Page 72 of Gunpowder

19

GENESIS

Blair pressed his back against the end of a bunker. Phantom had done well hiding until the right moment despite there being so many of them. The next largest room to the receiving bay was the motor room that housed the breaker boxes, generators, and the like. They must have been in there, he didn’t remember another space large enough on the blueprints. He didn’t know how many he had taken out but looking at the shell casings littered on the cement… there had been a lot.

He heard someone attempt to step quietly around the corner and pointed his gun to the left. The steps faltered and he pulled the trigger. He didn’t bother looking up; even with the ringing in his ears from firing so many rounds in a confined space, there was no mistaking the sound of a shot connecting. He checked his guns. Five left in each and then he’d be out. They had come prepared, but loading themselves down with an arsenal’s worth of ammunition hadn’t been practical when it was still supposed to be a mission for intel.

“Kennedy,” Felix said above him.

He looked up to see Felix’s coat whip out behind him as he leaped from the balcony railing and onto the top of the bunker Blair stood against. The steel bars vibrated against his back. Another streak of green was right behind Felix, the glow of their mask illuminating the assault rifle in their arms.

“Get out of here, get back to the others,” Felix barked, not slowing even as he reached the end of the bunker.

Blair paled. “Boss!”

“I said go!”

A spray of ammunition from the assault rifle pelted the bunker but Blair was on the move. So was Felix, having jumped clear to the next one with a CLANG of boots on metal that was still echoing when Blair reached the door. The short hallway blocked him from seeing the boss when he looked back. He heard a series of shots that had to belong to the Glock, and the crash that followed had to be the other man’s body falling. He couldn’t accept any other option. Of course it wasn’t the boss, he wouldn’t lose to these guys. He held on to that, took strength from it as he pushed open the door to the outside. He would die if he got distracted now.

A shoe scuffed against pavement around the side of the building. He kept the M9A3 tucked against his chest and led with the 92 around the corner. The other person was even faster, as Blair found himself with a muzzle pressed squarely between his eyes before he could get a shot off.

It was a good thing he couldn’t, though, since he immediately recognized the silver barrel. He knocked it aside with a deep sigh. “Spencer,” he breathed.

Spencer clapped his shoulder. “Damn, I’m glad to see you. Felix?”

“Inside.”

“Of course. Come on, I had them dropping down from the roof but I think they’ve divided their remaining forces between the inside and the shopping center. We have to get down there.”

Blair nodded and fell in step at his side. “There can’t be many left inside, me and the boss had a pretty big pile of bodies in there.”

Spencer nodded. It was only when they stepped out from under the shadow of the warehouse that Blair saw the rip in his blazer, the damp material clinging to his shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

“It just grazed me, I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about the others down there. Marie is the only fighter out of the three of them. I heard gunshots but I had my hands full here, I couldn’t...I tried to—”

“Spencer,” Blair said, clapping a hand on the taller man’s back as they walked down the short hill. “I’m scared for them, too. But we have Marie down with them, the boss taught her everything he knows. They’re okay.” They had to be okay.

Wren… it wasn’t even his fight. Incindious had all come ready to bleed and die for the same cause, but Wren was only there because Blair asked him to be.

Blair tightened his grip on his guns to keep them from slipping out of his sweating palms when he saw the shattered windows. They were across the parking lot from the shopping center but he saw no glass on the sidewalk, so they had been shot from the outside. At first Blair had wondered why they took the slightly longer way back to the front of the strip but seeing the darkness that enveloped the space behind it, he realized it was the perfect place for an ambush especially when their enemy had night vision.

He walked with Spencer across the parking lot, feeling horribly exposed, but they made it to the door. Blair pushed the door open and raised the M9A3 in front of him. The room was as silent as he’d left it earlier, though it was now littered with broken glass that twinkled and crunched under his feet like snow.

“Wren? Julian? Marie?” he called, stepping far enough into the room that Spencer could follow and close the door behind them.

The door to one of the offices crashed open and a man came stumbling out of it. The green light emanating from his mask made Blair raise his gun, but a second figure followed him. Even in the patchy moonlight coming through the broken windows, it was clearly Wren. A rush of air left Blair’s lungs. Wren was okay. Blair opened his mouth to call out to him, for Wren to get out of the way so Blair had a clear shot, but one of Wren’s legs arced off the ground and kicked the man squarely in the jaw. The man struck out with a knife and Wren merely tapped the man’s arm in two different places. That arm immediately went limp and fell to the man’s side, the knife clattering to the ground. Pressure points, Blair realized.

Anxiety struck him when that man threw himself forward, then Wren caught his non-immobilized arm and flipped him to the ground. There was an audible crunch and then a garbled shout of pain as the Phantom member landed in the broken glass on the floor.

The counter obstructed the man from Blair’s view, but he could see Wren rake his hair out of his face with one hand, looking remarkably calm. The hand Wren ran through his hair came away bloody and Blair finally remembered how to move. He went behind the counter and found the man on his back, held down by Wren’s boot on his throat. There was a trail of blood on Wren’s face coming from his hairline.

Blair stopped on the opposite side of the man and Wren took his boot from his neck. Blair stared down the crimson slide of the M9A3 as he pulled the hammer back. “I would usually go for a kneecap or something,” he said, something ugly and dark roiling in his gut. “But you hurt Wren.”

The mask shattered to pieces as the round entered his head. He was dead on the first shot but the image of blood on Wren’s skin was burning behind his eyelids and Blair unloaded the Beretta into the man’s chest. Wren didn’t flinch as the man’s blood splattered his jeans. Blair dropped the empty magazine and reached numbly into his pockets. Shit, that’s right. I’m out. He dropped his gun. Slowly, he went down with it. His ears were ringing, his anger being pulled down by the icy tendrils of fear and guilt. Wren was bleeding. He still hadn’t seen Julian or Marie.

“Blair.”

I just killed someone.

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