and another slug in your shoulder. I got it out. There were also several grooves in your left forearm, which I sewed up, and you took a grazing shot across your right hip.”
“Right hip, huh?” Orozco said, frowning. “I didn’t even know about that one. How mobile am I?”
“Well, you won’t be going on any long hikes for awhile,” Kate said. “Fortunately, you won’t have to. Now that you’re stable enough to move, I can call for a litter to get you to the chopper. A few weeks in rehab—”
“Whoa,” Orozco interrupted. “Chopper?”
“The Resistance has arrived in force,” Kate told him. “We’re going to be taken to one of their bases.”
“A base with generals and admirals and everyone?” Orozco asked.
“Probably,” Kate said. “And that’s good. It means they should have everything we’ll need to get you on your feet again.”
“Glad to hear it,” Orozco said. “I hope they find someone they can use it on. You’d better get going. Thanks for patching me up.”
Kate stared at him.
“What are you talking about?” she asked carefully.
“We’re taking you with us.”
“I don’t think so,” Orozco said, a sudden bitterness in his voice. “It was people like your precious generals and admirals who brought Judgment Day down on the world in the first place. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll ever work for them again.”
“But you can’t just stay here,” Kate protested. “Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I’ll survive,” Orozco said. “I’m a Marine. That’s what Marines do. If you can spare me a little food and water, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, that’s fine, too.”
“Sergeant, you’re not thinking clearly,” Kate said, putting some firmness into her voice. “You’re alone, you’ve lost a lot of blood—”
“Your generals are waiting, Ms. Connor.” Orozco cut her off.
“Then look at it from my position,” Kate said, switching tactics. “I’m a doctor. How can I just walk away and leave you here alone? Or never mind me. What’s John going to say when I tell him I left an injured soldier behind?”
“You’ll tell him first that I’m not one of his soldiers,” Orozco said. “And you’ll tell him second that you didn’t have a choice.” His right shoulder twitched.
And Kate looked down to see the man’s bloodied hand gripping the butt of the Beretta belted at his side. “You wouldn’t,” she said, looking him squarely in the face.
For a moment he held her gaze. Then, almost reluctantly, his eyes drifted away.
“No,” he admitted. “But you never know what a crazy man’s going to do, do you?” He looked over her shoulder, toward the huge mound of stone rubble she and the others had had to climb over to get into the building.
“Did a good job on that archway, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Kate said, conceding defeat. If he truly didn’t want to come with them, there really wasn’t any way she could justify forcing him to do so.
Her earphone crackled.
“Barnes: get your squad together and bring it in, double-time,” John’s voice came. “Don’t bother stopping by the staging area—we’re leaving whatever’s there behind.”
“Got it,” Barnes said. “On our way.”
“Time to go?” Orozco asked.
“Yes,” Kate said, unfastening her ration pouch from her belt and laying it beside Orozco. “This is all the food and water I’ve got with me, but there’s more in a sort of long house two blocks west of here. It’s on the street where—”
“I know the place,” Orozco said. “Passed it once or twice.”
Kate nodded and stood up.
“Last chance.”
Orozco nodded. “Better get going.”
“Right.” Kate hesitated, then unclipped her medical bag and set it beside the ration pouch.
“Good luck.”
“One other thing,” Orozco called after her.
She paused and turned back.
“Yes?”
“There were 280 people who died in here tonight,” Orozco said, his voice dark. “I’d consider it a personal favor if you and Connor would take out a Terminator for each of them.”
Kate swallowed, her throat feeling tight. “We’ll do our best,” she promised. “And we’ll think of you with every single one of them.”
“Good enough,” Orozco said.
* * *
Kate had been waiting by the pile of stone for about two minutes when Barnes and the rest of the squad returned.
“No one else?” Kate asked. A silly question, she knew—they would certainly have called her if they’d found anyone else still alive.
“No,” Barnes said, making it official, as he gestured everyone to start climbing the rubble. “You got a litter coming for Orozco?”
Kate shook her head as she started up the treacherous footing.
“He’s not coming with us.”
A couple of the other heads turned at that one. But Barnes just grunted.
“You get attached to a place like this, I guess.”
They were over the rock pile and walking down the empty streets before Barnes spoke again.
“I found that preacher—Sibanda—over in the hallway off the lobby,” he said. “Still had his arms around a couple of kids.”
“Thin black guy?” Simmons asked. “North hallway by one of the windows?”
Barnes nodded. “That’s him.”
“I saw him, too,” Simmons said grimly. “Looked like he was huddled over the kids, trying to protect them, when they shot him in the back.”
Kate felt a fresh wave of sadness and guilt flow through her. All those children…and neither she nor anyone else had been able to save a single one of them.
“Any particular reason you brought that up?” she asked Barnes.
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Just making conversation.”
* * *
For nearly half an hour Kyle and Star just sat there in the abandoned ganghouse, quietly eating and drinking, Kyle on the chair, Star on the ground at his feet. It was the first time since they’d left the Ashes, Kyle reflected soberly, that he’d felt at peace.
But it wasn’t real, he knew. Peace was only an illusion these days.
And it was time for them to go.
To Kyle’s relief, there was no lightheadedness this time when he stood up. Maybe he hadn’t really been injured in the blast, but had mostly been just hungry and thirsty. Adjusting his new shirt and jacket across his shoulders, he fastened his holster around his new jeans.
“Ready?” he asked Star.
She nodded, then pointed questioningly at the packages of ration bars and water bottles.
Kyle pursed his lips. If this stuff had belonged to the gang that Orozco had chased out, he would have no particular qualms about taking it all. It wasn’t really stealing to take something from a thief.
But his new clothes didn’t look like the stuff the gang had been wearing. It was too clean, for one thing. And the water bottles seemed way too well taken care of, too. He had the feeling that someone else had moved in after
