by Bethany-Kris
“Don’t you think Melinda should know?”
Jenny frowned. “Tonight is the first night that young woman has even felt comfortable with eating dinner in the main dining room, around others. She is medicated just to be able to sleep. She is terrified enough, so no, I don’t want to pile more on to her, and watch her regress. We’ve got a long way to go with this one, Cara.”
“Yeah, I see your point.”
“What time were you planning on leaving today? You should rest, you’re nearly thirty-eight weeks pregnant, Cara.”
Cara dismissed the suggestion. “I’m fine and I think after I make a call, I’ll stick around.”
“You really should relax. Once your baby gets here, you’ll have no time to rest at all.”
“Don’t worry about me, Jenny.”
“I worry about all my girls, regardless of who they are, Cara.”
Yeah, she knew that, too.
“I’ll be fine,” Cara assured her boss once more.
Fifteen minutes later, Cara had holed herself in her small office, and finally gotten Gian on the phone. She probably should have called him back earlier after their conversation while she dropped off her books, but the hectic pace of the shelter that day hadn’t given her the chance.
“Mon ange,” Gian said the moment he picked up Cara’s call from her office phone. “How’s my girl?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“Tired. A little stressed. Craving that shredded ice with the cherry flavoring you brought me last week. Nothing I can’t handle.”
Gian’s chuckles were dark and wonderful on the other end of the line. “I can have some for you when you get home. Just let me know when you’re leaving.”
Cara blew out a slow breath. “Yeah, that’s the thing. I probably won’t be out of here until later than I thought. I know you were going to come over, but why don’t we just figure something out for tomorrow instead?”
“Cara, you’re supposed to be taking it—”
“Easy, I know. But shit came up.”
“Are you actually going to take your time off for maternity leave starting next week, or what?”
“Yes, Gian. I am going to take my leave.”
“You make it hard to believe, that’s all. You work harder than I do, amore. And that says something because I never stop.”
“I promise I’m going to take my leave. But tonight, I’m going to stay later. We have a new woman on the floor—domestic abuse, and it’s a risky situation right now. I feel like she just needs someone to talk to a bit more, and maybe she’ll feel less anxious about the shelter and what we’re trying to do to help her.”
Gian grunted something under his breath that Cara didn’t understand before adding louder, “Your soul is too good for this world, love. You better take your leave, and enjoy every minute of it. You deserve that, Cara. So fine, we’ll do something tomorrow, but something tonight, too.”
“I’m going to be too tired for anything tonight, Gian.”
“I’ll surprise you.”
“With what?”
“I’m actually not too far away with my brother, having dinner. How about—”
Gian’s sentence cut off, and a nothingness sounded in Cara’s ear. She looked down at the office phone, only to see the call had been cut off, but there was no dial tone. She hit the receiver button, but each time, the same nothingness came through the speaker.
“What the fuck?” Cara asked out loud to herself.
Then, the lights went out.
Instantly, backup emergency lights lit up over Cara’s head in one corner of her office. There was absolutely no reason for the phones to cut out, nor for the power to shut off. Cara might have overlooked the power thing, as sometimes that happened in the city when a car accident took out a transformer, but she hesitated on thinking that was the issue.
Why?
Because even without power, the phone lines would work. The phone lines would have needed to be cut, deliberately, for them not to work.
Instinct made Cara grab her cell phone from her purse as she headed out of her office. The shelter was a complex-style building, comprised of different areas from housing wings, to the kitchen, the offices wing, and the downstairs section, where things like the daycare, reception, a small library, and more was set up for the women to use.
Cara went for the stairs first, deciding on heading down that way to see what in the hell was going on. She had just stepped foot on the lower floor when the first gun shots rang out. Screams followed.
“Holy shit,” someone murmured from the front.
Cara stayed behind the safety of the wall that separated her from being seen by the people at the front entrance of the shelter.
“Allen,” she heard Jenny say, “please put the—”
“Shut the fuck up. Where’s my wife?”
Cara heard the patter of fast footsteps heading her way, and the second gunshot split through the air. The body of one of the volunteers landed so close to Cara’s spot that she heard the woman take her last breath.
Oh, my God.
“Let’s not do that again,” Allen—Melinda’s husband—said, his tone cold and bored. “Lock the place down. I’m not leaving until I get my fucking wife.”
Cara took a breath, and then another. Her slight touch of PTSD from Lea’s murder made things like gunfire into a huge monster she didn’t want to battle. She certainly couldn’t afford to battle it right then.
She didn’t realize it but she had squeezed her hands so tightly, her fingernails cut into her palms. It was only the slight movement of her baby that brought Cara but of her daze, back into the present, and reminded her what she had in her hand.
A cell phone.
One that worked.
And there was still a whole floor of people that needed to stay where they were and go into lockdown mode. It was likely that because of the cut phone and power lines, the staff in the upper floors were not aware of what was happening downstairs. A proper alert couldn’t be sent over the speakers to lockdown and hide-in due to a dangerous situation.
Thankfully, given the time of day, the bottom floor was mostly empty. A lot of the staff and women would be in the kitchen on the second floor, readying for meal time. A lot of the woman might even still be in the housing wing, readying to head to the kitchen.
Cara hit the stairs running, though she tried to keep her steps as quiet as possible. Already, she had her phone turned on and was dialing nine-one-one.
“Nine-one-one emergency services, what’s your emergency?”
Cara rattled off the address to the shelter. “Active shooter, at least one dead.”
“You’re sure it’s active, ma’am?” the woman asked.
Another gunshot rang out from down below as Cara headed for the housing wing first. “Very fucking sure, thanks.”
“Okay, please remain calm and on the phone.”
Cara pulled the lock-in bar from above the housing wing’s entrance doors and set it up as firmly as she could against the bottom, hearing some of the women come out of their rooms. The dispatcher continued to ask Cara questions, and she rattled off as much information as she could while she placed the metal bar in under the doors, opened it wide so that it used the cement walls as support. Now, the door couldn’t be opened from the other side.
“Ma’am, do you know—”
Cara ignored the dispatcher, and turned to the women coming out of their rooms, and the few staff there, too. “There’s an active shooter on the main floor. Door one to the housing wing is closed, secure, and locked-in. I’m going to exit out door two and head toward the kitchen. Someone needs to put the lock in bar behind me. Do not open those doors. Do not open them until you hear police declaring a non-active situation. Get in your rooms, close the doors, lock them up, and get under your beds, in your closets, or your bathrooms if you have one in your unit. Turn the lights off. Be extra quiet. Police have been notified, so let’s not get on a dozen cell ph
ones and block up the emergency lines. Okay?”
She could plainly see the questions the waiting people wanted to ask, and their fear. She was grateful that they simply nodded, and she continued on, heading for the exit door.
“I take it the shelter has codes in place for this sort of thing,” the dispatcher said. “That’s good, very reassuring.”
“Just because we have them, doesn’t mean we want to use them.”
“Good point. The police are on their way.”
Cara’s phone vibrated, an incoming call on the other line, but she focused on making sure the housing wing did as she asked, and locked in the exit door that led to the stairs. Instead of going down the stairs to the bottom floor, she went down the U-shaped hallway that would lead her into the offices and kitchen area.
Once again, her phone vibrated with a call on the other line.
Cara checked it, seeing Gian’s number.
“You’re still on the line, ma’am, aren’t you?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yes, but—”
Another burst of gunfire rang out behind the doors that lead to the offices wing where Cara had first come from. The noise and shock alone sent her spinning back into the wall again.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
She couldn’t lock in the offices wing when she knew there were people inside that might be able to get out. Not to mention, the lock-in bars were inside the doors, not outside. Because the people within needed to be safe, and keep the bad guys out.
Cara hadn’t meant to, but in her panic, she had clutched her phone the wrong way, and ended the call with the dispatcher. She could hear the shouts of Melinda’s raging husband just a few feet beyond the office wing’s doors when her phone started ringing.
Loudly.
Loud enough for someone to hear behind the doors.
Utter fear sent Cara running for the only safe zone left. The kitchen. Attached to the dining hall, she could get inside, have the doors locked down, wait for the cops, and hope for the fucking best.
She slammed into the back section of the kitchen like a bat out of hell, shouting and waving at the staff to help her get the lock-in bar in place. Her words mostly came out in a jumbled, panicky mess of jerky sentences and orders in the dark space with only the dim emergency lights up above.
Someone seemed to hear her, though.
Or they understood.
They just got the lock-in bar spread at the bottom of the door when the first kick hit it. Then, another round of gunfire sent Cara and the man who had helped her get the bar in place, flying backwards. She stumbled over her own feet, suddenly thankful the doors were metal and could take a bullet or two.
“The other door,” Cara mumbled to the confused, frightened staff working in the kitchen, “get the lock-in bar in the other door!”
A nagging pain started to ache in Cara’s side, but she pressed the heel of her palm against it to soothe it as best she could. Her phone rang once more, and Gian’s number lit up the screen.
Even though every single part of her screamed to pick up the call and hear his voice, because it would calm her like nothing else, Cara didn’t do it. She didn’t want to scare him, or worry him. The situation was … well, bad.
Really fucking bad.
Cara decided to call the emergency line back, just to let them know an update on the situation, and why the call had been ended in the first place.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your—”
“Active shooter at Carolina’s House on the Fifth,” Cara interrupted, keeping an eye on the locked-in door. “I was just on the phone with a dispatcher, and accidentally ended it. We have the housing and dining wings locked in, but the main entrance, bottom floor, and offices are not secure.”
“Units are on route to the scene, and one has already arrived, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
She still didn’t relax.
Not for a minute.
And especially not when the dispatcher said, “We have a confusing report coming in from the first unit, could you clarify the situation? One shooter or two?”
Cara’s brow furrowed. “Just one, why?”
“There are running vehicles outside of the shelter’s main entrance and a witness told police that two men entered the shelter five minutes ago. With weapons visible.”
“This began at least fifteen minutes ago,” Cara whispered.
“Yes, I can see when your first call came in, ma’am.”
Cara wasn’t sure why she felt the need to ask, but the question spilled out anyway. “What are the models of the vehicles outside the shelter that the witness saw the men come in?”
“Um … a Lexus and a Mercedes.”
Gian.
Gian couldn’t get rid of the image of the brain matter splattered across the welcome sign behind the shelter’s receptionist desk. He’d thought something was wrong when his phone call with Cara ended abruptly. He knew something was wrong for sure when—after driving like a bat out of hell—he found the front of the shelter dark, without the usual warm lights brightening the entrance.
Inside, two dead women sent him running for the offices wing. Dom stayed in the entrance to help the frightened, shocked women that had been spared.
“Cara!”
Gian checked office after office, but found nothing. A few of the staff had locked their doors, too, but he didn’t think Cara would be in an office with someone else. She had called from her office phone, and that was why he went looking there first. He’d put together what she had said about the risk level for an altercation due to a new woman at the shelter, and figured … the altercation happened.
Halfway down the hallway, he heard a snarling voice coming from behind the exit doors. He wasn’t sure where that led to, but he knew the shelter was sectioned off to make it feel more home-like, and less like a complex.
“Get those fucking doors open,” a man barked. “Right now, or I’ll blow your fucking head apart.”
“Please, listen. The doors can’t be opened. Please don’t—”
“Open the fucking doors!”
“I can’t open them!”
The woman’s resounding cry that followed her statement had Gian picking up his pace. Already, he had his favorite Berretta at the ready. He shouldn’t be walking around with a gun, anyway, not with the cops being so hot on his ass, and the time he had just served for illegal weapons possession.
Gian figured having a gun now was a damn good thing.
“Bitch, I’m gonna kill you.”
Gian’s foot hit the latch on the wing exit door at the same time he aimed his gun and turned toward the voices. The guy with the semi-auto rifle pointed at the cowering woman on the floor didn’t see Gian either.
Not until it was too late.
The trigger pulled back smooth and easy under Gian’s finger. The bullet plugged into the forehead of the guy, sent his eyes flying wide, and then he stumbled back several steps. His head cracked morbidly against the wall on his way to the floor.
Gian considered putting another bullet in the fucker, just for good measure, but the horrified shriek of the woman stopped him. He passed her a look and recognized her instantly. Cara’s boss.
Jenny, he thought her name was.
“You okay?” Gian asked.
Jenny just stared at him, blinking.
“Did someone call the cops?”
She still didn’t talk.
“Where’s Cara?” Gian demanded.
Jenny swallowed hard, her gaze darting to the corpse bleeding out between his eyes on the floor, and Gian standing just a few feet away. “Probably inside the kitchen and dining area, if she’s not locked in her office.”
“She’s not locked in her office.”
“You killed him.”
“He was going to kill you,” Gian offered with a shrug. “Which was the better option? I think we both like this one more. I can have the carpets replaced before the weekend is up. It’ll be like he never e
ven happened, no worries.”
The man might have hurt Cara.
Or Gian’s child.
Rage filtered in through Gian’s numbed senses, but he pushed it down. It was done with, and handled. A problem came up, and he fixed it. It was just what Gian did.
“RCMP, show your hands!”
Gian tossed his Berretta aside the second he heard the police shout their warnings from behind the doors where he had just come. He shot Jenny a smile as he put his hands behind his head, and moved down to his knees on the floor.
This way, he was not a threat.
This way, it would be faster.
He really needed to see Cara.
“Gian!”
Gian turned at the familiar sound of Cara’s shout. Just in time, too. She barreled into him, her arms snaking tight enough to choke him, and then she pulled him closer still. Her kiss landed fast and hard against his mouth, taking his breath away.
Finally, he could feel.
He wanted to hug Cara, to bring her in closer, but all he managed to do was press his cuffed hands along the swell of her stomach. It was enough and the baby’s kick had his heart beating a little faster.
“Hey, it’s all right, mon ange,” Gian soothed in Cara’s ear. “All’s well, now.”
“What is this?” Cara demanded, pulling away to grab the cuffs. “They arrested you?”
The cop keeping watch on Gian near the back of the police cruiser gave a little shrug when Cara glared at him.
“Details,” Gian said, “nothing more. I had a gun on me and no papers for it, not to mention a license for a concealed weapon. It’s just details.”
“Gian, those details put you in jail for five fucking months last time!”
“Yeah, not so loud, Cara. And it was a little more than one gun last time, but it doesn’t make this look very fucking good on me at the moment.”
She frowned. “But you were the one who … who …”
“Came in and saved the day?”
“I mean, yeah!”
Gian sighed. “Just relax. You don’t need to be worrying so much that you worry my son right out. All right? Also, there’s a couple of EMTs here, so have you been checked over yet?”
“I’m fine,” Cara said, huffing.