Chapter Eleven #2
She flinches at the sound of my voice. Her hands shake so hard I think she might drop to her knees. For a moment, all I can hear is the beep of machines and the soft whir of fans overhead, like the facility itself is holding its breath.
Hash kneels beside her, his voice soft. “We’re not with the Cartel. We’re getting you out of here. But we need to know what’s going on. What they’ve been creating.”
She swallows hard and then finally speaks, but it’s only a whisper. “It’s a sedative. And something else I am unsure about, but they call it a control serum. Designed to make the women… compliant.”
A pulse of rage tears through me. The twisted fucks!
Behind me, Mace growls under his breath. “Sick motherfuckers.”
“Any idea where they’re keeping the detainees?” I ask.
The woman nods slowly, trembling. “Not here… they hold them at a shipping yard in New Orleans.”
I tap my comm. “Bear, we’ve got victims in NOLA. Send word to L6. I’m sure H2 will handle it, though.”
“Copy that,” Bear replies, tension coiled in every word.
“Axel, status?” I ask down our secure comm line.
“We’ve got crates of this shit,” he answers. “Labeled under fake FDA codes. I’m scanning documents now, shipping manifests, distribution charts, the works.”
“All right. Keep pulling. We need names. Connections. And I want proof that puts every bastard funding this in a cell.”
As we regroup to move deeper, the woman reaches out, grabbing my wrist with surprising strength. “They’ll kill them if they know you’re coming. The women in New Orleans… they’ll kill them.”
I hold her gaze, a slow smirk crossing my face. “They won’t get the chance. We got a team over there too. They’ll get them out. No matter what.”
The woman’s body sags in some sort of relief, tears flooding her eyes as we move, boots pounding dirt while the lights overhead flicker, warning us that time is running out.
But we’ve got what we came for.
Now we have to get them out.
Or we die trying.
“Please,” she whispers through the glass partition separating the lab from the corridor. “Don’t let them inject us again. We’ve been good. We’ve done everything they asked.”
Goddammit! Whatever these bastards have been doing to these people goes far beyond simple coercion.
“Ma’am, I swear to you, we won’t leave unless you’re with us. We have to gather some more evidence along the way, and then we’re out.”
She shakes her head frantically. “No, no, NO. They said if anyone came, they’d activate the gas. They’ll kill everyone to protect their work. If we’re leaving, we have to go now!”
“What gas?” Hash asks, moving to check her vitals through the partition.
“In the ventilation system. Weaponized compounds. If the facility is breached, they release it through the air ducts.”
My eyes widen, glancing around, and as I look up, sure enough, there are multiple air ducts. “Ghost, talk to me about ventilation.”
“Central air system services all levels. Main controls are on level four, but there are manual triggers throughout the facility.”
“Deek, Axel, how long do you need for evidence collection?”
“Ten minutes minimum for proper documentation,” Axel responds.
“We don’t have ten minutes. Axel, hurry the fuck up!”
Suddenly, red lights begin flashing throughout the facility when a computerized voice echoes from hidden speakers, “Security breach detected. Initiating emergency sterilization protocols. All personnel evacuate immediately.”
“Fuck! Everyone out, now,” I bark into the comms, my voice sharp with urgency, reverberating through the stone walls like a warning bell.
Hash begins hauling terrified scientists out of their labs, herding them like panicked deer.
Their faces are ghost-white, barely comprehending the hellstorm we’re dragging them out of.
Axel’s hands fly in a blur, stuffing chemical samples into evidence containers, his breathing shallow and rapid, fingers slick with sweat and adrenaline.
Flint’s crouched over a computer terminal, eyes scanning lines of code like a man possessed. “I need two more minutes,” he yells, his voice tight. “This data could expose everything… distribution, names, supply chains. All of it.”
Then the facility’s speakers crackle to life, and a cold, mechanical voice floods every hallway. “Emergency sterilization in ninety seconds.”
The sound chills me to my core.
It’s not a fire drill.
It’s a fucking death sentence.
“Ghost!” I shout, pivoting toward my tech genius. “Status on emergency exits?”
A pause. Then his voice comes through, almost sounding panicked. “Blocked. Cave-in sealed off all auxiliary tunnels.”
My stomach drops, and I grit my teeth in annoyance. “You saying we’re trapped?”
“Only way out is the way we came in,” Ghost confirms grimly.
Jesus. They built this place to be a fucking tomb.
“All teams, converge on the main elevator shaft. We’re punching out the way we punched in.”
Suddenly, the ear-splitting sound of gunfire erupts from below.
It’s close. Muffled by the stone, but unmistakable.
“Shots fired!” Liam’s voice crackles, though it’s ragged with effort. “Cartel reinforcements, coming up from level three. They’re heading for the gas controls.”
Fuck.
My feet take off before I even register that I’m running, before the words finish leaving his mouth.
Sparks fly where bullet fragments chew through the railings, one of the stray bullets slamming into my left shoulder.
“Goddammit, motherfu—” I groan, glancing down to see blood pouring along the length of my arm, my lungs burning while pain ripples through me.
But I don’t stop.
I can’t.
If they reach that console, they’ll flood the whole facility with whatever the hell they have cooked up in those labs.
We’ll be drowning in vaporized death.
“Warden, Bear, lock down those stairs. I don’t want a single fucker making it through,” I yell.
“Copy,” Warden’s voice fires back. “Setting up chokepoint.”
The stairwell to level three is narrow. Jagged stone edges, steep steps slick with moisture, lit only by flickering emergency lights that paint everything in a sickly red hue.
It’s a kill box.
A perfect place to get shredded.
As I reach the top of the stairs, nursing my fucked shoulder, Bear and Warden are in position, weapons braced, breathing heavy. Shadows lurk below, Cartel soldiers in tactical gear, screaming in Spanish, and they aim, firing at us blindly.
I drop to one knee, and with my good hand, I bring my gun up with precision and open fire. The flash lights up the shaft like a lightning storm, almost blinding me, but my eyes right themselves just in time for me to see a grenade being arced up toward us.
Fuck! “Get down,” I scream.
We dive as the explosion punches the air from my lungs. Heat, dust, and shards of concrete rain down when the stairwell collapses. My ears ring, my vision shakes as dust floats through the air like confetti.
But I’m still breathing.
I think.
I drag myself upright, blood streaks my forearm. My vest is scorched, Bear is shouting, deafened, but he’s alive. Warden is returning fire, his aggression relentless.
“Pres, reinforcements are falling back,” Warden calls. “We bought time. But not much.”
Panting for breath, I give my orders. “Fall back to level two. We’re out of time!”
That fucking robotic bitch echoes again over the speakers. “Sterilization in thirty seconds.”
Jesus Christ, I need to up my cardio.
I tilt my head at Warden and Bear, and the three of us take off, sprinting for the elevator when another explosion hits, this one closer, a detonation from the collapsing lower level. Flint’s halfway down the corridor, the evidence bag slung over his shoulder, when a chunk of the ceiling gives way.
A steel beam crashes down in a deafening roar, knocking him flat. The evidence bag skitters across the floor.
“Flint!” I shout.
Axel’s already on the move. “Cover me.”
I lay down fire as Axel dives toward Flint, dragging him by the shoulders while bullets whip through the air around us. Another round of gunfire erupts from a side corridor. Cartel soldiers charge toward us, weapons raised.
Bear and Warden step up, unloading round after round, bodies jerking in recoil as they fight to hold the line.
Axel snatches the evidence bag with one hand and hauls Flint with the other. I rush to meet him, grabbing Flint’s other arm. Blood trickles from Flint’s temple, where debris caught him. He’s semi-conscious, groaning, the flash drive still clutched in his gloved hand.
“Got you, brother,” I mutter, hoisting him up.
“Fifteen seconds,” someone yells.
“Go, go, GO!”
We bolt for the elevator, half-carrying Flint between us while the rest of the team holds back the tide. Warden tosses a smoke grenade, and the corridor fills with gray haze. Screams echo through the fog.
We reach the shaft. Nitro is hammering the control panel. It groans, lurches, and begins to rise. We drag Flint inside before the scientists rush in behind us, dazed, coughing, bleeding. Some are supported by brothers. Others stumble in on their own.
Gas begins hissing into the lower levels.
“Five… four—”
“Everyone in?” I demand.
Axel does a frantic headcount. “All accounted for.”
“Three…”
The elevator bucks. A thunderous boom echoes from below, the shockwave slamming into us like a fist. The elevator shakes violently.
Sparks fly from the console. We drop a foot, then two, before the brakes engage with a metallic shriek.
One of the women scientists screams with fear, but the platform resumes its climb, groaning like it’s hauling too much weight.
“Two…”
We breach the surface, all of us diving out and running hard, putting distance between us and the entrance before the earth behind us explodes.
A geyser of flame and smoke shoots into the sky.
The mining facility collapses inward, cratering into itself like a black hole swallowing the evil inside.
Debris rains down, metal shards, burning rubble, while shrapnel pelts the dirt around us as we tumble free of the mine.
We hit the sand hard. My shoulder screams. My vision blurs.
The place blew with one second before the gas leak.
But we’re alive.
With all of us lying on the desert floor, the mine shaft burning in the midnight darkness, lighting up the sky like a beacon, I yank my protective helmet off and draw in a deep breath.
“And this is why I get you to go into the gold mines, Koa,” I grumble, lying back, looking up at the stars.
A slow chuckle erupts from all my brothers, which then turns into full laughter as Koa rolls over beside me and slaps my chest. “Face it, Pres… you gotta leave the hard work for the big boys.”
Smirking, I sit up, reach across, and punch the big Hawaiian asshole in his arm. “Fuck you! Go help the workers, they look like deer caught in the headlights right now.”
Koa grins at me. “You got it, Pres.”
Groaning as I stand, along with the rest of my boys, I signal to our vehicles. “Get Flint to medical. Anyone else injured?”
Hash and Nitro load Flint into the med transport. Axel shoves the evidence bag in after him. I turn to the others. Liam’s suit is torn, burns creeping along his arms, but he’s still standing.
“We’ve got wounded,” Hash states. “Liam’s burned, three scientists have poisoning. But I think we can get them fixed at the hospital.”
Nodding, I signal for him to take them off to medical. Turning, I look back one last time at the facility, smoke plumes into the sky, the last of its secrets buried beneath rock and ruin.
Not all of us made it out unscathed.
Some may never fully recover.
But we did what we came to do.
We brought the truth into the light.
And we brought our people home.
“Deek, how many bad jokes you got left in you?” I ask as we begin the long ride back to Vegas.
“Depends. How long until Hash stops looking like he’s gonna murder someone?”
“Could be a while,” Hash groans.
“Then I better pace myself. Don’t want to blow my load too soon. Where’s the fun in that?”
Everyone except Hash chuckles as we continue to drive home, and despite everything, the violence, the casualties, the knowledge that the Cartel made a base in my town without my knowledge, I find myself smiling.
This is what family means in our world.
Standing together when the devil comes calling, cracking jokes in the face of death, and never leaving anyone behind.
Even when the cost threatens to break us all.
I don’t know how the other operations are going tonight, but I think we can chalk Vegas up as a success.
Grabbing the radio, blood seeps through my fingers onto the radio before I clear my throat from the dust and speak into the comms, “L6… this is V5. Package delivered. Got us some injuries, me included, but we’re headed home.”
Static blasts back down the line, then I hear her. “V5, this is L6. Great job. Take the time to rest and recover. Over.”
Smirking, I glance out at my brothers all leaning back against the walls of the vehicle, their eyes closed, covered in dust, debris, and blood, and I can’t help but be proud of the monumental effort they put in today. Of what Defiance is achieving, right now, nationwide.
It was a shit fight.
We certainly didn’t come out unscathed.
But no war is ever won without battle scars.
I key the radio one more time before allowing myself a moment to rest. “Tell Alpha when you see him, that he owes me a fucking new leather cut. Mine’s got a bullet hole in the shoulder.”
The girl on the comms comes back almost immediately. “Bullet holes build character. But I’ll tell him. You take care of your men… and yourself.” Her tone is definitely teasing, and I can’t help but let out a boisterous laugh, which only serves to make my damn shoulder ache even more.
But I don’t mind.
It just reminds me that I took a hit for a good-fucking-cause.
Keying the comms, I smirk. “I don’t know who you are on the other end of this line, but you’re good people. I’m gonna get off comms so the other chapters can check in, but thanks for keeping it light, lady. V5 out.”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t need to.
I finally close my eyes, resting my head back against the vibrating metal of the vehicle, and take a much-needed breath.
Now, I can finally rest.