Page 56 of Unraveling Connections

“So, where’s Emmerson then?” I ask, “If that SUV is the one that she used to drive here, then she has been here for a while, and she has to be here somewhere because she’s not in the car.”

“Unless they noticed her pretty quickly and grabbed her?” Cash suggests, his face falling into the blank mask that it often does on these kinds of jobs.

It’s fucking scary, and I have been seeing it for years now.

“That’s more possible than I’d like to admit,” Trick mutters.

We fall silent as we approach the building. There still aren’t any cameras that we can see, and no one approaches us. Trick taps his ear reminding us to turn on our earpieces and then using hand signals, he tells us what to do. Cash and I stand to the side, prepared to enter first as Trick stands behind the door and he counts down and then pulls it open.

With our weapons raised, we slowly move into the area, noticing that the place is set up with aisles and massive shelves that hold crates. There is no way to tell from down here what is inside them, but at least give us a decent amount of cover.

Moving swiftly and quietly, we search the area. I am about to call it and say there is nothing here and we should meet up with the others, but as I open my mouth, I hear a yell of pain.

We move as quickly as we can toward the sound while staying quiet, no one has said anything over the ear pieces, and they won’t, not unless it is really necessary or if they need help.

The shouts of pain and grunts get louder, and because of that, I am able to pinpoint the different voices; there is definitelya woman’s voice, which I am guessing is Emmerson; the good news about that is that it means she is alive, the bad news is she’s being hurt. She is not the only one in pain though as there have been a couple of shouts of pain from men too, so if it is Emmerson, she is giving as good as she is getting.

Finally, they come into view, and we get a good look at what we are dealing with.

Emmerson is in the middle of about five men; all of them are armed but, for some reason, aren’t using their guns. She looks worse for wear, bloodied, and battered, but she is still fucking standing, and that is fucking impressive. The fight must have been going on for a while, because she currently has a long metal pipe, that is almost as big as she is, and is swinging it around, easily making contact with the goons trying to grab her.

We don’t waste any more time now that we have assessed the situation, and we rush in to help her.

As I start to engage with one of the fuckers, I hear Trick’s voice come over the comms, “Found Emmerson. Sound off.”

“Just dealing with three men and two women that were guarding the side entrance,” Rafe replies, and then we hear a grunt, and he adds, “you fucker.”

“We’re dealing with a similar situation here, but we’re heading in now,” Atlas replies.

“Five hostiles, we’ve taken down two,” Trick says as he assesses the situation before swiftly taking down someone else, “three, there were no more people near the front of the building, be careful.”

“Got it,” Rafe replies.

“On it,” Atlas replies, everyone else stays muted so that they can hear us but don’t reply as it can get quite confusing with so many people. Usually, only the team leads respond unless someone has noticed something that needs to be reported.

“Rafe can you call in some transport, we’re going to need to take all of these in,” Trick adds.

“Yep,” Rafe replies shortly, and I am guessing that he is still in the middle of the fight.

“We’re coming in now.” Atlas says, “We haven’t run into anyone else, and the hostiles out the back are knocked out and secured, ready for transport. Do we know how far out it is? Does Emmerson need a medic?”

“Cash can check her over; she’s still fighting, so hopefully, nothing too serious, although we won’t know until the adrenaline wears off.” Trick replies, stiltedly this time since he is fighting hard.

One thing is for sure: these aren’t your average guys; these are trained. This means that we could have found someone that is employed by Hunt although, there is absolutely no sign of the man himself. I don’t expect there to be, he is never where he is supposed to be, even if we do have really good intel that he is going to be somewhere, in this case though, that is a good thing.

I duck another punch heading my way and then smack the gun out of the guy's hand as he pulls it out. Apparently, he has no problem shooting me, kicking it out of the way; I work quickly, trying to get him to the floor and secure him, ready to take to the Cottage, where they will all be thoroughly questioned.

A gunshot goes off, and fear floods my body, allowing the guy to get in a lucky hit; my need to find out if one of mine was hit overtakes my control, and I brutally attack the guy; his eyes widen in fear as he sees the change come over me. He is out cold in a matter of seconds, and I only just manage to remember that I need to restrain him before I check out who shot the gun.

Glancing around, as fear rides me hard, I see the others have arrived, and they all appear to be okay as I study them closely to make sure and then my eyes move to my team, I see Trick dealing with the guy that he was fighting.

My eyebrows raise as I realize that everyone is silent and staring at Cash. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why.

“You almost shot her,” his voice is void of all emotion, and he really has let his scary persona take over. It’s not very often that it comes out to play; in fact, I have probably only seen it a couple of times over the years, but it is fucking terrifying when it does.

The guy has a gun directed at Cash’s head, and I am at just the right angle that I can see that Cash’s expression matches the blankness of his voice. If we make one wrong move, the guy is going to shoot Cash. However, that is not what I am currently concerned about. The fucker holding the gun needs to tread very fucking carefully right now because make no mistake, he is the one that is in danger right now, not Cash. Despite the fact that Cash has a gun pointed at his head.

The guy sneers, “After I’ve shot you, I’ll have some fun with her and then shoot her too.”

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