Page 38 of Zero
The attacker yelped, jerked face first into the dresser then bounced off onto the floor.
Eton was bleeding from the right arm but otherwise fine.
“You’re bleeding!” I pointed out.
“I’m okay.” Eton told us. “I don’t know what they were looking for, but I found this.”
“It’s a listening device.” Jasmine accepted it, turning it over in her hand. “It hasn’t been activated yet. I’m pretty sure they were trying to set them when we walked in. What I don’t get is, if you were only setting up surveillance, why destroy the place?”
“They’re angry.” Eton explained. “And it’s a distraction tactic.”
“Distraction?” I asked. “From what? It’s kind of hard to miss they fucking trashed the place.”
Eton winced. “Gangs trash the place, so you focus on the damage rather than the fact they might have set up surveillance.”
“If only they’d use their powers for good” I muttered.
Eton nodded.
“We should call Rei.” Jasmine suggested.
“No.” I told them. “We’re not going to interrupt him right now. I need him to focus on what he’s doing. When he comes back, we’ll let him know. In the meantime, let’s find something to clean that wound. Then deal with the dead guy upstairs and that asshole over there.”
Chapter 9
Rei
The gate was still chained up. We gained entrance to the property through a hole in the fence at the back of the house. The grass was tall and gave us a little cover from anyone inside the building. We were about to make a move toward the actual structure when something caught my eyes. I hunched down, held up a fist.
“What’s the matter?” Patrick asked.
“Camera.”
“What?” Dude asked. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” I muttered.
Slipping to our stomachs, we crawled through the grass until we were in a position not to be seen. Patrick picked the lock on the backdoor and we made a quiet entry.
Splitting up, I took the second floor, Dude took the basement and Patrick remained on the main floor. The final room I walked into was a bedroom with a woman sleeping on a bed in the corner. My first thought was that she was squatting. But it didn’t make sense with the cameras. I had yet to see a monitor where the video was being transmitted.
She was pretty, kinky hair in a knot atop her head.
With my gun trained on her, I picked up a pillow off a nearby chair and threw it at her. She immediately jerked upward and scrambled backward onto the bed, pressing her back into a wall.
“It’s okay.” I held up a hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She blinked, terror in her eyes. I told her again she was safe but that didn’t seem to help—I kind of recognize the look and I sighed.
“Do you speak English?” I asked.
Her eyes were wide, her body shaking, and I knew it was because of the weapon. I wanted to holster it, but I wasn’t sure if I was safe. She said something in Creole—Haitian Creole.
“Um…” I thought back to a recruit I trained with and what she’d tried teaching me in Haitian Creole. “English?”
She shook her head.
“Um—Èske ou isit la pou kont li?”
