Chapter Twelve #2
Roz emptied the clip and cursed before Gage heard scraping and a click as he popped in another clip.
“They’re fuckin’ bouncing off,” Roz panted. “That fuckin’ van is bulletproof. Get the shotgun, G.”
Gage fumbled for it at his feet, until his fingers brushed over cold steel.
The van door slammed open.
Two sharp pops cut through the air, and both front tires on the Lincoln exploded with violent hisses, as it collapsed to the asphalt.
“Shit!” Roz yelled. “Get down!”
Muted gunfire tore through the dark, rounds hammering the ground in a tight, disciplined circle.
The marksmen were trapping them, not trying to kill them.
Gage flinched as his side window splintered and the headlights blew apart.
Warning shots.
“We gotta get out,” Roz shouted over the chaos. “Get to the back of the car. Go, go!”
Cold air flooded his lungs as he shoved his door open and dove to the ground. He trailed one hand along the body of the freezing door until he got to the blown-out rear tire.
A hand clamped around his wrist and yanked him the last few steps, pressing his back against the rear bumper.
“About fifty feet away, there’s a narrow walkway. I can shoot the lock on the building access door and—”
“Wait,” Gage said, ducking lower.
“There’s no time,” Roz said breathless. He shoved Gage’s hand into his coat pocket. “Hold on and stay glued to me.”
“No,” Gage hissed, digging his heels in. “It’s me they want.”
“I’m not leaving you!” Roz barked in his face. “If they want you, they gotta go through me.”
He punctuated that by firing his shotgun twice. The blasts were like bombs going off in his head.
“You hear that, motherfuckers?” Roz roared. “You gotta go through me if you want him!”
“So be it,” a calm voice said from behind them.
Gage hadn’t heard the footsteps of someone closing in over the gunfire and Roz’s yelling. That voice scared him more than the bullets.
It was the men in green.
Roz’s shotgun clattered away, skidding across pavement. Forced grunts followed, deep, brutal sounds of fists meeting flesh.
Roz cursed, a gasp whooshing out of him as if someone had driven a fist into his gut.
Gage lunged in his direction. His shoulder hit packed muscle as he wrapped his arms around a waist, and lifted with everything he had.
They both went down hard, the frozen concrete biting his knees through the denim.
The man was up again almost before they landed, rolling smooth and fast, but Gage was already turning toward Roz’s voice.
“Get off me—”
“Roz!” Gage launched himself at the sound of his friend’s struggle.
He dropped low, sweeping his leg and throwing his weight forward. He caught someone at hip height, the impact ricocheting up his spine. They both hit the ground with a hard thud.
Before he could right himself, an arm clamped around his throat from behind. Not a sloppy chokehold. It was exact pressure right under his jaw, not his windpipe, enough to control but not crush.
Gage snarled and thrashed. He drove his elbow back, hit something solid, but the grip didn’t budge. It was as if he were trying to fight a tree trunk.
The forearm across his chest was concrete, surrounded by muscle. Thick and unyielding as a metal beam.
“Stop fighting,” the man growled in his ear, his breath hot against his cheek. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Gage choked. “You’re the ones from the rooftop. You’ve already tried to kill me once.”
“I’m your fuckin’ brother. We were trying to save you,” the man snapped. “You didn’t escape us… We let you go.”
“You were shooting at him!” Roz barked somewhere to Gage’s left, voice strained as though he was in a similar hold as him.
“If my team wanted to shoot you,” the stranger said, his patience sounding razor-thin. “You’d be dead already.”
“Let him go,” Roz snarled, struggling. “You’re choking him.”
“Does he sound like he can’t breathe, dumbass?” the man holding him growled.
Truth was, the hold was firm, however he could still breathe and talk just fine but not escape.
Realizing he was at an impasse, Gage lifted his arms slowly, fingers spread.
“All right,” he rasped. “I’m not fighting.”
After a second, the strong arm loosened from around him and slid away.
Air flooded Gage’s lungs as he staggered forward, coughing.
“Let my friend go,” he said, turning toward Roz. “Right now.”
A different male voice answered, deeper, smooth as river rock and not the slightest bit winded. “Fine, but if he swings on me, I’m putting him down for a nap.”
“He won’t,” Gage said, putting as much conviction into it as he could. “Roz, don’t fight anymore.”
“I’m not lettin’em take you,” he bit out.
Gage took a couple of careful steps forward until his hand brushed the sleeve of Roz’s jacket. He grabbed on.
“What is it you want from me?” he asked.
“We’re taking you home,” the first man said.
“I’ve already been killed off…and buried,” Gage scoffed. “Home sounds…ominous.”
“Just listen,” the man responded.
Something was inched close to his jaw before he heard an electronic click.
A woman’s voice came through.
“Gage Harrington, my name is Jo. I’m the director of the Ravens program, but not the one you were once in.”
Every muscle in his body locked as she kept talking.
“The facility you knew, and White Sector Thirty, have been destroyed at my order. The director who ordered your experiments is dead. The staff who carried out those experiments are either in custody or buried, at my order.”
Gage’s pulse was hammering so loudly he was sure they could hear it.
“The men with you now are my Green Ravens,” she went on.
“Valor and Zorion. They were pulled into the same corrupt program you were, and also underwent medical procedures against their will. After I helped them escape, they fought beside me to bring down the old organization and reshape the Ravens into the honorable program it was intended to be.”
Her tone softened.
“They were sent to find you and Scar and bring you home—not as captives, as family. You will never be strapped down again. You will not be caged. You’ll be treated respectfully, protected, and given a life. But if you refuse my help and try running from the authorities, it’s not going to go well.”
Gage’s brain snagged on one word.
“Scar?”
“Yes,” Jo said. “I’ve sent another team after him. He’s not safe in Chicago. Neither are you. If you’re arrested, it’ll be difficult to help you. The safest place for both of you is home, with us.”
“Are you fuckin’ shitten’ me?” Roz let out an incredulous bark of laughter. “Is Scar behind all this?”
“No,” the woman said calmly. “Scar Calloway is another victim of the director’s experiments. I understand your friend is concerned, Gage. But he can’t keep you safe forever.”
“The hell I can’t,” Roz snapped. “You’re not taking him. I don’t care who you are, lady. My boy is fuckin’ blind because of y’all.”
Gage squeezed his eyes shut, feeling as if his head was trying to split open.
“If he is under my protection,” Jo said, “no one touches him. That I swear.”
“G,” Roz said, inching closer. “You can’t trust these motherfuckers. You told me what they did to you. They want you to go with them so they can finish the job.”
“If you come home,” Jo cut in gently, “you will be safe, Gage. But it is your choice. You are an asset and a human being. But if you say no, Valor and Zorion will walk away. I won’t like it, and I will fear for you, but we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, ever.”
Silence stretched between the five of them and whatever men still watched from the van.
Gage’s mind spun. He thought of the facility. The needles. The screaming. The pain.
He thought of Scar in danger, of his parents who were just a few miles away, of a life on the run, before he released a long, resigned sigh.
“If you say I’m in control,” he said slowly, “and it’s my choice…then I’ll come.”
Roz stiffened and gripped his arm tighter.
“But only if Roz comes with me,” he added. “He’s the only one I trust. No Roz, no deal.”
“Done,” she said without hesitation. “Whatever you wish.”
Roz let out a strangled sound. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”
“I look forward to meeting both of you,” Jo continued. “I swear on my Order of Aga Khan. I am bound by honor. No harm will come to either of you under my command.”
The line clicked and went dead.
For a second, nobody moved.
Roz closed his arms tight around his waist. Gage folded into him without thinking, forehead hitting Roz’s collarbone.
“You okay?” Roz asked into his hair.
“No,” he said honestly. “But I think you know we can’t live as some kind of outlaws in the Midwest. Eventually, we’ll get caught, and it’ll kill me if you go to prison because I made the wrong decision.”
There was a hydraulic whine as the van door slid open.
“Get in,” said the one who’d had him in the chokehold. “We have a bird waiting.”
They have their own aircraft. Of course they do.
Gage heard a hand lift, cloth whispering to his right. He reached out and caught the wrist before it could touch his arm.
“Don’t,” he said sharply.
“I got him.” Roz bit out. “Keep your hands to yourself, GI Joe.”
A low chuckle sounded from behind him, belonging to the second man with the deeper voice.
Gage clutched Roz’s elbow and let his best friend guide him toward the van.