Taker (24 page)

I Thought I Heard Something

M
inutes later, Amy
heard the balcony door slide open. She didn’t look around, but instead kept her eyes fixed on the stars above the magnificent grounds leading up to the resort. There was a gentle breeze that night, and there was something purifying about it. She could be alone out here and yet not feel lonely.

Ben emerged from the sitting room and slid the glass door closed behind him.

“I come bearing brownies,” he announced, and he set down two bowls on the metal table.

“Thanks,” Amy replied, taking a bowl.

“OK if I sit out here?” he asked.

“Assertive and confident. It’s new for you, but I like it, Ben,” Amy joked. For a moment, he could see a flash of the old, sassy, fun-loving Amy, but it disappeared rather quickly, replaced with sadness again. “Go ahead.”

Amy took a bite of the dessert. It was as comforting as it could be right now. “Not watching the movie?”

Ben sat down, stuffed in a large mouthful of sweet chocolate confection, and shook his head. “I left them to it.”

“Things getting a little hot and heavy in there?”

Ben sighed and shrugged.
No worse than you and Drake
, he could have said, but that comment wouldn’t be the best at the moment.

Amy smiled. “It’s OK. Why do you think I’m out here?”

“I figured you wanted to be alone.”

“Yeah, well, there’s only so much of the Nicole and Jason show I can take right now.”

“Understood.” Ben nodded. “You and Nicole good?”

“We’re good,” Amy said, keeping the food momentum going by attacking the next bite of brownie. “But we just had to say some things.”

“You’re still angry with her?”

“No. Not really. I know Nicole didn’t do anything wrong. And I shouldn’t blame her, but I can’t stop myself. I just want all this strangeness to stop. I want to get back home, hug my mom, torment Troy and walk our dog. I want to go back to school and do my lessons and try … try to work out what to do with all this stuff inside my head. I don’t imagine it will go away anytime soon. I’m a serious candidate for some therapy.”

“No,” Ben replied. He accidentally banged down his half-finished bowl.

Amy jumped.

“Sorry,” Ben responded.

But Amy was sitting forward. The noise she’d heard hadn’t come from the impact of crockery on the glass tabletop.

“I thought I heard something.”

“Which direction?” Ben scanned the grounds. It was dark outside, and the tall trees surrounding Bluegrove were casting mischievous shadows on the night lawn.

“There.”

Amy pointed, and then Ben saw them.

It was a lone figure, and behind him were six larger, beefed-up men. Max’s mercenaries.

“It’s him,” Ben said, almost as a whimper. Fear glued him to the ground. Gunshots were becoming more audible.

Max was here, and by the looks of it, the Secret Service agents hired to protect the president on the resort grounds were about to suffer the same fate as those who had gone before them at the hospital.

Amy jumped up, and the metal chair fell away from her with a clang. She burst through the double doors and interrupted Nicole and Jason mid-kiss. Surprised, Nicole sat up and smoothed down her ruffled hair.

“Max is here, Nicole. He’s come for the president.”

He’s Crazy!

O
fficer Gillespie’s ears
had been attuned to the sound of gunshots since the age of 13. His neighbor’s uncle was a trigger-happy redneck named Barnie, and the State Police officer had quickly learned to recognize when it was safer to play indoors.

So the moment the firecracker sounds began, he radioed to his men positioned all around the inside of Bluegrove to prepare for action. Nobody had told him, but he’d suspected the injured president had been brought here. Little truth filtered down to his level, but you don’t bring out rings of police protection for fun, he reasoned. If the president’s keepers were trying to be discreet, they were doing a pretty horrible job. Several drones were guarding the entire resort like vultures circling over a fly-covered animal.

All the police officers had responded to his alert.

Gillespie took his defensive position in a corner of the lobby. His hands rested on his gun, and his eyes locked on the revolving doors that led into the impressive, sweeping lobby. He waited.

All around them, confused hotel guests were still trying to go about their business, the tinkling piano creating an odd backdrop to the rising atmosphere of anxiety.

Gillespie wiped a stray drip of sweat from his brow. The tension was almost palpable, and there were the beginnings of low-level fear rising in the room. Some of the guests who had noticed the increased police presence were downing their coffees and making their exits.

Nobody had indicated who would be leading crowd control — Gillespie and his men were now off-script and running on experience and adrenaline. “Folks, for your own safety, I would suggest that you each return to your rooms and lock the doors until further notice,” Gillespie said to some nearby hotel patrons.

Several of the hotel guests had started filming and photographing the officers with their smartphones, likely sensing a possible once-in-a-lifetime Facebook moment.

“For God’s sake, put those down and get yourselves to safety!” Gillespie scolded them.

From the back of the hotel, where the kitchens were, a line of black-uniformed, armed federal agents emerged, primed for an expected attack.

“About time,” Gillespie mumbled to himself. He considered them with due disdain. The most noticeable thing about them was that they were wearing what amounted to riot gear.

A heads-up would’ve been nice. His men were still in their usual patrol uniforms.

It wasn’t too long before the shooting outside became far more audible and the front doors of the hotel began to revolve.

A tall man clad in black and wearing a helmet like Magneto’s from
X-Men
entered. Three armed guards flanked him on either side.

Gillespie found himself wondering what kind of equipment they had on — theirs matched the feds’ riot gear, but it was bulkier, and on their shoulders they wore what looked like some kind of fluid feeding in through a tube. He also couldn’t help but be puzzled over why the man leading them had on no armor at all.

The sleek man stopped in the middle of the lobby and pointed at the federal agents behind the state troopers.

Without a moment’s hesitation or any verbal warning, Max’s men opened fire.

Guests and staff alike began screaming. People dove to the floor frantically, trying to get out of the way of the bullets. Chaos reigned all around.

The federal agents returned fire, but with the bullets seemingly ringing off the mercenaries’ heavy armor, they could only watch as their shots struck their targets time and time again.

Gillespie returned fire of his own.

He felt a swell of pride as one of his shots took hold and hit Max square in the chest. Max clutched his ribcage, turned, and looked Gillespie straight in the eye.

“You there. Nice shot.” The lilt of his accent — was that Middle Eastern? — almost purred through the lobby. “It’s a pity, though. If you didn’t notice, I directed my men to open fire on the federal agents, not the police. I know you’re just doing your job — you probably don’t even know why you’ve been summoned here.”

“Freeze, don’t move, and put your hands up,” one of Gillespie’s men shouted, his gun pointed at Max’s head.

“But you’ve already shot me. What more can you do?” Max looked down at the oozing wound, wiped his hand across the entry point and examined his now-bloody palm. “I’m sorry, but now you are fair game.”

“He’s crazy,” Gillespie mumbled out loud.

Then the strange man stared into Gillespie’s eyes a little more, and Gillespie suddenly felt a terrible pain building in his stomach. It was visceral. All-encompassing.

Before Gillespie had time to say anything, a bright white light that was shining tunnel-like before him caught him off guard.

His last thought was that he had forgotten to kiss his wife goodbye that morning because he had been in so much of a rush.

The state trooper then collapsed from a chest wound.

A Choice

T
he useful thing
about having a dedicated elevator was that it could transport passengers as quickly as possible, but even it wasn’t fast enough now. Though the gentle orchestral music in the elevator seemed to whine on forever, eventually the doors opened to the PRESS lobby, and, side by side, Ben and Amy dashed along the corridor.

They burst back into the kitchens, where they knew they would find the PRESS offices and could alert Agent Bishop.

Sure enough, Bishop was emerging from the PRESS secure offices.

“We have company,” the agent said in his dry way. Velasquez, who had stepped out behind Bishop, was looking far more concerned.

“Stay out of Max’s way. He’ll use you against Nicole,” she warned the teens.

“I don’t think Nicole’s coming down,” Amy noted.

“That will be her choice,” Bishop replied. “The police and feds are in the main resort lobby, so the president is safe for now. Stay in here with us.” He drew out his gun and indicated for them to head to the corner of the bunker.

Outside, gunshots were ringing out more furiously than ever over the muffled screams of those who were being forced to witness the carnage. Amy and Ben moved to the kitchen’s serving hatch to watch the action unfold in the distance beyond the restaurant.

Max was striding through the lobby, and the floor around him was littered with the unmoving bodies of federal agents and police troopers. With one look from Max, anyone who fired at him found the bullet returned to them. Among shocked cries, the agents and troopers gripped their wounds and fell to the floor.

Three, four, five of them dropped like flies in front of Max, who stepped over each of his dead attackers as if they were bumps on a road. All of a sudden, however, Max stopped in his tracks. He surveyed the dead bodies and the cowering hotel guests and staff who had obeyed his orders and remained on the floor. He observed them all with an inscrutable expression.

The silence after the gunfire sucked the air from the room. Max stretched out his hand to his side, and the mercenary nearest to him handed him a wireless headset. Max proceeded to attach it to his ear.

From the back of the hotel, a new row of agents emerged from the depths of the military bunker and, mobilized, they took their positions.

“To everyone in this hotel,” Max began, his voice loud and strong, “including the soldiers back there who have just arrived — let me tell you now, I have no qualms against you. I know that you probably have no idea what your government even does most of the time, despite the fact that you voted these people in. But please understand this: I’m here to kill your leader, the president, to avenge what he has done to my people. And if you try to stop me …” Max spread out his arms as if to present the surrounding bodies as evidence of his credentials. “If you try to stop me, you will die too. So, I advise you all now …” Max began to walk, stepping near the fearful and cowering bystanders. “Don’t fight me. Stay exactly where you are, put down your weapons and lower your heads, and no harm will come to you.”

He bent down then and picked up a smartphone a frightened teenager was holding. He turned around, and, after a few swipes of the screen, smiled at the phone and snapped a selfie with all the destruction in the background. He returned the phone and continued on his path.

Just then, a lone set of footsteps echoed from above.

At the top of the wide, sweeping staircase stood Nicole. She glared down at Max.

Aware of her presence, he stared up at her.

“That goes for you too, Balancer.”

For a moment, Nicole was speechless. She looked down at the wreckage Max had left in his wake. Brave men and women — wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers — lying on the floor, victims of their own bullets.

Max’s eyes were on Nicole the whole time.

Nicole gripped the banister and felt the weight of choice press down upon her. Though she had already asserted herself with the president, she’d known a decisive moment was still to come. She just hadn’t realized her decision would be laid out so starkly as this, or so soon.

The president was going to let her live a normal life without confronting Max. He had promised that.

But now Nicole faced a choice, and if she was going to do it, she had to make the decision now.

With a flick of her hair behind her ears, Nicole took a breath.

She began to Balance.

Nicole’s Doing That

T
he first tree
came crashing through the high-ceilinged lobby window, and mayhem instantly erupted all around. Those trembling on the floor couldn’t decide whether to stay silent and still as Max had instructed, or to flee for their lives.

Officer Gillespie began coming to. He stepped up and away from the tunnel of light he’d been approaching for the past few minutes. Consciousness slowly resumed, and the officer found himself in a world of cramping pain and deep aching in his limbs.

The first thing he noticed was that a bullet had popped out of his torso and onto the floor.

“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath. Blood was now seeping out of the wound, so he held his shirt down to apply pressure. He eased himself up onto his elbows and looked around. Some of the other officers were also coming to and resuming fire on Max and his men.

Then Gillespie saw Nicole on the second floor above the lobby. The girl from the wildfire. Something was different about her, though, as she held her hands raised at shoulder height. She had become more mature, more determined — a young woman on the cusp of true power. And there was a halo of energy around her. It wasn’t a light, but seemed to be a disturbance in the surrounding air that was visible from a distance.

Gillespie stood up and pointed to Nicole. “That girl up there. Her name is Nicole. Protect that girl with your lives!” he commanded amongst the chaos and the shooting.

In the kitchen, Amy craned to get a better look at the action unfolding while Ben narrated.

“Max was saying something to Nicole …”

From outside the hotel came a wave of new sounds — crashing trees, crunching cars, breaking glass and activated car alarms.

“Nicole’s doing that.”

“Is it working?”

“Yes! Yes!” Ben exclaimed. Sure enough, on the floor, the president’s men and a few policemen began to rouse. Bullets began to pop out of their bodies, gently scything a path up and out, their wounds partially healed.

“And she’s seriously kicking Max’s ass. She’s become more powerful than I’ve ever seen her. I can see her healing several people at once.”

Ben’s joy faded as he saw what was happening next, however. The soldiers may have been standing, but Max’s men were easily hitting them back to the floor.

“But Max is stronger,” Ben murmured, his excitement changing to disappointment. “As soon as she heals them, they are being shot again.”

Max advanced through the lobby, his smartphone held out in front of him, guiding him to his target using GPS and the resort map provided by DuBois. Spying the kitchens, Max began to stride forward.

At the sight of Max advancing, Ben grabbed Amy’s hand to raise her to a viewing point.

“He knows. He knows the secret door through the kitchens!”

“How?”

“DuBois?”

Amy nodded, and before Ben could stop her, she slid out of the kitchen and into the lobby.

She stood in front of the kitchen doors, her hands behind her back, guarding them. Max halted, surprised to see her.

“You’re not getting past me,” Amy asserted. She stared up, her chin jutting out a little, challenging him.

“Ah, you’re one of the Balancer’s little team, I take it?”

“I’m her friend. You probably don’t have any of those, do you?”

“Well, I’ve got something a lot more effective than friends. My friends don’t tend to
die
on me. And if they do, I can bring them back to
life
.” Max knew emphasizing those two words would pierce Amy’s heart more than any bullet could.

Amy felt her anger rise, but she didn’t let that falter her voice. “How? All you’re good for is taking life.”

Max tapped the side of his nose.

“It’s a secret. Look, we can stay and chat for a bit, and then my men can shoot you, though I’d rather they didn’t. You heard my warning. See over there, where all the police and feds are huddled up? Don’t get in my way.”

Amy strode forward so that she was almost nose to nose with Max. She could feel his breath on her face. He seemed unalarmed by her actions.

“I will kill you,” Max murmured.

“No!” Nicole shouted from above. “Amy, please!”

The Taker glanced up then, an amused expression curling his features. But Amy pressed on, her voice a little louder for the benefit of their audience.

“The thing with taking,” she began, “is that you have to know how to give first. That’s the thing about good intentions. There’s a balance to it all. It is possible to forgive someone when they make a mistake, if their intentions were good. Even if that means that sometimes they have to kill for a higher purpose.”

Max blinked, then waved his hand. “I don’t know what she’s babbling about. Shoot her.”

But from up above, Nicole had heard Amy’s words, and she knew they were meant for her. It struck her then that she had been looking at this wrong. For the past 10 minutes, she had been healing. She had been defending the men who were fighting. But she was the Balancer — why limit her powers to defense only?

As she raised her hands and contacted the pain of the agents and troopers on the ground, Nicole gripped at the energy of the mercenaries advancing at Max’s side.

One by one, she would take them down.

And one by one, that’s exactly what she did.

The mercenaries on the flank were the first to feel the pain slice through them. Confused, they checked and saw no bullet holes in their metal armor, and yet they felt a sudden, devastating fire in their bodies. They cried out as the life burned out from them, and they dropped to the floor.

Max looked up at Nicole. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Nicole resumed her path down the central staircase, her eyes locked on Max.

At that moment, Officer Gillespie moved up and aimed his gun at Max.

“Don’t!” Amy shouted.

But it was too late. Gillespie fired, and the bullet found its target in Max’s torso. Blood trickled down his shirt. He began to laugh and as he watched Nicole approaching, waiting to see the whites of her eyes. She continued her descent, holding on to the banister as she went. She had left one last mercenary on the brink of death. She had left him just for Max.

She stopped walking just as she reached the bottom stairs. She held out her hand and gripped the death force of the mercenary and lifted it like a terrible, painful cloud, up and out of him. Then she reached out to sense Max’s dark vitality.

Or, she tried.

Again she reached out her hand to grip what should have been raw energy, but with horror she realized there was none to feel.

She looked at Max in confusion as he caught sight of the whites of her eyes and began to attempt to take the life from Nicole to heal his wounds.

But nothing happened.

Max couldn’t defeat her, nor she him.

It was a stalemate.

Gillespie opened fire and shot repeatedly into Max’s body. “Nicole, run! I’ll slow him down if I can.”

“Thank you!” Nicole shouted as she dashed toward Amy and Ben. At that moment, the friends knew they had to fall back to the president. They had lost the battle for the main lobby.