Gemini Cell: A Shadow Ops Novel (Shadow Ops series Book 4) (13 page)

Jackrabbit came on, his current a pungent cloak around them. One giant hand receded into a stump, a spike of bone shooting out, flattening into a cleaver edge, so sharp it gleamed like metal. He crouched.

“And now they send the dead after me,” Jackrabbit said. “You do realize my answer isn’t changing. It won’t change no matter how many innocent people you kill.”

Schweitzer only had time to capture the image, send it up to Jawid before Ninip growled and launched them forward.

“I’ll be sure to send your head back to your bosses,” Jackrabbit said, stepping into the attack. Ninip brought their claw down into Jackrabbit’s shoulder, but the flesh went tacky, allowing their hand to sink to the palm before holding it fast.

Jackrabbit bladed away from them, raised the cleaver, brought it down on Schweitzer and Ninip’s opposite arm. The shear-thickening fluid was designed to harden at the supersonic impact of a bullet. The bone cleaver sliced through it like ripe fruit. Schweitzer could feel it sink deep into muscle, slamming hard into the thick ball at the top of their humerus, splintering halfway through before grinding to a stop.

Ninip howled in rage and snapped at their opponent’s face, but Jackrabbit’s neck snaked away, suddenly flexible as rubber.

The angry animal act isn’t going to cut it,
Schweitzer said.
Let me take this.

Ninip’s answer was an incoherent snarl and a projection of solid red across their vision. He felt the cleaver twist, widening the wound until the fibers of the muscle gave way and their shared right arm hung useless at their side. Jackrabbit was smiling at them now from the top of his plastic neck, dancing just out of reach. “Does it hurt?” he asked. “Can you even feel anything?”

He’s going to cut us to pieces,
Schweitzer shouted.
This body doesn’t heal! Are you trying to lose?

Ninip growled again, but he felt the jinn give way. Schweitzer leapt to control their body, dropping their center of gravity and letting their lower half fall. Their boots shot forward between Jackrabbit’s legs, their shoulders and head hitting the floor.

Their claws, still embedded in the Jackrabbit’s shoulder, took their weight, yanking down. Jackrabbit was only able to yank his head out of the way before his elongated throat smashed flat into the concrete floor.

Schweitzer wrenched their clawed hand up, slicing through Jackrabbit’s flesh and popping free, dragging chunks of something purple and wet. The speed with which Jackrabbit’s body shifted and changed made it impossible to be certain, but he guessed it was the top of his target’s lung.

Jackrabbit sprawled on the floor behind them, his tide focused inward now, probably repairing the damage Schweitzer and Ninip had just done. Schweitzer leapt them onto his back, thrust with their good arm, the clawed fingertips digging into Jackrabbit’s back. He could feel the brief resistance of Jackrabbit’s rib cage, then they were punching through, reaching upward, fingers scrabbling, even as Jackrabbit’s current changed focus, and his shattered ribs became spikes, punching into Schweitzer and Ninip’s wrist and forearm.

At last their hand closed around Schweitzer’s target, felt the tough meat pulsing against their hand. He grunted and yanked back with everything they had. Jackrabbit’s heart came free in a spray of red so deep, it bordered on purple, and he pitched forward on his face.

Schweitzer stood, feeling the heart beating in their hands. With the threat neutralized, fatigue gripped him, the effort of battling Ninip for control of their shared body hitting home at last. The jinn felt it, and surged forward, battering Schweitzer aside and spinning them to face the men and women clogging the hallway behind them, going slack-jawed at the sight of their fallen leader, lying facedown in a spreading pool of blood.

Ninip grinned, held the beating heart aloft. Schweitzer watched Jackrabbit’s followers’ wide eyes fix on it. He knew the fight had gone out of them. They were lambs for the slaughter.

Jackpot,
Schweitzer managed to send.
Jackrabbit down.

Then Ninip crouched, snarled, leapt into the midst of them, good arm already going to work.

Schweitzer tried to pull him back, lacked the strength. Ninip knocked him aside and leaned into a shove that sent Schweitzer scrambling to hold on to his slice of real estate in their shared body.

Schweitzer felt the faint pulse of Jawid’s attention. The Sorcerer was saying something, but he didn’t care what. He turned inward, curling into the blackness, trying not to sense what the monster wearing his skin was doing.

ASHES TO ASHES

“Come on, little man.” Sarah’s knees ached from the hours she’d spent on all fours, only the hotel’s thin carpet between her and the concrete beneath. Patrick twirled the toy truck idly in one hand, looking at it as if it were some strange living thing that he wasn’t sure would hurt him or not. He was silent, as he had been for hours now, had been for over a month since the hospital had seen fit to let him come home.

Panic swamped Sarah for the hundredth time. The therapist said it would take time, but the thought of Patrick never coming out of this semicatatonia was always hovering at the back of her mind. It was enough that Jim was gone, that she hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye, that she wasn’t sure if the people who’d done this to him wouldn’t soon be coming for her. That there was no way to avenge herself on them, no answers, and no resolution. The thought of caring for Patrick alone, while he was like this, filled her with exhaustion so bone deep that she just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep. She choked back tears, conjured the image of the man beneath her, gurgling out his life as she plunged the canvas knife into his neck again and again. Anger. That was good. Anger she could use.

She clung to the emotion desperately, reeled it in, directed it at herself.
Lock it up. That’s what Jim would have said. Crying won’t solve anything. Patrick needs you strong. The only way to lose is to quit.

So she swallowed, ground her knees into the floor. The pain jolted her into action, and she smiled the warmest mommy smile she could muster, making rumbling noises as she pushed Patrick’s trucks along the floor. He had loved them all his short life, and he would again.

Her cell phone buzzed a reminder, and she gathered Patrick into her arms. “Uncle Stevie’s coming over soon. You want to play with Uncle Stevie?”

Patrick looked up at that, some glimmer of excitement in his tiny face. “Stevie,” he said.

Relief flooded her, and she fought back tears again. Thank God for Steve, their rock in all of this. The one connection to the family the navy claimed to be, had instantly ceased to be the moment Schweitzer’s corpse had gone cold. She was sure the navy wives would take her in, hold her hand, talk mealy-mouthed bullshit about God and plans, fling a chaplain at her. This was the thing about religious types she hated so much. They never missed a chance to proselytize. No tragedy was sacred, no setback off-limits. They would solemnly enter your private space, regal and pompous as crows, full of righteous self-importance. Then, when she was at her weakest, they would tell her why the unacceptable was acceptable, why it was okay that she’d lost the love of her life because an invisible man in the sky (and it was always a man, wasn’t it?) had willed it.

Sarah’s fingers itched for the canvas knife. She’d gladly plunge it into the throat of any god who’d done this to her, to her son.

Her cell phone’s message indicator had a large red 5 in the upper right corner. They were voice mails from her mother, from Peg, her sister in the Shenandoah Valley. She often went weeks without talking to either of them, but a month was a stretch. She’d put Peg off with a short, “Things are complicated right now. I promise we’ll talk about it later.” Her mother she hadn’t spoken to. She didn’t trust herself to hear her mother’s voice and keep her composure.

The doorbell rang, and Sarah set Patrick down, went to answer it. The panic rose in her again, the state of hypervigilance Jim had called “living in condition yellow” screaming at her to slow down, that she didn’t know what was on the other side of that door, that she had to be ready.

Sarah mourned this most of all. When those men had come into her home, they’d pulled back the curtain on a world she’d always suspected existed but was able to ignore. It was a world where human lives were truly fungible, where death was meaningless and random, where being good and hardworking and loving your family meant absolutely nothing, where you were utterly powerless to keep anyone safe.

Sarah knew this was the space Jim had lived and worked in, that once that curtain was yanked aside, it could never be closed again, not really.
Oh God, Jim. I don’t know how you did it.

She paused at the door, fought against the urge to use the peephole. She knew it was Steve outside, not some armed thugs sent to finish the job they’d started. But the demons whispered to her from behind that open curtain, refused to allow her to let her guard down. Her hand was shaking as she forced herself to throw the latch, turn the doorknob, open the door at a normal pace.

Steve stood in the hallway, a steel can under one arm. She saw a glimmer of her face reflected in his dark eyes, knew that he alone could read her expression, the tremor in her hands, could truly understand the guarded twilight that would be her life from now on.

The tube had been removed from his chest and he looked healthier now, standing up straight, with color in his cheeks. She was embarrassed to admit how relieved she felt to see him, his nightly presence in her home an addiction. Steve brought peace with him, bags of groceries and toys for Patrick. More importantly, he understood the value of being quiet, of simply being in the room and letting Sarah grieve on her own. He respected the space her grief required, had an uncanny sense of when it was okay to move into it, to provide comfort when she was too weak to hold herself up.

Very few people could understand what Jim was to her, to the world. Steve was one of those few. He brought calm, he brought companionship, he brought the last shred of her husband that didn’t live in her dreams of rose-petal trails.

“Uncka Stevie.” Patrick stood and toddled over to him, holding up his truck.

Steve knelt, setting the can down at his side. “Hey, guy! Is that your truck?”

Patrick nodded shyly, holding it out to him.

“Thank God,” Sarah said. “He hasn’t said a thing all day.”

Steve reached out for the truck only to have Patrick snatch it away, suddenly shy. He picked the boy up instinctively, hoisting him in the air. Patrick nestled against his chest, his expression losing some of the confused distance it normally wore these days.

“You feel like his daddy,” Sarah said, the truth of the words making her throat swell.

“Yeah, well,” Steve said, embarrassed. “I guess all guys feel sort of the same.”

She’d been so happy to see him that the can had gone unremarked. It hit home now, the silver lines of its exterior suddenly coming into sharp relief. It shone from the floor, a cylindrical metal star.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

Steve set Patrick down on the floor and tousled his hair as the boy clung to his leg. “It’s his ashes.”

She started to pick them up, stopped. Somewhere along the way, she’d brought a hand to her mouth, looking like a stupid girl. She dropped it with an effort. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “How did you? You said that . . .”

“Yeah, they weren’t going to turn them over. They gave me every excuse in the book. They didn’t have them, they’d gotten mixed up with others. They were still doing testing. The hush-hush bullshit can get pretty damn thick at times.”

She finally bent and picked up the can, saw her fun-house reflection in the curving surface. She’d overcompensated for its anticipated weight. She had to clutch it to her chest to stop herself from tossing it in the air. Even with the metal, it was . . . was this all that was left of Jim? A pinch of dust? “It’s so light.”

It was quiet after that, until Steve’s voice finally broke the silence, reminding her that she’d been staring at the can in her hands for . . . she didn’t know how long. “Anyway, that’s what there is. I’m sorry there isn’t more, Sarah. I guess we can . . . well, we can have a funeral now.”

“How did you get them to stop stonewalling?”

“Good old-fashioned pain-in-the-assery. I begged, I pleaded, I made accusations. I went to the chief and made an impassioned speech. I played on her sense of obligation to you. I shamelessly portrayed you as a wailing woman on the brink of suicide, which, I should add, is perhaps the biggest lie I’ve ever told.”

“But none of that worked, did it?”

He looked at the floor, rubbed the back of his neck. “No. None of it did.”

“So, how?”

“I threatened to go to the press. I said I’d tell any paper that would listen about how the navy treats the families of fallen warriors. It won’t do my security clearance any favors but . . . ah, hell. I’m not so sure I want to do this anymore, anyway. Not after . . .” He trailed off.

Jim would never have even considered that,
she thought,
not for an instant. No tragedy, no injury could have ever stopped him from being a SEAL.
She looked at the fear in Steve’s face, knew it would never leave. He was a fighter, to be sure, but every fighter had their limit. He’d found his, and coming up against it would haunt him the rest of his life. For the first time in their long friendship, she pitied him.

But the pity was overcome by the wave of comfort and gratitude that followed as he helped her put Patrick to bed, ordered Chinese delivery, sat in the living room, and ate with her in silence, watching images of a world they’d both left behind flash across the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall.

Sarah came to, her head on his shoulder, a tiny strand of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth to anchor on his shirt. She’d dozed off. She snorted, swallowed, swatted groggily at the air. She thought briefly of sitting up, but the solidity of his shoulder felt so good, the warmth radiating through his shirt against her neck lulled her back down, and she found herself nestling against him contentedly.

“You went out there for a little while. You must be exhausted.” His voice sent tiny vibrations through his shoulder that buzzed her soothingly along her neck. She sighed.

“I haven’t slept more than a couple hours at a stretch for God knows how long. Having you around helps.”

“Well”—his voice was thick—“that’s good. I’m glad to know I’m helping.”

They sat like that in silence, and after a moment, he rested his head against hers. The move shocked her at first, but it was more warmth and more not-aloneness. He smelled faintly of the ready room, of gun oil and ripstop fabric seasoned with sweat. They were familiar smells, and she let herself sink in them.

“So,” he said, “I guess we’ll have to plan a funeral.”

“Not yet, Steve. I’m just . . . I just can’t face it right now.”

When he answered, his voice was pinched. “I think it would be for the best. You need . . . closure here. You can’t just hide out in this apartment forever. You have to get on with things.”

The words stung, even as she acknowledged the truth of them. She thought of the boy crying in her dream. This felt like that. The necessary horror she dreaded facing, knew she had to.

“I know,” she forced herself to say, “and I will, just . . . not soon.”

She felt him tense. “You said you needed to get closure. I fought like a mad dog to get these ashes for you, so you could have it.”

She sat up, hating him for pulling her out of her precious brief moment of warm contentment. Her tiny spot where everything was, just for a short time, okay. “That’s why you got them? So
I
could have closure? Jesus, Steve. He was your best friend. He was your . . . ‘battle buddy,’ or whatever the hell you call it.”

His eyes narrowed, some of the warrior coming into his face. He couldn’t have been more different-looking from her husband, but that expression nearly choked her with nostalgia. “It’s different for us,” he said. “You accept it from the time you graduate. You train for it. You know it’s coming. You can’t do what we do and not lose people.”

Anger became hot in her throat. “Oh, really? Was this the same Steve Chang who cried like a baby next to my hospital bed? Maybe you need more training, tough guy.”

His expression changed, the anger and determination morphing to something else.
You’re hurting him.
But she couldn’t stop herself. Because anger wasn’t grief. Anger wasn’t fear. And anything that wasn’t those things was something.

“That’s not fair,” he said.

“Life isn’t fair, or hadn’t you noticed? It’s not fair that I lost my husband. It’s not fair that Patrick lost his father. It’s not fair that your fucked-up little excuse for a brotherhood won’t or can’t figure out who the hell did it or why. The sea doesn’t care about you, Steve. Or did you forget your favorite quote?”

“This is the first time I’ve heard you mention Patrick,” he said. “What about him, Sarah? He’s young, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He knows his father is gone. He knows that the people who killed Jim hurt his mommy and hurt him, too. You think you’re scared? What about him? Maybe you don’t need closure, Sarah, but he does. He needs some kind of thing that will tell him that this makes sense.”

“This doesn’t make sense!” she almost yelled, and turned it into a snarl that she prayed wouldn’t wake her son.

“You’re right, it doesn’t, but Patrick isn’t an adult. He’s not ready for that kind of revelation. He needs a world that’s safe and ordered. He needs to believe that his father is in heaven surrounded by puppies and baby ducks and that he’s watching him always. He needs the bullshit religion you hate so much. He needs to feel safe.”

The words fell like hammerblows. Sarah knew he was right. She’d been so caught up in her own grief that she’d forgotten that Patrick was grieving, too. She’d focused on playing with him, trying to restore some sense of normalcy. But Patrick’s mind was clear enough to understand that nothing would ever be normal again. It was up to her to define a new normal for him. She’d failed to do that.

The anger leaked out of her, leaving her only the grief and terror. She clung to its departing threads, unwilling to admit she was wrong just yet, to give way to the sobbing she knew bulled up against the dam of this stupid argument.

“Patrick’s not your problem. You’re not his father. This isn’t your job.”

“Fuck you,” he said, the warrior pushing the hurt aside, taking full possession of his expression. Here was Steve Chang the SEAL, her husband’s strong right hand, the fighter who kept the monsters at bay. God, he was beautiful.