Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

The head bounced on the carpet and kept gnashing its teeth. He scooped up the dead girl and carried it to the window. It hit Avenue E right in front of Danielle’s workshop.

He still couldn’t remember her name. He tried to blame Smith’s brainwashing and push it from his mind. He closed the door behind him.

St. George checked two more empty offices, then found one filled with desks, chairs, and other pieces of office furniture. It had never crossed his mind that Stealth had to put everything somewhere. He wasn’t sure why she’d cleaned out all the offices to start with. It had never come up.

In the hallway on the far side of the building, the knob on the first door stuck. He tried to jiggle it twice, but it was solid. The door was locked.

He thought about leaving it. An ex wouldn’t’ve locked doors. Even if it somehow had, it couldn’t unlock them.

He sighed. A twist of his wrist snapped the tumblers inside the lock. The knob turned with a metallic rustle and a scrape.

The room was dark, but it smelled different. His flashlight beam hit the pile of blankets and the bag of empty cans and he realized what it was. The room smelled like the stages in the Mount when they’d first been converted into apartments. It was the smell of living in a small area.

Something moved across the room. He saw the figure, a shadow against the slightly brighter window. It was holding its arms out.

He brought up the flashlight and a gunshot thundered in the room. The round struck his front teeth, right on the left incisor, and made his gums throb. The flashlight and the bullet dropped to the carpet. He brought his hand up to press it against his lips. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “that stings.”

“Goddammit,” muttered the figure. It was a female voice. “I save my last bullet all this time, and then I waste it on you. Makes sense.”

St. George heard footsteps running in the hall. He reached down and grabbed the flashlight just as Stealth appeared in the doorway. The woman in the room winced away from the bright light and threw her arm across her face, but his mind had pieced enough elements together to identify her. “Are you okay?” he asked. “We’ve got food and water, and I think some basic medical supplies.”

He lowered the beam, and Christian Nguyen glared at them.

WHEN THEY GOT back to Stealth’s office with Christian, Madelyn was fast asleep in Freedom’s arms. Her eyes were half-open, and her jaw hung slack. Her body sprawled like a limp rag doll.

Christian shuddered at the sight and muttered something so low St. George couldn’t hear it.

Freedom looked at Christian. “Miss Nguyen,” he said. “Good to see you, ma’am.”

She said nothing. St. George gestured her to a chair. He nodded at Madelyn. “Is she okay?”

“Just sleeping,” said the big officer. “Or whatever it is she does. Recharging?”

“As good a term as any,” said Stealth.

“She yawned and almost fell over just before we heard the gunshot,” said the captain.

St. George heard a rattling noise. Danielle pushed Barry out of Stealth’s office, using the office chair for a wheelchair. Barry looked slightly more comfortable with it than he did being carried. He had a pillow and a blanket on his lap.

Freedom set Madelyn down on the table and arranged her body so it looked natural, careful that her feet avoided the pile of ashes and burned material. Barry handed him the pillow and the huge officer tucked it under her head. He draped the blanket over her and slid her eyelids closed.

“So,” Danielle asked Christian, “how did you end up here?”

The Asian woman glowered at them. “It was what I could reach when the exes came,” she said. “I thought that psychotic bitch might’ve set some traps or defenses or something that would make it safer.”

“Watch your mouth,” said St. George.

“Make me,” snapped Christian. “I’m sorry you don’t want to be reminded that she finally ran out on all of us, but—”

“More likely,” said Stealth, “I would guess he is hoping to make you restrain yourself before I come up with a more direct way of silencing you.”

Christian gave the unmasked woman a nasty look, took in a breath to respond, and then she recognized the voice. Her face softened and she shrank back.

“What happened here?” demanded Stealth. “Was it Legion? Did Agent Smith cause this somehow?”

Christian’s eyebrows went up at Smith’s name. Then her usual surliness surged over her brief surprise. She settled back in a corner of the room and glared at the heroes. St. George wasn’t sure if it was mild shock or plain old stubbornness.

Stealth took a step toward the former councilwoman, but he held her back.

“You should get some sleep,” said Barry. “You look fried.”

“It’s been a rough two days,” St. George said. “I think I am kind of fried.”

“Both of you sleep,” said Freedom. He nodded to St. George and Stealth. “You need it more than any of us. We can do shifts until we all get caught up.”

“We’ll … we should …” St. George tried to come up with a protest, but part of him realized in the few moments of downtime his brain had started shutting down all on its own.

“I’ll wake you up in four hours,” said the captain.

Stealth took St. George by the arm and guided him back to her quarters. The small cot still had a sheet on it. It looked glorious.

He pulled the shirt off over his head and popped two buttons off in the process. It smelled like death. There were dark stains and splatters all over it, but not enough to hide the fact it had been white once. A few stitches had split on one shoulder. He let it drop on the floor. He didn’t look forward to putting it on again when he woke up.

Stealth peeled off the ragged fleece jacket. There were two or three dark patches on the arms