Page 85 of Deadly Aloha
Carefully, Reacher stepped out from the middle of the room. Tommy opened the drawer the rest of the way, and we all watched as a section of the floor slid under the wood panels on the left. It revealed none other than a fucking concrete staircase.
“I hate this guy,” I muttered before charging forward.
Motion-sensor lights flicked on as I passed. The others followed me down, with Spirit saying he’d stand guard up top. The last thing we needed was for us to get trapped down here too. Likely, there wasn’t a waytoexit from underneath. I wondered if the floor had some sort of soundproofing inside, so someone trapped couldn’t be heard up on the main floors.
At the bottom of the stairs, we found a hallway. One that looked very similar to the floors above. Like it was just another section of the house. There were marble busts and watercolorpaints on the wallpapered walls. It looked…normal. Just like upstairs, there were several doors along the hall.
The door in the middle on the left opened up, and multiple weapons were raised until they saw who exited.
It was a woman. She was wearing a kimono, even though she was as white as Reaper. She was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. And her head was down, her eyes cast on her traditional geta clogs. “Mr. Dalton-Jones, sir, please, she needs a doctor. I cannot—” Then her eyes glanced up, she saw us standing before her, and screamed.
She ran back inside the room she’d come from and slammed the door closed.
Fuck! I bolted after her. The door, unsurprisingly, didn’t lock. Likely because Weatherby Dalton-Jones IV didn’t want his prisoners to find a way to keep him out.
I turned the knob and pushed on the door, and heard the sound of someone being thrown backwards. The same girl was sprawled back on the floor, like she’d been trying to use her own body weight to barricade the door.
She quickly shuffled to her feet, but instead of charging towards me, she rushed to the back corner of the room where a little girl, maybe four years old, had been playing with a doll on the floor. She scooped the girl up and used her body to protect the child.
From us.
I held my hands up, having no weapons in my hands. My knife was still sheathed on my thigh. “It’s okay. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here for…”
My voice trailed off as I saw the other occupant in the room. To my right, behind the door, was a small cot. I realized then that this wasn’t just some room. It was a bedroom for the little girl. There were pink teddy bears stenciled on the walls, a pinkdresser, a little desk with paper and crayons, some more dolls, and a rocking chair.
The cot was made for a child, not an adult. The woman who lay upon it had her feet hanging off the end, though that was the least of her problems. Bandages, cleaning supplies, and gauze lay on the floor beside the bed, one of the bottles open like it had been mid-use when we’d come down the stairs. Dried and wet blood was everywhere.
And laying there, her back flayed open to the point where I could see bone, was Nishi.
“Ae Akua,” came from behind me, though my brain wasn’t in any condition to figure out who said the low prayer.
“Tommy,” I snapped. The former soldier rushed forward. He had a small amount of medical supplies on him, but I didn’t need to be a doctor to know it wasn’t going to be enough.
“Stop!” the teenager shouted. “Don’t hurt her!”
I looked over my shoulder. Without words needing to be exchanged between us, Tangaloa stepped carefully into the room. He’d holstered his gun and his hands were raised like mine had been. He was talking softly to the teen, letting her know we were here to help and would not harm her, the little girl, or Nishi.
I turned my back on the room. Reacher and the twins stood just outside it. I looked to Reacher first. “Check the rest of these rooms. Make sure there are no other surprises.”
Reacher nodded once, “Yes, Prez.”
The twins, for once, had no smart ass comment for me as they waited for my orders. I had to mentally push aside everything butright nowto get the words to come out of my mouth. “Find us something we can transport Mr. Dalton-Jones home in. Comfort is not required, neither are all his appendages.”
They nodded once, though I could tell they were confused about my order.
“Lu’s going to want her pound of flesh,” I explained. There was a tingling feeling beneath my skin when I thought of mywahine, but I ignored it.
The twins exchanged a look before heading back up the stairs.
I took a shaky breath before turning back around. Tangaloa was doing better at getting the teen to calm down. She wasn’t in such a defensive pose now, nor was she pressed all the way into the corner anymore.
I hated myself in this moment. Because there was a part of me that did not want to turn to my right, a part of me that wished we’d never found that fucking hidden latch, that wished we were leaving this house empty handed.
But we had and we weren’t, and I needed to turn to the right. I not only owed it to Lu, but also to Nishi.
As I neared, Tommy looked up. His eyes said what I already knew. No amount of medical intervention was going to save her now. Tommy leaned down and said something gentle to Nishi. I didn’t know if she was awake or coherent enough to hear it or understand it, but I appreciated his kindness.
Tommy stood, removing his latex gloves. He turned them inside out before sticking them in his pocket. His face was remorseful as he approached me. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong, Paniolo. This is old,” he said softly. “This didn’t just happen. Even if we got here yesterday or even the day before, it couldn’t have changed anything. It’s infected, and badly.”
