The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (38 page)

Where did you get so many men willing to die for you, Kate? Was this the plan all along? Make us kill each other?

She pushed those useless thoughts away and focused on the here and now. It didn’t matter where these men came from or who they were. They were coming fast and armed and they had only one goal, and she couldn’t allow that. Not with everyone’s lives at stake. Carly, Vera, Elise, and all the poor souls who had come here hoping for a new start.

As afraid as she was about what was about to happen, Lara was also angry. More than that, she was pissed off. She wondered if this was how Will felt whenever he went into battle. No, probably not. Will was always pragmatic. He wouldn’t really look at the men coming on boats now as anything but obstacles to overcome.

You should be here with me right now, Will. Where the hell are you?

You promised you’d come home…

She remained crouched behind the wall of trees, next to the ten-yard-wide pathway that connected the beach and stretched about half a football field until it reached the wide open grounds behind them. Without the lamps that serpentined across the island, everything was blackened, including the hotel and the unfinished swimming pools. The only structure on the entire island that still had lights was the Tower, glowing brightly behind her, and that was only because of the LED lamps on the third floor.

Even the birds that usually chirped away, oblivious to human presence on the island, had gone uncharacteristically quiet tonight.

Did they know? Of course not. How could they?

Behind her, Sarah shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet, apparently unable to decide whether she wanted to sit down or remain standing.

“You okay?” Lara whispered over her shoulder.

Like Stan a few seconds ago, Sarah tried to smile, and just like Stan, it came out poorly. “I’ve never shot anyone before.”

“You’ll do fine. Just follow my lead.”

“What’s it like?”

“What?”

“Killing someone. What’s it like?”

“Don’t think about it. Shoot, reload, and keep shooting until there’s nothing to shoot at anymore. They’re coming here to kill us. Just keep reminding yourself of that. Do it for Jenny. For Mae. For everyone who is counting on us right now.”

Sarah nodded mutely, then went back to trying to decide whether to sit or stand, and constantly changing up her grip on the M4.

“You’ll do fine,” Lara said again, and hoped it was at least convincing. Judging by Sarah’s face, she guessed she was only halfway successful.

There was a time when Lara had been just like Sarah—scared and uncomfortable with a gun in her hands. Those days were long gone, and even as she turned back to the darkness, she wished Will’s face was looking back at her.

You promised me, Will. Where are you?

But he wasn’t there. Instead, she saw Roy, his blond hair easy to spot in the semidarkness. He had moved away from the trees and was standing next to Stan in a spot that allowed him to remain behind cover while still able to peer down the pathway and at the moonlit beach on the other side. Compared to Stan, Roy looked strangely serene, the M4 hanging almost naturally from a sling in front of him. She knew better, of course. Roy was a former IT man, and the closest he’d ever come to holding a gun in his life before The Purge was playing
Call of Duty
on the PlayStation.

Roy glanced over and grinned at her. “Remember that time in the woods? When we were chasing West?”

She smiled back. “Yes.”

“Man, I was so unprepared back then.”

“Not anymore.”

“Not anymore. What’s that motto of yours again?”

“Which one?”

“‘Adapt or perish’?”

“Ah.”

“I guess you can say I’ve successfully adapted.”

And not a moment too soon.

“They’re taking their sweet time,” Roy said. “I wish they’d get here already. My legs are cramping up from the waiting.”

Be careful what you wish for,
Lara thought for the second time as the sound of motors seemed to increase in decibel on cue.

It wouldn’t be long now…

There was a
click
in her right ear, and she heard Blaine’s voice through the earbud connected to her radio. “Lara.”

Lara pressed the PTT dangling from her vest. “Yeah, Blaine.”

“They’re getting closer, right? We can hear them all the way on the other side of the island.”

“Yeah, they’re getting closer.”

“Keo said ten boats?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand why they’re just attacking the beach with ten boats. Is that all they have?”

“I don’t know,” Lara said. Then, “Keo.”

“Yeah,” Keo said through the radio.

“How many boats did you see when you were at their staging area?”

“I didn’t exactly do an official count. Most of them were already in the water.” He paused, seemed to think about it some more, before adding, “Remember what we talked about? How they’ve been going around sinking boats for a while now, trying to keep everyone on land? Maybe these ten are all they have left in the area.”

“What a bunch of asshats,” Danny said. “I bet a lot of people paid good money for those boats.”

“What are you thinking, Blaine?” Lara asked.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Blaine said.

“Spit it out,” Danny said.

“It’s just that…this is pretty bold of them, to just think they can invade Song Island by hitting the beach,” Blaine said. “Especially knowing how it all turned out last time.”

She didn’t blame Blaine for being suspicious. That was all she had been doing since they spotted the ten boats. But there was no way to alter the plan now, not with the attackers bearing down on them.

“Blaine has a point,” she said into the radio. “This could all be one big diversion. There could be more approaching from the other sides. Report in as soon as you see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all. Understand?”

The others responded one by one.

“I wish Will was here,” Sarah said quietly behind her.

So do I. God, so do I.

On the other side of the trees, the sound of boat motors seemed to have picked up in volume. She knew what that meant: They were getting closer.

“Look alive, boys and girls,” Danny said through the radio. “Here they come. Shoot straight, shoot often, and keep moving. Do not—I say again—do
not
let them get a bead on you. It’s a big beach. Use it.”

*

Keo fired first.
She knew it was him because the gunshot came from the other side of the pathway. Danny was in the middle, while Gaby was camped to her left.

Once Keo let go with the first shot, the shooting didn’t stop. It sounded like thunder crashing against the beach over and over again, first concentrated on one side, then the other, and before she knew it, it was impossible to pinpoint where the bulk of the gunfire was coming from because it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

If Sarah was nervous, she was on overdrive now. Lara could feel the other woman’s anxiety in the warm breaths hitting her in the back of the neck. Across from her, Stan was equally anxious, gripping and ungripping his M4 at least a dozen times in as many seconds. Roy seemed to be faring better, though even he had gone into a crouch to keep his feet from fidgeting.

Lara had to fight her own instincts. She wanted badly to peek into the pathway, to see if they were coming yet, or get a glimpse of the gunfight that was taking place on the beach at this very moment. But she didn’t, because doing so might give away her position. That, and the prospect of getting hit with a stray bullet flying from the beach was more than enough motivation to keep her rooted in place.

Staying still became more difficult when bullets began pelting the trees behind and around her. Branches snapped off and whenever a round
zipped!
nearby, she flinched, while Sarah gasped audibly. The assaulters were pouring everything they had into the woods, obviously trying to hit Danny, who was somewhere in front of them, moving constantly and using the trees as cover. That didn’t stop them from firing into the woods anyway, and branches were continually snapping around her, some just a little bit too close for comfort.

She exerted every ounce of control she had to remain perfectly still, even if every instinct she had told her to move, move,
move
.

No one was talking—not Danny or Keo or Gaby, or anyone else plugged into the channel, which was everyone on the island with a radio. Like her, they were mesmerized by the chaotic back and forth, the never-ending
pop-pop-pop
of assault rifles crashing up and down the length of the beach.

It went on and on, and whenever she thought it would calm down, having run its course, it picked up again.

My God, how many men are out there? How many have they killed already? How many more do we have to kill? I don’t want this. This bloodbath.

God help me, I never wanted this…

Then, through the tumultuous pounding of gunfire and her own thrumming chest, she heard the
click!
that she had been waiting for, followed by Danny’s voice, slightly out of breath, shouting into her ear. “Hot Gates! Persians in the Hot Gates!”

Lara snapped her eyes shut and counted down from
ten.

The first step was to rein in her heartbeat. It was racing too fast, threatening to overwhelm her.

Nine…

She clutched and unclutched the pistol grip under the M4’s barrel.

Eight…

Made sure the fire selector was on full-auto.

Seven
…

Behind her, Sarah whispered, “Oh, God.”

Six…

Opened her eyes back up.

Five…

Roy was staring across the pathway at her, and he managed a nervous smile.

Four…

She smiled back at him, hoping the confidence she was faking came through all right, but knowing it probably wasn’t even close to being convincing.

Three…

“Oh, God,” Sarah said again.

Two…

She located the trigger on her rifle.

One…

“Now!”
she screamed.

She might have run or walked really fast. She wasn’t quite sure. One second she was hiding behind the trees, the next she had moved out from behind cover and into the open, spun around sixty degrees until she was facing the beach, and even before she saw the first black-clad figure rushing up the cobblestone path right at her, she was already squeezing the trigger.

There had to be a dozen of them—maybe more—racing up the ten-yard-wide opening with wild abandon, the adrenaline of the beach landing clearly surging through them. She didn’t need the lamps to see they were wearing black uniforms and helmets. Moonlight glinted off the rifles swinging back and forth in their hands as they charged forward.

They had no idea she was there. Or Stan, running out from behind his part of the woods and going into a crouch. Or Roy, positioning himself behind the electrician. Sarah might have followed her out from cover and into the open, too, but Lara didn’t have the second or two it would have taken to make sure.

She was too busy shooting.

They fell like dominos. She was glad it was too dark to make out each individual man, because that would have meant thinking of them
as
men. Right now, she couldn’t afford that, because killing was still unnatural to her even as she tried to convince herself this was necessary, that it was kill or be killed. The anger that had carried her through the last few minutes flooded out of her with every bullet she poured into the mass of bodies, replaced by pity and horror.

But none of that made her take her finger off the trigger—all she had to do was think of Elise, of Vera, of the teenagers who had come with Bonnie—and she was able to hold on as the rifle bucked and the magazine emptied at a dizzying rate. She wasn’t shooting at any one person—she was shooting at all of them.

Roy and Stan were still firing into the ten-yard-wide pathway when Lara ejected her magazine and grabbed a new one, slamming it home. She became vaguely aware of Sarah crying while the rifle in her hands was bucking again and again. The other woman still had her weapon set to semi-automatic for some reason.

They were crumpled in front of her, the closest one having gotten halfway up the road before she felled him. She didn’t count the number of lumps lying across the cobblestone floor. She didn’t want to.

(A dozen? Two? Too many…)

She finished reloading and started shooting again. She didn’t even know what she was shooting at. There may or may not still be men moving around in front of her. She might have simply been firing into the pile of bodies now, looking for survivors that might not even exist.

She thought of Elise and Vera again and didn’t stop shooting until she was empty a second time. Then she instinctively ejected the magazine and groped for a third one from around her waist.

Roy and Stan were frantically changing magazines to her right, but Sarah was holding her M4 uselessly at her side. The woman had stopped crying, and the sudden quiet was deafening, with the only noise coming from the
clicking
of metal as they reloaded their weapons.