If she was still alive, that meant they were trying to draw me in. I refused to believe she wasn’t alive. That would serve no purpose. This wasn’t comforting, though, because that meant they weren’t going to kill her right away. They were going to make her suffer first.
By the time I found the warehouse, the sun had dropped low in the sky. The gate was chained, but the lock had been left unlatched. Sloppy. I killed the engine down the road and walked on foot. Every step was a countdown; every breath was borrowed time.
And if she was still breathing inside those walls, then the people who took her were already dead.
They just didn’t know it yet.
The warehouse sat like a carcass out here, like all of the places these people holed up. Some slice of America abandoned long ago, then forgotten by anyone who gave a shit about permits or people. Corrugated steel walls rusted in stripes, windows blacked out or busted. No signage, likely no working lights.
I didn’t see a guard posted outside, but I was sure they would havesomeoneworking the gate or patrolling. I’d need to keep my eye out for him. If anyone else had been inside, anyone but Eden, I would have waited until I was sure I had taken out any guards or security… but I couldn’t wait any longer. They’d had her long enough.
I circled wide, keeping to shadows and low fences, until I reached the east side of the warehouse. There was an old loading dock, a half-collapsed concrete slab, cracked with age and neglect. A busted ladder still clung to the wall, leading up to a catwalk that ran the perimeter inside. The top panes of glasswere long gone, replaced in certain areas with warped plywood and weathered tarps.
Perfect.
I scaled the ladder slowly, boots silent on the rusted rungs. At the top, I crawled through a gap in the wall and onto the upper catwalk. A skeletal steel platform ringed the inside, thirty feet up, partially obscured by old machinery and ducts. From here, I could see most of the floor below through gaps in the steel grating.
There were three of them.
Rook was pacing in a wide arc near a row of crates. His arm was bandaged, stiff with dried blood. The two heavies were near the middle of the floor. They made him look tiny in comparison.
And she was between them. Alive, thank God, but… battered and unconscious. She was tied to a metal chair with heavy zip ties at the wrists and ankles. Blood had dried in thin, rust-colored rings around the plastic. Her face was bruised, lip split with blood dried down her chin. There was dried blood on her temple and on her arms, where she’d clearly fought like hell.
One of the larger men laughed at something Rook said. The other poured a bottle of water onto Eden’s head to rouse her. She flinched, coughing, blinking slowly.
I gripped the edge of the catwalk so firmly that my knuckles went white. Every part of me screamed to jump down and tear them apart with my bare hands. I couldn’t do that. They did this because they wanted me emotional and reckless. So I would have to give them nothing.
I backed away from the railing and crept along the catwalk until I reached a corner with a broken ventilation fan. The housing was just wide enough to conceal me and offered a direct line of sight to the floor. I unzipped the black nylon case strapped to my back. My hands moved automatically, assembling the rifle with muscle memory and care. Suppressedbarrel, rangefinder, bipod clipped to the frame. I knew this rifle like an extension of my own body.
I lay flat, keeping low behind the metal sheeting. Scoped in until Rook’s face filled the lens. He was smirking. I moved the scope, checking her again. Her breath was shallow, but steady. She was still fighting, even half-conscious. That hollowed something out of me when I saw her persistent defiance.
“Good girl, just stay with me… just a little longer,” I whispered.
I adjusted for wind, for distance, for every goddamn variable. Because when I pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t just be about ending them. It would be aboutsaving her. If I wasn’t fast enough, if I botched it, if I made the wrong move, they’d kill her before I could reach the ground.
But if I was fast enough, clean enough, I could take all three down before any of them touched her again. I waited, breathing in time with hers, heart steady, crosshairs level. The moment would come, and when it did, I would paint this floor with their blood.
I adjusted the scope again, sweeping across the floor. One of the bigger men had his hand on a gun at his side, and he was just out of sight. I gritted my teeth, willing him to step out into the open, where I could get a clean shot.
Rook walked into frame, cradling his bandaged arm like a child. He leaned in close, his face inches from hers.
“You know,” he said, mock sympathy in his voice, “you didn’t have to make this so difficult. Fiery little bitch.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t even flinch, and that just pissed him off.
Rook straightened and backhanded her, the sound sharp and wet. Her head snapped to the side, blood spattering from her mouth onto the floor. Itwitchedbehind the scope and nearly pulled the trigger.
No, not yet.
The heavy one that I couldn’t fully see chuckled, the sound echoing in the room. “I gotta admit, when we heard Halo had a girl, I figured you’d just be eye candy… but you got teeth.”
The other large man started circling her, and I noted the limp in his step, the wound on his leg that he had wrapped in a soaking bandage over his pants. He was dragging the end of a metal crowbar along the concrete. It was scraping; it was a performance. He was trying to scare her. I saw the sound make her shudder. He knelt beside her, grabbing a fistful of her hair to force her face up toward him. He leaned in close, breath hot against her face. He let go of her hair, only to jam the crowbar between her legs, just pressing it to her inner thigh. Not hurting her, not yet. Just threatening. They wanted her fear.
My scope followed his hand, my finger tightened on the trigger. One move, I thought. One wrong move and I won’t be able to stop myself from putting a hole in his skull.
The man gave her a wink and stood, turning to Rook. “Think he’ll actually come for her?”
“I’m counting on it… Say, pretty thing, you ever seen a man die nice and slow? Because you will.” He leaned towards her. “You will. We’ll make you watch, and when he begs for your life, you’ll see what kind of man he really is.”
