Jarrod hesitated. “Now might not be the best time…” His head shifted an inch to the southwest. “He is very angry.”
Kayla squared her shoulders, followed Jarrod’s gaze, and began to walk. “You can read human emotion more clearly than anyone on the planet, Jarrod. But I’d bet my left arm I can understand my husband’s emotions better than you. He may be angry, but he still needs me. I guarantee it.”
Before she could take ten steps, Eric spoke from somewhere above her head.
“He’s right, you know.” The former Army Ranger who was known for being a gentle giant dangled from a branch and dropped to the ground. At the moment, there was nothing gentle about him. He walked toward Kayla and Jarrod with his chest up and his jaw clenched. “I am unbelievably pissed off.”
Kayla tried to search his eyes, but he wasn’t looking at her. His searing gaze was locked on Jarrod, burning twin holes in his old friend’s skull. “Eric, this isn’t his fault.”
He ignored her and strode to within a foot of Jarrod. “You make me sick. I knew you’d changed, but I always hoped the old Jarrod was still in there somewhere.” He jabbed an index finger against Jarrod’s forehead. “But you aren’t, are you? You’re nothing but a selfish, thoughtless, uncaring, unfeeling rust-bucket.”
Jarrod didn’t speak, and Kayla felt the need to stand up for him. “Eric, that isn’t fair.”
“They’re dead!” Eric shouted, flinging spittle against Jarrod’s face. “My brother, my sister, my father, my mother…they’re all dead!”
Jarrod blinked, and his head jerked sharply to the left. He stared at Eric for a long moment, then glanced at Kayla. “I don’t know what to say.” It was a stated fact, not an expression of pity.
“You’re supposed to say you’re sorry!” Eric shouted in his face. “You’re supposed to tell me that you hate what happened, and that you’ll miss them as much as I will.”
Jarrod’s head twitched again. “I—I have no memory of your family.”
Eric closed his hands into fists. “That bomb killed millions of people in an instant, and the radiation will kill millions more. You don’t have to remember anyone in the city to feel pissed off. To feel sad. To feel something.”
Jarrod’s head twitched hard enough to draw his left shoulder upward. “I—I do feel. But I can’t…” He stared down at his open palms. “I can’t bring them back. I can’t fix this.”
Eric folded his thick arms across his chest and began to nod his head slowly. “You’re right. You can’t bring anyone back. And I’m not asking you to. But you’re also wrong—you can fix this. You’re the only one who can fix this.”
Jarrod’s shoulders slumped as if he finally understood why his friend was so angry.
“Borya needs to die,” Eric said, but the fight had gone out of him. His voice was hoarse. “And, like it or not, you are the only one capable of reaching him.” He looked up at the sky for several moments, then he drew in a deep breath and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Jarrod. “The man detonated a nuclear bomb in Chicago just to make a point. And every minute you spend here, more innocent people will die by his hand. Can you really live with yourself, knowing that? Tell me the truth.”
Jarrod swallowed. “Yes.”
Eric gave a final nod and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s all the proof I need. You aren’t who I thought you were.” He patted Jarrod on the shoulder. “Perimeter watch is all yours. I’m going inside.”
Eric stepped past Jarrod, shouldered his rifle, and walked toward the house. Kayla watched him go, trying to process everything she’d seen and heard. It broke her heart to watch a friendship like theirs crumble, and she felt like Eric had been too hard on Jarrod. But then again, she couldn’t completely disagree with her husband, either. Jarrod—with his miraculous abilities and unrivaled skill in war, was standing idle while the world burned.
Jarrod glanced over his shoulder at Eric and said, “He hates me.”
Kayla winced. “He doesn’t hate you.”
“He does. I can taste his hatred in the air. He hates me, and so does everyone else. Including you.”
“Don’t say that. I could never hate you, Jarrod.” But even as the words left her lips, she wondered if he was at least partially right.
“I don’t blame any of you. You have every right to. The children hate me—their grandfather is dead because of his association with me. The rest of the world hates me because I fanned the flames of this war. Borya would have slowly eradicated the human race over hundreds of years through forced sterilization, but I got in his way.” He shook his head. “Which is worse, a nuclear holocaust, or gradual sterilization?”
“You did what you knew was right. And you can’t blame yourself for Borya’s actions.”
“But you do. You blame me for what he has done.”
She pursed her lips. “Borya needs to be punished. And he needs to be stopped before he kills anyone else.”
Jarrod took a step toward her and breathed the air around her head. “You don’t want punishment. You want revenge.”
“In this case, one will lead to the other.”
Tendrils of black metamaterial grasped at Jarrod’s chin, twisting and flowing until they covered his head. “I am not your weapon to point. And I will not turn away from my primary mission.”
He vanished into the morning light like a wisp of smoke caught on the breeze. Kayla turned in a circle, trying to see the leaves flattening beneath his step, and she heard him say, “There is only one person alive who does not hate me. And I will die before I abandon her.”
Kayla’s throat tightened. “Jarrod, please—”
But a rush of wind disturbed her hair, and she knew he was gone.
Hillcrest Trauma and Rehabilitation center
Baltimore, Maryland
Eugene’s Kevlar-padded knuckles clanked against the steel door. He waited a few seconds, frowned, and knocked again. “San? I hate to bother you this early, but it’s important.” When there was still no response, Eugene turned on his heel and strode toward a security terminal built into the wall. He tapped the screen and said, “Hey, where is Director Torres right now?”
A feminine voice answered, “Director Torres is currently in the Sub-Level Four Cafeteria.”
A little early for breakfast, Eugene thought. He stepped into the nearby elevator and said, “Sub-Level Four,” then descended deeper into the earth and made his way to the cafeteria.
The main room was empty, but he could hear laughter coming from the adjacent kitchen. Stepping through the doorway, he found the director standing in front of a deep sink, his arms submerged in a mountain of bubbles. Two men and a woman wearing white aprons were crowded around him, laughing loudly and wiping tears from their eyes.
The director of Hillcrest gave a good-natured chuckle. “I thought it was regular dish soap. I just used the same amount I use at home.” He looked over his shoulder at one of the men behind him. “You said it’s concentrated?”
The man’s face was red from laughter. He held up a hand, stalling for a moment while he caught his breath. “Yeah, about two hundred times more concentrated.”