41
SIRENS WAILED IN THE NIGHT as Alex hurried Jax along the sidewalk. It seemed like dozens of emergency vehicles were converging on Mother of Roses. Reddish orange light from the blaze reflected off the low overcast. Through the trees Alex could see crackling streamers of hot yellow sparks ascending through billowing black smoke. From time to time great gouts of flame lashed up toward the clouds.
The noise of all the sirens had sleepy people emerging from their houses to see what was going on. Leaves were lit by red, blue, and yellow strobes of emergency vehicles racing toward Mother of Roses. People stood in their nightclothes on front porches watching in shock.
Many more people, patients in pajamas and nightgowns, ran down the street past Alex and Jax. Police cars rushing in toward the hospital had to slow in places for the throngs to part. He didn’t know where all the people were running. They probably didn’t, either. They were simply filled with fear and wanted to get away. Their terror over being awakened by fire and the uncertainty of what would happen to them now had many sobbing as they wandered aimlessly.
Alex kept a constant lookout over his shoulder to see if anyone followed them. So far he hadn’t seen anyone who looked overtly suspicious. It was dark, though, and there were a lot of people flooding through the streets. He hoped that in the throng of people escaping the hospital they had lost the men chasing them, but he had no way to tell if any of the people in the darkness were from another world.
Alex turned down a smaller side street as he made his way toward where his truck was parked. He didn’t know if they would be safer out on the streets with all the people, or if it would be better to cut through alleys and backyards.
Once they were off the streets, they wouldn’t know their way. That would slow them down. Worse, they might find themselves trapped in a box canyon of fences when the men chasing them caught up. And cutting through yards would draw attention.
In the end, he decided to stay on the streets.
As they made their way along the broken sidewalk, Jax was becoming dead weight. Her legs kept giving out. Fortunately, they weren’t far from his Cherokee.
Alex was having difficulties of his own. It took a great effort to focus enough to work past the drugs the nurse had gotten into him. His vision was blurred. He hoped he could see well enough to drive. He didn’t know if his racing heart would ever calm down.
With everything that had happened he didn’t think that he would have to worry about falling asleep — at least for the time being. But he did need to find them a safe place where they could both get much-needed rest.
If he felt dulled by the drugs, Jax was laboring under an even heavier dose. She hadn’t been able to stop taking the Thorazine and pills the way he had; they had only reduced her dose enough so that she could feel pain and terror, yet not fight back. After her ordeal of hanging in the shower for over twenty-four hours, he was amazed that she could move at all.
“It’s just down the block. We’re almost there. Hold on.”
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, right.”
She smiled a little. Her right foot was dragging. He wasn’t sure she was even aware of it. He was holding most of her weight so she could keep going.
Alex kept thinking about his mother being burned up in the fire. Ben had burned up in a fire, and now his mother had as well. He couldn’t stop wondering what would have happened if he’d gotten her out. He wondered if when the drugs wore off she’d have been able to communicate with him, talk about everything that had happened in her life, in his, or if her mind was long gone. Now he would never know.
At least she’d had the presence of mind to stop the nurse. In the end, she had fought back against her captors. In the end she’d won a battle against them. That was something.
“Here,” Alex said. “We’re here. Hold on. I’ll have you inside in a minute and you can relax.”
Jax forced herself to stand straighter as he unlocked the passenger door. “Don’t let yourself get complacent, Alexander,” she reminded him. “Carelessness with these people will get you killed.”
That was why she refused to give up, why she forced herself to stay as alert as she possibly could. To relax was to die.
Alex helped her step up into the passenger seat. He folded her right leg up into the truck.
“Once we’re away from the hospital, you could get some sleep.”
“My knives. Please, I want my knives.”
As Alex reached under the seat and pulled the bundle out, a horrific explosion shook the night. The sky lit with the orange and yellow fireball.
As Alex turned to the explosion, he saw an orderly dressed in white barreling at him out of the darkness. The man was huge, and he had a knife.
Without even thinking, Alex grabbed a handle of one of the knives in the bundle and pulled it out. Despite the adrenaline rush of his sudden alarm, the balance of the knife, the feel, made an impression somewhere in the recesses of his mind.
As the man charged toward him, with no time to do anything more than simply react, Alex thrust the knife straight into the man’s center mass.
It didn’t stop him. The big man crashed into him at full speed, knocking Alex back.
As Alex rebounded off the side of the truck, the man swung his own knife. Alex ducked, seized the arm, and took it with him as he circled around the orderly. Once behind him he rammed his blade into the man’s lower back several times in rapid succession. He didn’t hit anything immediately vital, and his stabbing only made the man angrier.
The man twisted around, driving Alex back with his feet as well as his fists. More than one connected, staggering Alex back. The man was a fury of nonstop lunges and slashes. With the drugs, Alex had difficulty focusing.
The man was a good head taller than Alex and must have been sixty or seventy pounds heavier. Despite his size, he was quick. Not only was he hard to handle, but his size seemed to help keep the knife wounds from slowing him.
Alex made another attack. The man threw him back. As he rebounded, Alex ducked under a swing, threw a shoulder block into the man, and at the same time grabbed a leg. He pulled with all his strength, upending the orderly. The man landed flat on his back, but bounded back up as if on springs.
His arms seemed to be everywhere at once. Alex was having trouble keeping track of the furious attacks. He picked his openings and cut whenever he had the chance. One slashing cut across the man’s thigh halved the muscle, making him stumble.
Alex used the opening to dive in to try to finish the fight. He seized the man’s knife-wielding arm and stabbed again, but the man was strong enough to push him back. Alex felt like a child trying to fight a grown man.
When the man spun around, pulling out of Alex’s grip, his arms were spread in an angry fighting stance. He looked like a bear on its hind legs about to charge. Seeing the opening, Alex used all his strength to drive his knife like a punch straight into the middle of the orderly’s throat.
He felt the blade sink in and hit bone.
The furious fight seemed to freeze in place.
Then the man started to corkscrew toward the ground. As he collapsed, his weight pulled him off the blade.
Panting, catching his breath, his exhausted arms hanging, Alex tried to gather his wits. He was so drained, so bone-tired from the fight, that he was ready to drop.
Jax was suddenly there beside him, putting her arm around him, holding him up.
“Almost there,” she reminded him. “Hold on.”
He smiled at her words, words he had used to encourage her not to give up.
Alex felt like he was watching himself in a dream. He realized then, by the way Jax was bent over, that he was on his knees. He didn’t remember going to his knees.
“Stay still,” she said.
