I tipped my hat low over my face, took out my phone, and opened up my maps app. It loaded after a second and showed my position as a blue dot, another red dot moving away down a nearby street.
I didn’t think, I just began running. All protocol was forgotten as I broke my cover and booked it toward that red dot. All I could think about was Claire. I careened around a corner, narrowly avoiding running directly into a family of four, and spotted a dark van making a right into traffic. I checked my app and knew it instantly: she was inside that van.
Stupid, dumb fucking mistake to let her get involved. I hated myself, anger overwhelming any semblance of calm as I ran back toward the car. I couldn’t hold it back anymore as the anger flowed through me. I was thankful that I had planted a tracking device on her earlier when we had hugged, since I knew she probably would have said no, and that her father had given me the cash to buy some extra spy shit.
But I had let her get taken. I had to move fast to catch up with them. I was reasonably certain they wouldn’t hurt her, or at least they wouldn’t until they got back to wherever they were going. And I wasn’t about to let them hurt her, not a single hair on her fucking head.
I made it to the car, jumped in, started the engine, and pulled out fast. I flew into traffic, cursing, not caring about laws or rules. I kept my eye on that red dot, speeding toward them. They had a good head start on me, but I was driving like a maniac.
Thoughts of them stripping her naked and torturing her kept playing in my mind. That sick fuck Joshua would probably do anything to threaten Jonathan’s business, including hurting Claire. She was a fucking innocent girl, was a fucking virgin not too long ago. She didn’t belong involved in any of this shit.
And yet I had let her go right into the lion’s den, all because I was so confident that I could control the situation.
Bastards. Pieces of shit. I was going to tear them all apart, limb by fucking limb, until I was drenched in their blood. They’d run screaming, begging for mercy, and as I stood over their bleeding and battered bodies, I’d smile and end them.
About fifteen minutes outside of town, the red dot stopped. I was only a few minutes behind them, hanging back to avoid getting spotted. We were in the middle of a more rural area, not many houses around but plenty of stubby trees and random sand dunes. I crawled along until I spotted the van parked outside what looked like an abandoned warehouse.
How fucking cliché. They took her to an abandoned warehouse like we were in some bullshit super hero movie or something. The idiots had no clue that it was probably littered with security holes.
All of that made it easier for me.
I parked a half mile off and got out. I popped the trunk and threw on a bulletproof vest, a black ski mask, slipped my knife into its sheath, and screwed a silencer onto my gun. Armed and ready, I made my way quickly through the woods, heading toward the red dot. Heading toward Claire.
Heading toward violence and death, the only way to rid myself of the massive pit of anger festering inside my chest.
I crouched down at the edge of the woods, watching the warehouse. I didn’t see anyone patrolling, but I couldn’t wait too long to make sure. Plus, I was so angry it was almost physically impossible to sit still. I’d never gone into battle with so much anger built up inside me, because our drill instructors had taught us over and over that calm saved lives, but I couldn’t manage calm.
I was fury incarnate. I was raging hard, and I was going to bring every ounce of my fire down on them.
I made a break for it, heading toward a fire escape that snaked up along the side of the building. I made it without any problems and began to climb.
There were three landings. I skipped the first and second and stopped at the topmost window. I tested it, but it was locked. I reached into a pocket of my combat fatigues and pulled out a thin metal bar, shoving it into the space between the frame and the latch. With one quick push, I popped the latch, pushing the window upward.
I crept inside quietly. It was dark, with only the weak rays of sunlight illuminating the inside. I was in an office, empty and smelling vaguely of mildew and rot. The desk was overturned, papers scattered all over the ground, and the chairs were moldy. I guessed that it hadn’t been touched in a long time, and there was definitely a leak nearby. The ground seemed to flex under my feet.
I moved up toward the door and looked out. The hallway was similar, all papers strewn around and furniture left turned over. Bits of discarded wood and trash littered the space, and the walls were covered in graffiti. I listened for a minute but heard nothing, and so I moved out into the hall.
Up ahead I spotted a stairwell. The place was big on the inside, bigger than I had thought, and I was on what was clearly the executive floor. Or at least it had been the administrative area or something like that back before the factory had shut down. Based on the trash and the graffiti, I guessed that the warehouse was usually used by homeless people or drug addicts looking for a place to shoot up.