He recited a mantra he’d learned in the army. “Move through the pain. Move through the pain. The pain isn’t real. You made it up because you’re a lazy piece of shit that doesn’t want to move anymore. Move through the pain. Move through the pain. If you don’t want it, the pain isn’t there.”
Caleb moved through the pain and up the stairs toward the second floor. He clenched the gun in his left hand, not his shooting hand, and tried to count how many bullets he had left. Three, he concluded, and he was certain of it.
He reached the second floor and turned to his left. There he saw Agent Bradford walk out of the office with Jane Elring in his arms. The two men locked eyes and they both knew how this was going to end between them. The special agent couldn’t give up, and neither could Caleb.
Caleb watched as Agent Bradford threw Jane on the ground and jumped back inside the office.
In response, Caleb backed up a few steps so he could hide around the corner. This was a shootout now and he had to do it with three bullets that he could only fire with his left hand. Not his shooting hand.
Caleb peered around the corner and saw Agent Bradford with his gun ready. The special agent fired two shots and Caleb was just in time to retreat back around the corner.
This was impossible, Caleb thought. He could never win this. Caleb stared at his ruined right arm that seemed to look, and feel, worse by the minute. Then he looked at the gun in his left hand. Three bullets. Not his shooting hand. Impossible.
But what if he sacrificed himself? What if he could buy Jane more time? She would wake up in a few hours, and maybe there would still be time for her to escape then.
Suicide? Caleb heard himself ask the question inside his head. What was his life worth? Was it worth more than Jane’s? Was it worth the same? Less? How could he define the worth of life? His or that of any other?
Suicide? The idea of death didn’t really bother Caleb all that much. What did he have to live for, anyway? There was no family. There was no loved one. The only close connection he had was to the ginger bastard that lived inside his head. And to Jane. He felt connected to Jane.
Suicide. Caleb turned around the corner and ran up to the office. He was going to meet the special agent head-on. He’d fire three bullets and then he just had to hope one would hit.
Agent Bradford jumped out of the office and shock filled the special agent’s face. He hadn’t expected the bodyguard to come running toward him. In that confusion it took him a second longer to pull the trigger and that second was enough for Caleb to fire off two rounds.
One of the bullets hit the special agent’s shoulder. The other pierced his ribcage. As he fell down Agent Bradford fired off one shot. The bullet soared straight past Caleb and pierced the wall.
Caleb didn’t know if he had killed the special agent. He didn’t care. He hadn’t expected to still be standing at all, let alone to be concerned with what came next.
He walked over to Jane and shoveled her up with his left arm. The girl’s underdeveloped muscles made her light to carry and he tossed her over his shoulder. With deep breaths he turned around and made his way back to the stairs.
Caleb was dizzy and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could function like this.
“Move through the pain. Move through the pain,” he panted to himself.
Caleb walked downstairs and slowly made his way outside. He passed two corpses he had created as he ventured through the small corridors.
Once outside he turned to his left and walked toward the garage. Fortunately Jane was such a lightweight.
With deep breaths he reached the garage and pulled at the door. It was unlocked.
Inside he found a variety of luxurious cars, but none of that interested him right now. He had to get moving. To keep moving was the way to survive. Move through the pain. Move through the dizziness.
Caleb found the Jaguar and opened the passenger door. Carefully he placed Jane inside and fastened her seat belt. Before he shut the door again he took a close look at her and he noticed the blood on her face. She had suffered enough now, Caleb decided. He would get her out of here.
He walked to the other side of the car and got in. Just as Arthur had promised them, the key was in the ignition.
The engine roared. Caleb backed up and then drove out of the garage. Carefully he followed the small road leading to the gate, where he found the cars that belonged to the team he had just destroyed.
“Luck,” he told himself. “Luck and a plan that wasn’t half bad. But mostly just luck.”
He wondered then if Jane Elring had maybe influenced the events that had gone on downstairs. Had she whispered things to the men that gave them pause? Made them lose focus? Even if just for those few vital seconds?
Caleb realized he would probably never know. He didn’t care.
Quietly he drove, and drove, and drove. They were getting out of here. Out of Brettville. Their destination lay beyond the pines that stood as silent watchmen, even now, guarding the town’s invisible borders.
Where to? Caleb had a few ideas. He still knew people that could help. That owed him a favor.
And if they didn’t want to help…. Well, Jane Elring could always make them.
Gold sat in the darkness of the Toaves basement. Scattered around her lay the tiny corpses of several rats that had dared to venture closer. They had wanted a nibble, but before they could taste her beautiful flesh a powerful force had crushed their fragile bones.
Gold didn’t quite feel like herself anymore. Something had entered her body and she recognized the energy right away. It was her father, now, that sought a place inside her mind where he could linger.
The entirety of her father would have certainly crushed her soul. But it was only a small part that demanded access and Gold’s body was able to take it without any damage.
Soon, Gold felt, her father would become part of the system that was her being and she would no longer exist in any meaningful way. Even his tiniest part was far more potent than she was in her entirety. Gold didn’t mind surrendering herself for his benefit.
What had happened? As her father’s energy began to mix with her own the story became clearer to Gold. She saw the strange Jane Elring that had taunted him and lured him toward the locked room where he was now a prisoner.
But her father was old and experienced, and even in his arrogance he had thought to leave some security behind in the darkness outside Jane’s mental house. Just in case.
He had torn a tiny part from himself through which he could continue to experience the world in all its delicious ugliness. As his main body chased Jane Elring, that small part had sought its way out of the darkness and into the beautiful Gold.
That part now nestled inside her body and gave her power far exceeding that of any mere mortal. Effortlessly she tore the rope that tied her to shreds and stood up from the tired old chair.The eyes Gold used to look around were different now. They saw reality in ways that she had never thought possible. She saw the walls and the ceiling, but also what lay far beyond them in the shape of green fields and tall pines. Looking at the rats that scurried hastily across the room she saw not only their tiny bodies, but also their minds and miniature souls. Their life energy.
Gold walked toward the stairs leading up to the first floor. The wood protested underneath the pressure of her beautiful body as she made her way upstairs. She felt much heavier now that she carried a piece of her father inside of her. Her body was somehow even taller and her face more radiant. She could take on the world, Gold thought, until she didn’t exist anymore.
Gold knew that he would begin to claim more and more of her in due time. Though he could never be as powerful as he had been in his full form, he was still far too strong for her. And she wouldn’t put up a fight, anyway. Her body was perfect for him now and if he wanted to own her, that was alright.