Chapter 21 Ranger
RANGER
The stairwell was silent. The cinderblock walls were still present, but something in my gut told me to pull out my phone and start recording. Thank fuck, I had enough wherewithal to bring a burner phone with me.
An air-gapped one, at that.
“What are you doing?” Ghost whispered.
“Recording,” was all I whispered back.
I pulled up the video recording program on the phone and pressed the red button.
I swung the phone around, taking in the walls and the stairs that led us further into the unofficial bowels of this place.
The lights attached to the walls flickered every once in a while. But the stairwell remained unchanged.
“Make sure you don’t turn on that fucking camera light,” Ghost muttered behind me.
I shot him a look over my shoulder, but all I saw was a cheeky look in his eyes.
“Dick,” I whispered before we continued our descent.
We wound down what felt like three fucking floors before the stairwell just… stopped.
“Range, look,” Ghost said as he tapped my shoulder.
I turned to where he pointed, and I saw… a door.
A door that was made of the same shiny material that the walls in the video were made of.
“Oh, fucking jackpot,” I whispered as I held the camera up.
Ghost walked over to the door and grabbed the doorknob. He held up crossed fingers for the camera, and then turned. To our utter surprise, the damned thing wasn’t locked. But then again, this place wasn’t on the official schematics or the drawn-out ones.
They probably felt like they were safe.
“Ah!”
CRACK!
“We get you food, and you decide to chew it up and spit it on our boots!?”
SLAP!
“Ugh!”
“Stupid bitch, someone should tell the bossman that she ain’t worth feedin’.”
The woman growled back. “Good. Let him know that he’s not worth the toupee on his fucking head, either.”
CRUNCH!
“Aaaaahhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the fucking floor.
The instant we opened the unlocked door, the flooring changed.
The walls changed. Gone was the cheaply painted cinderblock of the stairwell, and in its place were those shiny, reflective floors and those clean-ass walls that looked like they were fucking hand-scrubbed.
I made sure to get it all on video before Ghost patted my shoulder and slipped in front of me.
“Maybe we should teach this bitch a lesson,” one of the male voices said.
I heard the sound of a belt buckle. “I like how you think.”
“You guys heard Bossman,” a third voice said. “No touching the merchandise until it’s broken in. Does she look broken in yet?”
A motherfucking fourth voice spoke up. “I could break her in. Just give me that tight little asshole of hers. My cock will split it wide open.”
“I’ll never give you the satisfaction,” the woman growled.
Her voice was getting more and more familiar.
Or did I imagine that?
We heard her gasping for air and I lurched forward. It was Ghost that held onto my shoulder and shook his head at me. He was right. We couldn’t go in there, guns blazing. We were sorely outnumbered.
And we risked getting the woman caught up in the crossfire.
The woman that sounded very much like Lizzie on that video we were sent.
“I won’t scream,” the woman said.
“That’s all right,” a fifth voice said with a chuckle. “I like them quiet anyway.”
I looked over at Ghost, and he just placed his finger to his lips before motioning to the ground with that same finger. He wanted me to stay quiet and stay put. I could do that. He motioned to my camera before acting like he was trying to hold it out into the hallway with just his hand.
I nodded to let him know I understood what he wanted me to do.
He slipped back out into the hallway.
My hand inched into the hallway, framing the video as best as I could to capture its entire length. And then, I waited.
I heard the first sound of gurgling.
“The fuck was that?” a voice asked.
“What?” the woman asked, though her voice was a bit muffled. I heard someone spit. “Scared of the dark?”
“Shut that bitch up,” a voice growled.
SMACK!
“You hit like my fucking grandmother,” the woman choked out.
I heard another soft sound and a smile grew across my face. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what in the hell Ghost was up to.
I couldn’t wait to watch the footage back.
“Seriously, dumbass,” the deepest voice of the males said. “Someone go check on those fucking sounds. I swear to fuck, if Mark and Ginger are fucking again in one of those rooms, I’m gonna saw both of their dicks off.”
The breathless voice of who I was sure was Lizzie sounded again. “Guess that makes me useless, then.”
“Pretty little thing like you?” the man with the deep voice asked before he chuckled. “You’d be surprised how much stereotypical blondes go for on the market today.”
My heart leapt into my throat.
Blonde.
She had to be Lizzie.
“I want a fucking sitrep! Now!” a voice boomed.
It just barely covered up the gurgling sound that I heard bubbling not too far away from me.
The sound made me grin.
On my count, we were dealing with at least seven different men. That was a hell of a Patrol Team B, if anyone asked me. Why the hell did they need so many men for one woman? I mean, sure, she was Navy, but that didn’t make her any more of a threat than any other woman they scooped off the streets.
They had ways to incapacitate her.
Why weren’t they?
A shadow charged back in my direction and I reached for my knife. But when I saw the leather boot come around the corner, my hand backed off the hilt. Ghost slipped back into the room and tucked into the darkness, panting softly for air.
“Four down, at least three more to go,” he whispered.
I nodded. “My ears counted seven as well.
“Mark! Ginge! Where the fuck!?”
Ghost snickered. “Caught two dudes going at it in the room a couple rooms up.”
I smirked. “Ambush?”
He nodded with a terrifying glint in his eye.
I almost forgot how much fun Ghost had slitting people’s throats.
“You got that taser?” Ghost whispered.
I reached for my back pocket and nodded.
“Good. Turn it on,” he whispered.
He let out the most incredible fart I’d ever heard.
“Oh, good fucking—” I tossed my arm over my face. “Are you for fucking real?”
Ghost chuckled, and I heard a voice boom.
“Find them!” the voice commanded.
Footsteps rushed toward us.
Ghost wiggled his eyebrows as I tried not to vomit.
But the footsteps rushing toward us leapt me into action.
I slid the camera into the front pocket of my jacket, thanking my fucking stars that I had it added later on when the plain leathers were commissioned by the crew.
I made sure that the camera was unimpeded so that whatever happened next, we could catch as much of it on camera as possible.
I checked to make sure it was still recording.
And then, I held a knife in one hand and the taser in the other.
“Mark! Ginger! What the fuck!?” a voice called out.
“We have an intruder!” someone else bellowed.
“I! Want! Heads! Find them!” the deep voice growled out.
“Hey, at least I let them have their happy time first,” Ghost muttered with a shrug.
I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up my throat, but it didn’t matter. It was time for them to know we were here. It was time for us to pull them into a trap we weaved with duct tape and patience.
And when the first shadow came just past the doorframe, I unleashed.
“Take it,” I snarled as I slammed the taser straight into the gut of the man coming around the corner.
His body jerked. His jaw dropped as if he were about to scream. I smiled at him as he dropped to his knees, wetting himself and slobbering all down his chin. When he plummeted forward to the floor, I brought my knee up, crushing his nose into his skull.
The man was dead before he hit the floor.
“Hell yeah, Range,” Ghost said as he patted my shoulder.
He stepped out into the hallway and discharged bullets.
Pop pop!
Pop pop!
Pop pop!
“Who’s there!?” Lizzie called out.
I wanted to call back to her, but when I stepped out into the hallway, two more men appeared behind us through the door that led to the stairwell. I whipped around and aimed the knife in my hand right at the fucker’s throat who charged me with brass knuckles on.
I waved at him before I launched the knife, slamming it right into his jugular.
“Bingoooo!” I exclaimed as I ripped the other knife off my hip.
But not before Ghost whipped around and used my shoulder as a mount, putting two between the eyes of the man still trying to get to me.
“Just like old times,” Ghost said.
The two of us slowly turned in the hallway.
He fired bullets while I timed the throw of my other knife perfectly enough to slam into the gut of a big-ass motherfucker who came out of one of the rooms. His gut bled as he sank to his knees, and Ghost had way too much fun going up to him and gripping his chin while the man sniveled and begged for his life.
“Over my dead body,” Ghost promised.
He slipped the barrel of his gun into the man’s mouth.
I watched his eyes widen before his brain matter splattered against the wall. And then, silence fell.
Well, not total silence.
Because Lizzie was crying somewhere.
“Let’s go,” I said as I charged forward, stepping over bodies like it was nothing.
I guess in some ways, it was nothing.
It was just one of those things one got used to in the military.
“Lizzie!?” I called out. “Talk to us so we can find you?”
I heard a hard sniffle. “You know my name!?”
“There you go,” Ghost said as he rushed up behind me. “Just keep talking to us.”
I reached for a door and tossed it open, only to find darkness.
Ghost tossed another door open, only to find more darkness.
“Lizzie!” I bellowed as we kept throwing open the doors in the corridor.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
Her voice sounded muffled by something, and I gripped my taser. Ghost checked the magazine on his pistol before holding it out in front of him.
“Are you alone, Lizzie?” I called out.
“Y—yeah. I just… how do you know me?”
“Because Marla’s worried sick about you.”
She gasped. “You know where Marla is!? Is she all right? She’s alive, yes? If you’re talking about her in the present tense, she must be alive.”
“Range!” Ghost exclaimed as he whipped open one of the doors.
“Aaahh! There’s another one! Help!” Lizzie called out.
I gripped my taser and took off running to the doorframe where Ghost stood. And when I peered around him, I saw her.
Lizzie.
Covered in bruises, blood, and god-only-knows what else.
With her arms shackled to the wall.
And the floor glistened at her feet.
“Wait, what?” she asked breathlessly, studying us through her one eye that wasn’t swollen shut yet.
I patted Ghost’s shoulder. “This here’s Ghost. I’m Ranger. We’ve come to bust you out.”
Her face collapsed and she blubbered out her words. “I don’t know how you found me, but thank you.”
“Time for questions later,” Ghost said as he rushed into the room. “Patrol Team B.”
Lizzie sniffled. “What?”
Ghost peered over his shoulder at me before he placed two well-timed bullets into the mounts that held the shackles to the wall. It loosened them enough for Ghost to grab me while I grabbed the other. And together, we yanked those chains of hers right out of the fucking cinderblock.
“Patrol Team B was down here with you,” I said as I gripped her chin and tilted that one good eye of hers up to meet my face. “Which begs the existence of a Patrol Team A.”
“We have to go. Now,” Ghost said as he watched the door.
“I’m sorry if this hurts,” I said as I reached out for Lizzie.
I hefted her battered body over my shoulder.