Apolonia

Benji shook his head and then pulled me up and across the back room to the back door. Tsavi was already outside, using her strange weapon to take out the knees and shoulders of the soldiers shooting at us. She grabbed my arm and pulled me across the alleyway to the next building. It was still dark in the early hours of the morning.

Benji stayed behind, trading punches with a soldier and finally getting him on the ground. I glanced back, pulling away from Tsavi, to see Benji grab the soldier’s weapon and then run to catch up. By the time he joined us, the ringing in my ears was beginning to subside. Tsavi was barking orders at Benji, who was holding an AK-47 as if he’d held one since birth.

“Rory? You okay?”

I nodded and then pulled my arm from Tsavi’s grasp. “Feeling a little manhandled at the moment.”

“You were stunned,” Tsavi said. “We didn’t have time to wait.”

“Where are Dr. Z and the others?” I asked.

“Last I saw, Apolonia was engaged in some serious hand-to-hand combat while Cy was helping Dr. Zorba out,” Benji said.

“So, they’re coming?” I asked.

Benji shook his head and then looked to Tsavi. A soldier came around the corner, and Benji gunned him down.

“Shit! Benji! You just killed him!” I said, covering my mouth.

“We can’t stay here,” Benji said. “We’re vulnerable. We’ve got to keep moving.”

Tsavi nodded once. “Agreed. We can circle back and get the car.”

“In theory,” Benji said. “Let’s move.” Benji took my arm and kept me with him, pointing the AK-47 in every direction he looked, which was a lot of directions. He looked less like the Benji I knew and more like the soldiers I saw in the Nayara.

We weaved in and out of the shadows. The farther we trekked from the radio station, the more I worried that we would lose the others.

“Your dad taught you to shoot one of those?” I asked.

“He taught me to shoot a lot of things,” Benji said so quietly that it was barely audible. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. Instead, he glanced around corners, up, down, and behind us.

“You didn’t bring us out here to kill us, did you?”

Benji stopped and looked down at me. “What?”

“We’re separated from the others. You could kill Tsavi and me, and you could tell them any story you wanted.”

Benji glanced at Tsavi, who was several feet ahead and checking the street we were about to cross. He stared into my eyes and gripped his weapon. “I’m sorry,” he said, frowning, “but what’s it going to take for me to dig up that seed that Cyrus planted? Do you honestly think I could ever hurt you? Kill you, Rory? Seriously? That hurts.”

I looked down at his rifle. “You’re carrying a huge, crazy-looking gun. You took out a highly trained soldier to get it. I don’t know what to think, except that there’s a whole side of you that I don’t really know at all.”

Benji searched my eyes for a moment and then touched my face gently. I opened my mouth to speak, but he put his mouth on mine, slow and tender. His mouth was warm and soft, exactly the way I remembered. He pulled away, touching his forehead to mine. “You know me. I’m the guy who’s been following you around, gladly taking your crap for two years. I’m not any different, except maybe not as pathetic as you thought.”

I shook my head, but the rest of my body was frozen. “I never thought you were pathetic. Too happy, yes.”

“Too happy?” he said, raising one eyebrow.

“Annoyingly so.”

He grinned. “Maybe it was just being around you.”

Tsavi sighed, clearly uncomfortable witnessing our exchange. “Okay, you two. It’s time to circle back. I haven’t heard gunfire in a while, and I just saw a fleet of military Humvees driving east.”

Benji took my hand, and we followed Tsavi, but we didn’t circle back. We ovaled back, taking the route that was parallel to the way we escaped.

More people were in the street, looking stunned and confused, pointing at the hole in the KIXR building.

Tsavi stopped and climbed into the backyard of a house sitting across from the radio station. There was no car in the drive, and the lights were dark.

“The police will show up here soon,” I said.

Benji shook his head. “They’re not in charge anymore.”

I began to get nervous. The entire northwest corner of the building was gone, bricks and concrete reduced to rubble. If Cy, Apolonia, or Dr. Z were still inside, I was afraid they weren’t coming out.

With each passing minute, panic began to set in. Benji’s Mustang was still parked in the same place, covered by large pieces of metal siding and smaller pieces of concrete. Hopefully, the front windshield was still intact.

“Stay here,” Benji whispered. “I’m going to check for tracers and things.”

“Tracers and things?” I said, feeling anxious about him going over there alone. “What are tracers? And what things?”

“A tracer is basically an expensive GPS. Things could be something more…invasive…like explosives.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so are you saying your dad also taught you how to defuse a bomb?”

“That he did not,” Benji said, cradling his rifle under his arm and running across the street. He immediately slid under his Mustang like he was Chuck Norris.

“I think he’s enjoying this,” I said.

“That’s a defensible notion,” Tsavi said, nodding a few times before grinning down at me.

The people in the street seemed to be too afraid to get to close to the building, but some of them were on their cell phones, pointing at Benji.

“We should go look for them,” I said. “What if they’re hurt?”

“Patience,” Tsavi said, her voice low and calm.

“I don’t believe it,” I said, seeing the ugly, smelly cat. It was rubbing against Benji’s green sneakers, which were poking out from under the Mustang as he searched the underbelly of his car.

“Wasn’t the cat inside when they blew up the front half?” Tsavi asked, bewildered.

I wasn’t even going to make a nine-lives reference. It was too easy.

Benji scooted out from under his car and petted Snuggles.

“Really? Is he really going to do this now?” I said.

Benji jogged back to our side of the street, huffing as if he’d just finished his daily run.

“What was that all about?” I asked.