The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (43 page)

“I had to stop you from getting to the beach. I knew you’d come down here.” He gave her that cocky smile that she was so familiar with. “The yacht’s gone. The only place with any boats left is the beach. I knew any survivors would come down here sooner or later. It was easier than going into the hotel after you.” He was beaming, looking so very young at the moment. “I’m glad you’re alive, Gaby. I was really worried. Things have spiraled out of control so fast…”

“Let us go, Josh.”

The word came out a lot calmer than she had expected. She thought her voice would crack, maybe quiver slightly, but there was none of that. She was so still, and she wasn’t even breathing hard. Maybe it was because somehow she always knew it would end this way, with Josh in front of her and the two of them holding weapons on each other.

Josh frowned. “I can’t do that, Gaby.”

He took another step forward, then another, leaving the other four behind. They didn’t follow but stood obediently in the background, though Gaby detected a slight movement from one of them—the shortest of the four—almost as if the figure wanted to follow Josh but somehow managed to restrain itself, if just barely.

“Put the rifle down, Gaby,” Josh said. “I’m sorry about Danny. That was a mistake. An accident. Don’t do anything crazy—” He stopped and his eyes darted down to Lara. “What are you doing?”

“Saving his life,” Lara said. She had pulled a roll of gauze out of one of her pouches and was wrapping it around Danny’s waist. His shirt was pulled up, exposing his blood-slicked stomach. He groaned against her, but Gaby couldn’t tell if he was still conscious.

“Stop that,” Josh said.

“No,” Lara said.

“What?”

“I said
no.
”

Josh looked confused, and for a moment he reminded her of the old Josh—young and inexperienced and awkward. Then the gun in his hand started to move…

“Don’t, Josh,” she said.

Josh looked at her, then back at Lara, who hadn’t stopped treating Danny’s bleeding wound despite the threat. The four behind Josh fidgeted—the shortest of the four even more prominently—as they moved their rifles from Lara to Gaby and back again.

A part of her wanted all of this to end right here, right now. After all the bloodshed of tonight, this would be poetic. Now, while standing with all those poor souls on the beach behind them, in a burst of gunfire. Wasn’t that how all violent men’s lives ended in the history books? Bonnie and Clyde? John Dillinger? Every bank robber she had seen on TV caught in the act by the police?

“Gaby, put down the rifle,” Josh said. “It’s over.”

“I almost died ten times tonight, Josh,” Gaby said through clenched teeth. “If you came here to save me, you’re not doing a very good job.”

He sighed. “You don’t understand. It would have been worse if I hadn’t been leading the attack. Kate would have sent someone else, someone worse. And believe me, there are worse people than me out there. That’s how badly she wants this island.”

“She can have it,” Lara said. “Let us go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that. She doesn’t just want the island, she wants you too, Lara. But it’s not for the same reason she wants Will. I’m sorry. This is the end of the line for you and Danny.”

“Josh, don’t,” Gaby said.

He turned back to her, and she thought he looked almost apologetic. “It’s not my decision. You have to know that. It’s Kate’s. It’s always been Kate’s.”

“She’s not here. You are.”

“She’s everywhere. You don’t understand. She’s
everywhere
,” he said, almost whispering the word “everywhere” as if he was afraid someone (Kate) might hear it.

She could see it in his eyes: Josh was scared. Not just him, but the four behind him blocking their path onto the beach. Gaby had very clearly seen a couple of them shifting their feet nervously at the sound of Kate’s name.

No one wants to say the devil’s name out loud.

“I’m sorry,” Josh said again. “It has to be this way.”

“If you get the chance—if you see him tonight—don’t hesitate. Shoot him, because he’ll shoot you,”
she had told Lara earlier.

So why couldn’t she do it now?

Because he was Josh. No matter what he had become, or what she told others he had become, when she looked at him she still saw the eighteen-year-old boy who spent nearly a year trying to keep her safe. As much as he had changed, as much as he had done, he was still Josh.

And as she stood there watching Lara trying desperately to save Danny’s life, working diligently despite the presence of the man who had just shot him standing close to her on the verge of shooting her too, Gaby realized she couldn’t have loved Lara and Danny any more than she already did.

And she didn’t want it to end. Not for her, and not for them. Not even for Josh. But most of all, not for her friends.

She wanted Danny to run into Carly’s arms again, the way she had earlier today at the pier. She wanted Lara to finally see Will one more time after being apart for so long. She wanted the two of them to take little Claire and Milly to someplace better and start all over. Even if she couldn’t go with them, she wanted that for these people, her family.

No, she didn’t want it to end tonight after all. Not this way.

It can’t end this way.

“Lara,” Gaby said. “How is he?”

Lara looked back at her and shook her head.

It shouldn’t end this way.

Gaby lowered her rifle and placed it on the ground, then did the same with her Glock. Josh sighed with relief at the sight. Even the four behind him seemed to relax a bit.

“Gaby,” Josh said, “you’re doing the right thing.”

“Let them go,” she said.

“What?”

“Let them go, and I’ll come with you.”

“Gaby, no,” Lara said, looking back at her again.

“It’s okay,” Gaby said, and smiled at her. “It’s just Josh.”

Lara didn’t believe her. Gaby could see it in her eyes.

“You’ll come with me?” Josh said, sounding so young again.

Gaby nodded. “If you let them go.”

“And you won’t try to escape?”

“No.”

“Ever.”

“I won’t try to escape. Ever.”

His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked down at the road. This was what he wanted. This had always been what he wanted. The young boy whose family lived across the street from her for all those years. The teenager who secretly admired her from the back of the classes they had together. The survivor who did everything he could to keep her safe.

It
won’t
end this way.

Finally, he looked back up and nodded. “I’ll tell her everyone died on the island during the assault.”

“What about them?” Gaby said, nodding at the four standing behind him.

“She talks to me, not them,” Josh said. Then he nodded again, as if to confirm what he had already decided—or maybe to convince himself he could get away with it. “All right.”

“All right?” she repeated.

“All right,” he said again. Then to Lara and Danny, “Go. Hurry.”

Lara looked back at Gaby, but before she could say anything, Gaby crouched next to her and embraced her as hard as she dared, keeping in mind Lara’s hurt shoulder and that she was still cradling Danny’s unmoving form in her lap. Lara put a hand on her arm, covering her in some of Danny’s blood.

“I’ll be okay,” Gaby whispered. “Go. Please. Danny needs you to go now. I’ve already left Will behind and there won’t be anything left of me if Danny dies, too. Please, save him. Save us. Save
everyone.
”

She stood up quickly before Lara could say anything and nodded at Josh.

He held out his hand.

She forced a smile and reached for it when Josh’s entire body suddenly stiffened.

“What is it?” she said.

“I…,” he stammered, tried to say something, but couldn’t get it out. Then he stared past her and back down the pathway at the black emptiness on the other side.

“Josh,” Gaby said. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“She knows,” Josh said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Oh God, she knows. She
knows
.”

“Who? What does who know?”

He whirled on her, his eyes wide and seized with terror. “She knows!” he shouted. “She’s in my head, Gaby! She’s always been in my head! She knows everything!”

Lara had struggled up from the ground with Danny, his weight threatening to collapse the both of them. But somehow Lara was holding them up, though Gaby couldn’t fathom how since Danny had to be so much heavier, especially now that he looked completely unresponsive.

“She knows!” Josh shouted again. “And she’s pissed off!”

“Kate?” Gaby said. “Are you talking about Kate?”

“Yes!” He looked back down the pathway at the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. What was he looking at? “She’s in my head, Gaby. We’re connected. I didn’t realize—I didn’t know how much—Oh my God, she
knows
.”

“Josh…”

He seized her wrists and his fingers dug into her skin. “Run,” he said breathlessly.

“Josh…”

“RUN!”

Gaby was looking at Josh, trying to understand, when the hotel grounds behind him seemed to have come alive…
moving.

Then she saw them. Black pits of tar piercing through the night, rays of moonlight gleaming off pruned flesh and emaciated forms. The familiar
clacking
of bones and the
tap tap tap
of bare feet against cobblestone.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, pouring into the opening on the other end.

Ghouls.

KEO

Blood. Death. And
bullets.

So what else was new?

Even the island locale wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before. Of course, back then he had a team behind him. Men who were grizzled beyond their years and killed with a glee usually reserved for butchers wearing plastic aprons. Tonight, all he had was a gimpy ex-Army Ranger, a teenage girl, and a bunch of civilians he wouldn’t have trusted to watch his back in a snowball fight, much less a gunfight. And the cherry on top? A third-year medical student was calling the shots.

It could have been worse, though. People could have been looking to him for leadership. Now that would have been a nightmare.

At the moment, there was a lull in the radio channel, so he assumed Lara and the others were trying to figure out what was happening. He had already darted through the woods and stepped out into the opening at the western part of the island, with the big power station visible to his left in the open field. At one time it had been surrounded by hurricane fencing but was now left exposed. A red and brown mist had gathered around the area, the result of a few layers of brick and mortar being disintegrated by explosives.

It was hard to miss the silhouetted figures pouring out of a building the size of a backyard shack next to the ugly gray structure. They were clad in the same black uniforms and Kevlar helmets as the ones that had assaulted the beach. He was too far to count their exact number, but he guessed more than ten. Maybe two dozen. Who knew how many had already made it out before he arrived?

Keo crouched just beyond the tree lines and watched the figures racing across the open field. They clearly knew where they were going—east, toward the hotel. At least the figures weren’t heading north where the
Trident
was currently anchored. That meant they hadn’t spotted the yacht yet. Then again, for all he knew the first stream of invaders might have gone in that direction before he arrived.

There was a
click
in his right ear, and he heard Lara’s voice through the comm. “This is Lara! Everyone who isn’t already there, head to your designated exit points now! I repeat! Head to your exit points now! The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

Oh, so now you want to leave?

Women. Can’t make up their minds.

A part of him wanted to laugh. They had gone through all this effort to hold the island, but all it took was one well-placed explosive to change everything.

“Lara,” he said into the radio.

“Keo!” He heard ragged breathing, which meant she was moving fast. “Where are you?”

“Southwest corner, just beyond the power station.”

“What do you see?”

“More assaulters. They’re coming through the shack next to the power station and heading right at you.”

“How many?”

A shitload,
he thought, but said, “Too many. But if we coordinate a defense—”

“No,” Lara said, cutting him off. “It’s not the humans we have to worry about. Without the shack, there’s nothing to hold them back. Do you understand? Get to your exit point. We’re getting off the island!”

“Them?” Oh. Right.
Them.

“Roger that,” he said.

He didn’t move right away. Instead, he bided his time and let the stream of black-clad figures race across and vanish one by one into the waiting woods that separated this part of the island from the hotel on the other side. There was no point engaging that many men. He had done more than enough killing in the last hour to last a lifetime, and that was saying something given his past—

A lone figure, clearly not part of the invading horde, had appeared on the other side of the open ground. Keo was still trying to figure who it was (it had to be one of Lara’s islanders, given how the man was trying to stay hidden), when the guy decided to ruin Keo’s night by opening fire. Two men running full speed toward the woods fell instantly.

The man kept firing, but was smart enough to start moving sideways at the same time. He darted behind trees only to pop out on the other side and shoot again.

Keo ran through the island’s inventory of men in his head. He discounted Danny because the man had come from the wrong direction. Stan the electrician would be near the hotel with Lara and Sarah, the cook. Roy would also be there with them. Benny, the other gimpy guy on the island, would be in the Tower with the redhead—or was, since Lara had given the abandon ship signal. Blaine, the big Mexican, had the important job of keeping Gage and the
Trident
in play.

So who did that leave?