Boondocks

Chapter 48: Avenging Angel

TEX

Merle took the lead, steps long and silent up to where the wall ended and a rail began. It opened to a view of the factory below. Conveyer belts loaded with trash all led to one large bubbling vat of acid in the center of the room. Tubes and levers sprung from its sides, each one leading to one of the many massive silos that lined the edges. They glowed like molten lava, but instead of a bright orange, they shone a familiar neon green. This was it. This was our target.

Cecil grabbed a rope from his pack and knotted it around the rail just as a group of suits spilled through the doors behind us. The men behind me fired, taking suits down in waves even as my men filled with holes. So much blood. So much loss. Five more men gone. It couldn't be for nothing. I couldn't let this be for nothing. "I'll climb down and set the explosives."

"Not with that leg!" Cecil barked.

"The fucking hell I can't. This is my mission. My plan, and if things go wrong, it's on me." I clutched his shoulder and locked eyes with him. "I'll trail the gunpowder so we can get a good head start. I don't know how high this shit is gonna fly once we put some fire to it."

"You got all your old man's stubbornness and none of his goddamn brains," he sneered. "Jesus Christ. Just be careful you dumb son of a bitch! And you better be able to climb back up that rope because if I've got to climb my old ass down to get you, I'm gonna tan your fucking hide."

I didn't doubt him. "I will."

Merle pulled me into a crushing hug. The time had come, victory or death. So close yet so far away. So impossible yet staring me right in the face. "Don't get soft on me now," I said, though my own voice sounded hoarse.

He gripped my braids and pressed his forehead hard against mine, eyes fierce. "I already lost your papa. Don't make me lose you, too. That son of a bitch would never forgive me."

"We're gonna all be lost if I don't start fucking moving."

He let me go and cursed beneath his breath, then watched as I swallowed the pain and pulled myself over the rail. My bicep and leg screamed murder as I used them to support my weight, but I bit down hard and focused on her. This place couldn't exist in her world. I couldn't risk her ever being put here.

My boots hit the ground, and the rest of me set to work. I rushed around the equipment, hurrying for the open vat. If I blew that, the rest would go. I just hoped like hell it wouldn't take us with it. I unzipped the pack and pressed dynamite around the base, then connected them all with the gunpowder, keeping the line going back to the rope and setting more dynamite at its bottom.

Sweat beaded my forehead as I made the climb, but the agony was nothing compared to failure. I couldn't fail, not over pain. Not over a bullet wound. Cecil and Merle helped me back over the rail, then Cecil pulled the rope up and drenched it with the small tin can of gasoline he'd packed in his bag. When he dropped it back down, I stuck another bundle of dynamite on the rail above it.

"That's a lot of fucking explosives," Merle said. "You sure we can even make it far enough away to—"

"I'm not," I said. "But I'm sure I can't leave this place standing."

He nodded, and he and the others moved ahead as I walked backwards and spread the powder behind us. Outside, the war waged on. Two of the towers were gone, reduced to rubble as if taken by flamethrowers, and the other four were empty. I only hoped they'd escaped beyond the gate and weren't laid out beside the original guards.

Men surrounded the perimeter, and the suits had moved to the fence line. They fired back and forth, neither one making the move to close the divide. A small blessing. They were too preoccupied to notice us, but all around, hordes of corpses sprinted without direction, carrying us with them in their chaotic current. They tripped, fell, trampled, screaming as if they wanted those mother fuckers to turn their guns. This wasn't working. This wasn't going to work. "We need to calm these assholes down!"