Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (13 page)

“Thank you,” I called back to the woman. She nodded her blue-streaked hair apprehensively, unsure what to think or say or probably whether she could fully trust me and my intentions for saving her. I couldn’t say I blamed her.

The sound of glass breaking from a blown-out window brought my attention back to the warehouse, now fully engulfed in flames. Ian. Where was Ian? Around the entrances and exits to the warehouse, soldiers gathered with guns drawn.

“How many are in there?” I asked the woman. She stood paralyzed in the roadway, trembling. “Hey.” I snapped my fingers in her face, bringing her back to me. “How many people are in the warehouse?”

“Uh,” she stammered. “Five. There were five of us, counting me.”

“So four in the warehouse, then?”

She nodded. The nightmarish trance returned to her face as she again succumbed to the horrific scene of flames dancing around the warehouse where her friends were trapped.

“Block the exits, don’t let any of them out,” the soldiers’ commander ordered them. Forgetting about the woman he’d held captive, the commander had joined the other soldiers around the warehouse to orchestrate the ultimate punishment for the rebels’ betrayal.

Enraged, I charged at their leader, who turned to face me as though he had been expecting me. “An attack against a soldier is an act of treason, punishable by death,” he said mechanically.

“Yeah?” I asked. “How long did it take Brooks to program that into you? Or is he feeding those lines to you as we speak?”

He reached for the gun in the holster at his side, but I was quicker than him and landed a blow to his stomach before he could do any damage. The gun dropped to the ground in a perfect position for me to pick it up and aim it at his head. He held his hands up, his blank stare seemingly searching through a hidden database for a way out of this unforeseen predicament.

The smoke and flames at the front of the warehouse were not nearly as prevalent, and I guessed that would be the place where Ian would bring any survivors he found—if he returned at all. I shrugged the thought out of my brain, unable to fathom him not being able to make it out of there and succumbing to the flames. Worried, I eyed the commanding soldier, hoping that he would no longer be a threat, and turned to run toward the group of soldiers blocking the front exit.

“Drop your weapons,” I ordered. But they continued to stare blankly at the empty doorway ahead, their guns aimed, ready. “Well, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” I kicked the gun out of the hands of the first soldier I came to, immediately springing both him and two others to life, leaving three remaining to guard the doorway. I threw the disabled soldier to the ground, quickly jumping into the air as the other two began firing at me.

“Stop or face the consequences of your betrayal,” one of them commanded in a gruff voice.

“But this is so much more fun,” I said, landing a blow to the soldier’s shoulder, which sent him sprawling to the pavement. A sharp blow to my head knocked me back, and it was all I could do to catch myself from falling. Looking up, I saw my assailant charging me, gun raised, ready to strike me again. In response, I ducked down and wrapped my arms around the waist of the soldier, throwing him over my back. His gun fell from his hands and struck the ground with a metallic clang. I sprang to my feet, snatched it up from the ground, and slid it across the pavement in the direction of the woman and the two former soldiers, still standing around in shock.

“Take the gun,” I shouted at them. Without pause, the woman ran across the road and grabbed it, instinctively holding it out in front of her as she backed away from the scene ahead of her. Three down, three more to go. Glancing back at the doorway, my heart sank to see there were still no signs of life. “Come on, Ian,” I pleaded, hoping he would hear my voice in his ear bud and let me know he was okay. Silence, nothing but awful silence.

With my fist clenched tightly, I punched one of the three soldiers, causing him to stumble backwards. Like before, the soldiers seemed to come to life. But unlike before, only two of the three responded this time, leaving the third one to stand guard. I grabbed the gun belonging to the other soldier, a woman twice my size, and wrestled it out of her hands. It inadvertently fired a shot into the sky, temporarily deafening me, before I was finally able to pry it from her. As with the first gun, I sent this firearm skidding across the pavement in the direction of the rebels. Angered, the woman ran at me at full speed like a bull to a matador. When she drew closer, I stuck my foot out in her path, causing her to trip. On her way down, I ripped her helmet off her head, releasing a head of thick blonde hair, styled in a messy braid.

After regaining his footing, the other soldier ran at me, ready to strike me with his gun. I prepared myself to spring over him, but he was ready for me and, catching my leg with his hand, he slammed me down to the ground. He then knocked my gun out of my reach, and I could only watch helplessly as it landed inches away from my outstretched hand. In a flash, the soldier was on top of me, pressing his arm into my neck, one of the most vulnerable and exposed areas of my body.

“Don’t you know it’s not polite to hit a lady?” I asked him, freeing my foot and kicking him off me. “Good thing for you, I’m no lady.” As I struggled to get to my feet, he jumped on my legs and pinned me back down to the ground. “You don’t give up easily, do you?” In response, he landed a couple of punches to my chest as he reached for his gun, which I promptly swiped away and threw into the darkness.

Behind me, I heard a gun cock. When I looked back, I saw the soldier guarding the door stiffen, his gun aimed at a distinct figure in the doorway. “Ian!” I shouted, trying to get to my feet. With the soldier holding me down, it would take some time to free myself. Time I didn’t have. Frantically, I tried kicking my legs in the hopes of being able to break free. Although the soldier loosened his grip on me, it still wasn’t enough. “Ian, look out!” I called right as the soldier near the door fired the first shot. Ian ducked back inside, barely dodging the bullet.

A loud crack emanated from above the doorway. I looked up in horror to see the second floor of the warehouse beginning to buckle. Soon it would fall in, blocking the exit in the best of circumstances, or crushing Ian and the others under concrete and flame in the worst. With the soldier still on top of me, rapidly landing blows to my body, I couldn’t move to get to my feet, and could only inch my way forward. It wouldn’t be enough for me to get to the soldier guarding the doorway before he fired another shot at Ian, but it would be enough to get me closer to the gun I dropped.

He fired another shot, and then another immediately thereafter. With the smoke growing thicker, Ian must be getting desperate. The structural integrity of the building had to be fading fast. I needed to do something and I needed to do it now. In pain, I inched myself toward the gun. My fingers scraped its metal exterior and moved it closer to me until I was able to capture it in my hand. Ahead of me, yet another shot pierced the night air.
Now, Celaine,
now
.

With an unsteady hand, I took aim at the soldier and fired.

When I looked up, I saw the soldier lying on the ground, motionless. Not only had the bullet—my bullet—hit him, but it had mortally wounded him. I had killed someone. My body grew stiff, cold. A chilling numbness overtook me. Though I knew it may happen eventually given everything we’ve been through, nothing could possibly prepare a person for the shock of actually being responsible for taking another human life.

Ian emerged from the doorway followed by four others, three men and a woman. He’d managed to get to them all, and I took solace in the fact that at least there were no lives lost there. A momentary rush of relief replaced the guilt for a moment. But only for a moment.

With the other soldier still on top of me, I summoned up strength that had lain dormant within me, twisted my body around, and struck my assailant in his head. He rolled off me, rattled and unmoving. I got to my feet and ran over to the man I’d shot. And as I kneeled down to the ground, I saw a pool of blood emerging from underneath his body. Though I knew it was a long shot, I searched his neck for any signs of a pulse. Nothing. Desperate, I placed my ear near his mouth, hoping to hear or feel breath. Still nothing. Tears streamed down my face; my body trembled. In front of me was a man who had committed evil acts unwillingly, whose body had been used as nothing more than a flesh and blood robot. An unwitting pawn who had a life, a family, and no idea what he was doing or that today was going to be his last day of life.

“Celaine,” Ian called my name, resting his hand on my shoulder. I clutched his hand as I stood up to face him and pulled him toward me in the tightest embrace I’d ever given to anyone.

“Ian,” I sobbed, the tears blinding me. He smelled of soot, reminding me of the life I could have lost tonight. “I shot him.”

“I know,” he said softly. “We’re in a war. It’s inevitable that snap decisions are going to have to be made. They may be painful, life changing. But they’re only bad decisions if they are committed out of hatred. What you did saved lives. It was for the benefit of those who are fighting for countless others who don’t have a voice.”

Ian’s words were like a hot bath after a long day—soothing. It was exactly like him not to judge and to see both sides even though one side was darker than the other. “When I saw you in the doorway, with the fire threatening to cave in the floor above you and bullets being fired in your direction, something in me snapped. Somehow, I had to do whatever I could to save you because it was like a part of me was in there with you.”

He pulled away from me just enough to place his helmeted forehead on mine. “If we weren’t surrounded by soldiers ready to kill us and rebels who I’m sure are watching us right now, I would kiss you.”

“Speaking of soldiers,” I said, “there are more of them on the other side of the warehouse. We need to gather the others together and get out of here.”

We let go of each other and looked across the street where I had left the woman and the two soldiers. The four other rebels had joined them, along with the woman soldier I’d fought earlier. “I don’t see any of them, though,” Ian said. “You would think we’d be surrounded by now.”

“At this point, I don’t care where they are. Let’s count this as a win in our column, grab the others, and go.” I jogged over the roadway into the darkness on the other side of the street with Ian just steps behind me. Despite the darkness, I noticed that the rebels tensed a little in our presence, unsure of either us or our motives.

“Quiet, Max,” the woman rebel Ian led out of the building said. “He pulled us out of the building, remember?”

Off to the side of the rebels stood the former soldiers, still bewildered and somewhat shaken. I felt sorry for them because at that moment I knew exactly how they felt.

“We came here not to do you harm, as you may have already guessed,” Ian began much to my relief, “but to ask that you take us in and let us join you, or at the very least, take us to Marshall Leitner and let him decide what to do with us.”

“See, they’re just like Brooks’ soldiers,” a man who I assumed was Max spoke up. “All they care about is infiltrating our ranks and destroying us. She already tried to kill Marshall at the address, if you’ll remember.” He pointed accusingly at me, drawing nods from a couple of the others.

Shit
. “I assure you,” I said. “That was entirely a misunderstanding. Just like you, we’ve been lied to. We were led to believe that others were responsible for our pain and that you were the enemy, when in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. Here,” I put my hands up in the air, drawing questioning stares, “take our weapons. Pat us down. We have nothing to hide, and you’ll have the comfort of knowing that we’re unarmed.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Ian hesitantly raising his arms. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he mumbled.

“We have the same common goal as you. We want to take down President Brooks too. And with your numbers and our knowledge and strength, we just may be able to do it.”

“What about The Man in Black?” the woman I’d rescued on the street asked. “When did he stop being your main priority?”

“The Man in Black is still our priority,” Ian answered. “It’s just that we’ve come to know what true evil really is. President Brooks’ evil—his power—has the capability of affecting more people. Besides, I have a hunch that if we’re able to take down Brooks, The Man in Black won’t be too far behind him.”

“Like they’re one and the same?” one of the men asked.

“We don’t know, we’re trying to figure things out just like everyone else,” I said. “But we know we’re more likely to find the answers we’re searching for if we join you and regain our free will than if we remain pawns to Brooks. They’re answers we’re willing to fight for.”

“And what about them?” a man, younger than the rest of the group, with sandy hair a shade darker than Ian’s, asked, gesturing toward the three former soldiers. “I suppose you’re going to suggest we bring them along too?”

“Of course,” Ian answered. “They’re victims just like the rest of us.”

“Victims?” the woman soldier asked. “What do you mean by victims? What even happened to us, anyway? The last thing I remember is getting ready to begin patrols with my sister and then nothing until just a few minutes ago.”

“Same here,” the other two soldiers said in unison.

“We’re not entirely sure how he’s doing it,” I said, “but we believe that Brooks has found a way to manipulate your minds through a device implanted in your helmets, rendering you unable to think or act for yourselves. You’ve been completely under his control this entire time—or under the control of whoever else is behind the scenes.”

“That son of a bitch,” one of the male soldiers yelled, visibly angry. “Do you mean to tell me that all of us have been fighting, waging a war, killing innocent people, and even putting our own lives in jeopardy without even knowing it?”