by Jadyn Chase
In seconds, they streamed to the clouds, tilted, and stooped on The Desperados screaming in murderous rage. That was the signal. I didn’t need to see anything else. I lunged for the corner. “Now!”
I didn’t bother to make sure my men backed me up. I let my dragon spirit split my skin apart. I became pure flight, pure rage, and pure will to dominate.
My wings extended and I stretched my neck. Before I fully shifted, fire belched from my throat and pummeled the enemy from behind. I got halfway across the lot when Cisco flanked me on the right. Tomas took a position on Cisco’s other side and we bombarded these bastards to kingdom come.
The Desperados wheeled when the first blast hit them, but Carlos and his men rushed them from the opposite side. Together, we sandwiched them between us roasting them to cinders.
The Desperados screeched and fluttered, but they couldn’t escape. One or two managed to dodge out of our line of fire, only to get rounded up and driven to their destruction between our two fronts.
They were still young. Their scales couldn’t withstand the full heat of our flame. Their skin vaporized and then their flesh. Their bones crumbled to powder and rained down on the bare dirt.
In a matter of minutes, only red dragons remained airborne. I glared into the gaping vault below me. The concrete door stood open to reveal a long chute plunging into the ground. What would we find down there?
No more dragons appeared. Carlos descended and landed next to the opening. He strutted back and forth and stuck his long neck down the hole. Then he retracted it and shifted to become a man again.
He surveyed the scene and waved us down. Our boys alighted around him. One after another, we shifted, too, until we all regained our human forms.
Carlos arched an eyebrow at me. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
I bowed my head and mumbled into my collar. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Forget it.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You could have been right and I owe you for bailing us out just now. You did real good. I’m proud of you.”
I brightened up, but before I could say anything, he yanked his out sidearm. “Let’s go sweep the place. If you find anyone left alive, kill on sight. Understand?”
The rest of the boys armed up. My weapon felt good in my hand. I didn’t like going into an enemy stronghold without knowing what we would find, and I certainly didn’t want to fly down there.
Carlos went first. We soon discovered getting into the place turned out to be a lot harder than we anticipated. The chute contained no steps but smooth walls all the way down. The Desperados designed it for themselves to fly out of, not for enemies to walk into. Anybody could see that.
The tunnel itself ran nearly vertical for several hundred yards. No one would ever guess a structure this big could exist unseen beneath the surface of an ordinary LA neighborhood.
In the end, Carlos gave up trying to scale the chute. He sat down on the slick concrete and slid the rest of the way to the bottom. It ended in a horizontal shaft running parallel to the surface. Even that appeared designed for dragon flight.
No doors or any other features interrupted the endless corridor. It fed into the chute leading to the surface—nothing more.
We kept our guns ready sweeping back and forth, but we didn’t see anything or anybody. Could this whole massive edifice be manned by a dozen youngsters and no one else? That didn’t seem possible.
At the end of the passage, we found a single locked door. Carlos blasted the lock with his weapon, and we entered another long tunnel. Unlike the others, this one opened into dozens of rooms. Some contained shelves packed with food supplies. Racks of weapons lined the walls of others. Beds and pictures and baby bassinets decorated some. This was more like it.
We searched every corner and cranny. Still, we found no one. At the furthest end, we discovered a living room with the TV still blaring Nascar. Carlos switched it off and lowered his weapon. “All right. It looks clear but fan out and make certain. When you finish, reconvene back here and we’ll see about scalping their supplies.”
I opened my mouth to say something but thought better of it. After the debacle upstairs, I didn’t want to look a fool, or worse, insubordinate.
Carlos whipped around and glared at me. “Do you have something to say to me?”
I opened my mouth and closed it again.
“Say it, boy,” he snapped. “We don’t have all day.”
I hesitated one more time before I mustered the backbone to speak. “Excuse me, Sir. I don’t mean to question your orders, but this place looks…. you know, populated. They’ve got civilians somewhere—women and children and relatives. If they’re not here, they must be somewhere else.”
His features softened. “I know. I’m thinking the same thing. We cleared this place out, but we haven’t seen the last of them. We’ll take their stuff, but we have to keep an eye out for them in the future. Now go do your jobs and meet me back here.”
The others left the room. I turned away to follow them when Carlos laid his hand on my arm. “Wait a minute, Brayden.”
I raised my eyes to his face. I stiffened for another reprimand for daring to step out of line again. Instead, Carlos lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “Listen to me, son. I don’t want you to ever hesitate to speak your mind to me. If you’ve got something that’s bothering you or something I do that doesn’t seem right, you tell me. I give you my word you won’t ever be punished for that. Understand?”
A ray of hope shone into my heart. “Do you really mean that, Sir?”
“I mean it. Now go on and let me know if you find anything unusual.”
2
Brayden
I threw open one door after another, waved my gun back and forth, and left without really checking any of the rooms. They were all as empty and harmless as the ones we already searched.
You never saw rooms more ordinary and mundane. Only the fact that someone lived in them forty feet underground made them anything to remark.
I barely looked at all anymore, but when I came to one of the bedrooms, something made me stop. This one wasn’t like the others. Instead of a nice bedspread and curtains, bloody skull posters bedecked the walls. A hideous death’s head covered one side of the room. A dripping dagger pierced the skull and came out of the mouth. It gave me the creeps, but it appeared so unusual and out of place that I hesitated.
That enormous poster didn’t look right. It didn’t fit the homey, comforting air of the rest of the bunker. I stepped into the room and approached the image. I raised my gun, took my forefinger off the trigger, and trailed the muzzle over the glossy surface.
The paper wobbled and wavered. With that light touch, I detected a hollow space behind the sheet. I pressed harder and touched…not sheetrock, but cold metal. Now I knew something wasn’t right.
I seized the side of the paper and tore it aside. The poster fell away to reveal a steel door set with timer locks and a huge pinwheel knob like a bank vault. My guts wrenched and I called out in spite of myself, “Hey! I think I found something!”
Footsteps ran down the corridor to the spot and the men crowded around. “Holy fucking shit!” Cisco whispered.
Carlos shouldered his way to the front. “Well, what do you know about that?”
“Look.” Tomas pointed to the timer. “It’s set for ten minutes ago. The door should be unlocked.”
Carlos and I glanced at each other and he waved his gun at the door. “Well? You found it. You do the honors.”
I swallowed hard. Okay. Here goes nothing. I holstered my weapon and took hold of the knob. I gave it a spin and something inside the wall thumped. The door swiveled outward on silent hinges to reveal another hidden passage inside the wall.
“I don’t fucking believe this,” Cisco breathed. “This is like something out of a movie or something.”
Carlos motioned toward the opening. “Lead the way, Brayden. This is all yours.”
My heart thundered in my brain. W
hat would I find down there? I ducked under the doorsill and stepped through. The tunnel branched in a T intersection to two identical passages going off to left and right. A dozen cells lined the walls. Barred doors revealed everything inside.
The crew streamed into the secret prison. No one could mistake it for anything else, but we discovered all the cells empty—all except the last one. I stopped outside it and looked down at a huddled mass of bloody flesh curled on the floor. A shock of strawberry-blonde hair draped over slender shoulders darkened by bruises and scratches.
I didn’t wait for permission. I leveled my gun barrel at the lock and pulled the trigger. The bars rang with the impact and sprang open. I whipped inside and turned her over.
Her head flopped, and a trail of bloody snot smeared across her nose and cheek. A solid mass of clotted blood darkened what should have been her mouth. She wore a filthy black tank top and tight jeans around her petite body. Her eyelids drifted at half-mast to reveal unseeing brown eyes.
Someone materialized at my side, and Carlos murmured in my ear. “Jesus fucking Christ! What a mess.”
“What is she doing here?” Tomas asked.
I laid hold of her shoulders. She didn’t respond when I moved her around, but I didn’t want to shake her too hard. All that blood around her nose and mouth, not to mention the darkened bruises on her temples and around her eyes, probably meant she had a head injury.
My thumb slipped in blood on her arm. I pulled my hand away thinking to wipe it on my pants. When I did, I spotted a familiar image inked into her skin. A swirling banner rippled across her bicep with the words, Los Diablos, printed in italics.
“What the fuck?” Tomas breathed.
I scraped more blood away to reveal the rest of the tattoo. A dragon flexed its coils around the banner. Its curved wing points formed a circle shooting flame in a starburst pattern.
“What kind of patch is that?” Cisco asked.
I rotated my forearm to reveal my own brand. The dragon on my arm was a simpler tribal design with the same curlicue lettering, Los Diablos.
Who was this girl? How could she be here, in The Desperados’ stronghold, wearing our patch? It wasn’t our patch, though. It was different.
Tomas broke the silence. “Who the fuck is this?”
“She’s Los Diablos,” Cisco pointed out.
“How can she be?” Tomas returned. “That’s not our brand. Just because some Desperado bitch inked herself with our name doesn’t make her Los Diablos. She could have seen it anywhere and copied it.”
“Who the fuck would do something so stupid?” Cisco countered. “Besides, she’s not a Desperado. Do you think they would lock up one of their own women in a place like this? They’ve obviously been torturing her. Jesus Christ, look at her! She’s no Desperado. I’d bet you any amount of money on that.”
“Then who is she?” Tomas asked.
Carlos interrupted. “She is Los Diablos.”
“What?” Tomas and Cisco both whipped around to gape at him. “How do you know?’
He pointed at the tat. “It’s an old design. We haven’t used it in years. I can’t think of anyone who ever got that brand in our chapter. In fact, I can only think of one person who ever wore it and that was Josiah Hunter.”
Tomas gasped. “Our old Boss?”
Carlos nodded. “He joined down in New Mexico before he moved out here. He got that tat from another chapter of the same club. He was the only one around here who had it. La Muerta killed him in a battle and three challenges for the leadership followed. First came Floyd Mitchell, then Ashton Sykes, and last Jude Elliott. All three men got ousted before they could consolidate their positions, but Sykes stayed in power long enough to change the design to the current one. Then I came along and challenged Elliott. I won and here I am.”
All of us turned our attention to the girl. “If that’s true,” I remarked, “then how did she end up with Hunter’s patch?”
“I don’t know,” he mused, “but the real question is how did she get down here. If they found out she was Los Diablos, that explains why they treated her as an enemy. One thing I know for sure. She’s the only one who can tell us what we want to know.”
“What do you mean?” Cisco asked.
“We’re taking her with us.” Carlos swiveled to face me. “Pick her up and carry her outside. Take her to the warehouse, and we’ll question her.”
He turned on his heel and left the cell. The other men drifted off in different directions, but I stayed behind. I studied the girl’s face up close. I couldn’t see much of her features with all that muck and gore in the way, but she fascinated me for some reason. Her very disgusting condition made me want to look at her. Maybe if I looked long enough, I could solve the mystery of who she was.
While I squatted there staring at her, she heaved off the floor and groaned. Her eyes rotated in their sockets. She made a half-hearted attempt to roll over and wound up retching on the floor.
The sound woke me from my trance. I had a job to do whether I wanted to or not. I wrinkled my nose and picked her up in my arms. I made the long trek through the bunker to the chute leading outside.
Now I faced the problem of flying this wreck of a human being back to our headquarters. I laid her on the concrete floor and straightened up. At that moment, a massive red dragon exploded down the tunnel behind me. It zoomed past me going a hundred miles an hour and rocketed up the chute to the outside world.
The speed whipped my braid into my face. Yeah. That was the way it was done. In a heartbeat, I shifted and flexed my wings. These tunnels vaulted high enough to leave plenty of room for the biggest dragon. I beat the air, picked up the girl in one talon, and launched.
I catapulted out of the bunker and streaked straight up into the wild blue yonder. I soared as high as I could before I stalled and peered down. I spotted a handful of motorcycles creeping eastward along the highway. Our boys would beat me to the warehouse, but that worked in my favor.
I fluttered along for a few miles before I found the large red wheel painted on the warehouse roof. I folded in my wings and dove straight down. I burned over the neighborhood and braked to a halt in the yard outside.
I set the girl on a couch by the open door and shifted into my human form as the choppers thumped into the yard. The boys parked and our guards locked the high razor-wire gate behind them.
Carlos whipped off his shades. “Bring her inside, Brayden.”
He barged past me and left me to carry my charge into the building. I put her on a different couch near Carlos’s office and stood back to watch the proceedings. I leaned against the strategy table and felt something wet on my hand.
When I looked down, I noticed blood on my fingers. It slipped and slithered at my touch. How curious. That was her blood. For some reason, blood never seemed all that interesting to me until now.
Carlos fetched a first aid kit from his office and cracked a vial of smelling salts under the girl’s nose. The stench filled the warehouse and the girl lunged upright staring her bleary eyes in all directions.
“Huh!” she gasped. “What the….?”
The dawn of understanding crept over her shattered face. She locked her eyes on each man one after another. Her swollen eyelids drooped into her vision, but underneath them, the wild, primordial will to live blazed as strong as ever. Whoever she was, she could take one hell of a beating and still wake up ready to fight.
Carlos stood back and pitched the broken vial into the trash. “You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you here. You’re in the headquarters of Los Diablos. I guess you know who we are since you’re wearing our patch. We found you unconscious in The Desperados’ bunker. No one is going to beat you up or torture you or harm you in any way, but you’re going answer a few questions for us so we know what’s going on here.”
She leveled him with a piercing glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t.” He sniffed and shrugged inside his vest.
His countenance hardened in that way it always did when he set his mind to doing something no matter the cost. “You can start by telling us where you got that tat.”
He pointed at her shoulder. Only part of the image remained visible under the smeared blood, but she didn’t even bother to look at it. She set her bruised lips in a line and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything from before just now.”
“Is that so?” Carlos hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
She looked away. “It’s true.”
“So you have no idea why The Desperados locked you up and beat you like this? You have no idea why they took you prisoner?”
“No.” She hunched her shoulders like a petulant child. I couldn’t imagine any behavior better suited to inciting Carlos to do his worst.
He pivoted to the side and whispered something in Cisco’s ear. Cisco nodded and advanced on the girl. She scowled at him, but he only gave her his usual innocent, kindly smile. That smile could melt iron.
He approached the couch with a slow, sauntering gait. All at once, he descended on her. He shoved her back on the couch and pinned her arms to the cushions. He grasped her wrists over her head with one hand and dove the other into her jeans pockets.
In a trice, he tugged out her phone and her wallet. “Hey!” she screamed. “Give that back!”
He snatched them up and darted away before she could react. He retreated to his place and handed the goods to Carlos.
Carlos popped the snap and flipped open the wallet. “Your ID says your name is Morgan Cole. Does that ring a bell?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“Yeah, well….” He stuffed the wallet into his own pocket and waved the phone at her. “We’ll just keep this stuff. I’ll go through your contacts until we find out what connection you have to Josiah Hunter.”
