ALICE

Chapter 59: WISH

  Chapter 59: WISH

 The boat came, eventually. Taco and Alice loaded Nine onto the craft. He was in and out in terms of consciousness, but couldn’t walk or talk straight. That worried Alice, maybe he had brain damage.

 The team was wrapped up in blankets to protect them from the icy sea-spray. A lot of the group’s gear had been left in the cave in the side of the cliff, including wrecked weapons and clothes that would probably never get dry. The boat ride was cold but luckily uninterrupted by any LSF troops. Alice drifted in and out of sleep now that Angel had deemed it safe.

 The girl was lying in the center of the boat, covered completely with a heavy grey blanket that she at one point pulled off her head to look around.

 The ride took a total of three hours before the boat was met by a hovering helicopter. Two powerful looking rotors held it in mid-air, making a huge whirlpool in the water underneath it. When the boat was directly underneath the helicopter, a thick steel cable with an iron hook was lowered from it. The man who had been driving the Zodiac guided the hook down to a steel ring in the floor of the boat. He clipped the hook on, and then said something into his radio handset. The cable started raising, taking the Zodiac with it.

 When the boat was about three meters underneath the helicopter, it started moving in the same direction that the boat had been going in. Alice sat on the pontoon, watching as the glaciers in the water whizzed by through the folds in her blanket.

 (BREAK)

 When the helicopter touched down outside of the dark, night-time camp, there was no applause. There was no crowd waiting to congratulate the team. Just Jacob Glass in his wheelchair, next to Kendo.

 Alice dragged the girl over the pebbles on the ground, dropping her at Kendo’s feet. He nodded, and then cut her ropes with his knife. He carried her from the ground towards the medical tent, presumably to see Alexei. They were close, until a shot rang out. Alice could see the bullet strike the rocks on the ground near the girl, but it missed her and Kendo entirely.

 Alice drew her pistol and aimed to the direction from which the shot came. Alice could see the scope glint nearly a mile away.

 “Taco! Gun!”

 He tossed her his AK-47, and ran toward the wall, the best part of cover that she could get to.

 She crouched, and then carefully aimed her rifle at the glint. She took two careful shots but neither hit the glint. Alice got back behind cover as another shot whizzed by, punching a large hole in a tent.

 Redd ran up to her, holding a sniper rifle fresh from the armoury. He dived to a prone position, grunting as he jarred his ribs. He aimed down the scope, and took a moment, drawing in his breath. When he was ready, he carefully squeezed the trigger and absorbed the kick. The glint was obscured and it didn’t come back. A second figure, probably his spotter, started high-tailing it to something that looked like a Jeep. Redd tried to take another shot but his focus had been lost, and he missed.

 Alice leaned back against the wall, putting Taco’s gun on the ground. The adrenaline ran through her body, for the first time today. She didn’t like snipers. They scared her.

 Alice couldn’t think straight. Everything was broken. Her aim was bad. Her psyche was actually breaking down.

 Alice didn’t want to kill.

 She didn’t ever want to kill again.