Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter
Chapter Fifteen
Jensen
We slow to a stop outside the warehouse, pulling in closer to the second exit that Trick pointed out. It seems deserted from here but looks can be deceiving. We park the bikes, making sure that they’re out of the way and placing our helmets on them so we don’t have to lug them around with us.
“We can’t kill anyone in here.” Atlas warns, “Unless it’s a kill or be killed situation then don’t kill them.”
“Got it.” I grin.
“According to my source, he’s hiding out in there somewhere. We need to convince him to tell us where he’s keeping the girls.” He growls.
“How come the feds can’t do this job?” I ask curiously.
“Because they’ve bought him in for questioning before and he stays silent, no one can get through to him. We can use methods that they can’t.” He grins viciously, handing me a pair of leather gloves as he pulls on his own.
Excitement thrums through my veins, this guy deserves what he’s about to get, those women deserve so much better than the fate that this sick bastard has planned for them. I’m prepared to get my hands dirty in order to save them.
With that warning out of the way, we silently make our way towards the side door. As we get close, I see a guard stationed just to the right of it, playing on his phone. Atlas easily knocks him out, pulling some zip ties from his pocket and securing him to the railing.
Inside is cavernous, with piles of empty crates. There are no more guards though, which I find suspicious.
“What’s the betting the idiot is hiding in the office?” I mutter quietly, pulling out a couple of knives and nodding up to the set of metal steps in the back-left corner.
Atlas chuckles silently and we make our way over to the steps, with no more sightings of guards. The office has two large windows on either side, that are fortunately covered by blinds. So, he has no idea that we’re coming. Atlas counts down from three on his hand before turning and kicking the door open easily. I immediately launch a knife, pinning the fucker’s hand to the table before he manages to get his gun and making him cry out.
He scowls deeply, getting ready to make all kinds of threats until his eyes land on Atlas and he pales, falling silent.
“Fuck.” He whimpers.
“Now, Donald, is that anyway to greet me?” Atlas goads.
For now, I step back watching him do his thing and keeping an eye on the warehouse floor below, it echoed pretty damn loudly when Atlas kicked the door in. So far there’s been no movement, but I’ll be damned if we get caught out on my first fucking job.
“Where are the women?” Atlas asks, his casual question somewhat undermined by the knife he spins in his hand.
“What girls?” Donald asks, eyes wide.
I walk over, yank my knife out of his hand and pull out some zip ties, securing him to the chair, his palms facing up. When atlas raises an eyebrow in question at me, I explain.
“Easier access.” I smirk, darkly.
Atlas seems to understand what I mean as he nods, then without any warning, he punches the guy in the face, snapping his head back as blood spurts from his nose.
“Try again.” I smirk.
The guy stubbornly stays silent and Atlas nods at me.
My turn to play.
I take my knife as the guy starts to struggle in his chair. He curls his hand into a fist and I pry it open, using Ever’s idea I start methodically slicing his fingers everywhere they bend, I cut pretty deeply, doing it slowly to increase the pain rather than let him have the justice of doing it quickly.
“Where are the women?” Atlas’s voice is cold and threatening.
“He’ll kill me.” The guy pants out.
“You think I won’t?” Atlas’s voice is deceptively calm.
I slice a deep cut along his palm. Moving swiftly, I grab a handful of hair and pull his head back, my knife resting on his throat, Atlas grins.
“They’re downstairs.” He gasps sounding panicked.
“You hid where you’re keeping the women?” I ask incredulously.
What kind of dumbass does that?
With one punch Atlas knocks him out. “Gag him and then we’ll go see if he’s really stupid enough to keep the women here.”
I make quick work, finding the most disgusting thing I can in his office and gagging him with it.
“If he does have them here, that would explain the lack of guards out here. They’re probably all with the women.” I comment.
“Keep an eye out.” Atlas warns.
We carefully make our way through the warehouse and towards the only door in here. Beyond the door is a long desolate hallway, the guard at the end spots us almost instantly, but I launch one of my knives adjusting my grip and aim so that it hits him handle first, right in the middle of his head. He slumps to the floor and I grin as I stride up and secure him with cable ties. I cable tie his feet as well since there’s nothing else I can attach him too and I don’t want him to escape. None of these fuckers deserve the option of escape.
We carry on moving forward, as soon as we open the next door, we’re greeted by a flurry of fists and loud booming of a gun going off. I pull my own gun as I pistol whip the guy aiming his fist at my head and shoot another in the knee, causing him to collapse in a bloody heap on the floor. I do a quick head count, three left. Atlas has taken down two as well. I shoot the one trying to escape in the knee and take a running leap towards one of the others, a bullet whizzes past my head, so close I can feel the heat from it.
Fuck me, that was close.
He gets in a couple of good hits catching me in the jaw before I take him down, realising that now is not the time to play.
Unfortunately.
Once they’re all down, we go around securing their hands and feet and knocking them out at the same time. Whiney fuckers. Once they’re finally down for the count, I turn towards the door that they were all guarding, and brace myself for what may lay beyond, before finally pulling it open and walking slowly inside, Atlas hot on my heels. I halt the second my eyes adjust to the darkness, holding my hand up for Atlas to do the same.
I crouch down trying to make myself as small as possible as I share a horrified look with him. Huddled in a corner together are around fifty women, all of them beaten, dirty, and severely malnourished. They’ve tried to form a protective barrier between us and as I peer closer behind the first row of women, still keeping my distance, bile rises in my throat.
“They’re kids.” I whisper harshly.
“Can’t be older than thirteen, if that.” Atlas replies.
His eyes are bleak as he watches them. “They’re eyes are unfocused.” I add, trying not make any sudden moves and end up scaring them more. They all watch us fearfully, tears streaked through the dirt on most of their faces.
“They’ve been drugged so they’re easier to handle.” Atlas sneers.
“We’re here to help you.” I try speaking a little bit louder, they all shrink away from me and start whimpering.
My heart breaks for these women and girls. This image is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. My rage starts to bubble inside me.
“It’s no good, they aren’t going to trust us which is understandable.” Atlas says as he stands and slowly starts to back out of the room.
I do the same but as I near the door, I can’t help but turn back to them, “You’re safe now. We’re going to get you out of here.”
I turn and gently close the door behind me, kicking the nearest guard to me in the face hard.
“I’ve got a plan, first we need to make sure that these are all the guards, we need to do a quick sweep and then I’ll make a call.” Atlas reassures me, his eyes darkening with violence.
“Let’s do it then. I don’t want them here any longer than they have to be.” I say firmly.
We work quickly to clear the warehouse and Atlas stops me just before I start up the stairs to confront the disgusting fucker in his office.
“One sec, let me make a call out of ear shot.”
I nod and cross my arms over my chest, itching to find some justice for these women.
“That fucker you sent us after is keeping the women in the place that he’s hiding out.” Atlas growls into the phone without greeting. “There are nine guards, all of them have been incapacitated. You need to send several teams, female officers. The women are understandably terrified of us. Ambulances and child services.”
“What!?” I hear barked from the other end of the phone.
“There are fucking children in there. They’re in a room in the back, through the only door in the warehouse. Careful with your torches, its pitch black in there. You’ll find Donald in the office up the metal set of steps, he’ll have about half an hour from when you get here until he bleeds out. I’m not keeping this cunt on the payroll. There’s enough evidence here to convict him.” His grin is dark as his eyes promise pain.
He hangs up after listening to something else his guy says. “We’ve got about ten minutes before they get here.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
“We can’t kill him. We try to avoid doing that wherever possible unfortunately, in this case. We can make him pay for those women and girls though.”
I nod my understanding I know I can’t kill him, and I understand why we try to avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary if we didn’t, we’d be almost as bad as the fuckers we’re taking out. I follow Atlas up the stairs pulling out one of my knives, this time my face is blank of all expression. The guy starts to struggle, having come around from where Atlas knocked him out. The smell of piss permeates the air as his gaze switches rapidly between me and Atlas, unsure which one of us is the bigger threat. Have fun figuring that one out fucker, we’re of equal standing in this instance.
Atlas punches him in the face, hard enough that I can hear the bones in his cheek break as it instantly starts to swell. I throw my knife, embedding it in his stomach before walking over and yanking it back out harshly. His bellows of pain turn into screams as Atlas, plunges a knife into his leg at the same time as I plunge mine into his shoulder. I twist as I pull it back, creating the most amount of pain possible and hopefully rendering his arm useless.
The image of those women trying to protect the younger girls’ flashes through my mind. Even knowing their fate if they get in the way those women, drugged to the fucking eyeballs, still tried to protect the children. Their strength is truly inspiring, and it gives me an idea. I’ll have to wait until we get home to put it in place though.
I stand back, watching curiously as Atlas pulls the machete from the sheathe on his back. In a show of utter brutality and without any hesitation, he swings the blade down, severing Donald’s hand with one strike. Donald screams in pain and promptly passes out as his severed hand falls to the floor.
“You better wrap that or he’s going to bleed out before the cops get here.” I point out casually, as I scan the desk looking for a pen and some paper.
“Good point, let’s not give him the easy option of death.” Atlas replies.
He searches the room and finds an old jacket, covered in filth and grime. “Perfect.”
He picks the severed hand up from the floor with the jacket and places it on the desk in front of the slumped Donald. Then he tightly binds the stump, slowing the bleeding.
Checking his watch, he turns to me, “Come on, dude we’ve got to go.”
“One second.” I say, finishing writing a list of the guys crimes on the note. I search the desk finding a stapler quickly and once again grab a fistful of hair, he doesn’t even stir as I staple the note to his forehead. “Alright, let’s go.”
Atlas smirks but doesn’t say anything as we make our way back downstairs and through the warehouse, we’re both splattered with blood. But thanks to our dark clothes and gloves, its hardly noticeable. We can hear the sound of sirens in the background, getting closer as we make it to our bikes. Atlas holds out a bag and we both put our bloodied gloves in it.
“I’ll burn them when we get home.” He explains.
“We need to find a way to securely let Trick and the others know when people are on the way back from a job.” I mutter.
“Agreed, I’ll talk to my guy and see what he suggests.”
Within seconds, we’re driving away from the warehouse and it’s a damn good job that Trick found us the second exit, because we cut it a little bit too closely making Donald pay for his crimes. After we clear the warehouse and there’s no risk of any cops taking an interest in what we’re doing, we slow our speed slightly. I don’t know about Atlas, but I need a little bit longer to decompress after what I’ve witnessed in there.
“You alright man?” Atlas’s voice comes through my helmet and I almost veer off the road.
“Fucking hell dude, you couldn’t tell me that we could talk through the helmets before you decided to scare the shit out of me?”
The bastard just chuckles and I know he wants an honest response.
“That image of them huddled in the corner protecting the younger girls is going to haunt me.”
“Me too, man.” Atlas agrees, his voice bleak. “I’m worried about Ever’s reaction.”
We weave through the mostly silent streets.
“Don’t be. The thing‘s I have a feeling she’s seen and how quickly she suggested that torture method. She can do this.” I reply. “I think if she was there tonight, she would’ve done exactly the same thing we did. We saved those girls and made sure he wouldn’t be able to hurt them or anyone like them again.”
“I know.” He replies and I let him ride in silence for a bit before I speak again.
“Let’s get home brother, I need to hold our girl. I can guarantee that they’re all still up waiting for us.”
“I hear that, let’s go.”
We pick up speed again and make it to the school gates, the guards don’t even try to stop us as we speed through.
“Did you pay them off?” I ask.
“Yeah they work for me, why do you think they didn’t find any weapons in your luggage or personally search each of you like they normally do.”
“Ah man, I thought it was my expert hiding skills.” I groan. “Don’t tell Trick, I’ll never live it down.”
“I also won’t tell him that you had near on thirty blades in your bag.” He replies, sounding amused as weave down the streets. “They felt the need to warn me about how many you had on you when I got back.”
“Whoops.”
Finally, we pull into the drive after Atlas inputs the code and the only thing I can think about is, how much I want Ever in my arms. I know that Trick is going to want a report and that’s fine, but I want Ever.
As soon as our bikes pull to a stop, the front door opens and Ever walks towards us, she studies us both intently, her eyes narrow on our jackets and she grins.
“Shed his blood then.”
“You’ve got no idea.” Atlas grins, seeming to have gotten over his little insecure blip earlier.
“Go inside and get cleaned up. I’ll start the coffee; I know Trick’s waiting for a report, but I’ll hold him off until your clean and ready.” She smiles softly.
Now that she’s mentioned it, I want nothing more than to wash that disgusting fucker’s blood off me and this whole night if I’m honest. How she knew what I wanted before I did baffles me. As much as I want to pull her into my arms, I don’t want to have her anywhere near the shit that covers me even if it has dried on the ride back.
Atlas and I move forward and gently kiss both of her cheeks, being careful to stay away from her. She grins happily, worry finally bleeding from her gaze.
“I promised you we’d all come back Angel.”
She chuckles as she follows us into the house.
“Honey, I’m home!” I yell.
“Thank fuck!” Trick exclaims. “I want a report.”
“After they’ve changed and showered.” Ever says firmly.
Trick eyes her as if deciding whether it’s worth arguing his point before he makes the right decision and nods. Ever’s grin widens in triumph as she makes her way over to the kitchen to start the coffee.
“Are you okay?” Trick asks me and Atlas seriously.
“Yes, we’ll explain when we come back down.” Atlas says. “Rage all moved in?”
“Yeah he’s in one of the rooms downstairs.” Cash replies.
“Come on, the sooner we’re clean, the sooner we get Ever.” I say to Atlas as I race past him and up the stairs.
I need to put my plan in place for those women and girls too, the sooner the better.