back off that ledge, Serena.” Sheridan said to her in a lower tone. He frowned with his bushy brows, frustrated, flustered…and then turned to the one woman who could possibly bring this all back from the brink.
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree had entered the room.
“Serena,” She stepped in the room and moved past a gathering of agents and then pushed past Chris Prince until she was standing next to Agent Sheridan. “I heard what you said. I heard you when you mentioned Hugh Keaton. I know that you know that I was there with him at the end. He fought all of his demons so that those boys that he had put in so much danger would survive. He was very brave in the face of so much uncertainty.” Angel eyed Sheridan, he caught her meaning and he silently gave her the okay to take the lead here. “You relish control above all things, Serena. I know that you are hurting. I also believe that for the first time in your life you are truly afraid. I want you to use your control to aid you in getting through this.”
“I…I don’t want to die here, Angel.”
“If you truly believe that your path was the righteous one then you should live long enough to defend your actions in a court of law.” Thomas could hear Agent Prince grown at the mere thought of such a thing. “I know that you and your enemies have ordered all types of unforgivable actions from those who have served under your causes. But I know that you truly believe that suicide is a coward’s weapon. You are many things, Serena Tennyson, but you are no coward.”
Serena shook his head as the tears freely fell.
Sheridan said into the silence: “This has been stressful on everyone here. We have all sacrificed a great deal to get to this moment right here.”
“We have at that, Agent Sheridan,” Serena said in a shaky voice. “And we all have sacrificed so much, too much in fact. And you are right as well, Angel, I do have much to answer for. And I do have a story that needs to be told.”
And then Thomas watched Agent Prince raise his gun and step forward.
“And the first story that all of these good men and women want to hear is who is the Caretaker?”
“Agent Prince,” Sheridan said in a stern tone. “Stand down, Agent Prince, what are you doing?”
He didn’t answer Sheridan. Instead, Prince moved himself into a position that no one was between himself and Serena. The other agents tensed at the new development and trained their full attention and their guns on her as well. Sheridan was seething. Dr. Hicks Dupree was hugging herself. Thomas felt at his heart would pound its way through his chest and surface itself.
“I want her to say it in front of this room full of people well before she gets to court, Sheridan.” Chris said. “I want the world to hear it from her mouth right now before the courts and the judges and the lawyers get involved. Thousands of people have died over the past month because of this one question has gone unanswered for so long. Tell these people what you told me, Serena.”
“Agent Prince, lower your weapon right now. That is an order.” And then Thomas saw Sheridan react as he watched Serena lower her head. And somehow Sheridan knew the answer that apparently Agent Prince had already learned from Serena.
“Isaac Prince,” Serena said evenly. “Your deputy director Raymond Rice was not the only high level authorities’ figure who commanded Pandora’s ranks.
All of the air seemed to leave Thomas Peeper…and everyone in this room. Most in the hotel did not know Isaac Prince personally but they knew him as the founder of a House in Chains. They all recognized the name. He must have been Chris and Xavier Prince’s father.
“The Caretaker and Isaac Prince are one.”
Thomas watched Agent Prince mostly. As dumbfounded as he was, Thomas could only guess at how devastating this revelation was for the man nearly standing in front of him. The born investigator in Thomas had to admit that he’d considered the possibility once or twice…but he had always steered away from it being absolute. No matter how logical or reasonable this conclusion may have played out…the truth of Isaac Prince consciously handing his own son over to a known pedophile was a fact not bred in reality. Thomas own mother leaving her children as his father lay dying was terrible enough—
Dr. Dupree’s own anger at her friend’s unexpected belligerence was melting off of her face. She looked as if she wanted to drop everything and go to Agent Prince and comfort him. Serena had yet to look up. Thomas had studied this woman and her organization for years—and yet they were far and away more ruthless and calculating than he had ever given them credit for.
Sheridan had recovered from whatever emotions he was feeling. He stepped over to where his subordinate was standing. He put his hand over the top of Agent Prince’s and lowered both hand and gun in one motion. Working together Sheridan came out of the exchange with Prince’s gun in his hand. He turned his attention to Serena and offered his other free one to Serena to step away from the ledge.
She st
ruggled to find it…but eventually she took his hand in her own.
As she stepped down, Sheridan cuffed her hands behind her back with as much human grace, dignity, and compassion as he could manage.
He began to walk her past Agent Prince but she halted her progress when she thought she was near where he was standing. The torn side of her face was the one visible to Thomas.
“I appreciate your restraint, Chris,” She said to him.
“Go to Hell, Serena,”
Serena tossed a blind look to where she guessed Thomas was standing. And then she turned back to Agent Prince.
“That chapter has already been written.” She refused to budge when Sheridan tried to get her moving again. “Your chapter has been written as well, Chris, but not in the script that you may have been nudged into believing.”
“Do you ever shut that mouth of yours, Serena?” Thomas was amazed that a man with such clear, dark skin could nearly turn a shade of red when angered. “What in the hell are you talking about now?”
“Your medical exam reports from a recent physical that you have taken,” Serena said patiently. “They were exaggerated…bogus…inaccurate. You may choose to use whatever terminology that you wish.”
“But my personal physician said—“
“You doctor said what he was instructed to say under constant stress and threat to his personal safety and that of his immediate family. Your mother’s illness and eventual demise was a far too convenient resource for me not to use at the appropriate time. In the end though, it was her disease and not yours.”
Thomas winced at Serena’s latest revelation. He stepped behind Sheridan as if this trained government law enforcement worker might need his help in restraining Agent Prince. Sheridan kept his look neutral as he forced Serena’s momentum forward.
“With the exception of the need to drop a few pounds, Agent Prince, you are as healthy as anyone else in this room.” She said as Sheridan pushed her through the door with his armed one armed contingency giving them over to another.
Thomas saw Chris biting back tears of what? Were they…were they tears of joy…were they tears of anger…
Thomas followed Sheridan and Serena out of the door as close as the federal agents would allow him to. Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree was even closer to Sheridan and his prisoner.
“I consider you my equal in every way, Doctor,” Thomas was unsure of how Serena knew that the other woman was marching with them. “In fact, for a short time I thought that you were my sister in arms, I thought you were my other wing that the Dragon had promised to reveal to me. You should have been. You were the one who could have aided Pandora to a glorious victory. With you at my side we could have avoided all of these unfortunate casualties. We could have avoided this Whirlwind that has been unleashed on the city of Atlanta.”
“I’m not like you, Serena,” Angel said, but she continued to hug herself. “I’m nothing like you at all.”
“Oh yes you are, Doctor and you and I both know this to be true,” Serena said as they approached the first flight of stairs on the long route to street level. “But that is not the reason that I pity you…Angel.”
“You feel pity for me?”
“Oh yes, Doctor. I don’t have any other word for the tribulation that you are now going to face. I have been lonely, Doctor. I know what it feels like. And I know that the only thing in the world that you are afraid of is being lonely. But you are headed for a season of loneliness like no other, a loneliness that will have you begging my flames to take you from your suffering.”
And then they left a stunned and visibly shaken Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree on that floor while they moved on.
On the ground level at last, Sheridan turned Serena over to yet another group of well-armed men who placed her in the back of a nondescript looking van of no color. There were two agents seated on either side of her, a driver, another agent with his gun pointed at her from the front seat and one last agent seated on the passenger side carrying a radio. He spoke into it as the both the side and back doors bolted in place behind them with audible clicks.
Sheridan shadowed the entire operation and Thomas Pepper from two steps behind him. The FBI agent looked at Thomas for a full minute and nodded at him once…but the larger man caught multiple messages in the simplest of gestures. He thought it said: You have been helpful to my agency that I serve and a country that I love, Mr. Pepper. I don’t quite understand the nature of your relationship with Serena Tennyson—I don’t think that I want to know. It may have taken my people hours more to find her on our own. Your phone call to us telling us where she was may have saved lives today. You deserve a moment to say your goodbye to her.
And then Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan took one more step back into the shadows of the hotel. It was all the privacy that the two of them would be allowed.
Thomas thought that it would be enough.
“I don’t love you, Thomas,” Serena said to him softly and without preamble. “I can’t. I don’t know that I am capable of exhibiting that kind of emotion.”
Thomas nodded.
“I know, Serena. You don’t have to explain.to me. I’m unsure of what my feelings truly are for you as well.” He heard the hesitation in his own voice. “I came here to your hotel with the intention of somehow, someway…killing you for all of the pain that you’ve caused.
“I know, Thomas. I saw your feelings in my flames as well. Your moment passed. Like I said before, I’m not sure what to call the feelings that I carry inside for you. But for the first time in my life…for the first time I felt something that was not a fraternal love for men like Isaac Prince, Raymond Rice or my father of course. And then Danielle Rohm taught me what it was like to have a sister.” Serena paused in thought. “Perhaps that is why this final goodbye that we are sharing feels so sad to me.”
“I’m going to see you often over the next few months, Serena.” Thomas reminded her of her coming trial. He tried his best to concentrate on the beautiful woman that the right side of Serena Tennyson’s face that still showed through—but the other side would not be ignored…
“There won’t be a trial, Thomas.” She said after a long silence that stirred Thomas heartstrings and tested Sheridan’s patience. “I’ve seen it in the flames. I won’t live long enough to see a trial. More importantly to me, right now, I’m going to die without ever feeling what romantic love is like. I want that now more than anything else in the world, Thomas. I wish I could have had that with…you.”
Thomas heard the agent sitting on the passenger side of the van speak into his radio and heard the engine fire up as a response to whatever was said to him.
“Serena,” Sheridan spoke up over the van’s engine and the helicopters that had renewed their presence on the scene. Thomas watched as six more vans that looked just like the one in front of him took their place on the next street. Thomas got the plan at once. Three of the cars would be placed in front of the one escorting this one, while three would be set behind it. “Once again, you have my word that you will be protected every step of the way in the coming process.”
The officer carrying the radio said: “Agent Sheridan, the prisoner’s escort convoy is ready and at your disposal, sir.”
“Very well,” Sheridan pulled Thomas aside so that he wouldn’t be threatened by the onslaught on vehicles that were passing him at a rapid pace. Something caused Thomas to look skyward—and he saw snipers there as well. He imagined them atop the buildings lining the route all the way to the courthouse. Thomas belief that Serena’s anxiety was just that, anxiety with little substance to support her claims of imminent danger comforted him at least. “I will be in car four. Mr. Pepper, if you will join me, I will need you to make an official statement for the record.”
Thomas nodded automatically.
“Of course, Agent Sheridan,”
The helicopters took their own strategic positions around the caravan as well. And then Thomas saw Agent Christopher Prince and Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree step o
ut from the stairwell of the hotel as well. The doctor had her arms wrapped around her friend’s torso and he guessed that she was whispering her own words of comfort and support to him as he had to Serena moments earlier.
Serena’s van begins moving slowly and Serena is asked to sit in the seat that had been assigned to her.
“I’m asking your forgiveness for my sins, Thomas,” And then she said louder a voice so that all who occupied the area would hear her clearly. “I am asking you all to forgive me for my sins. I won’t live long enough to pay for them by your definition of justice. I’ve seen it in the flames—“
“I forgive you, Serena,” Thomas wasn’t sure why he said it. He was even more unsure when he heard himself say it again.
On the main street, Thomas could see the first three cars of the caravan starting up. Serena’s van had some catching up to do to match their speed and make up the distance—
“I’m going to die, Thomas,” Serena screamed. He could hear her crying now. “I don’t want to die, Thomas—and I don’t want you to die either—“
Serena’s van straightened itself into traffic and Thomas watched the wheels turn right ever so slightly as it began to bend the corner. Serena’s pleas for mercy drew down in volume as the van drove out of range—
And then the van exploded and the fireball licked one of the two helicopters that was hovering above the way a lizard would welcome an unrespecting fly to be the honored guest to dinner.
The eruption knocked Thomas Pepper and everyone who was previously standing on the street down to the ground.
No—no—no—no—no—no--
There was a moment of confusion…a second moment of madness… and a last moment of mad confusion until Thomas Pepper saw dozens upon dozens of agent approaching the fireball from all sides. Agent Christopher Prince was one of the first people on the scene standing as close to this massacre would allow. Angel limped as fast as her diseased left leg let her—until it failed her at last and she ungraciously tumbled back to the ground from which she came. Agent Nicholas Sheridan lost it: He pulled out his gun and the one he’d extracted from Agent Prince inside Serena’s hotel room and unleashed a barge of bullets into the smoky air above until both clips were empty. The copter that had barely escaped the fireball circled back and forth over the wreckage of van and its dead sister.
Thomas Pepper didn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
All of his extremities had gone numb and were unresponsive. He wished his feet to walk and they would not.
But he knew what was working just fine indeed.
Thomas could feel the hot tears running down his face, he could feel the snot spilling out of his nose.
But what he crying simply for her—or was he desperate to know if her prognosis she’d revealed to him with her last breath was true.
And he could hear his voice…oh yes, he could hear the words, however faint, coming from out of his mouth slow and repetitious.
“I forgive you, Serena…I forgive you…I forgive…I…”
Episode 9 Whirlwind