Taking Meghan: Disciples 5

by Sweet, Izzy

  “Exiting stairwell on three,” I say into our comms before quickly kneeling on the floor.

  Johnathan quickly pulls the door open and I lean around the edge to look out.

  Bullets hit where a man’s chest would be above me.

  Spotting the two shooters standing behind a desk of some sort, I blast a hole through the throat of one guy and the forehead of the second.

  Andrew moves into the long room as I stand up from where I’ve been kneeling.

  Standing up though, I can feel a warm fresh pulse of blood seep out of my wound. Andrew was right about me needing to get this fixed up, but now’s not the time. If we don’t get moving, we’re going to lose the advantage.

  Jogging in the lead of our trio, I stop when I come to a door leading down a long hallway.

  “Anything on the heat scope?”

  “One coming out of the office on my side. Your right,” James says quickly.

  Kneeling again, I wait for them to poke around the corner. Lining up my sights on the M4, I shoot the guy in the knee while Andrew blasts a bullet through the head of our target.

  “Fucker. We’ve got a big heat signature rushing back to the suspected room with Meghan. You need to move. I don’t see any more discernible targets,” James says in a rush.

  “Moving,” I shout into my comms and start off at a quick pace.

  Each pounding stomp of my foot brings a jolt of pain through my body. That piece of metal isn’t the best thing to have hitchhiking inside me right now.

  With each step, though, I can feel the anger in my blood boiling. Boiling so fucking full of hate and rage. My eyes want to glaze over in a berserker-induced blackout, but I can’t allow myself to do it. Not with Meghan in so much danger right now.

  “I’ve got a shot. It’s going to be through the wall, but I’ve got one I feel I can take without endangering Meghan,” James says

  “Any idea who it is?” Andrew asks.

  “No, but taking it now,” James says.

  I hear Meghan’s high-pitched scream coming from up ahead of me.

  “Target One down. Second is ducking behind Meghan and the dead body that collapsed on her,” James says.

  “Fuck,” I spit out.

  “Distance to the office?” I ask quickly.

  “Fifteen feet,” James says. “Ten… seven… four... You should be close to the entrance now.”

  “Put two more rounds through the walls. Close enough to scare the shit out of them, but not hit them,” I say.

  “Doing so now.”

  A bullet round slams through the outer wall of the office wall and Meghan screams again. Fuck, I don’t want her to ever have this kind of fear. I can’t stand it. It’s fucking murdering my fucking brain to hear her screams.

  The second bullet tearing through the wall gives me a damn good idea of who’s alive inside of the room with her, though.

  Alexei’s bitch voice shouts, “Goddammit! Pick up your fucking radios!”

  Shouting into the room, I say, “They’re all dead, motherfucker!”

  “I’ll kill you all and then this fucking whore!” Alexei yells back at me before he starts shooting through the walls at us.

  Good thing I’m not close enough for him to hit me.

  “He’s only got a gun and he just shot six times!” Meghan screams out to me.

  “Holy fuck!” Johnathan bellows with a rough, tumbling laugh. “Chick’s got some fucking balls on her!”

  “Shut your whore mouth!” I hear Alexei scream followed by a heavy slap of skin.

  “Fuck you, tiny dick!” Meghan yells back.

  Alexei roars in anger.

  Racing around the corner, I flip my M4 around in my hands. Instead of holding it like a rifle, I wield the motherfucker like a baseball bat.

  Taking a monstrous swing, I cover the ground between Alexei and me with an almost inhuman speed. I don’t know why time has slowed down so much for me, but I thank every fucking devil I can name that it does as the stock of the rifle connects with the Alexei’s hand.

  His eyes go wide as fuck as his pistol goes flying across the room.

  Alexei’s a big fucking man like me, but I can see in his fucking eyes he isn’t a warrior. He’s pumped some weights to give himself a look, he didn’t spend those hours in the gym to build muscles to hurt. He spent them to look good in fucking suits. He may be good with a pistol, and has probably been in a couple scrapes before, but he isn’t a brawler like me.

  Squaring up on him, I raise my hands as I give him a smile. It’s probably not what he was expecting when I bum-rushed his ass, but I’m going to give him a chance to fight me.

  He’ll fucking die here one way or the other, but I don’t want it to be quick and painless.

  “I’ll fucking kill you all,” he snarls at me.

  “Doubt it,” Andrew says from behind my back.

  And then I hear Johnathan laughing. “I want a piece of him, if anything’s left after you’re done.”

  Slowly circling to Alexei’s right, I wait to see if he’s going to try to make a play for Meghan or me.

  “I’m taking my wife home with me. We’re also going to be waking your dear old dad up, too.” I grin.

  Eyes wide, Alexei seems momentarily stunned by my words. And I don’t think it’s me taking Meghan home that has him looking like he’s seen a ghost. We’ve got a lot of questions for his father. Questions that will be pulled out of him at our warehouse, where we can take all the time in the world.

  “Possibly pregnant wife,” Meghan slurs.

  Glancing over at her, I see that her lip is busted and a trickle of blood is running down it.

  My eyes swing between Alexei and her.

  My brain is processing too much shit. Her hurting and exposed. Him fucking living and breathing.

  She’s strapped down on a fucking medical table, her legs up in fucking stirrups. And I have no clue who the fuck the dead man slumped on top of her is, the way his face is mangled from the exit wound of the bullet makes it impossible to tell.

  “You hit her. You fucking touched her,” are the only words I can get out before I finally allow the red haze of lustful rage filter my sight.

  There’s a loud roaring sound that reverberates around the room as I charge at Alexei, and from the wide-eyed look the bastard gives me, I get the feeling it’s me who’s doing the roaring.

  I thought it was the fucking blood rushing in my veins, pounding in my ears, but it’s not. It’s me, and I’m finally allowing myself to be the fucking Hellhound I’ve always been.

  There’s nothing fancy in the way I’m going to hurt him. I just want to get my hands on him and beat his body to a bloody fucking pulp. I don’t need weapons or instruments of torture. Those wouldn’t work for what I want to do.

  I need to get my fucking hands on his fucking body and cause pain.

  I throw a huge fucking haymaker at his jaw, but he’s smart enough to see how much I’m telegraphing that punch. While he’s ducking low to steer clear of my overswing, I change the direction of my punch to land the arm around his shoulder.

  Wrapping him up, I slam into the desk that’s been pushed over into a corner of the office.

  He screams at me in Russian as he wrenches an arm around my neck, trying to get a hold of me.

  Nothing he does though is going to work. My mind has had too many fucking ups and downs. Too many gains and losses over the last couple of weeks.

  The final straw that breaks the chains of my inner fucking beast is Meghan’s blood. Blood that’s my fault. Blood that I should have been able to prevent from being spilt.

  He keeps going for the choke, but he can’t get the grip he so desperately needs around my neck. Growling out, I get both arms under him before I rip him off my neck. Tossing him across the office, I watch as he slams into the wall.

  His body leaves a good fucking sized dent. He’s only crumpled down for a moment before he starts to stand up.

  I’ve shaken his ass and rattled that bi
g fucking head of his.

  Stalking over to him, I grab him by the collar of his shirt. He’s a prissy-dressed fuck in his suit and tie. But that about figures, all fucking dressed up like a bitch. Probably never truly had a hard day’s work in his life.

  Slamming my fist into his face makes me feel so much better as I wrangle him to stand up in front of me.

  “Didn’t your cunt of a mother ever tell you not to hit a lady?” I ask him, slamming him into the wall.

  “Fuck you!” he screams at me as he punches me in the stomach.

  He’s got a good jab, but it’s not hard enough to make me release him.

  Slamming my forehead into his nose is so fucking cathartic I do it two more times. Each time, I hear a crunch of bone breaking.

  Blood is all over my face when I finally pull back from him. It’s all his, though.

  Eyes glazed, he continues to shout a litany of broken English and Russian.

  I have no clue what the fuck he’s saying right now, and I really don’t care.

  Moving my hand down to his waistband, I lock onto it with a firm grip, then I latch onto his hair with my other hand.

  I want to see how far I can toss this motherfucker.

  Twirling around once, I lift his body into the air and send him flying across the office to slam into the opposite wall.

  “Fuck me! He tossed him at least ten feet!” Johnathan says with a laugh.

  Stomping over to Alexei, I can feel my hands squeezing. They ache with a need to hurt him right now, to cause more damage.

  Dragging Alexei up by his hair, I lean back and finally let the full force of my pent-up rage out.

  The first couple of hits are to the side of his jaw. It might be more than a couple, though, because soon enough I feel something shatter in his jaw.

  Teeth spit out of his mouth as he tries to desperately get my hands to release the grip I have on his head.

  “Useless motherfucker,” I snarl into his face as I rain blows into his ribs.

  Him being on the floor isn’t good enough for me right now so I stand him up like a fucking punching bag.

  How he stands there wobbly as a motherfucker, I don’t know, but I want to see if I can keep him from falling with just my fists.

  Each hit lifts him up enough to keep him from dropping between blows of my fists. I know there’s ribs cracking and breaking beneath my fists.

  Five or fifty blows go by and I can’t recall which number I’m closer to. All I know is that he stopped screaming somewhere in the middle of my punches.

  Pulling back from him, I watch as his body crumples to the floor.

  “Fucking anticlimactic motherfucking pussy!” I bellow at his unconscious lump of a fucking shit body. “You’re supposed to be some big bad! Some motherfucker who can put some damage on me! Fucking waste of breath!”

  Rearing back, I kick his kidneys with my fucking boots. Kick ‘em until I know I’ve caused serious internal bleeding.

  “You made me this fucking mad and you can’t even fucking put up a real fight!” I scream at him.

  Kneeling beside him, I raise my arm to start working on the side of his head when something pierces my brain like a bullet.

  “Gabriel,” a soft, feminine voice calls to me.

  I drop a fist to the side of his head with the intention of seeing if I can cave in his motherfucking skull.

  “Gabriel, stop it! I’m fucking naked under this sheet! Help me. Please,” she calls to me again, and that the red haze finally fades away as the colors of the real world seep back into my vision.

  “Fucking bitch,” I spit out on the body that’s barely breathing.

  Standing up, I look over to Johnathan who’s watching me with a bored look on his face. “You done?”

  Glancing around the room, I notice the blood splattered all over. All Alexei’s.

  Fucking feels damn good.

  Andrew’s not around though, so I’m guessing he’s outside securing the perimeter.

  “Almost,” I growl out.

  “Andrew’s right, though. You’re going to need to be stitched up. You’re bleeding from your shoulder pretty good,” Johnathan says, then I hear his boots walking away from the room.

  Turning back to Meghan, I walk over to her, and the feelings of murderous rage start to slowly fill me again as I take in her small body bound to the medical table.

  I want so badly to go back to beating Alexei, but having a dead body slumped over her chest is enough of a deterrent to hold me back for the moment.

  “You okay, baby?” I ask as I shove the corpse away from her with one hand and push the sweaty hair away from her eyes.

  “If you untie me, I will be,” she tells me in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Sorry. Kinda got carried away over there,” I say as I begin to unfasten all the straps holding her down.

  “I can’t believe you killed him with your bare hands like that,” she whispers to me, her eyes widening with the realization of what she watched me do to a man.

  Her eyes need to see what I’ll do to any man that dares to touch her.

  “He’s not dead,” I say with a shrug. “I figured I’d give you the choice of ending that piece of shit’s life.”

  22

  Meghan

  Once Gabriel has unfastened all the leather straps holding me down, he lifts me up into his arms. The bloody sheet covering me begins to slip down my legs as his massive biceps wrap around me in a crushing hug.

  But I don’t care.

  After everything that’s happened, after watching what he did to Alexei, the need to be held by him, to feel him, to know he’s real, is all that matters right now.

  Sitting down on the edge of the medical bed, he pulls me onto his lap, and I press myself against his chest while something inside me cracks. The strength I’ve been holding onto crumbles away at his touch.

  If I could somehow burrow myself inside him and hide for the rest of eternity, I would.

  “It’s alright. Everything is fine now, baby girl,” he murmurs as I start to shake uncontrollably. “I’ve got you.”

  I toss my head back and forth in disagreement, tears bursting from my eyes. It’s not alright, and everything isn’t fine now.

  Cocooned in Gabriel’s warmth, the shock, the adrenaline rush, the focus on survival is gone, and all that’s left is the devastation of what’s been done.

  I almost lost everything.

  My life…

  The possibility of a life growing inside me…

  My father… oh god, my father.

  Gabriel kisses the top of my head, and I just can’t stop crying. I don’t think I’ve ever cried this hard before in my life. But there’s so much pain inside me, so much pain and anger, I can’t keep it locked inside.

  It’s not until I start to squeeze Gabriel back and sense him stiffening, that I can get the slightest grip on my emotions.

  “You’re hurt,” I say accusingly, and force myself to pull away.

  “It’s just a scratch,” Gabriel says gruffly and tries to squeeze me back into the hug.

  Bullshit, I think as I wiggle out of his grasp.

  If he’s showing any sign of being in pain, it must be bad.

  “It’s nothing,” Gabriel frowns down at me as I begin to run my hands all over him, searching for the injury.

  I ignore him, finding purpose in taking care of him. My tears dry up as I explore his chest, sliding my palms over his tactical vest. Finding nothing, I cover every inch of his arms. His knuckles are a bit busted up from punching the shit out of Alexei, but otherwise he seems okay.

  Once I reach his shoulders, however, I catch him sucking in a sharp breath.

  Scowling, I position myself until I’m kneeling on his lap so I can see what the hell is going on with his shoulders.

  “Holy fuck,” I growl and yank my fingers back when they run over something sharp. “You have a chunk of metal stuck in your shoulder!”

  Being more careful this time, I gently probe at th
e big chunk of metal embedded in Gabriel’s flesh just on the edge of his tactical vest.

  “Doesn’t hurt at all,” Gabriel says with a slow smile curving along his mouth. “In fact, I feel better already.”

  “What?” I blink up at him in confusion, then I follow his gaze downward.

  “Oh my god, are you seriously checking me out right now?” I ask as he stares with absolutely no shame at my naked chest.

  Gabriel’s smile only grows wider.

  I’d hit him, but knowing him, he’d probably like it, so I just cross my arms over my breasts. “You need to get that looked at.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel grumbles and once again tries to pull me back in for a hug, but I shrug him off.

  Narrowing my tired eyes at him, I say firmly, “I’m serious.”

  Smile fading, he sighs. “I’m sure Andrew will be around soon.”

  As if saying his name summoned him, Andrew begins to stroll into the room, saying, “You rang?”

  But then he takes one look at me and stops dead in his tracks. “Oh shit.”

  His eyes immediately drop to the ground and he starts to back out of the room.

  “Fuck off,” Gabriel growls, yanking me into his hold and turning to shield me from the door.

  “What seems to be the problem…” I hear another voice drawl out as my face is shoved into Gabriel’s neck. “Oh, I see.”

  I try to push away from Gabriel to see what’s going on, but his arms are so tight with tension it’s impossible to break his hold.

  “Here Gabriel, this should cover your wife.”

  Gabriel grunts as he twists back around only enough to grab whatever was offered to him. Twisting back around, he drapes a dark suit jacket over my shoulders and then clutches the front tight against my chest.

  “May we enter now?” the smooth voice drawls out again, and my brain finally makes the connection of who it belongs to.

  Gabriel’s boss, Lucifer.

  “Yeah,” Gabriel says reluctantly, as if he’d rather they not.

  “Ah… I see you’ve made quite the mess of Alexei,” Lucifer says as he strolls into the room, his eyes taking in the scene with a keen interest.