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“That niece of yours doesn’t mess around,” Javier comments as he continues cleaning and reloading his weapons.
“Careful now,” Banks says, cocking an eyebrow over her shoulder at him. “Don’t go making me jealous.”
“Damn, querida,” Javier replies with a shit-eating grin on his face. “You see that man of hers? I’m more afraid of him than I am of you.”
“Christ, that’s no joke,” I snort. “He’s the meanest looking motherfucker I’ve ever seen.”
“Did you see him pull her chair out for her at the table last night?” Banks asks, with a small smile on her face. “It was sweet.”
“You taking notes, Javi?” I ask, making eye contact with him in the mirror again. “Banks might be the best shot I’ve ever seen in my life, but you treat her like a lady, huh?”
“Damn right,” the two of them answer simultaneously.
“Enough now,” Banks cuts me off when I open my mouth again. “Let’s get our heads in the game. From what Eddie said, some of Tyton’s men are with him due to lack of options. And they’re obviously holding women and children hostage somewhere, any ideas about that?”
I take a moment to consider the buildings in town, taking into consideration that I haven’t been back here in six or seven years. “I’d guess the grammar school or the town hall. The school is one level and centered around the gym and cafeteria. The town hall is part of a cluster of buildings: city hall, emergency services, all that stuff. Why don’t you get on the radio and ask Lee what his thoughts are?”
While Lee thinks that the best course of action is to roll straight in and see what’s going on. I’m more worried about getting back out, intact. We compromise on slowing moving around the outskirts and approaching the center from the east.
We’re barely at the town limit when we, once again, hear the intermittent sounds of gun fire and I’m more certain than ever that we made the right choice in coming back to try to help free the captives.
Trailing a car’s length behind the tank, I suddenly hit the brake and locate the house I’ve been to many times.
“Hey, that place there,” I say, pointing to a house a few lots in from the corner we’re on. “If we get separated, we meet at the house with the orange door. It belongs to my dad’s friend, and I can guarantee that he has weapons stashed on site. There’s a crawl space under the garage, so look there.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to find this street?” Javier grouses. “It looks like Mayberry.”
I laugh before pointing at the street sign. “Just think of Banks, she popped your cherry, right?”
Banks starts laughing when she sees the two green signs. One says, Cherry. The other reads, First.
“You ain’t as funny as you think,” he tells me.
He’s probably right.
“Movement,” Banks calls out, reaching for the radio at the same time. “On our right, I saw about five people running in the direction we’re heading, at our four o’clock.”
“Friendly?” Lee’s voice comes over the radio.
“Undecided,” she answers him immediately. “At least two of them were armed.”
I nod my head, knowing what Lee is thinking: around these parts, they were all armed—unless someone had gotten the drop on them and took their weapons.
It turns out that our way to the center of town is dictated by which streets are passable and I start to see the true fallacy of our plan.
“How many carjackings happen annually, out this way?” Javier asks, his heavily sarcastic tone putting voice to my concern.
“We’ll be lucky to make it back with this beast,” Banks responds, reaching for the radio again. “Lee, I got more movement, on our nine o’clock this time.”
“Lee? Is that Lee Higgens in the tank?” Comes another man’s voice over our channel.
“Who’s this?” Lee quickly questions the interloper.
“It’s Scott Daniels, I’m Archie’s son,” the man identifies himself and I can’t help the smile that crosses my face.
“Scott, this is Max Hughes, I’m in the secondary vehicle,” I tell the man who graduated a couple years ahead of me, his brother was friends with Jace and me back in the day. “How are Archie and Linc?”
“Dead. Tyton’s group executed them.” Scott’s news really shouldn’t be a surprise, but it still hits me hard.
