Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [105]
He is bloodied from head to foot, a walking nightmare, a corpse come out of the grave. It is impossible for Logan to tell if the blood is Michael’s or not. One arm hangs limp, the sleeve of his heavy jacket shredded. He carries his Ronin Flechette cradled in the other, smoke curling out of its short, wicked black barrel.
“Did you hear me?” he snaps at Logan, angry now.
“All dead, I think,” Logan answers. “I’m not sure. I haven’t had time to check.”
Michael shrugs. There is a dangerous glint in his eye. “Wilson’s group is gone, too. Mine is hacked to pieces. They really made a mess of us.” He looks at the prisoners, shakes his head, and mutters something unintelligible. Taking it as an indication he should continue with his efforts, Logan places the iron bar back inside the chain loop and starts to apply pressure. “Leave them!” Michael orders instantly.
Logan turns, not sure he has heard correctly. “But they—”
“Leave them!” Michael roars. He flings his injured arm toward the cage with such force that droplets of blood fly everywhere. “Leave them where they are. Leave them to rot!”
Logan shakes his head in disbelief. “But they’re caged.”
The other stares at him blankly, and then starts to laugh. “Don’t you get it? They’re where they deserve to be!” The laughter dies into something that might be a sob. “All we do for them, all we give up, and for what? So that they can run like sheep to be gathered up again? So that they can go back to being stupid and helpless? Look at them! They make me sick!”
“Michael, it’s not their fault—”
“Shut up!” Michael screams at him, and all of a sudden the Ronin is pointing at his midsection. “Don’t defend them! They killed your friends, your comrades, all the people who made a difference in your life! They killed them just as surely as if they pulled the trigger!”
Logan doesn’t know what to do—except that he knows not to make any sudden moves with the Ronin pointing at him. He could argue that it is Michael who has chosen to attack Midline. He could point out that they all came here willingly, knowing the risk. But Michael’s face tells him that he isn’t going to listen to those arguments. He is barely listening to anything at this point.
“All right, Michael,” he says gently, lifting one hand just a fraction of an inch in a placating gesture. “Let’s just go. Let’s gather everybody up and get out of here. We can talk about it later.”
But Michael shakes his head slowly, and the madness reflected in his eyes is bright and ungovernable. “No, it all ends here, Logan. It all ends tonight.
This is as far as we go.” He shakes his head, and the Ronin dips slightly. “I’ve had enough, boy. I don’t want to live another day in this damned world. I don’t want to endure one more moment of it. I should have killed us both years ago for all the difference it’s made.”
Logan feels a chill in the pit of his stomach. “Michael, that’s crazy!
Listen to what you’re saying!”
“I saved your life; I can take it away.” The Ronin is pointing directly at him again; Michael’s arm is steady as he aims it. “Think about it. Think about how hopeless it is! We’ve lost everything tonight—people, weapons, machines, all of it. Look at me; I probably won’t live another day, and if I do I’ll never be the same. If we don’t end it here, we’ll be caught and thrown into the camps.
We’ll end up just like that!” He gestures again toward the prisoners in the cage. “I made up my mind a long time ago that I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“But these people need our help] What about all the others like them?”
Michael shakes his head once more. “I don’t care about them. What happens to them doesn’t matter. What happens to us does. You and me, now that Fresh is gone. I have to protect us. I promised you I would, when you were still a boy.
We’ve had a good run, but the time has come to step out of the race.”
Logan is holding the Scattershot down by his side.