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I'm an atheist, don't even believe in the famous energies of the universe, to be honest. But I believe in sensations. While I was there, putting my purse away in the barracks locker room, I felt as if I had already lived that day, a déjà vu. It was as if I could feel my skin vibrating with apprehension and a stone, the size of an orange, pulling all the way down my esophagus.
It could just be trauma. PTSD was now part of my routine. This sense of anticipation was very common, so I just try to ignore it while I lock my locker. I fasten my belt and adjust my smartwatch on my wrist. A rookie enters the locker room, introduces herself, salutes, and begins to get ready. It was her first week on active duty with the team. I let her do her thing and leave.
"What did you do?" I ask as soon as Luke appears.
"Nothing," he keeps walking and I need to follow him.
"Although I don't know the details, I know that my best friend was in a good mood yesterday and, this morning when I met her at jiu-jitsu, she wasn't anymore."
"Gossip. It's none of your business," he looks at me with a stern expression. "It wasn't a fight, just a mere disagreement."
Before we could continue, a cadet approaches, introduces herself, and salutes.
"Lieutenant Kettermann, the general awaits you in his office."
"I have to go. We'll talk later," I use a formal tone before stepping away and heading to the general's office.
I hand in the remaining documents. He asks if I've already submitted all the pending ones and signs some reports. I leave his office and continue my day. I introduce the rookie, Officer Heller, to the team. In the afternoon, I take advantage of some free time to train with Luke.
"Can you believe that woman has me wrapped around her finger and has the nerve to say that I don't take our relationship seriously?!" Luke complains as I dodge his grip on my neck and slide my body under his.
I was angry because he wasn't making an effort to fight, afraid of hurting me. Besides, he had been complaining about Michelle since the beginning of the training.
"You have the nerve to go to a bar without telling her, and you expect her to be okay with it?" I adjust myself underneath him, and if he notices, he doesn't show it, which frustrates me even more. "Whatever your fight is about, I'm on her side."
"It's not fair. I didn't do anything!" He holds my legs and lifts his body, escaping the guard, but fails because I start to follow with my hips.
"That's what they all say." I roll my eyes and pull him down. He tries to break free, but the triangle was already locked in. I watch his face turn red and keep the pressure as he tries to escape the position. "Just tap and I'll let go, sweetheart," I say mockingly, pissed off that he went easy on me. He tries to break free in every possible way. He even tried to stand up.
He finally taps, and I release him.
"It wouldn't hurt to let Michelle know you were going out. She spent the day wanting to have a movie night with you." I explain. "Next time you fight me like that, I'll forget it's jiu-jitsu and I'll hit your face with my knee." I stand up, leaving the mat.
I take a quick shower and put on a clean uniform. It was almost evening, and only now did I notice that Dianna had declined my dinner invitation. I shrug. I kind of expected it after her call with the secretary at lunch. I braid my hair tightly and return to my post. I grab a clipboard and start checking the work Officer Heller had done, which was maintenance on the equipment stored inside the armored vehicle.
"How's your first week been?" She wouldn't open up, but since her life was in my hands now that she was part of the team, some bond needed to exist.
"I've learned a lot even though the pressure of being an academy student and now an officer is completely different."
"Just wait until you become a lieutenant." I almost laugh, but feel a certain nostalgia. "What's your full name?"
"Tracie Heller."
"How cute." I laugh, hopping out of the armored vehicle and closing the door. "I've never met another Tracie who wasn't blonde."
"Believe me, I've never met another Tracie who wasn't blonde either." I'm glad she takes it lightly. I like to make silly provocations to see who I'm dealing with.
"Scarlett Kettermann, at your service." I start signing the missing fields on the clipboard. Heller should be about Michelle's height, no taller than 5'9". She had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Well, I guess there's nothing else to check. You're dismissed."
I check my watch, looking for any missed calls from Dianna, but so far, nothing. She hadn't replied to the last message I sent.
I give one last check on the items on my clipboard, sign the document, and head back inside the building. I place the clipboard in its proper place and walk to the tactical operations planning room. I could hear the conversation from outside, but due to the thick door, it wasn't possible to distinguish one sentence from another. As soon as I step into the room, silence falls.
"May I know the reason for the silence?" I look at all the team members as they salute.
"Lieutenant," Luke begins. "Michelle called my cell. The call is still ongoing, and we're tracing it."
"Can she hear us?" I approach Luke's cell phone.
"She probably muted the call audio to avoid drawing attention," Jake says while waiting for something to load on the computer screen.
I start listening to the call. It was nothing but distorted noises as if the phone were in a pocket. It was hard to tell if she was driving or if they got her. All we had was a call and the location of the phone.
I glance at my watch again, searching for any calls from her, Dianna, or any of the security guards. There's nothing. I know that if they did everything they did to me, Dianna would never recover. My stomach churns. It was very hard to find me. She must have been suffering for hours already. The scenario forming in my head is treacherous. If I let my feelings take over now, I could jeopardize everything.
"Alright," I take a deep breath, incredulous at the situation. "Move out, everyone. I want everyone in the armored vehicle as quickly as possible." The other five officers leave the room, leaving only Luke, Jake, and me. "Jake, I want that call in my earpiece."
***
"YOU REALLY THINK YOU can do that? Scarlett, if you step out of line and screw up... Someone could die. It's your first day back," Luke asks as he puts on his gloves.
He seemed calm, but I knew he wasn't. The panic stabbing my stomach was also piercing his. Michelle might have all the world's training, but Luke couldn't stay calm. Just imagining both of them going through what I went through made me want to massacre the place.
"Don't worry, but you might consider 34 a small number," I put on the mask.
He grabs the helmet and gives my shoulder a little tap before we head to the armored vehicle.
Luke starts explaining the mission while I sit in the front seat of the armored vehicle next to Jake, who was driving. I almost roll my eyes when I realize I know this route. We were heading to the same place where I killed Anthony Moore.
The call in my earpiece changes its noise and soon I hear Michelle's voice whispered:
"Is anyone still on the line?"
"Mich, are you okay? We're on our way," I respond.
"I'm okay, but I don't have much ammo. Robert is in a very large group. I counted more than ten people."
"What happened?"
"They ambushed us in the parking lot. I couldn't react because they put a gun to each of our heads," I look at Luke, who had a twisted expression and I couldn't quite decipher what was going through his mind. "They locked me in one of the containers. I don't know where they took Dianna. Be careful, Robert's pissed. Since Dianna cut Matteo and Alencar from the companies, he stopped receiving his share. I have to stop talking, someone's coming."
We hear Michelle run. Some shots, and the call goes completely silent before dropping altogether.
My body freezes. I feel every inch of my body ache as if they had replaced my blood with acid. I look at Luke, he was as white as a sheet.
Luke runs his hands over his face. I try to figure out if he needed me to take over the mission. He notices, shakes his head, and starts explaining to the other team members that we will go in pairs, surrounding the entire perimeter. We need to find the 3 security guards and Dianna. I secure the rifle on my back and unlock the rifle, knowing the hell awaiting me inside that place.
"Don't panic. We can't know for sure," I say when we're alone, about to invade the place. His response is a quick nod.
I enter the warehouse right behind him. He covers the right, and I cover the left. We enter quickly. It was partially lit. There were no windows, but some lights still worked. We barely step into the building and already hear distant gunfire. I confirm they were rifle shots. They weren't using light weaponry. The everyday bodyguards' vests Dianna had weren't made to withstand rifle bullets. I look at Luke. I couldn't see his face, but I knew he had thought the same thing.
I won't think about Michelle now, much less Dianna. I'll do what I was trained to do. I'll go in, count the number of shots coming from my rifle, reload, and repeat the process.
I follow the plan. We search for Michelle first. I walk more cautiously than usual. Luke was bloodthirsty, too stressed, too nervous. A man in a red shirt appears in front of us, armed. Luke's shot is precise in his head, and we keep walking. We move straightforward, fast, and efficiently.
I pay attention to my left. I pull Luke behind a metal beam seconds before the shots start. Where we were was a bit darker, and the noise echoed. I noticed the shots were coming from just one person. The process is quick. A rifle has 20 shots. When the person stops to reload, the advance is quick, and there's only one shot.
I approach the body, taking the rifle in my hands. I check the amount of ammunition; it's almost full. Great. I had a few extra cartridges, but if we found any of the bodyguards, this would come in handy. I grab the gun, and we continue through the many containers. In seconds, we leave another body behind.
We start hearing shots coming from very close. I look at Luke. It doesn't take much effort to distinguish that these shots were coming from a revolver. Strange, because Robert's traffickers were using rifles. These shots could only be coming from one of Dianna's bodyguards. We start running, trying to follow the sound of the shots. It takes a few minutes through the almost endless maze of containers, but we eventually find the location.
Luke starts walking slower and soon raises his hand for me to stop. We were at the end of the corridor, about to turn.
"Orange," Luke says loudly and clearly.
"Orange," I hear a firm voice coming from the end of the corridor. A huge weight lifts off my shoulders. Luke lowers his weapon, and we walk towards her.
"Is she okay?" Luke asks, embracing my friend.
He quickly steps back, examining how she was. Her clothes were disheveled as if she had fought a lot, but she was okay. I hand her the rifle I had picked up somewhere in the corridors and hand it to her. It didn't escape me the bodies of two men on the ground near where she was. Until today, she had never killed anyone.
"I'm fine. Let's get Dianna and get out of this hellhole soon," she passes the rifle strap over her shoulders. "I was lucky to find you. I was almost out of ammo."
"Where are the other two?" I ask.
"They took Miller along with Dianna. I don't know if he's alive. I got separated from Sandara when we were escaping. They ripped out my earpiece, so I can't talk to her," she explains.
Luke asks about the other two on the earpiece, and they respond quickly:
"Jake and Heller are with her. He just informed me. She's okay."
"Alright," I breathe deeply. The only thing I knew was that Dianna was alive because Robert liked to torture people before killing them. "Let's find Dianna."
We leave the place finding some bodies along the way. Suddenly, it gets too quiet. If before the shots could be heard from a distance, now they had completely ceased. We look around, searching for some shelter. My heart was racing.
When they open fire in our direction, it's automatic: we duck and hide behind a concrete beam. Luke sees first than I do a woman on the left holding a submachine gun. She falls dead with a shot to the head, and we move on. I pay attention to my front, and I look around, providing cover. A slight noise, and I start exchanging fire with a man taking cover at the end of the corridor. I feel the pressure of the shots passing close to me. It takes some time, but a small fraction of a second is more than enough.
That place was like a maze, but I knew Robert liked to put on a show, so he would definitely be somewhere open.
Luke takes a step forward and is thrown against the wall instantly. I see Michelle firing a shot, and the shooter who hit him falls to the ground with a shattered temple.
"Hell," I look for the shot, and my body freezes when I notice that, by a narrow margin, the bullet didn't hit his chest; the vest held the projectile.
I pull Luke by the vest, running as the shots start to intensify. He runs as best he can behind me to get out of there while coughing desperately. Michelle is a few steps behind, providing cover. I turn around, coming face to face with a man wearing a balaclava with his back to the corridor.
"Where to?" Michelle asks as I load the weapon.
"Vest." He says, catching his breath.
We approach the end of the container area. There was a man guarding the door, and we couldn't make any shots to avoid drawing attention. Luke approaches him from behind, putting him in a sleeper hold. It takes a few minutes, but soon he's asleep.
I hear Dianna's scream and stop in my tracks. A million scenarios form in my head. Luke notices but doesn't say anything because he seems to be listening to some things through the earpiece. I start releasing the rappelling rope from my uniform. There's a quick exchange of glances, and Michelle follows Luke to the opposite side of where I was going.
I look closely at the place; it reminded me of a sort of mezzanine. Only a concrete corridor separated Robert from me. I hear Dianna scream again and start running up the first staircase I find. From where I was, even though from a distance, I could already see him.
He was stepping on her throat and had a gun in his hand. There was some blood on her clothes, and her face was bruised, showing that clearly he had beaten her. From the way she moved, she must have been in that position for some time. I feel anger above all else. She didn't deserve to pay this way for what her father did.
I wasn't going to negotiate, not with Robert. I knew the consequences of that. They could send me back to the depths of that basement, but he doesn't leave here alive.
A bang, and the cops enter. Robert Moore didn't seem surprised. On the contrary, he just tightens the boot against her neck. Luke enters, Jake goes along. They don't get closer, and I see Dianna standing firm.
I grab the rappelling ropes and climb onto the metal structure, hiding behind a thick beam. I lie on the iron, adjust the rifle, and stare through the telescope in front of me. I breathe deeply, aiming very carefully. Any miscalculation, and the bullet could hit one of the iron beams and ricochet onto someone.
"Well, look who's here. Tell Alma McAllister I send my regards. I left a present for her." I find it strange he mentions Dianna's mother, but before anyone has time to say anything, he switches the revolver to his other hand. I hope he unlocks it, but he finally notices my presence and stares at me. In the next second, I pull the trigger.
His body falls forward in a twisted position. Dianna screams and backs away. The cops go to her, and I know she's looking for me by the way she looks at the surname on the uniforms.
Luke reaches her first and she hugs him. I see him checking if she's okay, helping her stand up. They exchange a few words, and he points towards the ceiling in my direction before helping her out of there.
I lock the rifle and descend down the rope to the ground, heading straight to the body. I crouch by the side and take off my glove. To my surprise, my hand isn't even sweaty. I check his pulse. Nothing. I close my eyes, and all I see are Robert's expensive shoes when he was kicking my inert body from side to side.
Robert is dead.
No remorse comes.
I walk over to the two who, by now, were already outside. It was dark, probably a little past eight in the evening. The glow of the police cars illuminated the area, and there were almost twice as many officers there since my team arrived.
I rush to my girlfriend, and I receive a hug without even having time to take off my helmet and mask beforehand. I hold her by the waist carefully, not knowing how injured she exactly was. I allow myself to relax into her embrace just knowing she was alive. I finally let go of the usual work scowl and hold her tightly against me. She buries her face in the crook of my neck, and only when she lets go, do I have time to remove my helmet and pull down the fabric covering part of my face.
"Are you okay?" I hold her shoulders, looking at the blood splatters on her blouse. Her face was quite red on the sides, her eye was starting to swell, and there was a cut on her lip. I feel my blood boiling knowing he laid a hand on her.
"It was just a scratch, I'll be fine." She hugs me again and gives me a peck on the lips. I breathe a sigh of relief for the first time that day.
"Mich?" I ask, seeing my friend. To my relief, she was whole. Luke is right behind, holding her hand. I wanted to hug her, because I imagined she might not be okay, but I feel like it's not the right moment. "Any news about Miller?"
Is he alive? It's what I want to ask.
"I talked to my friend. He and Sandara are okay. They're giving statements to the police." I genuinely feel relieved.
Luke stays with them while I step away to take care of some paperwork. We stop by the barracks to handle the bureaucratic part. It took quite a while since there were casualties among suspects, and everything needs to be meticulously recorded.
I grab a notebook from the back of my locker, quickly marking down the 4 additional names that were now part of that list. I didn't like to forget. Pretending it never happened wasn't my style even though I'd be much healthier if I simply forgot.
"Ready?" Luke enters the locker room, freshly showered. I nod, confirming.
"Is Michelle okay? She's never killed anyone, and I'm worried." I ask as I shove the notebook to the back of my locker, knowing full well it wouldn't be the last time I'd jot a name down there. Luke starts getting dressed, and I'm thankful he doesn't ask about the notebook.
"You know how our Mich operates, she keeps everything to herself until she feels comfortable enough to talk. I don't think that moment has come for her yet. So, she's sitting out there with her hands in her pockets like nothing happened. And Dianna?"
"All the injuries were superficial. She found what Robert said very strange. She called her mom to check on something, but in the end, Alma McAllister was perfectly fine and safe at home in Madrid." I say.
"Great first day back, huh?" He gives my shoulder a punch.
"There were no casualties on the team. All the victims are okay. I shot Robert in the head. Nothing to complain about."
"That shot was beautiful. I usually have respect for casualties of criminals, but not this one, not after finding you on the ground like that. I believe he died quicker than he deserved." He finishes getting dressed and grabs his things from the locker.
We leave.
"I need to stop by home. I'm not feeling well. I want to take a shower, I can't explain it." Dianna says quietly as Mich and Luke walk towards the barracks parking lot.
"What are you feeling? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?" My chest tightens in concern. I really thought it wasn't anything serious.
"It's okay, I just really need to go home. I think I'm starting to have an anxiety attack." She looks at me, and her face was much worse than a few hours ago.
"Look, one of the medications I take is the same as yours. We just need to split the pill to adjust the dose." I motion to grab my backpack
"Scarlett, you really don't need to." She takes my hand.
"Okay. Let's go." I put my arms around her shoulder and kiss the top of her head.
We get into my car, and I send a message to Luke, who decides to go along with Michelle. I look at my watch, it was past two in the morning. Throughout the whole journey, I worry about Dianna. The way she clenched her jaw and how restless she was made me restless. The last time I saw her like this, about to explode, was when I helped her in her office many months ago.
We enter the garage and head up to the house. Dianna goes up to the office to get her medications, and I head to the kitchen to get some water and something for her to eat.
When I return to the living room, Michelle and Luke are sitting on the couch talking softly. I leave them there. But then I look at the front door. We don't use it because we enter through the garage, and only now do I realize that the door looked strange. I approach, seeing that the electronic lock was completely off, as if it had been hacked and was now completely useless. This sets off a red flag in my head, and I take a few steps back, pulling my revolver out of its holster.
My friends notice the movement and jump up from the couch. We rush upstairs. Liquid fear drowns me, and it's hard to breathe. A terrible feeling fills me so much that I barely feel the steps stab under my feet.
"DIANNA!" I enter the office shouting. The scene that unfolds in front of me is brutal.
Dianna is sitting on the floor, trembling and completely curled up, her body stiff as if she were feeling physical pain. As my eyes roam around the dimly lit room, searching for any sign of threat, I see the image of a man with his throat slit in the leather chair and, on the table, the head of Matteo McAllister with dollar bills stuffed into his mouth, like a roast receiving an apple on Christmas Eve.