Chapter 36
Zeus
We're less than ten minutes from the compound, and every fucking mile seems like a hundred.
My knee is bobbing up and down, fingers tapping on my thigh.
There's a sense of fucking urgency inside of me that's fighting the urge to knock the fucking guy behind the wheel out so I can drive, even if it only gets us there a minute or two faster.
"You're fucking twitchy," the guy beside me says. "What the fuck is going on?"
I look over at him, snarl in place, but the worst fucking thing that can happen is something that prevents me from getting back into the compound so I can find Zayne.
"Do you know how fucking hard it is to watch you guys smoke and not take a hit myself?" I lie.
"Dude?" the driver says. "You could've had a hit."
"He's got fucking court," the guy beside him says, slapping his friend in the chest with the back of his hand. "That's insensitive."
"Just having one of those hard-ass days," I mutter, watching as the guy in the passenger seat pulls out his phone.
He gets a text, the information he's been given making him freeze. I watch as he fights the urge to look in my direction. An eeriness settles over me, confirmation in how he's acting enough to make me understand that shit has gone south.
He slides the phone across the seat as if I'm not high enough in the backseat to see him do it.
When the driver looks down and reads it, his eyes meet mine in the rearview. The second he snaps them back to the fucking road, I know it's over.
What I can't decide is if I lose my shit in this vehicle, forcing them to pull over, or if I have a better chance of finding Zayne if I let them take me back into the compound.
"Motherfucker," the guy behind the wheel mutters, just as the whoop of a cop car makes its presence known behind us. "What do I do?"
"Just get us back home," the guy in the passenger seat urges. "We have the cops around here in our pocket."
I look over my shoulder, paying more attention to the dark SUV behind the cop car.
I swallow, feeling both hopeful and terrified at the same time.
I know what it takes to breach a compound like the one The League of Liberty is operating out of. I know the forewarning they'll have prepares them in ways that will end in some sort of tragedy.
"Are you a fucking cop?" the passenger demands as the driver slows, but still hasn't pulled over yet.
"No," I tell him honestly.
He looks down at his phone, typing feverishly into the motherfucker, when honestly, a fucking phone call would work faster, but you can't tell these idiots shit.
"I have to pull over," the driver says.
"I'm on parole," the fucker beside me mutters.
"I am too," the driver says.
"Who isn't?" the passenger says. "Get us back to the compound."
The driver, coming to his senses, eases the car to the side of the road.
I hiss out a breath of relief. The driver uses his buttons to roll down all the windows, something most felons know to do to ease an officer's mind on a traffic stop.
"It's a lady cop," the guy in the passenger seat says, as if her gender will change the outcome.
I fight the urge to mention how absolutely gross they all are, and I'm not even referencing the fact that we've been digging in mud for the last four hours. I'm certain a policewoman has higher standards than Melody at The Garage.
"I got dope on me," the one beside me says. "I can't go back to prison."
I don't know how I should play this. Do I keep pretending I'm part of them? Will Cerberus arrest us all?
They wouldn't be behind the car if they hadn't been the ones to set this stop into motion.
This wasn't in that fucking dossier. Their being involved in this makes it very likely that shit has gone sideways.
Something pretty fucking major has to have happened for them to risk the chance of our cover being blown.
My nerves shatter as we sit and wait, my head running through every possible scenario that could lead to this.
Are they just going to talk to us, giving Cerberus a chance to touch base because we haven't checked in in a few days?
Is Zayne in major trouble at the compound?
Have they discovered other information that makes our positioning with The League irrelevant?
The crunch of boots on gravel fills the car as the cop walks up, but before she can even introduce herself or ask for a license and insurance, gunfire echoes around me.
The metallic tang of blood fills my nostrils as wetness spatters my face, and I'm taken back to a time I begged to die, a time when my body was full of so much pain I saw no sense in survival.
It's the disadvantage I'm at that makes my head glitch. If I had a weapon in my hand, a way to fight back, I know without a doubt that my mind would be clear and in a split second I'd know how I needed to react.
The deafening pop of gunfire echoes around me, my ears aching from the proximity of it in an enclosed space.
I run a mental analysis over my body, trying to determine whether the wounds I have are life-threatening.
Zayne's weak smile, filled with concern and sadness, flashes in my mind.
It feels like a goodbye.
It would be my luck that I'd die in a car full of dopehead racists and bigots rather than in the Middle East, where at least I could be remembered as a hero.
My life to this point feels like a waste. I could've done so much more with the time I have been given. I could've made different choices.
I could have accepted who I am so much sooner.
I could've been happy rather than spending so much time worrying about what others might think of my choices.
Regret fills my body, pouring out of me alongside the blood from my wounds.
Maybe I'll die with a little more clarity, but what a fucking time to be given that gift.
"Zeus!"
I shake my head, swallowing down the need to cry for the man I could've been.
"Zeus!"
It takes all the effort I can manage to swivel my head on the seatback to look in the direction of the voice.
Nyx glares at me, and the sight of his sneering face seems like the perfect fuck-you to my already wasted life.
The back door is tugged open, rough hands grab me by my shirt, and drag me from the car.
"Blood check!" another voice demands just as hands roam over my entire body.
I barely register the cool air hitting bare skin when my shirt is lifted. Hands roam down my legs, and I have no idea how I can even stand as I'm dying, but the strength calms me a little.
There's no shame in how a man chooses to greet death. If he does it with his chin held high, or with his head bowed in begging to go home to a place where he was nurtured and safe, that's not a journey anyone has the right to judge.
I take pride in the fact that even as I'm seconds away from greeting the devil at the gates of hell, I can do it standing on my own two feet.
Pain radiates from my cheek, my brain taking only a second longer to register Nyx in front of me with his hand still suspended in the air as if he's more than prepared to hit me again.
"The fuck is wrong with you?" he snaps. "Get your shit together."
"Maybe it's shock," someone else mutters. "Have we called an ambulance for the officer?"
I glance down, noticing the cop splayed out on the ground, and I'm hit with another wave of guilt. Her empty stare and the red pool growing around her tell me all I need to know.
"There's no need for an ambulance," Jericho says as if he's reading my mind, and I feel a little more at ease knowing I'm surrounded by my brothers in these last moments of my life.
"I swear I'll fucking hit you again," Nyx snarls, the scent of mint gum on his breath.
"One still alive in the car," Jersey informs.
I watch, still a little dazed, as Nyx takes a step away from me, points his rifle toward the driver's seat, and pulls the trigger three times.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Hemlock snaps. "That's not how we operate!"
A sinister smile turns up the corner of Nyx's mouth, just as my brain starts to come back online.
He turns that look to me, speeding up the process, if only for survival instincts.
I hold my hands up, warding him off.
"I'm good," I assure him.
He frowns as if he wanted the chance to hit me again.
"Fucking Mozambiqued his ass," Ace mutters.
A Mozambique drill is one where many operatives are trained to shoot a person's center mass twice before putting a third bullet in their chest. The first two are aimed at the largest target area of the body to stop someone from coming toward them, and the third is just in case they're wearing body armor and are still a threat.
"You good?"
I look over at Ace as he directs his eyes away from the dead men in the car toward me.
"I'm not hit?"
"No, you fucking pussy," Nyx growls before turning to walk away. "King of the Gods, my ass."
"The fucking paperwork," Hemlock mutters. "Don't fucking touch her."
Jersey stands from his crouched position beside the dead cop, a look of distress in his eyes at the idea of leaving her there.
"We've got to go," Ace says, tugging on my arm and pulling me toward the SUV parked behind the cop car.
"I fucking told them this was a bad idea. Getting the fucking local cops involved was a terrible fucking choice," Hemlock growls. "Can you handle what happens next?"
I nod, my brain still not operating at full capacity.
"Care to tell me what the fuck is going on?"
"You'll be briefed when we get to the command center," Hemlock snaps. "Get in the fucking vehicle."
The men pair off, half going to a second SUV parked behind the first one that I'm only noticing right now.
"Too much fucking heat," Jersey says from behind the wheel as we pull away. "It feels disrespectful to leave her just lying there. If only they would've fucking listened."
"Locals are on the way," Hemlock says, looking down at his phone.
"And our cover in the community?" Lark asks from beside me.
"It'll stand," Hemlock says. "This will be written up as a traffic stop gone wrong."
"Too fucking close to the compound for my liking," Jersey mutters, taking a turn faster than I would've, but the vehicle handles the demand with ease.
"We'll be fine," Lark assures him. "The mountains have a way of muting all sorts of shit. I doubt they heard any of it."
"What the fuck is going on?" I demand again, but the vehicle screeches to a stop in front of a small warehouse.
No one answers me as we wait for a massive door to roll up.
The inside of the building is a flurry of motion. Men and women I don't recognize swarm around, body armor and tactical gear covering each of them.
The chest rigs they're wearing tell me this is bigger than I would've guessed.
FBI, DEA, and ATF are represented. Even Homeland Security is here.
"It's a joint federal task force," Hemlock says.
"We set this in motion?" I ask, knowing there's always someone Cerberus has to answer to, especially on domestic soil, but we've always been more of a Black-Ops group.
"She set this in motion," Jersey says, pointing in the direction of a woman barking commands to those around her.
I pull in a breath of relief when my eyes land on a familiar face.
Melody.
The waitress from The Garage.
"I thought she was dead," I say, more than a hint of awe in my voice.
"I don't think she can die," Lark says, sounding a little in love with the woman.
"Clementine Monroe," Jersey explains. "She leads the FBI HRT Unit."
"Hostage rescue team?" I say. "That's unusual."
The cross-training required to lead that position and also to go undercover is damn near unheard of.
"She's an unusual woman," Lark whispers. "She goes by Zero."
"We can gossip and fawn over federal agents at a later time," Hemlock says as he shoves open the passenger side door. "We have shit to do."
I climb out, my head fully in the game and unwilling to think of any other outcome than getting Zayne out safely and taking these horrific people down.
"She escaped the clutches of one of those pieces of shit," Lark says as we walk forward. "But not before his high-as-a-fucking-kite ass revealed all sorts of secrets about the group."
"Zayne?" I ask.
"We haven't heard from him," Lark says, worry in his voice. "But he's a badass, too. I'm sure he's fine."
"Zeus," the woman running the show says as I approach.
There's a look of respect in her eyes, and it makes me wonder if she had witnessed me losing my shit fifteen minutes ago, if she would still look at me in the same way.
"Clem—" I begin, switching gears when she narrows her eyes at me in warning. "Agent... Zero."
She dips her head in appreciation, then quickly turns her attention to another guy who has the brass balls to chuckle. She is nothing like the woman she portrayed at the diner, and I bet she'd give Nyx a fucking run for his money the way she's looking at her teammate.
The man clamps his lips closed and takes a step back as if even the assault rifle strapped to his chest couldn't protect him from a woman like her.
"She's amazing," Lark whispers.
"Time is not our fucking friend right now," Zero yells, and the entire warehouse takes notice, giving her the attention she demands. "Let's get the show on the fucking road."
As she speaks, issuing her expectations, Hemlock hands me gear. Within ten minutes of entering this building, each of us knows what we're responsible for and is ready to take the world by force.
I can only hope that when the gun smoke settles, Zayne is alive and able to participate in the victory.