Taking Down Brooklyn

by Kelly Moore

  “I love Funyuns. My mom and dad used to stock up on them from long road trips.”

  “I was thinking of something a little more nutritional.” I laugh as I rinse her hands off. Taking the paper towel, I softly dry her hands off. “You stick close to my side at all times.”

  “Yes, sir.” She goes to salute me and bumps her swollen eye. “Ouch.”

  “That’s what you get for being a smartass.” I draw her into me and kiss her nose. “Now stay close.”

  I pull the Rover around and pump the gas. Brook is already stuffing her face. At least they didn’t kill her appetite, I chuckle to myself. I glance around my surroundings, looking for anything suspicious. The only vehicles I’ve seen pass are tractor-trailers. There has been no sign of anyone following us. Before I get back inside, I break apart the ice that I bought for Brooklyn. The ice looks old with chunks that don’t want to come apart. I slam the bag on the ground, and I see Brooklyn jump.

  “Sorry, baby,” I mouth through the closed window. I pull out the ice and stuff it into baggies that I picked up in the store. I slide back into the Rover. Brook’s head goes right back into my lap. Brushing the hair out of her face, I place an ice pack on her swollen, now bruising eye. I then take her wrist, placing it on the seat, I set the ice pack on top of it.

  “Thank you.”

  I think she’s back asleep before I even pull out into the road. Over the next two hours, the sun starts to rise as we enter DC. I’ve kept a good eye on the rearview mirror. No one has followed us.

  “Brook, we’re here. I need you to wake up and get us access through the gate.”

  She slowly sits up. I pull up to the guard gate and roll down my window. “I need your ID, sir,” the guard says.

  I pull out my driver’s license. “I have Brooklyn Warren with me, and she needs to see her father.”

  He leans in the window and peers over at her. “That doesn’t look like the Brooklyn Warren that I know.” He subtly places his hand on his firearm at his hip.

  Brook pulls down the visor and looks in the mirror. “Damn, no wonder he doesn’t recognize me. I don’t even recognize myself. I have ID in my bag.” She bends over into the back seat with her ass in the air.

  “She’s finding it,” I say to the guard who is now watching her fine ass wiggle in the air.

  “Got it.” She turns back around handing him her ID.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Warren. I didn’t realize it was you.” His hand stays on his pistol, and he takes a short step back. “Do you need any assistance?” he asks, eyeing me like I may have been the person that beat the shit out of her.

  “No. I need to get to my father.” He pushes the button that lifts the gate, letting us through. Brook instructs me where to park the car so that we can get through the back door and not use the public entrance.

  Agents surround the Rover, opening the doors for us. “The guard at the gate said to expect you, Miss Warren,” one of the agents tells her as he helps her out.

  I get out of the Rover, and two agents are on either side of me. The French doors fling open at the hands of President Warren. He runs directly to Brook. “Oh, thank god you’re okay.” He lets go and puts his hand to her chin, inspecting her face. He turns toward me. “I hope you took care of whoever did this to her.” His voice is laced with anger.

  “I did, sir.” I look at the two hulking agents on either side of me. “Do you mind telling your men that I’m not the enemy, sir?”

  He waves them off. “Come on inside. I have a doctor on standby waiting to take care of you.” He places his arm around Brook’s shoulder and leads her into the back entrance of the White House.

  “How is my brother?” I ask on their heels.

  “He’s here. He stabilized yesterday, and I had him brought here by ambulance. He suffered a severe blow to the head. They had to drill a hole in his head to relieve the pressure. The doctors have kept him heavily sedated for his own good. They don’t want him thrashing around.” He stops and stands in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulder. “I tell you that because he is hooked to all kinds of tubes and wires. They’ve kept him intubated as a precaution.”

  I don’t want to waste time asking if he will be okay. I just want to see him. “Take me to him.”

  He nods. He takes us to an elevator and takes us down to a floor I never knew existed. “This is one of our safe rooms. It’s used to protect me, should something go wrong.” We walk down a long corridor. There are several rooms with thick glass covering their entrance. It looks like a battle station. We come to the end of the hall, and there is a retinal scanner that he uses to gain entrance.

  The room has been made into a makeshift hospital room. Jake is lying in a bed in the far corner. Brook wraps her arms around herself with the cold air blowing through the room. I see a blanket laying on a metal table, and I drape it around her shoulders before I walk over to Jake’s bed. He is almost unrecognizable. His face his swollen and his head is wrapped in white gauze. His chin is covered in a beard. He is always so clean-shaven.

  I take his hand in mine. “Jake.”

  “He’s heavily medicated,” a nurse dressed in all white says to me.

  “When are you going to start lowering the sedation?”

  “I want to give him one more day of complete rest,” a man says, stepping up next to me. “I’m Dr. Hawk. I’ve been with your brother the entire time. He’s a lucky man. The blow to his head should have killed him.”

  “What are his chances of recovery?” I ask, swallowing hard.

  “We will know more tomorrow, but I’m very hopeful for a full recovery.”

  “Thanks for taking care of him.” Brook snuggles into the crook of my arm.

  “Miss Warren, I really need to take a look at you,” Dr. Hawk says.

  “I’ll be right here. Let him check you out.” I kiss her forehead, and she disappears into another room, but not before glancing over her shoulder at me.

  “Do you have a razor?” I ask the nurse. Her brows draw together with my question. “Jake hates having a beard. I’d like to shave him before he wakes up tomorrow.”

  She disappears for a while. When she comes back, she hands me a razor and shaving cream. “That was hard to come by,” she says with a small smile.

  “Thank you.” I take it from her and lather his face as best I can around all the tubes. She places a crisp white towel on his chest and a pan of water. I slowly and carefully remove the hair from his face with each swipe of the razor. He’s got a small cut on his chin that I avoid. Absentmindedly, my hand runs over the cut on my cheek.

  “You should let me look at that,” Dr. Hawk says, coming up beside me.

  “How is Brook?” I finish the last bit of Jake’s face.

  “She is one tough cookie. Her eye doesn’t appear to have any permanent damage. She’s covered in bumps and bruises that will heal. Her wrist isn’t broken but severely strained. I placed it in a brace to help protect it. Now, how about you let me check you out?”

  I follow him into the room where he took Brook. She’s hooked up to an IV bag of fluids. “She is a little dehydrated, and I wanted her to have some antibiotics as a precaution. Please, have a seat.”

  I walk over to Brook instead. “I’m okay, baby. Let him look at you.” I bend over and kiss her lips then walk over to the chair. I lift my chin in the air for him to get a good look.

  “Did you stitch this yourself?” he asks as he examines it.

  “Yeah.”

  “That had to hurt like hell. I’m going to cut out these stitches you put in and use glue. It will help, but you’re going to have a pretty deep scar.” I close my eyes and let him work on it. When he’s done, my eyes are so heavy. It’s the first time they’ve been closed in days.

  “Come here.” Brook pats the small single bed next to her.

  I pull my boots and shirt off, crawling in next to her. The last thing I remember is curling her into my side.

  I wake up, and I’m the only one in the bed.
Stretching out, I suddenly remember where I am. I jump out of bed. I don’t know whether it is day or night outside.

  “Hey, it’s all right, we’re safe here.” Brook’s voice carries across the room. “I didn’t want to wake you.” She walks over and hands me a cup of steaming coffee.

  “How’s Jake?”

  “Dr. Hawk is in with him now.” I place the coffee mug down and tip her chin up to me.

  “Your eye looks a little less swollen.” I kiss her softly on the lips.

  “It’s had a little time to heal. You slept for eighteen hours.” Her arms snake around my neck.

  “God, I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long at one time.”

  “You obviously needed it.” Her hands rub down my bare chest. “Put your shirt on and let’s go see your brother.”

  “I don’t ever want to hear those words pass your lips again.”

  “Which words?” she licks her lips.

  “Telling me to put my shirt on.” I playfully swat her ass.

  We open the door to Jake’s room, and the doctor is telling him to cough. I quickly make it to Jake’s side. He has taken the breathing tube out, and Jake is gasping for air. I glare over at the doctor.

  “Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal. He’ll catch his breath.”

  When he does, his eyes finally pop open. Dr. Hawk starts assessing him right away, asking him to follow commands. He does everything he asks him to do.

  “You are going to be just fine in a few days, Jake. You will probably have one hell of a headache for a while.” He pats Jake on the shoulder.

  His gaze cuts to mine. “Where is she?” His voice is so soft I almost didn’t hear him.

  “She’s right here.” I wave for Brook to come over to me. When his eyes meet hers, glassy tears form in them. She leans over and hugs him, and her tears spill over on him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  John

  “Are you okay?” Jake asks her.

  She nods with tears streaming down her cheeks. She places the palm of her hand against his cheek. “I was so worried about you. When they pulled me out of the house, you were just lying there covered in blood, and I thought…”

  He shakes his head and places his hand over hers that’s on his cheek. “I’m fine. Are you all right? Look at your eye.” He tears his look away from her beat-up face and looks at me. “I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t get loose.”

  I sit on the edge of his bed. “I know you did. We’re all good. You just need some rest.”

  Brook pulls a chair up to his bedside and takes a seat. “I wonder what they’re going to do now.”

  My stare automatically goes to her. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure they’ve found out that I lied about the location of the formula.”

  “That’s what they wanted? I just thought they were trying to get you out of their way.”

  She nods. “The men that found us said they had been hired to make me talk. They want the formula to the vaccine so they can make it themselves. They want people to believe that mine didn’t work, so they can make it themselves and profit from it.”

  I sit back and let that sink in. This whole time, they’ve wanted the formula. It all makes sense now. That’s why they never actually tried killing her. They shot at me, but they wanted her safe, at least until they get the formula.

  “Where did you tell them the formula was?”

  “I told them it was in a safe at my apartment, but my apartment doesn’t have a safe. It’s in yours.”

  I cock my head. “When could you have put it in my safe?”

  “When everything went down, the formula was in my jacket. I stashed it in your wall safe when you had me load up the money before we took off.”

  “I need to get that formula before they find it if they haven’t already.” I shove off the bed and head for the door.

  “Wait!” Brook yells before practically throwing herself in front of me. “You’re not going without me.”

  “No way. It’s not safe.”

  “I don’t care. Remember what happened the last time we separated? I’m not letting you go without me.”

  Matthew walks into the room and studies the serious expression that is exchanging between the two of us. “What’s going on here?”

  After several long seconds of us staring one another down, I glance away from her to look at Matthew. “Brook just filled us in on what she was being tortured over.”

  He stands up straight, placing his hands on his hips. “And what’s that?”

  “The formula. I have to go get it.”

  His hands fly up as he shakes his head. “It’s not safe out there for any of you. Let me send a team after it.”

  “This is too important to trust to anyone else. It has to be me.”

  “And I’m going too,” Brook speaks up.

  I spin around and face her. “No, you’re not. You need to stay here, where you’re safe. It won’t take me long.”

  She’s back at my side. “I don’t care. We’re stronger together. I’m going.” Her shoulders are squared, and her back is straight.

  “I think John is right, Brook. It’s too dangerous out there. If he insists on going himself, let him go. I can send a team with him to keep watch over him.”

  I can see the anger working its way through her. Her one good eye is focusing on me while her jaw flexes and her chest rises and falls quickly. “You’re not going without me.”

  Matthew sighs in exasperation and rubs his temples. “Why are you so stubborn? Are you wanting to be killed by these men?” He raises his voice, but she doesn’t back down.

  “I was completely fine until the last time you two thought that we should separate. I’m not doing it again.”

  I stand and leave the room, going back into my own. I pace the floor, trying to think of some way I can make her stay, make her understand that this isn’t a game. These people want to hurt her. They want to use her and kill her. And she’s just completely willing to give herself up?

  I sit on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands, trying to come up with anything. Suddenly, I hear the door open and feel her sitting on the bed across from me.

  “I love you, John. You’re not going without me.”

  My head snaps up, and my glare lands on her. “You’ve already been beaten and tortured. I’m not willing to chance your safety again. You have to let me do this alone. Stay here where you’re safe. Help take care of my brother. He needs you right now.”

  A tear forms in her eye, and she wipes it away. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have to do this on my own.” I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead. “I will be back, I promise.”

  She shoves against my chest and storms from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  I take a deep breath. I hate that she’s mad at me, but I’d rather have her alive and mad, than dead because I couldn’t keep her safe.

  I grab my jacket, wallet, and keys and leave the room to find Matthew. “I’m going. Please keep an eye on Jake and Brook. She’s not happy with me.”

  He nods. “She’ll get over it. You’re doing what’s right. Don’t let her temper and stubbornness fool you.”

  I hold out my hand. “Thank you. I’m going to go tell my brother I’m leaving, and I’m heading out.”

  “I’ll get a team to follow behind you.” He shakes my hand and leaves me standing in the hallway.

  I walk into Jake’s room, and his harsh stare finds me. “Please tell me that she isn’t going with you.”

  I shake my head before sitting on the edge of his bed. “She’s not.”

  “Thank God. She’s had a rough couple of days.”

  “I know. She’s not happy about staying, but I can’t allow it.”

  He holds out his hand. “Be safe out there.”

  I slap my hand in his and pull him against me for a hug. “I will.” I stand. “Keep an eye on my girl.”

  �
��I’ll try my best, but I didn’t do so well last time.”

  I laugh. “You’ll be fine. Get some rest and keep your eyes off my girl’s ass,” I tease him.

  When I find my way outside, Matthew is standing near with his security team. I take his hand in mine, and he says, “Take care and get back here in one piece.”

  I acknowledge him. “I will. Tell Brook that I’m sorry and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He returns my handshake. “I will, John.”

  I get behind the wheel and drive down the long drive. I pause and wait for them to open the gate. When I drive through, I notice a blacked-out SUV following close behind me.

  I drive directly to the expressway. Next stop, Chicago. Again.

  I’ve been on the road for four hours out of my almost twelve-hour drive. I’m bored and tired, even though I slept for almost a whole day. There is an empty void I’ve been carrying around with me since leaving Brook after the fire. I wish I could have her with me now, but I know that is impossible. It’s not safe, and my top priority is her safety.

  I turn the radio up to drown out my thoughts, and the car fills with the sound of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I beat on the steering wheel and sing along with “Snow” to keep myself entertained.

  Suddenly, my phone rings and the music stops while the car’s Bluetooth kicks in. I push the green button on the steering wheel. “Hello?”

  “John, Brooklyn is gone.”

  “What? What do you mean she’s gone?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had the entire place searched. We can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Damn it, that daughter of yours is going to get herself killed. Did you call in a search team?”

  “I did, but—”

  “I’m fine!” Brooklyn yells. I jump and swerve before looking into my rearview mirror and finding her sitting in the open trunk space.

  “What the fuck? You’ve been back there this whole time?” I turn and watch as she climbs over the seats to sit next to me.

  “Yep and let me tell you, your singing could use some work.”