Trent and I sat there, gripping each other as we waited to see if it would start up again. When nothing happened for a long time, my eyes started drooping as the exhaustion set in. Trent gently removed me from his body and laid me down on the mattress before dropping to his side next to me, so his body was closest to the door, and pulled me into his chest.
“I’m sorry you had to kill them,” I murmured before I fell asleep.
His breathing suddenly halted, and the hand around my waist curled tighter. “I’d do it again if it meant keeping you away from them.”
I nodded into his chest and blew out a shaky breath. “I’m so glad you weren’t hurt, Trent. Thank you for protecting me. I don’t know how close you used to be with them . . . so just, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Rachel. Just know that I’ll do whatever it takes for you.”
My chances of escaping were rapidly weakening, and it was hard to keep hope that I had a chance of getting out of here. But if by some miracle the department found me, I knew I would do whatever it took to keep them from hurting Trent or blaming him for this.
Trent
I WAS IN SO MUCH FUCKING PAIN, and all I wanted to do was sleep . . . but I knew I had to push through that. If the guys tried, they could easily hit the door hard enough that the chairs would start coming loose, and eventually give out. A part of me knew I would wake up if that happened, but I also felt like I was on the verge of passing out, and I was terrified I wouldn’t wake if that happened. Staying awake was the only option I had if I wanted to keep Rachel safe.
Unwrapping myself from her, I sat up on the small mattress and ran my right hand through my hair a few times. I thought about Carson and Jaime, Dominic, Eddie, and Miguel. Since I’d been with Romero Juarez and the rest of the brothers, I’d always been forced to end people’s lives. And every time after, I’d gotten physically sick. I could still see every single one of their faces clearly in my mind, like they were right in front of me. I still hated myself for what I had done. Regardless of acting under the pressure of Romero’s gun pointed at the back of my head, I was the one who had pulled the trigger and ended so many lives.
But with the five tonight, I felt absolutely nothing. I didn’t know if it had to do with the fact that I’d hated every minute of my forced life with those men, the pain that seemed to get worse with each passing minute, or if it just had everything to do with her.
I knew now, without a doubt, I would do anything for the girl asleep behind me.
I stayed silent as I listened to Rachel’s breathing. Making sure it was deep and even, I prayed to God she stayed asleep. Keeping low to the ground, I searched the dark room until I found a plastic bag. Trying to keep quiet, I grabbed the first shirt my hand touched and pulled it out. Once I got a small tear started in the material, I gritted my teeth and ripped the shirt open. The pain in my left arm exploded and I had to bite back a string of curses. Pulling in a ragged breath, I held it in as long as I could manage before attempting a silent rush out.
Once I was able to breathe somewhat normally again, I moved over a couple inches on the shirt, and repeated the same process until I had two thick, long strips of the cotton. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a tight enough tourniquet, but I had to try something. Tying them together on one end, and using my teeth and right hand, I wrapped the material around the entry wound and tied it off as tightly as I could above the bullet hole. I ground my jaw as the pain intensified, and sat still as I tried to calm my breathing, but it was so goddamn painful.
Moving so I could lie down on the mattress again, I stilled when a scraping noise accompanied my harsh breaths. Turning, I let my eyes slowly roam the dark floor until they fell on Rachel’s journal.
She never had told me what she was always writing about, and after we’d been interrupted the other night, I hadn’t asked again. If it were something trivial, she would have told me by now. But it had to be significant in her life, because all I could see was the way she had choked up when I’d given it to her.
Knowing that if she ever saw this journal again, I would already be gone from her life in one way or another, I felt around the floor until I found one of her pens. Sitting down on the mattress, I stared at the journal in my hands, trying to talk myself out of what I was about to do . . . but I needed to do this. I needed her to know.
Opening it up to the last page, I looked over my shoulder and took in Rachel’s sleeping form one last time before bringing the pen down to the paper.
15
Kash
WE HAD BEEN SITTING OUTSIDE THE BUILDING for nearly thirty-six hours—other than the few hours when we’d made appearances at the police department yesterday and today—and I was getting anxious. I had a feeling something bad was going to happen if we didn’t do something soon, and it was making me restless, and just pissing Mason off.
“I swear to God, if you don’t stop moving I will shoot you.”
“I’m telling you, Mase, something doesn’t feel right.”
He threw his hands up around him and whispered harshly, “It’s probably this fucking storm we’ve been sitting in for two days! We’re probably going to get struck by lightning or something.”
I stopped my pacing and my expression went blank as I turned to look at him. “Really, Mason? Really?”
“Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s now dark again and the power is still out in this neighborhood, and it’s creepy as shit.”
Sitting down with a grunt, I crossed my arms and stared at the building in front of us. “When we rescue Rachel, I’m going to tell her about how scared you were of the dark neighborhood as we scoped out the place. I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of it.”
“Fuck you, Kash. We should just get back in the truck.”
“We can’t see anything from the truck. The building is too far from the street.”
Mason grumbled but didn’t argue anymore. He knew I was right.
The power had been out when we’d gotten here early yesterday morning, and other than a handful of minutes of flickering on and off yesterday and today, it’d mostly stayed off. It had been pouring rain up until this afternoon, and the lightning and thunder had been insane yesterday. But it was already down to barely sprinkling, and Mason was just being a bitch. I wasn’t about to leave.
I knew Rachel was in that building. I could feel it. I could fucking taste it.
And I needed to pace some more before I took off running inside.
“Sit. Down,” Mason growled.
“Just keep watching to see if anyone comes out of that door. I’m going to go check around the building to see if anyone is using the other doors.”
“Kash . . .”
“Don’t start with me, Mason. I need to move or I’m going to go crazy. I won’t go in there without you, I don’t have a death wish.”
Grabbing two handguns and holstering them, I took off in the dark and tried to keep calm as I made a wide perimeter around the building. I strained to hear anything coming from inside, but there was nothing. And, unfortunately, with the power being out, I couldn’t see the activity with lights or electronics I normally would watch out for.
The quiet and darkness continued to put doubt in my mind that anyone was there. That we would go in and it would be empty, just as the first house had been. But something was telling me Rachel was in there, and I couldn’t ignore that. I also could not get past this fucking stupid bad feeling. It hadn’t been there yesterday, it just randomly started this morning and had steadily gotten worse as the day had progressed.
As soon as I finished walking the perimeter, I turned and went around the other way, making a wider berth and weaving in and out of other buildings around. I looked for buildings that were abandoned, and when I finally found one, forced my way inside. It had the same setup as the one we were watching, a few doors of entry, but there was practically nothing inside.
I made my way past remains of a squatter camp and rodent nests, and walked straight to a random room sta
nding in the middle of the massive space. As I got closer, I withdrew one of my guns and turned on the mounted-on flashlight. I kicked back the door that was barely hanging on its hinges and flashed the light down the steps. Taking a deep breath, I walked down and stopped when I hit another door. Mason is going to kill me when he finds out I cleared a building alone. Preparing for anything, and hoping for nothing, I grabbed the knob and shoved the door open.
“What the fuck?”
As soon as I was out of the building, I quickly made my way back to where Mason was sitting and dropped down on the ground next to him.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I found a building that’s set up the same as this one. There was nothing upstairs except for these four walls pretty close to the main door. At first I thought it was a room, but it just held stairs that led to a basement. Down there, there are no doors to get in or out, except for the stairs. This basement was as empty as the upstairs, but these guys live here, and it’s Juarez’s main house. So I know they had to have done a lot of construction inside. But I’m betting they have the housing downstairs.”
He looked over at me, and then back at the building. “Why?”
“Because the buildings around here are all abandoned or closed up because of the storm. So they’re dark anyway, but all the houses on the other side of these buildings? There are flashlights, candles . . . you can hear people talking. There’s nothing in there.”
“Maybe there’s nobody in there then,” he said softly.
“No, she’s in there, I’m just betting she’s downstairs. But we need to do this tonight, Mason, like, now. I’m not shitting you, I have a really bad feeling.”
He took in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then released it in one hard rush. “Okay, get ready and let’s go get her then.”
After putting on our bulletproof vests, we quietly opened up our “oh-shit” bags and took out zip ties, magazines, boxes of ammo, glow sticks, and extra cuffs. After loading extra magazines with ammo, we started putting everything on us, and looked at each other.
“You ready?” he asked.
“You have no idea.”
“Let’s do this.” He put his fist out, and just as I went to slam mine down on it, my cell phone began vibrating in my pocket. “Is yours ringing?”
I nodded. “Yours too?”
“Yes, shit.” He grabbed his phone and I reached for mine. We both stepped away from each other and the building, and answered as quietly as we could.
“Ryan.”
“Hey, Ryan, it’s Detective Browning in Homicide.”
My heart skipped painful beats as I waited for him to continue. Not now, she couldn’t be dead when we were so close.
“We had a shooting outside an underage nightclub. One dead, three en route to the hospital in critical condition. From what the witnesses that were on scene are saying, gangs were involved, and it all started after people had been yelling about their territories. But everyone we’ve talked to so far doesn’t know who the shooters were, doesn’t know what gangs they’re in, and doesn’t know what the shootout was for exactly. You know, the usual. We need you to come over here, and help us sort through some things if you could.”
No. No, I can’t.
“Ryan? You still there?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“Can you meet us in homicide, we have the witnesses over there.”
I gritted my teeth and was suddenly spun around by Mason. “Tell him you’ll be there.” I shook my head and Mason gripped my shoulder roughly in his hand. “Tell him you’ll be there.”
Hanging my head, I choked out, “Yeah, on my way.”
After hitting the END button, I looked up at Mason and tried to calm myself so I wouldn’t react against him.
“This is our job, someone just died, and three are in critical. We have to go help them.”
“But, Rachel—”
“Will still be there later. I know this is hard, Kash. After all this time, I know it’s hard. But we need to do our job.”
I flung my arm out and tried to keep my voice at a normal level. “Three in critical, one dead. That is going to be hours gone. At the very least we’re going to be gone for five, probably nine or twelve. I can’t be gone that long, I have a bad feeling about this, something is going to happen to her!”
“Maybe your bad feeling was about these people, did you think about that?”
“No, it’s her. I know it’s her.”
“People are dying and one already died, we have to—”
“And Rachel might die tonight if we don’t do this now.”
Mason exhaled roughly and spun on his heel to walk away before walking back to me. “No matter what we decide right now, neither one is the right choice. If we stay here and go in and get Rachel, it’s the right choice for us and for her. If we go and do our job, it’s the right choice for our job, and for the families of the deceased and wounded. We made a commitment to serve and protect. We need to help the detectives find out what started this so they can find out who shot these people so the family of the deceased can find some sort of peace in all of this. Okay?”
I was shaking my head, I needed to get Rachel. We’d barely sat on the house long enough, but I knew we needed to go in there now.
“Why don’t we call backup, have SWAT go in there?”
I looked at him like he was insane. “And then what, Mase? Both get kicked off the department for doing exactly what we were ordered not to do? For all we know, they wouldn’t even send backup because they’re going to think I’m just losing my fucking mind trying to find her. They’d tell us to stand down, or demand that we go to the department to have a meeting with Chief for all this. Do you not remember last year when you tried to take down Blake and save Rachel? How many times the chief from the Austin department told me to back off? The only reason he even listened to me was because I’d talked to Rach and her goddamn car was there. We have nothing right now other than instinct. Unless we have proof, we’re fucking screwed.”
Mase’s hands raked roughly through his hair as he groaned. “Okay, okay. I got it. But we can’t skip out on our job because of an instinct either. Kash, if we decide not to take this call, and she ends up not being in there, we’d end up in more trouble than if we called for backup right now. As soon as we’re done, we’ll come right back here, and we’ll go in that building. I swear to you.”
Looking at the building, I was completely torn. I knew I couldn’t go in there alone, and I knew Mason was about to leave, with or without me. A part of me knew this was my job. I loved my job, I loved helping people, and while death was a very unfortunate part of my job, we still had to deal with it. But at the moment, I just couldn’t see past what was right in front of me.
“As soon as we get back?”
“I swear.”
With one more look, I growled and turned toward Mason’s truck.
16
Rachel
I WOKE UP with my face pressed into a hard chest, and for a moment, I smiled and curled myself into the warm body as much as possible. My smile quickly faded when I took a deep breath in and didn’t catch a hint of cinnamon or Kash’s cologne. What I smelled was a dirty mattress below us, and the body wash I’d been using my first week and a half here.
Trent.
Trying not to wake him, I slowly began uncurling my aching body to move away from him—but one of my knees was sandwiched between his legs, and the movement had his arm tightening around me and a low grunt bubbling up from his chest. Giving up my efforts, I failed at keeping my focus off every part of my body that was hurting. Including my full bladder and empty stomach, the entire front side of my body felt like I’d been run over.
“Go back to sleep,” his deep voice rumbled.
“I don’t know if I can. I hurt all over, and now that I’m awake, it’s all I can think about.”
Trent began pushing me away from his body, and I hissed out a curse when his h
and touched my shoulder. Withdrawing his hand, he grunted as he rolled away from me, and suddenly his dark eyes came into view above mine. Even without light, I could see the worry embedded in his features.
“Is it that bad?” he asked and moved so he was on his knees, his hands planted on either side of my body.
“I’m fine, just sore. Are you okay?”
“Just?” he asked, his tone clearly disbelieving. Before I could respond, he brought his hand up to my cheek and I tried to hold back a whimper when my face automatically tightened from the pain. “This is going to hurt, but let me make sure you didn’t shatter any of the bones in your face. I can see the bruises even though it’s dark.”
His hand pressed down hard against my cheek, sweeping back and forth as he made his way to my nose and chin. To keep myself from crying out in pain I had clenched my jaw so hard that by the time he was finished I was sure it would break if I tried to unlock it.
“Did you fall on your right side, or did you just turn your head before you hit?” he asked and ran his thumb lightly just under the cheekbone as he waited for my response.
“I turned my head, I fell flat.”
“Okay, try not to move,” he mumbled and sat back on his knees so he could press his hands to the front of my shoulders, across my collarbone and back again, and down my arms. I brought my hands up to his wrists to stop him when I finally noticed his body.
“Are you okay? You’re shaking.”
“Fine,” he said on a shallow breath.
“Trent—”
“I’m fine, please just let me make sure you’re okay.”
With a nod, I released his wrists and let my arms drop to my sides. I tortured my bottom lip as he felt along the bones that stuck out, and stopped breathing for long seconds when his hands hit my hip bones, and then worked their way down my legs to my knees and ankles. The image of him in the shower a couple nights before was dancing through my mind as his hands started making their journey back up.
When my chest began rising and falling quickly, he grimaced and whispered, “I’m sorry if this is hurting you. I’ll be done soon.”
Deceiving Lies Page 15