6. Novak #3
I advanced across the space, stepping over the first body.
A fourth man—Ball-Cap—barreled out from my left with a handgun, flailing, and shouting.
I fired once, hitting him in the shoulder, and he fell to the floor, whimpering.
I relieved him of his weapon and zip-tied him to the nearest radiator, taking off his ball cap and shoving it into his mouth.
“I have Ball-Cap,” I confirmed, “three security down. Where’s Skinny?”
“I can’t see him,” Caleb sounded frustrated. “No one left that place. Find him. Levi, Doc, watch your backs, we have a loose one.”
“We’re leaving,” Levi confirmed. “No sign of adults back here.”
“Caleb?” I asked, but he was silent on comms.
“I have nothing. He must have gotten away. Fuck!”
That was my cue. The house was mine now, the vermin inside exterminated, blood and bones ready to burn to nothing.
I sprayed accelerant over the bodies, Ball-Cap staring at me with wide eyes.
It didn’t matter that some splashed on him given I’d be cutting him loose for further interrogation before I burned the place down.
Jamie had provided me with fancy shit that burned hot, and this place would be nothing but a shell when I was done.
Ball-Cap whimpered and pleaded, and I rolled my eyes. Pathetic.
I walked the space again, and only as I turned to get Ball-Cap and get the hell out did something make me stop. Some sound, or instinct. I don’t know.
I yanked the cap out of the tied-up man’s mouth. “Where’s your buddy?”
“Let me go! Please!”
I grabbed his face, shoved the gun to his neck. “Where is he?”
“Let me go.”
“Tell me and I might,” I lied.
Ball-Cap whimpered. “In the back corridor, past the kitchen! Let me go!”
“Someone is still here,” I said into comms as I shoved the cap back in his mouth. “Caleb? Heat signatures?”
“Fuck, I’ve got nothing.”
“You said the kids were in a room you couldn’t see into.”
“Correct. Thermal shielding on the west side.”
A sound came again, faint but distinct, traveling through the walls.
“There’s another space,” I said.
“That isn’t on the plans,” Caleb replied.
“The plans are wrong.”
“On my way,” he said, already moving, the sound of an engine starting followed by silence.
I tracked the metallic noise along the plumbing runs, following the vibration through the pipework until it terminated at a brick partition.
“Novak,” Caleb called, his voice echoing on coms—he’d driven the van here, and close by, and all too soon he was next to me, scanning the structure instead of a screen. “There’s a six-foot discrepancy between internal and external depth.”
He ran his hands along the mortar lines, checking for irregularities. I stepped in beside him, covering the upper reach. My fingers found a recessed catch six inches above his reach, disguised within the brickwork.
“Stand back,” I said.
I pulled the lever. The wall slid inward on a concealed track, revealing the narrow room beyond. Two boys. One man.
Skinny had one arm locked around the younger boy’s chest, hauling him off his feet. The kid kicked uselessly in the air. The man’s gun was jammed hard against the side of his head, barrel pressed into soft skin above his ear.
The older boy stood frozen a few feet away, eyes wide, hands half lifted, not sure whether to run or fight.
As the captor grinned, I fired once.
The round took the man clean between the eyes. His head snapped back. Blood and bone sprayed the wall behind him in a wet arc. His grip went slack instantly.
The younger boy dropped hard to his knees, screaming, hands clamped over his ears. The man’s body hit the floor a second later.
The older kid lunged forward, scrambling to reach the other kid, dragging him back, shielding him with his own body while the echoes of the shot died in the space.
Their eyes tracked the weapon in my hand before they registered anything else.
Caleb stepped forward before I could speak, moving into their line of sight without blocking mine, between them and the body. “We’re here to help,” he said, his voice steady and friendly. “We need to leave.”
“No,” the older one said.
“We’re not with them or him ,” Caleb continued and gestured behind us. He even went to a crouch. “Come on, guys, let’s get out of here.”
“You wanna hurt us!” the youngest whimpered into his brother’s chest.
Fuck this pussyfooting around. “Walk out, kids, or we’ll drag you. Move.”
“Jesus, Novak,” Caleb muttered. Then to the boys. “It’ll be okay.”
The older boy’s jaw clenched. He held my stare for a long second before the metal dipped an inch.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“We’re here to help you, you can trust us?—”
“Thirty seconds and this house is burning, and you’re both in it,” I said to the boys. “Decide.”
Caleb shot me a horrified glance. Now wasn’t the right time to tell him that I’d lied, and we had at least a minute. Okay, maybe less. The first boy kept his body positioned between me and the other.
I inclined my head toward the open wall. “Move.”
They scurried past me, but they weren’t moving fast enough, so I scooped up the bigger one and Caleb the other, and the four of us ran to the front door and out into open air as the first of Jamie’s devices ignited and the building began to burn.
I needed to go back and get Ball-Cap, but the conflagration was instant.
Well fuck. After leaving him alive and all. Caleb would be pissed.
The van was already running. Levi had the two younger girls secured in the back, blankets around their shoulders, Doc climbing in beside them to monitor vitals. There was no space left once the older boy was eased in, his arm braced and secured.
The boys from the hidden room hesitated, gaze flicking between the flames and the cars.
“In your truck,” Caleb said, guiding them away from the burning house and to where my truck was at a fast pace.
I unlocked the rear doors. They climbed in without argument, sitting side by side but not touching, shoulders squared, scanning everything.
Caleb retrieved bottled water and protein bars from a backpack and handed them to the person. “Small sips,” he instructed. “Slow.”
They took the water. The food remained unopened in their hands.
“I’m Caleb, this is Novak, you wanna tell us your names and how old you are?” Caleb asked.
Neither answered. The older of the two held his gaze for a moment, then stared past him toward me instead.
“Names,” I snapped, and the older one winced.
“Ezra,” he said, then pointed at the other. “My little brother, Seth.”
“Ages,” I added.
“Nearly eleven,” Ezra said, chin tilted, and I stared right at him.
“I’m n-n-nine,” Seth said.
Caleb paused for a moment and then buckled up. “Okay, Ezra, Seth, sit back, we’re taking you somewhere safe, and they’ll get you back to where you want to be.”
Seth began to cry, and the two boys had a hurried, heated conversation. Instinct had me flicking the locks on the doors because I got the feeling these were still in fight-or-flight mode and were runners. Running wouldn’t get them help.
“Not home,” Ezra said. “We won’t let you take us home.” He tugged Seth into his side and brandished his water bottle as a weapon.
“I’ll kill you both,”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said under my breath.
Caleb focused back on the kids. I couldn’t read their expressions, but Caleb kind of sank into himself, which had to mean he’d seen something in Seth’s tears and Ezra’s statement.
I might be unable to gauge what they were feeling through expression alone, but I’d seen enough in this world to hear fear.
“Of course not,” Caleb said. “We’ll get you real help.”
The van pulled away first, heading toward the safe house.
And next to me, I had Caleb. There hadn’t been room in the van.
Logically, it made sense. Operationally, it was efficient.
Still, it was odd to have someone next to me and kids in the back.
I was the killer, the one who deleted evidence, not the rescuer.
It felt… I don’t know… wrong? But I’d done good—found the boys—so I hoped Caleb was happy about that and could ignore the whole burning alive thing we had going on with Ball-Cap.
The glow from the burning house reflected faintly across the windshield, and I knew we needed to leave, so I headed out.
“Thirty freaking seconds,” Caleb said, glancing back once at the boys in the rear seat as he passed them another bottle of water.
“Forty-five, maybe,” I replied.
“Fucks sake,” he muttered. “You stayed with me.” He sounded shocked. “I stayed for the kids, but you don’t care about them.” He stared at me pointedly. I knew what he was asking without him having to say it.
“I do.” I paused because I needed to word this right. “Children aren’t collateral, leverage, or currency. Leaving them behind to burn would have been wrong.”
“You left the van,” I said finally, eyes on the road. I didn’t look at him. “Next time you stay behind cover with any other assets,” I said.
He studied me for a moment. “Asset?” he said quietly.
“You’re valuable,” I said. “You increase success rates. You reduce exposure. That makes you an asset.”
“Fuck off.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” I added, making sure to maintain eye contact so he knew I was feeling what I was saying.
He rolled his eyes at me, leaned back in the seat, but I had the feeling he had a lot more to say. I wasn’t sure I could argue with him or with anyone. Issue orders to keep people alive, yes, but argue and debate rationally? Nope. Wasn’t happening.
“I’m assuming the other mark is dead.”
“Yep.”
“You couldn’t keep at least one of them alive?”
“I tried.”
The boys remained silent behind us, water bottles crinkling softly in their hands.
I put the truck in gear and pulled onto the road, maintaining distance from Doc’s vehicle ahead. Caleb monitored the rearview through the side mirror, posture straight, attention divided between the road and the two teenagers.
“You’re safe for now, guys,” he said to them, calm and even. “No one is coming back for you.”
They didn’t respond, but Seth muttered something to his brother and finally unscrewed the cap on his water to take a careful drink.
The flames in the distance climbed higher, then disappeared behind the bend in the road, and I could easily imagine the moment the flames advanced on Ball-Cap, the screaming would have been so loud, until it wasn’t. It was a shame I’d poured accelerant on him—he probably died way too fast.
Caleb was quiet, tapping on his screen, and the boys whispered once in the back, then fell quiet again.
I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel and kept my eyes on the road.
Innocents hadn’t died.
Caleb was safe.
That was all that mattered.