Cracking Bones

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was nearing dawn when I heard footsteps. Large boulder formations blocked my view of the approaching people. From the sounds I was hearing, I determined that there were two adults walking on a southwest course. Silently, I ran through the large rocks, working in a pattern that would keep me from view. I jumped up on the back of a boulder, lodging the toes of my boots into small cracks in the rocks. My limbs were tired from being on the move for almost twenty four hours, but I refused to let my muscles shake as I held my position.

Sylex was quick in her response to my adrenaline rush, demanding through my wristband that I send her a report. The wristband accurately interpreted my non-verbal communication to Sylex: I was safe but unable to communicate. The light tattoo against my arm returned immediately, conveying her confirmation. I could feel the multiple sensors in my body come to life as they were accessed by surveillance personal of the Provincial Syndicate.

I waited for ten minutes before I heard the walkers approach my hideout. I silently crept up the back of the rock until I could peer over the top. A man and a woman, laden down with the needed supplies for a journey through the desert, passed by me. A quick scan of my sharp eyes told me that they had no weapons within immediate reach and they had not been alerted to my presence.

I nimbly climbed to the top of the boulder and dropped down the ten feet in front of it. I let myself land on my boots with an audible thud. The couple whirled around; the woman screamed before the man clamped his hand over her mouth.

“Who are you?” he demanded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders protectively.

“Enforcer,” I stated. His eyes widened as he realized that they were doomed. He reached for his hidden gun in what seemed like an agonizingly slow motion to me. Without taking my eyes off of him, I shot one of my favorite weapons at him from my glove. The small missile struck his reaching arm and immediately disintegrated. He looked at me questioningly before he began screaming. The woman ripped open his sleeve and exposed the rapidly spreading burn of sizzling and bubbling flesh as the advanced acid literally ate his arm away.

“I need information.” I stepped forward and tossed the woman away from him as if she weighed nothing.

“Answer me and I will spare your life,” I told him, squatting next to his fallen body. He gritted his teeth as he clutched his arm, the acid working closer to his chest.

“Fifteen seconds before it eats away your heart.” From the set of his jaw, I saw that he was going to die before he told me anything. My ear twitched as I picked up another interesting sound. A third heartbeat, weaker than the other two. The woman had a child.

“I may have another method of motivation for you.” I pulled a long knife from its slender holster concealed along my leg and brought it down just under his shoulder in a swift slice. He threw his head back and howled to the sky as the remnant of his arm fell to the ground.

I left him there and stalked over to the woman, who cowered on the ground.

“Where is the child?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she stammered. I stared at her with dead eyes until she displayed the appropriate amount of fear. I took a handful of her hair and flipped her over face first into the dirt. On her back, in a shaded basket of sorts, was a male child, approximately two and one half years of age. This would be easier than I had originally thought.

I pinned the struggling woman down with one hand on her back and retrieved the child with the other arm. I took him over to the one-armed father, whose face was white and terrified as he stared at his child.

“Don't hurt him,” he gasped, clutching his bloody stump of an arm.

“I will kill you and the woman before I leave. If you give me the information I seek, I will leave the child alive. If you do not, I will dismember it before your eyes until you give me what I want. I will begin with this.” I held up a small tool in front of his face. “This is used for skinning the flesh off of human beings. And this,” I took a small vial from its compartment, “will slowly burn his body from the inside out while he screams for his father to save him. Choose wisely.”

The anguished struggle on his face was a joy to watch. “What do you want to know?”

“Where were you were just coming from?”

“I can't tell you that,” he choked out. Tears began running from his face as he reached for his son. I calmly drew the boy back just out of his reach. “We're all going to die out here, one way another. I can't tell you that and betray my brothers.”

I stood up and looked between his helpless form and the child who was beginning to cry in my arm. “So be it.”