“I didn’t leave you. I tried to stop them,” Diggs said, fighting the throbbing ache in his temple from where Dawson had slammed the butt of his pistol only secondsbefore.
Dawson let out a low laugh, something that Diggs had never thought he’d hear again, only this time it wasn’t out-of-the-easy camaraderie of a teammate and best friend—but his laugh was pure menace. “You saw your opportunity for an escape and took it. I know exactly what happened. You left me todie.”
Diggs fought to keep his expression neutral, but Dawson’s words were ice to an open wound that hadn’thealed.
“There it is,” Dawson said in a low voice, “there’s the guilt. You never were that good at hiding your emotions. You always were weak. Always fighting to be so big, only to fall soeasily.”
“Dawson, I swear I tried to stop them. It killed me to leave youthere—”
Diggs knew he had misspoke as soon as Dawson’s eyes blackened with fury. “Killedyou?”
“I think about you every day,” Diggs said broken-like, feeling any hint of a past connection between them slipping further and furtheraway.
“I thought about you every day, too,” Dawson’s chilling smile turned to ice. There wasn’t even a hint of feeling left in his voice. “Thought about how good it was going to feel to watch the life slip from your eyes, knowing I was the one to kill you. And knowing you couldn’t do anything to stop me from killing the rest of yourteam.”
“Please, don’t do this. We were teammates. That has to mean something.” Diggs began to slowly inch his right hand down, closer to the small knife strapped to his ankle. Despite the fact that the thought of harming his best friend made bile rise to the back of his throat, Diggs wouldn’t lie there and be a victim. He’d find a way to disarm his teammate and buy himself some time to convince him that he hadn’t left him alone in thelab.
“Just like it meant something when you turned and walked out that door, even when I begged you tostop?”
“Walked out? Man, I was bleeding out on the floor next to you. They carried me out of that room.” Confused and desperate, Diggs had to fight the urge to stop going for his knife. Dawson’s expression was unwavering, and his best friend didn’t seem to be alive behind those dark eyesanymore.
“Maybe you thought I was too out of it see, but I was wide awake. I saw you. You might as well have killed me yourself.” The once steady hand gripping the pistol shook. “Do you really think I could ever forget the pain of watching my best friend turn his back onme?”
Diggs was only a couple of inches from the knife now. It would be close, but it was his only hope. Dawson wasn’t in his right mind, and Diggs didn’t know what they had done to him, but he began to suspect they might have scrubbed his memory somehow. “No, don’t you remember? I was on the floor next to Quantum; they had you on the table. Both of us had been incapacitated. I heard them—they’d overdosed all of us to test ourreactions.”
“Really? And what—they implanted some new memory in my head? Made me think my team had betrayed me?” Dawson’s hand continued to shake, but he kept the gun level andaimed.
Diggs kept talking, he had about an inch left. “Hell, yes, they screwed with all our heads. You know that. Our entire team has had to go into hiding, because we can’t fucking be around other people without having some kind of seizure or brain overload. They did that—they did that to all of us. Fight it—fight whatever they’ve done to you. You know we would never betray the team. You took the oath—same as me. The team comesfirst.”
The wild glow in Dawson’s gaze gave way and a cold, expressionless mask slid into place. “That’s right, I took the oath and you broke it. No moretalk.”
Diggs’ fingers brushed the hemline of his pants. Dawson’s hand steadied. He dropped the gun an inch and squeezed the Trigger. Pain ripped through Diggs’ gut and threw him flat on his back. He clutched his stomach below his bullet proof vest, his hands warm with his ownblood.
Dawson stepped over him. Diggs made a grab for his ankle, touched his teammate’s boot, only to have Dawson kick him away. Weakness flooded his system, cold seeped outward into his limbs. He couldn’tmove.
Dawson stopped to lean down into Diggs’ line of sight, not an ounce of regret visible on his face. “I want you to live long enough to hear the rest of our team die. So, try not to pass out too soon from the blood loss, this should only take aminute.”
“John,” Diggs rasped out, the pain keeping him pinned to the spot on theground.
“I’ll see you in hell, brother.” Dawson walked away and Diggs turned his head and watched him leave,helpless.
Through the opening in the crates, he could see King moving into position, just like they’d planned. Dawson was behind the crate closest to him. Diggs sucked in a breath to scream, only to gasp in agony. The bullet felt like it was lodged in hisbody.
His worst nightmare was coming to life before his very eyes. He’d always known deep down that he was a failure; he’d let down Dawson and Quantum, but he’d never imagined a nightmare like this. He’d not only failed his best friend, he was fixing to witness his entire team bemurdered.
Diggs managed to roll onto his side, wheezing and clutching his stomach in an attempt to slow the flood of blood leaving his body. Dawson was less than 10 feet from King, who had his back to the other man and was scanning the opening where the rest of the terrorists were set to arrive for themeet.
Like the ghost he was, Dawson rose behind King, lifting his arm in one fluid movement. Diggs dug his nails into the concrete, braced himself for the blast of agony, and forced out a hoarse yell. King dove left, Dawson fired, and the bullet buried in the wood crate where King had been standing a split secondbefore.
Blackness teased the edge of Diggs’ vision, but he kept his toehold on consciousness, knowing he’d have to warn the team somehow. But that one precious yell had cost him dearly, blood poured through the Dragon Skin body armor, soaking hishand.
He heard King’s surprised grunt, and then the sound of flesh meeting flesh. Keeping his lids peeled, he watched King dive for Dawson and pin the man down to the ground, King’s strength an unstoppableforce.
And instead of fighting his hold, Dawson went limp. Diggs knew the moment King eased up on the chokehold, and recognitiondawned.
Suddenly, without the slightest shift in expression, Dawson’s arms swept around and down onto King, knocking his grip free in what had to be a bruising strike. King’s heavy weight brought them down, but Dawson was already rolling up into a crouch, sprinting for hisgun.
King recovered quickly, rolling to his back, and coming up with his own weapon in hand. He fired off a round, and then Diggs watched in horror as a bullet bit into King’s eye and he hit the ground hard. Only King didn’t lie there helplessly like Diggs, he kept firing indefense.
