Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

Dylan said, ‘One hour. And don’t forget about Lyla and Caleb. Don’t try anything heroic.’

‘Don’t forget about your brother, either,’ King said. ‘He admitted to paying for seven executions. All your men. I’m sure you were close to some of them, if not all. It’s a tight community out here. Loyalty is everything, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Dylan said through gritted teeth.

King said, ‘Anything heroic on your end, and he gets rewarded for his murder spree with a brand new identity and a good life.’

Slater could almost taste the anger emanating out of the phone’s speaker, despite the fact all was quiet.

Dylan said, ‘We have a deal.’

He clicked off.

King put the jeep into gear and drove east.

75

Theodore Walcott came to the realisation that most people have endless opportunities.

They just don’t take them.

He also realised he was starting to think like his brother, but that was inevitable, wasn’t it? Why had he spent his whole life trying to run away from his wiring? Why not embrace it?

He saw a crystal clear opportunity in the form of the dark-haired girl’s 9mm Glock. It was loose in her hand, and she wasn’t paying attention to it, instead fixated on the tears rolling down his old cheeks.

Salty drops on coarse skin.

She found it hypnotic.

He was old, and he was frail, but he’d broken every bone in his wrist just to separate himself from that damn desk. He’d proven what he could tap into if it was required. And there was more left inside him, so much more, reserves that he hadn’t known existed. He could use them now to wrench that gun out of her small hand, shoot the blonde woman in the head, then turn it on her.

Even the blonde had her guard down.

It takes a cold, cruel person to ignore the woes of a hapless old man, and his spell was working on her too, albeit slower.

But working all the same.

He had every move mapped out in his head. While his brain calculated, his exterior didn’t waver. Out there he was poor misunderstood Teddy Barrow, the victim of all victims, and now the dark-haired woman was hunching over him, touching a hand to his shoulder, telling him it was all going to be okay.

Of course it would be okay.

All he had to do was…

He lurched out of the chair, stripping himself of the Barrow exoskeleton, and his hands darted for her gun with a speed that belied his age and stature.

She hadn’t even reacted yet.

It was there for the taking.

Time moved in microscopic increments, and he saw the blonde reacting in his peripheral vision, but he knew with certainty that she wouldn’t respond in time. Her gun was still aimed at the floor, and all he had to do was snatch, aim, and shoot.

Snatch.

Aim.

Shoot.

Something stopped him.

He didn’t know what it was, but if he had the ability to look back he’d have realised it was that infinitely complicated thing called conditioning. You can’t shake free from it in an instant. Part of him was still Teddy Barrow.

Part of him was still a good man.

Before he could control himself he changed direction by bouncing off the dark-haired woman, using his shoulder to knock her back across the room, and he ran on skinny legs through the entranceway, barging past the blonde.

She could have put a bullet through the side of his head as he charged past, but she didn’t.

All he’d shown was a split second of a different facial expression, and that wasn’t enough for her to realise he was faking the whole thing.

She couldn’t kill a defenceless old man.

If he’d gone for the gun, it would have been a different story.

He ran out of the office and then out of the building, through the rubble he’d created around the entrance with his makeshift tripwire. It hadn’t been hard to fish through the hidden nooks and crannies of the safe house and find an unused claymore mine. After all, he knew most of his brother’s secrets, far more than Jason and Will did. He’d been setting up Dylan’s goons for months now, making them whack each other, making the survivors paranoid.

It had come so close to paying off.

And now this.

Already sweating, he turned an ankle leaping from the porch to the sand, but it didn’t stop him. The impact could have snapped the joint as far as he was concerned — in the preceding thirty minutes he’d discovered the frightening ability to suppress pain. Had it always been there, or had he unlocked some new area of his brain? He didn’t think that was possible in his sixties, so it must have been dormant until now, untapped.

He ran harder, away from the building.

From the porch, one of the women yelled, ‘Teddy!’

He kept running.

‘Teddy, stop!’

It felt good to run. To use his old body, put it to use. He should have done it sooner, but it wouldn’t have fit the fake life he’d carved out for himself. His dear Lyla wouldn’t have trusted him if he had dived into an exercise regimen with the trademark Walcott determination. Those who take life seriously are considered outliers by the general population. To abandon the Walcott name, he’d had to abandon his drive.

He figured he’d spend the rest of his life questioning whether he’d made the right choice.

‘Teddy, we can help you!’

Wrong.

The only person who could help him was himself. And, yes, he realised, he’d certainly made the right choice. Because without the Barrow impersonation, he’d never have found Lyla. And he still loved her more than anything, pined deeply for her and even Caleb, too. He just hoped it wasn’t unsalvageable.

He could get them back.

He could make them understand.

He could—

‘Teddy!’

Was it the blonde calling him, or his Lyla?

Was it real, or in his head?

He tripped on a root.

He caught one last glimpse of the port, the beautiful blue expanse of water rippling into the horizon, signifying hope and potential, before he fell down.

He cracked his head on a rock and his world went dark.

76

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