Centralia General Hospital

United States of America

Centralia, Washington

10 August, 1986

0245 Hours

The elevator dinged and bobbled as it came to rest on the floor. The doors slid open, revealing a crappy 1960's carpet, old coffee machines, and rooms with the curtains drawn to give the patients privacy.

Nancy was holding my hand, Bomber with his arm thrown over my shoulders as we headed toward the door to the room down the hall. The handle was warm in my hand, and the dread I felt inside had less to do with what was beyond the door than the things I might find out.

When the door opened, I saw the young blonde sitting in a chair next to the bed that held my sister Niamh. I didn't notice her that well at the time, my eyes only caring about Niamh, but Bomber's sister Mary-Joe was sitting up straight, one hand in her purse, her blue eyes clear and focused. She was a year younger than me, her face flawless in a healthy Texas farm-girl sort of way. She didn't pull her hand out of her purse, where I knew that she had a tight hold on her M1911A1 Colt .45 ACP, until all three of us in were in the room and Bomber had shut the door.

Niamh was still and pale, the bruising on her face ugly and savage. Her beauty was hidden beneath the swelling, but I could still see the gentle and amazing sister that had crawled under my bed to hold onto me when I was a small and frightened child recovering from years of abuse at the hands of my parents. Both of her arms were splinted, she had an IV line in her neck, and I knew beneath the soft white blankets that she'd have a catheter in and the surgical wounds.

"Niamh." I whispered, moving up to her. I sat down in the chair next to her and rested my head on the bedding, careful not to lay my head on her or her cables and tubes. My eyes were itching and burning, but there was no need to try to surpress it, not in front of my family.

...a real man is not afraid of his emotions...

The tears came, along with the sobs. I held onto the chrome rail of the hospital bed, squeezing it as I cried next to my sister.

All my life I hadn't been worth the water and carbon used to make me. I wasn't going to ever amount to anything, and nothing I did would ever matter. I had believed that, my entire life, and to some extant still believed it.

Niamh had believed in me. In everything I could do. She had comforted me when life came crashing down, found me when I had hidden myself from the entire world and made everything all right again.

Now some white trash piece of shit had tried to kill her.

And for what?

To make our Father kneel in front of the Matrons? For power? For wealth?

What did any of that matter? Niamh was better than I would ever be just by her very existence. If they wanted my Father, then why go after his daughter? What made them go from protecting women, protecting girls, to victimizing them.

I felt that black ball of ice inside of me expand, devouring the emotions rushing through me, freezing them and pulling them away from me. The lizard just watching his monitors as everything just slowly froze up.

Nancy was rubbing my back, comforting me as best as she could. She had seen my cry before, hell, she's seen me scream in agony, but this was different, and I could tell she was thrown off balance.

Bomber was talking softly to his sister, getting updates on Niamh's condition, but I didn't hear them.

All I could think of is the time at the County Fair when I was 10 and Niamh had convinced me to go with everyone. I had had a cast on my arm, tried to hide behind our Father, keep anyone from seeing me. She had brought me out, gotten me on the rides, and gotten me to laugh for the first time in a long time.

She had done her best to get me to stop being small and quiet.

I leaned back in the chair, and Nancy sat down on my lap, putting her head against my shoulder.

"I love you, Anthony." She said softly, reaching down and taking my hand. "I'll be here with you."

"I know." I told her.

Eventually, I slept.

Parking Lot

Centralia General Hospital

United States of America

Centralia, Washington

10 August, 1986

0810 Hours

The summer sun was warm, the heat seeping through my shirt and jeans to warm the skin beneath and ease the soreness in my muscles. I'd slept in the chair, Nancy snoozing in my lap, while Niamh laid in her bed and slowly healed. The doctors had come in at zero seven and collected her for another round of surgeries. They'd told me that she was past the worst of things now, that she was on the road to recovery, but that things would not be easy for her.

She was looking at two more weeks in ICU, a month or two more in the hospital, and then months of recovery time.

Each word from the doctor was emblazoned in my mind. Each injury. Each trauma. Each surgical repair. Each damaged organ and broken bone.

It had been brutal. The doctor tried to reassure me, but I'd been close to violence more than once. Only a few months back I had been seriously injured when three of of the bunkers at Atlas had detonated and I was barely recovered.

I was a boy, which meant I healed faster and was more resistant to pain. Niamh had taken injuries that would have left me dying, and I was proud of her for hanging in there when anyone else would have died.

Two things infuriated me about the whole thing. Someone had performed that vicious beating. That was bad.

The fact that they had just dumped her in front of the ER from a moving car was worse.

They had dropped my injured and dying sister in front of the hospital like a sack of garbage.

I was going to find who had done it, and pay them back in the coin that the boys of my family dealt in.

Pain.

"You OK, brother?" Bomber asked, breaking into my dark thoughts.

We were walking across the parking lot, stretching out muscles and working the kinks out.

"No." I said simply.

"Mary-Joe and Nancy will watch over her, brother." Bomber tried to reassure me.

"I know." I said simply. We were turning the corner, coming around the back of the hospital. There were laundry trucks, food trucks, all resupplying the massive hospital. It was something most people did not think about or see, that the hospital required infrastructure to keep going.

We waved at a Mexican guy who waved at us, and kept walking.

"You think that Herman Munster looking fuck did it?" John asked.

I shook my head, digging out my cigarettes and lighting two. I handed him one. My hand shook as I took a long drag. "I don't know."

"What's the plan?" John asked me, swilling down the last of his root beer and tossing the can in the garbage as we walked by the massive dumpsters.

"Gonna find Reggie and carve out of him who did this." I told him. It was basic, simple.

"What about the Matrons?" John asked.

I shook my head again. "I don't know, John. Last night, I was ready to burn down the Farm and slit the throats of a bunch of old women."

"And today?" John asked. He looked up. "Storm clouds coming."

I nodded at the last. "Yup. Today? Not sure. Maybe just stick close to Niamh, let whatever happens happen and let my Father worry about the rest."

John nodded slowly as we came around the corner.

"Had me worried. You were going blood crazy there at the end." he shook his head. "That seizure last night scared the shit out of me. You aren't fully recovered from when Atlas tried to kill us."

"Speaking of which, how's the arm?" I asked him.

He held it up, the sleeve sliding down his arm to expose the surgical scars where the doctors had put hardware in there to straighten the bone and hold it together. "Aches today. Not sure why."

I shrugged. "Weather shift, maybe. Storms come up fast around here, has to do with the mountains."

"It's beautiful here." John said, waving one hand in the direction of Mount Rainier. "Like Germany, only not as shitty." He chuckled. "Goddamn, first thing I did when we got Stateside was stop and get some real American food."

"Philistine." I laughed. Despite the way he was making it sound, John liked German food, it was just a common bitch that most soldiers made.

"Remember the time we accidentally ordered goat burger?" He asked, and I laughed at the memory. Sausage and goat cheese, it had been delicious and John had ordered another plate.

"Fucking weirdos." Was all he said.

We turned the corner and stopped dead.

"Aw, shit." John said.

At least twenty men stood in the parking lot, and I turned as a truck came around the corner behind us and squealed to a stop. About a half dozen of more men jumped out of the back.

Some had rifles, a few had pistols, but those ones stood back. One man stepped forward, a heavy-set man that I'd seen before.

"Aodan. The Matrons want you." Paul McDaurn said. Beside him stood Ruari, a smile on his face as his fingers played over the butt of a pistol he had jammed into the front of his belt like a moron.

"People in Hell want ice water." I said, walking forward. Bomber made a low groaning sound and followed a few steps behind.

"We can do this one of two ways, Aodan." Uncle Paul said.

"Let me guess, quietly, or you'll force me." I said, still walking forward. I was within ten steps now and getting steadily closer. Anything under eight steps and I'd be golden. By the time they got their weapons into play I'd be in among them.

"Pretty much." Ruari grinned. Another step.

"Maybe I like the hard way." I said. Another step. I was in range. Now to just get Bomber in range.

"That woman won't." Ruari's voice carried more triumph than he had any right to feel. "The Matrons want all three of you." Two more steps. I looked docile, slumping my shoulders and rolling them forward, slumping slightly, and flexing my knees. It made me look smaller, took almost four inches off my height, and hid how heavy I was.

"Tough shit." Bomber grated. "I ain't beholding to no Matrons." Six steps now, Bomber was within the zone, but not by much.

Another step.

"We got enough boys here to bring you in." My uncle Lochlan said. "Don't do nuttin' stupid, Annie."

Another step.

"We got that girl o' yours, Annie." Lochlan kept talking. Another step. Three steps away. Two steps from arms reach without a lunge. I could be in among them and there wouldn't be anything they could do to stop me.

"She's a soldier, she knows the risks." I told them. Another step. They looked startled that I'd write Nagle off so easily, but I guess they didn't get it that I wasn't about to let them use Nagle against me the way they'd used Niamh against the entire family. I saw Uncle Bartley at the back, slowly stepped away and shaking his head. He obviously just wanted to go home to his fat wife and ugly fat daughters.

"Plus, you gotta pay for what you done to my boys, Annie." Ruari said. Another step, and they had no idea what was about to happen.

Little Orphan Annie, tiny and afraid. The boy stand there and let bullies pound on him, who didn't speak unless spoken too. Too many felt that Martha was teaching me right, to be respectful, and as for the physical abuse, well, some kids need a beating to learn respect.

"Three-one-seven online." Bomber said. My uncle Paul looked at Bomber with confusion.

"Watch..." another one of my uncles said.

...now...

Everything slowed down.

Eighteen men in front of me. Six armed with rifles. Four with pistols. Assume all have knives. Twelve with military or law enforcement training. None of them under twenty. Eight men behind me. Two with rifles. One with a pistol. Assume all have knives. Two with law enforcement training, three with military training.

Four cars on the right, nearest was twenty-three steps away. On the left was the hospital building. Hard tarmac at my feet. Sixty-eight steps to the street. Two hundred steps minimum to the edge of the building, another one hundred steps to my pickup.

Assets consisted of the knife I'd taken off my cousin, concealed at the small of my back. My training. my strength and endurance. My willingness to kill or maim other humans.

And John Bomber.

John was already moving, same as me, stepping forward.

I was on Ruari before he really knew what was happening. Ruari's mouth was open when my fist connected with it. It snapped shut and two of his teeth came free after sheering off the end of his tongue. His eyes rolled back, and I knew he was finished for this fight.

"...out!" the shout finished.

John hit my cousin Jarlath in the side of the head with that massive right hand of his. There was a crunching sound and Jarlath's eyes rolled back as he pitched to the side.

We were in among them. Punching, kicking. Uncle Bartley ran for his cruiser, and about the time I grabbed Uncle Ultan and judo-flipped him so he slammed back first to the tarmac Uncle Bartley was speeding up the road away from the hospital.

Punches were hitting me. The stock of a shotgun hit my side. A side kick from one of cousins hit me in the hip. A fist in my left eye didn't matter, I could barely see out of that eye for the last couple months anyway, but I could tell a cut had opened. Another punch that made my ear go hot and tingling as I almost broke Uncle Paul's nose clean off.

I was driven to my knees when one of my cousins tackled me. I drove an elbow into the back of his head, grabbed his head as he went to raise it, and slammed his face into my knee.

A rifle butt hit the back of my head, pitching me forward. Half of the lizard's monitors went down, but I was still in the fight. I rolled away from the kicking feet, grabbed an ankle and broke it, then grabbed a belt and got halfway up.

Another rifle butt to the head, and I hit the ground. I wasn't out, but I couldn't move. My fingers just scrabbled at the tarmac. I tried to get up, but someone put their boot in the middle of my back and pinned me to the ground.

"Jesus Christ, you got that Texan?" Someone asked.

The voice that answered was strained. "Yeah. He's strong as a damn bull though. You got Annie?"

"Had to knock him goofy, but yeah, we got him." Uncle Paul said. "Why the hell didn't they warn us?"

"You better kill me now, because if I get loose, I'm going to kill every last one of you." John said.

"Cuff 'em." Uncle Paul continued.

I felt my arms wrenched behind my back and three sets of steel cuffs were locked around my wrists.

"Christ, I'm glad that scar-faced girl didn't fight us like these two did." Someone else said. My ears were ringing and the sound was going in and out. "Glad she came quietly."

"The Matrons want them. Let's take them." Paul said. "We'll let the Matrons handle these three."

...dammit...