“No. We also didn’t live through the savagery of those times. He talks in his sleep, and I’ll tell you, we’ve seen nothing compared to the final days. It was kill or be killed.”
Tye remembered the pictures on the TV in the Oceanic Eco’s conference room all too well. Those memories were distant, but sharp, and Tye understood Axe, even if he was appalled by the man. “Right. Which is why you need to take him out now. He’s going to die anyway, why do we have to die with him? Let’s go over everything again, find you the perfect moment to strike. He still locks you up when he gets the keys?” Tester said.
“Yup. Hooded and handcuffed so I can’t prepare for an attack while he’s gone. He’s a machine. I stopped paying attention a long time ago,” Milly said.
“You’re going to have to take him while hooded after you go through the second door,” Tye said.
“How will I see?”
“We’ll cut two small slits in your hood, position it so you’re not blind. Put the cuffs on real loose so you can slip out. Or you can use them. Take him from behind with the garrote or the cuffs and don’t let go until he’s dead. Then come get us. Be sure to grab the shock-box.”
Tye spent most of the following three-and-a-half hours coaching Milly and building up her confidence, but Tye had the same problem he’d had for the last six years. Milly agreed with everything they said, but she wasn’t a killer. In defense of her life, from twenty feet away with a gun, she’d managed. Fighting in close quarters with a powerful man and taking him from behind and choking the life out of him was something else altogether.
She forced him to go low. “Don’t forget he killed Peter. Blew his head off right in front of you,” Tye said. “In cold blood. Then shot Kat. In cold blood.”
Milly moaned and looked at the ground.
Tye was tired, and Tester took over drilling her. She fought them, but Tye knew this was nothing more than Milly selling things to herself. Axe’s sickness changed everything, and he thought Milly would do what needed to be done this time. “Four hours are up,” he said.
Milly rose and brushed off her pants. She looked at Tye, then the others in turn, and smiled. Tye put her hood on and positioned the eye-slits. Then he put on the wrist restraints as loose as he could and slipped the key in his pocket.
“Be right back,” Milly said.
Tye was confident Milly could do this. He knew she could. She was metal through and through, but she didn’t come right back.
Milly didn’t come back at all.
Chapter Twenty-one
Year 2075, Pass Christian Armory, Mississippi
Milly walked the hallway hooded and cuffed as she had over a thousand times before, her right hand tracing the wall as a guide. It was important she did nothing different. He was watching her. Axe called for her to stop, and she did, counting the seconds in her head. He took twenty ticks to get from his observation point to the door. A lock turned, the bolt slid free, and the door creaked on rusted hinges as it swung open. A rush of rotten air hit her hood.
“Forward ten paces,” Axe said, his voice raspy and aggrieved.
Her heart raced as she advanced, moving her head to get Axe in her sights through the slits in her hood. The hall was dark and shadowy, the only light the flicker of Axe’s torch. She made her way through the second door and he closed and locked it behind her.
“Your friends…” Coughing fit, “OK?” He took the key to the third door.
“They’re fine. Are you OK?” Milly said.
She stood waiting for him to take her arm, lead her to the first door and out of the armory. His breaths came in ragged bursts, and through her hood slits she saw he had his hands on his knees and leaned against the wall. There would never be a better time, yet she hesitated.
“I’m fine,” he said. He took her arm, and they started out.
He walked beside her, a foot away, his attention forward. The torch splashed light off the walls, but the passageway ended in blackness. She let the coiled garrote slip from her sleeve into her hand.
“I don’t know what I would have done all these years without you,” Axe said. He was half a step in front of her. “Soon I’ll need you more than ever, Adaline, my sweet. You’re going to have a great life.”
“Isn’t it time for me to start that life, daddy?” she said.
He jerked her elbow and pulled her close. “What did you say?”
All she had to do was flip the wire over his head and pull until it hurt. When she didn’t respond, he twisted her arm and Milly screamed.
“Oy, what’s this?” He’d found her garrote.
Milly threw herself on him, and they hit the wall and fell tangled to the floor. She wailed on him, Peter’s voice urging her on. The memory of Peter’s warm blood on her face, and the white pieces of brain she’d found on her shirt enraged her, but ten seconds too late. She punched and kicked, yelling and pounding with years of frustration, fear, and anger.
Even in his dilapidated state, Axe was stronger than her. He flipped her over, reclaimed her arm and bent it backward until it snapped. Milly wailed with pain, drool dripping from her mouth, shock freezing her legs. He spun her around and punched her in the face. The blow tagged Milly on the nose and sent her sprawling onto the floor, blood splattering the wall. Then he kicked her, and the white fury that had saved
