A message came over the radio from Tolbert.
"Yo, boss," he meant Brewer. "We found a couple of them holdin’ up in a corner bar. Could use some extra guns."
Jon told Trevor: "Tolbert’s got a team searching over there," and he pointed to a residential neighborhood below the ridge and to the north before transmitting to Tolbert: "We can’t have them drinking our booze, now can we?"
Jon slung his rifle, took a step in that direction, then turned to Nina. "Hey, you wanna help me out on this or is infantry work too good for the fly girl?"
She shrugged and followed him, rifle in hand.
Trevor stood with Lori Brewer and watched Nina and Jon walk across the parking lot, climb over the guardrail, and disappear down the grassy slope.
"Hey," Lori put an arm on his shoulder. "How is it you knew this would work? How is it that we’re alive when we were outnumbered and outgunned?"
"How did you know when you came up that ridge that you would wipe out this base and survive to tell the tale?"
Lori answered, "I didn't know. Honestly, I was sure we were going to die."
"Yet you did it anyway?"
"Sure," she said and tried to smile. "It didn't seem like I had any other choice other than letting my husband get killed by himself."
"Well there you go. It isn't that I knew it would work, it's that we didn't have any other choice."
Tolbert's voice-from the radio-interrupted their conversation: "They're taking pot shots at us. Where’s our support?"
Jon’s voice: "We’re coming. Over your right shoulder, cutting through the yard."
Tolbert: "’Bout time."
Trevor told Lori, "Your husband…he did a hell of a job."
"Don’t tell him that; he’ll be impossible to live with."
Bang.
An explosion blasted from the neighborhood to the north. Trevor flinched, then saw a puff of smoke drifting from the far side of a house.
His heart stopped as a message broadcast over the radio: "Nina is down! Nina is down!"
Trevor instantly stepped toward the slope but caught himself. In the distance, the smoke rose and dissipated.
Lori growled, "What are you waiting for? Get your ass down there, Trevor. Run…"
Trevor, confusion and fear all over his face, glanced at Lori then moved toward the grassy slope. His walk grew into a jog.
"Run! Go! Now!"
His jog became a trot became a sprint. Trevor bound down the hill nearly falling as he pushed through dead stalks of grass. He stumbled over the railroad tracks and raced across a small street then hopped a decaying old metal fence into a backyard where he stopped at the base of a rear porch.
In front of him, a block away, he saw the bar full of barricaded Redcoats. Jon, Tolbert and others fired into that bar neutralizing the threat. He did not see Nina.
Where is she?
His eyes searched desperately; his mouth gaped…
…Nina stood in the shadows of the porch holding an ice pack on a minor bump to her head. A stray Redcoat burst had hit a propane tank on a gas grille. The explosion merely knocked her to the ground. Jon left her behind with an instant-cold pack from his first aid kit.
Trevor did not see her, but she saw him; she saw him come running around the house searching for her. She saw the look of desperation in his eyes. Nina saw his feelings, forced to the surface by fear. She took a step forward. The boards creaked and grabbed his attention.
He saw her standing with the pack to her head. She did not need it, though. She tossed it aside at the same time that his look of desperation turned into a massive smile of relief.
Then he caught himself. The smile vanished. For a moment, it appeared he would walk away; retreat.
No. No more retreating.
Instead, he walked in big, deliberate-almost angry-strides to the porch. He climbed the stairs. Nina backed into the corner. Her heart raced; she trembled.
Trevor grabbed her shoulders and locked onto her eyes.
"Now you listen to me!" He shouted. "I don’t want to be alone anymore! I don’t want to be afraid anymore!"
She breathed a sigh and a sob all in one exhale as he continued, "I can’t spend every night thinking about you then every day running away from you!"
She shook; her eyes watered.
"Tell me to go away and I’ll go. But you have to tell me that because I’m done hiding from you!" He paused for only a split second then implored, "Say something! Say anything!"
The words flooded out: "What do you want me to say? I’m afraid, damn it, I’m scared!"
"We’re all scared!"
Their words mixed.
"I’ve never been like this before…I’m confused…and I keep wondering…I don’t want to be just a killer…"
He pushed, "Tell me something Nina! Tell me to leave but tell me something!"
"…and I betrayed you…and they made me hate you… but I think I love you!"
The words slipped out; no conscious thought directed them.
Everything stopped. All the mixed words. All the confusing emotions. Time halted.
Nina Forest filled with fear. She had never felt vulnerable before and now she stood there with her heart wide open. He could have shattered her with a word. He could have killed her if he walked away.
Trevor moved his arms from her shoulders to her back and gently pulled her in close; her face buried in his chest and the warmth of their hug chased away the cold of the day.
She whispered softly, "I don’t know…I don’t even know what that means."
"We’re going to find out," he stroked her hair. "We’re going to find out, together."
24. Farewell
The Apache buzzed over barren treetops with Nina at the helm. She scanned the horizon seeing the late morning sun, brown grass fields with isolated patches of ice and snow, and thin forests laid overtop a series of rolling hills. She did not see what they searched for.
Three vehicles following an old dirt road emerged from a cluster of light woods and stopped at the edge of a clearing.
The sound of the Apache somewhere in the sky filtered into the cabin of the lead Humvee. Trevor, riding in the passenger’s seat, worked the ‘send’ button on his radio.
"Hey, hawk eye, see anything?"
Nina’s bird banked and gained altitude.
She answered, "Look, for the third time, I’ve got nothing up here."
Trevor worked the radio again. "Well what am I paying you for?"
Her static-laced reply: "You haven’t paid me a nickel."
"Well, you haven’t earned it yet. Get on the stick and stop fooling’ around up there."
A series of colorful descriptive phrases-proposals as to how Trevor could best carry his radio-scorched the airwaves.
Trevor called to a different listener: "Jon, you doing’ better?"
Brewer stood on the open face of a hill flanked by Tolbert and Cassy Simms. Specks of white snow lay on the ground around them. All three wore camouflage and carried motorcycle helmets. Three hovercraft bikes sat parked behind them.
The elevated position afforded Jon a fantastic view of the countryside.
Jon answered over the shared radio frequency, "Ah, that’s a negative, Trev. All I can see is a helicopter flying around sort of aimlessly out there, like it’s lost or something."
More obscenities came from that pilot. Trevor, meanwhile, sat in the Humvee and let loose a series of frustrated mumbles. He warned the driver, Reverend Johnny, "If that lizard fed us a line I’ll rip its neck out."
"That may be difficult, my friend. I believe our informer has long since departed this area as per your instructions. I must confess my surprise at your decision to let it live."
"I was in a particularly good mood," Stone said in regards to the intelligent, bipedal lizard they had found on the outskirts of Shavertown and interrogated with the help of a Redcoat translation device. "Besides, if it’s right, there’s something pretty cool out here."