Page 135 of Stutter

“We’re going in blind.”

Maverick shrugs, “A lot of the time, that’s how it was in the FBI. Sometimes SWAT didn’t show up on time, sometimes there weren’t enough cops to call for backup, and it was just you and your partner, or your team going in. I’ve been shot at, tasered, stabbed, and even had cocaine blown in my face as a distraction. It’s Murphy’s law. Anything that can go wrong, will. The good thing is, we have her location,” his eyes tear away from mine to Damon’s who’s staring down at his phone, nods. “Which is more than nothing."

“How are you so fucking calm?”

“Because I have to be. I wastrainedto be. Which is why I’m telling you to sleep. If you overthink and over-worry, you could shoot…the wrong personif you’re too riddled with anxiety or too exhausted. Exhaustion is a killer. Try to sleep. We’ll wake you when we land and if we find anything out while you’re asleep, we’ll update you when you wake up.”

I sit in one of the pods, and Damon throws a blanket and a pillow at me, his face locked on the screen of his laptop.

I close my eyes, itchy and dry from exhaustion, replaying the morning I had with my girl. It was perfect. It was so fucking perfect. How? Why? Who?

These questions swirl in my mind as I finally fall into a fitful sleep.

________

Damon shakes me awake when we’re landing and Maverick was right; I needed the sleep. A black Rolls Royce picks us up from the runway and we’re off, and they catch me up. I pull out my phone, freaking the fuck out when there’s only two dots on my screen – Mav’s and Damon’s. They’ve hurt her taking that thing out. Who knows what else they’ve done to her. I can’t about it – but I do let it fuel me.

“It’s okay, Jonas. I chipped her a second time. I had a feeling-“

“You had afeeling, and you didn’t tell me?”

Damon sighs heavily. “There’s no way you really thought Simon was the last of this.”

He’s right, I didn’t.

I grunt, looking out to the window, watching the fat, heavy snowflakes billowing by. I’m so fucking sick of the goddamn snow. I want rainy days with my girl. I want to have her in my lap reading while I watch TV. I want to swim naked in a pond while the raindrops make the water ripple against her skin and… I want to watch her dancing in my jersey while pretending to throw down a football. I want to kiss my jersey number she has tatted on her ribcage and feel the raised ink under my fingertips. I want to go trick-or-treating with her because I didn’t get to as a kid. I want to make every memory with her I can. I want to move out of Massachusetts with her and build a life. Marriage. Kids. All of it. Doesn’t matter which comes first.

“Our girl didn’t either,” Maverick admits. “I think she was expecting this.”

That makes my stomach clench. Why didn’t she tell me that? I hope she can see her wrist. Whatever they’re doing to her… I need her to know we’re coming for her. “Where the fuck are we?”

“According to GPS, we’re twelve minutes away from our first stop,” Damon says, his tone low and even.

I don’t want it low and even. I want him to be… something. Anything but so goddamn cool, calm and collected. Am I the only one feeling crazy?

“Where are we stopping?”

“There’s a military base. I’ve already spoken to a friend of mine who’s a Sergeant there. Said he could get us a few things we might need.”

“Like what?”

“Bulletproof vests for one. We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If we go, we have to come back as one unit.”

His friend? Hands us a duffel bag full of everything from the vests to blades and rations at a gate. We don’t even go inside the gate. We all remove our gloves, coats and shirts, shove the vests on and redress. But it takes us an hour to get to her…

The mansion is practically a fucking fortress. Guards walk with large German Shepherds pacing around. There’s an (at least) eight-foot-tall brick fence surrounding the entire place. And Raven’s little dot on Damon’s phone? It says she’s stark in the fucking middle of the place.

“There’s no way they have her in the middle of the place like fucking bait. They don’t want us. They want her,” I growl.

“They'd take her somewhere not easily accessible.”

We stay quiet.

“Wine cellar.” I think out loud. “How the fuck are we supposed to do this?” I ask, swallowing thickly.

“How did they do it?” Maverick asks but I’m sure it’s rhetorical.

I think for a moment. “By watching and waiting for a moment of weakness.”

---