More Than This (30 page)

He has. “That’s right,” Regine says, manhandling him past the turn in the stairwell, pushing both him and Tomasz up toward the inner door. “We’re not actually here. None of us are. This is all just something you’re imagining.”

“Less of the arguing!” Tomasz says. “More of the hurrying!”

They reach the top and guide Seth outside. Every time he blinks, he sees his memories before him, so clear and vivid it’s as if he’s switching back and forth between this world and that one. Owen and Gudmund and Monica and H and the ocean and the house in England and the house in America. All twisting and shifting so fast, the nausea rises, and as they get him down the front steps of the prison, he vomits again.

“What’s . . . happening?” he gasps. “I can’t . . . The world is collapsing . . .”

In the spinning of his vision, he sees them exchange a worried look –

Then he sees Tomasz look up in panic. “Regine?”

Seth sees a look of horror cross Regine’s face –

But he blinks again, and once more, overwhelmingly, the memories come, him sitting at the table with Officer Rashadi, another officer rushing in and saying they’d found him, they’d found Valentine –

Seth’s eyes snap open.

There, right
there,
something he’d missed. Something he can hold on to. He feels the rush of memories ebb for the briefest of moments –

He looks up. He’s in Regine’s arms. She and Tomasz are trying to get him standing again, but the thing, the important thing, it’s right on the tip of his tongue, it’s –

“Valentine,” he says.

Regine and Tomasz stop for an instant to look at him.

“What?” Regine says.

“Valentine,” he says, gripping her arms more tightly. “His name was Valentine! The man who took Owen! The man who –!”

“Seth, can’t you hear that?” Regine yells.

Seth stops. And listens.

The engine of the van.

Close, and growing louder, faster than they’re ever going to be able to outrun.

Tomasz darts away from them across the square over to where two bikes are piled together. In a panic, Seth moves to follow him, but he struggles to even stay upright and Regine has to grab him to keep him from falling. “We won’t make it with you like this,” she says. She turns to the other buildings, looking for a place to hide.

“But Tomasz –” Seth says. He sees that Tomasz isn’t picking up a bike. He’s picking up a satchel tied to the back of one of them, frantically unwrapping something.

“Come on!” Regine says, pulling Seth toward the middle building of the ones that surround the square. The roar of the engine is nearly on them, and Seth can see lights growing in the darkness beyond the building they just left –

“Regine!” he cries.

“I see it!” she says.

Tomasz is running across the square toward them now, carrying something long and metallic, something Seth can’t quite make out in the moonlight and shadows. He blinks, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness –

– and he’s lying with Gudmund on the bed, Gudmund’s arm reaching up with the phone, taking the photograph, the one of just the two of them together, the private moment caught forever –

“Regine?” he says. “Regine, I think –”

“No, Tommy!” Regine yells.

Seth looks, his vision whirling. Tomasz is still crossing the square, running but not fast enough, fussing with the thing in his hands –

And Seth suddenly sees what it is, so unlikely as to be almost literally unbelievable –

Tomasz is carrying a shotgun.

It’s almost as long as he is.

“Tomasz, look out!” Seth yells –

Because behind Tomasz, the black van sails around the corner of the building, roaring into the square –

Bearing down on Tomasz as he runs –

“No!” both Seth and Regine shout –

“Run!” Tomasz cries to them –

The van cuts between them, its wheels screeching to a halt on the concrete, and before it’s even fully stopped, the door is opening –

The Driver is getting out –

And hurtling toward Tomasz with unthinkable speed –

“Tommy!” Seth hears Regine scream –

And she’s trying to run for him –

But there’s no way she’ll get there in time –

The Driver holds out its baton, sparks crackling from it, ready to strike –

Tomasz awkwardly points the shotgun –

“NO!” Regine shouts –

And Tomasz pulls the trigger.

The bang is much bigger than Seth expects and indeed, there are
two
flashes, one from the end of the gun fired into the chest of the Driver –

And another as the gun explodes in Tomasz’s hands.

Through white smoke, Seth sees the two bodies flying away in opposite directions, the spinning shadow of the Driver crashing into the van, nearly tearing off the open door in the impact, before slumping violently to the ground –

But also Tomasz, crying out as he sails back, bits of the gun splintering into the air, smoke trailing from him as he tumbles down onto the hard concrete of the square.

“TOMMY!” Regine yells, bolting toward him. Seth tries to keep up, but he’s still unsteady on his feet. He follows her around the front of the van, catching a glimpse of the shadowy figure on the ground, also unmoving. Ahead of him, Regine slides down to the ground next to Tomasz –

No,
Seth thinks.
Please, no
–

But then he hears a small coughing.

“Thank God,” Regine says as he kneels down roughly next to her. “Thank God.”

“Moje ręce,”
Tomasz says, sitting up, his voice pitifully small.
“Moje ręce są całe zakrwawione.”

He holds out his hands. Even in the shadows from the doorway light, they can see how burnt they are, strips of torn flesh and blood dripping down his wrists.

“Oh,
Tommy,
” Regine says furiously, gripping him in an embrace so tight Tomasz actually calls out. She lets go of him and starts shouting. “YOU IDIOT! I TOLD YOU IT WAS TOO DANGEROUS!”

“It was for last chance only,” Tomasz moans. “And we were on last chance.”

Seth looks behind them. The barrels of the shotgun are lying in two separate places among the weeds, the wooden stock now just smoldering embers across a wide area –

–
And the officer has come into their sitting room and he’s saying, “They’ve found Valentine –”

With a grunt, Seth forces it away, turning back to Regine and Tomasz. She’s taken off her coat and is ripping a sleeve, tying it around one of Tomasz’s hands.

“Where did you get a
shotgun
?” Seth asks, garbling the words a little. Now that things have slowed down, his head has started to spin again.

“In an attic in a neighboring house,” Regine says, tying Tomasz’s other hand, ignoring his tuts of pain. “But it was clearly
broken
and
dangerous
and
not something we could ever use.
”

“I tell you this again,” Tomasz grunts. “A last chance. When there is no hope.”

“You could have died, you little . . .” But Regine can’t finish, and her eyes are wet with furious tears. She glares back at Seth, daring him to say something. Then her face changes. “Are you okay?”

Seth winces, still feeling the memories crowding in, still feeling them whirling through his head.

“It was ready to kill me,” Tomasz says, looking at the van. “To kill little Tomasz. But I kill him first, no?”

They all look back at the Driver. They can see a deep hole in the chest of the uniform where it took the full blast of the gun.

“Valentine,” Seth whispers, holding on to the name again.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Regine says.

He looks at her, his face pained.

“Seriously,” she says, “are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Seth says, struggling to stand again.

“You said it was the name of a man,” Tomasz says, standing awkwardly too, not using his injured hands. “He took someone called Owen?”

“Owen is my brother,” Seth says.

Tomasz makes an
ahhhh
sound of understanding.

Seth can feel all the memories there in his mind, spinning around him like he’s in the eye of a hurricane that’s pressing in, surging toward him,
wanting
something from him. “Valentine,” he whispers again.

“Yeah, okay,” Regine says gently. “Valentine. Gotcha.” She turns back to Tomasz. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“My chest, little bit,” he answers, gesturing with his bandaged hands where the gun hit him, “but not so bad.”

“He won’t be able to ride,” Regine says to Seth. “You’ll have to help him. Are you up to that?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Seth says, still distracted. That name, Valentine, it most definitely is the name of the prisoner who took Owen, the name that for the life of him he’d been unable to remember back at the house, no matter how hard he tried.

Until whatever happened down there with the coffins.

But there’s more to it. . . .

The memories grow louder in his head again, surrounding him on all sides.

“Valentine,” he whispers again.

“We can lie you down in the house,” Regine says. “Both of you.” She turns toward the van. “But first . . .”

She starts walking toward where the Driver still lies.

“What are you doing?” Tomasz calls out in alarm.

“Making sure it’s dead,” Regine says, moving slowly, carefully, ready to run again.

Seth watches her go but hardly sees her, his mind filling again with the beach, the sea, the coldness –

With the police and Owen and Valentine –

With Monica and Gudmund and H –

The tidal wave is coming again, breaking over him, drowning him once more –

“I do not think this is a good idea,” Tomasz calls to Regine, shifting nervously from foot to foot –

Something’s there, right there, as the memories keep flooding in –

“I’m willing to risk it for one less bad thing in the world,” Regine says.

“Seth?” Tomasz asks. “Regine, something is very wrong with Seth.”

Regine turns at the worry in Tomasz’s voice. Seth presses his hands to the sides of his head, as if to keep it from exploding.

“No,” he says. “Oh, no.”

In the flood of thought whooshing through his brain, the memories are crowding his vision, fighting for attention, swamping him, pulling him under –

But he can still see what’s in front of him, though it’s getting harder –

Still see something not quite right –

Still see
movement
–

As behind Regine, the Driver starts to rise.

Tomasz calls out something in Polish so horrified there’s no need for translation. Regine whips round to the Driver and screams.

“The bikes!” Tomasz yells.

Regine grabs Seth’s arm as she runs past him, but his eyes are locked on the Driver, slowly sitting up.

Slowly rising to its feet.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Regine says, pulling him so hard she nearly knocks him down.

And now he’s running, too, though it feels more like trying not to fall than anything else. Tomasz is at the bikes but can’t lift them with his injured hands. Regine grabs one and practically throws it at Seth. He catches it by reflex, and Tomasz is already climbing up behind him, wrapping his coat-bound hands around Seth’s waist to hang on.

Seth takes one last look back at the Driver.

It’s standing next to the van now, balancing with an arm on the broken door. It watches them, facelessly, the visor of its helmet reflecting the moonlight back at them.

An enormous chunk torn from the middle of its chest.

How?
Seth thinks in the maelstrom of his brain.
How?

But then they’re riding, as fast as Seth’s confused legs can pump the pedals, Tomasz gripping him tightly. Regine darts out of the square in front of him, and he does his best to follow her, struggling to keep his balance.

“Oh, do not fall,” he hears Tomasz say behind him. “Do not fall, do not fall.”

He focuses on that, trying to keep his overwhelmed mind on the task at hand. Tomasz’s wrists are pressed so tight around Seth’s middle it’s making his sides hurt, but he rides out of the square after Regine and past the first building. Seth listens for the engine, but there’s no change in tone or volume, no sign that the Driver is chasing them.