leadership. “Then we’re heading out.”
Alexis fished a bottle of water from her backpack and put it to her husband’s lips. “Drink this, honey. It’ll help ease the pain.”
“What’s that shit?” Roland said.
“Water.”
Gundersson navigated the animal path back down the mountain, limping on his wounded leg. He wondered if the chicken-thieving fox had used this route on its nightly excursions.
He’d heard a legend that if you killed an animal, you took on its aspects and traits. The predator became its prey.
Wendy hadn’t mentioned her painting, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to carry it back.
Some people said art was timeless, and all art was worthy and had a place in the world.
But Gundersson didn’t believe that.
Some forms of human expression didn’t deserve an audience.
No, some just plain needed burning. And he had a lighter in his pocket. What was one more campfire?
Somewhere out there, Senator Daniel Burchfield was smiling at a camera or shaking hands with a geriatric widow in a wheelchair, promising a secure future built on a strong America.
All while standing on bones and bloody lies and a mountain of ruthless ambition.
Gundersson would go back to the CIA when this was over, when the spin cycle had rinsed away every corpse and every stray bullet, when Burchfield’s mourning for Forsyth ended in primetime melodrama and the selection of a running mate just as ruthless. Gundersson would be there in the shadows, gathering information and keeping a watchful eye.
Maybe he was still an idealist, but he believed in freedom, even if he had deep doubts about his country and its kings.
If Seethe and Halcyon had taught him anything, it was that you had to stand guard most faithfully against the enemy within.
The path opened before him, and he became a fox on the prowl.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“How much does he know?” Alexis asked.
“Some,” Roland said.
“Do you guys trust him?”
Roland shrugged and Wendy looked off in the distance with the vacant expression she’d worn in the Monkey House when Sebastian Briggs had lulled her into surrender.
“Wallace Forsyth is dead,” Alexis said. “Seethe and Halcyon dies with him. Okay?”
“That’s bullshit, Lex,” Wendy said, suddenly present. “It lives inside us. There’s only one way out.”
“We’re not going out like Anita did.” Alexis nodded toward Scagnelli’s cooling corpse. “I’ll bet that scumbag did her in.”
Roland put his arm around Wendy, brushed a sweaty, stringy strand of hair behind her ear, and kissed the side of her filthy face. “We’re sticking together this time, honey,” he said. “All of us.”
He broke away and did an awkward, pained dance, breaking into a variation on the old television theme song, “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees.”
That drew a smile from Wendy, and even Alexis felt a surge of hope. She squeezed Mark’s hand. He’d stabilized and his pulse was steady, if a bit sluggish.
“You hear that?” Roland yelled up to the trees and to God. “We’re getting the band back together, man.”
“Save your strength,” Alexis said. “You’ve got a human burrito to haul.”
“It lives inside us, but it ends with us,” Wendy said, covering Alexis’s and Mark’s hands with her own. “Deal?”
Roland came over and bent to put his own palm on the pledge pile. “Deal.”
“Deal,” Alexis lied.
They fell silent, lost in themselves, or as close to themselves as they were able.
Soon Gundersson returned and they began their trek across the ridge, each contemplating the full weight of suffering and wondering if they’d be strong enough for whatever the future held.
For whatever Seethe demanded of them.
And none of them-none-would be allowed to forget this time. Not the past, not the promise, not the monsters they all carried inside them.
Alexis would make sure of that.
