Free Meridian Six by Jaye Wells Page A

attention. Rabbit was backing away, shaking his head.  "I--I," he stuttered, face pale.
    "Stop." Icarus commanded.
    My vision filled with scarred Icarus in the foreground and the fires of the Troika's death machine burning in the background. Rabbit's head shook back and forth. I couldn't blame the kid for his fear. Icarus wanted that child to run toward Castor and his dragon, but anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would have run and kept running.
    The kid stumbled on a rock. "Rabbit," Dare said, lurching forward. But Icarus shot her a look to stay out of it.
    "I ran once, too." His quiet admission stilled my feet. He nodded. "During the battle of New York."
    My eyes flared. "You were there?"
    He nodded but kept his eyes on the kid. "I was twelve. Old enough to hold a gun, my father said. Old enough to fight."
    I swallowed hard, remembering the chaos of those horrible days. The hunger and the noise and the smell of decay.
    "Mom had died months earlier from an infection in her lungs. Dad tried real hard to teach me how to be brave in a fight. We sparred all the time and he made me practice shooting until I could hit a bull's eye every time." He licked his lips. "But all that training? It wasn't anything like the battle." His eyes went soft focus like he was watching a horror film in his head. Finally, he shook himself. "When dad got shot, it ... broke me. I'd been so gung ho to kill as many vamps as I could until the moment I saw the red of my father's blood on my own skin. He kind of slumped over and I just snapped. Before I knew what I was doing, I was running as fast as I could without looking back. It wasn't until a few blocks later that I caught back up with myself. I still had the gun but I'd left my father's body behind in a gutter." His voice thickened with remorse.
    I blinked quickly to clear the stinging. Rabbit was frozen, entranced by the story.
     "I threw up twice before I gathered enough courage to go back. The battle had progressed and had taken over the block where I'd left him, so I had to be very careful. Luckily, I was pretty small for my age and could hide whenever a vampire patrol rolled past. It took me half an hour to get back the distance it had taken me five minutes to cover before."
    Behind Icarus, Dare had gone quiet. Her expression was pained, like she couldn't decide whether this talk was what Rabbit needed or whether to protect him from the truth. I looked back at Rabbit and realized he was the same age as Icarus was in the story. Damn.
    "When I got near the spot, a patrol had already found dad. I crouched behind a car and watched as one of the vampires nudged the body with a boot. It took everything I had not to rush out and attack that bastard for daring to disturb my father's dead body. But then the first scream reached me."
    Rabbit squeezed his eyes closed.
    "You see, my father hadn't died from the bullet."
    My head started shaking to reject the horrors I knew were about to spill from his mouth.  "Icarus--"
    "Once they realized he was alive, they decided to play a little game."
    "Stop," Dare whispered. "Please."
    Rabbit's eyes opened wide as saucers. I wanted to punch Icarus for putting the kid through this. But then I realized that Rabbit didn't have the luxury of innocence. None of us did.
    "First they stretched his body over the hood of a car. Then they took turns wounding him in increasingly elaborate and creative ways. By the time I came roaring from my hiding place, they'd ripped out one eye and peppered his arms and legs with more bullet holes and bite marks." His voice had taken on an edge of steel. "I managed to put a bullet through my father's brain and kill the bastard who took his eye before they took me down. If a superior officer hadn't come by and stopped them they would have done the same thing to me before they killed me. You see, dad was old and wounded, so he didn't matter. But me? I was strong and young, and the officer said the Troika would need slaves to build