“All right, Michael,” he says gently, lifting one hand just a fraction of an inch in a placating gesture. “Let’s just go. Let’s gather everybody up and get out of here. We can talk about it later.”
But Michael shakes his head slowly, and the madness reflected in his eyes is bright and ungovernable. “No, it all ends here, Logan. It all ends tonight.
This is as far as we go.” He shakes his head, and the Ronin dips slightly. “I’ve had enough, boy. I don’t want to live another day in this damned world. I don’t want to endure one more moment of it. I should have killed us both years ago for all the difference it’s made.”
Logan feels a chill in the pit of his stomach. “Michael, that’s crazy!
Listen to what you’re saying!”
“I saved your life; I can take it away.” The Ronin is pointing directly at him again; Michael’s arm is steady as he aims it. “Think about it.
Think about how hopeless it is! We’ve lost everything tonight—people, weapons, machines, all of it. Look at me; I probably won’t live another day, and if I do I’ll never be the same. If we don’t end it here, we’ll be caught and thrown into the camps.
We’ll end up just like that!” He gestures again toward the prisoners in the cage. “I made up my mind a long time ago that I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“But these people need our help] What about all the others like them?”
Michael shakes his head once more. “I don’t care about them. What happens to them doesn’t matter. What happens to us does. You and me, now that Fresh is gone. I have to protect us. I promised you I would, when you were still a boy.
We’ve had a good run, but the time has come to step out of the race.”
Logan is holding the Scattershot down by his side. Michael is going to kill him, and there isn’t a chance in the world he will be able to raise his weapon and fire it in time to save himself. He catches glimpses of the prisoners huddling at the back of the cages, eyes wild with fear. No help there. He watches the smoke of battle ebb and flow through the building’s deep interior, but nothing else moves. No help there, either.
“Michael, don’t do this,” he begs. “Put down the weapon and talk to me.
Think it through. There has to be another way.”
“There is no other way!” Michael screams.
Logan doesn’t stop to think after that. He simply acts. He shifts his gaze past Michael’s left shoulder, as if catching sight of something, and says in a hushed voice, “Demon.”
Acting instinctively, Michael wheels and fires, the Ronin spraying bullets everywhere. Logan does not hesitate. He brings up the Scattershot and levels it.
Michael is already turning back, realizing he has been tricked, when the Scattershot discharges its load into his chest. The force of the blow throws him back half a dozen feet and leaves him sprawled on the concrete floor.
For a moment, Logan cannot move. He cannot believe what he has done. The echoes of gunfire and the moaning of the prisoners waft through the building.
“Michael,” he whispers.
Maybe there is still time to help him. Maybe he can still be saved.
But by the time Logan reaches him, Michael is already dead.
*
IN THE AFTERMATH, it feels to him as if he has lost everything.
Unable to make himself leave, he kneels next to Michael’s body for much longer than is safe. Finally, hearing shots in the distance, he regains sufficient presence of mind to realize that he needs to flee. Then he remembers the prisoners still locked in the cages, still trapped and helpless. Using the iron bar, he snaps the chains, flings open the doors, and watches them flee. When the last of them disappears, he slings Michael’s body over his shoulder, picks up the Scattershot and the Ronin, and walks through the drifting smoke and the bodies of the dead into the night.
He finds Grayling outside, another man hanging on to him for support, the two of them working their way toward the only truck still intact.
Grayling looks at him, sees whom he is carrying, and stops. When Logan gets close enough, the big man asks him where he is going. Away, he answers. It’s over. And keeps walking as the other calls after him, Good luck.
He finds the Lightning parked back in the trees where Michael has left it.
Michael always drives it on these raids, to the attacks and then back, his own personal transport. Sometimes he lets Logan ride with him—more often than not since losing Fresh. Once or twice, he has even told Logan that one day the Lightning will be his. One day, it seems, has arrived. Logan knows the codes that release the locks and disarm the security system, and he uses that knowledge now. Then he puts Michael in the back and drives away.