Chapter 27 Mateo #2
It was like listening to that story in elementary school back in the D.A.R.E program where they talked you out of doing drugs by telling the story of the guy who was on PCP and ripped his thumb off before jumping out of a window and beating up a bunch of cops.
It seemed like a crazy story they told at every single school to ward kids off of drugs, but after watching these guys take bullet after bullet and keep going, I was wondering if that was exactly what was going on here. Maybe they were just fucking mutants.
“So, this part was interesting,” Taylor spoke up and pulled up a second screen on the side with footage of the Kennels.
It showed Cecilia looking alarmed, like she could hear something happening, then all of a sudden, she was shoving Chiyo under the bed and covering it with a blanket. Fletcher and a few others were waiting for the elevator to open, and the last three standing giants came out swiftly.
The first guy reached out for the first head he could and immediately twisted it, throwing the body like a ragdoll over his shoulder.
Fletcher got a shot into Dogface’s stomach, but it doesn't phase him. The guy throws his fist into Fletcher’s face and then breaks his hand to remove his gun from his hold.
The rest of our guys that have made it to the kennel’s lobby were fighting the other two when Dogface shot Fletch in the side with his own gun.
Even Zerkos flinched watching our close friend and most trusted man getting hurt because we weren’t here to help.
The other two giant assholes make a mess of our men but the other surveillance from other floors shows the flooding of our men as they try to move through the stairs and make their way to the level where the kennels are at.
The three men yell at each other in another language and they must have realized they were running out of time, Dogface fucker kicks Fletcher and forces him to stand and lead him to the kennels while the other two stand back and guard the entrances and exits.
Yeah, they came here for the girls.
Or they came here for her.
She came here for protection, was this who she was running from?
The ugly fucker nudged Fletcher to open the kennel door but instead, I see the moment he resigns his fate and decides loyalty was worth the price.
He throws the key into the kennel towards Cecilia and Dogface guns him down right there.
Cecilia screams but he doesn’t give her time to react before he uses his fingers to count down and give her a warning.
The panic is written all over her face but there’s something else there too.
There’s a strength that says she knows this isn’t how she dies, that this isn’t her time, and that she’s stronger than whatever he threatens to put her through.
There’s a calmness to her as she picks up the keys and jams them into the lock, turning it and just as quickly squeezing her way through before shoving her knee into the bulldog’s junk.
She tossed the keys back into the kennel, but he didn’t realize it or assumed she was the only one in there and didn’t bother to check.
It was a calculated move, and she saved two people in the process of it.
He threw Cecilia against the wall so hard that both Ronan and I tensed up at the sight of someone putting their hands on her like that.
Then, I see red when he knocks her out with the butt of his gun.
He throws her over his shoulder while the two others try to hold back our men.
They get back into the elevator and try to beat our men back up to the rooftop, but it turns into a free for all shootout.
Dogface throws Cecilia into the helicopter and for one split moment, I saw the face of our enemy inside, waiting, before they lifted off.
“Scan that face,” I pointed to the monitor at the sinister man standing in the middle of the helicopter yelling at the remaining two men as they lifted off.
“Already tried boss, no results. Just like Ronan’s girl, this fucker has three or four ghost identities but none of them are the real one. Someone’s gone through a lot of trouble to hide them.” Taylor said with a disappointed tone.
“I need to go see Fletcher in the hospital, he can’t be there alone,” I told Ronan, but Taylor cut in again.
“The other girl is with him.”
“What?” Ronan’s eyes practically bulged out of his head learning our entire team let one of our captives freely walk out of here.
“Doc’s orders boss. Apparently, she wouldn’t unglue from Fletcher’s side, and since no one knew what the hell she was saying Emory decided the fastest way to save his life was to bring her along.
There are a few men guarding his operating room, and I’d take a wild guess that she’s not a flight risk.
” Taylor said matter of factly like she knew something we didn’t as she tried to calm the beast rising in Ronan.
“You don’t take wild guesses, show me,” Ronan demanded, and she sighed heavily at the idea of breaching someone’s privacy, but it wasn’t her call to make anymore.
She pulled up another feed that showed Fletcher climbing into bed with Chiyo, soothing her until she fell asleep.
“What the fuck?” Zerkos and I said in unison.
“Did you know that was happening?” I asked Taylor and she shrugged her shoulders.
“How long has it been happening? I don’t know, how long have I been seeing this?
Probably closer to five or six weeks. Red fell hard for her, kind of impressively romantic if you ask me.
Breaking the language barrier and what not.
” She shot me a look that let me know she’d seen what I’d been up to as well but she knew better than to say it in front of Ronan.
Ronan grunted and spun on his heels to turn around and leave the technical lab but Taylor grabbed his shoulder, spinning him back to face her.
“I wasn’t done. I said I couldn’t tell you who that fucker was, doesn’t mean I can’t find out.” She said, crossing her arms.
“Hold on, Santos just landed. I gotta call him and fill him in,” Ronan said, turning away and walking towards a quiet corner to make the call.
Santos was always the calm one out of the three of us, but I knew the bond he had with Cecilia was probably going to cause an eruption over this.
He would blame Ronan, he would blame me, and he would go on a rampage until he got her back.
My head was spinning and pounding at the same time, the stress of losing Cecilia creating an intense pressure in my skull that wouldn’t be relieved now, no matter what I did to try.
All my crutches, my vices, my solace, they were all taken.
Along with her.
I’d get her back even if I had to burn this whole city down to do it.
Now that I’d had a taste of her, I wouldn’t let her go, I was just as condemned as Ronan when it came to her, except I was reveling in the wreckage that trailed behind her.
I knew I needed more of it, more of her.
Without her I would sink into the bottomless ocean of all consuming guilt that made its home in the void of my heart.
No, she’d made her home there too now.