Chapter 23
MIKEY
Critters scurrying through the floorboards were the only sounds exiting the building we were ready to breach. Duncan had traded comms with me earlier, stating it was for the sake of Thompson joining us. I was grateful. That man had literally saved my life as a kid. He was the one to take me in off the streets. He gave me some sense of purpose and an outlet for the anger that still boiled within my soul. Then I’d fallen into the wrong crowd when he left.
The usual green tint from night vision goggles pierced the surrounding darkness that allowed us to work in silence. Dom stood at the front, ready to stealthily breach. The goal was to clear each room with as little noise as possible until we found our final target.
Cracking my neck softly, I tucked the rifle into my right shoulder as Dom snaked his hand forward and pulled open the door.
As silent as ghosts that were never here, we slipped through the doorway. Ford followed Bernie to the room on the right as Dom went left. Duncan and I stalked silently down the hallway and to the next room on the left.
Nothing but cobwebs and dust met my scan of the room. Old dressers, rugs in need of a good vacuuming turned ragged beneath the scorching heat of desert sun. Whatever family had once lived here, was long gone.
A shiver ran up my spine. We’d breached a building not too dissimilar from this one before. Though this was much smaller, and only two levels, there was a part of me excited to meet our target in such a short amount of time.
Duncan’s hand tapped my shoulder, and I backed out of the room with him in lead. Spinning on my heels, not even the cracked wood beneath my feet creaked as we tread silently into the abandoned kitchen at the end of the hallway. Not a speckle of starlight pierced the windows draped in old fabric. Once rich colors were as dull as the rest of the hollowness surrounding us.
A couple broken pottery dishes lined a counter. Not a single fingerprint or sweep of a broom disrupted the sand that had settled in this condemned home. Bathed in shadows, I crept toward the scuffed table and quickly cleared beneath the wood that threatened to cave in with the slightest shift in weight.
Nothing.
Sweeping back out of the room with Duncan, we met back up with the rest of the team at the base of the stairs. My heart pounded in my chest. Sweat seeped from every pore. Stabbing adrenaline itching to be released rested just beneath my skin. Yet not a sign another living human being had set foot in this house had been revealed. My fingers ached to deal some devastating blows. We’d had enough losses lately.
With a nod of his head, Dom took the first step. Ford followed next with Bernie hooked on his arm. Duncan brought up the rear as we twisted up the wooden staircase. Dom disappeared around the bend first. Silence still. Not a shot fired. Not a groan or snap of bones crunching beneath hands.
Rounding the corner, my heart in my throat, I emerged onto the top floor.
Nothing.
My shoulders fell as we swept the completely empty, single room. Not even a closet door graced us. Stepping carefully over each floorboard, we listened for the sound of something hollow. I kicked at a dusty rug that was already rolled up on one side, but still nothing. All the furniture that might have graced this room was long gone.
Dom lowered his rifle and shook his head. Disappointment flooded my system, damming up all adrenaline.
“What the fuck?” Ford cursed under his breath.
“Fuck!” Bernie shouted and jogged around the edge of the room, shoving at the walls, hoping that the cement would give way to something.
“He’s not here. No one has been here in years. Are you sure this is where the coordinates led?” Dom glanced at Duncan. All my companion did was nod, his face hidden behind the goggles and balaclava we all donned.
Then the first unusual sound pierced the emptiness around us.
Faint static.
Dom held up a fist and we all immediately froze.
But the white noise wasn’t coming from this room. No, it was directly in my ear. The radio. Our comms were engaging. My brows pulled together as the buzzing whispered through my earpiece again.
Two jolting cracks thundered through the night air.
“MIKEY!” Scottie’s voice suddenly screamed from the comms.
Panic shot into my veins. Without a second thought, I slung the rifle over my back and spun on my heels. Wind whistled against my cheeks. Sprinting, I pounded down the stairs. Shouting from my team fell on my deaf ears as I tore back out through the house with one purpose in mind.
Gunfire. Two gunshots had preceded Scottie’s desperate cry for me. She hadn’t even used my callsign like she was supposed to.
My vision blurred. Urgency coated my skin as slick as the sweat pouring from my body.
Scottie.
Thompson was with her, but the only thing on my mind was racing across this hell-forsaken town to reach her.
Sand crunched underneath my boots.
My bulletproof vest slapped against my chest.
Cold concrete beneath my palms seared into my skin as I hurdled over a wall.
A damn distraction. That’s what our portion of the mission had been.
Scottie.
Was she dead?
I had to get there.
I should have already been there.
What I should have done was send Jacob with the team.
I should have been the one protecting her.
This was my fault. I’d distracted her with my own selfish desires.
But all I wanted now was to make sure she was safe.
She called for me and I was too fucking far away.
Racing around a corner, I flipped my rifle back in front of me, shoved it into my shoulder as I took aim, and burst through the doorway. It was dangerous to not sweep all the rooms, but I didn’t give two shits right now. Scottie was on the third floor and that’s where I needed to get to.
Shoving my way through shambles of discarded wood and broken furniture, I rushed up the stairs two at a time. My head on a constant swivel, I saw nothing but a blur of old paintings and destruction.
All I cared about was her.
Her scream for me was seared in my mind as I barreled up the second flight of stairs. My lungs burned. Iron coated my lips as every cell burst with strain. Violence was toying with me tonight.
Crashing around a corner, I vaulted across a tipped over dresser covered in speckled, old paint. I slammed through the door. My feet morphed into stone. Freezing in place, shock hurdled through my veins. Ice slithered down my back. Every breath burned with rage and blood.
Blood.
Red stained the walls where Scottie should have been. Her corner she must have tucked herself into to get a good view out the single window was soaked with iron hot liquid. But I wasn’t sure if it was hers or Jacob’s.
Shaking free of the shackles, I stumbled across the small room. Wood bit slivers into my knees as I crashed to the floor beside a body slathered in wine red stains. The only body in the room.
“Jacob?” I gasped. Torn. My heart screamed at me to leave. Whoever took Scottie couldn’t be that far away. But the other part of me couldn’t process the gore lying before me.
His body twitched. I scooped him up into my lap, the heat from wet blood soaked into my uniform. A strained wheeze sucked oxygen into his lungs. One free hand of mine roamed his body, searching for whatever fatal wound there may be. Shredded skin on half of his face oozed. Every inhale he took creased agony on his features.
“Merlin,” he croaked. My fingers finally found the two searing holes in his chest.
“Merlin? What?” I shook my head as his hand tried to pry mine from his wounds leaking death. Then he slipped cool metal beneath my palm.
“Scottie. Merlin,” he wheezed again. His only intact brow twitched. Wrinkles formed on part of his forehead. Blood seeped into the valleys upon his body. Hot liquid oozed between my fingers. And then one final inhale expanded his lungs.
And just as quickly as an eel on water, the serpent of death took my friend.
“Jacob?” I rasped, shaking him. “Jacob!”
But I knew it was of no use.
With his dying breath, he’d tried to relay something to me. Merlin. Scottie and Merlin.
Wait, Merlin. I knew that name. Had briefly skimmed past it on the first day here.
A hand slammed onto my shoulder, startling me, and I whipped around, ready to throw a fist.
“Mikey,” Dom said. The rest of the team crowded into the tiny room, taking up every last inch of available space. Still on my knees, I clung to the side of Jacob’s body. “The house is empty. She’s gone.”
“Merlin. Jacob said Merlin. That damn fucking mercenary for hire is here,” I snarled.
Ford leaned back. “They can’t have gotten far.”
“And Scottie wouldn’t have gone without a fight,” Bernie added.
“Dom?” Duncan looked at our team leader.
Radioing this in would be the proper route to follow. But there would be a chance that we would be ordered back to base. Where we would have to wait for more intel. But all of the intel that we’d received up until this point had been a whole lot of horse shit.
Which meant, what I wanted was to go after Scottie without clear orders.
“No man left behind,” Dom said. “Though, I’ll radio the colonel while we go find whatever trail Scottie left us.”
“Make sure it’s secure and only to him. And whatever fucking intel he goes looking for, have it come from someone new. A new squad. Just new,” I growled, clutching Jacob’s dog tags he’d slipped me tightly, and rose from the floor.
I stared at the man at my feet. Broken. Shredded to pieces. Gave his last breath protecting Scottie—someone he’d only just met.
Grief held only a brief place in my heart. Rage, red hot rage, blazing like the devil himself had arrived in my soul. Whatever motherfucker stood between me and Scottie would meet a cruel fate, worse than the one that was gifted to Jacob.
“What are you saying?” Duncan asked, tipping his head as I tucked Jacob’s dog tags into my own secure pocket.
“Think about it, we’ve had nothing but faulty fucking intel. And Merlin doesn’t show up unless contracted by someone. His goal was to take Scottie. Why, who the fuck knows. But every damn mission has been an absolute nightmare, and this one…” I took a steady step toward Dom. “This one got a man killed.”
Dom slowly nodded, studying me behind his goggles. “You think there’s a mole.”
“Well, shit,” Bernie muttered.
“There’s no way. That’s treason,” Duncan countered.
“Makes sense, though,” Ford added, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I know it’s a wild thought, really out there, but I can’t think of another explanation as to why our entire deployment has gone to hell,” I added. Silence fell around us. I honestly hadn’t even considered the thought until the words tumbled from my own mouth. But there had to be an explanation as to why Jacob was dead. There had to be something else that explained Scottie being kidnapped. Otherwise, I didn’t think that my mind could handle the thought of the other reason being because I fucked up a mission.
There had to be an explanation that came from somewhere outside of me. Outside of this team. Otherwise, the blame landed squarely on us.
And there was no fucking way that the one thing I was good at was the cause of death to my friend and the kidnapping of the woman I cared for. Of a teammate. Of someone who seemed to have bonded to us like magnets of opposite poles. She’d come across prickly, but I wasn’t going to lie, I liked prickly.
We were all a little prickly.
“Alright, let’s go.” Dom let his gaze linger on me briefly and then turned around. “Scottie probably left a trail of something. Blood, or maybe she dropped pieces of her rag she ties around her sniper rifle for camouflage or something else. She’s smart, so we need to continue to trust that she’ll be fine until we can find her. I’ll radio Colonel Duke as we go. And we don’t return to base until we find our teammate.”
Merlin better keep his motherfucking hands to himself, or I’ll cut each finger off and feed them to him.
The world turned red.
I’d heard the jokes about my rather unhinged actions during fights, but they hadn’t seen shit yet.
I wasn’t going to return to base until I felt the crack of Merlin’s bones beneath my own hands. Not until the devil carried his soul to the bottom of the river. And I was the one to deliver him there myself.