Two left. Three counting the skinny fella.
THACK. THACK. THACK.
Apparently seeing one of their own felled with a single, well-aimed shot isn’t enough to deter these boys. They’re still firing at me, and apparently quite accurately, too. A sudden pinching in my left arm and another in my right thigh let me know that two of their shots were better placed than I’d hoped they be.
Instead of any distracting soreness, I just feel a sudden surge of warmth as the Darkness masks any pain that might have been connected to the impacts. I feel more irritated than hindered. The holes they’ve just put in me are far from life-threatening, but they have gotten my attention.
Then something far worse than extra perforations gets my attention. Our of the corner of my eye, I notice the safe room door in the book case slowly sliding shut.
“How?” I manage to get out and then punctuate my question by emptying the gun’s magazine into the wall of books. None of my twelve shots do more than tear holes into the old paper of the books, but I can hear them WHANG off the metal door hidden behind them.
“That was the tall man,” Ren says through my earpiece. “He made a run for it when you were distracted. I’m not sure who he is, but he’s locked himself in and activated the alarm. Things are about to get…messy.”
“They have no idea,” I growl. Two more bullets zing past me before I decide to fully pull on the Darkness and embrace its help. The trickle of warmth it’s been giving me suddenly becomes a full river as the adrenaline floods every muscle in my body. It’s the prison all over again.
Except this time…this time I brought guns.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Easing back on the Zero’s throttle as I pull through our warehouse’s giant rolling door, I bring the electric motorcycle to a slow stop next to its charging base. Unslinging the large, black duffel bag off my shoulder as I step off the bike, I gently lay it on the floor and plug in the bike to charge.
Normally I bring the duffel bag home from a trip like this with it filled with cash from whichever drug den I’ve raided. But the cartel boss didn’t have loose cash lying around. There wasn’t any for me to collect. But there were weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. Any new gun or rifle that looked interesting on my way out I picked up and tossed into the duffel bag. Along with any ammunition I could get my hands on. I didn’t want to come home empty handed. Especially since I wasn’t completely successful.
“You killed all of them,” Ren says with exasperation as I walk past him on my way to the gun locker.
“Not all of them,” I correct him. “That one guy escaped me. I couldn’t get to him.”
“Not for a lack of trying on your part,” Ren retorts, and he’s right. The tall guy who made his escape into the safe room was the only person I couldn’t get my hands on while I was in there. But it wasn’t from a lack of effort on my end. I shredded that office in my attempt to find a way to get into that sealed room. I tore the wood from the frames and smashed every metallic seam I could find with anything hard enough to withstand the impact. Nothing made a dent.
Given enough time and resources, I’m sure I could have eventually made my way in, but I wanted to be gone before the police arrived. Plus, there were other people on the property I could get my hands on without a solid steel door separating us. The remainder of my visit consisted of me taking out my frustration on them.
And then I collected weapons on my stroll out.
“True,” I finally say in response to Ren. “Hopefully I’ll run into him again some time and get a chance to solve that problem. Who was he anyway?”
“Don’t know, yet. Probably either a lawyer or a representative from one of the cartels. I’ll keep an eye on him, and we’ll see what turns up.”
“I planted your little surprises at least,” I say trying to find a bright side.
“That you did. Although they may be tough to find in the chaos of that place. Something like that could be easily overlooked what with the corpses everywhere. I think they tend to take precedence and be distracting.”
“Whatever, I tried. It just didn’t go as planned.”
“As planned?” He says and his voice rises a bit. “You deviated from the plan as soon as you got there. The ‘plan’ had no chance.”
“It’s fine, Renny. Those men deserved to die. It’s ok.”
“It’s ok? Killing almost forty people in one night is ok? Is that what you’re telling me? Before you left, I was trying to wrap my head around the idea of you killing one very evil man who was running a horrible organization that was distributing poison in our streets and preparing to unleash a war on our neighbors. One man, Catarina. One. You went a little beyond that, though. I don’t think I’m ok with that.”
“They all deserved their deaths, Ren. All of them. I could smell it on them. Every man in that building had innocent blood on them. They reeked of the awful things they had done. I couldn’t stop with just that one man. Not and leave all those other men free when they were just as bad. Maybe even worse.
“Every single one of them had killed an innocent person at some point in their life. I smelled the guilt on them, and I don’t regret what I did.
“I’ll do it again if I have to.”
Ren just stares at me before he replies. “Do you smell it on me, Catarina?” He asks quietly.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The blood of innocents. Do you smell it on me? Do I deserve to die like they do?”
“Of course not, Renny. I don’t smell anything like that on you.”
“How am I different from them, Cat? I’ve killed innocent people. Innocent children. That lawyer’s kids are dead because of me. My actions. How am I any different than those men you killed?”
“That’s not the same thing,” I say quietly. “You had to do that. I don’t blame you.”
“I don’t need you to blame me,” Ren nearly shouts. “I blame me! You’re so gung ho about killing those who you deem to be deserving of it, but what gives you the right to make that choice? And if you do get to make that choice, then why them and not me?”
There’s a fire in Ren’s eyes that I’ve rarely seen before. He’s more upset than I’ve ever known him to be, and I don’t have an answer for him. It’s just different. He’s not the same as those men in the house. He can’t be. Because if there’s nothing separating him from those men I just killed, then what does that mean?
This is something I need to spend time thinking about…or maybe not think about at all.
Ren and I have fought in the past before. Any two people who live so close to each other will have to have squabbles on occasion, and we’ve had our fair share. Regardless of how calm Ren can normally be, I’m sure being around someone like me can be exhausting.
We’ve fought, but nothing like this. This time something feels different. Something has changed.
“I don’t know,” I finally say in answer to his question.
He continues to stare at me with an angry and pleading look in his eyes before he just turns away and sits down at his computer.
I stare at the back of his head and watch him type for a few minutes before I turn and continue to the locker. I know I should be sad. I should be hurt or embarrassed or upset about this. But I’m not. The warm tingling sensation that has been flooding my body all night continues to bubble away at my senses.
You have no need to feel bad about this, the Darkness whispers to me. You did nothing wrong. You are doing what you were created to do. It’s not his fault he doesn’t understand. Someday he will. Just have patience.
The voice is hard to ignore, and deep down, after everything I’ve been through, I’m not sure I really want to push it away anyway.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Over the course of the next ten days, Ren is able to track down the homes of three more men who are high up in the cartels and families running the war in our city. Each time I go out, the result has been pretty much the same as the first time.
Ren has ceased objecting to my methods, but he has also drastically cut back on how much we talk, too. We no longer chat or just have conversations with each other. The only time I hear his voice now is when he’s explaining the layout of the next house I’m going to and our intended plan for entry, or when he’s speaking in my ear while I’m out on location and he’s guiding me. Other than that we tend to avoid each other.
Our relationship has changed. I’ve lost my best friend, and I wish I was more bothered by it. Whenever I dredge up thoughts about how things used to be and how I wish they were now, the Darkness surges up inside of me to soothe the pain. I can’t regret what I don’t miss, and the Darkness is very effective on keeping me focused on getting it fed. Emotions only slow that down, so it seems to be ridding me of them. I know I should be bothered by this, but I’m not. I embrace it. Emotions were a weakness that held me back, and the Darkness is helping to make me stronger.
I appreciate everything it’s trying to do for me. The Darkness is my real friend.
And my friend has helped me eliminate over a hundred fifty people from this earth in the last week and a half. I no longer leave survivors when I make my visits. I have become the Angel of Death for the evil men of this city, and they will fear my presence. They will fear it, or they will suffer from it. The choice is theirs…or it would be if I ever let one of them live long enough to make it.
Since my first cartel boss visit, the city has oscillated between chaos and organized destruction. The families running things now don’t seem to know if they’d be safer lashing out and attacking their enemies or hunkering down in their bases for protection. To add to the confusion, Ren has been supplying me with new locations at a speed that has kept every criminal organization off balance.
Ren was also a genius with his plan to leave evidence behind at each location pointing a finger at a different syndicate as the responsible party. They’ve been so busy trying to figure out which of their known enemies is responsible for all the attacks that they aren’t even considering the presence of a new enemy.
He also believes that part of what is helping us is the fact that every time I dismantle one of these cartel homes, the others in town are all thankful that it wasn’t them. They’re delicately balanced between relief that they escaped the assault and being paralyzed with the knowledge that one of their enemies had the power to pull it off. If the Darkness wasn’t constantly dampening my emotions, then I’m sure I’d be laughing from all of this. I can only imagine the headaches we are causing these men.
Those headaches are well-deserved, too. I haven’t escaped from every encounter without injury. As much as I am improving with my marksmanship and the guns I bring with me, the men I am confronting are also getting exponentially better. Over a dozen bullets have torn through me since those first two did that night I allowed the tall man to escape. Luckily the healing happens quickly enough thanks to the Darkness and its assistance, but I also know that each time I allow it to work its magic on me, I’ve been giving up a bit more of my soul to it.
I’m still nursing a shredded leg from my most recent visit when I encountered a man wielding what I can only assume was some type of modified automatic shotgun. It spit fire and death and shrapnel at a speed even I had trouble registering. I survived the assault and in turn ripped my revenge through the man while he stood there screaming, but it served as a not so subtle reminder that I am not, in fact, immortal. I can die if I’m not careful.
I doubt my death will ever come at the hands of one of these men that I’m facing, but it is always a possibility.
To help stave off that possibility, Ren offered to start sending me with some extra lampreys filled with blood. I can keep them on me, and use them as an energy source if I ever have something like that happen again. Because god forbid I take a blast like that in the future and not have quick access to a food supply for energy. That might truly be fatal for me. But that’s why I still have Ren. We may not always get along now, but he does have my best interests at heart. What more could a girl ask for?
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“Hey, Cat,” Ren calls to me a few nights later as I’m lying on the floor stretched out and staring at the ceiling. His voice sounds different, and I pick up on it immediately. It’s softer. Kinder. He almost sounds friendly. I haven’t heard that tone in his voice in weeks, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until now. It’s enough to actually break through the Darkness’s hold and stir something deep inside of me. “Can you come over here?”
I had been lying on the ground trying to let my body knit itself back together after another tough visit the night before. Ren has been sending me out on a more and more frequent basis as the families have begun to scramble and gain a foothold. ‘We have to keep up the pressure,’ he tells me. ‘If we’re not pushing, then they are.’
It makes sense, but that hasn’t stopped it from wearing me out. I’ve been out twice in three nights, and I’ve been so worn out I’m starting to make mistakes. Not many, and not major ones, but mistakes I don’t normally make. Apparently even the Darkness and I have our limits. I just never thought we’d reach them. I was using tonight to rest and to try to get my brain to settle down.
But I’m not going to deny Ren’s voice. Not after realizing its absence was something I was missing.
“Sure,” I tell him. “I’m coming.”
As I slowly make my way across the room, I see an expression on him that has been absent for almost as long as his friendliness: sadness. It’s in the wateriness of his eyes and it hangs on his face like emotional moss.
“What’s up?” I ask and step up next to him. “What’s going on?”
“I know you’re tired from the last several days,” he begins. “And normally I wouldn’t ask this of you, but something has come up. It’s kind of time-sensitive. It’s a ‘tonight or never’ kind of thing.”
“Ok,” I saw slowly. Making me go out again after the last few days is asking a bit much, so I guess that explains his attitude. It’s nice of him, but his sadness seems a bit out of place. And then as he explains what he wants me to do his mood makes more sense.
“I’ve stumbled onto some information that is referencing a shipment coming in tonight at one of the buildings across town. Not normally something we’d pay much attention to right now with everything else going on and our focus being on taking down the heads, but this one is special. I think it’s worth you going out and visiting.”
“What drugs could they possibly be bringing in tonight that is worth me using up more energy when I’m already exhausted? Why can’t it just wait?”
“Because it isn’t drugs, Cat. It’s people. Human trafficking. They’re being moved in the back of a semi-truck across the country, and they’re stopping in our city tonight for a brief stay. It’s just long enough for them to move some girls off and some different girls on, and then they pack up and take off again. It’s a small window, but it’s tonight. It’s now or never.”
It’s almost too much information for me to take in all at once. Not drugs, but people? Human trafficking? I knew this was a thing that existed, but we hadn’t really come across much of it in our city. The last time I tracked down a connection like this it led me to Chadwick.
“I know. I thought about him, too,” Ren says reading my mind. “I almost didn’t bring it up because of that. Well that, and you’re being tired and all. But I thought it was only fair that you get to make the decision and not me.”
Now I understand his sadness. This may not be drugs or the leader of one of the city’s families, but it’s so much more. A chance to make things right. Instead of just bringing death tonight, I can bring life. And change. And hope.
“I’m in,” I tell him. “Of course, I’m in. What do I need to know?”
Sighing and blowing out a breath before responding, he says, “Basically I have bad news, worse news and a just a little bit of possible not awful news. I completely understand if you want to back out.”
&nbs
p; That is not what I was expecting to hear at all. Ren is not one to be a doomsayer; he’s always been the optimist of our little group in the past. If he’s saying things look bad, then that really can’t be good.
“Lay it on me,” I say. “I’m in no matter what, so tell me what we have.”
“The bad news is that we have almost no time to prepare. In order to get there in time, you’ll have to be out the door in about a half hour.”
Whoof, I let out an exhalation of air like I’d just been slugged. That is bad. Even knowing that it was going to have to happen tonight, I was hoping for some more time to rest and prepare myself. Thirty minutes is barely enough time to get dressed and get some weapons together and checked, let alone listen to Ren’s breakdown of the scene and what I need to do. Fortunately, Ren’s next bit of news makes that last part irrelevant.
“I know, but it gets worse. Not only do you need to leave soon, but I haven’t had a chance to do any research on the place. I don’t know the layout or what to expect or how many men are going to be there. You’ll be pretty much going in blind.”
He wasn’t kidding when he said ‘worse’. Since Ren joined my crusade, I’ve almost always had him feeding me information about wherever I’m going. He’s been that constant, omniscient presence in my ear. Not being able to rely on him when I’m already tired and prone to mistakes could be costly.
But so is the thought of ignoring this and letting these girls get dragged across the country and forced to do who knows what with who knows who.
Before Ren was around, though, I had to break into places on my own without help. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.
“You were right,” I say. “That is bad and worse. What could you possibly be saving for the ‘not awful’ part?”
“Because we’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had a chance to keep up on our supply of blood here at the warehouse. We’re pretty much out, so I don’t have any fresh lampreys to send with you.”
Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe Page 24
