“Don’t you move or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!”
When the door flew open and the man burst through it, Adam figured it was as good a way to go out as any.
“Welcome to Hell,” he said to the intruder, and he took a step forward.
−
48-
Tobin held the gun as Dallas had shown him, using two hands and spreading his legs wide. The gun had no bullets in it. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to hit his target even if it did. Dallas had told him the General wouldn’t know for sure the gun wasn’t loaded unless Tobin pulled the trigger.
“Welcome to Hell,” the man in green said. He raised his hands as though to show he had no weapons, but instead of staying where he was, he moved toward Tobin.
“I said don’t move!” Tobin shouted, re-aiming the gun.
The General kept moving, crossing the concrete floor with swift, relentless strides. He stopped just out of arm’s reach, as though taunting him. Tobin kept his hands steady. Holding up the weapon made his arms ache.
“The fuck are you?” the General asked with a sneer.
Tobin was really tired of that question. “I’m here for Elanna.”
“Ah. Tobin. The man with the pussy name.”
Tobin knew an insult when he heard one. “Give me Elanna, and I won’t kill you.”
The General jerked his head backward. “There she is, champ. Be my guest.”
Tobin followed the General’s gesture and saw her. Naked and strapped to the chair, her head hanging down so that her auburn hair fell in limp strands to obscure her face. Dark splatters of what he sickly realized was blood covered her hands and arms.
He forced himself to look away from her. He couldn’t help her now, not until he took care of the General. Ice coated his throat and made his eyes burn with cold fury.
“If you’ve hurt her,” he spat, “I will kill you.”
For one brief moment the General’s expression turned bleak and tired before shifting back to antagonistic scorn. “Go ahead, bright boy,” he said. “It’s as good a way to go as any.”
The man stepped toward him, into Tobin’s reach, and grabbed for the gun. Tobin gripped it hard, refusing to let go despite being taken unawares. The General drove his fist into Tobin’s stomach, and wrenched the gun away. In the time it took to blink, the soldier reversed the situation.
Tobin stared at the barrel of the gun, unafraid. Dallas had said it was unloaded. Everything seemed to slow, even the beating of his heart. He would not be beaten. Not this time. Not ever again.
“Let her go, and I won’t kill you.”
The General laughed, waving the gun. “Seems to me you lost your chance at that, champ. I’ve got the gun. I have to admit, I’d hoped for a challenge. You couldn’t even give me that.”
Tobin stepped forward, bringing his fist up toward the other man’s jaw and taking him by surprise. The General took the hit full on the chin, stumbling back a few steps. He didn’t let go of the gun.
Before the soldier could get his balance back, Tobin leaped on him. Violence had never felt so good. His fists slammed into the other man wherever they landed. With each blow he heard himself yelling out, wordless grunts and cries that ripped their way from his throat without effort.
The General hooked his leg over Tobin’s and rolled, ending up on top of him. The hand holding the gun was pinned beneath Tobin, and though the other man struggled to pull it free, he couldn’t. Tobin grinned, feeling his lips pull back from his teeth in something fearsome.
“Your lady is a real nice piece of ass,” whispered the General in Tobin’s ear. “A real good lay.”
The insult gave him strength. Tobin bucked, tossing the man off him. He rolled quickly, shoving his knee into the other man’s ribs and slamming his wrist to the ground. Still the General gripped the weapon, refusing to let go even as Tobin began hammering his fingers. The General still hadn’t pulled the trigger.
The gun was empty, but Tobin didn’t trust the guy not to hit him with the butt. The General used his free hand to gather a handful of Tobin’s shirt and pull him to the side. The men rolled, grappling, along the floor.
Tobin still had no idea what he was doing, only that he wanted to kill the man. Smash in his face. Batter him senseless. Hurt him for hurting Elanna.
With a mighty heave, the General shoved Tobin off him and managed to get to his feet. He aimed the gun almost casually, then let it hang from one finger. With satisfaction Tobin saw the stream of blood coming from the other man’s nose. He’d made that happen.
“Not bad for a pussy,” said the General. He wasn’t even out of breath. To Tobin’s shock, he put the gun to his own head. “But I don’t have all night to wait for you to finish the job.”
“It’s not loaded.”
The man looked startled and then admiring. “Maybe you do have balls, after all.”
“Just let her go,” Tobin said. “And we’ll leave. We’ll tell you where we found the stuff, and we’ll go.”
“The stuff?” For a minute it looked like the General didn’t know what Tobin was talking about. “Oh, yeah. Frankly, champ, I don’t give a fuck about that.”
He slipped his finger onto the trigger. He aged suddenly, becoming old before Tobin’s eyes. He swallowed heavily.
“It’s not loaded,” Tobin repeated.
Elanna began to stir, lifting her head. “Toby?”
The General’s gaze flicked to her. “How sweet.”
“You,” Tobin said fiercely, “don’t even look at her. You’ve done enough!”
“Boo fucking hoo,” said the General. “What love can do.”
He pulled the trigger. The roar of the gun filled the tiny room, thundering in Tobin’s ears. Elanna cried out, her mouth opening but her scream lost in the echoes from the shot. The General’s head disintegrated into a spray of bone and blood, and his body sprawled to the ground.
The gun wasn’t empty. Ice coated Tobin’s stomach, making him shake. He could have shot the man. The man could have shot him. But instead the soldier had shot himself, and why? Tobin didn’t know. He also discovered he didn’t care. He’d take his luck how it came.
“Toby?”
He heard crying and turned to comfort her before he realized that although her face was dirty and streaked with blood and sweat, her eyes were dry. But still he heard the wailing. Tobin looked to the floor, and saw the basket there.
“The baby,” Elanna whispered. “Untie me, please, Tobin.”
He did, fumbling with the straps in his eagerness to set her free. As he unbuckled the last one, Elanna fell forward into his arms. He caught her gratefully, rocking with her on the dirty floor. She clutched at him, pushing her face into the side of his neck and squeezing him hard enough to hurt.
He didn’t care. She could claw him to shreds and that would be all right, as long as she was safe. She gave him one last squeeze and pushed herself away. She went to the basket and knelt there, reaching inside to pull out the bundle.
The infant had wriggled free of its blankets, and Elanna wrapped it again. She sang as she comforted the child, a tune without words. She rocked the baby against her chest, letting it root against her breast and latch on, tenderly touching the baby’s head as it quieted.
She looked up at Tobin. “They were going to kill it.”
He watched her with the child, watched her mothering it. She looked right with a baby in her arms. She winced as the child sucked, holding her stomach with one hand.
He was at her side instantly. “Are you all right? Did that bastard hurt you?”
She smiled and shook her head. “It’s not from him. It’s the baby’s sucking. It’s making my uterus contract. It hurts, but it’s normal.”
She must have seen the confusion on his face, because she smiled at him and reached out to touch his cheek. “The mother died. They wanted to kill the baby.”
He thought of the child she’d lost. “I’d say he has a mother now.”
Her face cru
mpled as she rubbed the top of the baby’s head. “Everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is why I lost my baby. So I could care for this one.”
He wasn’t sure he believed that, but if it made her feel better than he’d agree. He realized that although the room’s red lights made it almost unbearably hot, she was shivering. The baby had stopped its suckling, apparently satisfied for now.
“We need to find you some clothes,” Tobin said. “Get you out of here. Both of you. Before --”
He didn’t have time to finish. The door flew open, and a wild-eyed Dallas leaped into the room. “You have to go! Kodak’s coming!”
She tripped over the General’s body, skidding in the blood and brains, and fell to one knee. For one second she was so focused on Tobin and Elanna that she didn’t notice the man on the floor. She looked again, though, her mouth working in disgust as she backed away from the corpse. She scrubbed her hands against her shirt, shaking her head.
“No, no, no, no, no….” the litany went on. She wasn’t screaming, wasn’t crying.
“Dallas!” Tobin said sharply. He got up and went to the girl, forcibly turning her away from the gruesome sight. “Calm down! You have to show us how to get out of her!”
She stared at him with horrified eyes. “The General’s dead! You killed him!”
“He killed himself,” Tobin said harshly, then softened. She was just a girl, not much more than a child, really. “He shot himself in the head with the gun, Dallas.”
“But…why?” The girl asked. “Suicide is only for when you’re captured, to prevent the enemy using torture to get their information...” She paused. “Were you torturing him?”
“No,” Tobin said patiently, wishing he could help her work through this. He didn’t understand the Gappers, but he knew the General had some hold over them.
“Then why?” Dallas asked again, voice breaking. “You mean he just…left us? He left us?”
“Yes,” Tobin said firmly, holding onto the idea, though he had no idea what she meant. “He left you. Abandoned you. You don’t have to be loyal to him any more.”
“He left us,” she repeated slowly, voice shaking. She looked up at Tobin with wet eyes that were no longer so horrified. “He said he’d never do that. Not like our moms and dads. He said he’d never leave us, and he did! He did!”
“He did,” Tobin said, holding her by the shoulders. “And now we need your help, Dallas.”
“My name is Sophie,” the girl said. She threw one more swift glance at the body on the floor. “And I’ll help you.”
-*-
Kodak paced the floor of her quarters, fuming. He’d sent her away, the old bastard. Away, when she could have been torturing that bitch Elanna!
She stopped, catching sight of herself in the cracked mirror that hung on the wall. Her hair was a straggly mess, and dirt painted both her cheeks. She reached up to touch her face, wishing the light were better and then grateful that it wasn’t. She didn’t want to see.
No wonder he’d sent her away, she thought, running her hands over her body, checking it over. She was sloppy. Dirty. Not like Lansing, who’s always taken the time and effort to bathe regularly, even when it meant using icy, frigid water. Lansing was perfect, Kodak thought with more than a touch of malice. But now, Lansing was dead, and Kodak would make sure she’d be the General’s favorite again. Like she used to be, before Lansing started growing tits and flaunting her tight and perfect ass in Adam’s face.
“I’m glad she’s dead,” Kodak said aloud, spitefully. “Her and the brat.”
She’d never get pregnant again, Kodak thought and patted her flat stomach. She’d never let something grow inside her, sucking her energy, making her bloated and unable to perform as a good soldier. And if something did catch inside her, she’d rip it out before it could get hold.
Kodak heard a single shot from the direction of the interrogation room, and froze. Something was not right. The General didn’t allow weapons in the room, preferring to use more intimate methods in his questioning. A gun could fall into the wrong hands. The wrong people could get hurt.
Kodak left her room and headed for the interrogation chamber. She’d risk his anger at disobeying his orders. She’d risk his fury at her assumption that he might need her help. She just wanted to make sure nothing had gone wrong.
The door stood open, which was very wrong. When she stepped inside, things got worse. Even though he was face down and covered in blood and other matter, Kodak recognized him.
Stunned, she stood there without moving. He was dead? He couldn’t be dead. Not Adam. Not their leader, the man who’d made her a woman and a soldier.
But he was dead. She nudged him with her foot and his only movement was from her pushing. Nobody could survive a massive head wound like that.
Reality hit her, and Kodak dropped to her knees beside the man who’d given her her first gun and her first orgasm on the same day. Her vision blurred and she batted at her face, terrified. What was wrong with her eyes? Chemical warfare? What had happened?
It wasn’t until the hot tears welled from her eyes and slipped down her cheeks that she realized she was crying.
-*-
Elanna quickly pulled on the clothes Sophie had brought her. Nothing quite fit, of course, but she had no time to be choosy. Sophie’d even managed to find her some thick rags to help catch the final remnants of blood.
Wrapping her fingers in bandages hurt, but Tobin helped her and they managed a decent job in a short time. The baby boy was sleeping again, his color waxen but his breathing even. Elanna felt a tug of worry about the baby’s welfare, but she’d done all she could. Either her milk would come in or it wouldn’t. Either they’d get out of here alive, or they wouldn’t. It was out of her hands. All she could do was try.
The girl had aged in the past twenty minutes, Elanna thought sadly as she watched Sophie burrow in a box of clothing to find some things for the baby. She wasn’t a child any more. Sophie pulled out a thick wad of handkerchiefs, all in the same green and brown splattered pattern that was so common here.
“Will these work?”
“They’ll be fine,” Elanna said, taking them. She smiled at the girl, who hesitantly smiled back. “Thank you, Sophie.”
Tobin paced, looking up and down the rows of tall shelves constantly. “We need to go. Can you help us find a back way out?”
The girl nodded, putting the box back onto the shelf with the automatic movements of someone who’s been conditioned to do an action without thinking about it. “Most everyone’s still asleep. Some of the others are taking care of Lansing…of Amy. But most are sleeping. Except Kodak, she’s --”
A shriek rent the air, muffled through the thick walls. It came again, then again, a furious, frenzied wailing that made Elanna’s stomach turn. The baby in her arms startled awake, flinging its tiny arms apart and arching its back. It began to cry, but breathlessly, as though it had little energy.
“We need to go now!” Tobin said. “Before whatever the hell that is gets closer.”
Sophie shuddered. “It sounds like Kodak.”
“We need to go, Sophie,” Elanna said gently.
She rocked the baby, soothing it. Its makeshift diapers were wet and the t-shirt she’d pulled over its tiny head nearly swallowed it up, but they didn’t have time for better dressing. She bent to tuck the baby into the backpack Sophie’d pulled from one of the boxes. It wriggled for a moment, screwing up its little face, but when she tucked some more soft t-shirts around it, the baby quieted and stared at her. It had light eyes. Elanna kissed the top of its sweet baby head. She helped Tobin slip the straps over his shoulders. He’d carry the infant because he was stronger, and so that she could get to it quickly if she needed to.
“We go out the back,” Sophie said. “There’s a door back here that I don’t think anyone else knows about. I only know about it because they send me in here all the time to look for stuff. I know it’s just to get me out of the way because I’m a ba
d soldier.”
The girl’s voice broke a little but she shook it off. She looked up at Elanna and gave her a wobbly smile. “I suck as a soldier. I’m a fucking horrible soldier.”
Elanna pulled the girl into her arms and hugged her tightly. “Maybe you’re a bad soldier, Sophie Dallas, but you’re a very good girl.”