Burn (Pure #3)(98)

El Capitan feels great pressure on his chest. He’s on the ground in the bank vault, the safety deposit boxes a blur along the wall. It’s dark, except for a few flickering lanterns. Helmud’s panting breathlessly on his back. “What’s this?” El Capitan says. His head is pounding. The air is filled with the smell of biodiesel.

A hand grips one of his wrists and then the other, and as he feels them getting tied behind his back, he bucks and jerks. “What the hell is going on?”

But now someone is pinning them to the floor.

A man’s voice says, “We’re ready to haul them up, Frost.”

The man on his back, Frost, mutters, “Okay.”

Where’s the bacterium? Helmud’s pushing against him, and he can’t feel the sharp edges of the box. “Check it,” he grunts at Helmud.

Helmud doesn’t answer.

“Check!” El Capitan shouts again. “Check!”

Still nothing. And El Capitan knows it’s gone. He’s a failure. He’s lost the one thing that could bring down the Dome. It’s over.

“Bradwell?” El Capitan shouts. “You here?” He lifts his chin, scraping it across the floor, and turns his head. God, he doesn’t want Bradwell to know it’s gone.

Bradwell’s sitting on the floor, already gagged with a cloth, his arms bound behind his back. Two men are standing next to him, one on either side. Bradwell must have fought pretty hard. He has a gash on his head, blood curving down his temple. He jerks his head and cuts his eyes to the wall of boxes behind him. El Capitan can’t read the gesture.

He spots the can of fuel near the bank vault’s two-foot-thick circular door. What the hell are they doing with that down here? Can’t be good.

Gorse’s face suddenly appears as he bends on one knee. He’s holding an old OSR rifle. “You thought I could forgive and forget all of that business with the OSR, huh? You thought all of us would see some shiny new version handing out food and warm coats, and everything else would just fade away?”

“Why did you tie up Bradwell? He’s on your side.”

“Is he? Seems he’s lost his way, taking up with you.”

El Capitan glances at Bradwell. He feels bad for getting him roped in. Bradwell shrugs his heavy wings—a kind of forgiveness. “But I’ve really changed,” El Capitan says.

“Have you ever paid for what you did?” Gorse says. “Have you?”

He doesn’t have to think about this long. The answer is no. He hasn’t really paid. He’s doled out a lot of death and is still alive. “What are you going to do with me?”

“With me?” Helmud whispers.

“Justice will be served,” Gorse says, and then he looks up at Frost, who has El Capitan and Helmud muscled to the floor. “Go ahead and gag both of ’em.”

“Gorse, wait!” El Capitan shouts. “I thought we were friends!”

“Now you know better.”

“But we found your sister!”

Gorse stands and points the rifle at El Capitan’s head. “Don’t ever talk about my sister again. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe she’s alive. But the fact is I thought she was dead all these years because of you. How many did you let die in Death Sprees? How many froze to death in your cages? How many did you hunt down and use for target practice? Did you keep count? Huh?”

El Capitan tries to fight the ropes again. If he can’t get loose, he’s a dead man. He and Helmud both. Gorse kicks El Capitan in the ribs. He folds in half. He wheezes on the ground, crunching around the pain, while Frost wraps a rag around his mouth, making it even harder to breathe.

Justice, El Capitan thinks. That’s right. “Kick me again,” he grunts into the rag. “Do it!” This is what he deserves. But he can hear Helmud’s squeals of protest suddenly muffled. El Capitan won’t let Helmud pay. He’ll fight for Helmud, for himself. It’s who he is. He’ll fight all the way.

“Blindfold?” Frost asks.

“No,” Gorse says. “I’d like him to see this.”

Frost yanks El Capitan to his feet. The two men, both with twisted faces and metal pocking their arms, as if they’d been at the same place during the Detonations and are lucky not to have been fused together, lift Bradwell up too. They walk back through the dented bank vault door into the crumbled remains of the bank lobby and up through a hole dug in the rubble—not easy to do with his hands tied behind his back, under his brother’s weight.

Above ground, the wind is cold and sharp. He drank too much; he feels sick. His head’s killing him, and he feels a little dizzy. He’s almost happy that Frost has such a strong hold on his upper arm; otherwise, he might fall over.

They’re surrounded by a dozen people or so, including a few clumps of Groupies. He tries to make out all of the faces to see if there are any friends among them.

Then he hears a voice he remembers well. “Greetings, El Capitan!” He sees the Dome worshipper who found Wilda out in a field when she was first delivered back from the Dome, Purified, as it were. He remembers the bulbous, braided scar running down one side of her face. Margit. She hates him.

Margit walks up close, fits her fingers under his gag, pulling it to the dip in his chin. “What say you?”

“Shit,” El Capitan says, shaking his head.