21 Chapter 19 – Zack – Iteration 144 (1/2)
Quebec escorted him into her room at the Butler Days Inn, then released one of his hands to cuff him to the bed. When she finished securing him, Quebec went to the room's table, placed her gun down, and retrieved implements from a suitcase already in the room. All without saying a word. She hadn't spoken except to silence him since the car.
With the assistance of a tiny screwdriver, the handgun came apart in her hands. Quebec drizzled oil onto a rag and several Q-tips, then began to thoroughly scrub the weapon. Her every movement was deliberate in the extreme, almost inhumanly economical.
”What kind of gun is it?”
His other questions had only tightened the skin around her eyes, but she answered this one. ”It's a Ruger Security Six. I'm firing three fifty-seven hollow points through it.”
”Do you have to clean it very often?”
”I clean it after every trip to the range. And sometimes just to help me think.”
Zack looked around the hotel room. Besides two suitcases and the cleaning kit on the table, Quebec had left no mark on the place. ”Do you go to the range a lot?”
”Most people would say so.”
”How often do you go?”
Quebec dropped the rag and began to rapidly reassemble her pistol. ”I try to put three hundred rounds downrange every week.”
”Is it expensive?”
”Doesn't matter. I can get as much money as I need.”
”How?”
”Casinos,” Quebec said.
”What, you count cards?”
”I count cards, read expressions, do probability analyses. And when I win big, I make sure it is statistically likely so I avoid notice. Casinos are like ATM's to me.” Quebec tightened a final screw, loaded six rounds into the cylinder, and snapped it closed with a flick of her wrist.
Now that she's talking . . . . ”So what are we going to do?”
Quebec dug into a suitcase and brought out a slim laptop. ”I haven't decided yet. We should leave the area, change identities, and lay low. That's what we should do.”
”Then why aren't we doing that?”
Her fingers drummed on the table. ”Because I don't think I can walk away from them. They deserve the very worst I can do to them.”
”I know.” Zack thought of Lacey, begging him to save her and the baby. ”I know they do.”
”But not the darkness,” Quebec said, voice soft. She looked towards him, making eye contact for the first time since the car.
He dropped his eyes. ”I don't know what they did to you, but you can't do that to them.”
”That's what they did to me, Zack. Locked me away in the dark. Me and the man I loved. It's impossible to know how long I was there before the world ended. All I can say is it was too long. Did you know I can't even ride an elevator? Every time I think of stepping inside, I imagine the thing breaking down and trapping me inside. Try dealing with that in New York City.”
Zack cleared his throat. ”Does night bother you?”
”I'm not a big fan of the dark.” Quebec stood and walked to stand beside where he lay on the bed. She held out her wrist to display an analog watch with neon hands and hour markers. ”My watch is made with tritium. The hands and hour markers will glow day and night for over ten years.” She undid the clasp and removed the watch. Quebec leaned over him to wrap it around the wrist of his free hand. Her dark hair tickled his face as she fastened it.
”Now you don't have to worry about the dark,” she said.
When Quebec stood, Zack released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. The scent of her, floral fabric softener and fruit body lotion mingled with gunpowder and oil, lingered over him. ”Won't you need the watch?”
Her eyes were steady on him. ”I think it's enough not being alone.”
”I'm not him,” Zack said.
Quebec turned her back on him and went to her laptop. ”I'm trying to find their base of operations. It will be somewhere close, but remote enough that no one will interfere with them. They haven't had much time to set up in the area, so they're probably squatting in an unoccupied hunting lodge or abandoned building. Do you know of anywhere they could hole up? It would have to be out of screaming range of neighbors.”