The Fade

32

A special update from the birthday girlll!!!

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Naturally I stumble, blinded.

On hands and knees, I feel around for the car. I do my best to crawl back behind it.

Searing pain engulfs the side of my head, and I examine the source with trembling fingers.

No panicking.

Everything's fine, Halle. It's all fine.

I wince at the contact, but I reason that if I can still think straight, it must not be too bad, right?

My fingers come away wet and sticky, but my pulse only speeds up ever so slightly.

Head wounds just bleed a lot, I tell myself.

It's okay. It's just a little scratch. It's gotta be.

I use the backs of my hands to rub at my eyes. There's got to be blood all over the left side of my face at this point, but there isn't anything I can do about it. At least I'll have the element of surprise on whoever I come across.

My vision slowly clears, and I cringe again at the sight of all the blood.

Yeah, I was definitely hit.

Jerk.

I climb to my feet, rising only enough to catch my reflection in the car window.

Yikes. I look like I belong in a horror movie.

I sigh and cast my gaze up to the rooftop. I can't see anyone up there, but now I know there has to be. I mean, unless they've got robots or something shooting at me.

I'll just have to be quicker this time.

I move to the other end of the car and check the rooftop again before dashing across the street.

One, two, three more shots ring out, but I'm already under the cement overhang.

I quick-step across the lobby to the stairway, where I pause.

"Where would Jamison go?" I mutter aloud.

Well, if he has what I think he has, if he's going to do what I think he's going to do, he'll be where he can inflict the most damage. He'll be where there's the most people.

That conference room on the eleventh floor.

I groan at the thought of taking the stairs all the way up there, but let's be real, I need all the planning time I can get.

So the stairs it is.

***

Legs burning, I finally reach the eleventh floor with some semblance of a plan.

And as soon as I exit the stairwell, I know that my plan is no longer good enough.

Five guards lay sprawled along the hallway, unconscious if not dead. I have a pretty good idea who's responsible for their condition.

I move down the hall, carefully stepping over and around the bodies.

Finally I come to the double doors leading to the conference room. I jiggle the handle, expecting it to give, but it stands firm.

He locked the doors.

"Jamison," I call, leaning against the door. "It's Halle. Let me in?"

There's no response, but I hear shuffling on the other side.

"Jamison, please, let me help." I jerk away from the door when I hear the click of a gun being loaded.

The lock pops, and the door slowly opens.

Jamison's dark eyes stare back into mine. At first he seems almost irritated to see me, but then he notices all the blood and he's settles into barely controlled panic. "Halle! Oh my God! What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I say, choosing to ignore the stinging along my temple.

"How did you... Why... Halle?"

How can I tell him that I've come to stop him? How can I stand in the way of him avenging his father?

So I say instead, "You said that heroes don't always have a choice. But I'm here. I'm choosing to help you."

A whirlwind of emotion crosses his face, and the conflict in his eyes brings me a pain almost greater than that of my injury.

Without another word, he opens the door wide enough for me to enter.

I'm taken aback by the large number of people crammed into the conference room. He must've gone around to every office on every floor to gather together this big a crowd.

It horrifies me to even consider what he might have planned for them.

I don't want to believe he could do it, but given his father's murder...

He's got death in his heart.

Only revenge can remedy that.

He locks the door again before stepping back to the front of the room.

All eyes are on him, faces pale and tense as they survey the young man with their lives held in the miniscule vial he clutches between his fingers.

I, too, am more than a little transfixed by the gravity of the moment.

"You brought this upon the world, in one way or another," he says in a low voice. "What you've done is unforgivable. You took away parents. Spouses. Siblings. Children. Friends. And then you sit here in your offices like nothing's happened. Like you didn't just exterminate millions of people. And that's much worse."

The silence is like a vacuum, pressing inward on my eardrums until I feel like screaming, just to reassure myself I haven't gone deaf.

My eyes drop to the vial, watching as he rolls it between the index finger and thumb of his left hand. His right hand stays clenched around the grip of a pistol.

I wonder how long he's had it, if his dad gave it to him, if he knew what it was.

Did he have an inkling that he'd inevitably have to use it?

Touching it seems to encourage him; he takes a deep breath and speaks again. "My father was one of you. He worked on this project. But he was different. Better. He realized what he was doing was before horrific. He wanted out. But Hester Quill saw only genius. She took advantage of him. She threatened to use the weapon on my mother, me. But he knew what was at stake. He knew how many more would suffer if he gave in.

"He stood strong. He denied her again and again. And then, one day in April, my mom was just gone. It tore my dad apart. He flew back to D.C. only days later and surrendered. Hester wanted a weapon even more devastating than the current one. He had no solution. She tortured him, convinced he was withholding information. She murdered him."

He lets out a shaky breath, and I realize I'd been holding my breath too.

"Maybe some of you here have similar stories. But you're all still here, and he's not. He gave up his life to protect me, to protect those left behind. But you..." His face contorts, and my pulse quickens. "Cowards," he spits. "Cowards."

His fist closes around the vial, and with a hard yank, the chain snaps from around his neck.

"It's airborne. That's how it reached so many people. Once I break this, it's over. It's all over. No more Alliance, no more Working Group, no more Forum. You ruined this country, and you don't deserve to be a part of its future."

The room suddenly seems so much smaller, suffocating.

Once he breaks that vial, it's all over.

For all of us.

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AAAAHHHHHHHH

Haha, sick of my cliffhangers yet? I know my mom is! (*laughs evilly*)

Stay tuned, friends!