Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
I switch the earpiece over to the rescue crew, letting them know where we are and how to enter. We have the best team of triage doctors on staff, ready and waiting to treat anyone and safely evacuate these people in a coma.
I instruct them to start in the main room first, its location, along with the code for the entrance; it’ll take some time to get these people out, and even longer attempting to wake them up if they can. I also inform them of the man, awake on the floor, to restrain him.
Cassidy stabilizes her breathing, taking point.
A chorus of beeps from the monitors fills the otherwise quiet room.
Her eyes scan down the beds, assessing and already ahead of me.
I tap my earpiece, keeping my voice calm. “The rescue crew is coming in now. The perimeter’s locked.”
She doesn’t meet my eyes, but the slight inclination of her head tells me everything. “Perfect. I don’t want anyone escaping.”
“They won’t.” I reposition my focus to the hallway, the dark stretch beyond the door. “But we still have to clear the other rooms. No assumptions.”
That gets her attention.
She surveys the room, already cataloging exits, angles, and threats. “You take the left. I’ll take the right.”
Of course.
I edge in front of her before she can move past me. Not aggressively, just showing her I’m here.
“You’re not running this solo.”
Her eyes flare with heat and defiance. “I’m not running. I’m finishing it.”
I catch her wrist, lightly to stop her, not cage her.
“Reap.” Her name comes out through my teeth, not meaning to. “We do it together.”
For a second, something shifts behind her eyes.
Not weakness, Cassidy wouldn’t know what to do with that.
A brief, fragile reminder that she isn’t fighting this battle alone anymore.
That the weight she’s been carrying for so long doesn’t rest solely on her shoulders, someone else is here, more than willing to help bear the weight.
“Fine,” she responds, but it’s not resistance anymore. “Together.”
I let her go, but I stay right where I am.
“The rescue crew hits this floor in under a minute,” I update her. “We conduct a fast sweep of the rooms, clear each space, and regroup with them as we return.”
She’s already in motion when I finish.
Of course she is.
I draw even with her as we approach the hallway, staying shoulder to shoulder.
“You ready?” I ask, more out of habit than anything else.
“I’ve been ready.”
I observe her for a half a second too long, taking in the steel in her posture and the way she carries it like armor, like she has to.
I nod once and move with her in the hall.
But the truth sits heavy in my chest.
I never know if she’s ready.
And that uncertainty is the part that gnaws at me.
A normal bedroom door comes up on our right side, both of us armed and ready for the unexpected.
We stop at the door, and I lift my finger to my lips and then hold up three fingers with my Glock at the ready, counting down…3…2…1. Cassidy is armed with her knife in her hands.
I inch the door open and hear grunting sounds before I can comprehend what is going on.
What comes into view is a man raping a woman, he stops to tamper with the controls of the anesthesia machine behind them, which is tethered to her by the breathing tube down her throat, then continues with this vile act.
They are positioned sideways across the hospital bed, in a single, exposed horizontal line, nothing obscured from our view.
Her eyes are open, but she’s paralyzed, naked, and like the others, her abdomen is littered with scars.
Her pale skin is a stark contrast to the blood oozing out of her side; the man has his fingers in half of the incision that is about ten inches long on her left side, slightly inwards on her stomach, shoving them in and out with each thrust while the stitches are barely holding the rest together.
She’s obviously just had surgery.
Alongside the blood splattering on the floor, clear liquid joins it. The yellowish fatty tissue is clearly visible, red muscles and his fingers fusing it all together.
Then he rams his hand wholly inside the laceration, ripping the rest of the stitches out.
Stirring his hand inside of her, he sets about towing organs out of her and placing them on top of her stomach and chest. Scattering them over her like a blanket.
His head lowers, drawn to the nearest organ, part of the intestine, that looks like the colon with its lumpy structure, and he drags his tongue across it before sucking a piece in his mouth.
He tears into it with his teeth and downs it in one motion.
He’s not a man at this moment. There’s nothing human in it. Ugly, consuming, and driven by impulse and nothing else.
Cassidy is stagnant beside me. I’m not sure she’s even breathing. Her mind is trying to make sense of something it doesn’t want to understand.
Not wanting to witness another second of it, I lift my Glock with the suppressor still attached and aim it at his head.
I pull the trigger. POP.
The shot tears through the room, and he drops immediately, falling on top of the woman, slack, heavy, and dead.
Cassidy staggers beside me, like a wire pulled tight and snaps, her breath catching as the moment releases her from whatever had her locked in place.
In a few strides, I push the man off the woman, and his body slams onto the floor, his head rebounding from the sudden collision.
I stand in front of her at the end of the bed, my eyes uniting with hers.
I raise my hand to my earpiece, switching over to whoever is leading the rescue crew tonight, my voice hushed, “First room on the right is clear. One female and male inside, both deceased.”
The shot still rings in my ears as we step back into the hallway.
Something moves in my peripheral, and it’s Cassidy, proceeding to the next room.
I take my place at her side, the sounds of the rescue crew behind us, boots, radios, clipped commands, but it all fades as we get further down the hallway and closer to the last door.
“Last one,” I stress.
Cassidy doesn’t answer. Her focus is zeroed in on the handle as if she’s already inside the room in her head, running tactile equations.
Without thinking, I pivot in front of her, again.
“Don’t,” she warns with a slight edge.
“Not blocking you,” I reply casually. “Covering.”
We stand toe to toe, our breathing falling into the same rhythm, neither of us willing to back down.
Finally, she gives a reluctant nod.
Padding silently as we come up to the door, the change in the atmosphere is palpable, as though the house is holding onto something it doesn’t want to give up.
I rest my hand on the handle and hold it there, listening. No voices. No movement. Only the oppressive silence that’s pursued us through the house.
I look at Cassidy. Her attention is already on me, poised and ready for the signal.
“On me,” I insist. “Quick sweep. Corners first.”
She shifts her weight onto the balls of her feet, knife ready.
“Open it.”
I turn the handle and push, and the door gives with a soft click, swinging inward with a large enough space for me to clear the frame. I race through first, weapon up, eyes moving left, right, center, but the light hits harshly, blinding me.
Compelling my eyes to adjust in fragments.
Then the smell follows.
Antiseptic, overwhelmingly sharp stinging the back of my throat, more than the first room.
The room comes into focus piece by piece.
Multiple machines wired together and monitors.
Two general surgical tables.
Two bodies.
Laid out side by side, not moving. Both of their skin pale under the light, too still.
Multiple lines running into them, tubes, IVs, something feeding, and something taking.
In between them, a doctor mid-motion with his hands inside of one, like this is routine and normal.
A nurse stands somewhat off his shoulder, an item clutched in her hand, a surgical instrument. The instant the door swings open, alarm ignites behind her widened eyes.
For a moment, nobody moves. Then everything breaks loose.
The doctor draws back; his eyes pinching together behind his mask filled with perplexity.
“What the- “
“Don’t.” My Glock is up before he finishes, aiming at his head. “Step away. Now.”
He wavers, stealing a glance downward as though he is debating whether to finish what he has already started before dealing with us.
Cassidy is next to me before the thought finishes forming.
Her gaze takes in the room, once, then locks.
On the tables.
Something in her hardens, rage churns beneath the surface, held together by the tiniest thread of control.
The nurse lets out a shrill sound. “You can’t be in here – this is a procedure – “
“Step. Away.” I repeat, leaving no room for argument.
The doctor eventually raises his hands reluctantly; his gloves are slick with blood as he backs away from the table, only half a step.
“We’re harvesting what we can.”
“Stop talking,” Cassidy intervenes, her voice neutral.
She walks up to the table, controlled. She’s holding something back inside her, at war with it, restraint written all over her face.
I track the room, keeping the doctor and nurse in my line of sight, but my attention is on her.
The way her shoulders have stiffened. The way her hand keeps opening and closing at her side, channeling emotions too volatile to contain.
“Ghost.”
Only my code name, but the weight in it makes my stomach plummet.
I near the table, angling myself so I can see what she sees.
Two patients. Both male. Both are newly dead.
The one lying peeled open with his insides on display has a slightly paler skin tone.
The surgical incision covers his entire upper abdomen, an upside-down “Y” shape.
The other one, a white male, prepped and on standby for I’m assuming the same.
This isn’t a hospital.
There’s no question that these men did not give their consent.
No safeguards or protocols.
This isn’t medicine, it’s something sinister.
This is taking.
An illegal liver harvesting on one, who knows what is in store for the other man.
The realization of what is happening sends a chill through my body.
Monitors are nearby but they have no place here.