Cade #3
I didn’t know the voice, but I recognized its authority as I grew still.
Even Walker stopped fighting as I lay on the ground and peered up to see who had cut through the chaos with just a few words and a tone.
I ignored the men in uniform and suits and stared first at Reggie, not believing he could have managed something like that.
But he wasn’t even looking at me; his face was open shock as he stared at the dark-haired man next to him.
Both looked as if they had just rolled out of bed, wearing loose sleep pants, plain shirts, and their hair askew.
While that made Reggie look more like his true, slightly chaotic self, the man he was staring at stood firm, his shoulders back and his chin pointed outward as he slowly gazed at everyone until he looked down at me.
“Sir?” I asked, the word leaving my mouth before I was even sure who he was.
“Be calm,” he said, his voice firm as he looked up. “Just stay down. There’s nothing that can be done for the moment, understand?”
“I…” I was confused, too lost to argue with what was a clear order, and I turned to stare at Walker, who was standing with his face against the wall, his hands cuffed behind him.
It was enough to bring me back to reality, though, and I peered at the others in the room.
Only one of them was wearing a suit, I noticed.
The rest were dressed as if they were running a raid on a drug house, down to flak jackets and pants.
The lights had come on, and I could see the reflective letters on the arms of their outfits, and I felt my stomach drop to my toes.
“Why…is the FBI here?” I croaked, wincing as someone tightened what were probably zip ties around my wrists.
“Walker Rhodes, you are under arrest on suspicion of espionage and treason,” the man in the suit said, glaring down at me. “Cayden Wilcom you are—”
“Remaining here,” the dark-haired man said firmly, and I could see every head turn toward him. “You were warned, Agent Smith, repeatedly. You insisted on doing this your way, and this is the result. The fault for this mess lies on your shoulders, not his, nor ours.”
Agent Smith stiffened. “Mr. Shepherd, I understand—”
“Nothing,” the man who was apparently the head honcho of Arete said coolly. “I did not give you any trouble when you showed up with your warrant—”
“That you delayed us by insisting on reading it.”
Reggie glared, but Mr. Shepherd put a hand on his elbow, silencing him before continuing.
“Which is well within our legal right. More so, it’s our moral duty to ensure you’re operating within the parameters of the law.
The men here seek sanctuary from the world, where they can heal and rest in peace without federal agents bursting in to disrupt that. ”
“Can we talk about these charges?” Walker grumbled from the wall. “When the hell did I—”
“Walker?” Reggie piped up, glancing at him.
“What?”
“You’re under arrest by the US government. You have the right to remain silent.”
“Right, can and will be used against me.”
“Exactly, maybe use that right until you’ve got a lawyer.”
“Right,” Walker repeated, looking at me.
Despite his flippant attitude and half-joking tone, his eyes were pleading and fearful.
I knew he wasn’t asking for my help; he was asking me not to because my help had already resulted in me attacking federal agents blindly and ending up tased and tied down on the floor.
Jesus, they had even tied my ankles; when did that happen?
The agent in charge gritted his teeth and nodded toward the men who half dragged, half walked Walker out of the room, but at least they’d got some pants on him. My breath shook as I watched him go. “God, put a coat or something on him, Walker!”
“I’m sorry,” he said as he left, and my throat felt like it was going to close and never open again the minute he was out of sight, and I realized I didn’t know when I would ever see him again.
“Oh God,” I gasped, pressing my forehead against the floor.
“You burst into a room that you knew contained a former soldier diagnosed with PTSD with a history of violent, defensive behavior,” Mr. Shepherd continued, and I had forgotten all about that diagnosis.
It had been a year after I’d been discharged from the Army.
It hadn’t seemed important back then because, hell, who wouldn’t end up with issues after everything I’d seen and done?
And it seemed even more unimportant now because Walker was going to be locked away in some federal prison and me…
God, I was probably going to go too. “This despite the offers that Reggie and I both gave to ensure this went smoothly and with no need to cause a massive amount of disruption.”
“He attacked my men,” Agent Smith said, and even I could hear he was trying to inject the authority invested in him by the federal government into his voice.
There was a problem, though, which even I could see with only half my attention on the conversation and my heart breaking in my chest. Agent Smith’s authority came from something outside himself, but Mr. Shepherd’s authority came from within.
“Which, no matter the reasoning or the motivation, is still a crime.”
“And you’re within your rights to charge him and take him in,” Mr. Shepherd said in that same cool tone.
“I cannot stop you. I will, however, remind you of the impulsive and unnecessary accusation you threw my way when I insisted on reading the warrant before I cooperated. I was not using my ‘pull’ as you put it to stop you from doing what was within the warrant, but I am not afraid to do so to maintain the peace and security of this resort. A peace and security that you have clumsily stomped all over with your amateur arrogance and brutishness.”
“Marc,” Reggie muttered in a low voice of warning, but when I picked my head up, I could see Mr. Shepherd was still radiating that aura of complete control and authority, while the agent in charge just looked…pissed.
Agent Smith scowled, looking down at me and then back at Mr. Shepherd. “Birds of a feather, eh?”
“No,” Mr. Shepherd said disdainfully. “But just as you take your job and duty seriously, so too do I. These men are here under my protection, and I will do what is necessary to protect them.”
“Fine,” Agent Smith said, but the word was spat out as if it were venomous. “But don’t think I won’t make a few calls of my own. You three have a good night…or morning, I guess.”
“You as well,” Mr. Shepherd said, and then held his hand out toward one of the departing armed agents. “If you would.”
The agent hesitated before looking down at me and grunting, handing something to Mr. Shepherd, who stepped out of the way and let the agents leave. While Agent Smith met Mr. Shepherd’s eyes as they passed one another, Reggie snatched what was in Mr. Shepherd’s hand and darted over to me.
“Cade, I’m so sorry,” he said softly, and I felt the ties on my wrists break as he used what appeared to be some sort of tool to cut me free. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Ya couldn’t do anythin’,” I told him. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be comforting or accusing, and it didn’t matter. “Thank ya, Mr. Shepherd. Ain’t gonna do me much good, but I guess my parents will be happy I wasn’t taken in for attackin’ the government.”
“I think you can safely call me Marc,” he said as he stepped into the room and closed the door. “Reggie?”
“I will check in a minute, Marc,” Reggie grumbled as he cut the ties on my ankles and I felt his fingers brush over them. “Ugh, why do you have to be so strong, Cade? You broke the skin.”
“My back hurts,” I muttered, drawing myself into a sitting position. I realized I was still naked, but that didn’t seem important. Walker was gone, far out of my reach, and I didn’t know what I could do about that.
“That’s where they tased you,” Reggie said, and I could hear him wincing. “Twice.”
“Three times,” Marc said with a snort, tapping the panel on the wall and dimming the lights.
I peered up. “When did they stop flashin’ red?”
“Right before the agents came in,” Marc said as he grabbed a pair of pants from the ground and handed them to me gently. “Reggie accidentally triggered the alarm when he was attempting to make the system open the doors for us.”
Accidentally, right.
“I guess it was better than you being woken up by the agents coming in,” Reggie muttered as he sat on the edge of the bed, a tablet in his hand. “I mean, maybe.”
“We weren’t sleepin’,” I said, still sitting on the floor, just with pants on now.
“Oh,” Reggie said, looked down at the bed he was sitting on, and sighed. “Oh.”
Marc shook his head. “How are you? And I don’t mean emotionally. I understand that is a loaded question and at the top of the list is misery.”
“And helpless,” I said, crossing my legs and running my finger over the stiff metal of the prosthetic. “Espionage, treason? Can’t be.”
“As far as we could tell, whatever Walker had been doing before he was brought to us got into the wrong hands, or spun out of control,” Marc said with a frown.
“It’s hard to say because it was snippets of conversation that were overheard rather than the entire story.
Reggie is insistent on doing some research to figure out more, but I’m not sure how much help that’s going to be.
I should also point out that every room in this building is fitted with cameras, but several of them are never activated. ”
I peered up at the ceiling. “Er…in the rooms, too?”
“Yes,” he said. “Again, they’re left deactivated.”
“Is that legal?”
“It is when it’s covered in the forms you have to read and sign to come to the resort.”
“Right…all that?”
“All that,” Marc said, and the corner of his lips twitched. “Reggie?”
“Patience,” Reggie muttered. “And…yeah, from start to finish, got it all.”
“Excellent,” Marc said. “I don’t know how much it will help, but it’s something.”
I looked between the two of them, confused. “What?”
“Did you think I was going to have the federal government break down the door to our resort, wave their warrant and their egos, and I wouldn’t take measures?
” Marc asked, and when he saw I wasn’t following, he smiled.
“From the moment I realized we had federal agents breathing down our necks, I made sure Reggie activated all the cameras we might need. That included the ones in my office, the ones in the hallway, and the ones in your room.”
“Er, how, uh…soon before ya came in, did ya turn them on?” I asked, thinking of what had been happening minutes before everything had gone to hell.
“If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, I don’t think what two consenting adults were doing in the privacy of their room is going to be necessary to bring up,” Marc said and then sighed.
“And I can’t say I have complete confidence that the footage will do much good.
Not on its own. Agent Smith handled the entire affair from top to bottom poorly, but that might not be enough. ”
“He’s going to need a lawyer, and I don’t think he or his family have the money for that,” Reggie said, sounding unhappy.
“And while we can provide footage, we can’t be seen to offer much more help.
The warrant was legal, the arrest was sloppy, but it wasn’t so botched that it could be thrown out or contested easily. ”
“Right, a lawyer,” I said, frowning. “I don’t know any of those.”
“They’ll provide him one, but…I suspect he’ll need better than a public defender who is constantly being bombarded with more cases than they know how to deal with,” Marc said with an unhappy expression.
“I know it won’t do much good to tell you not to sit around and feel awful about this, but… what are you doing?”
“Where’s my phone?” I asked, heart thundering in my chest as an idea blossomed, and I scrambled around looking for it in the mess the fight had created.
“This one?” Reggie asked, pulling my phone out from under the mattress.
“Yes,” I said, taking it and after a few clumsy attempts to unlock it, I pulled up a name and dialed. “Please, please—”
“Cayden?” came my mother’s sleepy voice, thick with concern. “It’s early, honey, is somethin’ wrong?”
“Yes,” I barked, my voice cracking from the combination of everything that had just happened and hearing my mother’s sweet voice so heavy with concern. “Mama, I need help. Walker needs our help.”
“You tell me right now,” she said, her voice clearing quickly.
“I got an idea, Mama, but we’re gonna need help,” I said, no longer caring that the other two men were there to hear my voice shake, or the desperation in it.
“Tell me what I need to do,” she said. “Talk.”
So I did, and after telling her my idea, I felt that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.