12
Chase
It felt weird to be giving orders again. I hadn't done that since we'd all been in the Army together and I’d acted as the squad leader. It had to be done though. I needed to get us moving. Needed to get us to start acting and doing what we came there to do – rescue Elle.
We all fell back into our roles easily enough though – with the guys following my lead. I guess it was that ingrained sense of purpose in all of us we got from being Rangers; the elitist of the elite. It was strange to fall back into old habits and patterns, but in a way, it felt good At least we were doing something to fix a fucked up situation.
Although the air was cold enough to make my lungs hurt, I took a deep breath, trying to figure out where the smell of smoke was coming from. I could smell it, and as we walked, it was getting stronger, but with the wind swirling around among the trees, it was hard to get a bead on where the source was exactly.
“I think it's coming from this way,” Nolan said.
We all turned and followed him. Nolan was the one who smelled the smoke to begin with, so this was his show now.
“You sure?” Sean asked.
Nolan shrugged. “As best as I can figure,” he said. “If you think you know –”
“No, come on,” I said. “Let's go the way you pointed us. It's as good a place to start as any.”
Nobody else offered up a better suggestion, so we fell in behind Nolan and made our way through the dense, closely packed forest around us. In some ways, it felt like being on a mission again. Like we were running some op like we did back in the day, when we were in the shit over in the Middle East.
The smell of smoke was definitely getting stronger the further we walked. I was positive we were heading in the right direction. Nolan looked back at me and nodded, even more positive than I was that we were going the right way.
Trevor hung back and fell into step beside me. He looked skeptical.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I just don't know that we're gonna find a cabin out here in the middle of this forest, man,” he said. “I mean, it seems kinda unlikely, doesn't it?”
I shrugged. “No idea, man,” I said. “All I know is that I smell the smoke, and I'm pretty damn sure there are no wildfires going.”
“I just feel like we're wasting time here,” he said.
“Do you have a better idea?” I asked. “You saw the tracks leading away from the car.”
Trevor said nothing, and just shook his head. “I don't know, man, I just –”
“Guys, cabin at our eleven o'clock,” Nolan called back to us.
We immediately dropped down, lowering our profile to avoid being seen. Not that we needed to worry about it all that much, given the density of the forest and bushes around us. It was part of our training though and was second nature to all of us.
About a hundred yards ahead of us, sure as shit, there was a clearing in the woods, and in that clearing, sat a cabin. It wasn't big or fancy like the ones we stayed in on Brad's property, but it was nice enough. It looked like it was kept up and maintained pretty well. A dirt road cut through the trees and headed back the in the opposite direction toward the highway.
“What do you think?” Trevor asked.
I shrugged. “Not sure,” I replied. “Could be somebody's vacation house.”
I stared at the cabin, looking for signs that it was where Brad had taken her. The windows were all dark, save for the one that had light peeking around through the closed curtains. Smoke curled up and out of the chimney, then rode along on the gusts of wind. There was definitely somebody there.
I didn't want to go storming in, only to find some little old mom and pop sitting down with their tea and knitting or some shit like that. We had to do something though. It was the only lead we had, so we had to follow it. There was no other choice if we were going to find and save Elise.
“Okay, listen up,” I said.
The guys crowded around me waiting for their orders. It really was starting to feel like old times all over again. The only thing missing were people shooting at us and bombs going off.
“First things first. We need to confirm whether or not it's Brad and Elise in there,” I said. “Nolan, I need you to recon the house. Get up there and find a way to see inside. I don't care if you have to drill a peephole into the side of the house, we need to know who's in there. I don't want us busting in on a couple of old folks sitting down to dinner.”
“Roger that,” Nolan said.
“If you have confirmation that they're in there, give us a signal. If it's not them, just hustle your ass back here,” I said. “In the case Elise is in there, Nolan, you and Sean need to take up a position at the back door of the structure. Trevor and I are going through the front. Since we don't have comms, you two need to wait until you hear that we're inside, then get in there yourselves. Our plan is to move fast, hard, and subdue the target quickly. While Trevor and I are engaged with Brad, you two need to get Elise somewhere safe and out of harm's way. We clear on everything boys?”
“Oorah,” they all grunted in unison.
“Okay, Nolan, you're on,” I said.
“On it,” he said.
I chose Nolan because he was the smallest among us and the stealthiest. He was the least likely to get caught sneaking around somebody's house. He was also the least likely of us to do something rash and stupid if he got confirmation that Elise was inside that cabin. Nolan was more rational and less emotional than the rest of us and was probably the only one who could be trusted to make the logical, sound decisions.
The three of us squatted behind the bush, watching Nolan pick his way through the snowy landscape, taking a circuitous route to the house. I held my breath as I watched the darkened windows, waiting for any sign that Nolan had been spotted. So far, so good. Our luck was holding for the moment. But, he hadn't yet reached the critical point – the fifty-yard stretch of open ground from the tree line to the house.
“Here he goes,” Trevor muttered, obviously having the same thoughts I was.
We watched Nolan moving through the snow. The gusting wind brought more snow with it, which gave him some small bit of cover, thankfully. However, if somebody was at the window, staring out into the storm, it wouldn't be all that hard to spot the dark figure moving among the pure white of the landscape.
All three of us, our breath coming out in thick plumes of vapor, watched, our attention rapt, as Nolan neared the house. In unison, we all let out a long breath when he reached the side of the house without incident. There were no shouts, or gunfire or anything to indicate that he'd been seen.
“Luck's holding steady,” Sean said.
“For now,” I replied. “Still got a long way to go.”
Out of nowhere, the wind suddenly lightened up, and throttled back. The gusts weren't nearly as strong and felt like they were tapering off. It was almost as if the storm had used up all of its energy and had blown itself out all of a sudden. The three of us exchanged a look.
“That was weird as hell,” Trevor said.
“No joke,” Sean added.
The world around us was suddenly silent. After listening to the wind howling for so long, the absence of the noise was both disconcerting, and a little ominous. Fat, white fluffy flakes of snow continued to drift lazily from the sky, and the temperature was still freezing, but it was so quiet, it actually made me nervous. From deeper in the forest, I heard the sound of branches snapping, their crackle like gunshots in the silence, as the limbs gave way to the heavy burden of ice and snow piled upon them.
Nolan quickly moved around the house, looking for any vantage point inside. He finally stopped at one window and seemed to be lingering there longer than he had at the others. He must have been able to see in side. A moment later, he turned to us, hunched down below the window line, and waved. That was our cue; confirmation that Elise was inside.
“Okay, let's hit it, boys,” I said.
Sean went first, moving rapidl
y through the tree line, heading for the back of the cabin. I cut a glance over and saw Nolan moving stealthily toward the back where Sean would meet him. Nolan was the one I trusted with the recon, and though he was plenty tough, and more than capable in his own right, Trevor was the one I trusted to have at my side in a physical confrontation the most. He just had an attitude and a swagger, not to mention a mean streak and physicality that neither Sean nor Nolan had.
Trevor could just be straight up mean when we were in the shit, and at that moment, that was what we needed. We needed somebody who wasn't afraid to mix it up, even if mixing it up meant shedding a little blood in the process. We picked our way through the snow and approached the front of the house as quietly as we could. With every step we took though, the silence that enveloped us seemed that much more foreboding, making the snow crunching beneath our boots sound so much louder. We had to have sounded like a herd of elephants stampeding through the snow. But it appeared that we made it across the yard without any alarms from inside being raised.
We reached the porch and I took the lead, quietly ascending the small staircase that led to the front door. I cringed and stopped moving when the wooden stair beneath my foot let out a groan that sounded impossibly loud. I hunched down a bit, waiting for the front door to open, ready to launch myself the moment I saw Brad's face.
Trevor waited at the foot of the stairs, his body tense, ready to bound up the steps and into Brad as well. We waited for a long moment, but when we heard nothing – not even movement inside – we gave each other a nod and mounted the rest of the steps.
We reached the front door without incident and took positions on either side of it. I looked down at the door, and judging the busted handle and splintered wood, it looked like Brad had forced the door open. “Looks like the right place,” Trevor said, pitching his voice low.
I nodded. “I'd say so.”
“Could be something on the other side bracing it closed,” Trevor whispered.
“Probably is,” I whispered back.
“Gotta hit it real hard just in case,” he said. I nodded. “Let's do it then.”
We both took a step back and lined up side-by-side. I gave him the hand signal that I was counting down from three, same was we used to do it back in the Army and were busting into somebody's place to root out the bad guys.
I counted down, and when I hit one, Trevor and I launched ourselves forward with all of our might. We hit the door like NFL linemen coming off the ball, powering ourselves over the threshold.
Much to our dismay though, what was on the other side of the door was not a bookcase, couch, refrigerator, or anything else that was all that heavy. The rocking chair behind the door went flying across the room as we blasted it inward, stumbling over ourselves in the process. We went down in a heap, grunting as we slammed ourselves to the floor.
“What the fuck?”
It was Brad's voice. I disentangled my legs from Trevor's, both of us rushing to get back on our feet. I'd just gotten on mine, when I caught a baseball bat to the gut. The pain was sharp and instant, and the air all left my body in one fast whoosh. I doubled over, clutching my belly. Cutting a glance up, I saw Brad raising the bat again, ready to bring it down on my head. Before he could do just that, I saw Trevor enter my field of vision, knocking Brad over with a full body tackle.
I gasped and wheezed, trying to catch my air again, when I heard the sound of the back door crashing inward. I caught a glimpse of Elise bounding down the stairs, her eyes wide, a look of absolute fear on her face, blended with a healthy dose of relief. Sean and Nolan were at her side in a heartbeat though, moving her to the far corner of the room, and positioning themselves between her and Brad.
I got back to my feet, my legs unsteady as hell, still sucking in air. Trevor was straddling Brad's chest, holding him up by the front of his shirt, powering punch after punch into the man's face. He was throwing fists with an expression of the darkest rage I'd ever seen on his face.
Brad's face was bloody, his eye already swollen shut. I wasn't even sure he was actually still conscious at that point, so I stumbled over and caught Trevor's fist before he delivered another blow. He rounded on me, fury in his eyes, and a snarl escaping his throat.
“You got him, man,” I wheezed. “I don't want you to go to prison for beating him to death. You got him. Just let him go, Trev.”
As if suddenly coming back to himself, Trevor shook his head, and seemed to blink himself back into reality. He looked at me, looked at his fist – which was covered in blood – and then down at Brad. The man hung limp in his grasp, so Trevor unceremoniously dropped him. Brad's head bounced off the wood floor of the cabin with a hollow thud. He was out cold.
Trevor got back to his feet looking a little unsteady, but when he looked down at the prone form of Brad, a satisfied little smile crept across his features. He looked to me and nodded.
“You okay?” he asked. “You took a pretty good shot to the gut.”
“I'm good,” I replied, despite the pain radiating from the part of my belly that Brad had just put a home run swing on with his goddamn bat.
Nolan came rushing over and dropped down beside Brad. He pressed his fingers to the fallen man's neck, checking for a pulse. I was nervous when he didn't immediately give us a thumbs up, but a moment later, Nolan visibly relaxed. He turned to me and nodded.
“He's alive,” he said.
“He's probably got a concussion,” Sean noted.
“Like I give a shit,” Trevor said.
“None of us do,” I replied, and then turned to Elise, who was still standing in the corner, looking for all the world like a frightened deer. “Are you okay, Elle?”
She stepped forward and I saw the cut on her forehead and the bruising on her face. I felt my jaw tighten, and my eyes narrow as I looked at her. I looked at the guys, and judging by the looks on their faces, they were having the same thought I was.
“It's from the accident,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Nolan asked.
She gave him a level look. “Yes, I'm sure,” she said. “He didn't lay a hand on me while we were here. He mostly just ranted and raved at me.”
“Ranted and raved?” I asked.
She nodded. “It was like he'd gone crazy. Like he'd come completely undone. He went from telling me how much he hated me one second, to begging me to give him another chance the next,” she said softly. “It was scary as hell, but he didn't hurt me.”
Sean stood beside her, checking out her wounds. “We're going to need to get you to a hospital though,” he said. “Just to get you checked out and make sure nothing's going on internally. That car was pretty mangled. I can't imagine you walked away with nothing but cuts and bruises.”
“I'm fine,” she said stubbornly. “Seriously. I'm fine.”
“I agree with Sean,” I said. “At the very least, we need to rule out a concussion or anything else.”
“I appreciate the concern –”
“It's not a discussion,” Trevor said. “We're taking you to a hospital, and we're getting you checked out.”
She sighed, though I didn't think she sounded too annoyed. If anything, I thought she sounded relieved that this nightmare was over and was enjoying being doted upon – if only a little bit.
“I can't believe you guys found us,” she said softly. “I can't believe you came for me.”
She looked so vulnerable standing there. She met each of our eyes, and in those glances I felt the gratitude and love that was emanating from her like heat off the sun.
“Of course we did,” I said softly. “We will always come for you, Elise. We'll always be here to protect you.”
“Always,” Trevor said.
“Definitely,” Sean agreed.
“Without a doubt,” Chase said.
We stood there in a companionable silence for several long moments, each of us trying to silently communicate our feelings to and for her. Finally, the silence grew to feel a little bit awkward, an
d we all cleared our throat at the same time. There was a nervous chuckle around the room, that eventually grew into a genuine laugh.
It felt good to laugh. After everything we'd been through, it was a much-needed pressure release. The air in the cabin went from feeling dark and malevolent, to suddenly feeling a lot brighter, and freer. Relief washed over us all that the nightmare was finally over.
“Not to spoil the mood,” Nolan said. “But, what are we going to do about him?”
“I say we leave his ass here,” Trevor said.
“We can't leave him here,” Elise replied.
“Why not?” Sean asked.
“For one thing, it's not his cabin,” she said. “If the owners show up, now that it seems like the storm is passing –”
“Not our concern,” I said.
Elise sighed, and her smile fell. She looked troubled and perhaps, a little torn. She was a better person than the four of us put together, which was why she was having the moral dilemma about what to do with the unconscious man.
“He's injured,” Elise said softly. “He could have a concussion. Maybe more. I mean, there was the wreck, and then the beating –”
“That he deserved,” Trevor said.
Elise nodded. “Not disagreeing. I'm just saying, if there's something wrong with him, like a bleed on the brain or something, and he ended up dying out here, I don't know that I could live with the guilt,” she said, and then looked at all of us, one by one, her gaze penetrating. “Could you?”
I already knew the answer to that for all of us – yeah, we could. We could absolutely live with it. But we couldn’t' say that to her. She'd never forgive us for being so cruel and callous. That's probably something she would have expected out of Brad, but not us. I looked at the guys, and knew by their expressions, that they were thinking pretty much the same thing.
“Fine,” I said. “Since we're taking you to the hospital anyway, we'll take him too. And after that, we're going home.”
“Back to the cabins?” Elise asked.
One Lucky Girl Page 28
