Page 116 of Ricochet

Inside the basement, light filtered in through the high windows, and I scanned the area, listening for sound. At a scrape of metal, I flanked right, but as I slipped through a second door, my body went light before I realized the floor’d given out from under me and I fell through the air.

A cold, hard surface crashed into my back, knocking the air from my lungs. Grit slid beneath my fingertips. I looked up to the faint darkness above me and caught sight of a shadow hovering over the hole through which I’d fallen.

“Sub-basement,” Culling said with a smile in his voice. “I visited this place as a child once, with my father, and I thought how horrible it would be to fall down inside of that black hole where no one would ever find me. Who knew what was in there?”

I looked around at all of the obscure shadows, of what appeared to be containers or barrels lining the back wall, but the room remained dark—too dark to see exactly what was down there. “It’s over. DeMarcus knows.” As I slipped along the wall nearest me, keeping to the shadows out of sight, an odd metallic smell hit the back of my throat. “The FBI knows. You’re finished.”

“DeMarcus is nothing but a fucking fly in my ointment. I have connections, and let’s not forget, I had a highly motivated serial killer on my ass. Even if I didn’t shoot you, your ass would land in prison, and I would personally see to it that you didn’t make it past the first night. I will systematically bring every one of you fucks down. Your entire organization of rebellion, starting with you.”

I caught the click of his gun as I laughed. I couldn’t help it. His ignorance was more than I could stand.

“I’m glad you find humor, Nick. A man should always laugh in the face of tragedy. I laughed while I watched the pathetic story about your family. I laughed when your sweet little lesbian friend was tortured. And I’ll be laughing my ass off when I finally put an end to you.”

Rage kicked in at the mention of my family and Lauren, but I swallowed it down and laughed harder. “You’re a stupid bastard, Culling. Conniving, but stupid.”

The air in the room grew thick with tension, and as vapors filled my lungs, a cough tore from my chest, stoking the adrenaline pulsing through my veins at the dreaded sensation that we’d stumbled upon something dangerous. A place where neither one of us would stand to make it out alive.

Gaze locked on him from my vantage point, I raised my gun, left fingers threaded through the trigger.

“So, tell me. Where in the fuck can I find Alec Vaughn?” he asked, irritation clinging to his tone.

I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated. Why hesitate?

I knew the truth. I always had. The night they stole everything was the same night I awoke as something darker, more dangerous. Fearless.

“I am Alec Vaughn. I’m Nicholas Ryder. I’m Achilleus X. I am this entire fucking operation.”

My own words echoed inside my head.

Flashes of memory whipped behind my eyes. The fire. Ice cold snow against my cheek, and a voice telling me to get the fuck up. The hospital. Despair. Months of therapy. Whispers of Post-Traumatic Stress. A medical record. Dissociative Identity Disorder. Standing on the edge of the Penobscot building, staring down at the city, ready to jump. Alec’s voice inside my head. “Revenge.” Revenge. The blackouts. Aubree. Catching the sadness in her smile on TV. A bruise. A scar. A slap from Culling, away from the camera. The note she left behind for the priest at her father’s funeral, the one I keep tucked in my pocket, that read, ‘Save Me’. The desperation to help her. The urge to save her. Seeing through Alec’s eyes, as he stabs Marquise with the needle. Watching as he orchestrates the gruesome sculptures of those fucking pedophiles. The sounds of Jalen’s screams distantly ringing in my ear as the machine crushes his arms. Punching Alec in the face, staring down at my bloody knuckles, then back to my shadow and the hole in the drywall, where I was certain I’d hit him—certain I’d hit Alec.

Out of body experiences. Almost like a dream, and I was the observer. Disconnecting from myself and handing the reins to Alec, my doppelgänger who crossed the line I feared to tread. The one that would make me more beast than man. The one that made me question how far someone could go to ease the pain of losing so much at once.

His thirst for violence mirrored my own, but where I was bogged down with guilt, Alec was remorseless and ruthless. A cold-blooded killer, borne of my desperation to carry out the promise I’d made to my wife.

He was the dark half of me. The one who had the balls to inflict merciless pain. To punish.

“Alec is my design. The hero in a game. My revenge.”

“Well, then,” Culling gritted out. “That changes everything.”

Flashes of light preceded the crack of gunfire.

I ducked behind a nearby barrel, but not before taking a shot to my thigh. My body, so numb with adrenaline, hardly registered pain.

Sparks flew as the bullets pinged against steel, and a flame ignited, burning a puddle of fluid just a few feet away from me that lit up the sub-basement.

After two more shots, Culling recoiled and gripped his throat, before stumbling forward and falling down into the hole.

Landing in the flaming pool, his jacket lit up like kindling. He kicked in a violent seizure, as the blaze swarmed him, and in the flames’ glow, I spotted the hole in his neck where the bullet must’ve ricocheted back at him when he fired at the steel shelving behind me. Blood gushed into a widening pool around his head. Flames engulfed him, while he lay gasping for breath, a look of sheer horror on his face. He reached out for me, his mouth gaped to a silent scream. Within seconds, his entire body was covered in flames, and his body jerked, as the orange glow intensified, consuming his flesh like a ruthless predator.

His gurgles broke into a pathetic sort of mewling. I lifted my gun, but hesitated. Not a single part of me wanted to offer him mercy. No one had offered my family mercy.

Burn it. Julius’s words beat inside of my skull.

Movement in my periphery guided my eyes to a shadowed corner of the room. Jay stepped forward, carrying his blanket, wearing his pajamas—so out of sync with the hell surrounding me, as he kept his distance, watching me.

I knew he wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.