Walker, page 17
“I wanted you to save my mother!” he roared. “Up until a couple months ago, I thought you had done everything you could, … until I found out differently from your old boss, when he contacted me to see if I’d ever talked to you about what happened.”
“So, that’s what he told you?” she asked, the pain slicing through her.
“That’s what he implied, yes. Did he come right out and say you were responsible? No, but he did say that you were a healer, and you didn’t choose to heal my mother?”
“I didn’t choose to heal her because I couldn’t heal her. She was far-too-badly injured. Do you think she didn’t know that? Do you think she didn’t tell me to go help the others? That’s exactly what she did because she knew it would have taken everything I had to try to keep her alive, but, even then, I wouldn’t do it. In the meantime, anyone else I could potentially help would die. Do you think we both didn’t know that?” she cried out at him, feeling the pain of betrayal all over again.
He stared at her, not wanting to believe it.
Lawson needed somebody to blame, and Ashley was it, whether she liked it or not. Her own boss has thrown her to the wolves yet again. She stiffened and glared at Lawson. “It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not, Lawson. But how dare you drag other people into this bout of vengeance of yours and hurt them too? They did nothing to you and had nothing to do with your mother’s death, yet here you are, hurting them and risking their lives.”
“Just one. I figured I needed just one to draw you out, but it didn’t quite work that way. It was much harder than I thought. You were just totally okay with his not making it to your appointment. Like who does that?” he asked, staring at her, as if that were yet another nail in her coffin. “What kind of a person are you who doesn’t care when somebody doesn’t show up for their appointment?”
“What do you mean?” she asked in bewilderment. “For all I know he didn’t arrive, or he was taking a few more days to travel, or was doing something else completely. I mean, it’s hardly as if I’m sitting here, waiting intently for people to show up so I can work with them,” she explained. “Honestly, I would just as soon not have anything to do with people, all because of things like what you’re doing right now. You get a little bit of information from someone with ill intent. Then suddenly you figure you know everything there is to know, and you’re all about judgment. Instead of accepting that there are things that we just can’t do in this life, people we just can’t save, you’re sitting here, hurting more people in order to make a point. And I don’t even know what point that is, since I can’t go back and save her. I can’t do anything.”
The color on his face went from red to purple, and then all shades of anger.
“If you want to kill me, go right ahead. Do you think I haven’t felt that guilt, that horror, and that pain all these years? So, if revenge is all that’s in your heart, go ahead and shoot me.”
The silence that fell in the huge room spoke volumes.
She looked at Lawson and nodded. “Now, at least let me see how badly injured this man is.”
“He’s not injured,” Lawson whined. “I didn’t do anything to him.”
“No, but he came to me for help, and he was already on the edge of what he could survive. But that didn’t matter to you, as long as you got your pound of flesh, and somebody suffered.” She shook her head, then walked over, grateful when Lawson didn’t try to stop her. She didn’t know what his game plan was at this point, but she highly doubted it would be so easy as allowing her to walk out of here.
She dropped down beside the man who appeared to be almost comatose and reached out a hand to his forehead. She bowed her head, searching for the thread of energy that would tell her the state of his health and how severely his system had deteriorated. She reached out to Clary and to Cara, asking if they could help this young man, who had come to her and had been taken captive instead. She felt the energy stirring on the ethers, when her arm was jerked back, and she was pulled away from him.
“Leave him alone,” Lawson yelled. “It’ll hurt you more to watch him suffer, so I’m good with that.”
She stared at him, seeing that same selfish pain and torture that he put himself through, and the guilt. “You couldn’t have saved your mother either, Lawson,” she whispered. “There was nothing any of us could do.”
“If I’d been there, I would have saved her,” he snapped.
She gave him a sad smile. “No, you wouldn’t have, and you couldn’t have. She took two bullets in the chest, right in the heart, and she bled out in my arms. There was nothing to be done. Can you imagine what that’s like? To know that this is what I do? That this is what she did? She was a healer too.”
“And when she needed healing, you weren’t there for her,” he cried out.
“You are wrong. I was there for her, in the only way that I could be. I held her while she died, as she whispered to me not to waste my healing energy and to go help the others. I got reprimanded for taking so long in making a decision to help other people because I held her,” she cried out, tears in her eyes. “I was told off because of all the things that I should have done instead. There was nothing I could do for her, and she died way too fast, though it was a good thing since at least she didn’t suffer,” she declared, straightening up.
“So, if you want to make me suffer, that’s fine. Go ahead and make me suffer. I really don’t care,” she yelled. “There’s nothing you can do to me that my government did not already do,” she snapped. “But if you think that watching this young man die is of equal value to you, then you’re a sick puppy, and I hope they put you down like the dog you are.”
His eyes widened at that.
She nodded. “You expect me to have all this sympathy and compassion for you now? No, sir. I’m running a little short on that these days. There was no need for you to hurt somebody else just to get back at me. You could have found another way to get your revenge. You didn’t have to involve somebody innocent like this. Somebody who’s already struggling to find any pathway forward in life. You just wanted to find somebody coming to me so you could make him a pawn in your world,” she declared loud and clear. “What about the other men?”
“What other men?” he asked, with a smile.
She winced. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t kill anyone, but someone died here. Yes, he’s buried out back.”
“McClintock didn’t even know?”
“He knows I’m here visiting. Don’t forget I stayed in touch with him too.”
“He didn’t mention it,” she stated, her eyes widening.
“Of course not. That’s a guy thing,” he stated. “I didn’t want him to say anything because I knew that it would trigger you.”
“No, it wouldn’t have. I would have assumed that you reached out for the same support and connection that you had reached out to me for in the first place.”
“Yeah, well, McClintock confirmed that you were the one who didn’t choose to help my mother.”
She shook her head. “The language you’re using tells me that you’re taking the information you were given and interpreting it the way you wanted it to be, which has nothing to do with the truth,” she murmured. “You are overcome with rage and guilt and anger and loss, but, instead of dealing with all that, you’re lashing out at innocent people, and that I find hard to forgive.”
“What? You mean, I’m not broken enough for you to work on?” he asked mockingly.
“I can’t fix mental problems.” She glared at him and then walked over to where the young man was and sat down beside him again. “Go ahead and do whatever you’ll do. I don’t care.”
He stared at her in frustration. “You should care. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to care about people.”
“Yeah, and then they turn out to be complete shits,” she declared, looking at him in disgust. “You don’t care about people. You don’t care about anybody but yourself, about your own agenda, about what you want, instead of what other people need. You don’t care about this young man. He’s simply a means to an end. You didn’t care about the one who already died either, and, once one death happens, it’s so much easier to watch another one, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “It was kind of traumatizing when I realized the other one was dead,” he admitted, “but I didn’t kill him, so it didn’t matter.”
“Withholding care and holding somebody captive while they die alone out here is the same thing,” she stated. “You murdered him, as clear as night and day, and that’s how the law will look at it.” She glared at Lawson. “How do you think this makes your mom feel right now?”
He shrugged. “She’s dead and doesn’t know a thing, and that is all because of you.”
“No, it isn’t because of me, but no point talking to you anymore,” she spat. “So, I’m just going to sit here, close my eyes, and rest. It’s been a very long couple of days.” And she proceeded to do just that.
*
Walker was stunned at Ashley’s aplomb, at her ability to literally just close her eyes and lean back in such a dicey situation. Then he realized that her foot was touching the young man, Frank, and she was sending energy to him, trying to help him survive through this ordeal that he’d been put through. As long as she kept up that connection, she was willingly giving up her energy to help save him.
Terkel whispered in his head. Both the healers here are working on Frank too, he murmured. However, we need to take out Lawson.
Terk, I still can’t be sure if McClintock is involved, Walker whispered right back.
Calum’s gone to get him. We don’t think he’s involved, but this is on his land, right under his nose.
How does that work? Walker muttered.
Boundaries, guards, barriers, Terkel reamed off instantly. You get relaxed after a while, thinking that it’s okay. Then you don’t even check your systems to confirm they are still functioning as intended, he murmured. You can’t blame McClintock for this.
As much as he wanted to, Walker knew it would just put him in the same category as the young man in there, staring down at Ashley with the same frustration and fury he had before. Lawson doesn’t know what to do with her, he murmured.
No, and she’s completely detached from it all. If she dies, she’s okay with that, Terk added. That’s the thing about a healer. They do what they can do, knowing that they’re doing the job that they intend to do here, while they’re on this journey of life. Then, if they die in the process, they die in the process. There’s a fatalistic air to it, Terk explained, trying to calm down Walker. I’ve come across it several times.
It’s wrong, Walker snapped.
Terkel murmured, It’s not wrong, but it’s definitely not easy. She’s likely to need help in order to get out of this.
She doesn’t want help. She keeps pushing people away.
She was pushing people away, but she seems to have turned a corner on that too.
That’s when he remembered the kiss they had shared earlier. Maybe, but I think she feels horribly guilty about everything that happened to her friend Alissa and the fact that Ashley couldn’t help her.
Of course, Terkel agreed, with sadness in his tone. We’re always haunted by our failures, and we forget to remember our successes because, in our world, there’s always another potential failure happening around the corner. We try to learn from our mistakes, but the mistakes can be devastating enough that we get tunnel vision in order to avoid repeating them.
Terkel’s words just rolled through Walker’s head. He understood them, but it didn’t pertain to what was going on right now, except for the fact that Walker was really concerned about the way Ashley just sat there, completely detached from the world around her.
You might also want to consider that it’s not that she’s got a death wish, as much as she has infinite trust in those around her, Terkel mentioned suddenly. Because, while she is in there working, she’s also expecting us to do our jobs and to save her. That takes a lot of trust.
Walker sat back on his heels at that, silent for a moment. I guess it does, doesn’t it? And it’s also a sign of her willingness to grow and to move in this crazy world, and the fact that she’s left it this way is huge.
That’s right. Now where is Calum?
Calum is here, and McClintock’s on his way. There should be a showdown happening very soon.
Any way you can throw a protective shield around her? Terkel asked him.
He snorted at that. I’m a precog, remember? And I’ve already seen how this turns out.
Such bitterness filled his tone that Terkel reacted immediately. Stop it. That’s only one possible ending, as you well know. It isn’t how it does end. It’s how it could end.
With that, Walker stared at the tableau frozen in front of him, as McClintock stepped in through the door, his huge frame filling the doorway, as he glared at Lawson.
“What the hell are you doing?” he roared.
Lawson turned the gun on him. “Just shut up. The only way to deal with you people is with bullets.” And, with that, he fired once. McClintock took the bullet in the side, and it jolted him backward, but he didn’t drop. It was enough for Calum, who’d come in behind him to jump to the side, a handgun of his own drawn, as he fired a shot himself. But Lawson was no longer there, he was sitting behind some machinery, and now it was once again a stalemate.
Lawson laughed. “I don’t care if I die in this,” he shouted menacingly. “I really don’t give a crap. At least then I’ll spend time with my mother. And I’m determined that you all get to come with me. It’s an open invitation, and the next one who shoots me is dead!” His tone cracked with emotions, as he roared.
“Even me?” McClintock asked, his tone hard. “This is what you came here for?”
“Yeah, it sure is. You were just a means to an end, just as my mother was a means to an end for you guys.”
“Your mother was an incredible healer,” McClintock yelled, “and I was half in love with her myself. I would have done anything to keep her alive, but we couldn’t. I don’t know how you managed to get this so wrong, but we couldn’t save her.”
“You didn’t try,” Lawson yelled flatly. “So you have no idea whether that is even the truth or not.”
Walker realized there would be no talking to this young man at all. Walker quickly dashed around to the back of the building, crept in around the machinery through the open door in the back, then shifted forward, silent as ever. He knew perfectly well how this could end.
Just like Terkel had said, Walker was willing to do everything he could to change that ending to something that was a whole lot more positive and far less painful, for him too.
“Come on, Lawson. You know better than that,” McClintock called back.
The conversation welled around Walker.
“What I know is that because you couldn’t care less, you let her die!”
McClintock’s tone was weary. “You’re never going to believe the truth because you don’t want to believe the truth, and, for that, I’m sorry, son. This is not how I ever wanted things to go for Alissa’s son.”
“Oh, stop the bull,” he snapped. “You really don’t give a crap about me. You guys came here and holed up, with all that money, all those resources, and here you are, hiding away, as if you’re afraid that somebody would discover your secret. I did find it, and I’m here to ensure that you both pay for what you did to my mother.”
The fact that he was still going on about his mother and couldn’t accept commonsense explanations made Walker wonder just where the young man was at mentally, but it wasn’t the time to be working on that. He tossed a glance toward Ashley, but her eyelids were closed, and a pallor crossed her face, and he realized she’d slipped into a deep healing coma to help whatever was happening with Frank on the ethers.
A weird buzz filled the air now, and Walker knew that more than one person was working hard to save Kim’s brother. Walker stepped closer to Lawson, and, when a sudden noise came outside, shots rang out, but Walker also instinctively knew that the shots hit nobody.
At that, Lawson laughed. “Do you really think you’ll take me out like this? That’s not helping, and it’ll never happen.”
“How do you envision things ending here, Lawson?” McClintock asked, his tone revealing the effects of the bullet wound.
“It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter,” he yelled, his tone tired. “I came here because of my mother, to see justice done.” At that he lifted the handgun again, just as Walker came into sight. He watched as Lawson turned his gun toward Ashley. “If nothing else,” Lawson continued, “I’ll make sure that this one goes for what she did.”
Immediately he pulled the trigger, but, before the bullet hit Ashley, it slammed into Walker, as he stepped directly in the path. He looked at the young man for a moment, then slowly dropped to his knees and fell to the ground, half on top of Ashley’s legs. He heard gunshots, both in his head and outside his body. He was confused by the voices and the screams of anger, fury, and pain.
So much pain, and then he knew nothing.
Chapter 14
Ashley was jolted out of the healing buzz that she was deep into, as she worked hard to save Frank. When another energy slammed into her legs, and she felt the pain searing into her own heart, as the other healers whispered, Go help him.
Walker was hurt. Her energy surrounded him, wrapped him up in a bubble, and she worked to stop the bleeding. A bullet had gone in just above his heart, and even now his lungs filled with blood.
She cast an assessing glance over at Frank, but the twin healers were working on him, trying hard to save the young man, even as Clary sent energy Ashley’s way, and together, with the three of them working on two bodies, with one slowly dying and another quickly dying, Ashley wasn’t sure that success was even possible.
