The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 44
Then the smile faded into a toothy grimace.
“Kill them.”
Lee’s laser designator, right on Lander’s face now.
But would taking the shot help or hurt their chances?
Whatever reaction Lander had been expecting, he didn’t get it. Freya just stood there with her head bowed, watching Kat slowly retreating with the others. Lander glanced at her. Then turned fully to face her.
“Freya!” he growled, and one hand shot up to seize the hair at the back of her neck. Freya mewled, body twisting as Lander pulled her head towards him. “Make the fucking call!”
“Go for Bea,” Lee snapped at Sam. “Now.”
Still twenty-some-odd number of not-too-happy-looking Omegas between Sam and Bea.
Every second, Lee kept expecting the howl to come bursting out of Freya’s throat, but she only stood there in Lander’s grip, head twisted to the side as he now began screaming, and Lee’s feet began moving faster and faster.
“Do it! Do it now, you bitch!”
Bea was now perched at the edge of the stage, watching Sam get as close as he dared, the look in her eyes saying she knew this was her one and only chance, and she was watching it slip away.
“Bea!” Sam waved at her. “Come to us!”
“I can’t!” Bea said, clearly indicating the wall of primals between them like a moat filled with crocodiles.
“Kat, help her!” Lee said, dropping his finger to the trigger and steadying his aim so the dot now swirled over Lander’s temple.
Kat moved. The Omegas yowled and refused to stand aside.
“Howl!” Lander was screaming in Freya’s face, jerking her head back and forth by her hair. “Howl! HOWL!”
And then Freya howled.
Chapter 43
Everything, all at once.
That’s how it is when shit hits the fan. People say that time slows down, but of course, time doesn’t do shit. Your perceptions speed up. In that burst of adrenaline, your mind opens up and drinks from a firehose of data.
And so all the information flooded Lee’s brain, all at once.
Freya, with her head jerked to the side, the veins bulging out of her throat as she howled. Lander, getting what he wanted, and now swinging his triumphant gaze right to Lee. And seeing how the muzzle of Lee’s rifle was staring right back at him.
An instant of surprise. And then he dragged Freya’s head in front of his, using his own daughter as a body shield.
At the same instant that Lee’s finger dropped to the trigger, Kat moved with a speed and intent so savage that even the Omegas were taken off guard.
And during all of this, a small hope in the back of Lee’s brain: Maybe Freya didn’t make the right howl, just like Kat did—
An eruption of movement from all around Lee told him his hope was in vain.
Jones and Sam, both pivoting in that instant, hearing the movement, and bringing their rifles up to the horde of threats now coming down on them like an avalanche.
Lee’s finger on the trigger, already applying pressure. The laser designator on Lander’s nose, but then his face was eclipsed by Freya’s.
Don’t take that shot.
It wasn’t actually a consciously-articulated thought, but more of a feeling in Lee’s chest. A big, fat NOPE. And Lee had learned to trust his instincts. He dropped the muzzle. The laser dipped, down off of Freya’s face, down her chest, and onto Lander’s pelvis.
The shot broke.
Lee saw Lander’s body jerk, but nothing else—Lee was already spinning away.
Kat exploded, with only one thing on her mind: Save Bea, save Bran.
The howl went up, and it sang through Kat’s blood, and if she’d been less human and more beast, she would have been unable to resist that instinctive call to action. But she was more human than she was beast. And she had a friend. And she loved him, and wanted to save his life. And the only way to do that was to save Bea’s life. And there wasn’t a bitch in the bunch that was going to stop her from doing that.
The first Omega lunged, going for Kat’s jugular. But Kat already knew it was going to happen—they always went for the jugular first. So she dropped, ramming her shoulder into the Omega’s hips and sending her cartwheeling overhead.
She came up, slamming both hands into the neck of another Omega, her fingers bursting through the flesh, closing around the windpipe and the carotid arteries, and ripping them out as she spun away.
Close to the stage now.
Save Bea, save Bran.
A front kick to stop one advancing on her. But this Omega outsized Kat by a good amount, and all the kinetic energy recoiled right back into Kat, sending her staggering back. Right into another Omega. A pair of wiry arms closed around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
Teeth sank into the trapezius muscle at the base of Kat’s neck. The pain was blinding, but also enraging. Kat flailed and screamed, grabbing anything she could get her hands on. Felt heat and moisture and hair and clamped down with all the grip she could muster, realizing she’d latched onto the Omega’s crotch—the only sensitive thing she could reach.
The grip around her chest loosened as a screech vibrated through the teeth in her shoulder. She ripped away, heedless of her own tearing muscles. Broke the grip and spun, swinging her arm with all the force of her body. Her clawed hand smashed the Omega in her face, ripping its jaw clean off.
The stage. Right there.
Bea, right there upon it.
Save Bea, save Bran.
A crush of bodies closing in on her.
Kat grabbed one by the ear and hair. Slammed the head into the edge of the stage. Saw the life go out of its eyes in an instant. Used the falling body as a scaffold and vaulted onto the stage. She landed right at Bea’s side.
The woman didn’t know what was going on, didn’t know who was friend, and who was enemy, and she recoiled, trying to get away from Kat. But she wasn’t fast enough. Kat caught her by the arm, then pulled her in. She didn’t really know what she was planning to do with Bea until she was already doing it. She moved so fast that Bea didn’t even have a chance to resist.
Kat reached down, planted her right forearm between Bea’s legs, while her left hand clamped around the back of Bea’s neck. Every muscle in Kat’s body strained as she heaved the other woman from the ground and then flung her like a bale of hay.
Bea let out one terrified yelp as she flew clear over the heads of the Omegas.
Sam fired on automatic. Marksmanship was unnecessary. The targets were all around them, and closing fast. Through the green world of his NVGs, his laser designator was lost amidst a galaxy of eyes that shined like spotlighted cats.
They were everywhere, appearing out of every shadow, leaping from under every pile of wreckage. Too many to count. Too many to shoot. They’d run out of ammo before they killed even a third of them.
Too many!
Even as he thought it, he felt the terrible sensation of his bolt locking to the rear. The word came out of his throat at the level of a scream, an almost Pavlovian response to the sensation of running dry: “Reloading!”
A scream. A woman’s scream. A human woman’s scream.
As Sam’s hand swiped the emergency reload mag from his belt, he saw the shape come flying, seemingly out of nowhere, then crash into the ground at his feet. He got two snippets of visual information that tied it all together: Bea’s shirtless form; and Kat, on the stage, in a pose that looked like she’d just hurled something heavy off the stage.
Sam shoved the magazine into his rifle and dropped the bolt, firing one-handed from the hip as he bent and seized Bea’s upper arm. The encroaching wave of primals jerked and spasmed as his rounds lanced through them. A few of them fell, but many more took the hits and kept coming. Sam hauled backwards, shouting, “Help! Help! Help!”
“Crossing!” Lee’s frame filled Sam’s vision. He let go of the trigger and diverted his muzzle to the side. Lee positioned himself in front of Sam and Bea, still moving backward, away from the mob of primals.
Jones swept in, shoulder to shoulder with Lee, their rifles chattering back and forth in bursts of automatic fire, scything down the closest primals, but the gap was rapidly closing.
“Bea!” Sam screamed as he swooped down and hooked his arm under hers. “Get up!”
She stumbled upright with a dazed look in her eyes, blood sheeting down the side of her face. Sam slung her behind him, hoping that he hadn’t done it so hard she’d lose her feet again. He hazarded a glance behind him, saw that she was still standing, bobbling on unsteady legs.
“Emergency exit!” Sam shouted at her back, then ripped around to discover that there was barely two yards between Lee and Jones’s smoking muzzles and the incoming tide of primals.
Jones went empty.
“Reloading!” Jones sidestepped, opening a gap, and Sam immediately filled it, laying into the seething mass of bodies. They were so close that Sam started deliberately aiming for their heads, knowing he couldn’t miss.
“Up!” Jones roared, firing again on Sam’s right. At the same instant, Lee peeled away from Sam’s left, hollering, “Door!”
Sam didn’t know if that was for them or Bea, and it didn’t much matter anyway, because if Sam stopped shooting for a single second, they’d be overwhelmed.
And he was about to run dry again…
One good thing about being about to die is that broken ribs and fucked up hips don’t really register in the white-hot realization of your imminent mortality.
Lee peeled and then flew for the door like every busted part of his body had just been touched by the hand of God. The emergency exit was five yards away, and between him and it was Bea, who looked like she’d had the sense knocked out of her and was stumbling drunkenly towards it.
Emergency exit doors always open outwards, so as to accommodate a panicked rush of bodies. Lee caught up to Bea in two lengthy strides, dropping his mostly-empty magazine and not bothering to retain it. He reloaded, sending the bolt home just in time to use his rifle like a baton into Bea’s back, ramming her into the door.
The door exploded outwards. A short corridor beyond, maybe ten yards long, with another exit door on the far end. Lee planted his foot just inside the doorframe, letting Bea’s body continue on its course. Her feet caught each other and she went sprawling, but Lee didn’t wait to see what the damage was. He turned on his heel and posted on the doorframe, bellowing so hard it felt like it was ripping his vocal cords: “Peel! Peel! Peel!”
Sam and Jones reacted instantly. They both twisted in mid-backpedal and sprinted for the door. They registered Lee’s position and cleared his lane of fire. The second that they stopped shooting, the primals burst forward, snapping at their backs, claws narrowly missing them.
Lee pulled the trigger and held it down, scouring the front row of primals, aiming for their pelvises, hoping to create a log-jam of falling bodies.
Jones in front. Sam right on his heels. And a primal just behind him, loading up for a leap, which would take Sam out, guaranteed.
Lee twitched his shoulders to the side, snapping his string of fire across the thing’s chest like a whip. It tried to leap anyway, but fell far short and was immediately trampled by its brethren.
Jones and Sam were both reloading as they moved. Their bolts slammed home with twin clunks right as they burst through the doorway, sending the emergency door rebounding off its hinges. Lee jumped out of the way just in time for it to slam closed, and for a bare moment, he searched the area around him for something to brace the door with, then abandoned the idea and hauled ass.
The sound of the door on the far end crashing open—Bea must’ve got her head back in the game, because she’d recovered her feet and plowed through the emergency exit, revealing a flash of moonlit cityscape beyond.
Sam and Jones squirted through the outer door as it was still on its backswing. Jones pinned the door and posted to the left, Sam to the right, yelling something at Lee that he didn’t quite catch but was pretty sure concerned him moving his ass faster. Lee knew he couldn’t get any more speed out of his legs, so instead, he slung his rifle to his left side and snatched up the heavy M32.
The door slammed open behind him, amid a roar of voices that sounded like nothing so much as a freight train bearing down on him.
Lee spun, shouldering the launcher and thumbing the safety off. He wasn’t entirely sure this was the smartest maneuver in this enclosed space, but if it worked, it would replenish the rapidly-shrinking lead on their pursuers. Lee’s chosen gamble immediately became tenfold riskier as he realized he was still wearing his NVG tube, and couldn’t aim through the launcher’s optic.
If the grenade didn’t go straight through the open door, the blast would knock Lee down at best, and kill him at worst.
It was a risk Lee was willing to take, in order to give Sam and Jones the lead they needed to get out of this alive.
By dead reckoning, Lee aimed the launcher for the center of the open doorframe as the horde of primals began to pour through, and fired.
Lander Hollis was just struggling to his feet, hands clutching the bloody hole in his guts, when the air seemed to burst, piercing his eardrums. A pressure wave flattened him out again. He coughed, tried to inhale, but couldn’t seem to do it. What little air he did get in past his spasming diaphragm tasted of dust and smelled of acrid smoke. He hacked, tears blotting out his vision, the strain to his stomach causing his wound to bind itself in agonizing knots.
He blinked the tears out of his eyes and tried to resist the urge to cough, though his throat and lungs felt like he’d breathed red pepper. In the dim light from the hole in the ceiling, Lander recognized the familiar landscape of debris and chairs. No movement in the shadows though. And there was so much silence. What had happened to his family? Where had they all gone?
He realized it wasn’t actually silent. There was a dull ringing in his ears. And there were sounds underneath that ringing, but they were so muted it was like his head was under water.
Slowly, his locked-up lungs began to loosen, and he drew a full, aching breath. His thoughts cleared with that rush of oxygen. Even his hearing seemed to get a little better, and he registered a mighty tumult behind him.
He rolled onto his side, craning his neck painfully in the direction that the man Jax and his group of thieves had run. All he saw was the tail end of a throng of his children, draining through the exit doors. He could see nothing beyond them. But they were still chasing something, which meant that there was still something to be chased.
Bastards!
With shaky arms, Lander pushed himself weakly off the ground. Got his knees under him. Then slowly, painfully, rose to his feet.
The first thing he noticed once he’d pulled himself from the ground was all the bodies. He couldn’t count them all. Many were still moving, still alive. He felt no relief at that. They would be useless, if they even managed to survive.
Closer to the exit door, there was a charred disruption to the surface of the concrete floors that seemed oddly swept clean of bodies. Then he realized it was a blast mark, and the blast had pushed the bodies away in an almost perfect circle. No, actually. Not pushed. Those bodies nearest the blast had been ripped apart.
“Bastards!” he yelled. Or at least tried to yell. It came out a hoarse croak and he set to coughing again. Rage filled his belly and leaked into his chest. In it, there was not a shred of grief. He had many children. Even the loss of so many didn’t really affect him.
But the gall! The absolute impudence of these people! To disrespect him in his own house? To come and take what was rightfully his, and what he’d waited so long to have?
Movement, closer at hand.
Lander jerked his head, realizing Freya was no longer beside him. She had retreated to the stage, and now stood leaning against it with a strange, loose posture. Behind her, on the stage, Lander’s three wives huddled over Freya. But their eyes were on him.
Lander heaved a breath to scream at her, but the effort of it set his wound on fire and he gasped instead of screaming, both hands clamping down over the wound. His vision darkled at the edges and he felt woozy. He staggered to the side, the rage immediately replaced by fear. How bad was the injury?
He looked down at it, peeling his blood-slicked hands away to reveal a wound that seemed too small to account for this much pain. It was right there, just to the left of his navel.
“Ohh,” he groaned. “He…gutshot me!” His gaze came up, chills sprouting up all over his naked skin. His expression twisted with pain and anxiety. “Freya!” he gasped weakly, reaching a hand towards her. “Help me! I’ve been gutshot!”
Freya did not move.
“Diana!” Lander whimpered, looking to one of his wives who’d always been the most affectionate towards him. “Please! Help!”
Diana did not move either.
Rage again. “You fucking cunts! I’m gutshot! Do you not understand that? Do you not understand what that MEANS?” He screamed the last part so hard that the pain swallowed him whole before he could even see it coming. Hot and cold sensations raced over his skin and swirled over his scalp and his vision went black. Then he didn’t feel anything for a moment, until his bare ass hit the cold concrete.
A few panicked breaths brought his vision back. He’d collapsed, and now sat with his legs splayed out, hands still pressing against his wound, blood pulsing through his fingers and leaking through the creases of his palms.
And Freya was there, standing over him.
Blessed relief. His voice became pitiful and pleading again. “I’m hurt. I’m hurt so bad. Help your father, girl. You have to help me.”
But Freya just stood there, staring down at him, her frizzy hair turned into a silver halo by the moonlight overhead. In her face there was nothing that he recognized. None of the respect and deific adoration he’d come to expect.
“Freya?” What did he need to say to get her to move her ass and help him? Had she gone deaf from that blast?
