The cane cracked off the cop’s skull.
She collapsed to the lawn in an awkward jumble of limbs.
Sammy stood behind her, holding the cane in both hands. Her ample chest rose and fell so quickly that I thought she might be hyperventilating. Her hair was matted to her forehead from sweat.
I’d never been so relieved and horrified at the same time.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. My voice came out raspy and dry.
“I just couldn’t leave you out here in your condition.” She knelt down beside me and looked at my shoulder. “Oh God, this looks bad.”
“Sammy, you have to get out of here.” I finally managed to sit up. “Run!”
“But what about—”
Her body went rigid. Her eyes locked onto mine, going wide in terror.
You shouldn’t have brought her here. Now I have to relieve her of duty.
She doesn’t have anything to do with this. Leave her alone, you son of a bitch.
Sammy stood and walked back to the unconscious police officer. She threw a hard kick into the cop’s ribs before bending down and picking up the pistol. In rigid, fitful steps, she came back and stood over me, aiming at my chest.
I waited for the impact. It didn’t come.
She remained where she was, a statue of boobs and sweaty beauty. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
Flashes of light bloomed behind her as cameras snapped thousands of pictures. I was lying in the middle of a modern battlefield, to be forever etched in the world’s history.
Police officers and reporters lined the edges of the neighboring buildings, holding their ground. Any time a cop would attempt to move in, he would turn his gun on himself or his brothers.
They stopped trying to enter the courtyard. I could hear their shouts for us to surrender.
I hoped no one would take a shot at Sammy as she stood over me with the pistol.
My shoulder thrummed along as it leaked.
Cries of the wounded and the bereaved filled the air.
By the monument, a man stood, staring at the stage. He wore a sweatshirt and baseball cap. As I watched him, he turned and faced me. The brim of his hat hid his features in shadow.
Four members of Thomas’ detail remained on the stage. They surrounded the wounded president, weapons drawn. Thomas moved his arms around in pleading motions, which they ignored.
The men bent down and each grabbed one of the president’s limbs, hoisting him in the air. He howled as one of them raised him by his wounded knee. His scream echoed through the courtyard.
They marched down the nearest stairs and carried him toward us.
The man in the sweatshirt walked beside them. He moved with a pronounced limp.
Why are you doing this? I thought.
Someone has to stop the cycle of insanity.
You’re only making things worse. You’re murdering innocent people.
A few eggs must be broken to make an omelet.
Two cops sneaked across a sidewalk and stepped onto the grass. They moved quickly, knees bent, pistols held out front. When they got within fifty yards of Murdock and the president, they stopped abruptly.
Faced each other.
Raised their weapons.
Cries came from the watching crowd.
The men shot each other in the chest.
Thomas struggled against the agent’s grip, unable to free himself.
They stopped ten feet away from me and threw their boss into the dirt. He cried out again when his wounded leg hit the ground.
Murdock stopped beside the agents and glared down at me.
“You’ve made today more difficult than it needed be.”
I hocked a bloody wad of spit into the grass. “I’ve been told before that I’m a pain in the ass.”
“Look what it’s gotten you—I’m going to kill you and your little girlfriend here. None of this concerned you.”
Thomas looked over at me. “Help us! Stop him!”
His fear made him irrational. Anyone with two eyes could see that I was out of the fight. All I could do at that point was bleed on the grass.
“What do you want me to do, use harsh language?”
Violent shakes shook Sammy’s entire body. I wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right.
But it wouldn’t.
Murdock pulled a black glove from his hand and held it up. One of the fingers was missing. He showed it to Thomas. “When you abandoned me in that hellhole, they did things to me that you can’t possibly imagine. I sacrificed everything for this country! Everything! And for what? To be abandoned by those I sought to protect? To be shunned by them?” He waved his arm at the crowds watching us.
“You start your wars and you spew your platitudes, but you don’t understand true loss. You speak of right and wrong, good and evil, as if you even understand what those words mean.” Murdock looked at one of the agents. “This man, Agent Feinstein, is considered a friend by you, no?”
Thomas held a hand up. “No. Murdock, listen to me. He has nothing to do with—”
Feinstein raised his pistol to his own temple and squeezed the trigger. His remains crumpled to the ground. The contents of his head oozed out.
“No!” Thomas gaped at the body of his friend.
I looked at Sammy, imagined her doing the same thing.
My stomach twisted in rage, and my pulse thundered in my ears. The flow of blood coming from my shoulder increased. I rolled to my stomach and tried to get up, but my body refused to cooperate. I didn’t have the strength to push myself away from the ground.
The other agents shoved the pistols under their chins, fingers caressing the triggers. Sammy did the same.
“Let’s get this over with,” Murdock said. “The world has changing to do, and that won’t start until they see your dead body, Mr. President.”
A small voice came from behind me. “Hey, Murdock.”
I looked over my shoulder. Nami stood just outside the group, aiming the Desert Eagle at Murdock.
“Fuck your mother.” She pulled the trigger.
The recoil from the enormous pistol knocked her over, and she landed on her ass. The gun flew from her grip and plopped into the grass almost a dozen feet away from me. It might as well have been in another state.
The bullet didn’t even come close.
Murdock smiled. “You almost ruined my fun.”
Nami stiffened. She stood and walked toward the Desert Eagle.
I watched helplessly from my spot in the dirt.
Another gunshot rang out.
Murdock staggered two steps forward, a grunt escaping him. A crimson splotch spread across the front of his sweatshirt. The baseball cap fell from his head.
“What?” he whispered.
He fell to his hands and knees. Spittle fell from his lips.
Everyone’s muscles went lax, their shoulders slumping as they regained control of their bodies. Sammy collapsed to the ground, weeping. She looked at the pistol in her hand with abject horror. She tossed it away as if it could bite.
Nami sat down beside her. A shiver ran through her body as she looked over at Murdock. “That was fucked up.”
The agents regained their composure and focused their attention on President Thomas. They formed a protective circle around him and searched the area for more threats.
Murdock’s arms gave out, and he dropped face first into the lawn.
The Bridge between our minds evaporated. I let out a long sigh of relief. It was a great feeling not having him swimming around in my head. The crowds surrounding us were outside of my telepathic range, so their voices didn’t flood in right away.
It was a rare moment of peace in a day straight out of hell. Peaceful as long as I didn’t count the horrible pain I was in, anyway.
Drew jogged up from the opposite side of the courtyard, pistol trained at Murdock’s back. “Not so tough now, are ya?”
“Where the hell have you been?” I wanted to jump up and slap the bald from his head. I had to settle with lying in the grass and bleeding on myself.
Drew sidestepped around Murdock, keeping his attention on the motionless body. “Sorry, I ran into a little trouble over there. A few people tried to detain me when they saw my pistol. I had to persuade them otherwise.”
“Freeze!” The agent’s swung their weapons around and aimed at Drew.
He stopped in midstride. “Relax, I just shot the guy who was—”
“On the ground, now!”
Drew complied, though he grumbled as he lowered himself down. His blood-soaked visage made it look like he’d slaughtered someone.
Helicopter rotors whooped in the distance.
Sirens blared incessantly.
Officers took tentative steps toward us.
The roar of the helicopter grew. I looked toward the White House and watched as a UH-60 flew toward us. I tried to remember the name of the president’s helicopter, but my memory was hazy from blood loss. Marine One?
Thomas was getting a flight out of there. I hoped at some point that someone would get me one too before I bled out.
It slowed as it approached, the rear end dipping.
The agents continued yelling at Drew, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore. One of them attended to Thomas’ knee. The pain-ridden expression on his face told me that he wasn’t enjoying it.
Wind whipped against my face, stinging my eyes.
When the chopper was less than twenty feet above the ground, it stopped descending and held steady in the air for a moment.
One of the agents waved for it to land.
It didn’t.
The Bridge reformed in my mind.
Tendrils of panic gripped me as I screamed for one of the agents to shoot Murdock again. They couldn’t hear me over the deafening sound of the helicopter.
The engine whined as it gained altitude. It banked hard right, accelerating rapidly.
All of us watched as it flew over the stage and crashed into the Washington Monument.