60

THE HALLWAY SPILLED OUT into a large open space. Edward stopped, and Peter and I did, too. Becca was still being carried, so she didn't have much choice. I kept an eye on our back trail and waited for Edward to decide what to do. I couldn't see how big the open space was, so I figured it was big enough for Edward to worry about us being out in that much open. He finally moved slowly forward, hugging the left-hand wall. When I could see the room clearly, I realized why he'd hesitated. It wasn't just this huge open space. There were three tunnels leading off to the right, dark mouths where anything might lurk, like Simon and the rest of his men. But there was a fourth opening with stairs leading up. Up was what we needed.

I walked with my back to the solid wall behind me, trying to keep an eye on the hall we'd come out of and the three tunnels to the right. I left the stairs to Edward.

The stairway was narrow, barely broad enough for two slender people to walk abreast. It wound upward and had a sharp angle at the top, a blind corner. I kept watching behind us, because I knew that if shooters came up behind us, and in front of us at the same time, we were dead. It was a perfect place for an ambush.

Peter seemed to feel the tension because he moved closer to Edward, almost touching him as they moved up the stairs. We were about three fourths of the way up to that first blind corner, when Edward hesitated, staring down at the steps. Peter took one extra step. Edward hit him with his shoulder, knocking him back. He dropped Becca to the steps, still holding her good arm, trying to save her from the full fall. I think if he'd just dropped Becca, he might have gotten them all out of harm's way, but that last effort cost him the second he needed.

I saw a blur of movement, and there was a wooden stake sticking out of Edward's back. I started to go to him, but he said, "Up the stairs, now. Shoot them."

I didn't ask questions. I went up the last few steps as fast as I could go and threw myself around the corner on my side, and was shooting down the hallway before I saw what I was shooting at.

Harold, Russell, Newt, and Amanda were running down another level of stairs. I fired up into them, fighting the angle to make the spray pattern hit them. The three men went down, but Amanda turned and darted back around the corner they'd come from. I made sure the men weren't getting up, firing into their down bodies, then I got to my feet and ran up the stairs after her. I crouched at the corner, but the stairs were empty. Fuck. I didn't dare pursue her and leave the kids and Edward alone.

I went back down the steps and slipped on blood so that I ended up sitting down hard on the steps, my elbow hit Harold's body, and the body grunted.

I put the barrel of the gun against his chest as his eyes fluttered open. "Didn't make the ambush site in time. Simon's going to be pissed," he said, and the tone of his voice said he was hurting.

"I don't think you have to worry about Simon anymore, Harold. You're not going to be around to answer to him."

"Never approved of hurting kids," he said.

"But you didn't stop it," I said.

He took a breath and that seemed to hurt, too. "Simon called someone on the radio. Said he'd failed. Said they needed to clean up the mess. I think they're coming to kill us all."

"Who's coming?"

He opened his mouth, and I think he'd have told me, but his breath ran out in a long sigh. I felt for the pulse in his neck, but it wasn't there. I'd known he was dead, but still you check. I checked Russell and Newt just to be sure, but they were dead. I actually left everyone's guns because I just couldn't carry anymore.

I heard voices as I neared the bend that would take me back to Edward. Fuck. Then I recognized one of the voices. It was Olaf.

I came around the corner and found Olaf and Bernardo kneeling by Edward. Peter was sitting on the steps holding Becca. She was crying. He wasn't. He was staring at Edward, face white with shock.

Bernardo spotted me first. "Are they dead?"

I nodded. "Russell, Newt, and Harold. Amanda got away."

Peter's eyes flicked to me, and they were huge and dark in his pale, pale face. The bruised mouth stood out against his skin like it was makeup, too bright to be real.

Edward made a small sound, and Peter turned back to him. "I'm sorry, Ted," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Pete. Just next time follow my lead better." His voice was strained, but Peter seemed to take heart from talk of a next time. I wasn't so sure.

Olaf and Bernardo had turned him so that you could see the sharpened end of the stake that had pierced his chest. It was upper chest, close to the left shoulder. It had missed the heart or he'd be dead, but it could have pierced the sack around the heart, and blood could be spilling into that sack as we watched. Or it could have missed it entirely. It was high enough up that it had probably missed the lungs. Probably.

"How'd you know that they were coming?" I asked.

"Heard them," and his voice reminded me of Harold's, pain stressed.

I was suddenly cold, and it wasn't the temperature. I started to kneel by them all, but Edward said, "Watch our backs."

So I stood up, put my back to the wall, and let my peripheral vision try to keep track of both up and down the stairs. But my eyes kept going back to him. Was he dying? Please, God, not like this. It wasn't just Edward. It was the look on Peter's face. If Edward died, Peter would blame himself. The boy was having a bad enough night. That kind of guilt he did not need.

"Give me your T-shirt," Olaf said.

I looked at him.

"We need to pack the wound and keep the stake from moving around. We can't remove it here. It's too close to his heart. He will need a hospital."

I agreed with that. "Someone else watch for bad guys while I undress."

Bernardo stood up and took my place at the wall. I noticed there was a blade sticking out of his cast like a spearhead. The blade was stained black with blood.

I pulled off my T-shirt and handed it to Olaf. He'd already stripped down to his black Kevlar vest, shoving his own shirt around the wound.

"Do you need mine?" Peter asked.

"Yes," Olaf said.

Peter moved Becca forward on his lap and took off his shirt. His upper body was thin and pale. He was tall, but the rest of him hadn't caught up. Olaf used pieces of Bernardo's shirt to hold the makeshift bandage in place. The wound looked terrible, but it wasn't bleeding much. I didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one.

"We caught the other half of your ambush on its way to the stairs," Bernardo said.

"I wondered why there weren't more," I said. I remembered what Harold had said. "Before Harold died, he said that Simon called someone. Told them he'd failed and they needed to clean up the mess. Does that mean what I think it means?"

Edward looked up at me, as Olaf used more shirt strips to bind his left arm tight, so he wouldn't move it and risk jarring the stake into something vital. "They'll kill everything they find." His voice was almost normal, only slightly breathy, a touch tight. "They'll burn the place to ash. Maybe they even salt the earth." I think that last was the wound talking, but you never know with Edward.

Olaf lifted Edward to his feet, but the height difference was too much. Edward couldn't keep his arm over the big man's shoulders. "Bernardo will have to help you."

"No, Anita can do it."

Olaf opened his mouth to argue, I think, but Edward said, "Bernardo only has one good arm. He needs that to shoot."

Olaf closed his mouth into a tight line, but he handed Edward over to me. Edward's arm went around my shoulders. I put my left arm around his waist. We tried a couple of steps, and it worked okay.

Olaf led the way. I came next with Edward, then Peter, carrying Becca wrapped around his body like a sad little monkey. Bernardo brought up the rear. Olaf looked at the bodies of the dead men as he passed. He spoke without looking back at me. "You did this?"

"Yeah." I'd have usually come up with something sarcastic like, "you see anyone else?" but I was too worried about Edward to waste the effort. Sweat had popped out on his face, as if it was taking a lot to keep going. Trouble was, a fireman's carry would disturb the stake, and if any of us could carry him just in his arms, it was Olaf, but it would mean not being able to shoot. We needed the gun.

"You okay, Edward?" I asked.

He swallowed before he said, "Fine."

I didn't believe him, but I didn't ask again. This was probably as good as it was going to get for awhile.

Edward tried to turn and say something to the kids, but it hurt, and I had to turn for him, moving us both to face backwards. "Cover Becca's eyes, Peter."

Peter had Becca bury her face against his shoulder and kept his hand pressed to the back of her head. He didn't have the Firestar in his hands. I wondered where it was but not enough to ask.

I turned Edward back around, and we started up the stairs again. Olaf was almost at the next bend in the stairs, when he stopped. He was looking down at the steps. I froze and said, "No one move."

"Is it a trap?" Edward asked.

"No," Olaf said.

I saw it then, thin rivulets of blood sliding down the steps towards us. It snaked around Olaf's feet and dripped its way toward Edward and me.

Peter wasn't that far behind us. He asked, "What is that?"

"Blood," Olaf said.

"Please tell me that this is your handiwork, Olaf," I said.

"No," he said.

I watched the blood flow around my Nikes and knew that our problems had just gotten worse.