Page 43 of Thaddeus

“I’m not done yet,” I told Tex.

“Yeah, Emerson, you are. If you want to stay alive long enough to see Autumn again, you’re done.”

“That’s the thing. If I stop looking for her, then no one will be.”

I balled my hands into fists and tightened them until I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms. I couldn’t give up.

“You’ve got to trust us, Emerson.”

“Sorry, but trust is something I ran out of when I walked into a hospital room and found my sister bloodied and broken.”

“I’m sure. What happened to her was horrible—”

“Horrible? What she went through, what they all go through isn’t horrible. It’s repulsive, vicious, evil, atrocious. I can’t begin to describe it. The way my sister stared at me with vacant eyes. She was so frightened she couldn’t speak. She was breathing but she was dead. So, I don’t care if you think my time’s run out. I don’t care if I die in the process. I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred more men until I find the one who broke my sister. I’m not stopping.”

When I was done yelling my response to Tex, I was vibrating with indignation.

“Em—”

“Don’t, Thaddeus. Let’s just get through this.”

He looked like he had more to say, but thankfully he held his tongue. I was on the verge of tears and one more word out of his mouth would send me over the edge.

Thad

A war was raging inside of me.

A battle between my heart and brain. I knew I needed to keep my distance, but seeing Emerson so shaken, hearing her talk about her sister, I wanted to gather her in my arms and shield her from anymore hurt. But I couldn’t, she didn’t want my comfort and I couldn’t afford to offer it. She’d be the death of me. Hell, she already had been.

The day she’d left me was the day I’d changed. And every day after that, I sank further, until I turned into the heartless man I was today.

Declan pulled up the drone footage Tex had sent over and I was shocked at what I was watching.

“Holy shit, how’d you get this?” I asked.

“You sound surprised,” Tex shot back.

“I have to admit I am.”

“I can’t believe you doubted me. Narrowband Multispectral Remote Vegetation Monitoring.”

“Come again?”

“It means we got lucky. There’s an agricultural program in Guyana that monitors the river. They’ve had back-to-back petrol spills in the Kaituma. When the river floods it affects the sugar cane and other vegetation, so the program monitors the area after every rainfall. I hacked into their database. That footage is a week old, but it’s the best we’re gonna get. As you can see, there are no structures in the wooded areas around the camp. Sorry I can’t provide real-time intel but we have no assets in the area.”

I continued to watch the grainy black-and-white video. It wasn’t the best footage I’d ever seen but it did give us more information than we had.

“Thanks, Tex. As always, you impress the fuck out of me,” Declan told him.

“Anytime. I’ll be on standby. Out.”

Tex disconnected and Kyle moved the map of Garcia’s camp to the center of the table.

“I think a water ingress will provide the best cover. We can go in easy,” Kyle stated.

“I agree. We go in soft, neutralize the dogs first, then hit the house,” Brooks added.

“Will you kill the animals?” Emerson gasped.