Okay, But Try Not to Murder Anyone 8, page 26
“Oh, I want to see him,” I said as my heart rate spiked.
“I was hoping you would.” Marshall grinned and lifted a hand, and two soldiers appeared at his side instantly. “Agent Patterson here needs to see the prisoner.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldiers chorused.
The next few minutes were a blur. The two soldiers escorted Marshall and me through the smoky yacht and onto a smaller military boat, which shepherded us across the black water to the bigger military boat, where we were deposited unceremoniously before the smaller boat returned to the burning yacht. Then we were led down to the belly of the ship, past creaking pipes and down narrow staircases.
“He’s in here,” Marshall said as he stepped forward and swung the door open.
But we all froze in shock when our eyes fell on the empty room.
“What the fuck?” one of the soldiers muttered.
“Where the fuck is the prisoner?” Marshall screamed, and his face turned bright red with rage.
“Sir, I need to get to the island immediately,” I said, but I’d already turned on my heel and was headed back the way we came.
“W-What?” Marshall sputtered as he ran to catch up.
“There’s no time to explain,” I said as I ran up a narrow staircase. “He probably bribed one of your soldiers. He’s heading back to the island, and we need to stop him now, before he gets ahold of those artifacts.”
I heard Marshall barking orders behind me, and everything was a panicked blur, but less than three minutes later, I was on a speedboat on the way back to the island.
“Scree!”
I looked up to see Sloan, but she had shifted into a larger bird form, and Laura was riding on her back like Sloan was a dragon.
“What on god’s green earth is that?” Marshall asked in an awed tone.
“Bannister escaped, he’s got to be on the island!” I called out to the women above the roaring wind. “Get over there and get eyes on him!”
“On it!” Laura shouted, and the blonde agent disappeared as Bird-Sloan flapped her wings faster and headed toward the island.
“What the fuck is the FBI doing these days?” Marshall asked as he watched Sloan’s giant bird form soar away into the night sky.
“That’s need-to-know, sir,” I said, and my smile was only a little smug.
Thanks to the speed of the boat, it didn’t take us long to return to the island, but as soon as the boat pushed onto the shore, there was an explosion.
All heads turned toward Bannister’s mansion, which was now on fire.
“It’s a decoy!” I said as I started to sprint across the sand. “The artifacts are in the guest area.”
I heard the soldiers following close behind me, but I was laser focused on the guest area right in front of me. I hopped up onto the wooden path and continued sprinting to where the artifacts were stored.
Suddenly, a loud, familiar scream pierced the air and stabbed at my heart.
“Laura!” I roared, and I ran even faster.
I finally made it to the guest area to see Laura and Bannister rolling around on the ground, locked in a fight. Sloan was squawking overhead, and she attempted to dive down and grab Bannister, but the pair was rolling around too much, and I could tell Sloan didn’t want to risk catching Laura with her sharp talons.
“Bannister!” I bellowed. “You know it’s me you really want!”
Bannister snapped his head in my direction, and his face was a mixture of confusion and anger. He had Laura pinned down while she struggled underneath his grip, and it took everything in me not to fire an energy ball right at his stupid face.
But, just like Sloan, I couldn’t risk hitting Laura.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
I quickly shapeshifted back into my natural appearance, and I couldn’t help but grin as Bannister’s eyes lit up with recognition, then darkened with rage.
“Hey, bud,” I said casually.
“You!” Bannister leaped to his feet, abandoned Laura on the ground, and made a beeline right toward me. “You ruined my fucking life, and now I’m going to ruin yours!”
“Fucking bring it,” I spat, and I balled my fists as I raced to meet him.
Bannister lifted both of his hands, and I could tell the air around him was being manipulated somehow. I felt a shockwave of energy pass through me, but I kept going. Behind me, I heard grunts of pain and bodies hitting the floor. Obviously, Bannister had some sort of power that I was impervious to, probably thanks to my cuffs.
I glanced down to see my tattooed cuffs were shining a bright yellow. That had never happened before, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. I just lifted a hand and threw a ball of bright yellow kinetic energy right at Bannister’s face.
Bannister waved an arm in front of him, and the energy ball deflected to the side, landed on a table, and shattered it to smithereens.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Of course Bannister had powers. Strong ones.
But so did I.
We continued toward each other in rage, but I quickly reached into my pocket and slipped the penjig earring in my ear, so I’d be able to anticipate his next move. Bannister lifted his arms again, but I did, too. He shot out whatever power he had, and I countered with an energy shield, so his power bounced back to him. Whatever it was, he was clearly protected against, because it didn’t slow him down. We just continued to approach each other at a near-run, and the rage between us was so thick, I could probably cut it with a knife.
I heard gunshots behind me as the soldiers attempted to take Bannister down, but their shots veered wildly in every direction, and it was clear Bannister had some sort of power to render all firearms useless against him.
It looked like this was going to come down to some good old-fashioned fisticuffs.
Fine by me.
Bannister and I were finally on each other, and the fists started flying instantly. I swung a kinetically-charged fist right at his jaw, but Bannister ate the punch like it was nothing and countered with an uppercut to my stomach, which I didn’t feel at all.
“Ohh, this is going to be fun,” I said with a grin.
I grabbed Bannister by the collar of his Hawaiian shirt and slammed my forehead into his nose. Blood poured out all over us, but Bannister immediately started kneeing my midsection. I grunted from the impact, even if I couldn’t feel the pain, and I knew I needed to get into a more favorable position.
In between the flurry of knees, I struck. I jutted a foot out and pulled Bannister’s body over it, and then we both fell to the ground. I flung myself on top of Bannister, and he landed on his back with an oof as the air left his lungs.
“I knew there was something off about you, you bastard,” Bannister panted as he struggled beneath me.
“No, you didn’t,” I said smugly and held him down. “Bet that pisses you off the most. I just waltzed right into your fancy little party. Took you down from the inside.”
“So you think,” Bannister said with a bloody smile.
“Jonah!”
I looked up to see Laura standing near the artifact cases with a panicked expression on her face.
Bannister attempted to dart out from underneath me, but I slammed my head into his face again and met Laura’s eyes again.
“What is it?” I yelled.
“The artifacts are gone,” she said as her eyes darted around wildly.
“I’m kind of busy right now!” I grunted when Bannister struggled even harder against my grip. “They have to be around here, he wouldn’t have come back otherwise!”
“We’ll find them,” Sloan called out as she joined Laura’s side in her human form.
Before I could respond, I felt a pressure on my leg, and I looked down to see a long piece of splintered wood sticking out from my thigh. Bannister smiled smugly, and then he attempted to wriggle out from underneath me again.
“Oh, cute trick,” I spat as I lifted his torso up and slammed it back into the ground.
Suddenly, two soldiers rushed up to me with their guns pointed at Bannister.
“Stand down!” the soldiers shouted.
Bannister got a wicked grin on his face, and I could hear his thoughts as if he was speaking them directly into my brain.
Get them to shoot, the bullets will ricochet and kill those two broads.
“Don’t shoot!” I cried out, just as Bannister made a wild bid for freedom. “Sloan! Laura! Get down!”
Sure enough, the soldiers fired their guns at Bannister as he attempted to slither out of my grasp, but not a single bullet landed on target. Each round was deflected and veered wildly off course. All three soldiers around us grunted as the bullets embedded into them, and their bodies fell to the ground with wet thuds.
Meanwhile, Bannister was grinning like a lunatic while my eyes desperately searched through the gun smoke for my women.
“They’re dead,” Bannister sneered as he watched my eyes dart around. “No way they survived all those gunshots.”
I hoped he was just being over confident and that the soldiers’ ballistic vests had saved them, but there was no time to check.
“Fuck you,” I spat, and I sank another fist into his bloodied face, but he just continued grinning.
“You might as well let me go now,” Bannister continued in the same relaxed tone. “There’s not a chance you’re getting off this island alive, not when you see your lovers’ bodies riddled with bullet holes. My guess is you’ll be so distraught you couldn’t save them that you take a gun, put it against your own head, and end the pain right here.”
“In your dreams,” I seethed, and I tightened my grip on Bannister as he glanced around for his exit.
“You can’t stop me,” Bannister said with a smug smile. “I’ll be in the wind before I even step off this island. I’m too powerful.”
“You know what, you’re right,” I said as I matched Bannister’s maniacal grin. “It’s better if you never make it off this island at all.”
Then I shot my hands forward and wrapped them around Bannister’s neck. His eyes bulged in shock, and I summoned all of the kinetic energy I could muster as I squeezed.
“Ssssgguungh,” Bannister choked as he hammered at my forearms, but there was no way I was letting go.
I’d made the decision. Bannister was too dangerous to stay alive. I was sure the Director would understand. I couldn’t let my mind wander to whether Sloan and Laura had survived the ricocheting bullets, all I could do was focus all my energy on making sure Bannister took his last breath. I tightened my grip around his neck, and I felt his windpipe start to crack beneath the weight of my crushing hands.
“See you in hell,” I whispered, and I grinned as I watched the light go out of Bannister’s eyes.
When Bannister’s body went limp underneath mine, I shot to my feet. My heart was pounding in my chest as I searched for Sloan and Laura.
“Jonah, over here!”
My knees went weak with relief as Laura’s voice rang out. The blonde agent suddenly popped up over the edge of the wooden platform behind the artifact cases, and she waved both arms above her head.
I ran over to her and Sloan, who popped up a second later, and they both had wide smiles on their faces.
“Look what we found,” Sloan said, and she held up a bag that rattled. Then she pulled the strings open, and I peered inside to see all of the artifacts.
“So, he was coming back to get them,” I said with a satisfied nod.
“Oh, yeah, he probably didn’t trust any of the employees to touch them,” Laura scoffed and flicked her blonde hair out of her face. “And he clearly thought he could get away with all of them before we found him.”
“I feel like we got here just in the nick of time,” Sloan added. “He was clearly equipped with powers, who knows what else he could’ve done. Where is he, by the way? Handcuffed?”
Sloan and Laura both craned their necks to see around me, and I reached down to help pull them back up onto the platform.
“He’s dead,” I said once they were back on the platform.
“Wooooo!” Sloan cheered as she lifted her arms into the air.
“Dead?” Laura asked with a blank expression. She blinked a few times, but then her face broke into a smile. “Like dead dead? No more Bannister? No more bounties on our heads? Are you sure?”
“Oh, I’m sure,” I said, and I flexed my fingers, which were still tight from choking the literal life out of Bannister.
“Amazing,” Laura whispered, and tears sprang to her blue eyes. “It’s over. It’s finally over.”
I pulled the two women in for an emotional group hug, but it was short-lived because a swarm of soldiers raided the platform with their guns raised.
“Stand down!” I cried out as I lifted my arms in the air. “Bannister is dead!”
The soldiers lowered their guns, and a few of them ran to the sides of their fallen comrades and started working on them, which meant they were still alive, thank god. More soldiers swarmed the platform, and I grabbed the women’s hands and led them away from the kerfuffle.
As we made our way back to the shoreline, I spotted a familiar head of hair bouncing toward me.
“Jonah!” Mary sobbed as she ran across the sand and into my arms. “You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m alive,” I chuckled, but I held her tight.
I looked up to see Elaine and Sammy running toward us, as well, and Elaine barreled right into Mary and me for another group hug.
“Amazing work, Jonah,” Sammy said once the hug ended. “The Director has already been updated, and he’s thrilled.”
“Aw, I wanted to be the one to tell him,” Laura pouted.
“Oh, well, you can be the one to tell him about this,” Elaine said with a grin, and she passed something I couldn’t see to Laura.
Laura took the item with a frown, but then her face lit up, and she screamed.
“Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god,” the blonde woman said as tears started streaming down her face. “I-I took it just to see, I didn’t think… oh, my god.”
“Is that a…” Sloan began right before I recognized what the blonde was holding.
“I’m pregnant!” Laura cried out, and then she flung her arms around my neck and sobbed happily.
I held her there on the beach, and my heart was full. Full of love and happiness. We’d done it. Bannister was dead, and we could finally breathe.
And prepare for our babies.
Epilogue
“Perfect,” I said as I stepped back to admire my handiwork.
The wall of our library was covered with various medals and awards my women and I had won over the years. I’d just finished hanging the latest, a Congressional Gold Medal that the President himself had just given me two days ago.
“Do you ever feel bad?” Mary asked, and she leaned her head against my shoulder while she rubbed her eight-and-a-half-month pregnant belly.
“For what?” I asked as I rested my head against hers.
“For doing so much for the United States but then living in Canada?” Mary let out a bark of laughter as she gestured out the window.
The window of our eighteen-bedroom chateau overlooked the stunning wilderness scenery below us. The lakes and trees looked painted against the clear blue sky, and I could hear the other kids laughing and splashing around in the pool outside.
“Not really,” I said with a shrug. “I know it’s important for Sloan to be close to her family. Plus, I think we’ve done enough for our country that they can handle us being a two-hour plane ride from Chicago.”
“Agreed,” Mary giggled, and then she leaned out of the window and shouted to the kids in the pool. “Rowena! Stop teasing your sister!”
I craned my neck to see Rowena, Sloan’s firstborn and my third child, hovering over the pool with her white wings flapping and stirring up waves.
“Daddy, is no fair!” Melody, Mary’s firstborn and my fourth child, shouted loudly. “I no have wings!”
“Rowena!” I called down from the window. “You know the rules. No shapeshifting outside of the training area. Not until you’re ten.”
“Sorry, Daddy,” Rowena said in a sad voice, and she lowered herself down into the water again.
“Wings away,” I added.
I saw Rowena’s little grumpy face frown, but she retracted her wings a moment later. Then Sloan appeared from under the balcony roof, with a hand on her small baby bump, and she waved up at us before she slipped into the water and started playing with the kids in the pool.
Mary and I leaned into each other again, and we watched Laura and Elaine join the others in the pool and play together as one big happy family.
“Oh!” Mary said suddenly, and her head popped up. “I almost forgot. Sammy called earlier.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked curiously. “Any news?”
“Well, firstly he says he’s super jealous about our early retirement.” Mary giggled.
“I bet,” I chuckled. “But we’re still on retainer. We’ll still see him plenty when we’re consulting, we’re just out of the line of fire. Less danger. Can’t be leaving all these kids without a father or one of their mothers.”
“Totally.” Mary nodded in agreement. “He also says the new director came in and tried to pull all the ancient artifacts out of the vaults.”
“No way,” I said as my eyebrows rose in surprise.
Once we’d recovered all of the artifacts from Bannister’s island party, and the others Bannister had in his possession, we spent months documenting and testing each one. It took our twenty-person team over six months of round-the-clock work, and we ultimately decided that the artifacts must never see the light of day again, with a few exceptions.
I looked down at the cuffs that were tattooed permanently on my wrists. During our documentation of the artifacts, we discovered there actually was a way to remove the cuffs, and therefore tattoos, but the Director granted me a super-secret waiver to keep them. We were also able to keep the mikinàk ring and return it to Sloan’s tribe, where it was still passed down through the generations. We even tracked down one other undisturbed tribe in the Amazon and returned their headpiece that had been stolen by Bannister himself.
