Rain Shadow(4)

The usual rush of adrenaline pulsed through my veins as it always did when we first landed at a new scene. It was the eyesore house on the block, the house that, no doubt, all the other neighbors complained about, the house that brought down the value of the street. An eerie calm swept around the tiny, littered yard in front of the suspect’s home. Eerie calm was always worse than chaos. With chaos you knew where bullets were coming from, where the guns were at and how many. Unsettling quiet meant anything could happen or that an opportunity had been missed and the people inside had fled.

The air outside was brisk but sweat dripped down my back beneath the heavy vest. Sometimes the protective gear made it all seem surreal and somehow easier, easier to face down an angry gun, easier to deal with the prospect of dying or the even shittier possibility of having to kill someone. I’d only ever killed one person, and, even then I’d aimed to take out the guy’s leg. He dove at the last second and landed straight in the path of my hollow point. I’d stood over him a good five minutes hoping to catch one flicker of movement, one sign of life, but he was dead. And I’d killed him. He’d been only twenty-two, two years younger than me, and it had taken far longer than I’d expected to get over it. My dad had always warned me that having balls of steel wasn’t enough for the job. He’d warned that I needed a heart of steel too. Something he never had, and it had been his downfall in the end. And something told me it would be mine too.

Like well-programmed robots, we assumed our assigned positions with no more than faint hand signals between us. Sometimes the choreography of our movements made everything feel more fluid, more secure. Everything would go as planned, and in several minutes, we’d have our suspects in custody. Then we’d all pile back into the Chevy and head back to the office. Sometimes that was how it all went down. Sometimes. And then there were times when a wrench was thrown into the plan, a wrench that could slap all of us out of robot mode and back into the stark reality that we were human.

Dex, my partner and best friend, slid the bill of his black cap to the back of his head, signaling the rest of us to be ready. Dex had both the balls and heart of steel needed for the job of DEA agent, but sometimes they got in the way of his decision making. His black boots kicked up dust as he lumbered toward the front door with the battering ram. As he swung it back, gunshots shattered the silence and exploded through the front door. The battering ram rocketed out of Dex’s hand as he flew back and landed with a solid thump in the front yard. I jumped in front of Dex’s motionless body and fired toward what was left of the front door. It splintered in every direction. A deadly quiet fell over the yard again.

Detective Carson radioed for back-up and an ambulance as he and the other two officers moved in on the house. A groan of pain rolled from Dex’s mouth, and I released the breath I’d been holding.

He lifted a shaky arm and touched the singed hole in his vest. “Fuck that hurt.”

“Yeah? I think it might have hurt more without the vest.”

Dex held up his hand. His pinky was tweaked at a right angle. “That damn battering ram nearly took off my finger.”



“I’ll cover you. Go bitch and moan somewhere else, Dex. You’re still in the line of fire.” With some effort and more grunts of pain, he pushed to his feet, stumbled over to the side of the yard and dropped to his knees.

The gaping hole in the door revealed a dark, empty entryway and then a woman’s pale face appeared through the shards of wood. There was a large forearm wrapped around her neck. The coward attached to the forearm was using the woman as a shield. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of a pistol, and I jumped toward the brick retaining wall alongside the house.

“Female hostage,” Carson’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “Hold your fire.”

Dex had propped himself up against the back of the wall. His jaw was clenched tightly in pain.

“Dex, you all right?”

“Yeah,” he sucked in a breath, “think I broke a rib. Fucking hate broken ribs.”

Sirens sounded in the distance. For a fleeting second, the only other sound was the woman’s strangled cries of terror and then bullets sprayed from a side window. Carson and the others returned fire on the house, and the hurricane of ammo stopped. I could no longer see the woman or any other signs of life. Carson motioned us to move closer.

With my weapon raised, I took several steps toward the house, hoping to get a sense of where the woman was being held. Bullets flew from the side window again with no real target. It seemed they were just firing blindly to keep us back. The men inside were probably scared shitless at this point, which usually meant something stupid was going to happen next. The woman’s scream ripped through the air, and my feet moved instinctually toward the house.