Free Fall, Draft 2, CH 15 (Patreon)

Alex’s box flashes brightly and others respond, price, joy, fear, addiction. So many I can’t keep track of what I feel. Then they quiet down, with Alex’s box and another, pulsing calmly. That other box also responded to Emil’s. I identify it as the one where I locked away love. I have complicated my life, and I find I don’t care. This isn’t the chaos I always dreaded. 

Fear leaves Alex’s eyes, and the boxes react, some brightening, other dimming, and the result feels… good.

“You love me?” he asks, disbelief still in his voice.

“I do, Alex.”

“My name’s Bart,” he replied with a mix of amusement and annoyance.

“No.” Anger flashes, but in response to his and that other box. Then yet another one joins in and anger dims. Anguish takes his place, and it takes effort to get that under control. “Your name is Alexander. Bart id a man forced to hide and I will no longer indulge that. You are not someone afraid of them, so you will stop hiding. Is that clear?”

“Don’t I get a say in that?” There is only amusement now.

This time my “No,” is soft. “You are mine, remember? To do as I want with. I want you to be proud of who you are, Alexander Crimson. I want you to stand, shine so bright the people you hunt have nowhere to hide. And if those who forced you to dim that light have a problem with that…” I smile viciously. “They can take it to with me.”

His smile is all joy. “All right, Alex it is. From now until I die.” It falters. He hesitates. “But if you love me, why did you keep leaving me for Emil?”

I take a few seconds to calm the chaos that question causes. “That is what this is about?”

His nod is small, fearful.

“Alex, Emil’s been traumatized. Anytime he closes his eyes, there’s no telling the kind of nightmare he has to deal with. I can’t let him go through that alone. That need to be there for him doesn’t mean what I feel for you is any less.” It’s back, that sense I need to say something else. Only this time, a box brightens with it. “It doesn’t mean I love you any less, Alex. He needs both of us to be there for him.”

He closes his eyes and groans. “I am such an idiot.”

“Sometimes,” I reply, smiling.

He sighs and looks at me, his gray eyes shining. “Now that’s we’ve stepped away from the allegorical precipice, do you think we can step away from the literal one? After all this time in emotional free fall, I’d like to avoid the real thing.”

I step away from the edge and bring him with me without breaking eye contact. My hand moves from his collar to his waist. I see all of him in that gray. The hurt boy, betrayed by his father. The young man, raging to understand what had been done to him, giving himself over to the knives because he couldn’t think of anything else that would keep him safe. The adult, channeling his anger into making abusers pay.

Why did I not look this deep into them sooner? Why did I settle for the warrior Alex is, instead of searching for how he came to be this? I would have seen the boy, desperate to find safety, no matter the cost, terrified of having that stolen from him. If I had looked, I would have understood why he reacted this way to the attention I gave Emil, and we wouldn’t find ourselves here, now.

I have been such an idiot.

Alex sighs. “When we get back, I owe Emil such an apology.”

“He’s in the car. You don’t have to agonize over it long. But to reach him, we have work to do.” I pull my jacket open.

His eyes light up at the gun clipped to my belt, then he looks at me suspiciously. “You don’t like that I use such a small gun.”

There are so many reasons why the APX isn’t a good gun, from the small caliber, to how its accuracy isn’t great. “It’s the gun you like. That makes it okay.”

Grinning, he takes it, then the six magazines also clipped to the belt, which he pockets.

I look at what he’s wearing. “You brought knives.”

“I figured I’d need my version of the big guns if I wanted a chance to survive this.” He hesitates. “But I don’t know if I really expected to survive. I didn’t know if I had something to live for left, until now.”

There is a cascade of lights and sounds through the boxes and I think I know a small portion of what Alex’s felt when he thought I didn’t care—that I didn’t love him. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel like that. But you don’t seem to be fighting not to plant one of them in my chest.”

He frowns at my words, then cants his head. “You’ve… changed the song. It’s flowing wound you now. It’s never done that before, even when you’ve disrupted it.”

“You, Alex. You changed it. You control it, remember that.”

“How about we argue over that on the drive back? We’re about to be busy.”

I don’t question why they gave us this moment of privacy, but I hear them approaching. I unholster the Eagle and, with a nod to him, I turn, firing at the closest man. He falls with a hole in his chest.

Alex’s gunfire is rapid as we step forward. One in four brings a man down. We need to work on his precision. I have fewer bullets, but by the time my magazine is empty, I’ve brought down more men than he has going through three magazines.

I reload, and why they waited becomes apparent as reinforcement come up the path. Order are yelled. A reminder Alex needs to be brought back alive. Someone questions the orders, mentioning the men Alex killed before I arrive. When Juan Fernan’s name is mentioned, that silence all opposition. They are more afraid of him than of us.

Time to remedy that.

Seven shots, seven bodies. Reload, advance. Five shots, five bo—

Alex lets out a pained grunt. I turn. He’d on the ground, right leg bleeding profusely. I blow the head of the man standing over him off. Alex sits and starts on a tourniquet. I shoot another man heading in his direction, then put in the last of my magazine as I step next to Alex. 

I turn slowly, covering him, and it is enough to momentarily keep anyone from approaching. There are twenty-nine of them left, two of us. Seven bullets for me, and possibly a little more than one magazine in the APX. We can survive this, but it will take it’s—

A man at the back falls, twenty-eight left. I hear the impact, the breaking of bones as a second one falls. Twenty-seven. They hear the next man fall, and twenty-six thugs move away in a hurry.

Emil brings a tire iron down on the man’s hand, while the crowbar impacts the head. I am momentarily confused. Where did Emil find a crowbar half his size? The skull shatters and Emil straightens. Blood streaks his clothing and his face, and he grins at the thugs.

When one of them pulls out a gun in his direction, I blow off his head, leaving fifteen. Emil’s box light up and other responds.

“I will kill anyone who threatens my son,” I snarl in Spanish.

“I knew it,” Alex grumbles, then shoots another one. “Of course you speak Spanish.”

I offer him my hand, surprised at the implication he doesn’t. The Spanish-speaking population of Phoenix is a hair over twenty-five percent. How did he never learn it? He pulls himself to his feet, but he can’t put weight on his injured legs. I turn my back to him, and he leans against me.

We make perfect targets, but this way, they can’t shoot at me without risking hitting Alex, and in spite of all the bodies, they are still more afraid of angering Juan Fernan. I take down seven, then holster the Eagle, reaching behind me. I find the knife by touch, and throw it at the man rushing in my direction, thinking that no gun means I’m defenseless.

I throw another knife, then another. Emil brings down two, but he’s too focused ahead of him to notice the man approaching behind. The knife I throw plants in his chest, but doesn’t bring him down. Without hesitating, Emil turns and stabs the tire iron through his eye.

The man drops

Pride glows brightly.

Another knife, and another. Alex’s gun clicks empty. Without moving away from me, he moves fluidly. I only see the motion out of my peripheral vision as I throw more knife.

When I’m groping at Alex’s back for another knife, Emil slams the crowbar across the head of another thug. No, the last thug.

The silence is absolute, except for the wind, and our panting.

“Dad, can you get me a baseball bat when we get home?” Emil asks, grinning. “Hardwood, I want something with heft to it. Smacking people is really satisfying.” He looks to the side. “Pop, you okay?”

“He means me, doesn’t he?” Alex asks.

“I told you that you are important to him, too.” I scan the plateau’s horizon. “How is your leg?”

“I’m going to need help walking. And something better than my shirt to keep from bleeding out.”

“Emil, get the medical kit from the Silverado.”

He runs off.

I do another scan, then crouch to check Alex’s legs. His hands are on my shoulder for support. The wound isn’t pretty, but the bullet went all the way through and missed the femoral artery.

“We can’t stay here,” Alex says, as I am still examining his injury. “They’ll have called reinforcement. Or worse, radioed Fernan that we had the upper hand.”

“No, they didn’t.” I take the jammer out of a pocket and put it down. “The last thing they’d have sent was that they had you cornered on the ledge.”

“He’s still going to know something’s wrong. We have to hurry and finish this.”

“Sit down,” I instruct. “We are taking the time to ensure you aren’t dying. If that means we need to hunt him down, we’ll do that. I am not losing you, Alex. You come first.”

He fights with his emotions. His need to hurt someone conflicting with realizing I will sacrifice many things for him. I am unsure if, other than his grandparents, anyone has ever put his needs before theirs. He sits.

Emil returns, and I hand Alex the Perkaset before taking the packet of coagulant powder and pouring it on each side of the gunshot. Then I bandage his leg. Emil has shallow cuts, and he favors his right leg.

“Why didn’t you shoot them?”

“And risk hitting you and pop?” he replies with a roll of the eyes. “Anyway,” he taps the crowbar leaning against his leg and smiles. “This is way more fun.”

I stare at Emil in disbelief. 

I am speechless until a box lights up and before I can identify which one it is, I turn to look at Alex. “He takes after you.”

“What?” Alex’s bewilderment makes that box flash and I now know which one it is.

“Yes. I’d never pick fun over efficiency.” I indicate the crowbar. “That’s your fault.”

His mouth works, but no sound comes and with another flash of the box, I smile, then chuckle.

He glares at me. “That was a joke?” he asks in disbelief. “How do you even know how to make one of those?”

I shrug and silence the box as I close the medical kit. “Humor emotionally disarms people. I read a treatise on that as part of learning psychology.”

“And is that what this was?” There is no suspicion in his tone.

“No, this wasn’t planned. I only understood what I said after I said it. I think this is the first time I’ve used humor without a need to manipulate someone.” I fix my gaze on Emil. “What you did was careless. You could have gotten gravely hurt.”

He shrugs. “I couldn’t just sit in the car and wait. I was bored.”

Alex reaches for me. “Okay, I have to admit it, that’s definitely a me thing.” I pull him up. “Although the crowbar has to be all him. Neither of us would use something like that.”

“It’s what was on hand,” he replies, hefting it over his shoulder.

“I take it back,” Alex says as we walk. “That’s a you thing. You’d use a spoon if that’s what you had on hand to fight with.”

“Everything is a weapon if you know how to use it.”

The walk down the escarpment is slow, and at the bottom, next to the Silverado are seven other pickups. This is how the reinforcement arrived. I look at Emil.

“I dropped low. They never bothered looking in. Must have thought it was one of them who got here sooner.”

“That’s new,” Alex says.

“The Chevelle has too much gunpowder residue to risk crossing the border with.”

I sit Alex in the passenger seat and wince as Emil dropped the crowbar in the bed of the Silverado. I take bungee cords from behind the seat and push them in his hands as he passes by.

“Secure it, if you aren’t putting it back in whatever pickup you took it from. I won’t have it sliding around and making a racket.” Then I buckle Alex in. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a bumpy drive.”

“I’ll manage. Any chance you’ll let me have more painkillers?”

I wait until Emil is done and in the pickup before getting in. “When is the last time you had coffee?” I start the Silverado.

“What’s that go to do with it?” he asks, offended.

“I’m not giving you a perkaset for the withdrawal headache that will form.”

“Can we at least stop for coffee, then? I don’t think any of my travel mugs survived the shootout.”

“After I’ve made a stop.” I back until I can turn around. He’s still looking at me, eyebrow raised. “If Juan Fernan hasn’t run, I’m ending this.”

* * * * *

“If the house guards weren’t part of those he sent after me,” Alex says as I look at the villa through binoculars, “he has six of them patrolling outside. I saw no evidence they went in unless it was to report an anomaly. As far as I can tell, things look normal inside the house. No indication of how he makes his money. There’s a chance his wife and daughter don’t know. The girls are kept in the stable at the back of the property.”

“Only girls?” I shift my view until I find the building in question.

“That’s all I saw, but I never got a good look at all the occupants of the SUVs that brought them in.”

Two guards at the stable’s doors. The location doesn’t give them line of sight on the villa. Good. The garage is large enough for six vehicles and almost exactly halfway between buildings.

“How old is the daughter?”

“Six, maybe seven.”

I nod. Alex is wrong. The wife knows. She might also be part of it.

“Did you include the guards at the stable when you said there are six patrolling the property?”

“No, those two only move to be replaced. You have a little over two hours before they scheduled change. If they stick to it with everyone they sent after me.”

Three and brushes cover the terrain leading to the back wall. Fernan trusts his patrol to handle anyone, instead of having them shot at a distance. It will take me between thirty to sixty minutes to make it to the wall, depending on how many booby traps are hidden there. Half an hour to eliminate the six patrols on the property. That leaves thirty to find and eliminate Juan Fernan.

“How good are you with a sniper rifle?” I ask, bringing him the case.

“I can shoot one. At this distance, I make no promises about being able to hit my target.”

I assemble it, then look for the best position. “Once I killed Fernan, it’s possible the alarm will be raised. If they are well trained, the guards at the stable will remain there. Regardless, if an alarm sounds, try to kill them.” I help him lie down. “Wait until after the alarm. Before that might tip Juan Fernan to my presence.”

He nods and settles the rifles against his pec and adjusts the sight.

I hand Emil the bottle of perkaset and lower my voice. “I’m trusting your judgment. These are for his injuries, not his withdrawal symptoms, and only one.”

“Got it, Dad.” Then he sits next to Alex and I start my trek.

“And not even a goodbye,” Alex whispers.

“Why?” Emil replies. “Saying goodbye means there’s a chance he’s not coming back.”

Pride glows, and Emil’s boxes respond to it with a pleasant hum.

* * * * *

Hand over the man’s mouth, I cut his throat. That’s five. If there is a sixth, he’d better than anyone here. I hide the body behind a bush without worrying about the blood I leave behind. None of it is mine.

The door only has a deadbolt for a lock, and I’m inside under thirty seconds.

An hour and fifteen. I’m ahead of schedule. The woman and daughter are upstairs; I watched them head there. I don’t have to worry about her intervening. All I need to do is find Juan Fernan.

The gun follows my gaze as I scan the kitchen, step into the dining room, out onto the patio, then back into the hall. The stairs on my left head up. If I don’t find him on this floor, I’ll go upstairs, but that will mean dealing with his wife, possibly the daughter.

I’m halfway to the family room when there’s a gasp behind me.

I spin and she has her hand to her mouth and daughter pressed against her face in her dress to keep from screaming. They are barefoot. I curse mentally. I did not want to be in this position.

I take a step in their direction, gun raised, and she takes one back. I shake my head as I take another and she remains in place. I stop four paces from them, making it clear I will remain out of their personal space.

Now for the unpleasantness. “Do you know what your husband does for a living?” I ask in Spanish.

Her eyes flick down at the girl. Her terror intensifies. She knows, but has managed to keep it from her daughter. She’s more afraid I’ll reveal it than the gun I point at them.

I relax slightly.

“You have a decision to make. You can choose to protect your husband by yelling and warning him I’m here, or you can protect your daughter. Before you make the decision, I promise that no matter what it is, your child will not be harmed. I’ll see to it she’s placed with a family that will care for her.”

She tightens her hold on her daughter while she looked up at her fearfully.

“My daughter,” she whispers in English.

I switch language. “Does your husband keep valuables here?”

Her expression is resigned. She nods to further down the hall. “The safe in his office.” I look at the wall over my shoulder. No doors there.

“Do you know the combination?”

She bites her lower lip, wrestling with the decision. I don’t press her. The threat has already been made.

“I can open it for you,” She finally answers.

“Take as much as you can from it. The guards outside are dead, except for the two at the stable. You can reach the garage without being seen and leave without them questioning what you are doing. Do not go to anyone you know. Do not attract attention. There will be retributions because of what I will do, and if anyone knows you are alive, they will think you were part of this. Do you understand? You must disappear completely.”

She nods and I turn my back to her.

“He is in the game room,” she whispers. “It is hidden behind the bookcase. The way to unlock it is to pull the book ‘The Truth of the Spanish Civil War’.”

I continue.

The family room is empty and silent. I find the book in question and pull. It comes out a third, then clicks to a stop. The section on the left slide forward an inch. It makes hardly any sounds, but if Juan Fernan is paying attention, he can have heard it.

When there is no alarm, no man bursting out firing in all directions, I pull on it until there’s an air-gap, and I hear Juan Fernan cursing. He is angry, throwing insults, comparing their shooting skills to that of a baby. The person being verbally assaulted doesn’t respond. I pull it more as the language gets ever more colorful. Flickering light reflects off the floor.

I peek in.

The man is seated with his back to me in a gamer’s chair. He’s playing a video gain wearing a large headset. I get glimpses of someone shooting on the screen. The person he’s screaming at isn’t here, but on the other end of that internet conversation.

I look for a camera. This isn’t something I intend to do with an audience. Like all men in power, Juan Fernan values his privacy over his security.

I step into the room, place the gun an inch from the back of his head, and pull the trigger. The screen and wall turn red. One less monster in the world.

I freeze as the muzzle of a gun is pressed against the back of my head. “Who the fuck are you?” Spanish, but there is something off with the pronunciation. 

“A man seeking justice,” I reply in English. I keep my hands visible. He had the advantage at the moment and I don’t know his goal.

“Sure you are,” he replies in English, not believing me. His accent is from the North-Central US. “But you let the wife and girl go, so that puts you on my good side.” I catch motion at the extreme edge of my peripheral vision. “And you did my job for me.”

“DEA or Military?”

“Not you concern,” he replies.

“Are you going to free the girls?”

“Not my job.”

I nod. “How long do you want me to wait here?”

“A minute would be good.”

“I can do that. Don’t go out the back. My partner is on a hill with instruction to shoot the guards if the alarm sounds, but he can be impulsive.”

“You’re mightily accommodating,” he says suspiciously.

“It sounds like we’re on the same side right now. I’d like to keep it that way.”

He’s silent, but the gun remains in place. “Who trained you?”

I smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Fair enough. Minute starts now.” The gun is removed.

A minute later, I turn and exit the room. I make a stop in the garage. Four black SUVs are parked in it. I take a set of key from those on a board and exit, nearly stepping into one of the guards, and breaking his neck before he gets over the surprise. The other is still by the door to the stables and I deal with him by slicing his throat open.

He doesn’t have key to the deadlock, so I pick it. Inside are two dozen girls among held that in stalls. The oldest can’t be more than seventeen. They shy back when I look in the stalls.

“Do any of you know how to drive?” I ask in Spanish. One of the girls hesitantly stands and raises her hand. Another, then a third, fourth and fifth. I show them the key before placing them on the floor. “You are free. All the men are dead. There are SUVs in the garage. Go somewhere you will feel safe.”

I turn and leave, ignoring the questions.

I am done here.