by Paige Tyler
Brooks looked down, cursing silently when he realized he was standing in the middle of a pile of white powder that was scattered all over the floor near the table. He’d been so intent on the dead bodies, he hadn’t even seen the damn stuff. Werewolves could handle getting a few grams of the junk in their bloodstreams without going down, but for a human, a trace amount of powder on their skin could put them into immediate overdose—or worse.
“Ray, there’s loose fentanyl all over the place, including the floor where we’re standing,” Brooks said. “We need to get a hazmat team in here to clean up before we do anything else.”
The older man looked at him in shock, then cursed. “Okay, everybody. Walk out of here the same way we came in. Nobody touches anything.”
Nervous looks on their faces, they all did as Ray instructed, moving slowly and cautiously. Brooks thought they might get out of there unscathed, but then Kyber, the Belgian Malinois K9 who’d come in with Ray, stumbled and fell. A moment later, his handler, Officer MacIlwaine, collapsed too.
“Connor, grab Kyber,” Brooks ordered. “Trey, we need all the Narcan you have out front. Now!”
Tossing his M4 over his shoulder by the strap, Brooks scooped up an unconscious MacIlwaine and sprinted for the front of the warehouse. Connor was right beside him, Kyber in his arms. Fentanyl could kill a dog even faster than a human. Behind him, Ray was calling for EMS, telling them to get ready for two overdose patients on the way out.
Trey hit both MacIlwaine and Kyber with two nasal doses of the opiate antidote Narcan before the Dallas Fire & Rescue paramedics could get out of their vehicles. EMS hit the officer and his K9 partner with another dose before loading them in the ambulance and hauling ass for the nearest emergency room. Brooks watched them go. Even with multiple doses of antidote, both of the cops in that vehicle weren’t out of the woods yet.
Even though Brooks was fine, he went through the motions of letting the paramedics check him for fentanyl contamination anyway. Beside him, Ray did the same. All they could do was sit on the back of an ambulance and watch as members of the task force escorted out the gang members who’d been arrested and others helped fellow cops who’d been injured. EMS went in to treat the ones who couldn’t walk out on their own. Rodriguez had reported over the radio that there’d been no law enforcement fatalities, but nobody seemed to have an idea how many gangbangers had been killed or injured. However many it was, it was too many, considering the original plan had been to arrest all of them without a shot being fired.
“They set up this meeting to be an execution from the start,” Ray said softly from beside him, his gray eyes filled with anguish. The paramedics had finally finished checking them out, and they were alone. “How did we not see this coming? How did my CIs get it so wrong? How the hell did they end up dead?”
The lines around Ray’s eyes seemed deeper and more pronounced than they’d been before the raid, making him look older than his sixty-some years. Brooks knew why he was so devastated. Ray’s relationships with his CIs were different from most cops. His informants were kids he’d personally befriended, teens he’d run into on the street and had gotten out of trouble. Hell, almost all of them had become CIs as a way to repay Ray for everything he’d done for them.
“I don’t know.” Brooks sighed. “All we can hope is that this new guy who’s running the gangs is one of the people we arrested—or shot.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Remy drawled as he and Diego came over to join Brooks and Ray. “We tracked a group of gangbangers out through a service tunnel under the warehouse. The trail dead-ended in a parking lot about two blocks from here, where they probably had vehicles waiting. There were six of them, and one was probably the new gang boss who set the meeting up in the warehouse because he knew there was an escape route if he needed it.”
Ray eyed Remy like he was insane. “You…tracked them?”
“Officer Boudreaux grew up in the swamps of Louisiana,” Brooks interjected before Remy could answer, because he was afraid of what might come out of his mouth. Remy was unpredictable like that. “He’s very good at tracking people.”
Remy snorted. “He’s trying to say I’m a coonass. If it moves, I can track it.”
“Regardless,” Brooks added, throwing Remy a pointed look. “It seems that the guy we’re really after got away.”
Ray muttered a curse. “So my CIs died for nothing. This whole raid was for nothing!”
Brooks rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe not. We arrested a lot of gangbangers today. One of them has to know who the new boss is. All we have to do is get them to talk. Then we go after this guy and make sure he pays for what he’s done.”
Ray’s mouth tightened. “Damn right, he’ll pay.”
He probably would have said more, but before he could, a loud alarm tone blared from the radio, cutting across the channel they’d been running the operation on. A moment later, dispatch called for Brooks and his SWAT team to get to Terrace Grove High School. There was an active shooter and hostage situation in progress, suspected gang involvement.
Damn, this crap never ended.
* * *
Selena Rosa sat on the edge of her desk, listening to sixteen-year-old Ruben Moreno carefully work his way through the second act of A Christmas Carol, reading the story of Scrooge and Marley aloud to the rest of her Terrace Grove classroom. The dark-haired boy read slowly, never lifting his head to look at her or the other students around him. He was way too self-conscious to ever do that. Which was probably a good thing. Because if Ruben looked up and saw someone smirk at the way he had to stop and sound certain words out before saying them, he would have stopped reading completely.
She’d tried to tell him that he shouldn’t let what other people think bother him. His reading had improved drastically over the course of the past school year, and she was extremely proud of him. But Ruben was a teenager, and by definition, teens worried extensively about what other people thought of them—especially when they were people he desperately wanted to impress.
Like Marguerite Mendes, the curly-haired girl in the back of the class he had a crush on. Or his friend, Pablo Garza, a.k.a. Wheels as he preferred to be called these days. Selena was pretty sure the new nickname had something to do with cars, either stealing them or acting as a getaway driver in one. It was hard to tell which, since the Terrace Grove Locos, the gang Pablo had joined recently, were involved in both chop shop operations and hitting convenience stores. Along with drugs, prostitution, theft, carjacking, and any of a dozen other major criminal endeavors. The Locos were bad people, and Pablo was doing everything he could to get into their good graces.
As if on cue, Pablo snorted, making sure everyone heard him as he cracked on Ruben about reading the old Christmas story like a first grader. Ruben stumbled to a halt like Pablo had almost certainly known he would. Pablo, who’d been Ruben’s best friend since the two of them were seven years old, wasn’t in Selena’s English class today to learn. Or to listen to his friend read Charles Dickens. He was there to harass his fellow students and try to convince some of them—especially Ruben—to leave with him. Pablo was there on a recruiting mission for the Locos.
“Knock it off, Pablo,” she said sharply, stabbing the boy with a sharp glare. “You’ll get your chance to impress us with your reading talents. If you decide to actually hang around long enough.”
Pablo glowered at her, clearly not liking that she’d challenged him in front of the other students. But Selena had been dealing with gangbangers her whole life. She’d grown up in a part of the city tense with gang activity. She’d watched them take her father and older brother away and chase off her mother. After that, she’d learned one very powerful lesson. Regardless of whether you walked through the neighborhood or taught in the classroom, you could never let them think they had you scared. That was something her brother had taught her, and she’d never forgotten it
.
“Keep reading, Ruben. You’re doing well,” she murmured, her eyes still on Pablo.
The fact that Pablo didn’t look away worried her. Pablo had always been one of those kids who refused to let anyone get close to them. She’d tried to reach out to him several times, but he’d refused her help. Back in November, he’d gotten into a fight with some other kid because he didn’t like the color of the boy’s shirt, claiming they were gang colors. The fight had gotten nasty, and Pablo had been suspended for two weeks. He hadn’t come back afterward. Selena had tried to keep in contact with him, had even checked in with his mother, but it had been useless.
Selena had been hopeful when he’d walked into her classroom less than an hour ago, but that had been short-lived. Pablo had changed drastically in the time he’d been away. There was an edge to him now that hadn’t been there before, a look in his eyes that told her it was too late to reach him.
She’d been fighting to keep her students out of the gangs since she’d become a teacher. Terrace Grove was right on the border of two rival gang territories, the Locos on the east side and the Hillside Riders on the west. The kids at the school were under constant pressure to go one way or the other, with both gangs actively recruiting right out in the open. Boys were expected to become soldiers or dealers while girls were used as mules…or worse. And trying to stay on the sidelines was even harder than choosing sides.
Selena refused to shy away from the problem. She determinedly put herself into the middle of her kids’ lives, fighting for anyone who’d reach out and take her hand. If a kid didn’t give up, she wouldn’t give up, making both gangs go through her to get to any of her students. But no matter how hard she fought, there was only so much she could do. While most days it felt like a losing battle, it was worth it if there was a small chance she could keep even a single kid out of the gangs.
Ruben was one of those kids. He was big for his age, already over six feet tall and thick with muscles in the shoulders and arms. The school wanted him for the football team, but the Locos wanted him for their gang…and they wanted him badly. They came at him a dozen different ways, threatening him, offering him girls, drugs, cars, even money. Ruben didn’t want any of that stuff. Well, okay. Yeah, he wanted girls. What hormonal teenage boy didn’t? But it wasn’t a stretch to say he wasn’t interested in the kind of girls the Locos were throwing his way.
The one thing Ruben really liked, the one thing that was beyond the comprehension of most gang members, was books. And that love of books was what kept him out of the gangs. At least it would as long as he was able to handle the ridicule thrown his way by people like Pablo, who thought real men didn’t read books—at least not books that didn’t involve naked women.
Ruben picked up the Charles Dickens story again, reading it out loud in his slow, deep voice. He had trouble with some of the words, but he had a way of reading that made people want to listen. Heck, some of the girls in the room got dreamy-eyed when he really got into a story.
He was getting back into the rhythm of the words, moving into the third act as the silent spirit showed Scrooge the future that awaited him, when Pablo stood up and kicked over his desk.
Selena stood, too. “Pablo, you need to leave. Now.”
“Fuck you,” he said, walking over to give Ruben’s desk a shove that almost tipped it over. Then he tore into his one-time friend, letting out a long string of curse words in Spanish, calling his old friend a coward, a loser, and a wimp. Those were Selena’s translations, of course. The actual words were much worse.
Pablo spun around to take in the rest of the class, his face red with anger. “And the rest of you are no better. You’re a bunch of weaklings, sitting here reading whatever this bitch teacher puts in front of you. Stupid stories by people who’ve been dead a thousand years. You’re all cowards, doing as you’re told so the teachers will pet you on your head and call you a good doggy.”
“That’s enough!” Selena snapped.
It was times like this she wished the school board had funded those panic buttons the principal had wanted to put into each room. She could grab her cell phone and call the front office or one of the other teachers, but that would take too long. She needed Pablo out of there now.
She crossed the room toward Pablo, intending to physically push him out of the classroom if she had to. But then she caught the rage in his eyes, saw the way the veins in his temples were actually pulsing as he ignored her and went back to berating Ruben for wanting to read a stupid book when he could have been out with the Locos making more money than he knew what to do with. This was going to get uglier than it already was.
Ruben must have finally had enough, because he rose to his feet and got in Pablo’s face. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re a chickenshit who gave up and fell in with the Locos, and now you want me to fuck up my life, too. Well, screw you!”
The rest of the class was out of their seats now. Most of the students had backed into the walls, but some had added their voices to the cacophony of angry shouts. So much for having to worry about getting a call out on her cell phone. With all this shouting, the teachers on either side of the classroom would be calling for help soon enough. If they hadn’t already.
She was moving in to separate everyone when she caught sight of a movement that nearly stopped her heart. Pablo had dropped his right hand behind his back, resting it on a bulge under his T-shirt, right there at the waistband of his jeans.
Crap.
He was carrying a gun.
“Pablo, please don’t do this,” she said, not mentioning the fact that she knew he had a gun but still slipping between him and Ruben anyway. “There’s no way this ends well unless you do the right thing and get the hell out of here.”
She’d said the words as calmly as she could, but he spun on her with a vicious expression. A split second later, he brought his hand out from behind his back, pointing a big automatic pistol first at her, then fanning out toward everyone else in the class. There were gasps and screams as every one of her students freaked.
Pablo turned and pointed the gun straight at Selena’s head for a long moment before moving to the side a little so he could aim it at Ruben. The weapon was so big, it barely fit in his hand. She couldn’t begin to guess how many bullets the thing held.
“I’ll get the hell out of here the second my homeboy walks out with me,” Pablo sneered.
Ruben looked her way, his expression questioning, like he was wondering if he should simply defuse the situation and go with Pablo. That definitely wasn’t a good idea. Now that Pablo had flashed a gun, the cops would get involved. They’d go after Pablo, and if Ruben was with the newest member of the Locos when the cops found him, there was no telling what might happen. Selena wouldn’t let Ruben put himself in the middle of that kind of trouble.
“Pablo,” she said, moving to put herself firmly between him and Ruben again. “I’m not going to let Ruben go anywhere with you. I can’t.”
Pablo pointed the weapon at her again, then stepped forward until the barrel was pressed up against her forehead. Selena thought for a moment that her heart actually did stop. He smiled slowly at her, but there was absolutely no humor in that expression. It fact, there wasn’t much of anything as far as normal human emotions. It was like she was staring into the eyes of a dead man. Selena had faced a lot of bad situations in her life, but this was the first time she ever remembered thinking she was about to die.
She’d spent her whole life trying to fight the gangs. Now the gangs were going to kill her for that. And after Pablo killed her, he was probably going to get Ruben killed and maybe other students as well. While she was terrified at the thought, she was also mad as hell.
“You know, I never liked you,” Pablo said, pressing the big weapon harder against her forehead. “You always act like you’re the shit, bossing us around, telling us to study hard, do our homework, stay away from t
he gangs. Like anything you have to say matters. But you’re not my teacher anymore. You’re not anything to me. So I’m going to take Ruben with me when I leave. Right after I shoot you in the head.”
Her students screamed, some begging Pablo not to shoot her, others pleading with him to leave, but everything around Selena faded into the background. All she could hear was the beating of her heart…and the metallic click as Pablo pulled back the hammer on the weapon.
Chapter 2
Terrace Grove High School was in chaos by the time Brooks and his teammates drove up. Local cops and teachers were doing their best to get the students out of the building, but the kids seemed more interested in snapping pictures on their cell phones than being somewhere safe. Add in media with cameras and concerned parents running around desperate to find their kids, and it seemed like the whole situation was seconds away from total meltdown.
Spotting the SWAT operations truck parked near the front of the school, Brooks headed that way, jumping the curb with his SUV and parking on the lawn by the flagpole. Trey and Diego pulled up right behind him.
“Think we should help out with crowd control?” Connor asked as he and Brooks jumped out.
Brooks hesitated. School lockdown situations were tough to get a read on, but when they went bad, they went really bad. On the way over, dispatch had reported shots fired, which meant there was a good chance his team would have to go in soon. If so, he didn’t want to waste time getting them together. But if a kid got shot because the cops weren’t able to clear the school property, that was bad, too.
“Do what you can to help with the students,” he told his teammates. “But stick close, and be ready to go in.”
His guys nodded and took off while he turned and ran for the operations truck to get a situation report, although truck was kind of a misnomer. It was an RV that had been converted into a mobile command post, so instead of couches and beds, there were whiteboards, computers, and television monitors. Gage was inside, along with Zane, one of the team’s hostage negotiators as well as Brooks’s best friend. There were a man and a woman there, too. Probably some kind of school officials. Brooks gave them a nod as he closed the door behind him. They were both so focused on the television monitors, they barely glanced at him.