Page 2 of Collapsed

When I get upstairs, I go to the right and approach the room that I think is the office. I glance into the room and see Andrei dead. He’s slumped in his big chair behind the desk, head tilted back, arms hanging at his sides. I move a little closer to see a bullet hole right between his eyes. His eyes are wide open, which creeps me the hell out, so I keep moving further down the hall.

“Andrei is dead, really dead,” I whisper, informing Marcela.

This place is a wreck. Finally, I see Alexie and Stryker laying on the floor side by side in a disgusting room. How in the hell I missed them on my way to the office, I don’t know, but fuck, this is bad. Rushing over to them, I kneel down and check their pulse. They’re alive, thankfully, but they both have weak pulses, and they're out cold, unmoving.That must’ve been the slow breathing I was hearing through our earpieces.

“Shit! Marcela call an ambulance to meet us here! We need to get Alexie and Stryker back on their feet so we can figure out what happened. They’re out cold, and I still haven't found King or Nat, so have them send a few.”

“On it! I just pulled in. I'll call quickly and then come up to meet you. Stay alert, I'll be right there,” she responds before disconnecting the line. I can hear her tires squealing outside the building as she comes to an abrupt stop.

I take a few deep breaths before leaving the guys, knowing help will be here soon. Heading back down the hall I came from, I turn to the left from the staircase this time. “Fuck,” I gasp as I find King in the first room.

He’s tied to a chair and unconscious. He still has a pulse, but like the others, it’s very weak. Marcela comes into the room and lets out a hiss at the sight. “That's probably gonna hurt later,” she says as we both stand there taking in the fact that there’s a piece of paper stapled -and I meanliterallystapled- to King’s forehead. We can't read what the damn paper says because it's folded into the staple.

Just then, we hear a door slam downstairs, causing us to both jump and snap our heads toward each other. Our eyes connect for just a second before we rush down there, but no one's there, and there are no other cars on the street except for Marcela’s, which is parked all sideways up on the curb. Looking at Marcela with worry in my gaze, I ask, “Where the fuck is my girl?!”

We hear the wail of ambulances in the distance, so we head back upstairs. As we walk, I explain things to Marcela. “No one answered comms for almost forty-five minutes while I was still talking to them, giving directions, and listening to them clear the building. I could hear the entire conversation with Andrei and Ivan. Then gunshots started, followed by a struggle, then things went silent,” I tell her in a rushed tone. “At first, I thought it was over. When no one spoke to me, I started calling for them, but there was nothing. It was eerily silent. I waited twenty minutes, then called you because I couldn't wait any longer to go in.”

“I get it. I wouldn't have even waited twenty minutes. Trust me, you were way more chill than me. I would have been running in guns-a-blazing,” she explains.

“Fuck, Marcela, I should've gone in sooner or even called you before I did. I really thought the silence was us on the winning end. It was four highly trained agents against one person… well, after Andrei was shot. And Nat slit the lone guard’s throat before everything began, based on what I could hear.”

“Conrad, you can’t blame yourself. It’ll all be okay. The guys will be fine, and we will find Nat, okay? Just breathe, try to relax. You acting all strung out isn't going to help anything right now,” she says, trying to comfort and calm me.

“Kruz was never that dangerous when he was on our team. I… fuucckk!” I rub my face with both hands over and over, clearly stressing the fuck out.

Marcela whips her head at me, exclaiming, “Kruz?!”

That’s when I realize that I forgot to tell her that part, so I fill her in. “Kruz and that piece of crap, Ivan, are one and the same. Basically, we all got played by him the whole time we worked alongside him. For years, Marcela, fucking years. The whole time he was on the team and since his ‘supposed’ death. He probably went home laughing to himself every night.” She just stares back at me, totally slack-jawed.

The paramedics arrive, and we lead them through to work on Stryker and Alexie first. They tell us that it seems like they were drugged, and that's what has knocked them out. They load both of them up on stretchers, taking them downstairs. We get the same drugged conclusion about King, but he was obviously put on display for us. A paramedic pulls the staple from his head, handing me the note before placing King on the stretcher and taking him downstairs so they can transport all three men to the hospital.

Looking down at the note with Marcela, I realize it’s mostly in Russian, meaning we have no clue what to make of the bulk of it.

Freaking out that we can't read all of the note, and that we still can't find Nat, I tell Marcela, “We have to get the hell out of here, get Katia, and get to the hospital to check on the guys. Then Alexie or Katia can translate this thing for us while we are all together.”

“You’re right. I can only imagine what this says, and I know all hell is about to break loose,” Marcela agrees, snatching the note from my hand and shaking it in the air before handing it back to me. “Let's go. I’ll follow the ambulances to the hospital and make a call to get all this cleaned up. You go get Katia and meet me there.” I fold up the note, placing it into my pocket for safekeeping. We head out of the building, both going to our vehicles.

“Be safe, see you at the hospital soon,” Marcela says, turning back to me.

“You too,” I respond before climbing into the SUV and turning over the engine.This is going to be a long drive alone after all that.

I pull into the driveway and burst into the house, screaming Katia’s name. She comes running downstairs wide-eyed. She only has to take one look at me to understand that something is wrong and asks, “Who?”

I don't answer, and she instantly starts crying. “Get in the car. We’re going to the hospital,” I command in an even voice, trying to get my own emotions under control.

We drive in relative silence, the only noise I can hear is her quiet sniffling. I reach over and take her hand. She jumps at first but relaxes quickly. I give her a weak smile, holding onto her so she knows I’m just here as a friend.

We get to the hospital, meeting up with Marcela in the lobby. She takes us up to see the guys. “Alexie is conscious, but King and Stryker still haven’t woken up. The doctors say they were injected in the neck with etorphine, but they should be fine. They’ll just feel hungover as hell when they wake up,” she explains on our walk up.

As the elevator doors open, we hear utter chaos erupting down the hall. Marcela takes off, and we rush to follow her, entering a room that we now know is Alexie’s. He's awake, alright, yelling and throwing an absolute fit. As we walk into the room, his eyes shoot to us. He looks between the three of us for a moment, reading our faces, and then it hits him. He knows.

“Where is myMalyshka,computer boy?!” he yells at me, aggression oozing from his voice.

I don't know what to say. So, I just hand him the note and take a step back. He reads it, turns red, and starts yelling in Russian. “Eta pizda, ona nikogda ne budet yego, ona vsegda byla moyey. Ya sobirayus' vyrezat' yego grebanyy yazyk svoim lezviyem, vyrvat' yego kishki i zadushit' ikh imi posle togo, kak ya otrezhu yemu chlen i zasunu yemu v grebanuyu glotku.”

“Alexie, I have no clue what you’re saying. What does the rest of the note say? None of us speak Russian. Marcela tried, but all she got was the beginning where he says Nat is ‘his fire’, nothing at the end. We didn’t get the chance to show Katia yet.”

“Moy ogonis finally where she belongs. Your friends might be okay. They took a heavy dose of my favorite concoction. Might kill them, might not. PS For Alexie:Ne pytaysya nayti nas moyey nevestoy, i u menya yest' mnogo detey, chtoby sdelat'. Ona budet drat'sya so mnoy, no tak budet luchshe.ona vsegda dolzhna byla byt' moyey.”

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