39. Daisy
Chapter thirty-nine
Daisy
Several of the girls are huddled in the corner, except for one.
Brit Larson. She walks up to us and says, “Please tell me you have a plan that doesn’t involve us dying in a massive fireball.
While I’m sure it would be quick considering the size of this building, it’s not really the way I saw myself going out, ya’ know? ”
“You are as surly as your father,” I quip.
“How do you know my father?” Brit asks. “Everything I remember about him is so hurtful. He abandoned my mom and me, then killed her!”
Eva wraps her arms around the girl. “Shh. Those memories were implanted, Sweetie. Your mother is very much alive, and your father has been looking for you since you were taken. He hasn’t stopped, not even after threats of imprisonment and getting shot. Kenneth loves you very much.”
“Then where is he? Why isn’t he here? Why didn’t he come for me?”
“He wanted to,” I tell her. “He came to us so that we could bring you home.” I walk over to the four other girls huddled in the corner. “All of you.”
The lights suddenly cut out, and I hear the electronic lock to the room disengage. Men are shouting in the hall, “We’re under attack!”
One of the girls starts screaming as fear grips her tightly. I squat down and take her hand, hoping to calm her down. “What’s your name?”
Boom!
“Flashbang!” Chelsea shouts. “We need to get out of here. Follow me!”
“Staying out of the line of fire seems a lot safer for all of us,” I tell her.
“All right. We can sit here and risk being used as leverage. Dan and his men know where we’re at, and the only thing between us and them are CIA operatives who may or may not be aware of our location.
I’ve been transmitting the entire time, but I have no idea if our tech guy was able to hack the cameras. ”
Chaos ensues on the other side of the door; the girls have tears streaming down their faces, and none of us have a weapon to defend ourselves with. Then I remember I still have one weapon in my arsenal.
I get down on my knees and hold my hands out to the Lord.
Eva realizes what I’m doing and joins me, taking one of my hands in hers.
“God, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m way in over my head.
All I ask is that you save these girls so they can return to their families and begin to heal from the lies they’ve been fed. Your will be done, Amen.”
Chelsea looks at us like we’ve lost our minds. “Prayers aren’t going to do much good in a time….” She’s cut off from denying the power of God’s help when the door flies open and smoke fills the air. The man filling the doorway is no man at all.
“We meet again,” Uri says.
I get to my feet, pulling Eva up and then helping the girls as well. “Took you long enough,” I joke.
“I’ve been here the entire time, Daisy. God was just waiting for you to seek Him and ask for help.”
“Great, Daisy’s lost her mind,” Chelsea says to Eva. “Now she’s talking to herself.”
Brit scrunches her nose and gestures toward Uri. “She’s talking to the man in the doorway! He’s kind of hard to miss!”
“Come with me and stay low,” Uri says.
We follow him out of the room, down a smoky hallway, leaving Chelsea no choice but to join us. I motion the girls past me as I take up the rear. “Do not leave his side!”
The girls disappear around a corner, then Chelsea. “We need to go up, not down!” she yells to anyone who will listen. Eva disappears next when I’m suddenly yanked backward and thrown to the ground.
A heavy weight covers my body, and I hear Angel yell, “Incoming!”
I barely have time to register what he says when another flashbang goes off. The concussion alone has my ears ringing, and though my eyes were closed, they turn red as the bright flash illuminates the back of my eyelids.
I’m still recovering from the non-lethal blast when the weight pressing upon me disappears, and I’m flipped over onto my back. My feet and hands can’t find purchase as I get dragged down the corridor that Uri and the girls disappeared into.
“Daisy, are you hurt?” Angel asks as he checks me over for injuries.
“You look all soldiery!” I tell him. “I like it! It’s very alpha male.”
“Are you concussed?” he asks.
“Probably. I did just get hit with a flashy thingy!”
I feel his hands pat me down, looking for any signs of blood. “Baby, I need to know if you’re hurt.”
I singsong, “You called me Bay-beeee. I didn’t know we were at the sickeningly cute nickname phase of our relationship.”
“You don’t like it?” Angel asks. “I’ve never used a term of endearment before, but it felt right coming out.”
“I love it! But there’s one problem.”
Angel cups my cheeks and turns my head to look for any bumps on my noggin. “What’s that?”
I push him away playfully. “No one puts Baby in the corridor!”
“That’s not how the saying…. Never mind.”
“This ‘Baby’ needs to get in the fight! Give me a gun and point me in the right direction!”
Angel laughs as the rat-a-tat of gunfire slows down after the operatives are being subdued.
As the smoke slowly dissipates, Angel hauls me to my feet and kisses me like it’s the first time our lips have met.
It’s the kind of kiss that’s tender at first, but then becomes a release of emotion from the anticipation that has built up from waiting.
I’m lost in his embrace until he pulls away.
“Daisy, the fight is almost over. We need to get you to safety. We have five minutes until this place is going to blow. Where are Eva, Chelsea, and the girls?”
I point toward the door at the end of the hall. “Uri led them that way!”
“Then there must be an exit we don’t know about,” he says. Angel relays the situation, and I watch as he nods.
“Four of the five girls have made it outside, as did Chelsea. Eva just ran back inside. I can only presume to find the fifth one. Apparently there’s a tunnel that dumps out a quarter of a mile to the east of us at the crest of the hill overlooking Loch Monar.”
I point to the door again. “Then that’s the direction we’re going.”
My brother comes around the corner and looks at Angel and me just standing in the hallway, CIA operatives behind him cuffing and hauling Dan and his men away.
“Why are you just standing here? We have four and a half minutes before this place becomes a crater.”
Angel asks my brother if he got the files he needed.
Owen’s face becomes pinched with frustration.
“By the time I got into the server room, Bennett had already removed the backup drive and wiped the computers. I could crack it and retrieve the data if I had another hour, but not with the time we have. It won’t be long before the building is filled with two to three million gallons of water. ”
I take off running and push through the door, nearly falling down the flight of stairs that are on the other side.
Angel and Owen chase me, but with their body armor and gear, they can’t quite keep up.
I press through another door and stop in my tracks when I see Brit Larson pointing a gun at Bennett.
She must have picked it up along the way.
If that weren’t bad enough, Bennett is pointing his gun at Brit.
“If what they said is true, then you took away my life! Now I’m going to take yours!” she says through her tears. “You made me believe my mother was dead and that my father didn’t love me! Then, after years of whatever you did, I have to spend the next few decades unraveling the mess you made!”
“What’s your plan, Brit?” Bennett asks. His eyes meet mine for only a fraction of a second as he continues to reason with the young woman. “Are we all going to die here? Is that what you really want?”
Angel and Owen quickly assess the situation when they come up behind me, raising their rifles. “No one has to die, Bennett,” Angel says. “Drop the backup drive, and we’ll let you go.”
Brit’s hand shakes as she holds the weapon she must have retrieved from one of the downed officers. “He has to die so that no one else will go through what he’s put me through. How many girls have you done this to? How many lives have you ruined?”
“I haven’t ruined anyone’s life, child. I’ve saved them!” Bennett seethes. “Wars have been stopped because of the work we’ve done here!”
Eva emerges from the middle of three hatches that are spread across the opposite side of the room, holding her hands up once she sees all the weapons pointed at each other in a standoff.
My hands itch to grab Angel’s sidearm. However, any movement from me could turn an already volatile situation into something far worse.
Tired of hearing Bennett regurgitate the same poor excuse for his actions, I slowly inch my way closer to Brit while Eva does the same. “Bennett, you have to know there’s nowhere to go,” she says. “The area is surrounded. I’ve seen it for myself.”
Bennett gives her a malicious yet knowing grin.
“I knew this day would eventually come, and I’ve made provisions for my escape.
Here’s where you have to decide if one life is worth sacrificing to save many.
” He holds up the drive and slowly inches to a hatch that’s closest to him.
“If you let me go, I won’t shoot Brit. And to think, I had such a lovely name picked out for her. ”
Angel takes a step forward; his rifle steady and his breath calm. “What’s stopping us from shooting you before you get the chance?”
“Physics,” Bennett replies. “Even with one of your little dart guns, a bullet travels much faster. Are you willing to risk Brit’s life, or Daisy’s, on such a gamble? Like I said, you have a choice: lose one life, or many. What’s it going to be?”
Bennett opens the hatch and already has one foot inside when Brit shouts, “One life!” and then fires.
It takes Eva a millisecond to react and see that Brit missed the shot, jumping in front of the girl just as Bennett pulls the trigger. Both Angel and Owen shoot, but Bennett uses the door of the hatch as a shield before closing it.