like a fucking retard.”
A single tear rolled down Sondra’s cheek. She didn’t speak, didn’t utter a sound—just stared at me with those shocked, wounded eyes. I watched the tear slide down her face and fall to the floor. It seemed to take an eternity. Something dark twisted inside of me. I wanted to hurt her the same way she’d hurt me. I wanted more tears. One simply wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close.
“You are like all the others,” she said. “You are a bad man.”
Then I got my wish. The first tear was followed by more. The floodgates opened and tears streamed down her cheeks. Sondra buried her face in her hands and wept.
For a second, I felt guilty about what I’d said, but then I remembered how Darryl had looked, lying on my kitchen floor, and what Yul had sounded like, breathing his last breath. The darkness swelled inside of me, eating away at my guilt and replacing it with a grim sort of satisfaction. Steeling my resolve, I sat up the rest of the way and took another deep breath.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it Sondra? But you know what hurts worse? You know what’s really eating at me? That I’m guilty, too. That I let you do this to me.”
There was another explosion outside, followed by more shouts and emergency sirens. Radios squawked and flames crackled. More smoke poured into the machine shop. Even inside, we could feel the heat. The single shot gunfire was joined by the concussive buzz of automatic weapons, which meant that the York County Quick Response Unit was on hand—complete with body armor and grenades and hostage negotiators. They even had a remote-controlled robot that was capable of storming the building all by itself. I’d seen it on the news once, when they used it during a bank robbery. The robot could end this whole thing very quickly.
Unless, of course, Whitey had fucked the robot up, too.
“Larry,” Sondra sobbed. “Is not so. I thought you and I were to be special. We were—”
“Don’t pretend you care about me,” I interrupted. “The only reason you came down here was because you wanted a better look at what was happening outside. You said it yourself. You thought I was dead. You don’t give a shit about me. Admit it.”
Sondra shook her head. Her face glistened with tears.
“Is not true. I care very much for you.”
“Oh yeah? Is that why you lied to me? You always lie to the people you care about?”
“I no lie.”
“Then where’s the fucking money you stole from Whitey? Huh? Forget to tell me about that? And why’d you tell me you didn’t know who your baby’s father was, when all along you knew it was him?”
“Da. I knew it was Whitey. But I not let him kill baby. So I get away. I tell you this before. Is not lie.”
“Bullshit. Whitey told me what was really going on. He said that
“I did tell truth,” she insisted. “Yes, I should have been honest. Should have told you Whitey was father. But I not lie when I say he want to kill baby. Whitey do. He want to kill baby very bad. He needs to. Especially now.”
Testing my strength, I crawled away from the shelving unit. Every muscle cried out from the strain, but I didn’t pass out, so I continued. The smoke made my eyes water. I wondered if the machine shop could catch on fire. The walls were cinderblock, but what about the rest?
“You must believe,” Sondra said. “Whitey will hurt baby now more than ever.”
“What do you mean?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Why the urgency?”
“Whitey needs the baby. Needs something inside it. Just like Rasputin did. There is secret to their powers. There is reason why Rasputin have so many children. Reason why many were kept secret.”
“What?”
“To…how you say? To grow again? Re something…”
“To grow again—you mean regenerate?”
“Da, that is word. To do that, Whitey needs stem. So did Rasputin.”
“Stem?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
“Da. Stem. They must come from his bloodline.”
Outside, the violence intensified. A stray round punched through the cinderblock wall just a few feet away from us. Sondra screamed.
“Come on.” I grabbed her arm. “Let’s get the hell out of the way before you catch a bullet. I want to hear the rest.”
“And then?”
“Who cares? You’re on your own. I don’t give a shit what happens to you after that.”
“Is not true.”
“Try me.”
Still crouched, we made our way to the center of the room
“We must get out of building,” Sondra said. “Must get away!”
“Not until you finish telling me what the fuck is going on.”
“But we will be killed!”
“Fine by me. Perfect end to a perfect fucking day.”
Crawling across the dirty concrete floor, we avoided broken glass and rusty screws. The machine shop was a mess, even worse than the warehouse had been. Piles of junk and debris lay everywhere. It was murky, but not dark. Enough daylight came through the broken windows and holes in the roof, so we could see pretty well. There were signs of water damage on the ceiling, and pools of sludgy, oily water covered the floor. The oil slicks glittered like rainbows on the surface of the puddles. Black mold clung to the walls and pipes.
We made it to the center of the room. Behind us came the sound of breaking glass as another window was shot out. I searched the room and saw a gray door at the rear of the building. A greasy, broken sign above it advised us that safety goggles and hearing protection must be worn at all times beyond that point. I giggled at the warning. Too late. My hearing might already be fucked and goggles weren’t going to offer much protection against Whitey. The sound of my laughter scared me. It must have frightened Sondra too, judging by her expression. She wasn’t crying anymore. Instead, she looked terrified.
“Come on.” I tottered to my feet, pulling her up with me. “There’s a door over there.”
“You can walk?”
“I don’t know. Let’s find out together.”
A third bullet crashed through the wall, ricocheting around the machine shop. Shouting, we both ducked low and waited for it to pass.
“Yeah,” I said when the coast was clear. “I think I’ll manage.”
The doorknob was greasy and slick, but it turned in my hands, unlocked. I hurried Sondra through the doorway.
“Do not push, Larry. You are hurting me.”
“Then we’re even. You hurt me, too.”
I closed the door behind us and then looked around. We were in another empty room, this one darker than the first. There were only a few windows, and all of them were boarded over with thick sheets of plywood or painted shut with black paint. The only source of illumination was from a single dirty skylight. A row of tool benches and work stations lined one wall. Brackets were drilled into the floor at various points, indicating where machines had once been—die presses, drills, vices, and who knew what else. A patch of sawdust covered one section of floor, the remnants of an ancient oil spill. Little piles of mouse shit and dangling spider webs filled the corners. We could still hear the chaos outside, but with the door closed, it was muffled. At the back of the room was a dark, narrow hallway and a stairway leading down to a basement level.
My head started to throb again, and the pain swept back into my joints and muscles. The hole where my tooth had been was starting to clot, but my mouth tasted salty and felt like it was coated with slime. Leaning against the door, I slid to my knees. Sondra crouched next to me. She reached for my cheek but I brushed her away. Her face saddened again.
“You are angry.”
“Goddamn right I am.”
“But I tell you truth. Whitey is to harm my baby. What am I supposed to do? To let him eat stem?”
