Valentine Shepherd: Retribution Part 26

"Help us!"

"I'm not going back! You'll have to kill me first!"

When the shouting wasn't met with a volley of gunfire, Val chanced a look around the corner and saw the guards gawking at the group, their guns still out but pointed at the ground, unsure what to do. They weren't homicidal henchmen after all, just a couple of guys trying to do their job. Beyond the guards, through the open door, flashing lights approached. Police cruisers, at least three of them. The guards glanced behind them as sirens became audible.

"Aw, h.e.l.l," one of the guards said. "Screw this." He holstered his gun. The group in hospital gowns rushed past them and out the door, eager to embrace the police.

The cavalry had arrived. They'd want to talk to her, take her statement, eat up time she didn't have. Lucien had an escape route, an emergency exit plan he'd set up for just this kind of contingency, one that led through cold storage. If she didn't go there now, she'd never see Max again.

Ignoring the growing circus behind her, she raced deeper into the warehouse.

Chapter Thirty-three.

Val found the door marked "Cold Storage" and threw it open. A long concrete corridor with inlaid metal doors stretched out in front of her, exactly as it had been in her vision. She took off down it, running toward her future. Running toward Max's death.

I can't kill him. I will not kill him. f.u.c.k you, fate.

She reached a corner, slowed, and raised her gun. Her heart pounded against her rib cage.

I can change the future.

She wheeled around the corner and recognized Lucien's back in a white lab coat, scrambling away from her. Though Lucien's body blocked her view, she knew he was forcing Max forward in a chokehold.

"Stop!" Val yelled.

Lucien spun to face her, holding Max in front of him as a human shield. Max thrashed and tried to fight back, but his face was pale and sweaty, his movements weak. He looked like he could barely stand. Lucien held a gun to Max's head.

"You're going to let me leave," he said.

From behind her the sound of police sirens wafted through the corridor, getting louder.

She eyed him down the barrel of her gun, training the sights back and forth between Max and Lucien's head; an eighth of an inch difference, from her vantage point. "No, I'm not."

"You and he don't technically need to be alive-"

"Shut up, Lucien. You're so full of s.h.i.t I can smell it on your breath from over here. Let him go and I'll let you live."

Lucien laughed, a hint of hysteria in his voice. Though he held Max prisoner, he was the one who was trapped, and he knew it. He jammed the barrel of his gun into Max's temple. "What happens now, hmm? You've seen it, yes? Do I kill him, or you? Maybe both? How do you stop me?"

Val's jaw tightened. He saw it and grinned.

"You don't stop me, do you?"

Emboldened by her hesitation, he took a step back. Max still covered him too completely for her to get a clean shot. Her gun sights stayed on them.

"You want him to live? Let's make a deal-I'll trade him for you."

Val fought to keep her face from giving away her shock. Why was her ability to change things so G.o.dd.a.m.n important? Wasn't knowing the future enough for these people?

"No!" Max choked out.

Lucien tightened his grip on Max's throat, and Val felt her own throat constrict. Angry-looking puncture marks covered his arms. Blood dribbled from a cut on his lip. The pain he must have been in, the suffering he'd endured...Max would not die here.

What if she did trade places with him? She was in a lot better shape than he was at the moment. She could escape. If not immediately, then eventually. She could endure whatever Lucien did to her in the meantime, bide her time until she knew Max was safe, then save herself.

Val lowered her gun a couple of inches. Max's thrashing increased. How would it work? If she lowered her gun completely, Lucien would just shoot her and leave. Maybe she could walk to him, go with him to whatever escape vehicle waited for him on the other side of cold storage, then lower her gun after Max got a safe distance away.

"If you come with me, I will let him go. Simple. See, I'm not unreasonable. I'm not heartless. I erased your memory and blessed you with a life free of shame. I did that. For you. I can erase all your memories when we're done."

She almost laughed as cold rage rushed up her neck, p.r.i.c.kling the skin along her spine. A life free of shame-not anger; shame. The same shame that killed her sister, silenced millions of people every day, and let evil f.u.c.kers like Lucien walk free. A shame society had fashioned to be her shackles. And he thought because of what he did, that she should be ashamed? Her gun inched up again.

"Don't throw away your life and your gift chasing me."

A life free of shame.

"You have nothing to gain, nothing-"

Val pulled the trigger. A bullet exploded out of her gun and whizzed toward them. Lucien and Max stumbled backward and fell. Neither man moved.

Max is dead. I killed him.

In a horrified daze, Val ran to them. Blood splattered the floor where they'd been standing. A couple of feet from Lucien, Max lay on the ground, splotches of crimson staining his T-shirt. Why did she get so angry? Why did she break her promise not to risk Max's life? Why did she think she could fight fate, when Margaret Monroe was b.l.o.o.d.y proof that she couldn't? A scream tried to claw its way out of her throat.

Oh G.o.d he's dead, he's dead, he's dead- Max stirred. His eyes flickered and opened. He pushed himself up on shaky arms. "Val," he breathed.

The scream fell back into her throat. She dropped to her knees and crushed Max to her chest, burying her face in his neck as he did the same to her.

"Max." She let out a single sob into his skin. Her whole body trembled as she clung to her rock in the storm, warm and alive in her arms.

Lucien groaned. In a flash Val's gun was in the air again, pointed at Lucien's writhing form. He rolled onto his back and sat up, clutching his shoulder. Blood leaked into his white coat through a bullet hole underneath his fingers. She scanned the floor and found Lucien's pistol where he'd dropped it next to Max. Val pulled the gun closer to her, farther out of the Frenchman's reach.

"d.a.m.n, that hurts," he said. He looked up and saw Val's gun pointed at him. "Going to kill me, are you? You shouldn't. I have so much to offer the world. Cures for terrible diseases that plague mankind. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's..." He licked his lips as his eyes flicked between her and her gun. "I can enhance your ability...or take it away, if that's what you'd like. What do you want, hmm? What would it take?"

Her finger itched against the trigger. "What I want," she said, "is for you to be dragged into a court of law, admit what you've done to the world, then rot in jail for the rest of your f.u.c.king life."

He spit out a bitter laugh, winced at the pain it caused his shoulder. "Aren't you a dreamer."

Lucien raised his head and focused on something behind Val. She twisted around and saw Sten strolling down the corridor toward them, arms swinging lazily at his sides. Max tensed in her arms, then grabbed Lucien's pistol where it lay at his side and pointed it at Sten.

"No!" Val jerked his arm to the side just as he pulled the trigger. A bullet ricocheted off the wall two feet from Sten. Sten glanced at the new concrete divot, more annoyed than scared. If he'd ever experienced real fear, she'd never seen it.

Max's trembling hand fell back to the floor as if he'd used all the strength he had left just holding up the gun. He looked at her with burning eyes: Why did she stop him? Val shook her head. She didn't totally understand it herself. She couldn't let Max die. She couldn't let Sten die, either.

Max's grip tightened on Val's back as Sten approached. If Max's eyes could light fires, Sten would've been a pile of smoking ash. Val tightened her hold on Max as well. She had no idea what Sten would do.

He stopped in front of Max and Val, and put his hands on his hips. His face remained deceptively pa.s.sive as he surveyed the situation with quick eyes.

"Finally," Lucien said to Sten. "You must be Northwalk's inside man. About time you got off your a.s.s and helped get me out of here."

Sten looked at Lucien and c.o.c.ked his head at what, Val recognized, was a dangerous angle. "Just got the order to get off my a.s.s today, actually. You must be this Lucien person I've heard so much about." He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at Lucien's p.r.o.ne figure. "You people never stop asking for things. There's only so much of me to go around."

Lucien struggled to his feet, still clutching his shoulder. He crooked a thumb down the corridor. "Help me to the back. There's a ventilation tunnel that leads out. I've got a car and supplies there." He c.o.c.ked his head toward Max and Val. "Bring them, too."

Sten didn't move.

Lucien made a disgusted scoff. "If you must arrest me for show, then fine. First let me stop by my lab and heal this wound. I don't want it to leave a scar."

Sten unholstered his gun.

Oh s.h.i.t. Maybe she should've let Max shoot him after all.

"It won't just heal automatically?"

"Of course not. I need-"

Val gasped when Sten shot Lucien three times in the chest. Lucien fell onto his back, four holes now blooming crimson through his lab coat. Sten stalked past Max and Val, and as Lucien gaped in horror, blood oozing out of his mouth, put a final bullet between his eyes.

He turned to face Max and Val. She wondered if he planned to shoot them as well. h.e.l.l, he would've done it already if he intended to do it at all. He looked at Max, and the two men stared at each other for several long seconds. Last time they met, Sten had shot Max in the gut. Now Sten had ostensibly done Max a favor. Also, Sten and Val shared a recent...history. She swallowed hard at the thought of Sten blurting it out in front of Max. G.o.d, not now.

Sten holstered his gun and walked to Max. "Come on, get up." He grabbed Max's arm and hefted him to his feet. Val braced Max from the other side, his arm around her shoulders. Looked like Sten was their ally, or her partner-the thought made her shudder-at least for the moment.

Max twisted in Sten's grasp. "Let go of me, a.s.shole."

Sten let go. Max collapsed back to the floor, nearly taking Val with him.

"You want her to drag you all the way out of here by herself? Be my guest. Not very chivalrous of you, though."

"Sten," Val said. "Max, just let him help."

"Why? He tried to kill you! He tried to kill me!"

"He's not trying to kill us right now." She looked into Sten's heavy, dark eyes, then at Lucien's b.l.o.o.d.y body a few feet away. Feeling a cool draft through her damp clothes, she shivered. Tears welled in her eyes. "Let's just get out of here, Max, please. Let's go home."

Max saw her wet eyes, and the defiance in his demeanor relented. He lifted his arm up to her, let her brace his weight on her shoulders again. Though his jaw remained tight, he didn't resist when Sten braced his other arm. They lifted him up until he could stand.

"Good thing you're not as fat as you look," Sten said.

Max's jaw got somehow tighter. "Good thing you're not as psychotic as you look."

Val looked away and cringed. My two lovers. Fantastic.

Together they took baby steps out of cold storage, back through the labyrinthine warehouse, and finally outside, to freedom. A fleet of cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks choked the hole Val had come through. Red and blue light flooded the darkness, glinting off puddles of rainwater pooled around cracks in the pavement. Each of Lucien's former captives had an army of paramedics and police officers tending to them. Ginger, bloodied and bedraggled, complained from the inside of a cop car. Lucien's guards answered questions off to the side, eyes downcast and wrists handcuffed behind their backs. Though the rain had stopped, the air still felt wet, fresh. Sweet. No one had noticed the trio emerge through the chaos.

Sten led them to the back of an open ambulance, then sat Max down on the back b.u.mper. Max hunched over, breathing hard despite having been carried most of the way.

Max left a smear of dirt where he wiped sweat from his brow. "Why are you helping us now?" He narrowed his eyes at Sten. "What do you want?"

Sten gave Max a slow blink as if he'd asked the stupidest question in the history of the world. Then he looked at Val. For the briefest of moments she saw in his eyes the same rare emotion he'd shown in her house weeks ago-sadness. I owe a debt I can never pay back. She knew what he wanted-her partnership to take down Northwalk and be free of them, when the right time came. He'd killed her rapists for her, as well as the man who'd orchestrated it, probably incurring the wrath of his powerful handlers. She owed him a debt that could only be settled with blood-Northwalk's blood, same as him. Now their fates were truly bound. Maybe that'd been the plan all along.

As quickly as it had come, the sadness was gone, suppressed. He smiled at them, the lazy curve of his lips like a snake bathing in the sun. "Be seeing you." He walked away and was swallowed by the circus of swirling bodies.

Max let out a long, exhausted sigh, and his head collapsed onto Val's shoulder. He buried his face in her hair, his body slack against hers and shaking. Or was she shaking? They both were. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, the world fading to a drone, his heat combining with hers to make a furnace against the cold.

"Let's go," he whispered.

"Yes."

"We've got a couple more over here!"

Val opened her tired eyes to a mob of medics descending on them. She shrugged off an EMT who tried to take her blood pressure. "I'm fine, really."

A barrage of questions followed: Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here? How do you feel? Are you hurt? Did someone try to hurt you?

Max stayed leaning against Val, half asleep already, unresponsive to anyone else. A medic grabbed his limp arm to take vital signs while others prepped a gurney.

Then they were recognized: Holy s.h.i.t, that's Maxwell Carressa. And that's his new girlfriend.

Fiancee, actually.

"Let's go," he whispered again.

Chapter Thirty-four.

They were married on a beach in Fiji. Max wore an untucked light blue dress shirt that rippled in the soft ocean breeze, khaki pants, no tie, and no shoes. Val wore a white summer dress not much more substantial than a nightgown, a white frangipani flower in her hair and a small bouquet in her hands. A local celebrant officiated, said something about eternal love and commitment, but Val missed most of it. She was lost in the turquoise blue of the ocean and the emerald green of Max's eyes. Together, in sickness and in health. Together, through good times and bad.

He slipped a ruby solitaire ring on her finger with trembling hands. She did the same to him with a plain gold band. He cupped her hands in his and kissed them. Tears were sliding down her cheeks by the time the celebrant finally declared them husband and wife. Max swept her up in his arms, carried her waist-deep into the ocean, and kissed her as the warm water lapped their skin.

They ran along a path through a tropical forest along the Navua River. Max ran in front of her, barefoot, wearing only board shorts. She was barefoot, too, in a bikini. Val heard a roar through the trees. They burst from the forest into a clearing at the edge of a cliff. Water cascaded down the side into a crystal blue pool fifty feet below them. Her stomach lurched as she considered the drop.

"You can't chicken out now," Max said, panting from their run. He took her hand. Light broken through the canopy glinted off his wedding ring.

This was one of her favorite recurring visions, one of the rare pleasant ones. And now it would be a memory.

"Come on," he said. "On three: one, two, THREE!"