Free Renegades by Michaelbrent Collings

said.
    “Ain’t right to leave her like that,” he said.
    “There’s no time,” she said, her voice caught halfway between a whisper and a cry.
    “Don’t matter.”
    Aaron moved past Ken and his family.
    Ken looked at Dorcas.  “Is he…?”
    She nodded.
    A moment later, there was a muffled snap.  A sigh.
    And then Aaron came back, this time with Buck under his arm.  The balding man’s eyes were teary, but he seemed aware.  As they came out of the light, he moved Aaron’s arm away.
    “Thank you,” said Buck.  “I couldn’t.  I just… I couldn’t.”
    “I couldn’t if it’d been my mother, either,” said Aaron.
    Buck nodded.
    Something cracked outside.  The building shuddered.
    “What was that?” said Maggie.
    Aaron looked through the faux door into the area they had just left.  He glanced through furtively, as though looking around a doorway where he suspected armed enemies might be hiding.
    While he was looking, Maggie whispered in Ken’s ear, “Did he kill that old woman?”
    Ken nodded.  Maggie put a hand over her mouth.  Ken looked at her, trying to tell her to stay quiet.  Now was not a good time to have a conversation about the ethics of mercy-killing.
    It worked.  Sort of.  She didn’t say anything, but she looked at Aaron with an expression of supreme distaste.
    She doesn’t know him.  She’s been asleep.  She doesn’t understand what’s been happening.
    But Ken wondered if that was true.  He hoped it was.  But he couldn’t deny that Maggie also seemed to be looking at him strangely.  As though he was not only a part to the mercy-killing, but a party to murder.
    She’s reeling.  From all this.
    She’s going to blame you.
    He was saved from that line of thinking by Aaron as the cowboy drew back into the room.  “Crane just tipped.”
    “It fell over?” Christopher said.  He was smiling hopefully.
    Aaron shook his head and gave a strange half-shrug.  “Not all the way.  Looks like it tipped and hit the building a floor or two down.”
    Silence.
    “What does that mean?” said Maggie.
    “It means they’re below us,” said Ken.  “And we’ve got to figure out a way past them.”
    There was a muted shudder.  A soft sound that might have been a roar, separated by concrete and glass and steel.
    “And we’ve got to do it fast,” said Dorcas.
     

34
     
     
    Everyone looked around.  Even Hope, clinging once again to Ken’s neck, seemed to be peering around the darkened area in which they had found themselves.  Taking stock as quickly as possible, knowing it was only a matter of minutes – perhaps less – before the things were upon them again.
    It looked like they were in what had once been a hallway.  Hard to tell, because the explosion the jet had brought with it had wrought near-absolute destruction.  But there were detached doors and what looked like wall panels in the jagged space.
    There was a click, and a light bloomed in the darkness.  Buck was holding a small LED penlight, the kind that attached to a key ring.  He swung it in a circle, eyeing the dispersed group.
    “Where do you want me?” he said.
    “Here,” said Aaron.  The cowboy gestured for Buck to join him at the opposite end of the destroyed passageway.
    Buck seemed to stiffen.  Whether he viewed what Aaron had done as a mercy or not, Ken couldn’t see him wanting to be with the other man right now.  But he moved to the cowboy without complaining.  Aaron pointed, and Buck aimed the flashlight where Aaron indicated.
    “Come on,” said Ken.  He grabbed Maggie and they moved with Hope and Liz toward whatever Aaron was inspecting.
    Christopher got there a moment before they did.  “What is it?” said the young man.
    Aaron was pulling back some trash, a few felled panels and bits of concrete.  Grunting as he did it one-handed.  Revealing a metal sheet beneath.
    “Can’t get through that,” said Dorcas.  Watching from eyes veiled by pain and exhaustion.
    “Bet we