by Barb Shuler
“Fuck. Move, move.” I felt someone tug my arm and moved with them. Marcus’s big body moved to block mine, shoving me behind him. The sound of automatic gun fire had me pulling my Sig and readying myself.
“Remember what we said. Don’t engage unless you have to. If you do, shoot to kill,” Marcus growled.
“No shit,” I snarled and took off toward the sounds of a scuffle. I kept my head down, and my legs moving faster than I would have thought with all the hiking we had been doing. Stella moved a pace past me and looked out around a tree. She looked back at me.
“Two men on the right.” With a nod I took in a deep breath. Dear God, please keep us safe and let us find our dads. With the silent prayer said, we moved as one to the other side of the trees. The men were aiming weapons at someone. I moved to the side of a large tree and it was then I saw who their target was.
Our guys. Oh, hell no. Stella raised her weapon, as did I. The Men in Black were moving up, so we both shot. The bullets pinged against the gun barrels, jerking them away from their intended targets. The two men turned only to be taken down by Jon and Dom.
“MA! I have them... Fuck! I lost it!”
“It was in this quadrant!” Carter yelled back at Derek. I winced at the commotion behind me.
“It’s there. The damn phone was just on. Stupid mother fucking cock suck-” The kid’s ranting was cut off and I felt my heart start to pound. He had them... Right? I hit the earpiece and yelled Derek’s name... And got nothing. With a snarl of anger I turned back from the tree and watched as Dom snapped one man’s neck. It didn’t even bother me, which wasn’t good, but I’d analyze that later.
There were men going down all over the wooded area. What in the hell was going on here? How many were out here? My eyes scanned the area as Stella pulled back and nodded to the left. We moved down the tree line the way the men had come in. We made sure to keep down, hidden by the bushes and greenery.
“Where are we going?” I asked softly when we stopped to take a breath. Stella met my eyes and nodded to the path up ahead of us.
“Those fuckers came in from that way. I’m willing to bet we need to go that way.”
With that she was up and running, crouched to keep her head from tipping up over the bushes. I followed her with a curse. I hoped she was right. Those men had come from this way… so maybe, just maybe this way would lead us to our dads.
Derek
“Where did it fucking go, man!?”
“I saw it on the map,” Carter replied and I nodded. I blew the map up again and tried to adjust the screen. I watched as he and Troy moved along the quadrant a few hundred yards from where I was with Walker.
“I saw it too, but it’s gone. Move to the east, two clicks. You seeing what I am on the infrared?”
“Yeah, but what is it? It’s not big enough to be a person.”
“Shit. Probably a fucking Rabbit. Keep going. Troy, you might want to watch your step, there’s a burrow or something a few inches from you. Rattlers love those things.”
“Roger that, kid.”
“Walker?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“You think-”
“Don’t finish that. Your Gramps and Robert are tough bastards. Wayne is as well. He just doesn’t have the Military background, but he’s still a hell of a fighter. In a bad situation sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“How many are there?” I heard Marcus yell into the ear bud. He was a few quadrants from where I saw Ma and Stella heading. I cursed. What were they doing?
“Marcus you have three bogies half a click to the east.” Walker stated firmly. The dots on the screen went down and didn’t move again. I looked back at the map and the red dots moving quickly.
“Marcus, your charge and Tracey’s is now four clicks to your six, how about you go get them, before they get themselves into trouble.” I was watching the map as Walker again spoke.
“Carter, three-two dive,” I called out. He had his drone in the air. It was giving us a live feed into the tablets Walker and I were using to log this manhunt.
“Walker, we have company coming in,” I said as I watched a new set of infrared dots come into the grids a few clicks to the North of where our men were. I drew in a worried breath. What next? My cell rang and I hurried to pull it out. I hit the speaker button.
“What?”
“Call off the dogs. I know you’re out here. Hatcher told me,” Drew said. I grunted.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Coming into the property, North West Corner. We came up the other side of the hill. FBI and DEA in tow.”
“Figures.”
“What’s the deal, kid?” he asked. Was I supposed to tell him Dani Lynn and Stella were out here? Jesus. We were all dead.
“Unknown number of baddies. They’re dropping, but Walker’s men are only so many. The guys are out there too. So watch where you shoot.”
“Roger that.” I heard him relay my message to the ones he was with. I sighed and looked back at the screen.
“What the fuck is she doing?” I glanced at the other screen and the scowl on Walker’s face.
“Shit. Stella is gon-”
“Stella?” Drew’s voice growled through the phone and I quickly hung up on him. Fuckidy fuck fuck fuck.
“Marcus! You and Tracey pick the fucking pace up. They are almost to the goddamn river!” Walker called into the mic.
I saw the blinking dots of Ma and Stella moving faster now. Damn! The dots that were his team were moving close to two others. They were in their own fight. Holy shit! My phone rang again and I debated on ignoring it. I really did, but I couldn’t. Drew didn’t give me a chance to say anything before he started yelling into the phone.
“You better tell me Dani Lynn is not out there with Stella!” I didn’t say anything, I was too busy watching the screen in my hand.
“Holy Shit! Carter, go back, go back, I saw something!!”
“Derek, what’s going on?” Drew asked at the same time Walker, who had come up behind me, did.
“Two men are on our ass, boys!” I heard Stella shout. Damn it! My attention was now split, but I brought it back to the screen and blew up the images.
“Carter,” I yelled, knowing he could hear me. “Three-two dive!” There it was again. I saw them. Right? There was a man. “It’s Wayne! I got him!”
Walker relayed the location as I flipped the screen of the tablet longways and followed the drone’s camera.
There were dense and sparse places to look through. But in the end it took about twenty minutes and I had them. The SAT phone popped up and then died quickly. But I had it this time.
“I got a signal. Two clicks to the north.” I yelled into the earpiece. Carter moved the drone to the signal coordinates and my heart sank.
“Drew, you best hurry. This is not good, and Ma is running right for it.” Walker’s hand landed on my shoulder and I had to fight back tears.
7
Hole in One!
Dani Lynn
It was too late to stop. I saw the fucker I was chasing dart to the right, then, I was falling. The darkness was ready to swallow me, but something stopped me. However, that didn’t keep me from slamming into the side of the big ass hole I had stumbled into. I cursed, trying to get my bearings.
“Dani Lynn!” Marcus called my name, but he was drowned out by gunfire. For fuck’s sake. “Fuck! Shots fired, southwest corner. I need some fucking help here!”
I gripped the vegetation that was hanging down into the blackness and pushed myself up some.
“Pull me up!” I shrieked when a pair of eyes flashed from a few feet below me. Holy shit! “Marcus! Fucking pull me up!”
“Dani Lynn! Holy fuck! Get her out of there!” I heard Stella yell.
The eyes disappeared, then showed up a little closer. Every fucking Stephen King movie, every horror movie period, came flashing back into my head. I screamed!
“Get me the fuck out of here! N-” I no sooner go
t the words out when there was a ripping sound and I was tumbling forward. I jerked to a stop and heard muffled cursing from above me. I won’t lie. I tossed my cookies. I had no idea what was in this fucking hole, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be roommates with them.
I’d survived being kidnapped, beaten, raped, assaulted, shot at and having three kids and adopting another, only to fall face first in a fucking hole in the middle of the goddamn Texas Hill Country. My babies’ faces flashed in my memory and I had to bite back the tears I felt in my eyes.
Son of a bitch, karma was a real cocksucker.
The gunfire stopped. I took that as a good sign.
“Hold on, Dani Lynn. On the count of three we’re gonna haul you up. Ready?” Trace called down. and I let out a frustrated sob.
“Re-ready!” I just wanted out of the fucking hole. I took a deep breath and prayed with each pull. It only took three big tugs before I felt hands around my legs. If they got me to the top, only to drop me again, I didn’t think I’d survive it.
My memory was coming back to me. This was an old well. It was twenty or twenty-five foot deep. Yeah, I’d have been dead. The place used to have an old shack over it. So you wouldn’t fall in it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so gungho to chase down that asshole who shot at us but I was safe now, right?
I saw daylight, and as soon as I was flipped over, I gasped. I had a hundred and thirty pounds of heifer on me. Then the bitch slugged me in the arm. “Don’t you fucking do that again!”
“Ow! You shithead. Get off of me, I’m fine.”
“I disagree,” Marcus said as he stared at me. The front of my shirt was covered in streaks of something. It being a black shirt I couldn’t tell. That was until Stella’s hands came away bloody. She pulled my shirt up. Yeah, I’d be feeling this for a few days. I had some deep cuts and scratches all along my abdomen.
“It’ll clean up. Come on. We are almost to where Derek got a signal from the SAT phone.” I sat up and pushed my shirt down. I had to slap Stella’s hands away before she stopped.
“We need to clean those!” She snarled.
I growled back at her.
“No, it’s fine!” I moved to get up and she pushed me back and straddled me. “Stella, get off of me!”
“You have to clean those! We can’t chance you catching something. We can’t lose you- too,” she hiccuped the last word out and I stopped fighting when she collapsed against me. I sat up, somehow, and wrapped my arms around her.
“We haven’t lost them yet, dammit. And we aren’t going to. If I have to scour this entire fucking state on my hands and knees, we will find them. You hear me?” I said. I moved my hands to push strands of stray hairs off of her wet cheeks.
“We need to move,” Marcus said.
I slapped Stella on the ass. “You heard GI Joe, get the fuck off me and man up. We ain’t got time to be chicks. Let’s GI Jane this shit and go home.”
When we were on our feet, I realized it wasn’t only my pack that had torn. “Here, put this on,” one of the men said and I took the black vest. I grumbled as I scooped up the backpack. I pulled my ammo from it, then shoved everything I could in the pockets of my black cargo pants. I took my big hunting knife from my side pocket and slipped it into the vest I was now wearing, along with two ammo cartridges. I readjusted my holsters and thanked God I hadn’t lost any of Daddy’s guns in that fall. He’d kill me.
“Let’s go,” Marcus said in a hushed voice. We followed him, keeping out of sight. There were at least three gunmen out here and we had yet to locate any of our fathers. It was really starting to piss me off.
“Bravo Team has found Wayne,” Marcus said as he looked at Stella. “He’s a little banged up, but the man he was fighting is dead.” He grinned and gave her a wink.
“Thank fuck. Where are Robert and Gabe?” she asked. My heart was hammering. Please let them be okay. I couldn’t stand the thought of something bad happening, or God forbid them not making it out of here… alive.
“We’re working on locating them.” We moved through the forest, only stopping when we heard people shouting. We spread out, each of us with a man in black at our sides. Marcus held up a hand. I stopped, my eyes scanning the woods around us. I saw a face I recognized.
Buck Jacobs.
Son of a whore! It was an automatic response to seeing the devil himself. I ran for him, my body slamming into his. We hit the ground hard and rolled. I should have thought better of this, and I realized that when the blow came to the side of my face. I screamed and picked up something. I assumed it was a rock, and smashed it against his head. I only got the one hit in before he was pulled off of me by Marcus. The moment he saw he was outnumbered he started to try to fight to get loose.
Too late, motherfucker. Too late.
I got to my feet. My hands shook as I stalked towards him. Stella came out of nowhere and tackled him. Score one for us bad ass bitches.
“Enough of this. Where are Gabe and Robert?” Marcus shook him as he stood there. Bucks head snapped back and forth before he stuttered out words that brought me to my knees.
“You’ll never find them.”
“Alpha team to Beta team, we have friendly’s coming in hot. northeast corner, hold your fire. I repeat, friendly’s coming in, southeast corner, hold your fire.”
Derek’s voice was quiet as he spoke to us through the ear pieces. I wanted to keep going. We had to find our dads. This was not being productive. A moment later the earpiece crackled again.
“I got a signal. Two klicks to the north.” I took off running. That meant Daddy was okay, I could find him. Gunfire filled the woods to the left of me. Or to the west of my location. It was short, fast and the radio clicked again.
“Southwest corner cleared. We have two in cuffs.”
“We have one as well.”
“Charlie team. Two dead. Seems to be clear here.”
“Alpha team has contact with the FBI, and the State Police are in route. Helo will be here in twenty. Meet in the clearing by the river.” That was only a few minutes walk from here, but first I had to find my daddy, and Robert.
I came to a halt when I found where the signal was coming from. My heart sank as tears sprang to my eyes. Robert lay on the ground covered in blood, his hand held tight around the SAT phone.
Daddy lay there. He was tied to spikes. Each of his limbs were pulled out from his body in a big X. He was covered in blood as well. The ground around him was saturated with a mix of his blood and Roberts.
“Daddy!” I moved to him and checked for a pulse. The others came through the trees and Stella moved to Robert, checking him for a pulse.
“Son of a bitch.” There was movement and then there were five bodies coming at us. My gaze locked with Drew’s, then Jackson’s.
What were they doing here?
“We seem to have missed the party,” Drew said dryly as he and another man dropped to Daddy’s side. Jackson and one of the others moved to Robert’s side. Medical bags were pulled out and the men got to work.
“What happened?” A voice came from behind me, and I didn’t really know. It was hard to say what had happened. Was any of this shit real? I heard a groan come from both Robert and Daddy. A sob broke free from me as I reached out and took his now free hand.
“Don’t you leave me, dammit! I’ll find a way to bring you back so I can kick your ass, old man.” I pulled his arm up and rested his hand on my face. “Please Daddy, don’t leave me.”
“Dani Lynn, come on, babe. Let’s let them work. They are both too old and stubborn to be taken out.” Stella pulled me back and I went. I curled into her and sobbed. After nine hours of traipsing through these godforsaken woods, being shot at, barely missing boobytraps setup by mad men, and almost falling to my death, it was all finally over. I was never going into the woods again. I was never hunting again, either. I was done. Being on the other side helped me see just how depraved it was. This was too much to deal with.
When the men from the Helo arr
ived - which was not any Helo it was a Military Helo - we were all loaded up and flown back to the main road while another team of fresh eyes was left checking, and double checking the area. The flashing lights, the Medical University and the Hospital choppers were waiting along with three ambos. I saw Stella run to her Dad, who was sitting on the back of one of the ambo’s.
He looked rough, but he was at least on two feet. I watched as they loaded Daddy and Robert into choppers and took off.
I was moved to an ambulance, but I was in a daze. My heart was hurting and to be honest, I was pushing myself from my own head. I’d lost my Mama when I was a kid, I wasn’t ready to lose my Daddy.
Adult or not, that is not something you can prepare for.
“Dani Lynn, baby, look at me.” I could hear Drew’s words, but I couldn’t look at him. I wasn’t ready to face the reality I was afraid was heading my way. Then my mind went to Robert. How would Lana handle losing the only father she had ever known? After everything that poor girl has had to endure the last couple of years. I shuddered. It was freezing out here all of a sudden.
“Dani Lynn!” I don’t know what happened after Drew called my name. I felt myself moving, and there were loud noises all around me, but the darkness that had been waiting for me took me, and I went willingly.
8
Not Again
Kristol
I’d done nothing other than pace, worry and cry since Jackson called to tell me what he and Drew were really called to deal with. I still had an idea that he was keeping shit from me. I knew my husband, and he couldn’t lie for shit.
The kids and I had been moved to the center, along with Lana, Anna and her kids, all of which were napping right now. The boys would call when they were on the way to pick them up and head home. I’d wake her then. Anna needed the rest. Poor little Matthew wasn’t feeling well, and Robbie was worn plum out after playing with the others all morning.
