I conjured an avalanche. I was a menace to society and to myself. I shivered, watching the dust settle and wondering if we’d find dead bodies under there.
Maybe all those years of watching westerns had rotted my brains. Maybe I really thought I could produce justice just by wishing. Or by shooting someone, which is what they mostly did in westerns.
I didn’t want to shoot people or end up in a wheelchair. I’d hated being lame. With my arms crossed over my bent knees, I buried my face and tried to control my breathing. I wanted to be a lawyer, maybe a judge. Vigilante justice would not accomplish that. It was far more likely to land me in jail.
I might have shot a man today. I’d certainly intended to. Of course, I’d almost sent them all to perdition. They could have families. I had no way of knowing if they were really bad guys. As in any war, the enemy was just faceless strangers in funny suits. They’d probably been told national security was at stake. So they were stupider than me. Didn’t matter. They shouldn’t have to die for someone else’s war.
It was just too easy to react, much harder to think and do what was right. Why me, Saturn? I mentally screamed. I want rulebooks or I’m not doing this anymore!
No one burst out of the rock heap in an attempt to reach us. The red-haired med student eventually poked his head out from wherever he’d been hiding. Once he’d ascertained he wouldn’t be shot, he kneeled down to check my bloody legs.
“Need to clean these out, but I don’t think you’ve been shot,” was his assessment.
I didn’t know if I should risk sending him with the patients to Andre’s now less-than-secret bomb shelter. We’d left all the IVs in the warehouse, so he couldn’t do much. I counted six gurneys down here. We’d left four behind, including Officer Leibowitz’s. Tim’s doing, I was sure. He had managed to rescue Nancy Rose, but he despised Leibowitz.
I handed the student my rifle. “If you’ve been in Afghanistan, you know how to use this better than I do. Shoot any rats coming over that wall.”
He checked the closet and found an automatic more to his liking. I left him to it.
There was no point in asking his name, much as I appreciated his aid. He was normal. I wasn’t. He’d go on to lead a wealthy suburban life. I was tied to the Zone in ways even I couldn’t understand. I needed familiar boundaries and people who accepted my weirdnesses.
In the bomb shelter, Julius was with Sarah and Katerina. He had turned almost as gray as Andre. He was a genial, gentle man. He shouldn’t be exposed to this shit. I hugged him briefly, just because, and he hugged me back before shoving me away.
“Keep an eye on Andre,” he said urgently. “He’s reached his limit.”
Okay, that was the second time today I’d been warned to look after the King of Cool. Except he wasn’t so cool lately. I didn’t really want to know what Andre’s limit was. I nodded and trotted off, not certain what to do next. Visualizing a helicopter to Hades probably wasn’t justified, but I thought I heard it still hovering. Andre and Leo were out there somewhere, waiting to take it down.
Milo met me in Andre’s kitchen. I picked him up and hugged him and let the sadness roll over me.
Maybe I should have kept the rifle. But visions of me shooting everyone who crossed my path while shouting Damn you! kind of put me off on gun toting. The tunnel collapse had been horrifying. I wanted to shut out the memory. I still didn’t know if I’d killed anyone.
I’d probably stand a better chance of not joining Satan if I stuck to commandments like “Thou shalt not kill.” My mother hadn’t brought me up in church, but I liked to read, and the Bible had acquired the status of an important, forbidden book in my rebellious youth.
Once I was upstairs, I heard the helicopter clearly. I’d lived in a lot of places but none of them had ever been a war zone, so I couldn’t distinguish between hovering and taking off.
Cautiously, hanging on to Milo, I watched out the front window. The big porch prevented me from seeing the sky. Andre and Schwartz could be anywhere, but the warehouse would be their goal. I studied the seemingly vacant block of buildings across the street. Not a sign of life inside.
I’d been drugged and kidnapped a few months ago. I had no burning desire to put myself in the unpleasant path of danger again by going outside to see more. On the theory that this house had an attic like Pearl’s, I jogged up the stairs, past Tim and Julius’s apartments, to an open door. I stepped into an infirmary more modern than the one in the tunnel—Sleeping Beauty’s abode, I assumed.
I set Milo down to explore. Not wanting to leave a trail of blood across the pristine floor, I took advantage of the hospital-like facilities. I hastily washed my legs, wincing as I applied alcohol on my way to the balcony.
Unlike Paddy’s hideaway, this attic was completely finished, with skylights and murals on the walls. Sun flooded in through French doors adorned with lacy curtains. They’d certainly provided Katerina with a happier abode than the usual nursing home.
With my legs pocked like the victims of a bad razor, I stepped onto the balcony and scrutinized the scene below. Two unmarked white vans rolled down the narrow alley behind the warehouses—did they carry the patients we couldn’t rescue? Milo wrapped himself around my ankles and kept silent watch with me.
I clenched the rail in alarm at the sight of two figures covertly working their way along the flat roof of an empty store on the far side of the warehouse. I glanced up, but the helicopter was well away.
If that was Andre and Schwartz, they were prepared to tackle any army left behind.
I wanted to believe the troops had departed with the helicopter and vans, but I wasn’t willing to wager my life—or Andre’s or Schwartz’s life. If there were soldiers left in the warehouse, I didn’t know them, couldn’t see them, and couldn’t visualize them into another dimension. But I really disliked the idea of Andre being involved in another shoot-out.
And Paddy and Julius were telling me to keep him from killing anyone. I didn’t know what was with that, but I was on board. No killing. I needed to clear the warehouse of enemy soldiers before anyone got hurt.
Just as my brain started to create an olfactory bomb of every nasty smell I could recollect, the plate-glass windows and front door of the warehouse burst into the street from the force of camouflaged troops crashing through them. A second later, the building went boom.
Oh, hell. Oh, shit. Frantically, I switched gears to protective mode. How could I save anyone from a bomb?
Remembering the pink iceberg I’d created to protect Ernesto, I pictured a safety shield between Schwartz and Andre and the exploding warehouse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do two things at once. While I tried to protect Andre and Schwartz from erupting bricks and boards, the troops rushed straight across the street—to the house where I was standing.
I had no idea if the shield trick had worked. All I knew was that Andre and Schwartz had disappeared, and the menacing troops aroused a rage so red that it might explode my skull.
They’d blown up my friends!
No more doubt about guilt or innocence. I wanted to crush soldiers. I considered opening up the street to bury the enemy, only the med student and patients were in the tunnel under their feet. I tried imagining a wall dropping down around the house but nothing happened.
Shit. Not a fine time to learn my limits. Or even understand them.
Milo tried to shove me toward the door, but I couldn’t run away without trying to defend Andre’s home. This house offered the only other access to the bomb shelter and the patients. I’d already lost four patients, including Leibowitz. I had to protect the others. How did I keep out armed soldiers?