Chapter Thirty Nine

Gerald

When Gerald walks back to his car, the thing is upside down and completely totaled. There’s no way he’s going to be able to make any of this disappear. As he starts picking up the shell casings scattered all over the pavement, he calls for Cris, to see what’s going on with Five. He doesn’t get an answer. He tries three more times, still, nothing. Cris knows to answer the damn call, no matter what, if it takes three times. Still, there’s nothing. He swallows hard and looks around himself, getting a bearing on where exactly he’s at. Valerie led him in more than one circle.

The last thing he wants to do is let any other officers anywhere near his and Cris’s business with SSS, but there’s a bad feeling getting at him now. Either way, his car is toast, and he’s going to have to call someone. On his phone, he texts both Rick and Kirk, to see if one of them will come out. It’s nearly midnight, but they never let a message slip past them. He recalls where he dropped Cris off, and instructs them to meet him there. He’s only about mile away himself, and amped up anyway, so he breaks into a strong run for the alley. He should be able to beat them there and make sure the story is straight.

The closer he gets to the alley, the more that terrible feeling starts to grow. There’s still no answer after another two calls on the radio. He finds himself running harder than ever, pushing himself past what he can sustain. His lungs, legs, and everything are burning like they’re full of coals.

When he gets to where they had first pulled Valerie over, he looks at the ground to find the tire tracks she left behind. It’s dark all around, except under a few street lamps here and there. The only nearby sound are of cars off in the distance. Neither Cris nor Five are anywhere to be found. He tries the radio yet again, but nothing. He’s breathing so hard, he can hardly catch his breath enough to say anything anyway. When he spots something out of the corner of his eye, a long ways down the alley, his heart suddenly clenches. There’s a silhouette of a dark mound in the middle of the alley, under a dim service entrance light. He knows what it is.

Pushing his tired body as hard as it will go, he tramples down the dark alley. He can’t see anything around himself. All he can see is the dark blob ahead of him in the dim light. It feels like he’s in a nightmare, in a tunnel that is collapsing in on him. When he reaches the end, the last place in his entire life that he wanted to see, he finds his only true friend, lifeless on the ground, in a place no better than where one might find an overdosed rat.

The black body armor vest, the white sleeves of his uniform with the yellow badges on them, and the big arms in them splayed across the pavement. He calls out to him, begging that he’s only been hurt, or knocked out, but that’s not what he finds. The second he sees the extent of the brutality done to Cris, the world around him comes crashing down.

The horrific sight takes him to his knees. An entire side of Cris’s head is unrecognizable. He can’t even make out any words, and only utters wails of heartbreak and terror. Part of Cris’s skull, where it’s been crushed, is discolored, swollen, and bulging out. When he hysterically paws at his partner’s body, it suddenly takes in a labored breath. Cris is not entirely dead, but what has been done to him is truly worse.

As careful as he can, he cradles Cris’s head and rolls him flat on his back so he can breathe while calling out on his radio to anyone, everyone, and god, begging and bargaining for all that his soul is worth. His voice dies off in shambles, not even on the radio anymore. “For fuck sake… anybody.”

While Alexis tramples down the roads on the back of Monster as fast as she can stay on its back, she watches the red and blue lights reflecting off the glass buildings a few blocks away. Five’s tracker still hasn’t moved, and she can only imagine what kind of a mess she’ll find. When she gets to where Five is supposed to be, she screeches Monster to a stop, but she doesn’t see anyone around at all. With her rifle drawn up and pulled tight into her shoulder, ready to unload, she creeps up on the exact location of the tracker with her battle com.

It’s dark all around, but she isn’t about to turn her bright gun-light on with how many cops are probably around. It reminds her of her old life, back when she lived on the streets, always in the dark of the night. Back then, it was like she knew her way around by memory. She could do it blindfolded.

Her neck snaps to the right when she spots what looks like someone crouched down amongst some steel oil drums stacked at the back of small bay door. They look like they’re hugging their knees, trying to stay warm.

Quietly, she calls out to her. “Five?” As soon as she say her name, the small figure tightens up into an even smaller ball, trying to inch back into the darkness out of sight.

A very quiet sullen voice answers her back. “Go away.”

She whispers for her again, and cautiously creeps toward her. “Five!”

Five won’t respond, but when she gets closer, she knows damn well it’s her. She’s looking out at her with the bewildered glassy eyes of a lost blind person. Five can’t see her at all, with her wearing the intense black gear she has on. Quickly, she reaches in, snatches Five by her arm, and hauls her up onto her feet. “Holy crap.” Five is a smaller woman, but she’s pretty much all dead weight at the moment. She either can’t hold herself up, or won’t. She drags her out into the dim light and looks her over.

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“Oh my god Five, what’d they do to you?”

Five has tears flowing down her face and tries to squirm away, but Alexis has a hell of a firm hold on her. “Don’t touch me! I’m poison!”

Her eyes snap open with the realization of what’s happened. Luckily, she’s got gloves and armor on. Not an inch of her bares any skin. “Oh Five… what have you gotten yourself into.”

It’s not easy, but she manages to heft Five up over her shoulder and carry her back over to Monster. She racks her rifle on its clips and plops Five onto the back of the machine, seating her up front ahead of herself. Five’s head hangs low, but she at least sits up on her own for the most part. With an arm around her waist, she slowly walks Monster out of there and down the next dark alley.

It takes almost a half hour to get Five back to the hanger, going slow and staying out of sight. Valerie is waiting there for them, pacing, and distraught. All the makeup on her face has run down with tears, leaving staggering red trails down her cheeks. She paws at Five like a raccoon as the two of them pull her down off Monster. Five is in rough shape, but they can’t find anything wrong with her. She’s a little scuffed up, and her wrists are trashed, but she hasn’t been shot or anything.

After all the fussing, Five has finally had enough, and starts batting them away. “I just want to go to my room. Just leave me alone.” She stands up and weakly saunters off towards the double doors, leaving them behind, shocked.

Alexis looks over at Valerie with her mouth half open. “What the hell happened?”

Valerie’s heart is pounding again, merely thinking about it. “We ran into the investigators. It was bad. Cris shot at her. I thought she was dead.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know how she got away.”

“Holy balls. How did you get away?”

“I wrecked the shit out of Gerald’s cruiser. He shot up my truck, but I got out of there.” She puffs out her cheeks when she exhales a full breath, and then looks down at her battle com. “Clarice already let everyone know what happened. I’ve gotta get upstairs. Sy and Vaun are waiting.”

Alexis calls up Tony on her com and asks for him to back Mikel up in the hanger. She suspects the police will be showing up sometime tonight. She needs to go and check on Five. She has a pretty good idea what she’s done, and it’s clearly taking its toll on her. She knows Five is no lily when it comes down to it, but there’s always going to be doubt when they do the things they do.

Downstairs, she finds Five in her apartment, curled up under the sheets in her bed. The bathroom lights have been left on, and theres water all over the sink and floor. When she sits on the edge of the bed, Five curls up a little tighter, but doesn’t say anything. She leans over, laying one of her arms across Five’s back and puts her other hand on her arm. She hears her sniffle once.

“Tell me what happened Five. Did they hurt you?”

Five doesn’t say anything for a moment. She’s been reliving what she did over and over, and she can’t bring herself to believe she’s done something so horrible. She thinks of the pitiful way Cris had looked up at her when she did what she did. She can still feel the fleshy crunch of his head against her knee.

“No.” She remembers Cris throwing her around and kicking her to the ground, but it doesn’t mean anything to her anymore. “Not like what I did to them.”

Alexis takes a deep breath, knowing well enough what Five is capable of. “What’d you do Five? I saw all the lights out there. How did you get away?”

She remembers Cris, back when he and Gerald were nothing but kind and understanding towards her, after they were all arrested. If it weren’t for them, they would’ve all been killed in that mess at Evan’s home.

“I drugged him with that stuff. He was as helpless as a child. He was on his hands and knees, and I smashed his skull in.”

She leans all the way over, wrapping both her arms around Five. “That’s what we were supposed to do Five. I know it was awful, but you had to do it.”

“Did we have to though? I know they were assholes, but shouldn’t they have been given a chance? They only get one! They were supposed to have been good guys at some point. They could’ve come back from this. Cris is gone forever Alexis. I did that.”

Her eyebrows scrunch together, not knowing where this is coming from. “Five!” She shakes her, in the bed, uncovers her face from under the blanket, and stares at her with a shocked, but silly look. “We had to kill them.”

“I’m not doing it again. It was cruel, and gross. Why do we just… kill people like this?”

She knows how to fix this problem. “Well, I suppose you could’ve let them kill me first. Then you wouldn’t have to feel so bad about it. You know, after you got em. Of course you’d be gentle about it, since they were good guys.” It gets a little bit of a stir out of Five from under the covers. “You’d be sitting here, like me, trying to tell Marek everything was going to be ok, but it wouldn’t, would it?”

Alexis pulls the covers back off Five a little more, to get a better look at her. She sweeps her glossy straight black hair away from her eyes and smiles a small consoling smile down at her. “I know you wish you could’ve maybe just scared them, or given them a chance to see reason, but we already tried that Five. Then they tried to kill me, Mikel, and Vaun. When that didn’t work, they came all the way back here from the other side of the damn planet to try again. Sometimes you just can’t save a rabid animal, and they have to be put down, no matter how hard it is.”

Five looks up at her and then hugs her real tight across the waist. Her face is still all wet from crying. She can’t imagine such a horrible thing happening to Alexis. “I couldn’t bare ever losing you. I don’t think I could go on.”

“Can you tell Valerie you love her this much too, for me, hmm? They damn near got her, you know. Gerald shot the hell out of her poor truck. You know how much she cherishes that thing. I don’t know how she didn’t get killed. What I can tell you, is how freaked out she was over you disappearing like that. She was absolutely beside herself. You really scared her this time.”

Five wipes at her tears and nods. “Mmm hmm.”

It reminds Five about what Aaron had told her, when they had gone to forest. It feels like forever ago, back when they had told her she was once human. He told her about how the wolves have to tear other innocent animals apart in the dark with their bare teeth, the young, the old, all innocent. Every night, they get the blood all over their faces, and feel the life slip away in their mouths, all to make sure they, and not the others, are who get to live on. It’s one or the other.

She remembers the howls of the wolves, and the terrifying gnashing sounds they made in the dark. She imagines herself displaying the same carnivorous behavior if it came down to losing someone she loves. Cris and Gerald now appear to be the two stupidest assholes that keep trying to come back to their den and pick off pups. Cris knew exactly what lay in wait for him. It was his own damn fault. She can’t feel sorry for him after that?