Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution Page 19

  Daniel quickly made his way to the catwalk so that he could exit the building before things got out of hand. Blank was still standing right where he left him. His face was pale.

  Below Daniel saw a group of agents running around, confused by what was happening. Charlie was trying to talk them all into leaving the building, but after hearing the gunshot their attention had been diverted. Daniel looked up to see Titan flying over the top of the staircase.

  “What happened?” He yelled as he charged in Daniel’s direction.

  “You might want to go check on your boss,” Daniel responded, moving onto the catwalk and out of the way of the barreling behemoth. Titan flew past him and into Richfield’s office.

  “Boss!” Titan yelled from the office once he discovered Richfield wounded on the floor inside.

  Daniel began running across the catwalk until he got to Blank. “We have to go now.”

  “What did you do, Danny?”

  BOOM!

  Suddenly an explosion went off from inside Richfield’s office. A ball of flame surged outward, tearing down the nearby walls and shattering the windows.

  “Right,” Blank said, turning and heading for the elevator.

  The fire began to spread quickly across the upper level of the complex. As they reached the elevator more explosions began to sound from behind them, fueled by the crippled gas line.

  The elevator car was still at the top floor from when Daniel had ridden it up. As they stepped in they could hear the supports from the catwalk giving way under the intense heat of the flames. As the door slid shut Daniel turned to see the walkway on the other side of the complex collapse, bringing down the crossing catwalk with it. This was followed by another explosion, the heat wave of which made its way into the elevator. Daniel lifted his hands to shield his face and took a couple steps backward.

  Once the doors were completely closed it didn’t take long for the car to reach the first floor, but all Daniel could think about was the fact that you were never supposed to use an elevator during a fire.

  As soon as the doors were halfway open Blank and Daniel shot out of the elevator and made a B-line for the door. Blank lead the way and threw the front door open as they ran out into the cold air on the street. As they reached the bottom of the front steps, Blank turned around to witness the smoke rising from the center and rear sections of the building, holding onto his hat so that it wouldn’t blow away in the wind.

  Daniel turned and signaled to Jordan who was sitting in the car Eva had commandeered for their escape. The engine was already running and as soon as she saw him Jordan threw it into gear and sped toward him. She slammed on the brakes when she got alongside Daniel, screeching the tires on the asphalt. She then jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle.

  Daniel walked up to the car and put his hand on the open door, turning to take one last look at the building that had owned over half a year of his life, though it now felt like so much longer. In the distance he heard sirens, but by the time they arrived the firefighters would have a difficult time keeping the raging fire under control. With any luck, Elite would be gone forever.

  As he turned to get into the car, Daniel heard Blank call out to him. “What now, Danny Boy?”

  Daniel turned to the man in the hat and shrugged. He had absolutely no clue what would happen to any of them from this moment on, but that sentiment had become fairly routine for him in the past year.

  “Stay safe, Mister Blank,” Daniel told the man, unsure if their paths would ever cross again in the future.

  As he sat down in the driver’s seat and closed the door, he saw Mr. Blank lift his hand and tip his cap. With a half-smile, Daniel put the red sedan in gear and hit the gas pedal. In the rearview mirror he could see the Chicago skyline. He felt a single tear run down his cheek.

  Seven months ago he had made the bold decision to undergo experimental brain surgery and join Elite as his last chance to remain in Chicago. Now, that decision had become the very reason he may never see the city again.

  Chapter 15

  Daniel kept the car steady as he drove through the dense, white forest of northern Wisconsin. The trees and the ground were coated with soft, fluffy snow, which had turned to slush on the roads from constantly being run over by car tires, and then refrozen into ice in the twenty degree temperatures. Daniel drove slowly so as to avoid sliding and losing control of the vehicle.

  They would soon be arriving in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Daniel had wanted to take the ferry across Lake Michigan from Wisconsin to the mitten state, but all of the ferry services were shut down for the winter months. Instead he and Jordan made the long trek around the northern edge of the Great Lake.

  Daniel and Jordan had been on the road for a full seven days now, trying to lose the scent of any members of the Birthright who might be looking for them. Today was Christmas, and both of them were feeling the pain of spending the holiday away from their families for the first time in their lives. They knew that anyone who might be looking for them would be looking especially hard at their families’ homes today, and they couldn’t risk exposing themselves and endangering their loved ones. Instead they bought a case of beer and a fifth of tequila which they planned to drown their sorrows in when they arrived at the hotel where they would be spending the night. They planned to arrive at Eva’s cousin’s farm the following afternoon.

  Their road trip had taken them all over the place in an attempt to throw their trackers for a loop. First they had traveled to St. Louis where Daniel was able to find a local branch of his bank and withdraw all of his savings. They would later pop up on the grid in Cleveland, where they purchased two plane tickets to Peru. A day later they booked a hotel room in Nashville with one of Daniel’s credit cards, and a room in Las Vegas with one of Jordan’s. In reality they paid cash to stay at a motel in Raleigh, North Carolina.

  While in Raleigh they had also paid cash to have their car repainted black. Jordan had argued for a different color, but Daniel liked black, and it was the best option to cover up the red. He would have preferred to buy a new car all together, but transferring the special government plate Eva had given them would have most likely become an issue, so a new paint job was the next best option.

  They had debated leaving Raleigh and going further south for a short vacation before going into hiding indefinitely, but they eventually decided against it and headed north to Michigan, taking the most roundabout route possible to get there and making sure to avoid both the Indianapolis and Chicago areas. They had been delayed by early season winter storms twice, but the forecast was now calling for little to no precipitation for the rest of their journey. Tomorrow they would arrive at their new home as Daniel Simmons and Jordan McFarley. Daniel Hart and Jordan Hill now ceased to exist.

  There were a couple of instances when Daniel considered ignoring Eva’s orders and making a run for the border—finding a way to sneak into either Canada or Mexico. He knew that Eva was intentionally putting him somewhere she could easily find him when she wanted to, but Daniel wasn’t so sure that he ever wanted to be found. However the more he thought about it he came to accept that if he or Jordan ever wanted to live a somewhat normal version of life again, he needed to do what the FBI asked of him.

  Every move he made he had to think about Jordan. In the past week he had never once felt like they were in this together, but rather as though he had an obligation to protect her. There was no romance or partnership, just two people stuck together in a bad situation that neither could escape from, and it was his responsibility to make sure they both made it through unscathed.

  The most bizarre part of spending so much time sitting next to her was that it felt completely normal. After going so long without spending any time together, there were surprisingly no feelings of excitement or awkwardness, just normalcy.

  They tried to make the most of their situation, enjoying the different locales they were able to visit and trying to find fun
where the opportunity presented itself. They laughed and played games, and for brief moments everything seemed right with the world. But eventually the walls of their illusion always came tumbling down, and never any harder than when Christmas Eve arrived and they knew that they couldn’t go home. That same grim feeling had carried over into Christmas day, and the two hadn’t said much to each other since.

  The biggest problem with driving for so long was not the discomfort of sitting in a car for extended periods of time, but rather the fact that it gave Daniel far too much time to think. There had been so much chaos leading up to his departure from Chicago that he had never been given the opportunity to reflect. The more he thought about things the more he grew to hate himself.

  He was constantly kicking himself for falling into Richfield’s trap. In reality Richfield hadn’t lied all that much when recruiting Daniel. He had promised to make Daniel a “better” man, and both Daniel and Richfield’s definitions of “better” had been the same. Daniel had convinced himself that money and power was what made a person better than others—a sentiment the Birthright had shared. He became disgusted with himself every time he came to this realization. How could he be so petty and shallow? It was no wonder Richfield believed he could convert him. He agreed with them.

  Daniel cringed to think that his misguided concept of self-worth may have been the reason he survived the procedure while others had not. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he had truly desired everything the procedure offered him. He had wanted to be like Gordon Demérs, and why?

  Daniel turned his head briefly to glance at Jordan, making sure not to keep his eyes off the road for too long. She was curled up in the passenger’s seat, her legs protected from the cold by black leggings. They were folded up so that her knees were tucked near her chest. She was partially on her side, allowing herself to lean her head against the door while using her jacket as a pillow. Her soft brown hair was thrown all over the place.

  For her. She was the whole reason he had given up on all logic and morality and jumped in bed with Charles Richfield. His whole concept of what was important was shaped by her leaving him for Gordon Demérs.

  And that wasn’t even her fault.

  She didn’t get engaged to Gordon Demérs instead of Daniel because he had more stuff, but because of the way Demérs made her feel. He was so narrow-minded to believe that gaining the same material possessions as Demérs would make Jordan more attracted to him. And now both of their lives were ruined.

  Every time he went off on himself for his decisions a small voice inside asked him what might have happened if he hadn’t joined Elite. Richfield would have most likely found another subject and Horchoff still would have returned to Demérs with the secret on how to create and army of super-humans. Then Demérs most likely would have put into place a plan to start a revolution and become “King of America.” What would have happened to Jordan then? Daniel liked to think she never would have gone along with Demérs’ insanity, but who would have protected her? Daniel would never have had the capability.

  Daniel again glanced at his passenger. There was no good answer. Perhaps it was their fate to be doomed and on the run. All he knew was that he did have the ability to protect her, and he would do so at all costs.

  “You know I’ll never let anything happen to you,” he told her, causing her to open her eyes and turn her head to look back at him.

  “You know you’ve told me that literally a hundred times since we’ve left Chicago,” she replied.

  Daniel laughed. There were many who didn’t understand the concept of using the term “literally” improperly, but he always appreciated it. It wasn’t that Jordan didn’t understand the meaning of the word, it was simply that adding “literally” when her statement was not at all literal was a humorous way of emphasizing that he had told her that same thing quite a few times before.

  “Sorry,” he told her, “Just way too much time to think in here.”

  “I get it,” she responded. “I’ve been thinking a lot too.”

  Daniel nodded as she closed her eyes and dug her head back into her jacket. He could only imagine what must have been going through her mind. Two weeks ago she believed that she would be marrying a man that could show her the world, and now she was hiding from it because of that very same man. On top of that, she was hiding with the guy whom she had previously decided not to get romantically involved with. That same guy also happened to be the person who exposed the true nature of her fiancé to her.

  Is that Ironic? Daniel asked himself. He was always unclear on the proper definition of irony.

  It took far longer than he had hoped, but he finally pulled into the circle drive of their hotel in St. Ignace, Michigan at nine P.M.. The place was almost empty. There weren’t many tourists visiting the town on the north end of the Mackinaw Bridge in the winter, and the small population meant that there weren’t a lot of people visiting family and in need of a hotel room.

  Within five minutes of arriving, the pair was all checked in and stumbling into their room with their luggage. The room looked like your generic hotel room—a closet on your left when you walk in the door, the bathroom on your right, and past the bathroom the right side of the room opened up with enough space to fit two double beds. Between them was a night stand with two reading lamps suspended above it, and across from the beds was a piece of wooden furniture that doubled as both a dresser and entertainment center, on top of which was a moderately sized television. The carpeting in the room was a reddish brown with a rough texture, and the drapes and comforters were a green floral pattern that looked to have been in style in the nineteen-sixties.

  Jordan was the first inside but paid no attention to the light switch on her left, therefore Daniel had to activate the lights as he followed in behind her.

  “I call the bed furthest from the window,” Jordan announced as she threw her bags down on top of it. She always called the bed furthest from draftier region of the room near the window.

  “So surprised.” Daniel trudged his way over to the far bed and threw his bags down on the floor beyond it. There was a time when he had always tried to get a room with a single king size bed when going on trips with Jordan, but with as little sleep as he was able to come by these days, he, like Jordan, preferred not to have to share a sleeping space.

  It didn’t take long before Jordan and Daniel were breaking into their case of hoppy pale ale. Daniel pulled out two cans and handed one to Jordan who was sitting on her bed across from Daniel.

  “There’s no fridge in here. We have to drink them before they get warm,” she said.

  Daniel raised his eyebrows and cracked open his can. He didn’t much care about the temperature at this point, so long as it got him drunk. Jordan opened her can and they both raised their beers for a toast.

  “Merry Christmas,” Daniel proclaimed, trying not to feel any emotion as he did so. Rather than speak Jordan simply touched her can to Daniel’s and took a swig. Daniel took a more aggressive approach and tilted his head back and chugged the entire can in one foul swoop. He made a face of discomfort as he threw his empty can onto the floor and reached for another. Pale ale was not meant to be chugged. “Now let’s get fucked.”

  It only took about four beers and two tequila shots each for the two renegades to start feeling a little loopy. They laughed and continued to drink as they told stories about their crazy days at Ball State together, and anything else they could think of that they hadn’t already discussed in the past week. Daniel was surprised there was anything left to talk about at all.

  After a particular story about Daniel’s old buddy Rufus getting stuck in a tree, there was a brief moment of silence that followed their joined laughter where the two locked eyes and smiled. It was not the first time in their weeklong journey that they had gotten drunk in a hotel room together. Daniel never felt the need to get with Jordan anymore, but anytime a little alcohol got involved old desires managed to resurface themselves. She was an undoubtedly be
autiful woman.

  Jordan threw herself backward from the side of her bed and threw her feet around to the foot of the bed, her momentum carrying her until she was once again upright. She leaned forward and started digging through her bag. “I’m going to take a hot bath.”

  Daniel took a deep breath and crawled back on his bed toward the night stand. He set his beer on the stand and picked up the remote, switching on the TV. Jordan slipped her shirt over her head so that she was wearing just a sports bra and leggings. She carried a pair of shorts and a pink cami with her into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  Daniel could hear the water begin rushing out of the faucet as Jordan began running her bath. He always considered joining her whenever she took a shower or bath, but the thought usually faded quickly. He flipped through channels and eventually settled on a show about a pawn shop in Las Vegas, even though it was an episode he had already seen two or three times.

  He heard the faucet turn off and the sloshing of standing water as Jordan climbed into the tub. He closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. He hoped it would come easier with the aide of beer and tequila.

  After a few minutes of failing to drift off, he gave up on sleep and the pawn shop and stood up from his bed. He downed the rest of his beer and walked over to the case to grab two more. He then made his way to the bathroom door and slowly swung it open.

  “What are you doing?” Jordan yelped, attempting to cover her chest beneath the surface of the water.

  “Relax,” Daniel assured her as he took a seat on the toilet next to her. He reached over and handed her one of the beers he was carrying. “I won’t oogle.”

  Jordan gave up resisting a little too easily and took the offering from Daniel. He leaned back on the closed toilet seat and stared at himself in the closet mirror just outside the bathroom door. He then took a long sip of his beer.

  Jordan sipped hers before setting down on the floor next to the tub. It appeared as though she might say something, but decided better of it. Instead she leaned her head back against the back of the tub and enjoyed her bath.