Colby
My feet are pounding the dirt and for the first time I feel grateful to Cross for all his insisting we be in top physical condition. I will never balk at a 6am Sunday morning Krav Maga class again.
That’s if he’s even alive…
I growl into the night and push my body faster. I refuse to believe we won’t get out of here, all of us, in one piece. How the fuck had it all gone to shit so badly? I can’t stop to take it all in but one thing I know for sure. Some fucker will pay.
My pace slows as I near the cabin. I can faintly make out the sounds of sobbing but it’s so muted, I can’t tell who it is. I duck down in the undergrowth as a man armed with a semi-automatic does a sweep around the hut. Shit, this isn’t good. How am I supposed to get near?
Tires pound the path and I scramble back further to keep myself out of view. A blacked-out van pulls up and out jumps Gomez, looking like the smug bastard he is. The guards rush to him and he preens under the attention. I use the moment to sneak up so I can hear what is happening without being detected.
“All has gone to plan boys, and I got to have a little sample of those ripe PI bitches,” he laughs, slapping one of the men on the back.
I hold myself in check, knowing there hadn’t been time for anything like that to happen but someone inside the cabin obviously didn’t get the memo.
“Son of a fucking bitch, I’ll kill you, you hear me? You’re fucking dead!”
Cross was alive. It would be music to my ears if he hadn’t angered the hell out of the two guards and the idiot. Gomez shakes his head and begins to walk towards the cabin, and away from me. Shit, I need to get closer.
“I thought you got rid of the men? He doesn’t sound dead to me.”
“We thought he was, neither of them moved after we put holes in the bodies.”
“Save your bullets, we have another problem,” Gomez instructs, peeking through the doorway and licking his lips. “The girls are unharmed?”
One of the knuckleheads stands to attention and I roll my eyes. “Just as you commanded Sir.”
Satisfied, Gomez tells the men to sweep the area. They’re looking for me. This is just the chance I was waiting for. One of them comes straight for me, so I settle back as far as I can, trying to blend into the night. The other guard disappears around the back of the cabana while Gomez walks inside. That worries me more than anything, I need to get to my guys.
I hang back, just waiting for the guard to turn his back to me before I pounce. As much as I would like to stab the bastard, one murder charge was enough for one night, so I lock his head in a choke hold and hold on for dear life until he passes out. It takes a lot longer than I expect but finally his flailing body loses steam. I drag his unconscious form over to a thicket and hide him from view while I wait for his friend to join him.
It doesn’t take long. Brains are obviously not at the top of the list of qualifications for this job, I think to myself as I manage to dispose of douchebag number two in exactly the same way. I’m a little disappointed. I get over that when I load up with their guns and sprint for the cabin door.
I don’t know what to expect when I enter the hut… but Sky and Chantel hogtying Gomez wasn’t it.
“Are you meant to be cavalry? You’re kinda late,” Sky sniffs.
She jumps off Gomez and delivers a swift kick to his ribs on her way. “That’s for Syd, you sick piece of shit.”
A growl catches my attention and then horror kicks in as I take in the scene. Cross is sat up against the cabin wall, blood covering his clothes and a hand clutching at his thigh. He has a sticky sheen over his face and his normally dark complexion looks pale. I run over and drop to my knees. “Fuck man, you need an ambulance.”
“On it,” Chantel calls from somewhere behind me.
Shaking my head, I glance over his sorry state. “Jesus Cross, okay you win. I won’t put you in the field again.”
He chuckles quietly and gives a small nod. “And I want a raise motherfucker.”
“Don’t go crazy now,” I joke, the relief pouring out of me. “It’s good to see you man.”
“Where’s Bri and Syd?”
“I had to…”
“Come on Marcus, stay with me,” Skylar yells, breaking into my sentence. I glance around and see her huddled over a broken body near the bed and my heart begins to pound in my chest.
The closer I get, the more incensed I become. If he’s dead… if he is fucking dead… I glare at Gomez and he visibly pales under the weight of the accusation and promise of retribution my eyes hold.
“He’s fine, just a shoulder wound but I expect he has one hell of a concussion. He hit his head pretty hard when we went down and now we can’t keep him awake,” Chantel informs me as she walks around the room, tapping her earpiece and turning a dial on a walkie-talkie that looks like it’s on steroids.
“What the hell is that?”
“This is our way out of this nightmare,” she mumbles, her face the picture of concentration. Cross pipes up with a series of technical jargon that may as well be Swahili, so I leave them to it and see to Marcus.
“What happened here?”
“They caught us unaware, all our equipment went down intermittently.” Chantel grits out.
I scrunch my nose up and share a look with Cross. “How is that even possible?”
“No fucking clue Maitland,” she sighs. “It was like someone knew where all our feeds were and were just playing with us.”
I don’t like that thought one little bit, but it was all just a little too convenient. The way the lines reopened so they could find me… the way the boys managed to get back to the cabin and the girls… I feel like we’re all puppets, and someone is pulling our strings but who? The only player left is the Mayor, and something tells me he isn’t the only shark in the water.
“Bri and Syd are fine, but they’ve been arrested,” Chantel calls out. She hurries over to us and shows us the text that had just come through on her super-duper walkie-talkie thing.
“Fuck! What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“Well,” Chantel sighs, getting to her feet and stopping next to Gomez in the middle of the room. “I can promise you that help is on the way, but we need to remember something first.”
Jesus, this woman is talking in riddles. “And what the hell is that?”
The door slams inwards as floods of uniformed Feds come charging into the room, guns drawn and yelling at us to get down. Those of us that could, put their hands in the air and as I hit the deck and lock eyes with Chantel, she shrugs and mouths...
“We have the right to remain silent.”