“Mason.”
It was my mother.
“Mason.”
What the hell had I fought for before Rachel if not them? What the hell had I sacrificed so much for, removed so much of this life’s joys for, if not trying to avenge them?
“Mason…”
And then everything happened to Rachel; what had we as a club fought for if not the opportunity to avenge what had happened to her?
“Mas…on…”
No.
I couldn’t fucking die with the Bandits still alive. Only when Rachel found peace and the memory of my parents found peace could I myself find peace. Only when that…when that fucking happened…would I find…fucking peace!
“Mason!”
“Goddamnit, this is a fucking wound!” I yelled.
Everything came rushing back. Oh, that leg wound was fucking awful, and it was going to require some medical attention at some point. But I was here. Axle was here. Gunfire was still going on nearby, but for the moment, we were safe. Who knew how long that would last if I kept throwing a pity party, though.
“Way to pull yourself back,” he said, “but I need you to keep going. We’re almost there.”
I nodded and extended my hand out. Axle gripped it tight and yanked me up off of my ass and onto my feet. I could barely put any weight onto the leg. There was a decent chance that I was making things worse in the long run for the leg.
But everything “in the long run” could be sacrificed for the short-term goal of killing Eduardo and the Bandits.
“Mason.”
For Mom.
“Mason.”
For Dad.
“Mason!”
For—
I hadn’t thought that last shout. Rachel was nearby. Nearby enough that I could hear her screaming.
“Down the fucking hall to the right!” I roared.
Sentimentality was over. It was time to murder some fucking Bandits.
Axle and I did a variant of cover-and-move, using the kicked-down doorways for cover as we laid down suppressing fire, moving down the hallway and taking out Bandits. The ones moving perpendicular to us were moving backward, suggesting that the other Reapers from the front were making progress, but to wait for them to come would take too long.
I had a horrifying image in my head of busting down the door on Eduardo, only to see him already in the act with Rachel. I’d fucking castrate the asshole and make him choke on his own junk if that happened, but it would be too late to save Rachel.
We kept pressing forward and forward. There was no fog of war anymore—quite the opposite, really. There was only the clarity of purpose. I couldn’t say the problems with the leg vanished, but I stopped giving it any extra attention. I accepted the hobbling and the limping and just moved forward with it, as strangely natural a movement as if I’d had two good legs.
We finally got to the corner of the last hallway, and when I peered around the corner, I saw two things.
One, there was Eduardo, all the way back to the second-to-last door.
And two, about a half-dozen Bandits lined the hallways, each of them with more rapid-fire machine guns and stronger weapons than the ones before them.
