Page 91 of Healing Conviction
Once they got to the end of the first shelving on the garage door side, they traveled from aisle to aisle. They hid behind the merchandise and waited for the voices to increase in volume before moving again. A faint glow grew brighter with every step.
Finally they got to an aisle that was close enough to allow him to see over the inventory and spy the truck he and Nora witnessed earlier. The glow he’d seen on the floor brightened up the side of the truck, illuminating the men in front of it. If he could see them, that meant thattheycould see him, and that realization made Draco still as he spied, hoping slower movements or no movement at all wouldn’t garner any suspicion.
Five men sat on crates around a utility lamp like campers by a fire. If the campers were also cleaning guns, drinking vodka, and smoking. Thankfully, they seemed oblivious to him and Nora. One of them might have actually been asleep, and another was searching through some kind of box.
“We could shoot ‘em up with one of these.” The man with the case held up a syringe with a hungry smile. “That way they’ll put up a little fight before we have our fun.”
The man loading his gun sighed before speaking in a light Russian accent. “You know we cannot.”
His accent sparked a memory in Draco’s mind of the night Nora was kidnapped, but the speaker wasn’t big enough to be the one who’d shot him. The man with the needle whined, his words slurring.
“But why though? No one has to know. I need something to relax after riding in the back of that damn truck all day.”
“It is simple,” the man with the Russian accent explained. “If we lose or damage the products, we will be shot. You may not value your life, but I do not wish to die.”
“Come on, man. Vlad won’t off us. Who will run shit for them if they keep killing everybody?”
The man Draco had thought was asleep muttered something that sounded Russian, too. The other Russian laughed.
“Hey!” At the new voice, Draco’s sweaty grip on his gun tightened, but relaxed when the man with the vodka pointed the bottle at the faux-sleeping man. “English. We don’t need no private Commie communications around here. I won’t allow nobody to take over my country. We fight for our freedom ‘round here, and I ain’t ‘fraid to do it.”
The Russian rolled his eyes. “Calm down. You Americans always think everyone wants your country. We are all working for same team here,da?”
The vodka drinker mumbled before taking a swig from the bottle. Draco took in each of their positions, noting that all of them had guns within arm’s reach. The silent one cleaning his gun and the Russian seemed to be the most alert of the bunch, but Draco didn’t know how well trained anyone was.
“I think we can come up with some reason why there’s one less needle.” The man with the box protested. “We don’t have todamagethem or anything, just have a good time. This will perk ‘em up. They’re not that bad off, so it should heal them in no time. Then we can even make sure they like it before we dose ‘em up again and put them back in the truck.”
The awake Russian muttered something in his language again, sparking the English debate from the drinker. But instead of listening, Draco finally registered what the man with the box said.
…it should heal them in no time…
Shit.
His eyes darted from the truck to the box, where he noticed the familiar size and inscription. He slowly ducked his head and turned around, bending low and mouthing a whisper so Nora could read his lips.
“There’s a box one of them has. We have to get it.”
She nodded and gestured for him to stay low before leaning in his direction. Her warm lips brushed the shell of his ear, and his muscles stiffened in an effort to resist the threatening shiver at her touch.
“What’s our plan?”
His mind sprinted a million miles an hour while his shoulders sagged, reminding him how fatigued he already was. He straightened and assessed his surroundings before answering. They needed that box, and to aid the women inside the cargo container, while defeating several different obstacles of varying degrees of difficulty.
Five men with readily accessible guns, unknown training, and unknown weaponry capabilities. A truck, presumably with an unknown number of women in unknown states of consciousness inside, and a padlock on the door. A warehouse full of unknown material with garage doors that would take precious time to manually open and a security system engaging at any moment.
Then there was him, Nora, two guns, and sixty bullets.
Fuck.
And the element of surprise.
But we don’t know how capable they are.
What happens if we kill them all?
We still can’t get the women out. The police are on the way and we don’t know if they’ll be on our side, especially if everyone else is dead. If we get the wrong cop, it’s shoot first, formally apologize later.
What happens if we don’t kill the men? Or it takes too much time to take them out?