The Masked Truth Part 16

Arterial spray. Meaning the bullet hit an artery. He's bleeding out. That matters. That matters.

There's a hole through his throat, and Max knows that even if he can't see it because all he sees is blood, pumping, pumping, and there's so much Max is on his knees, reaching for Aaron's throat, to wrap his hands around it, because that's all he can think to do, but then he stops.

Are you sure this is real, Max? Really, truly sure, because the last time ...

Max squeezes his eyes shut. Yes, the last time. Can't forget that. Can't ever forget that. But this is real. This is real, and there's a hole in Aaron's throat, and the only way he can save him is to wrap his hands around his neck ...

Just like Justin.

Yes, d.a.m.n you. Just like Justin, and if Max is wrong, he's wrong, but he doesn't think he is, and he sure as h.e.l.l cannot sit here and reason it through, can he?

He puts his hand to the hole in Aaron's throator where the hole must be, where the blood gushesand when he does, he can feel the blood pumping against his hand. Then he sees it pouring from the other side.

Where the bullet went through, Max. Because that's what they do. They go through.

Max yanks off his jacket and wraps the sleeves around Aaron's throat. Then he sees his face. Really sees his face. Aaron's eyes, wide. Aaron's eyes, empty. Aaron's eyes, lifeless.

He's gone, Max. He's been gone for a while.

No, he can't be. He's still bleeding. Look, the blood, it's still pumping No, he's bleeding due to gravity. His heart has stopped.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, he doesn't want facts unless they're going to help him save Aaron.

Can't save him. Can't save anyone, Maximus. Are you sure he was the one holding the gun?

What? Of course. Aaron was looking down the barrel And you were reaching for the gun. Are you quite certain you didn't struggle for it? You have schizophrenia. You see things. Imagine things. Are you sure Aaron shot himself accidentally? Really, truly sure?

Max squeezes his eyes shut, silences the voice and crouches there, holding the cloth against Aaron's neck, uselessly blocking the holes as the last of Aaron's lifeblood seeps through.

CHAPTER 18.

I hear Gray curse in the next room, and I'm on my feet, tugging Brienne along as she wipes away tears and follows. I crack open the hall door just enough to see Gray's back as he steps into the adjoining room.

I'm straining to hear their footsteps when Predator chuckles and whispers, "Almost missed that," and I know he's seen the second door. I don't wait for Gray's reply. I slip into the hall. Brienne follows. We tiptoe the other way. There's a corner just ahead, and I slink along the wall to it, while watching over my shoulder to be sure Gray and Predator don't come back into the hall before we make it.

Just a little farther. I can hear boots clomping around the other rooms as they hunt for us.

Three more steps. A voice. A grumble. Then Gray's "Come on out, kiddies," and I pick up the pace and dart around the corner and "h.e.l.lo, Riley."

It's Predator. Standing right there. Smirking at me. I lunge, letter opener out, and I stab him. I don't even realize what I'm doing. It's pure reflex. A fencer's reflex.

I stab as hard as I can, and the blade sinks into his side, and he snarls, "You little b.i.t.c.h!" and I yell, "Run!" and when Brienne hesitates, I yell it again as I yank the letter opener out, and I go to stab him again, but he backhands me and the opener flies into the wall, clanking, and I see the gun rise, and again I don't think, I just react. I spin, and I run.

I run as fast as I can after Brienne, already disappearing around another corner. But I'm not wearing shoes, and as good as that was for keeping quiet, it means I don't have any traction, and I slip and slide and thatthatis what saves my life. Predator fires, and I hear the suppressed shot, and it's too late to dive out of the way, but I'm skidding to the side, and the bullet only grazes my thigh. I keep running. By the time he fires again, I'm diving around a corner, and he misses completely, and then I see Brienne ahead, in a doorway.

I look back for Predator. I don't see him. I do see a trail of blood following me. I run past Brienne. She gasps and opens her mouth to stop me, but I race around the corner through the next doorway. Then I slap my hand over my bleeding thigh and run back to her, being careful to stay out of my blood trail.

I dart into the room with Brienne. She closes the door, and we retreat behind a pile of boxes. I'm limping now. It's more than a graze. Pain burns through my leg. I get behind the boxes and I sit and try to check the wound, but all I see is a rip in my jeans. A blood-drenched rip. The bullet isn't lodged in my legI saw it hit the wall. The wound is somewhere between a graze and a shot, leaving a gash that's bleeding steadily but isn't life-threatening.

I take off my belt and fasten it just above the wound. I have no idea if it needs a tourniquetor even if I've done it rightbut it seems to slow the bleeding. Then I take off my socks and stuff them into the hole in my jeans.

"Should have done that earlier," I say, waggling my bare toes. "More traction barefoot. You should take off yours too."

Brienne just stares at me. Then she blinks and, wordlessly, pulls off her socks and hands them to me.

"I don't need" I begin.

She stuffs them into my pocket, as if for later. She doesn't say that, though. Doesn't say a word until she lifts her gaze to mine and says, "I ran."

"I know. That was the idea."

"No, I ran. I didn't think about anything else. I didn't think about you."

"Which is what you're supposed to do." I look her in the eyes. "This is about surviving, Brienne. About one of us getting out and bringing back help for the wounded. And if no one's left to help? Then the goal is for someone to get out and tell our story. Tell the police. Tell our parents."

"Yours maybe. Mine won't give a d.a.m.n."

I want to tell her no, that's not right, I'm sure they will, any parent would, but that's bulls.h.i.t, isn't it? It's a stranger talking from her own experience. I don't know Brienne's family, and I hope to G.o.d she just feels that way, as we all do sometimes, like no one cares. But I don't know the truth, and it would be condescending of me to say she's wrong.

"The goal is survival, Brienne," I say. "We're looking after each other as best we can, but you couldn't have helped me with him. If you jumped in, we might have both been shot. When I said run, I meant run."

She glances away, unconvinced.

"Please," I say. "If you want to do something for me, do this. Promise me that if I tell you to run, you'll run."

"You wouldn't."

"I will. If there's nothing I can do, I will."

"Promise?"

I nod. "If either of us says to run, the other will run. We'll get out. We'll get help. We'll tell our story."

"Okay."

She takes a look at my leg, saying she's taken first aid, and I tell her how I skipped it for a concert, and she laughs and says, "You really are a rebel," and I know she's teasing me, but I swear, if I get out of this, I'm taking that d.a.m.ned course, and maybe a few more. Which should ensure that I'll never need to use them, and if that's true, I'll never complain about wasting my time, not once.

My leg has stopped bleeding. I don't know if that's because of the belt, but I'm leaving it on to be sure. Brienne says the bullet gouged its way through, hitting muscle but nothing vital. Exactly as I expected. We plug it up with the socks while she jokes about the sanitariness of that, and I say at least it's not the guys' socks, and we both laugh, but it's a reminder, too, that the guys are out there, and they don't know where we are, and we need to get to them.

Until now it's been so easy, so d.a.m.ned easy. Like playing a video game where you start off winning every battle with barely a health drop, and then all of a sudden, you're hit with waves of enemies and you're dying constantly. Which is fine in games, where you don't actually die.

We've been sneaking around for hours, and every time we hear our enemy, we just need to duck into a room and wait for him to pa.s.s. This time, he's not pa.s.sing.

Gray and Predator tricked us back there. They've upped their game, and my fake-out with the blood trail doesn't have them continuing along in the other direction. They're searching every room in the area, knowing we haven't gone far, and when I lean against the door, I hear them right there. The handle moves, and I'm holding it, and I frantically jerk my chin to Brienne. She grabs the k.n.o.b with me, and whoever is on the other side jiggles it a little and moves on, presuming it's another locked door.

We're safe here for a few minutes. It seems best to wait and take off after they get farther away. I'm about to tell Brienne that when the door flies open. It's Predator ... in his stockinged feet.

I lash out. Again, I don't think, I just hit. All I have are my fists, but as I'm swinging I see blood on his shirt and aim right for it. Right for the spot I stabbed him.

As my fist makes contact, Brienne slams the door on him. It hits his arm and the gun falls. She dives after it as Predator grabs for me, and I hear Gray's booted footsteps, running from some other hall. I manage to elbow Predator in the injured spot again, and he falls back. Then Brienne fires.

I don't see where the bullet hits him. It does. .h.i.t. I know that. I see him fall back. But we're both stumbling over him, getting into the hall as fast as we can.

We hear Gray coming, footsteps thundering along the hall. Brienne turns to me and says, "Run."

I shake my head and grab her arm and say, "No, come on," and she waves the gun and says, "I'll slow him down. Run."

"No, we"

"You promised."

"This isn't"

"Yes, it is." She meets my gaze. "Let me be brave, Riley. It's my turn."

I don't know if I would have run. I don't know if I could have. But she gives me a shove, and my wounded leg throws me off balance, and when I recover she's running the opposite way, toward the hall Gray is coming out of, and she fires and he lets out a curse, his boots squeaking as he stops short, and then she takes off, racing down the adjoining hall, and there's nothing I can do except go the other way, the way she wanted me to go, because if I follow her, then her distraction was for nothing. She has the lead. She fires again, so he'll know which way she went.

If I follow, she might shoot me by accident. If I follow, he might shoot me on purpose. If I follow, my leg won't let me keep up, and I'll ruin everything. I'll get her killed.

So I run. I run the other way, and I barely make it around the corner when Gray appears. I peer past the edge just enough to see him going after Brienne. And there's nothing I can do except pray, and it's not enough. I know it's not enough, because G.o.d isn't there to solve my problems for meHe gave me the tools I need to do it myself, and right now those tools fail me. I can think of no solution to help Brienne. I can only run.

I get around the next corner when I hear that now-familiar pfft from a suppressed shot.

I catch the sound, and I hear a thump. The thump of a falling body. I swing my back to the wall, and I squeeze my eyes shut, and I pray like I've never prayed before.

Let that be Brienne's shot. Let her have killed Gray, and maybe I shouldn't think thatfor her sake, because I don't want her to be responsible for a man's death, however terrible he was. Then I hear Gray mutter, "Stupid little b.i.t.c.h," and his boots clomp off down the hall, and I fall to the floor and cry.

CHAPTER 19.

I sit on the floor, my back against the wall, and I let the tears fall.

Brienne's dead.

Dead.

Let me be brave, Riley.

I hear Gray's words again, "stupid little b.i.t.c.h," and the tears evaporate in a wave of fury, and I leap to my feet, and I've heard the expression "I want to kill him," and I hate it, I've always hated it, never understood how anyone could say that in jest, because it wasn't jest. Never understood how anyone could say it in anger either, to feel that much hate for another person.

I do now.

If Gray were here and I had a gun in my handif I had any weapon in my hand ... No, even without a weapon, if he came around that corner, I'd throw myself at him and I'd kill him any way I could, for what he did to Maria and Aimee and now to Brienne, for the unbelievable callousness with which he took their lives.

I clench my fists, and I want to stride down this hall, and I don't care how stupid it is, how reckless. I want to find him and kill him or die trying.

Which is stupid. More than stupid. Because Brienne is dead, and she died saving my life, and now I'm going to throw it away on revenge?

I take a deep breath, stand and then sway there, my injured leg suddenly aching so much it can barely hold me up. It wants to give way, and I want to let it. Sink to the floor again and cry and wait for rescue. Pray for rescue.

Throw away Brienne's gift through revenge? Or by surrendering?

Neither, of course. I can do neither.

So I do the only thing I can: I set out in search of Max and Aaron. I suppose I should say I steel myself and wipe away my tears and set out, dry-eyed. I don't. But I do set out.

I barely notice the blood. Even when I do, there's a moment where I'm not sure what I'm seeing. It's just a thin, dark trickle of something like motor oil snaking from under a closed door. Then the emergency light reflects off the liquid, and I see that it's red, and my brain moves sluggishly, thinking, Is this where we left Lorenzo? Or where I stabbed Predator?

It's not, though. I know that, and the second I realize it, I'm lunging for that door so fast I fall against it. I throw it open, and I see a body on the floor, and there's blood, and oh G.o.d, there's a body on the floor and there's blood.

I stumble in, and there's light, and my gaze goes straight to it, and I see it's Aaron's penlight, in a pool of blood, shining on him. Shining on Aaron, lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. I run to him, and I crouch beside him, but I can see it's useless. His eyes are open and his throat is covered in blood. And he's dead.

Aaron is dead.

Aaron, Brienne, Aimee, Maria, Gideon ...

Max.

Oh G.o.d, Max. No, no, no I hear a noise behind me, and I turn, and there's Max, sitting on a box, staring at Aaron.

"Max?"

He looks up, and it's only then, when he moves, that I can move, and I throw myself at him. His arms go up to ward me off, but it's too late. I throw myself into his arms, and I hug him as hard as I can, and his arms go around me, and it's a tentative embrace, but I don't care.

I hug him and I bury my face against his shoulder and I let out a sob. He hugs me back then, squeezing me tight, and I feel him shaking against me, and when he speaks, he says, "I didn't do it," and I pull back, not sure I heard right.

"I didn't do it," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes are empty, dull with shock, and he's still trembling, and I realize what he's said and I say, "Of course you didn't"

"He had the gun. He was trying to get it working. I told him not to. I should have" He swallows. "I wasn't paying enough attention. He didn't listen to me, and I thought, Sod him, and I left him to it, and I should have stopped him. Made him stop."

"The gun went off," I say.

He nods. "I wasn't near ..." He squeezes his eyes shut. "No. I was reaching for it, and I'm certain I didn't touch it, but maybe I did, maybe I knocked it or brushed it or"