HARLEY #2
“There is a bedroom on that end, we might be able to gain access there and swarm in, S.W.A.T. style,” Andrews softly notes.
We file over to the bedroom window, and Gray, probably the lightest-handed out of all of us, begins sliding the window over.
It opens with ease, until about halfway.
There is a small wooden dowel preventing it from opening any further.
Gray reaches in as far as he can, but he’s much shorter than the rest of us, so he can’t reach.
Chase steps forward, and tries reaching in.
“I need a boost,” he says as quietly as possible.
Andrews gets on the ground on all fours, and Chase steps between his shoulders, careful not to hurt him.
The height difference allows Chase to grab hold of the dowel and pull it out of the window.
Carefully opening the window all the way, Chase uses all of his upper body strength to jump up into the windowsill.
He maneuvers his body around so he's sitting in the window, before he twists and brings his left leg up and in, allowing the rest of his body to easily slide into the room.
He disappears from our sight temporarily, likely making sure we have the all clear before we all follow.
He appears back in the window thirty seconds later, and bends out, waiting to help the next guy in.
Once we’ve all made it inside, we stand in the room, completely still.
This manufactured home has a ton of soft spots in the floor that could easily give us away.
My girl is too close to be caught by as stupid a mistake as a floor creaking.
We line the perimeter of the room, side by side, and work our way out of the room.
We make our way towards the open area of the living room.
We just have to make it past that without being seen, and we’ll be able to duck into the back room safely.
We get all the way into the kitchen and begin down the hallway when the door opens and surprises all of us.
Within seconds, Dean rounds the corner, eyes wide with realization.
Immediately, he’s backing up, but before he can get far I've fired a shot into his shoulder. He doesn’t stop, slamming the door shut, and I hear scraping against the floor.
We move in front of the door. “Your fucked up games are over, Dean,” I yell, pure anger pulsing through me.
“Get the fuck back!” he yells through the door. “I’ll fucking kill her. I swear to god.”
Chase looks over at me. “What‘s the fucking plan?”
I don’t want to chance him hurting her. My heart would never be able to handle my actions setting him off.
“I say we break the door down and see what’s going on. At least if we’re in there, there’s no more surprises,” Chase says quickly.
Andrews and I stand across from the door.
“Here goes nothing,” Andrews says before he counts us down and we ram our shoulders into the door.
Dean definitely placed something in front of it.
Something heavy, probably a dresser. We slam into the door again, and shove the door back as hard as humanly possible. It gives under our combined weight.
Once we’re inside the room, we spot Dean in the corner, a crowbar in hand. His eyes are absolutely wild with fear. He knows his number is up.
I look at the bed in the middle of the room and see Ember tied to the bed, a sheet draped over only one leg, and she is stripped naked.
She has bite marks and scratches along her body.
With all the commotion, there is no way she’s willingly unconscious.
My body fails me to help her as I watch the scene, seeing the woman I love in a state worse than I ever wanted to imagine.
Chase gets close to the bed and Dean starts wildly swinging the crowbar in his hands. “Get BACK!”
Chase looks back at Andrews and Gray, giving a slight nod that I almost miss, and in a second, two things happen at once.
Gray and Andrews charge at Dean, one going high and the other going low.
Dean doesn’t know who to go after, and misses both.
They get him pinned, his face shoved into the wall, Andrews pulling out his zip ties for makeshift cuffs.
Meanwhile, Chase has physically pulled the bed away from the fight.
The bed is now right in front of me, and I can see Ember is cuffed to the bed.
The rage that pulses through me is unmanageable. I march over to where Dean is pinned, and I grab a handful of what little hair he has left, slamming his head into the wall as hard as I can. There’s a crack, from his face or the wall, I don’t know and don’t care.
“The key, Dean,” Andrews asks. “Where’s the key to the fucking cuffs, you fucking swine?”
Dean makes no move to give us the location, so I repeat the process of slamming his head into the wall. This time, blood smears along the wall when I pull him back, my grip tighter on his scalp, his face towards the ceiling and blood running down it.
Finally my voice comes back. “Tell me where the goddamn key is, or you’re going to wish Satan himself dragged you into the depths of hell instead of putting you in my path.”
“The dresser,” he finally says against his will.
With one last slam into the wall, I push off of him and run to the dresser.
When we’d muscled our way in, we pushed the dresser over.
It's face down on the floor now. I push it over with little force, rage still fueling my strength. I pull the drawers open and find nothing. I’m frantically searching when I catch something shiny by the closet door.
I trip over my own feet trying to get to it, my heart singing when I confirm that it’s the key.
Rushing over to Chase, who is pulling out his smelling salts and laying it next to a few doses of Narcan, I insert the key into the lock of the handcuffs. Ember’s arm drops from its slack position.
“What the fuck did you give her?” Chase screams at Dean. Andrews has the zip ties securely around Dean’s hands behind his back, while Gray has his glock aimed at his head. Dean’s eyes are filled with fear and defeat, a level of resignation plastered across his face.
“It’s fentanyl,” he reluctantly tells Chase.
“Goddamn it,” Chase says, leaving Ember’s side. I slide onto the bed and pull her into my arms. “When did you fucking give it to her?” he screams in his face. Chase is a pretty reserved guy, so seeing him so worked up over Ember’s state has me losing the last of any control over my my emotions.
“It was around nine-thirty,” Dean squeaks out. With that final bit of information, Chase uses the butt of his gun from his hip and knocks Dean smooth out. His body collapses to the floor.
Chase comes back over and administers the first dose of Narcan, then rolls her to her side. I rub circles onto her back, hoping it’s going to help, or at least give her comfort, when she becomes conscious again.
After a few minutes, ones that imprint on my soul and feel like they last a lifetime, Ember begins moving.
Then she vomits onto the bed. She continues to vomit for a handful of minutes before her body goes limp.
I begin to panic, but then I hear the smallest “Harley?” come from her lips.
I lift her up and bring her body flush to mine.
“I’m here, baby,” I tell her. “I’m right here. I’m so sorry.” My vision blurs with the tears that continue to fall down my face.
Chase puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, and he passes me my own hoodie.
I hadn’t even noticed it, and it takes me a minute to follow his wordless instructions.
His eyes quickly glance down, and I’ve temporarily forgotten that Ember is completely exposed, with the exception of the thin white sheet over her body.
“Baby, can I put this over you?” I ask her softly as I try to help her sit up.
She faces me, and her eyes drop down. She doesn’t say anything as she surveys the absolute hell of a reminder of what she went through. Her eyes finally reach mine, and I see the moment my girl breaks. He broke her. Her soul is gone from her eyes. He took her soul—again.
“I tried to fight him off,” she says, before she’s overcome with her emotions. She breaks down, curling into my embrace. And then she lets out the most blood-curdling, feel it in your bones, haunting scream I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.
I look over and my eyes meet Chase’s, and tears are welling up in his eyes. We all feel her pain.
I feel it much deeper than the others, the guilt eating into me. If I would have gone sooner, not been blissfully distracted by the idea of living together. Never given him the chance to gain access to her.
None of this should have ever happened.