Orphan X

47 One Breath

Blood spurted through his shirt, matting the fabric to his flesh. The pain, merged with the ringing in his ears, shut out the world, a few seconds of mind-numbing overload. Her bird-thin shoulders hunched inward, Katrin backed away from him in seeming horror, one fist pressed over her sobbing mouth. Her pixie-round face, flushed red in near-perfect circles at the cheeks, looked even more doll-like. He stared at her uncomprehendingly. The phone trembled in his hand, lowering, lowering, until he dropped it into his gaping front cargo pocket. His fingers drew to the warmth spilling from his body.

“I’m sorry.” She was shaking her head, as if to negate what she’d just done. “I didn’t want to do any of it. But they … they made me. They made me do all of it.”

He staggered back a step, the weight of the shotgun tugging his arm downward until the barrel tip struck carpet. He leaned on it like a cane. His other hand came off the wall of his gut, a red palm spread before him.

Katrin’s voice, wobbly with emotion, was still coming at him. “Slatcher said he won’t stop, that Sam won’t be safe until you’re dead. And the call, Morena — you were gonna find out.”

Morena’s final words over the phone had saved him. If he hadn’t jerked away at the last minute he’d be down on the floor, bleeding out. When it came to a stomach puncture, every millimeter brought a fresh hell.

Nonetheless, he was hurt badly. Just how badly remained to be seen.

The ringing in his head fuzzed out all sound. Katrin half turned away, the strokes of that kanji tattoo spreading like spider legs from beneath the rear strap of her tank top. Her lips moved, shaping words: I didn’t want to, Evan.

Still she held the blood-streaked Strider knife, but there seemed no risk she’d use it again. Turning his back on her, he staggered for the doorway. Fumbled along the wall and out into the corridor, still aswirl with Sheetrock dust, the shotgun low at his side, the tip trickling along the floor. He picked his way through the trail of bodies, this one propped against the base of the wall, that one lying in a glossy puddle, its three remaining limbs spread in a snow-angel sprawl. A fire sprinkler doused Evan’s left side. He no longer sensed Candy’s pounding on the jammed utility door behind him, but shadows flickered across the lobby at the end of the corridor ahead.

He veered into the first office to his left. To raise the shotgun at the window, he had to kick the barrel, the effort releasing a cry of pain. The recoil almost knocked the Benelli from his grip, but his aim was close enough. The shards flew away, sucked outside as if by a vacuum.

Somehow he rolled over the jagged sill and onto the marshy weeds. Rather than move toward the hill, he headed for the lobby, charting the straightest line to his truck. The back door of the atrium stood open, the grass around it trampled from some earlier search. Evan stumbled inside, assailed by the odor of dead plants.

He moved through a neat industrial kitchen and peered into the lobby. Empty. The glass doors waited ahead and beyond, the promise of the parking lot and his pickup.

As he stepped from cover, running sounds echoed down the corridor, more than one set of boots. Gasping for air, he shouldered hard into the wall by the doorframe. It took everything he had to hoist the Benelli. He couldn’t hold it properly, but he seated the stock against his shoulder and rested the barrel on the crossbar of his forearm. Firing it would hurt. The boots grew nearer, nearer, and then Evan swung around the jamb and pulled the trigger.

The recoil knocked him backward, spinning him down onto one knee. Heat crept over the waist of his pants. He drooled a little. From the corridor he heard wet gasping. When he managed to look back up, two bodies lay still.

He forced himself to his feet and banged out through the glass doors. A neat line of SUVs faced outward from the near curb, an offensive line in formation. He tottered between two of them, his shoulders knocking the sideview mirrors.

The parking lot played visual tricks on him, stretching out like an asphalt football field. Through the full-body ache, he sent out a hope that the remaining operator would stay with Katrin rather than pursue him. Trudging across the open blacktop left him wildly exposed; he’d be gunned down here without a fight. Each breath seared his lungs; every step radiated a sense-memory echo of the stabbing through his torso. He told himself to keep walking, and his legs somehow stayed under him.

At last he fell through the jasmine hedge, his shoulder striking the wheel well of his trusty Ford. He tossed the shotgun into one of the truck vaults between a tray of ammunition and the cracked scabbard of the katana, then smeared himself around to the driver’s seat.

Squeezing the wheel, he tore out of the spot and lurched into the parking lot, circling for a pass at the row of SUVs. He aimed his rugged bumper assembly at the line of shiny hoods, clipping the grilles one after another, jarring him painfully in his seat. The mini-collisions would activate inertia-sensing switches in the SUVs’ bumpers, shutting down the power to the fuel pump and ensuring that no one could pursue him.

Rather than U-turn to use the lot exit, he hammered over the outer curb directly onto the overpass, bouncing high enough for his hair to skim the roof. Swiping sweat from his eyes, he rode the wide sweep of the lane up and around, veering onto the freeway. As he merged, he looked across the divider to the opposite lanes and spotted a purple Scion peeling up the exit toward the building. Odd that Slatcher hadn’t yet ditched the car. As it flashed by, Evan caught a glimpse of the big man overflowing the driver’s seat, one meaty arm pressed to the window.

He did not look happy.

The red taillights ahead blurred together into a stream, traffic slowing, and Evan braked abruptly, barely avoiding a rear-end. His face contorted, braced against the throbbing. Staying this tight was no good; it compounded the agony. He cast his mind back through the years to his first instructor, the bearded man in the barn. Those lessons taught with the tip of a knife.

Expectation of relief from pain would increase the opioids in his brain, an analgesic effect. Mind over reality.

He fought to move his focus away from the pain, to find the anchor of his breathing.

One breath.

There is no more pain to handle beyond this moment. Get through this moment and this moment only.

One breath.

There is only this moment. There is not the next moment or tomorrow.

One breath.

In this moment there is no pain.

Static crowded his vision from the edges, and he blinked against it, the black strip of the freeway fading in and out, a TV show that refused to come into focus.