Leopard Dreaming (56 page)

‘It’s not working!’ Mira shouted.

‘It’ll work. Just stay calm and hold the pressure on. I’ll try to convince the colonel he needs to break cover or send a man to fetch more from the surgery.’

Don’t,
Maddy signed urgently with her hands.
You can’t stop it in time to prevent brain damage. My head is all I have that works. Please don’t imprison me in it.

‘You can’t die,’ Mira pleaded, keeping the pressure on anyway. ‘You’re the best of us.’

Maddy’s mouth opened and closed, gulping bubbles of blood along with a few silent words.
It’s okay.
She tried to smile.
No pain,
she added at the same time
with her hands. Her eyes and face relaxed, as if the nerve damage between her throat and spine dulled more of her pain than the sedative.
No pain finally.

Freddie threw back his head and howled, splaying his red fingers wide and dragging them down his face, drawing tears with her blood, and clawing out his own to mix with hers. He spun about, wailing, finally finding his voice, and hefted the bed around in one great swing to shield both Maddy and Mira. Only then did she realise he’d spent the last few seconds sawing himself free of it, using a short-handled finger-bone saw that he’d pocketed.

Already morphing into the deadliest of all his inner demons, he tore the rail from the side of the gurney and launched himself at his brother — wielding the ladder as a bullbar more than a shield, with the bone saw for a dagger.

Kurst fired a burst in reflex. Kitching ordered him to stop, but he wasn’t hearing. Puny hunter to the mighty leopard. The commander cowered behind metal crates with the colonel. Firing wildly. Lockman answered with his Glock, still unable to get a clear shot at either of them. And too late anyway. Freddie’s chest erupted in a dozen volcanoes, some punching all the way through his ribcage, driving him back a few steps. Until fiercer determination kicked in. Driving him homeward. Step by step, staggering for his target.

Kurst rose a nose too high, growing desperate for a final kill shot.

Lockman dropped him with a tidy plug to the forehead that blew out the back of his brain and painted the messier story of his death on the wall behind, where his body struck and sank. In death, he fell; no less dangerous. His hand clenched around the trigger and his weapon continued to fire, driving Mira’s head down and Lockman behind cover as the shots went wild.

Between the remaining rails of the gurney, Mira saw Kitching fall with the bone saw sticking out from his forehead. She saw the pile of other men writhing, groaning and grappling to climb out from under Freddie and the fallen crates. Saw Kitching’s Eagle skittering away — and she launched herself to grab it.

‘Mira!’ Lockman broke cover to sweep her back to safety. Too late again. She pulled the trigger faster than reflex, silencing Kurst, finally, with a volley of shots that knocked the machine gun from his grip. Many of her shots missed and struck his chest, killing him deader than dead. Her eyes widened in shock at the eruptions of flesh, while she fought the flighty Eagle that tried to recoil away from her. Too heavy for her to hold steady, even with both hands.

Gripping it tighter as Lockman flung her to cover behind the fallen crates, she kept firing until all the injured guards ceased making moves for their weapons and the Eagle clicked. Empty.

‘Lieutenant?’ She dropped the angry bird, relieved to see him still standing — no less surprised than the huddle of men who still cowered further back in the shadows along the hallway. Amongst them a few faces she glimpsed and recognised. Bohai, Jinhai and Fuyu.

‘We go now!’ Bohai shouted. ‘You stay so we not need to shoot you.’

‘No, you stay, so
we
not need to shoot
you
,’ Lockman commanded more calmly. ‘We’re the ones with reinforcements coming.’

Mira noticed all the pock-marks and rubble on the floor, making the concrete appear ploughed — and realised Lockman must have hunted them back instead of killing them. Yet she could hardly blame him for less passion in fighting over her and the others now that she’d betrayed him. She shuddered to think how much less he’d care if she’d fallen pregnant with another man’s child.

‘You okay?’ he asked, looking more worried for her than she deserved.

She shrugged, in awe of him and his self-control.

‘Now you see the real me,’ she confessed, finally seeing it for herself. She stepped out in the midst of it and turned around. Lockman stepped out too, ever the sentinel, taking position between her and them. ‘This is what I can do in a moment of madness.’

‘We’re more alike than you know.’ He crouched to check on Freddie, sparing only a sideways glance at the pile of bodies that lay twitching after death as their muscles drained. ‘He’s going fast,’ he warned her. ‘Anything you need to say, you’d better say it now and get back to Maddy.’

Mira glanced back at the other gurney, where all she could see was a single perfect foot protruding. She
did
need to hurry back, so Maddy wouldn’t spend her last moments alone, but she also needed to speak to Freddie. Had to tell him how much she owed him, so the echoes rippled back through time to ensure that he knew already.

She saw him smile, making the decision so much easier. ‘I’ll thank him later.’

Scampering back to Maddy, she hardly noticed that Lockman failed to follow, until he groaned in pain — carrying Freddie despite his own injuries. Ever so gently, he laid him down beside Maddy, facing her.

Maddy’s head turned to face him too. Her eyes locked with his, as their blood pooled together.

‘He shouldn’t die alone,’ Lockman said, resuming his guard duties. ‘Not after that. He saved us.’

Mira nodded, wishing she could thank him properly. Lockman as well as Freddie. Her heart ached so badly for losing them both, she wished she could relive the whole month over again. Or two months, so long as she went right back to the days she’d met them.

‘I failed you,’ Freddie sobbed, breaking his silence again in small bubbly rasps. Red foam seeped from his mouth, but he held focus with Maddy, as if Mira and the rest of the universe had had already faded. ‘I’m so … sorry. I tried so … hard to fix it … but I … still …’

I know you did Freddie. Shhh. It wasn’t Mira’s fault either.
Saving her strength, Maddy moved only her lips and one finger that she used to kiss and press against the only clean spot on his face. The blunt little club of his nose.

Maddy wiped a tear from the lake in his eye and drew the line of it down her own cheek.
Rest now,
she signed to him as the last of her strength drained away.
Come dream … beautiful dreams with me … in blissful …

Her lips came to a final pause only moments before their hearts.

‘Silence,’ Mira whispered. She drew their eyelids down together, aching as much for their loss as she ever had for her parents.

She fisted her eyes, unable to cry yet.

Ben still needed her.

‘Check Ben,’ Lockman called, as if reading her mind.

‘But you’re bleeding!’ She’d noticed before; without enough time to mention it.

He checked himself, patting his chest and glancing down inside his soaked shirt. ‘Nah, I’m good.’

She frowned suspiciously. ‘I can hear a lie.’

‘Hey, would I do that to you?’ He smiled and she smiled too.

‘Yes, actually. You would.’ She hurried to him first, needing to wrap her arms around him and be sure he was okay.

He winced as she landed against him.

‘Well, maybe a little is mine.’ He grimaced but didn’t push her away. ‘A few more dents and scratches.
On the bright side, they fill in the pattern of scars from the last batch.’

‘Let me see.’ Her hands moved to slide down inside his blood-soaked shirt, but he stopped her.

‘Back up. Can you really
see
me?’

She nodded. ‘I can’t explain it. Kitching gave us all the strangest sedative. Nearly spaced me, but it seems to have the oddly positive side effect of shoring up personal weaknesses. So now, most of the time, the blackest hue gives me
now
like a black and white movie.’

‘Only most of the time?’

She nodded, needing to rub her temples again as she glanced at Maddy and Freddie, consoling each other forever. ‘It’s addictive but wears off like adrenaline.’

‘Can you still see the past?’

‘I don’t know, but this is as good as it gets, and I don’t want to risk it just yet.’ She made a move to see down inside his shirt again, and again he beat her to it.

Peeling up the sticky cloth from his skin, he plucked out a piece of shrapnel from a shallow flesh wound. ‘Ow! Call me a sook, but I want anaesthetic for the rest of them.’

‘There’s others?’

‘Not if I don’t look.’ He grinned, keeping a wary eye out for trouble. ‘And not even you can make me.’

She slid her hand up to his neck, loving the way his mouth moved as he spoke. The way his eyes softened each time he looked at her. It made her want to stay and keep him talking a little longer, while Ben stole more painless sleep from his subconscious. She couldn’t shift Benny without help or waking him anyway, and she couldn’t bear the thought of causing him more pain so soon.

‘Mira, please,’ Lockman said. As her hands travelled lower down his sides, in sly search of other wounds, his voice became huskier. ‘Don’t distract me. I can’t be sure how long it will take Garland to track us here.’

She reached for his Glock and made him pull the trigger down the hall for a short burst, before his reflexes stopped her from wasting too many bullets into anything softer than the ceiling.

‘Proud to be insane!’ she shouted at the cowering end of their Mexican stand-off. ‘So don’t piss us off again.’

‘Mira, I don’t think their English is —’

She kissed him, surprising him. Surprising herself with how much she needed it. Needed to feel him respond, if only a little. The slightest twitch would have been enough for her, but he tightened one arm around her waist and swung her around the corner, shielding her with his body and kissing her all the way to safety. Yet as he turned, he also managed to keep his guard up, most of the way, and his Glock pointed around the corner as a reminder for Kitching’s reinforcements to be good and stay put.

Over Lockman’s shoulder, down the side corridor, Mira saw and heard a door burst open.

‘Guns!’ she cried, and in reflex, she reached for the nearest door handle, opening it and swinging him around with her into darkness.

He reacted in the same instant, answering a flash of enemy fire with two of his own, then slammed the door, sealing them both away in utter darkness.

‘Just my luck,’ Mira said, as she slapped around the shape of the door in search of a light switch. ‘I find the only broom closet in the complex.’

About the size of a bathroom, really, and empty of all but dust and a few dead cockroaches. No other exits; the only utility they needed.

Lockman caught her hand as he hugged her sideways, away from the door. ‘Leave it off,’ he whispered. ‘Let your eyes adjust.’

‘Oh, but Ben,’ she cried. ‘I left him out there.’ She made a move to rectify that, but Lockman grabbed
her backwards against him, and locked his arms around her.

‘He’s down, and safe enough for now, so long as he stays down.’

‘And what if that racket wakes him?’

A third door banged open, much further away, and another burst of machine gun fire clattered in reply — as if each party had taken offence at the other.

‘Just once,’ Lockman sighed, ‘could you please try to foresee something
positive
?’

‘Okay, sure. That must be the cavalry.’

‘Much better.’ He nuzzled her cheek to cheek, ignoring the madness outside as he tilted her face up to meet his and subtly shifted her round behind him. ‘Because I didn’t get to finish this yet.’

He kissed her slowly at first, growing passionate, breathing life back into her, and chasing off all her fears into the darker shadows of her mind where she needed them to stay, along with the pain. She kissed him back, melting into him so much she couldn’t keep her eyes open no matter how hard she tried. Eyes closed, her skin dissolved and she became pure energy. Or the nearest thing to it; blending and becoming one with him in a throbbing heat wave. He slowed their pace, still holding himself in control. Lingering, savouring, but still holding her down to one small foot of reality — and still managed to leave her gasping and hungry for more.

‘Hold that thought,’ he whispered.

Outside, she heard footsteps. Another lead debate; one party driving the other to retreat or advance. And metal crates scraped nearby as if someone had just fashioned themselves a barricade outside in the hall.

Hybrid accents chattered outside the door.

Lockman raised his Glock beside the handle. He turned sideways, narrowing his profile around the corner from the door, and she didn’t need to be told.
She turned sideways behind him and edged back into the corner, leaving him room enough to do whatever he needed to.

The door kicked open, Lockman fired and Mira heard a body drop against a crate outside. A machine gun replied through the open doorway. More from further down the hall, then one large blast that shot through the wall on the far side of the door, blasting a hole the size of a small bomb and spraying daggers of wood in every direction.

Mira saw it all, adrenaline shooting to her brain to help her process every tiny detail in slow motion. She saw the bullets ricocheting off the back wall, shooting straight back out the door, mostly, and silencing their attacker, if only briefly.

The biggest wooden dagger bounced out of the corner and headed directly for Lockman. With his focus on their attackers, he never saw it coming.

She grabbed him with all her strength, swung him round and caught it herself.

In the darkness, Lockman saw only the spray of splinters that struck the wall around him. ‘Wow. Thanks,’ he said, and lunged back to the doorway. ‘Bad aim, assholes!’ He emptied his Glock, reducing it to a sharp club and launched himself into a noisy scuffle that lasted until another door burst open down the hall.