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“Sure buddy,” I say, as I steer the truck in that direction, my gut churning with the thought that something bad has happened.
****
There are three police cruisers already parked in front of Lock & Load Security when I whip my truck into the parking lot, parking it directly in front of the entrance. I storm in and past the receptionist, to the open office door at the end of the hallway on the right. Wood is at a computer, tapping away, and Zander and Jensen are deep in discussion.
“Any leads?” I bark at Jensen and he shakes his head, face grim.
“I talked to Joan at the print shop, she said Avery was there getting her pictures and left around two forty-five. She said nothing seemed off and she mentioned heading straight to the school to get Blake,” he says. “I sent an officer to check that location you gave me off of the GPS tracker,” he goes on, shaking his head. “It was laying on the side of the road off of route 350.”
Route 350 is right outside of Monroeville and it’s unfortunately a main accessway to the town. If Weller did grab her, they could be anywhere. He’s had an hour's lead.
“I pulled up all the street cameras in town,” Wood cuts in, punching some keys and pulling up a video feed of Avery leaving the print shop, a smile on her face as she leafs through a few of the pictures in her hands before dropping them into her purse and sliding behind the wheel of her rusty station wagon. She isn’t captured on any of the street cameras anywhere else in town because you can see her turning off the main road and running down a side street where there aren’t any cameras. The town only had them put in on Main Street. My heart constricts painfully, the thought of anything bad happening to her gutting me.
“And what about finding any more information on who’s running the trafficking ring?” I ask but Zander shakes his head. He starts to speak but Hoyt cuts him off.
“Z! Get the fuck over here,” he stands from behind his desk, ripping his black rim glasses off and pointing at the screen. “I got a hit on one of the IP addresses Weller communicated from in the chat. It’s a remote area about five miles outside of town.” Jensen gets on his radio and let’s dispatch know we’re on the move and all of us, Wood and Hoyt included, are jogging out of L&L. My truck is still parked in front so all of us but Jensen and Zander, who jumps in Jensen’s cruiser, load up and squeal tires out of the parking lot, me right behind Jensen.
“Are you strapped?” Hoyt asks and I shake my head. My gun is at home and I haven’t made it back there. I glance at him as he grins and produces a gun out of his ankle holster. It’s a Glock twenty-two. He lays it on the console between us. The five mile drive to the location feels long, even breaking all the speed limits. Jensen locks his brakes up and I follow suit, quickly pulling off the road and bumping down an old dirt trail. Jensen pulls off about a quarter of the way down the trail before the clearing and I slide up behind him.
“Try to go in quiet, don’t wanna spook anyone away,” he says, and we all break into a sprint through the trees towards the location. Scanning the area, there’s an old dilapidated red barn surrounded by thick brush. A newer black pickup truck is parked outside of the barn, completely out of place. “Callaway, you’re with me. We’re going to enter on the East side of the building. Zander and Hoyt take the West. Wood, cover the back in case anyone tries to take off,” Jensen orders and we all spring into action. Jensen leads, creeping along the side of the barn. He holds a fist out to me, three fingers up, counting down with no words. When he has one finger in the air, he rears back and kicks the wooden door open, the old door splintering under the force.
“Police!” Jensen shouts, sweeping the area with the gun. There’s a goon on the left and he raises his gun to fire, but I get my shot off first, right in his shoulder and he goes down just as Zander kicks that door open, damn near tripping over the guy that’s now on the ground and bleeding. Z kicks his gun out of the way, sending it skittering towards the middle of the barn. My eyes follow the movement and when they finally land on the scene in front of me, I see fucking red.
There’s a man in a dress shirt and black trousers, his back towards us, and he’s got Avery by the hair and her blouse is ripped open. She’s restrained and her mouth duct taped, eyes wide and terrified.
“Step away from the girl,” Jensen orders but instead the man twists her hair around his hand, violently yanking her head as he spins with a gun in his hand, pointed directly at her head.
“Don’t come any closer,” the man says, and recognition strikes me. He’s the governor of Alabama, Russell Graves.
“Governor Graves, step away from the girl,” Jensen orders him again but he only presses the metal harder against her temple. My gun is trained right on him and I take a step towards them, but he yanks her head again and she screams underneath the duct tape, her voice muffled.
“You can shoot me, son, but if you do you chance me blowin’ her head clean off,” he says. Wood has quietly entered the back of the barn without being discovered. He moves in, gun pointed directly at Graves. Dana is restrained to a chair in the middle of the barn as well and it looks grim. I cut my eyes to her, body flopped over, arms hanging from the ceiling. She doesn’t look alive. My stomach churns with the thought of what they’ve done to her and Avery so far.
“You’ll be dead if that happens,” I retort, voice low and menacing. A commotion comes from the doorway causing Graves to startle and then everything happens so fast. Wood fires a shot at the same time Graves does. Another shot comes from somewhere behind me, but I’m already in motion to my girl. Graves hits the ground, knee blown out from Woods shot just as I realize that Avery’s been shot in the thigh.
“Fuck,” I curse, ripping my shirt off me and dropping to my knees in front of my girl. There’s already a lot of blood everywhere and I’ve got to stop the bleeding. She whimpers as I tie the shirt around her thigh. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re fine,” I scramble to cut the rope from her with my pocketknife just as Wood appears, gently pulling the tape from her mouth.
“Jaxson,” she whispers as I cut the last restraint, gently scooping her up in my arms and striding through the barn. Her body is limp and there’s so much fucking blood. A siren wails as it approaches, an ambulance rumbling up to the barn just as we step outside. A paramedic races towards me with a gurney and a medical bag and I gently deposit Avery onto the bed.
“GSW to the thigh, no exit wound.” Jensen barks as he strides out of the barn, “she’s lost a lot of blood.” The paramedic nods at him and works on Avery as another EMT rolls the gurney back to the ambulance. I try to climb in behind them, but the paramedic stops me.
“You’ll have to drive separate, sir. Covid guidelines,” he says as he shuts the ambulance doors. Fuck. Sprinting to my truck with Hoyt hot on my heels, he jumps into the drivers’ seat, letting me know he’s driving and not taking no for an answer and he steers us towards the hospital.
Avery
It feels like I’m floating in this state of almost awake, but not awake. I can hear everything going on around me, but it feels like a dream.
“Clear!” My body bounces violently. “Nothing,” comes the voice that yelled clear. The machine whirs somewhere in the background. I try to open my eyes but it’s no use. “Clear!” My body bounces again. “There ya go, honey. There ya go,” the voice says softly. “Drive faster, man.”
Jaxson
“Sir, you can’t come back here,” the nurse yells as they wheel Avery's bed back through the doors of the emergency room. Fuck, I curse as Hoyt holds me back. He drags me to the waiting room, and I drop down into a small plastic chair, my head dropping into my hands. The paramedic did say they lost her twice on the way here and had to shock her and fuck, I can’t lose her. We’ve come too far.
“Hey, man. Who can I call?” Hoyt asks as he drops down in a chair beside me and squeezes my shoulder. I hand him my phone and tell him to call Whitley, springing from my chair and prowling towards the registration desk. The nurse there won’t give me any information, saying they don’t know anything yet. And when I demand answers, she threatens to call security. The automatic doors slide open and I look towards them to see Whitley and Lex flying in, their men right behind them. Dean meets my eyes and I shake my head.
“She lost so much blood,” I whisper, my voice raw. Saying out loud what I’m finally realizing, that it doesn’t look good. I tell them what the paramedic said about the drive here and Whitley bursts into tears, Dean pulling her into a hug and resting his chin on the top of her head.
“Jaxson!” I hear shouted from the front of the waiting room and Genevieve comes running in, skittering to a stop when she finds me, tears running down her face. She flings herself at me and I catch her, dropping down onto a bench as she curls herself into me and sobs rack her body.
