Hell And Back(39)

She led me straight to them. She's a fucking fool, that woman. I sat there laughing as I waited for the right moment.

What I wasn't counting on was her having company. The fact Chuck was slowly fucking losing his mind didn't help matters either.

The second I get the needle in my vein, I close my eyes to savor the  fucking feeling. Those eight to ten seconds are the fucking best. Just  letting it flow through me, getting lost in the nothing.

The phone in my pocket starts ringing. Jasmine's name comes up. She's  the clerk at the front desk. She turns her head and ignores what we do.  We give her blow. Easy as one, two, three. Sometimes if I'm in the mood,  I even let her suck my cock.

"What?" I answer her.

"The cops are here. I saw five cars zoom by the front desk heading your way." The needle drops from my hand.

"FUCK! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!" I run out of the bathroom, whipping off the  elastic band, vaguely noticing the drop of blood coming out of the vein I  just shot up in.

Chuck turns around to look at me.

"That was Jasmine at the front desk. She said cops are on their way up.  They're here. They fucking found us." I start pacing the room now.

I pace back and forth in front of the blaring television. Chuck gets off  the bed and buttons up his pants. Bella is passed out, naked on the  bed.

He walks to the curtain, pulling it aside to peek outside.

"What the fuck?" He turns, looking at me. "It's fucking surrounded. How the fuck did they find us so fucking fast?"

I shake my head, grabbing and pulling the hair on my head. "How are we  going to get out of here, man?" I ask him, while he turns and looks  wildly around the room.

"There is no way out. There isn't even a fucking window in the damn  bathroom!" He keeps looking around the room for an exit that just isn't  there.

"This is all your fault!" Chuck looks at me. "All your fault and that bitch's." He points to Bella.

"I fucking told you not to take her. I told you we were going too fast."  I shake my head. I can't stop pacing, and I can't stop the shaking that  is wracking my already tweaked body.

I look over at Chuck. "I fucking told you it was a bad idea!"

Those were the last words I ever said. In the next instant, Chuck raises his gun and fires it at me.

Once, twice, three times, and I'm finally, finally, fucking free.





Chapter Forty-Nine


Jackson





I jump in the passenger seat of the car since Mick is driving, and I immediately call for backup.

The address they gave us is about twenty-five minutes out, but with the  way Mick is driving, we should get there in about ten, maybe fifteen  minutes max.

There are five undercovers on-site, waiting around the corner, scoping the place out.         

     



 

There is a black Honda parked right in front of room eight, which is the room we think they are in.

We let the on-sites know when we are two minutes out. I want into the room the minute we get there.

"You loaded?" I ask Mick, knowing he understands I'm asking if he has more than one gun on him.

"Got two on me. A couple in the back, locked."

I nod, preparing myself for the war that is about to be waged at the motel.

The moment we get there, I walk in the front door and straight to the reception desk. "Adam Fletcher, what room?"

She looks at me, smacking her bubble gum. "Who are you?"

I take my gun out and place it on the counter, her eyes going as wide as saucers. "You really want to do that right now?"

She shakes her head. "Room eight."

I don't even wait to hear her finish before I walk back out, talking to  the team that has gathered. I open up the trunk so Mick and I can grab  our vests and put them on.

"Room eight confirmed. We know they are armed. Brenda has a bullet hole to prove it."

I look around at the twenty officers who have showed up, plus the ten of Brian's guys, all waiting for the war to start.

"We just saw movement," Brian says while looking over at the room.

"It's go time. Seems they know we are here." I turn to walk away from the car to attack the door from the side.

We're a few feet from the door when we hear a shot fired. My stomach  drops, and I rock to a halt as my feet stop moving. Two shots and my  breathing stops. Three shots and I brace myself on the wall outside room  seven.

I hear shouting all around me. The door is kicked in. I snap out of it  and run through the door where my past is holding my future.

"Drop your weapon!" Mick commands, upon entering the room. "Drop the  fucking weapon now!" he warns again right before he fires a shot at the  man's leg. The man cries out in pain as he drops the gun to staunch the  blood flow in his leg.

I enter the room, taking in the scene before me.

Bella is on the bed naked, and three young girls are chained to the wall and clearly drugged.

My brother is slumped on the floor in front of the television, which  probably fell over when he was shot. I see three bullet wounds in his  chest.

I rush to the bed, checking Bella for a pulse. It's there, thank God.

I cover her with the filthy sheet and gather her in my arms to walk out  of the room. I look down at Chuck, who is cuffed in the middle of the  room, blood seeping out of his leg.

Brian, Hulk, and Roger are all working to remove the chains from the three other girls in the room.

I make it to the car just as the ambulances start to arrive. Six in  total. I run with Bella to the closest one. Placing her on the  stretcher, they start asking me questions I don't have the answers to.  The one thing I know is there is a puncture wound in her arm and her  head is bleeding.

"Sir, we need to know what she is on," one of the paramedics asks as the other starts taking her vitals.

"I don't know. We just found her."

"We need transport. I'll draw her blood for a tox screen. They'll run it  when we get to the ER, and we'll know in about thirty minutes," he says  to me while gathering up the items he needs to draw her blood and his  partner heads up front to drive.

I look toward the motel room and see Mick walking out holding a girl who  is so jaundiced, she looks yellow. Her blonde hair is stringy with  filth, and if I didn't know better, I would assume she's a junkie.

"I need help," he calls as he places her on a stretcher right outside another ambulance.

He looks over at me and calls out, "It's Lori. We found them."

I don't say anything more because the door to the ambulance I am in is  shut, and we are rushing off to the hospital where I hope and pray we  are in time and they can wake her up.





Chapter Fifty


Jackson





As soon as we arrive at the ER, the paramedic hands off the tubes of  blood and a nurse rushes off to get them to the lab. Another nurse and  an ER doctor run alongside the stretcher as the paramedic rattles off  her vitals and what he knows while he moves it into an exam room.

Mick arrives in an ambulance with Lori about ten minutes later. He runs  alongside Lori's stretcher, keeping pace with the paramedic, the doctor,  and the nurse.

The doctor stops him before he can get into the room.

Dread and fear are written all over his face. "Her pulse is weak. So  weak. At one point, they couldn't find it." He looks toward her room,  absently swiping at tears on his face I'm not sure he even realizes are  there.

I don't have a chance to ask him anything else before the door bursts open and Marissa comes running in looking frantic.         

     



 

As soon as she sees us in the hallway and she sees the tears falling  down on Mick's face, she stops in her tracks. Her knees give out, and  the wail is ripped from her, shaking me to my core.

Mick moves so fast, I don't see him move until I notice him at her side.  He picks her up, sitting on the floor with her cradled in his lap as he  slowly rocks her to calm her down.

"Baby, she's a fighter," I hear him whisper to her. "She is going to  pull through. She didn't survive all of this to die this way."

Marissa doesn't reply. She just holds on to him like he's her anchor, her lifeline.

We both sit in that waiting room, waiting for news.

The minutes feel like hours, the hours feel like days. Each time someone comes out of those doors, we all look up hopefully.

The other girls have also been brought in, and their parents are here  waiting just like we are. They are going through drug screening and rape  kits. It's a fucking parents' worst nightmare.

Marissa has calmed down a bit, but she hasn't moved from Mick's lap, nor  has she lessened her grip on his shirt. Her head is resting in the  crook of his neck, like she was made to fit there.

The doors open again and in walks my mother holding Lilah in her arms.

Looking around, she spots us and hurries over to us. When Lilah sees me, she wiggles out of my mother's arms.

"I couldn't stay away knowing what's happening." She sits next to me and holds my hand.

"The doctor just came out to tell me about Brenda. She just got out of  surgery. She lost a lot of blood and her spleen, but she's going to make  it," I tell her while Lilah sits on my lap facing me, her legs wrapped  around my waist, her arms around my neck, her cheek pressed to my chest.  She's holding on tight.