Because Jae was right. I looked like shit, felt like shit, and was treating everyone like shit around me.
“Three.” My stomach tensed. “Two.” Jae grabbed my hand and squeezed. “One. Go, go, go!”
The movement was so fast and shaky that I couldn’t make out much, but then suddenly there was shouting and gunshots, and every grainy, black and white face I searched wasn’t hers.
“Christ,” Granger growled. “What the hell is he doing?”
My eyes bounced through the various camera angles on the screen, trying to find out what Granger was seeing that I wasn’t.
“Oh my God!” Granger said with awe, leaning closer to one of the computer screens. “We were ri—Fuck!” Granger threw his headset across the room and I jumped back to avoid his swinging arm. He picked up a radio.
“Who the fuck just killed Carlos Solis?!” He roared.
The radio response was white noise as I watched a man with his hands in the air get shot in the head.
The Blue Team, the guys we hired, were killing everyone on sight.
“STAND THE FUCK DOWN, BLUE TEAM!”
Carlos was alive? Carlos Solis was alive?
God, no. Please, no. If he was alive…did he…
I didn’t have a chance to finish that thought when my eyes landed on the body illuminated by a flashlight.
It was nausea inducing, even in the grainy pixelated video footage I was receiving. But even more still when the person standing in front of the HRT member stepped aside to reveal their face.
My knees nearly gave out, and my dad wrapped an arm around my waist to hold me up.
“Shiloh.” It was a silent plea. For her to be alive. For this to all be a nightmare.
My body leaned forward, as if getting closer to the screen would get me closer to the lifeless looking body of the only woman I’d ever loved.
Granger managed to calm down enough to magnify the small square tile so it was taking up the whole screen and unmuted the audio coming from the body cam the HRT member was wearing. The flashlight switched to another body in the corner of the room, revealing a slumped female figure that didn’t look to be alive.
“Crow to all. I’ve got eyes on target.”
“Alive?” Granger asked via radio, the anger practically vibrating off of him.
Crow dropped to a kneel and his hand dug into the pulse point on her neck. “Alive. You seeing this?”
“Yes. Get her out and get the rest of your team gone. I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re playing at, but I swear to God if you’re still there by the time I reach the compound, I’ll put every single one of you in a cell in Guantanamo for the rest of your sorry lives.”
“Fuck me. Wilco.”
I watched Crow fiddle with what I realized was a chain around her ankle before he put his arms under Shiloh’s body, muttering something to her first. Granger was quick to mutethe audio when Shiloh’s screams of agony rang through, but not fast enough to prevent my heart from breaking in two. Granger swiped the computers off the table in a flash of rage.
Everything was a blur of people pushing me around the room, out the door and into a van. I knew we were going to meet them at the hospital, but I hadn’t prepared myself for the fact that Shiloh was going to be in the state that she was.
I thought I would have felt more relieved, but the tension hadn’t left my body since my eyes left sight of her on the screen. What had they done to her? Her back looked like someone had tried to dissect her skin and muscles from her bones.
I couldn’t help the guilt from resurfacing, but I tried to push it down, tried to focus on the now, on how much Shiloh needed me and how soon I’d be by her side and never leave it again.
Forty-Nine
August 26, Wednesday
Emory
