Page 50 of Tear Me Down (Descent to Darkness Trilogy #2)
“The other women here, where are they?” I ask with a gentler tone and hover my hand next to her arm, not touching her, but trying to give some sort of comfort while keeping eye contact.
“Upstairs,” she says a little more confidently, and Grease wastes no time turning and running up the stairs in frantic movements. I turn the girl back to me as she anxiously looks around the main floor.
“What’s your name?”
“Harper,” she quietly replies.
“How old are you, Harper?” I say as I quickly lift my shirt over my head and take a moment to put it on her, wanting her to get comfortable until Zeke, Dani, and Lauren arrive with the blankets and clothes.
“Eighteen...”
“Where are you from?”
“Oklahoma.”
“Okay, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you home.” She nods with me, even though her eyes continue to dart around in an adrenaline induced panic.
“D! Get up here!” Grease yells hysterically.
I grab her by the wrist and pull her up the stairs with me, keeping her close so we can keep all of the women together.
Once we reach the top of the stairs, I look in the open doors to see the other women naked and chained up, ranging from any age between eighteen and thirty.
Some look dirty and much too thin to be healthy.
They’re not badly beaten or bruised, at least that I can see, but that’s because they have to be preserved for auction, and the thought makes me so sick that I have to fight the urge to vomit onto the disgusting, dirt ridden floor.
“How did you get out of your chains?” I turn around and ask Harper.
“The key is in my lock.”
“Which room?” She points to the end of the hallway, and I make my way inside to see a man lying dead on the floor. A pen is stuck in his neck and blood coats the floor near the now empty chains .
“D? Zeke, the men, and the girls are en route, but you’ve got two passenger vans heading your way, and they’re not ours. You’re going to have to hold them off until the others get there,” Carter warns.
“Fuck!” I grab the key and start unlocking the girls. “Grease we got to get them out!” It only seems to take us a matter of minutes to get them unlocked before we’re sprinting down the stairs. Carter’s voice crackles through my ear-com again with a more worried tone.
“D?! We’ve got a fucking problem! Viking’s on his way to the spot too!” he screams, sounding half out of breath.
“Well, we might end up needing the help!”
“He took Ash with him! Ambushed us after he heard about the vans, shoved her in a truck, and just took off!” His words hit me right in the gut.
He’s bringing her here…into a field of nothing but death and gunfire, and my blood instantly boils.
I stop in my tracks and instantly turn ravenous, shoving Grease into the wall nearest to us and causing the women to shriek in fear.
The plaster behind Grease cracks and crumbles to the floor, covering us in nothing but dust and debris.
“YOUR VP IS A DEAD MAN!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!”
Bullets start raining down into the side of the house, and we duck for cover, dragging the women down with us and crawling behind the living room furniture. I look to the ceiling and try to decipher the direction the bullets are firing from, but from the sounds of it, it’s coming from everywhere.
“We’ve got twelve of our guys en route, D! Convergence in four minutes!” Carter’s voice screams in my ear.
“Grease!” one of the women shouts, and I look over to see the same woman from his footage, Maria, throw him a rifle lying by one of the dead bodies. He pulls it up to his chest and cocks it, seemingly ready to go.
“Alright, on three we move out. Use the abandoned truck as cover!” I point out of the side door, showing them the plan.
They nod, and I mouth… one…two…three , before I stand and turn, aiming out of the windows towards anyone we can as the girls run out the door.
Grease leads them, also shooting at anyone we can see as we sprint down the outside stairs and over to the truck—thankfully moving too quickly for the enemy to adjust and cause us damage.
Once we make it over to the truck, the gunfire rains onto the side, creating a symphony of metal clanks, and I know we won’t have long before we’ll have to find more cover.
A whistling sound comes from the tree line, and I look to see Danielle and Lauren standing behind trees, gesturing for the girls to run.
“You see my girls over there?” They nod as I pull one of two smoke grenades off of my side, thankful that I was able to save these for this moment. “When I throw this, the moment it goes off, you run to them. Follow them, and do not stop until they do, do you understand? ”
“What about Vike?” Maria asks, and I feel my chest tighten in rage.
“He'll meet you at the rendezvous.” Grease falsely reassures her.
No. He won’t. He’ll be dead.
But Maria won’t go if she knows that, so I refrain from unveiling my plans for now.
I pull the pin and throw the grenade back towards the gun fire, aiming far enough away that the smoke spreads as wide as I need it to.
The moment it hits the ground, a flash pops and smoke bellows out of the small cylinder, creating the perfect smokescreen of cover for them.
The girls run as instructed, and I watch as Lauren and Danielle count them before running with them through the trees, leading them to safety.
My mind eases into another state as they run away, one more centered around a fight and not retrieval or protection, and I try my best to focus on ending the threat before Viking and Ashia even reach the property—though that’s proving to be difficult.
Zeke and two of our men run in our direction, firing into the smoke before kneeling down beside us.
“I’ve got five on the other side, and five at the entrance covering!
” Zeke shouts over the sounds of gunfire, handing us clips of ammo and causing enough of a distraction for us to reload.
Once we quickly get set back up, we turn and fire out into the field as the smoke clears, able to aim better now that the field of vision is clear.
A revving sound draws my attention, and I look toward the entrance to see an old blue Ford truck swerve its way onto the property.
The gun fire moves to it, and it swerves out of the way, but not with enough skill to avoid the obstacles laid out, and the bed of the truck clips one of the other cars.
The moment the side collides with the black vehicle, the passenger side door flies open, and a small body is thrown from the vehicle, hitting the ground hard.
I immediately recognize the long black hair and inked arm as it smacks the gravel and dirt mixture, letting out a small yelp in pain.
I immediately feel like I’ve been shot in the chest, and that instant rush of adrenaline stings as it hits. My body instantly reverts back to the urge it’s most accustomed to, the one that has the constant compulsion to protect her, and I move without hesitation.
“ASHIA!” She jerks her head up, and the moment her golden eyes meet mine, I immediately sprint towards her—jumping over the abandoned truck and rushing out, completely forgetting about the incoming assaults flying through the air.
“Girls en route to rendezvous,” Carter says through the earpiece as I hear Zeke, Grease, and the other men run behind me, trying to keep up with my desperate pace.
The moment I reach her, I slide into the gravel, ignoring the sting from the rocks scraping my skin, and cover her body—shielding her from the bullets whizzing through the air.
“You’re okay, baby. I’ve got you. I’m sorry, I never should’ve left you there,” I whisper in her ear as I hold her tightly, shocked to look back and see my men surrounding us both, firing back at the enemy with precise and focused shots, looking almost as determined as I am to protect her .
Her body is trembling beneath me, and I hate that I’m practically smothering her into the rough terrain, but ensuring she isn’t hit is my top priority.
I continue to whisper softly in her ear, waiting for the right moment to move her.
After a brief moment, and our counterattack seems to be holding, I pull us both up to the side of the truck.
Unintentionally, I practically plaster her to the metal as my eyes roam over her body in a quick check, noticing very minimal scrapes and a slight, already bruising bump on her forehead, most likely from the initial impact.
Her eyes are wide and she grips my shoulders like a life preserver, but the panic quickly subsides the more I look over her. Zeke moves to stand beside us, and I notice the quick glances in our direction. He’s clearly worried about her too, but knows to keep his main focus on the fight ahead.
“Where’s Maria?!” Viking says as he rounds the corner of the truck to take cover beside the rest of us.
“ ?Ya se ocuparon de ella, idiota!! ” Grease yells at him, probably hoping I don’t know Spanish. I don’t really, but I know enough to know he’s angry with him, and he called him an idiot. I can tell the gunfire is starting to lessen as we take more people down, clearly getting ahead in our assault.
I aim over the bed of the truck and take another man down, when in the corner of my eye, I see Ashia dive forward.
I instantly feel my stomach fall to the ground.
When I turn, I see her holding a rogue pistol out and pointing it to our left.
She fires, and I jerk my gaze just in time to see a man profusely bleeding from the new gunshot wound to his chest before he falls backward like a ragdoll. Dead.
“Nice shot, baby!”
“I was aiming for his head.” She grimaces and shrugs her shoulder, shaking mildly, but calmer than I would normally expect from her in a situation like this.