Chapter Forty-Nine #2
Neither of us spoke again until we pulled into the neighborhood I had lost them in, Brock cutting his lights, both of us relying on the sporadic and often flickering streetlights as we tried to locate the car.
I didn't know about Brock, but my heart was sinking into my gut as each second passed by, and there was nothing resembling the vehicle we were looking for in sight.
"Jesus Christ," I hissed, my whole body jolting as noise exploded into my ear.
"Fuck, what?" Brock asked, the car jerking a bit at my explosion.
"I can hear her," I said, pressing the receiver deeper into my ear.
"Stop driving," I demanded, reaching for my handle even as he hit the brake.
"I can hear her yelling," I repeated, walking blindly as Brock fell into step beside me.
"This has a short range. It's in and out.
If we can just get..." I paused, wincing hard at a whack, a slam, a hiss of pain.
But she was alive.
Alive was what mattered.
"Focus," Brock demanded, making my legs start moving again, trying to find the full sound.
"Here," I decided as Clarke smart-mouthed Emre about being a super-secret spy, Code Name: Clarke Kent. He wouldn't get the joke. But I thought it was funny.
"Okay," Brock said, slamming a hand into my chest, stopping me from rushing in there half-cocked. "Look at me," he demanded. "You need to walk in there like this is your one and only time to prove Sawyer wrong about being able to handle yourself in a real-life, dangerous situation."
Of all the motivational speeches known to mankind, that was the best of them all.
From there, we only knew silence, save for the male voices in my ear demanding to know who Clarke worked for, why she was watching them, followed by something snappy from Clarke, made no less sharp by a couple bumps and bruises.
In front of me, Brock moved under the row of windows, holding a hand up to me while he carefully crept up, glanced in, shook his head, then moved to the next set.
"No one's in the front rooms," he told me, his voice quiet as he came back to stand with me. "We have a few choices here..."
"We have to call the cops."
"Wait... what?" he asked, his head jerking back, brows furrowing.
"It's a long story, but Clarke needs it to be public that she helped bring these guys in. We need to call the cops and have them taken in on kidnapping charges."
"We can't wait, Barrett," he told me, his voice firm. "If they know they aren't going to get anything from her, they're just going to take her out."
"I'll call. Then we will go in. We can deal with the fact that we didn't wait for the cops after we save Clarke."
"Hurry up," Brock demanded, reaching to pull out my earpiece, holding it up to his own ear instead, maybe being able to pick up on more than I could from the sounds inside, being trained in such things.
I called the cops, fed them a story on the fly, the address, then whispered that I had to go before turning off my cell, nodding at Brock.
"We can't shoot anyone," Brock informed me, face a little more grim than before when, I imagined, his plan was to shoot his way in, grab Clarke, and book it out of town before anyone knew we were there. "It will get too messy, look premeditated."
"Well, we can threaten them with these. If we surprise them, it might be enough."
"Maybe," he agreed, but I felt like he was placating me more than telling the truth. "We have to go. They're getting rough."
And if Brock thought it was rough, then by my standards, it was bad.
"Okay. Let's go in."
"Moving in through the front, slow, and watch your steps. We don't want them to know we are there until we break into the room."
With that—and no other direction—he was moving. And I was expected to follow. Not having any better plan of my own, I did. If I couldn't trust Brock, there was no one I could trust.
Brock was a solid three feet in front of me, footsteps entirely silent, some phenomenon mine did not seem to be likewise blessed with; the scrapes against the dirty floor pounding in my ears.
As we moved forward down the hall, the voices that had once just been in my ear, in my head, were around us. The growls of the men. The sound of flesh hitting flesh, the hiss that had to have come from Clarke.
My heart thundered in my chest as Brock came to a stop, glancing over at me, giving me a nod as his hand struck out, shoving open the door that hadn't been fully closed, charging in.
"Get your hands up. Up!" he demanded in a voice that damn near made me put my hands up in the air, the authority in it was so absolute.
Each man stood several feet apart, only one over the body of Clarke, on her hands and knees on the filthy concrete. The slit on the thigh of her dress had been torn, splitting the material halfway up her stomach, exposing a pair of barely-there panties.
And all I could think of was the fact that they were still on. That when it came to torture, they hadn't gone that far.
Had I not been focusing on her instead of whatever Brock was yelling, I might have missed it.
Clarke's planted hands widened their stance as she suddenly hopped her legs upward, bringing her body into a low squat before she powered up through those strong legs of hers, nailing the guy standing over her under the chin with the top of her head, sending his head backward at an almost unnatural angle before he was suddenly took an elbow to the jaw, a kick to the groin, before, finally, an uppercut under the chin, knocking him out before his body even spiraled to the floor.
I glanced over, seeing if Brock was seeing what I was witnessing, only to realize that as Clarke had charged, so must have Brock, because he was already across the room, slamming Emre's head against a support beam.
"Barrett!" Clarke's voice rang out, making my head jerk over. "Don't let him get away," she demanded, making me aware of the man charging toward the hallway that was behind me, ready to leave his boss and his buddy behind.
I wasn't Brock.
I wasn't Clarke either.
I didn't have the training, the reflexes, the sort of inherent knowledge of how to disable an opponent who outweighed me.
I had, well, TV reruns I'd watched as a kid.
And a long leg.
All I could think as I watched him collide with my thigh and topple forward over it was that it was exactly how it looked on TV.
Before the guy could attempt to push himself back up, Clarke was slamming her knee down in the center of his back, dragging a ragged growl out of him.
"Oh, shut up," she demanded, reaching up with the back of her arm to wipe a trail of blood.
"Cops," Brock announced, his voice a little rough. "Put the gun on the floor and kick it away. They're not going to know who is who right away. Don't get yourself shot."
There were no sirens, but the lights flashed through the abandoned building just seconds before the cops swarmed inside, shouting much the way Brock had shouted when we had charged inside, demanding hands up and getting down on our knees.
Clarke was pulled off of the guy's back, but shuffled to the side as the shouting continued for an ear-splitting moment before tones lowered, before the leader of the group seemed to regain some order, dragging Brock and me to the side near Clarke.
Then I spoon-fed them a story just loud enough that I hoped Clarke could hear it, corroborate it when it was her turn. It was based mostly on facts: I was a private investigator, and Clarke was working with me. We were watching the Turkish mob.
It veered off on the why.
And I had, yet again, Clarke's exhaustive notes to thank for the reason I even knew the next part.
About the wealthy Turkish family—in banking, not heroin—who had a son that got bored of crashing expensive cars and kicking back on lavish vacations, wanting instead to have danger and excitement in his life.
Then seeking out the mob, wanting in. Eventually going missing.
About the high reward up for grabs for anyone with information that could lead to their son - or more realistically, his body.
That, I informed them, was why we had been on the case. Clarke had decided to get a little closer, look around, maybe ask a couple questions. But they had seen her watching them. And had taken her.
It came off as true because it was mostly true.
It wasn't until after they turned their attention to Brock—and his guns which were, luckily, legal and registered—that the cop blocking Clarke from view moved, letting me get a good look at her for the first time since we came in.
Her knees were ripped open, bleeding half-heartedly.
Likely from falling to the ground. They were going to bruise, ache when she walked.
She was holding herself arched to the left, protecting that side.
I couldn't help but wonder if she'd just been hit there, fallen there, or if she'd maybe cracked a rib.
Her face was where the damage was. Bullies always went for the face.
I knew a thing or two about bullies when I was a kid.
They didn't change just because they grew up.
Her nose had a slow trickle but didn't seem bent, broken.
There was swelling around one eye, a bruise along her jaw.
Nothing too bad. They'd hurt, but she would be fine.
It was the bleeding egg near her temple, and the pain in her eyes, that had me worrying.
"She needs to go to the hospital." I'd meant to say it, mostly to myself.
But as it ended up, I'd shouted across the room, making the cop standing beside her jolt, turn to look at me.
"She needs to go to the hospital," I repeated, tone calmer, but no less firm as I moved away from my group, approached hers, and reached out, brushing her hair back so I could look at the raised spot more closely.
"I'm fine, Barrett," Clarke insisted.
"You need to go and get this looked at. You might have a concussion. And your ribs. Those need to be looked at too. Are you having any trouble breathing?"
"Barrett, I'm okay. I'm fine..."
"She needs to go to the hospital," I growled at the cop who glanced back over at the guy who was in charge who was currently talking to Brock.
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding. "We have their contact information. And we can have the detectives come talk to them there if we need more."
With that, a paramedic who I hadn't noticed before approached Clarke, insisted she come with him, that a scan wouldn't be a bad idea, then led her away.
It was another ten minutes before Brock and I could break away, climbing back into his car, heading in the direction of the hospital.
"Hey, Barrett?" he asked after a prolonged silence.
"Yeah?"
"That fucking Three Stooges move? Seriously?" he asked, shooting me a smile, all the seriousness of before gone.
"I know," I agreed, shaking my head at myself, feeling my lips twitch. "But it worked."
"It did," he agreed.
"Your girl can kick some serious ass," he added, sounding impressed.
"Yeah, she can. I just wish she didn't have to get her ass kicked first."
"She's fine, Barrett."
"We'll see."
I wasn't sure I would be able to live with myself if she wasn't.