The Midnight Stand (The Elysia Saga Book 1) Read online

  Harley was breathing heavy and beginning to get flushed in the face. The heat was getting to him and their voices began to sway in and out, like an undulating wave. He was afraid he was going to faint. He was more afraid they were going to call his bluff and grab him anyway. Then what would he do? How would he fight back then? He still had the shotgun, but he didn’t think two rounds were going to get him very far. A part of him wished that they would just shoot him and be done with it, that way this would all be over.

  The argument between Maxon and Bruce brought him out of his haze. “I’m giving you till the count of three, Lennox,” Maxon said. “Otherwise I’m directing the crew to subdue you and you will be brought up on sanctions.”

  Bruce laughed, “You think they want anything to do with that? Look at them. They don’t know what to do on their own. They need a leader, a strong one. Someone who isn’t going to stand by and watch while an entire operation is jeopardized by one guy and a shotgun. Face it Wheeler, your times up.”

  “I knew you’d do nothing but cause problems this whole night. That’s why I requested you be taken off this wreck. You’re nothing but a selfish, loud mouthed, ignorant excuse for a human being and the only reason you got to where you are in the department is because of your last name.”

  As this power struggle was unfolding, Harley saw a set of car head lights come around the corner in the distance to his left. They were approaching fast. Too fast for this time of night.

  The car was coming from the same direction that Harley drove to take Sara and Jasper to her sister’s, but that was surely a coincidence and a long one at that. Sara didn’t even have a car with her to drive.

  She could have taken Dana’s car. Would she do something like that? Harley was pretty sure she wouldn’t, not with Jasper with her. She wouldn’t leave him alone. But Harley also knew his wife was a worrier and an over-reactor. What if their conversation tipped her off to something after all? He thought he had diffused the situation, but maybe he wasn’t as convincing as he thought.

  The argument stopped as both Maxon and Bruce noticed the car approaching. They all turned to watch as the car made a beeline for the house. It came to a stop in front of them. The intensity of the car headlights made it nearly impossible to see who was inside.

  The bottom fell out from under Harley when he saw his wife get out of the car, a look of incomprehensible fear on her face. When she saw Harley standing with the shotgun and detonator strapped to his chest she put her hands up to her mouth in a gesture of shock. Then she started moving towards the house.

  Chapter 17

  Ancil tried to shake the ringing out of his ears. He was on the floor and his vision had started to clear. For a brief second he didn’t remember where he was, then he heard the commotion from just outside where his front door used to be and everything came back to him in an instant.

  He scrambled to his feet and looked for his shotgun. It slid somewhere across the floor in the blast and now he dreaded that his only weapon was out of his reach. Harley was still back there. He had to get him out of the house and to Lee and Ruth’s somehow.

  Sheriff Bailey and his men worked to knock in the remaining portion of door. The blast damaged the door but didn’t bust it in completely and that helped to buy Ancil a little more time. He looked around the living room for the shotgun and saw the barrel of it peeking out from under the couch. He scooped it up and scrambled to his feet.

  “Grandpa!” Ancil turned to see Harley standing by the bedroom door.

  Ancil waved his arm at him. “Get outta here, Harley. Go out the back.” Another loud bang and the front door gave way for the Sheriff and his crew. Ancil raised the shotgun and pointed at them. “Stop right there. Don’t come any closer.”

  Sheriff Bailey and Officer Anderson had their guns aimed straight at Ancil. Daniel was behind them followed by one of the men in white, the one named Conway.

  “There’s my boy.” Daniel said to Conway. “Go get him. Knock the old man down if you have to.”

  “Don’t make me do this, Daniel,” Ancil said. “I was clear. The boy goes nowhere with you.”

  Daniel looked past Ancil to Harley who was cowered at the back of the hall. His expression changed from anger to sympathy. “Harley, listen to me. Whatever your grandfather told you isn’t true. This is not a bad place, in fact it’s a wonderful place where you can be free to do whatever you like and experience new and exciting things. It won’t be like here. Everyone will have the same desire for mutual cooperation. There’ll be no need for jealousy about not getting something your friend has. If you want something, you can have it. Now, doesn’t that sound nice?”

  Harley stayed silent as he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Daniel pressed.

  “Leave him alone,” Ancil said. “You can’t sell him on anything; he’s already made up his mind.”

  “He’s nine, he has no mind to make up. He’s only influenced by those around him and you poisoned him against me. You did it from the day he was born.”

  “I was there for him more than you ever were.”

  Daniel’s pupils narrowed and his face turned a shade of red and purple. He looked like one of those drawings of a person who is about to explode. The only thing he needed was the steam to come out of his ears. “I was out every day providing for my family, making sure they wanted for nothing.”

  “You only provided for your own self-interests, Daniel,” Ancil said. “You think being a part of all this will help you, that you’ll be rewarded somehow. You’re no more important to them than me. You’re running a fool’s errand for these people and you don’t even know it.”

  “Harley,” Daniel called out, “you’re coming with me right now. I’m through playing games.”

  “No,” he said. He was on the verge of tears again.

  “You have until three, then I’m coming back there and dragging you out of here. If that happens I can’t be responsible for what these men do.”

  “Harley, run now. Get out of here,” Ancil said as he readied himself against anyone who tried to get past him.

  “Don’t go anywhere, Harley,” Daniel ordered.

  “Run, I said!”

  Daniel turned to Conway. “What are you waiting for, grab him now.”

  Ancil should have noticed it sooner. If he had, things may have gone differently, but everything moved too quickly after that to think clearly. Once he saw that one of the men in white was missing, it was too late.

  Conway pulled out his own weapon and brought it up. Ancil got off a shot before Conway could get one off himself. The sound was deafening in the small living room, like a bomb going off. The shot hit on the side of Conway into the wall, completely shredding it. Conway dropped for cover on the floor.

  Daniel attempted to rush past Ancil, but was met with a hit to the gut from the butt end of the shotgun. He fell in a heap, gasping for air.

  Another shot rang out and this time Ancil felt himself being thrown back from an incredible force. He hit the wall. His right shoulder burned with hot pain as blood ran down his arm.

  “Don’t make me put another one in ya,” Sheriff Bailey said. Smoke drifted up from the barrel of his gun. “Now drop it and get on the floor with your hands behind your head. Do it slowly.” Ancil didn’t move right away. “Put it down now!” Ancil complied with the order and dropped the shotgun.

  Daniel was still on the floor, clutching his stomach. “Just shoot him,” he gasped.

  “Shut up,” Sheriff Bailey shot at Daniel. Still with his gun focused on Ancil he said, “Now get down on your stomach.”

  Ancil was down on one knee, with his right leg out in front of him, the leg with the bowie knife hidden in his boot. He quickly glanced up and saw Officer Anderson standing less than two feet away. A ceramic vase was standing on a side table to his left. If he was to get out of this he had to act fast and he had to act now. He braced himself for action and counted to three in his head.


  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Ancil grabbed the vase and threw it at Sheriff Bailey. It hit him square in the face, breaking his nose. Then, with a speed that even he didn’t think he had, he sprang up, took the knife from his boot and grabbed Anderson by the wrist, twisting his arm around his back and causing the gun to drop from it.

  Anderson cried out in pain as Ancil wrenched his arm up, threatening to break it. He dug the knife into Anderson’s neck, drawing blood.

  Ancil’s shoulder throbbed with each movement he made, but he fought through the pain. He learned to fight through pain and block it out of his mind during his tours in the Mid-East. There was no time to think about the pain over there. You either kept moving or you died.

  “You sonafobitch!” Sheriff Bailey screamed through his blood covered hands. His voice was muffled. He sounded like he had the world’s worst cold. “I’m haffing yer ash fo thish.”

  “Nobody gets any closer or I open his neck.” Ancil stood with Anderson in front of him, blocking the path to the hallway. The man in white, Conway, was on one knee with his weapon aimed at Ancil, “Put it down,” he directed towards Conway. He looked at Sheriff Bailey, whose nose looked like it had been put through a meat grinder. “Yours too.” Neither man put their guns down. “Unless you want me to spill him all over this floor, put your guns down now.”

  Sheriff Bailey scowled and placed his gun on the floor. Conway did the same. The Sheriff pointed at Ancil. “You’re in for it now. You think you can get out of this? There’s only one way out for you now.”

  “I know I’m not getting out of this and I’ve resigned myself to it, but my grandson will if I have anything to do with it.”

  A voice came from behind him, “Unfortunately, you have very little to do with it.”

  Ancil turned and saw Balor, the second man in white, standing in the hallway. The big man held Harley trapped with one arm. His large hand covered Harley’s mouth closed. In his other hand was a pistol, pointed at Harley’s head.

  Chapter 18

  Maxon’s job already went from bad to worse. He had to diffuse a potentially violent situation while at the same time collide with Bruce, who was ready to turn the whole thing into a powder keg if he could. Now with the addition of the man’s wife, things were only going to get catastrophic.

  He knew it was Harley Jacob’s wife, Sara, from the report that he studied. The report had a picture and brief summary of each member of the household. The first thing he noticed about Sara was her striking green eyes and even from where he stood they made an impact on him. She was only about twenty feet away when she got out of the car. Too close for his liking because he suspected she knew nothing about her husband’s intentions and the trip wire running around the house.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Harley screamed at her. His eyes were wide and wild, like an animal that has been caught in a trap.

  “Harley, what are you doing?” she cried. “Why are these people here?”

  She doesn’t have any idea, Maxon thought. He kept it all secret from her. He marveled at the ability of a man to keep such a huge matter from his wife for so long and was even a little envious of it. He couldn’t keep a cold from his wife let alone something this big.

  Harley said, “I told you to stay at your sister’s. Why are you here?”

  “I thought something was wrong. It felt like there was when we spoke.”

  “Go back to your sister’s, now. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “I want to know what’s happening.” She turned to Maxon. “Who are you?”

  “Ma’am, we’re here on orders to upgrade this residence,” he said. “Your husband had been notified for several weeks about the upgrade. The deadline is tonight.”

  Sara turned back to Harley. Her mouth was open, but she was at a loss for words. She could only look at him with shocked incomprehension. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it wasn’t your concern,” Harley said, defiant. “This is my fight. I didn’t want to involve you or Jasper.”

  “But we are involved. This is our home. You knew about this and you don’t tell me? We could have been in a new house by now.”

  “This is bigger than you can understand, Sara.”

  “Well, explain it to me then. What are you trying to accomplish by doing this?”

  “I can’t explain it to you. This is just the way this has to go.”

  “It’s the way you want it to go. Why? So you can be some martyr for a cause you only care about? All I see is a stubborn selfish man who would put his own life and his family’s lives in jeopardy for his ego. No one will remember you for this, no one. You won’t go in any history books or be celebrated. You’d just be leaving behind a son who needs his father”

  Harley was on the verge of tears. His lips trembled and his face grew red. “You think I’m doing this for me? This is for my son, it’s for his legacy.”

  “How?” Sara cried. “How does this help Jasper? What can he get out of this?”

  “A future that he can make his own and not one that they will dictate for him.”

  Bruce sniggered at this. “You think you have the power to change what’s happening here? It’s people like you who continue to be a nuisance for all of us. You hang on like spiders in a web, refusing to let go of your dead world. Well, it’s time to wake up and enter reality or step aside and allow it to roll over you because I think you’re better off dead than taking up space in my city.”

  His city? Maxon heard the words leave Bruce’s mouth but didn’t comprehend the full meaning of it at the time. He saw that Bruce was steadily taking over the situation and that the crew was beginning to respond to him. A few nodded their heads in agreement to what he was saying, despite how vitriolic it was. Maxon was in very real danger of losing them and the worst thing a Lead can do is lose the confidence of his crew. They already witnessed Bruce undermining him several times and he had just let it happen. Now Bruce was taking control of his wreck.

  “Harley, please listen to me,” Sara begged. “You don’t need to do this. You have nothing to prove. Do you think this changes who you are? It’s just a house. It’s not your life.”

  “The only thing I have left of my life is this house and I’ll go down with it if I have to.” He grabbed the detonator attached to his chest. The entire crew pulled out their weapons and fixed them on him as he did.

  Maxon tried to regain order. “Hold your ground. No one fires.”

  “What are you doing?” Sara cried.

  “I have no choice. They brought me to this. They’re the reason this has to happen. They’ll be the ones with blood on their hands. You’ll have ten seconds to put down your weapons and get your men out of here,” he directed towards them. “Otherwise this whole block will light up.”

  He fixed Maxon with a steely look and began the countdown.

  “Ten, nine…”

  Maxon’s heart began to beat double time. There’s no way he goes through with it. His wife is standing right here. It has to be a bluff, he told himself.

  He’d also be leaving behind a son and Maxon knew for a fact that they were only able to conceive the child in the last year of their reproductive window, before the age limit kicked in. The child was born by a stroke of luck and this man was going to throw all that away for an outdated house. This was all an act in hopes that we’d leave. When he counts down to one, nothing will happen and we’ll just move in and continue as normal. This is all an elaborate ruse.

  But these thoughts did little to calm his nerves. There was something in the look in Harley’s eyes that didn’t make Maxon believe that he was bluffing. There was only intense certainty in those eyes. Eyes that said they intended to do everything he threatened.

  “Eight, seven…”

  Maxon’s hands were shaking as he held his weapon. He had never been in this situation before, one in which he had to make a decision that could cost lives in his crew. He began to feel in over his head
. This wasn’t supposed to happen. These wrecks are supposed to be routine by this point.

  “Six, five…”

  Four numbers left. Four numbers until his fate was decided. The world around Maxon started to fade out. Sounds were muffled and things started to get hazy. He thought he heard the woman scream something to Harley about their son, but she sounded like she was underwater.

  Sweat poured into his eyes but he didn’t make a move to wipe them. He didn’t dare make any move for fear it might set Harley off. His muscles tensed as he clenched his gun. The entire crew stood completely still with their weapons out. No one moved a muscle, neither did Bruce, who looked as scared as the rest of them. When death is potentially looking you in the eye, bravado is cast aside as the useless interloper it is.

  “Four, three…”

  Maxon thought it ironic that the fate of his life now came down to the speed in which this man called out the last two numbers. He could say them slow, drawing out the tension like a television play would do. Or he could call them out fast, catching them off guard and jumping the attack.

  In those two long seconds many thoughts went through Maxon’s head. He thought of his wife, who he’d never see again, his son, who he’d never play with again, and the job that he’d never go to again. He didn’t realize earlier how much his job defined him until he was about to die doing it. He would always be remembered as Maxon Wheeler, Lead Wreck for the Office of Standard Living, ten year veteran. He would become an entry in a computer file stored in a database that stored hundreds of thousands of other entries and he would forever be catalogued as the Lead who got his crew and two civilians killed one hot night in November.

  “Two, one.”

  Maxon acted out of instinct. He did the first thing that his body told him to do. He saw, or he thought he saw, Harley make a move with the hand he had on the detonator. The gun he was holding went off and Harley twirled around, falling to the ground. The shotgun spilled out of Harley’s hand and for a brief moment Maxon thought that Harley was going to land on the detonator, setting off the explosion that would be the end of them all. That would truly be an ironic way to go. To be a punch line in the ultimate cosmic joke.