Villain (Gone 8)

“Use. The. Blade,” Tolliver begged.

Justin swallowed and looked around guiltily, as if someone might see. The fire flared hotter.

He stood back, giving himself room, and brought his blade arm around. Was it thin enough? Would it fit? He placed the tip of his blade on the lip of the slit in Tolliver’s armored bubble.

It would fit.

“It’s okay, kid,” Tolliver said. “Semper Fi!”

Justin plunged his blade into the marine’s face.

CHAPTER 29

One Less Hotel

“ALL DUE RESPECT, I’m going to need that order in writing from someone upstream in my chain of command, General.”

The death of Frankenstein Poole had left the army column briefly leaderless. But the army is good at chain of command, so Poole’s authority swiftly devolved to Major Gary Andrews. And he had just been given an order by General DiMarco.

DiMarco was not in Andrews’s chain of command.

Andrews was currently just behind the lead tank, in a backup JLTV, from which location he had just seen hundreds, maybe as many as a thousand human beings set on fire. Then, within mere minutes, seconds even, he had seen a sequence of events he would never be able to make sense of. He’d ordered a round to be fired into the massive T. rex–looking creature, but beyond that, he’d been helpless.

“Grow some goddamn balls, Major! You’ve got half a dozen mutants right there in front of you! Kill them!”

The major held his headset a bit away from his ear to save his eardrum the assault of DiMarco’s fury. Andrews waited, and when DiMarco paused to take a breath, he said, “General, I understand that you have direct authority from the Pentagon and the White House, but I am not able to carry out this order without proper written orders.”

No way in hell was he going to do what DiMarco wanted. It would be absolute career suicide if it turned out DiMarco was nuts. And from what Andrews had seen of the Ranch from Shade’s YouTube video, he was willing to bet good money that DiMarco was off her rocker.

And then he was handed the printed order, signed by the army deputy chief of staff, no less,

directing him to obey any and all orders from DiMarco.

Andrews looked at his adjutant. “Jesus H.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is a direct order,” Andrews said. He fell silent for a moment, precariously balanced between what felt like a very illegal order, and the reality that disobedience would mean a court-martial.

Then, he gave the order.

The screams had been terrible.

The silence was worse.

Some still lived, lived and cried in agony and yet could not move away. Those who’d had their personal hells extinguished by Dekka’s shredding coughed and crawled. But what had been a thousand voices was now just a few.

Armo stood panting, his chest heaving. His white fur was streaked black. Cruz stood beside him, de-morphed so that the baby in her arms would have a face to look at. She was past tears. Tears were not sufficient testimony to the unspeakable tragedy before her.

She could not look at the smoldering bodies. She looked up at the palm trees that lined the street. They were leafless black toothpicks.

Dekka stood, seemingly indifferent to the fact that her own morphed fur smoldered and smoked in places.

Shade blurred to a stop. She held a red fire extinguisher, almost laughable in this setting. She sprayed white foam over Dekka’s back. Then threw the fire extinguisher away to skitter across the pavement.

“My God,” Dekka said. “My—”

But her last word was obliterated as the whole world erupted in a stunning, rolling series of explosions, as the tanks opened fire at point blank range on the Triunfo.