Cooper

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  I was just about to leave when I saw Cap come walking out of the hospital. He stood by the entrance, a mixture of disappointment and understanding on his face. He didn’t make any move to stop us, just shoved his hands in his pockets and watched as I pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t have the time for his judgements right now. I needed to get out of there, because as soon as those doctors walked out and gave the news that Becky was dead, life would be different, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

  I drove for an hour, Storm directing me as we headed into a very seedy part of Pittsburgh. I had never been here before, but I had the feeling that Storm had been here a lot.

  We pulled along an empty street that appeared abandoned, other than the litter than blew along the sidewalks. “Are we waiting for a homeless person to beat up?” I questioned.

  “Just wait,” he said cryptically.

  I glanced over at Tony, but he still sat there, staring out the window. He had confirmation that Delaney was dead. Was that what I would look like when the news came through on Becky?

  “There,” Storm said, opening his door. I didn’t see anything, but Tony and I followed him out of the truck. We headed down an alley, twisting and turning through the dark back streets of the city. We must have walked for at least five minutes before we came upon a door that looked like it was the back door to a business. Storm knocked and a large man answered, crossing his arms over his chest. I could barely make out the Army tattoo on his bicep in the darkness.

  He looked Storm up and down and then a grin split his lips. “My man.” He held out his hand to shake Storm’s and gave him a man hug. “I haven’t seen you in at least a year. Where have you been?”

  “I got caught up in some shit. Now I’m working with a security company.”

  The man nodded and slapped Storm on the shoulder. “I was worried about you. Who’s this?” he jerked his chin at us. He looked us up and down, pausing on the blood that coated my clothes and hands, but didn’t say a word.

  “Tony and Coop. I work with them.”

  I stood there silently as they joked back and forth, getting more pissed every second that I had to stand here and wait. I didn’t give a shit who this guy was or why he was working here. I didn’t care about his wife and kids or what number kid he was working on. All this was bullshit, and I was just about to walk away when the guy waved us in.

  He stayed behind at the door while another guy led us down a hallway and then down some stairs to a massive underground room. Storm had led us to an underground fighting ring.

  “How many you got fighting?” a guy asked as we approached.

  “Two,” Storm answered.

  The guy nodded. “I’ve a tag team fight in an hour if you’re interested.”

  Storm nodded and worked out the details with the guy while I stared ahead at the fight happening in the ring. There was a ref, but I wasn’t sure what he was there for. It didn’t look like there were any rules to follow. They had everything from nut punches to chairs in the ring.

  Storm jerked his head for us to follow and led us to a room that was closed off from everyone else. “Figured you guys would want to wait back here. Is there anything you need?”

  I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what he thought we would need. The only thing I needed right now was to beat the shit out of someone. Neither of us said anything and Storm didn’t really seem to expect anything. Time passed slowly, but when a man opened the door and waved for us to follow, it felt like an electric charge shocked my system. My body thrummed with the need to kill, or at the very least, maim.

  The crowd was large and loud as we approached the ring. There were already two men standing in the ring. They wore boxing shorts and looked like they had prepared for this fight. Tony and I stepped in wearing only our bloody clothes. The air charged around us as the men stared at us. I zoned out, barely hearing anything the ref said. Basically, it was a free for all. Don’t kill the other person was really the only rule.

  I felt Tony at my back as they charged, but that was the last time I saw him. I zoned out on the guy in front of me. He swung, but I ducked. I let him wear himself out for a few swings, but then I let loose. My fist landed against his face so many times that I felt my knuckles split wide open. His face was dripping blood all over the fucking mat and he was pretty unrecognizable. But still, he stood and continued to fight. What other choice did he have?

  He hung back now, not trying to lead the fight. My movements were slow as I walked toward him. I wasn’t in any rush to end him. I felt better, but not good enough as I started working his body, crushing his ribs and breaking his leg. With every scream, I felt just the slightest hint of relief. I didn’t even realize that I was being pulled off the guy until I swung and connected with nothing.

  I held up my hands, showing that I wasn’t going to do anything else. I was released and looked down at the bloody heap on the ground. He wasn’t moving, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t actually killed him. I glanced over and saw Tony standing above his opponent, pretty much in the same position my guy was in.

  I let out a deep breath and swiped at my face with my forearm, mixing the already dried blood with the fresh blood. I slowly took in the room, seeing the faces of shock. It was silent. Nobody was moving and nobody was saying a word. I headed for the side of the ring and walked out. I felt Tony and Storm following as I headed up the aisle to the exit. People moved further into their aisles to get away from me. I was just about out the door when Storm rushed up to me, shoving his phone at me urgently.

  I snatched it from his hand and barked into the phone. “What?”

  “She’s alive.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Cap

  I wasn’t sure if I should be pissed right now or understanding. The way Tacos, Storm, and Coop took off just grated on me. One of our own was in the hospital, and she meant way more to Coop. How could they all just walk away like that? Then again, Tony had just lost Delaney and Coop had already been through too much shit in the past few weeks. Storm was probably just trying to hold his team together. No matter what happened with Becky, the whole fucking team was going to be out of commission for a while. They would all need psych evals before they were allowed back in the field. Storm, mostly because the weight of his team would all fall on him right now.

  Sean walked through the waiting room doors looking tired and ready to call it a day. But he had come. I stood and walked over to him, shaking his hand.

  “Thanks for coming. What do you have?”

  “Unfortunately, not a lot at the moment. We have nothing solid to go on right now, but Delaney managed to take pictures of the fucker attacking her. She didn’t get his face though. It’s all of his chest and the arm holding the knife. And then as her arm fell, there are pictures of her actually being stabbed.”

  “Fuck. I don’t want to see them.”

  He grimaced. “Trust me, none of us do. It’s pretty grisly.”

  “If she took pictures, the killer had to see. Why wouldn’t he take her phone?”

  “I’m guessing that the killer was interrupted by Becky coming in. I can’t say for certain yet, but it appears that Becky and Delaney were attacked separately.”

  “So, he’s in the process of killing Delaney and Becky walks in…why wouldn’t she run? Someone would have at least heard her screams.”

  “Or the killer heard her car and hid until she got in the house,” Sean theorized. “Becky walks in and sees Delaney on the ground. He waits for her to walk further inside and then attacks. Becky wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  “Fuck, why did she walk inside?” I asked myself. I sighed and nodded to Sean. “What do you know?”

  “We know he’s a white male, thirty to forty years old. Our best guess is six feet tall. Without seeing his face, that’s our best guesstimate.”

  “What about the security footage?” I had handed over all access to the security footage from her house, even though Rob would have more luck going through it
, but I was complying with the investigation.

  “There’s nothing. Whoever did this was able to loop the cameras. Is that hard to do on your system?”

  “If he had hacked in from our end, we would have detected it immediately, so I’m guessing he somehow hacked into the line from Becky’s computer.”

  “She would have noticed that,” Sean said thoughtfully.

  I shook my head. “She hasn’t been using her computer. Since what happened with Kayla, she won’t touch a computer.”

  “What about the roommate? Was she seeing anyone?”

  “Yeah, Tony.”

  His shoulders fell. He hadn’t been first on the scene, but showed up as we were leaving. After the paramedics took Becky, Tony had shot out of there. I was guessing he couldn’t take being around his dead girlfriend anymore.

  “He walked in on her,” I continued. “I can’t even imagine what he’s thinking right now.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “He’s not here. Storm, Tacos, and Coop took off.” His eyes narrowed, but I stopped him in that train of thought. “They don’t know jack shit. Coop is already fucked up over Kayla and Tony…I can’t imagine that he wanted to stick around.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything could help at this point. This guy’s out there right now, and we have no fucking clue if he’ll go after someone else.”

  I shook my head, but then something clicked and I groaned. “Fuck. Becky’s been saying that there’s been weird shit happening in her neighborhood, but it was nothing like murder.”

  “We had a few reports come out of the neighborhood, but nothing to indicate that any of the incidents were connected.”

  “I think that’s why Becky wanted to put up cameras around there. I think Rob was helping her set everything up. He didn’t wire it to Reed Security. I think it all went to her computer. He would have set up everything to record and save to an external hard drive.”

  “We have all the computer equipment from her house at the lab. I’ll put in a call and tell them to start going through the video footage. Did she mention what kind of stuff was happening?”

  I shook my head, still not believing that any of this could be related to her. “It was all little shit. There were a few minor break-ins, a dog hit by a car, dead birds, and then the house that got broken into when the kid was home.”

  “I saw that report.”

  “But it was all shit that didn’t really seem to connect.”

  “If it was all the same person, we’re talking about a pretty fast escalation. The first reports of things being stolen were just small things out of garages.”

  “Who goes from stealing to murder?” I asked.

  “A psychopath.”

  “You think so?”

  He rubbed his jaw in thought for a moment. “It’s possible. I mean, if this guy is doing all this shit, he’s sticking around the neighborhood. That’s pretty ballsy. He’s calculating, making sure to stay away from cameras.”

  “Like at Becky’s house with her car. He walked right up to her car and moved it to another driveway using only a helmet with an infrared sensor to block out his face.”

  “He’s testing the neighborhood, seeing what he can get away with. As he gets away with each crime, he moves up to something more dangerous, something more thrilling.”

  “Until he moves on to murder?”

  “The problem is, if he’s targeting this neighborhood, he either knows someone in the neighborhood that he wants to suffer, or he lives there.”

  “So, we check out each person in the neighborhood.”

  Sean shook his head slightly. “If this guy really is this calculating, chances are, we’re not going to catch him just by doing a background check. We’re a small department and we don’t have any profilers on staff. I can talk with the chief and ask him to have someone sent in.”

  “So, you really think this could all be connected?”

  He shrugged. “It’s our best lead right now. Look, I have to get back to the station and start digging into this. I’ll head back over to the crime scene and see if I can find any notes or anything that Becky might have taken.” I nodded. “Any word on her condition?”

  “She pulled through surgery, but the doctor said that there was a lot of damage. He doesn’t know if her body will recover.”

  “I’m sorry, man. Keep me posted. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He walked out the door and I turned around, slamming my foot into the nearest chair, sending it hurtling back a few feet. “Goddamnit!”

  “Cap, what’s going on?” Derek asked. Everyone else hung back, not wanting to get too close when I was so pissed off.

  “We could have fucking saved her.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Coop

  Storm pulled up to the hospital and I jumped out before he came to a complete stop. I ran through the doors of the ER and raced back up to the waiting room that I had abandoned earlier tonight. Cazzo met me at the elevator, stopping me from running into the waiting room. He shoved some clothes at me.

  “Here, change first. You’re covered in blood.”

  I snatched the clothes, not bothering to respond to his comment. I rushed into the bathroom and did my best to clean up, but there was so much fucking blood caked on me. Even my shoes looked red. It took forever to clean up, but when I was mostly clean, I pulled on the clothes and rushed out of the bathroom.

  “Where is she?” I asked, running up to Cap.

  “She’s in the ICU.”

  “Take me there.”

  He pressed a hand to my chest. “Whoa, you can’t go running back there. She just got out of surgery.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I need to see her.”

  “Just calm down,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked around. “You can’t just barge back there. They aren’t allowing visitors right now.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s stable for now, but they don’t know if she’s gonna make it.”

  I took a step back, pissed as hell that he fucking called me. “What the fuck? Why did you call me? Were you trying to fucking kill me?”

  “Look, she’s alive. You have to believe that she’s going to be okay.”

  “No.” I shook my head, stepping back as pain washed over me. “I was fucking fine with what was happening. I had accepted it. I knew that she wasn’t going to wake up. If you didn’t know for sure that she was going to be okay, you never should have fucking called.”

  “Coop-”

  “No,” I roared. “You should have fucking left it. Why would you do that? Why would you give me hope?”

  He clasped my shoulder and pulled me in closer to him. “You need to fucking stop. You’re losing it. She needs you right now. Calm the fuck down and we’ll get you back there to see her.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded, though I wasn’t sure that I believed him right now. What the fuck could I do for her? Wasn’t that all up to the doctors?

  “You need to talk to her, fight for her. Okay?”

  I nodded again. It was a good hour before Cap convinced the doctors to let me visit her. When they finally led me back to her, I wasn’t sure I could do it. What right did I have to be there? I had fucking destroyed her, and now I was going back to try and convince her to live?

  We rounded the corner and she finally came into sight. She laid on that hospital bed with tubes and wires surrounding her, and she looked so fucking small. I felt Cap’s tight grip on my arm as he practically held me up. It seemed like he was doing a lot of that lately.

  “You don’t have long,” he said, “so make it count.”

  I nodded, swallowing down the tears that threatened to spill over. He was right. Becky needed me to be strong right now. I walked over to her and collapsed in the chair they had put beside her bed. I wanted to grab her hand, but I suddenly wasn’t sure of anything. Would I hurt her? Would it help her to know I was there? Cou
ld she even fucking hear me?

  I tentatively brushed my fingers against her hand and closed my eyes. I could see her, standing there in front of me, telling me that she wanted to see the man behind the scars. I had let her down. I had failed her in every way possible, and now she was paying the price.

  “Come back to me, Sunshine, and I swear I’ll never fail you again,” I whispered, hoping like hell that she could hear me. “I love you so much, and I’m so fucking sorry that I ever made you feel like you weren’t good enough. If anything, I’m the one that doesn’t deserve you. I threw you away, and I know I don’t deserve to even be in the same fucking room as you, but I’m here. Please, don’t fucking leave me.”

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  “I don’t understand,” I said to the doctor. “What are you saying?”

  “She’s not strong enough to deal with the level of pain she would be at if we let her come out of the anesthesia.”

  “Like it could kill her?”

  “If she was able to wake up, we’re not sure we could manage her pain level the way we need to. Her body went through a lot of trauma. She would be uncomfortable and it would end up doing her body more harm by being awake. So, we’ve put her in a medically induced coma to give her body a chance to heal.”

  “So, we just fucking wait? Is that what you’re saying?” I felt Cap’s hand on my shoulder, trying to steady me. Either that or hold me back.

  “That’s all we can do at this point. We’ve repaired everything we can, but now we have to let her body do the work.”

  I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. I felt strung out as I stared down at Becky. I couldn’t fucking sleep, and coffee just made me feel way too wired. My eyes burned and my ass was sore from sitting in the same fucking chair every day. It was brutal to sit here every day and pray that she would wake up.

  “The doctors said that they’re hesitant to take her out of the coma yet.”