11. Dallas
DALLAS
“They’ve been down there a while,” Plug said.
“It’s only been fifteen minutes,” Mace said.
“I think we should go down there and help, personally speaking.”
“Yeah, you would.”
A light flickered on and I turned to Plug. “Hey?—”
He pointed at me as he backtracked out of the bunker. “Already on it! I’ll see what I can find.”
“Anything I can do?” Mace asked.
I turned and made my way back down to the door. “Not yet.”
Time passed by like molasses dripping out of a fucking bottle. It was painful, standing there with all sorts of smells assaulting our noses. The wind started up again, kicking more layers of sand down toward us.
“Should we use the excavator to block the entrance a bit!?” Plug exclaimed.
Mace thumbed over his shoulder. “That, I can do.”
I waved my hand at him. “Go. Do it. There’s too much sand. We have to keep it back.”
“Coming, Plug. Hold on!” Mace called out.
While those two numbskulls figured out how to get the excavator to move in front of the entrance Deac dug out, I grew worried. I expected something in terms of sound. Anything, really. Cursing. Angry wall punches. Bursts of rage. But there was nothing.
Until a thunderous boom ricocheted back at me.
“Guys!?” I called out.
The beeping of the excavator made it hard to hear anything.
“Guys!” I exclaimed as I slipped into the hallway. “You good back there!?”
“Got it!” Mace called out.
“Hey!” I barked.
But nothing outside of a partial echo filtered back in my general direction.
“We got the excavator blocking things a bit,” Plug said as he trotted up behind me, “should help with the sand and all.”
“Gauge! Deac!” I exclaimed.
“Something happen?” Mace asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, we didn’t hear anything,” Plug said.
I slowly panned my gaze toward him. “Maybe if you stop talking, I can hear something.”
Then I heard another sound.
A sound that sounded like…a gut punch?
“The hell was that?” Mace asked.
I pointed to both of them. “Stay here. Don’t come in unless someone comes to get you. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Plug said as he snatched my arm.
I ripped out of his grasp and turned to face him. “Deac isn’t here so I’m in charge. Stay put, understood?”
Plug scoffed. “But Deac said?—”
Mace cupped his hand over the man’s mouth. “Yep, we’ll be here.”
I nodded. “Good. I’ll be back. Gauge! Deac! You guys okay down there!?”
The slight incline down into the hallway leveled off, and I swear to hell on high that hallway seemed longer than it did the last time we were there.
I inched my way closer to the door, and I hated how slow I moved.
It was as if my muscles fought to try and save me.
My feet tried turning me around. My muscles froze over.
I felt my entire body locking up as I grew closer to ground zero of a smell I knew I’d never forget so long as I lived.
Was I really ready for the sight? Was I ready to set sights on my old comrade?
My brother? Mangled, and covered in the stench of his own death?
Hearing Deac and Gauge’s voices drew me from my trance. Their heavy footfalls seemed to echo in every direction. But with all of the metal and concrete, the sounds were much too unfocused.
“Guys?” I called out. “You okay back here!?”
“Dallas!?” Mace called out.
“Shut up and stand there!” I barked.
I took a few more steps toward the illuminated room.
I had no idea how the fuck Plug managed to get the lights working in this place from up there, but I learned a long time ago not to question what these men were capable of.
We all had talents. We all had tricks up our sleeves.
And as light breached the threshold of the doorway where we found Bait strapped to that chair, I couldn’t bring myself to look up.
“I’m so sorry, brother,” I whispered, “but I just can’t.”
However, when I pivoted around to make my way back to Mace and Plug, I noticed something.
I noticed that the door to my right was open.
“The hell?” I asked.
I slipped into the room and breathed a sigh of relief.
Though I wasn’t sure what in the hell that acidic smell was wafting up from the floor.
I grimaced as my boots squished into something wet and foul.
I refused to look down as I kept my eyes locked with a corner of the room that looked a little… rounded?
I trudged onward, keeping my ears peeled for anything as I found out why the corner looked so weird.
“A hallway?” I asked myself.
Is that why Gauge and Deac didn’t hear me? They were down another hallway?
“What the hell?” I whispered to myself as I followed its pathway.
I slid my hand along the metal wall. I studied the pristine, shiny nature of the untouched hallway.
It was as if there were two bunkers down there.
One covered with pieces of our best friend, and another one that wasn’t even touched by the blast. But the texture of the wall against my fingers changed on a dime, and it drew my attention to what I figured was another wall of some sort.
Just made of a different sort of material.
What I found instead was the back of Bait’s lower torso still strapped to that fucking chair.
With his brain matter splattered on…the window?… in front of me.
“Oh my God,” I muttered.
I barely got turned around before my body doubled over. I gripped my stomach and let it happen, bracing myself against the wall until there was nothing left.
Jesus fucking Christ, I’d never forget that shit as long as I lived.
“I’m so sorry, Bait,” I whispered.
Focus, Dallas. Char needs you to focus.
With a deep breath of air through my nose, I spat one last time at my feet.
I kicked my boots, shaking the vomit off them before I reared myself upright.
I couldn’t get distracted. I couldn’t focus on things I had no control over.
Bait was dead, and focusing on that wouldn’t change things.
But Char was still holed up in that precinct, and we had the ability to change that.
So I focused on the path in front of me and started walking.
“Oh thank fuck,” I hissed.
I didn’t have to move far away from the window before another doorway revealed itself. I quickly slipped through it, relieved to put a bit of distance between me and the carnage Marcie buried down here with her explosion.
But I still didn’t find the fucking guys.
“Deac! Gauge! God damn it, you sons of a bitches!” I exclaimed as I stood just beyond the threshold of the doorway I stepped through. “What the fuck guys? Where the hell do these hallways lead? You mean to tell me that the room Bait was in wasn’t a dead fucking end!?”
It enraged me, hearing nothing but my own fucking voice echoing back at me. Where the hell did they go?
“Guys! This isn’t fucking funny!” I barked.
And then finally, Gauge found himself some fucking sense. “Get your ass down here now, Dallas!”
Now his voice was focused and it pulled me further down the hallway. And when I say it pulled me, I mean I broke out into a dead fucking sprint. The hallway weaved and wound. Every door I came across, I dipped my head in, just to make sure there was nothing waiting for me in the shadows.
“Someone say something!” I called out.
“You should’ve listened to my fucking orders!” Deac bellowed.
“That’ll do it! Thanks!”
Gauge barked with laughter, and it signaled to me how close they were.
No longer were their voices distant, far-off echoes.
I ignored the rest of the doors and bolted down the hallway.
I took the curves in stride, barely missing a few corners with my shoulder as I tried to shave time off how long it took for me to get to them.
Goddamn, the hallway felt like it was five fucking miles long.
My neck started sweating. Beads of perspiration dotted my brow.
But eventually, the hallway dead-ended into a room with a swinging light attached to the ceiling.
Deac and Gauge stared down at non-engaged explosives.
“What the hell?” I asked as I wiped at my brow.
“Get enough of a workout?” Deac asked flatly.
I pointed to the C-4 with wires coming out of its orifices. “The fuck is all this?”
Gauge bent down and picked up a frayed wire. “Something must’ve chewed through it.”
Deac pointed at it before he twirled his finger in the air. “This room was clearly rigged to blow, but it didn’t.”
I blinked. “So she’s got no idea this shit is still down here?”
Gauge grinned. “Not a goddamn clue.”
Deac bent down to touch something, but I reached down and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t touch a thing.”
He snarled as he slowly raised up. “Nielson.”
I nodded. “This is still their crime scene, remember? The shovels? The tape? He’s gonna be pissed we’re already here tampering with things, but now? We really need to fill him in.”
“Are we sure that’s important, though? I mean, feds are already in town,” Gauge said.
“And?” I asked.
“And,” Deac said as he ripped out of my grasp, “what if Nielson brings a fed with him out here? It could backfire on us.”
“He’s got a point,” Gauge murmured.
I snickered. “So we don’t call the precinct then.”
Deac and Gauge looked at one another before they grinned at me.
“He’s not gonna like that,” Gauge said, though his grin didn’t waver.
Deac’s grin fell to a smirk. “Not even my father used that man’s home phone number. It’s only supposed to be used for?—”
I held my arms out. “The biggest of emergencies?”
And when Deac sighed, I knew I had him. “All right, all right. Fine. Call Nielson at his house.”
Gauge stepped up to the two of us. “Protocol is to leave a message with his wife with?—”
I nodded as I turned away from the explosives. “Name, number, and the phrase, ‘time to eat cake.’ I know what the protocol is. Axel damn near drilled it into us.”
“We got a phone out here we can use?” Deac asked.
I ventured out of the room. “I’m sure Plug’s got something. Be right back!”
And as I jogged back down the hallway, I took great pains to keep my eyes attached to the floor.
Just so I wouldn’t have to see my brother so mangled and exposed.
Jesus Christ, Bait deserved better than that.