Betrayal: Society Lost, Volume Two (16 page)

“It hurts like hell,” Jack replied while rubbing his thigh. “It’s throbbing like crazy, but all things considered, at least the bone isn’t sticking out through the skin. A compound fracture would certainly have complicated things. I think I’ll survive.”

“Good, try and stay alive until morning.” Looking to Rosa, Jessie said, “Keep an eye on him. Have him show you how to use that rifle of his. You never know what the night will bring.”

With a concerned look on her face, Rosa looked to Jessie and asked, “Where are you going?”

“We’ve got to see this thing through. With Jack out of the fight...”

“I’m not out of the fight!” Jack interrupted.

“Okay, then,” Jessie said, rewording his statement, “With Jack not in any condition to go sprinting from house to house, the best chance we have is to take advantage of Peronne’s distraction with the woman. Not to mention the fact that she could use our help. I’ll do my best to be a thorn in their side, distracting them from their task at hand. Where that will lead is anyone’s guess at this point, but it’s all we’ve got. We’ve already stirred the pot. Life isn’t gonna go back to normal for you folks while Peronne is still in power, so we’ve got to try and fix that.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

As the sun finally disappeared over the western horizon, darkness fell over the streets of Fort Sumner, and with it, the dreadful uncertainty of what might come. Leina knew that Peronne and his men would use the cover of darkness to make their move on her, but when? How? The only thing she knew for certain was that her odds of seeing another sunrise in this world were slim. That was okay with her, though. Her husband, her friends, and now her children, had all been taken from her. She felt as if she had nothing more to live for, and if she went down swinging, nothing would feel quite so fitting. Her only concern at this point was the woman who had risked and lost everything to take her in and offer her shelter in her time of need.

Looking over at the woman, hidden underneath the mattress, Leina reaffirmed her will to fight. There were still good people in this wretched, God-forsaken world and she would do her very best to protect this wonderful lady whom she didn’t even know, until the very end.

The sound of a familiar voice rang over a public address system, interrupting her thoughts, saying, “Leinaʹala. We offered you everything. We offered you safety. We offered you a future. And this is how you repay us? You murder our officers and take that poor woman hostage? You know we can’t let this stand.”

“You lying bastard!” she yelled toward the window in a fit of rage. “You murdered my friends. You took my children. You’ve taken everything from me, and all you offered me in return is servitude to you and your little kingdom! Well, I’ve got news for you, you dirty son-of-a-b—. I don’t know how you’ve kept the good people of this town from taking up arms against you all this time, but your reign of terror ends now. I won’t stand for it. I won’t allow you to impose your will on these people or any more passersby out on the roads, even if it costs me my life doing so. Your crimes simply won’t stand!”

Pausing for a moment, Chief Peronne answered in a very calm and collected voice, “Oh, it will cost you your life. I can promise you that.”

~~~~

Climbing into one of the police SUVs left at the courthouse by Peronne’s men, Jessie started the engine, switched on the lights, and said to himself aloud, “Why do I feel like I’ve been here before?”

Shifting the transmission into gear, Jessie began speeding down Sumner Avenue to the west. Approaching 2
nd
street, Jessie hung a hard right and said to himself, “Mc Gee Avenue should be just up ahead.”

Seeing several patrol SUVs in what appeared to be a defensive position around a small, two-story single-family home, Jessie saw an officer wave him over, seeming to give directions on where he was to position himself.

Slowing the vehicle, appearing to acquiesce to the officer’s request, Jessie watched as the man seemed to be taking extra effort to look into the vehicle to identify the driver. “Here goes,” he said as he shoved the accelerator to the floor, spinning the rear tires of the SUV wildly on the dry, dusty road.

Smashing the hood of his car into the officer, Jessie slammed on the breaks, throwing the man violently onto the ground. He then brought his AR-10 to bear, firing as rapidly as he could through the window of the SUV, causing the other officers who had previously been taking positions of cover from the potential fire from the house to scatter like rats.

Throwing the transmission into reverse, Jessie backed away as fast as he could, reaching the engine’s peak RPM, bouncing off of the rev-limiter as he fired the last round from his twenty-round 7.62 NATO magazine, locking the bolt firmly to the rear.

Smashing through a stop sign and the chain-link fence of one of the neighboring homes, Jessie felt the SUV slam to a stop as it crashed into the wooden steps leading up to the home’s main entrance.

With Peronne’s men beginning to regroup, Jessie swung the door open and ran out of the vehicle and behind the house, vanishing into the darkness of the night.

~~~~

Hearing the commotion and rapid-fire gunshots from across the street, Leina watched as a strange man in one of Peronne’s SUVs seemed to be attacking his own men from their flank. As the vehicle sped away in reverse, firing wildly through its own windshield, Leina took advantage of the confusion. Taking aim on one of Peronne’s men who was illuminated by the vehicle's headlights, she placed the crosshairs of the scope on his chest, and slowly pulled the trigger until she felt the powerful .30-06 cartridge shove the rifle firmly into her shoulder, simultaneously dropping the man as the bullet tore clean through his torso.

Quickly cycling another round into the chamber with the bolt, Leina took aim once again as the men began to take cover behind their vehicles. She let another one-hundred-and-eighty grain, thirty-caliber projectile fly, striking one of the officers in the right shoulder, impacting the man so hard it spun him nearly all the way around before he fell to the ground.

Ducking back into the safety of the room as she saw a muzzle flash from the rifle of one of the men who had managed to take cover, Leina felt a high-speed 5.56 millimeter round whiz by her head as the officer managed to return fire with his AR-15 patrol rifle.

“Who the hell is that?” she shouted aloud, wondering who the mysterious man in the SUV was.

~~~~

Stopping several houses away to gather his bearings and regroup, Jessie pressed the magazine release button on his AR-10, dropping the empty magazine to the ground, quickly replacing it with a fresh OD green twenty-round polymer PMAG. Bumping the bolt catch release with the palm of his left hand, Jessie double-checked that a round was in the chamber and took refuge behind an old backyard shed that had become surrounded by tall weeds from neglect.

Hearing several gunshots being fired into the vehicle he had just abandoned, Jessie thought, “Idiots,” as he patiently waited for them to round the corner of the home in pursuit.

After several moments, he heard the whispers of two of the men as they worked their way around the home. Seeing the light of their flashlights stop just short of rounding the corner of the house, Jessie readied his rifle, aiming it where he assumed they would appear next.
Come on, damn it. Don’t make me wait on you all night,
he thought as he heard movement coming from the house behind him.
Crap!

Overhearing a faint radio communication coming from the direction of the two men who had stopped short of Jessie’s position, Jessie came to the realization that they would be boxing him in, closing in tight on his position. Being near the intersection of 3
rd
Street and Richards Street, Jessie knew that once his position was discovered, the men could easily call for backup, sending Peronne’s men driving right up on him, leaving him with little way out.

Slipping his sling around his shoulder, Jessie positioned his rifle across his back and crawled slowly and quietly to the edge of the fence behind the old shed.
Damn it. Chain-link,
he thought, realizing the easiest but most obvious way to get past the fence was to go over it.

Feeling around the bottom of the fence, Jessie could hear the men closing in on his position as they swept the surrounding houses in a very deliberate manner.
They’re not gonna let this go. Their entire assault on the woman in the house is in jeopardy as long as I’m alive and on the loose, and they know it.

Lifting up on the bottom of the fence, Jessie realized there was just enough room to slide underneath. Reaching around and pulling his rifle around in front of him, Jessie slid it underneath the fence and began to crawl as low to the ground as he could under the metal mesh and through to the other side.

With his head and his right arm and shoulder underneath, he felt a snag on his clothing, stopping his advance while he maneuvered, trying to free himself.
What, am I Peter Rabbit, now?

As he calmly and quietly tried to free himself, a vehicle came around the corner from Richards Street, shining its headlights onto 3
rd
Street, and right in front of Jessie. Quickly retreating back into the yard, Jessie’s shirt tore loose from the fence as the vehicle rounded the corner and began to work its way up 3
rd
.

Damn it!
Jessie thought as his heart pounded in his chest, realizing that his rifle was still on the other side of the fence. Hearing a radio transmission from one of Peronne’s men on foot getting closer and closer to his position, and with the vehicle’s spotlight shining its way up the fence line, Jessie knew he had to abandon his beloved AR-10 and make his move before it was too late.

Quickly slipping across the home’s weed-filled, abandoned lawn, Jessie made it to the side of the home as the vehicle’s spotlight shone directly on his rifle as the vehicle came to a stop.

Making his move, Jessie ran around the corner of the house and ran straight into one of Peronne’s men, knocking both of them to the ground. With Jessie lying on top of the man with the officer’s AR-15 patrol rifle pinned between the two, he grabbed the officer’s hand as he reached for his sidearm, shoving downward, keeping the pistol securely holstered while the two men struggled.

With his left hand on the man’s gun, Jessie quickly grabbed the man’s windpipe with his right and began to squeeze as hard as he could, stopping the man’s call for help as he struggled to get his words past Jessie’s crushing grip. Digging his fingers deeper and deeper into the man’s throat, Jessie focused all of his rage on his task, resisting the man’s attempts to get his fingers underneath Jessie’s in order to pry his hand free.

Feeling the man’s windpipe collapse, the struggle began to fade as the man’s eyes rolled back and his muscles relaxed, his life slipping away from him, taken from him with Jessie’s bare hand.

Hearing the man’s partner yell from the next yard over, “We found something,” as he began to run toward Jessie’s now illuminated rifle. Using this momentary distraction to his benefit, Jessie got off the slain officer, removed his rifle from its sling, unclipped his belt-mounted radio, and slipped off into the shadows of the night.

~~~~

Back in the elderly woman’s home, Leina knew she had to stay on the move inside the home to prevent Peronne’s men from carrying out an assault on her and the woman too easily. “The bathroom,” she thought, remembering the hidden compartment beneath the floor where the woman had kept her safe.

Frantically dragging the mattress off the woman, Leina pulled her up and into a fireman’s carry as she began to work her way through the house and down the stairs, carrying the rifle awkwardly with one hand while she held on to the woman with the other.

Reaching the downstairs bathroom, Leina nearly slipped and fell with the woman, slipping in the blood that had oozed underneath the door from the man she had disemboweled in such a gruesome fashion. Opening the door, Leina stepped over the man’s body and laid her rifle on the bathroom sink so that she could properly take care of the woman. With her other hand now free, she opened the closet door, knelt down on her right knee, and pulled the hidden opening to the side.

Working her way into the compartment first, Leina carefully laid the woman inside, pushed her hair out of the way, and said in a soft and gentle whisper, “I’ll come back for you. I promise. But if I don’t, may God keep you safe and grant you the ability to get yourself out of here and to safety.”

Climbing back up and out of the underfloor compartment, she reinstalled the false floor and scattered towels and other bathroom items around to mask the entrance.

As she reached for the old .30-06 hunting rifle, Leina was startled by the sound of a transmission coming through the dead officer’s radio. Through gritted teeth, she heard an ominous, static filled transmission:

What’s the matter, boys? Can’t find me? How many of you have to die tonight before you realize you’re following a dead man. That’s right. Peronne, as well as all who follow him, will die tonight. You’re all guilty of the worst of all betrayals. You aren’t just guilty of betraying your fellow man, you’re guilty of betraying your entire community. You’ve killed for him. You’ve watched the innocent suffer. You’ve kept a tyrant and a madman in power, betraying every single person in this town. Your uniforms are supposed to represent service to the people with whom you share the town. Instead, you’ve turned your badge into a symbol of dishonor. You’ve betrayed your oath. You’ve betrayed your duty. You’ve betrayed everything that badge is supposed to represent. You don’t serve the people. You serve a tyrant, and tonight, you will lie in the same pool of blood as him. Tonight, justice will finally be served upon you for all of the injustices you’ve perpetrated on your fellow man.

As silence once again fell upon the radio, the thoughts of what may be going on began to swirl through Leina’s mind. As she tried to piece it all together, she heard Peronne’s familiar angry voice scream through the radio:

Who are you, you son-of-a-b—? You’re the one that’s gonna be lying in a pool of blood tonight, but you won’t die right away. My men will kill you slowly. You’ll feel the pain as I remove every finger from your hand, every toe from your feet, and every tooth from your mouth. I will disassemble your entire body until you die from the pain of it all. How dare you come into my town and threaten me. How dare you, you son-of-a-b—! You’re gonna die, I tell you! Gonna die!