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Much like the shed our hostages were in, the house is deteriorating. Broken windows, holes in the roof, and garbage littering the outside. The occupants don’t give a shit. They’d probably make a home out of any abandoned slum if there were drugs inside.
Music is playing loudly from indoors somewhere, a few of the windows are dully lit with the unmistakable yellow light from an old lamp. The back porch is cloaked in shadows, the singular bulb acting as a porch light hardly illuminates anything. Nothing is visible from our location, we’ll have to get closer to know if the girl is there or not.
Best case scenario, she’s on the porch and we can snatch her up and get the hell out of here. Worst case scenario, she’s in the house and we’ll end up in a firefight. Leaving the other guys to cover us, me and Jesse move silently towards the broken-down steps of the porch. With agonizingly slow steps, we ascend the steps making as little noise as we can, each board threatening to break below our boots.
My gaze sweeps across the porch, my night vision goggles casting everything in a green glow when my eyes catch on a pair of bare legs jutting out from behind a ratty floral couch.
“I see her, no visual on well-being yet, standby,” I whisper into the intercom, relaying the information to the rest of the team. I creep towards the couch, careful to avoid the crumpled beer cans scattered across the floorboards. Jesse hangs back, keeping his gun trained on the back door, ready for any unwelcome interruptions.
The bare legs, clearly belonging to a young woman, are covered in cigarette burns. The round wounds are marring her flesh from her toes to her inner thighs. It takes some maneuvering, my large frame struggling to squeeze into the space she’s tucked into beside the couch, but when I do I get a chill down my spine despite the humidity in the air.
The visual is something from a horror film. The young woman lays before me, completely nude, covered in burns and blood. Knife marks across her torso form a crude version of the drug cartel’s insignia. Her vacant eyes stare up into the sky, even in the distorted coloring of my night vision, I know they’re milky blue. Not an ounce of life remains in this poor girl’s body.
For some reason, even after all these years, her lifeless eyes make me think of Chester. Death is common in this line of work, so I don’t know why this girl is forcing me to remember the one thing that haunts me. Maybe, it’s her innocence or the fact that her sister is out there waiting, unknowingly about to receive the worst news imaginable. The unavoidable grief she’s about to experience makes my limbs feel heavy, my movements stagnant.
What if it was my sister? The thought makes me dry heave, needing more than a few seconds to collect myself.
Not wanting to deliver this news, but not wanting to linger near this house, I pull a worn blanket off the old couch and wrap her body up with care. I treat her with the tenderness I would want to be afforded for my own family. Brushing hair off her forehead, I take one last look at her achingly youthful face, feeling my blood boil.
So young, her entire life over before it even began. All because she chose to spread the word of God in a country she was unfamiliar with. It’s hard to believe there is a God when things like this happen, and entirely too often.
When Chester died I was so angry, cursing “the man above” for taking away my friend’s life. Eventually, I stopped blaming God, realizing I couldn’t blame something that didn’t exist. My reality of the world is too bleak, people aren’t deserving of forgiveness, and there is no saving of your soul.
My thoughts are reinforced as I fold the edge of the blanket over the girl’s face, hiding the dried blood dripping from her nose and the edges of her mouth, hiding the busted blood vessels around her eyes, and the bruising around her neck and across her cheeks. A sight her sister should never have to see, it’ll just haunt her like a ghost from her past. Like mine do.
I grit my teeth, forcing myself to get it together, to forget Chester, to forget how much this young girl reminds me of my sister, to forget that underneath all of this, I’m still human. I plaster on my impenetrable shield, ready to finish the job, “Target is deceased.”
* * *
My phone rings, pulling me out of the deep hole of the past my mind has entered. Seeing Jesse’s name on the screen, I answer immediately.
“I got a location,” Jesse states as soon as I connect the call. At his words, my phone dings, a message showing coordinates to a property deep in the woods.
“I owe you one,” I reply, gathering my things to leave, “How’d you get the information?”
“Don’t worry about it, the less you know the better.” I can imagine him smirking as he says it. “It’s an old hunting cabin, owned by the Sheriff’s in-laws. I think they belonged to some sort of militia group back in the day. All types of shady shit in that family tree,” he scoffs. “It’s the only thing that made sense, the only place secluded enough for holding someone against their will.” Jesse’s words sink in, reminding me of my reality right now. Callie’s deep in the woods with these bastards, the knowledge alone is enough to make me insane.
An image flashes in front of my eyes of Callie lying on the cold ground with pale, milky blue eyes staring up at me. Every ounce of warmth drained from her body. The visual is enough to make me want to scream, hardly containing myself enough to not fall to my knees, I have to take a deep breath before I can speak.
“What if it’s a dead end?” I say through gritted teeth, more to myself than to him.
“That’s a possibility, but I think this is it. The Sheriff is married to Vanessa Porter, she has two brothers -Anthony and Benjamin. They have no known address, I think they’re living in Mommy and Daddy’s cabin. It’s got to be the two guys that took your girl. Or, it’s a hell of a coincidence, but we don’t have anything else to go on.”
I sigh. The information is good, it has to be. Anthony and Benjamin have to be Tony and Bub, I won’t accept any other possibility. I have no room for error, and no time for false leads.
Before I can second guess anything else, I’m running and jumping into my truck, speeding down my driveway towards the road. “Jesse…” I pause, not sure what to say. I don’t know how to express the gratitude I have for him right now, he’s the only thing giving me a chance at saving Callie. He’s saved my life so many times in the years I’ve known him, but this… He’s saving Callie’s life, and that means more to me than my own.
“Go get her, bring her home, marry her, whatever,” he laughs, easing some of my tension, “but, please, don’t make this a suicide mission, man.” His words are suddenly serious again, “I’m giving you time to get a head start, drop some bodies, whatever you need to do, but, I need to know you aren’t leaving that cabin in a body bag. I need to know you have a plan or I’ll call in an anonymous tip to your Trooper pal, Malec. Make him come after your dumb ass since I’m too far away to help.”
I don’t even know how he knows about my communication with Trooper Malec, I don’t remember ever telling him about that. I’ll just file it away with the other information I don’t want to know how he knows.
“Do you remember what we did after we found that girl in South America? How little I cared about my own self-preservation? All I cared about was vengeance. For her. For that girl and her sister,” I ask, not needing a response because I know he remembers.
“I remember,” he answers immediately, confirming it for me anyway. We went from friends to brothers that night. He followed me into what could have been a suicide mission, not leaving my side for a second. I probably wouldn’t have made it out alive if it weren’t for him having my back.
“This is different. I don’t plan on dying tonight, Jesse. I still have a whole life to live,” I reassure him, knowing he understands. Out of anyone, Jesse knows my outlook on life, at least what it looked like before Callie. I hardly had anything to live for, not even myself, constantly throwing myself into the most dangerous missions, not caring if I lived or died. Not now though, I have everything to live for now, Callie is worth living multiple lifetimes for.
It doesn’t stop the fear though, Callie might already be dead, or I might be walking into an ambush. I know the risks, and I have no choice but to take them. I don’t want this to be a suicide mission, but if giving my life means Callie will be safe, then I’ve already accepted that fate.
