“And yet, if it does the job, that’s what matters,” I said.
“Professor Smartass, would you shut the hell up?” Garrett said from the front.
A few of us chuckled. I gave a short laugh, but it was hard to stay too focused. Although I portrayed calm and did a reasonable job of keeping myself under control, the rushed, concerned thoughts still entered my mind. And chief among them was how I felt about Justine.
It was one thing to consider the possible danger about her. It was one thing to tell her to be careful but know she could stand on her own two feet. Knowing that she was actually in danger, in the company of the Bandits right now…it was sickening.
But it also made me realize how much I fucking cared about her.
Sure, the sex had been great, and even after the awkward “slow it down” conversation, we still had feelings for each other, but this was different. Her turning to me in a moment like this told me how much she wanted me, and how quickly I was moving out for her said the same for her. It wasn’t like we wouldn’t have rescued a random woman, but the fact that everyone got on board so quickly and acted the same night…
Shit, if this wasn’t love, I didn’t know what was. And I could sit here and recite every fact about the biology or the psychology of love and how maybe it was too soon to call it anything other than lust, but Garrett was right. Sometimes, the Professor Smartass in me needed to shut the hell up.
Sometimes, Zack the person who was enormously attracted to this beautiful girl needed to just express how he fucking felt without contemplating the science of it. If I fucking loved her, then damnit, I fucking loved her. Probably wasn’t going to say it in the middle of a gunfight, but maybe later.
“Two minutes out, boys,” Garrett said.
And now, it was time to shift into the mindset of Zack the Black Reaper, rescue this woman, kill some fucking Bandits, and figure out the rest later.
“Remember how this will go,” Brock said. “Garrett and prospect are staying here. Steele and prospect two will stand watch outside the house. Connor and Mason will stand watch on the main floor. And Zack and I will go and get Justine.”
And kill Eduardo if we have the chance.Brock coming with me was no accident. I wasn’t the only one with a vendetta for something the Bandits had done to a woman, after all.
I was just the one with the most recent moment.
“We’re going to rely on stealth, which means you do not use your guns unless you have no choice but to,” Brock continued. “Knives, your fists, chokes, that’s all good for me. You may have silencers on your guns, but that doesn’t mean the guns are actually silenced entirely.”
The car slowed down. It was pulling off on the road, about a quarter mile from the neighborhood.
“And now, gentlemen, let’s fucking kill some Bandits.”
“Hell yeah! Fuck ‘em up!” all of the Reapers roared in some fashion.
Brock opened the back of the door, and the instant we stepped out into the night, we went quiet on the spot. Gone was the hoorahs, the yelling, the fucking pissed-off bikers ready to kill. In their place was a unit more akin to a Navy SEAL squad, a group set to kill and destroy anyone and anything that got in our way with complete precision and silence.
We took our time moving through the barren land of New Mexico; thankfully, with cloudy skies above us, we didn’t have to worry about moonlight or starlight revealing us. We were as dark as one could be. But with the ground being mostly gravel and rock, we could not jog; we had to take every step as precisely as we could.
We got to the back of the furthest house without any difficulty. In fact, there weren’t even any Bandits patrolling the back of the house, probably because there was no reason to think anyone would circle around this way. We could hear multiple Bandits in the house, however.
Brock motioned to the inside. Connor nodded. He grabbed a nearby rock and clanged it against the house. Immediately, we could hear Bandits stirring inside, with one of them telling the other to go check it out. We crouched low and waited, like a cat waiting just outside a mousetrap.
Sure enough, the Bandit stepped outside. Connor got him in a headlock, put him out, and then we waited some more. Another Bandit followed, and this time, Steele did the honors.
“Disarm them and tie them up,” Brock said. “Rest of us, let’s go. Can’t wait.”
We followed Brock’s order, the four of us who were scheduled to head inside—him, me, Mason, Connor—moving in. Mason sneaked up on a Bandit watching television and killed him instantly. Suffice to say, Mason was not as gentle as Steele. Connor probably would have joined him if he’d had the white noise of the television to work.
But in the end, how didn’t matter nearly as much as the ends, which in this case was the complete elimination of the Bandits on this floor.
“You ready?” Brock said, nodding to me.
“Let’s go.”
We went up the stairs, guns drawn, ready to move. We swept the hallway first—it was all clear. My eyes turned to the door farthest back. My gut said that Justine was there; if they wanted to keep someone protected, they would have done so in the hardest-to-reach spot. I looked to Brock and nodded in the direction of the door. He followed.
I stopped by the door, ready to kick it in, but I stopped myself. What good would that do other than alert any other Bandits? Instead, I put my hand on the doorknob. Brock nodded. I slowly turned it.
It was unlocked.
