The sound of the shots was still ringing in my ears when the apartment door burst open. My head snapped towards the sound, and the figure standing in the doorway.
“Tom! What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here’? I told you I was coming in if you weren’t back in 10 minutes. I was in the hall when I heard the gunshots.”
He stared down at me, my knee on the back of a woman lying face down on the floor, her dark hair covering her face. She was putting up a token resistance, but it was probably enough to be convincing.
“Jesus, Tom, I thought you were kidding about that! If you are here, then who is watching the car?”
“No one, but…”
“You need to get back out there, now!”
“What…?”
He was interrupted by the sound of tires screeching outside. He ran across to the apartment window and looked down at the parking lot, as he did, he began cursing colorfully.
“That was his car, wasn’t it?” I grimaced.
“Dammit, yes, how did he…?”
Tom turned back to me and really took in the sight in the room for the first time since he had entered.
His eyes widened slightly as he took in the shallow knife wound across my forearm, which was currently oozing blood down onto the woman’s wrist, which I was currently holding pinned to the floor. The associated hand was still gripping the kitchen knife that had done the deed and, ideally, this would look as if my captive had attacked me with the knife, then I had subdued her. Now was the moment when we would see if I had set the stage correctly.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah. Though, you could give me a hand, here. Do you have any restraints?”
Tom fumbled through his pockets and retrieved his flex cuffs. Grabbing the woman’s arms, he quickly restrained her, taking the knife from her as he did.
“Thanks,” I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and pressed it into my bleeding arm.
“Who is this?”
“Ashley, I believe.”
“The missing woman? She’s alive?” Tom leaned closer to study the woman’s face, but she turned away, struggling against his grip.
“Seems to be,” I replied. “Though not very cooperative, at the moment.”
“Ok… So, what the hell happened in here, Ray?”
“What does it look like, Tom? I found the apartment, but the incubus set his thrall on me, and he ran. I took a couple of shots, but he jumped from the window and must have run to his car. Which I thought was being watched, so I stayed here to contain the situation.”
Tom followed my gaze to the spattering of blood and the bullet holes in the wall next to the open window.
“We need to go after him.”
“Yeah, that would have been a great thought to have about 2 minutes ago. He’s gone, Tom. By the time we get down there, he won’t even be in sight, if he even is now.”
“So, what do we…”
“Relax. I hit him with at least one of those shots,” I crossed to the window and touched the wet blood with one finger. “He’ll need medical attention. Just call up your people and have them check with nearby clinics and hospitals in the area. He’ll turn up, unless he bleeds out, first.”
“And what will we do in the meantime?”
“Well, you are the boss, but I recommend that we search this place, see if we can find any clues about where he would go, or if there are any other thralls here.”
“Right, ok,” Tom nodded, seemingly trying to convince himself that he was in control of the situation. “That makes sense. I will make a few calls, then we will search.”
I nodded,
“Good idea. You should hurry, though. The longer we wait, the more likely Britton is to slip away.”
“Right,” he looked suspiciously at Ashley, then headed for the door. “I am going to make these calls in the hall, for privacy. Are you alright to watch her?”
“No problem.”
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He slipped out and closed the door behind him.
“Do you think he bought that?” Ashley asked softly.
“Looks like it. But we still need to be careful. They are going to have a lot of questions for you when we go back. You think you can stick to the story?”
“I think so,” she nodded, nervous but resolute.
“Good.”
“Did… did Shawn make it out safely, do you think?”
“Well, you heard him drive off, so I imagine he was fine. Besides, what could happen? It’s not like I really shot him, and we are only on the second floor, that jump isn’t too dangerous, if you land right. And there is a garden right below, so that cushions it, too.”
“His arm was bleeding quite a bit, though, I am just worried. I mean, he clearly can’t go to a clinic, after what you just said.”
“Well, no. He is supposed to go straight to Liz. She will help him, keep him hidden. And some blood was necessary, to set the scene. The cut bled some, but it was shallow, he’ll be fine. All he really has to do is put some pressure on it for a bit. And if there are any problems, well, Jess is a doctor, she can take care of any minor injuries he might have.”
“Right, I almost forgot about that.”
“Look, don’t worry about him, Britton is in a relatively safe position right now. We are the ones holding the bag now, so focus on yourself.”
“I should have gone with them,” she fretted.
“Nope, we discussed that. Look, Britton said it himself, right? It is time for you to go home anyway, and this is a good opportunity for that. All you need to do is what we planned for. You don’t even really need to lie; you can tell them basically everything except what happened in the last ten minutes. You can even insist Britton was helping you, because they will not believe you, anyway. Just be irritated that they are holding you and concerned about Shawn. That should be easy enough, right? Eventually, you can ‘come around’, pretend you are ‘cured’ and they should allow you to leave. Stick to the story, and it should be relatively safe.”
“Right. Right. We are doing this to protect Shawn. All we need to do is stick to the story, right?”
“Exactly. You are doing fine. They won’t hurt a human,” I hoped, “so there is no need to be too afraid.”
“Thanks, I think.”
This was a bit of a gamble, admittedly. Ashley and Monica weren’t exactly trained actors. But hopefully they didn’t need to be. They just needed to behave like traumatized ubarae victims, and that was, mostly, the truth, so it shouldn’t be too hard for them. And, with them backing up my story, it would be easier to convince Tom that I was not trying to cover anything up. I heard the door open, and pushed Ashley up against the wall, holding her more firmly as he returned.
“Well?” I asked.
“They are on it. They’ll call if they get anything. And someone is going to stop by to pick up her,” he nodded at Ashley. “And take her someplace safe. In the meantime, we should look around.”
“Right. First, let’s see if there is anyone else here.”
I secured Ashley to the radiator, and Tom and I cleared the apartment together, room by room. Finally, upon opening the door to a bedroom in the back, we ‘found’ Monica lying on the bed, as if she was asleep. She was roused and secured with Ashley, for transport. Tom questioned her, of course, but she claimed to have been unaware of anything that was going on. It was easier than them keeping their stories straight. Otherwise, the apartment search was uneventful. The place was clean and neat, the pantry and fridge were well stocked, but there were no personal items or indications of where Britton may have run to. Of course, even if there were that wasn’t where he would be, but still a bit of mystery worked in my favor, here. The more time Tom’s people spent searching, the better. Eventually, a few people I recognized from the facility showed up and took charge of the women and the apartment, and Tom and I were relieved of our duty.
“Come on, I’ll drive you back,” he said, curtly.
“What’s eating you?” I asked, following him back out to the parking lot.
“What do you think?” he muttered.
“I have no idea. I am not a mind reader, so if you have a problem with me, please, enlighten me.”
“You really don’t know?” Tom slammed the door as he climbed behind the wheel of the car. “This needed to go perfectly, and you let the guy get away! How the fuck are we supposed to explain this to Wallace? He is going to kill me for taking you out into the field.”
“Whoa now,” I closed my own door more quietly. “How do you figure that this is my fault? This is all on you, buddy.”
“What?!”
“Oh, don’t play dumb. We were working together on this; we had a plan, and you were supposed to cover his main means of escape. You didn’t. You left his car unattended, so when he ran, he was able to flee, uncontested. How is that my fault?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have tried your stupid plan in the first place. Maybe we both just should have waited for him to come out and arrested him, then.”
“That is certainly a choice you could have made. You are the one in charge, after all. But I would like to note that in that plan there is a pretty decent chance that both of the women we just rescued would have been dead by the time we went up.”
At least, based on the information that he currently had.
“I suppose that is true,” Tom mused. “Still, I am not sure this was the best plan.”
“Hey, you made it very clear that you are the one in charge, Tom. So, if you had a problem with my plan, you should have said something. Otherwise, you should have trusted me. You don’t get to blame me for what happened here.”
“Well, what are we going to tell Wallace, then?”
“We? Oh no. I am not taking the heat for this. You are the boss, you fucked it up. You are the one who is going to have to explain this to Wallace. If he wants to talk to me about it, bring him by my room when he is done yelling.”
“How is that fair?” he complained.
Maybe I was being a bit unfair. Tom was a friend, or at least he had been, I wasn’t really sure anymore. So, perhaps I was taking this too far. But he had drugged me and trapped me in a death cult, so I was pretty sure that I still had the moral high ground, here.
“Hey, you wanted to be in charge. This is what being in charge entails. Besides, this really isn’t all bad, you know.”
“No?”
“Of course not. We saved two women. And now Britton is on the run. Even if they don’t find him, I doubt he will be picking up any other victims, for a while. This was still a win, overall. Just don’t let Wally intimidate you.”
“You’re right,” Tom nodded and straightened his shoulders. “This was still successful, in a way. And so what if he got away? We know his face, and he’s injured, we’ll pick him up in no time.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Ok. I will take you back to your room, then go debrief Wallace. I’ll… I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Sounds good. Just remember, everything went according to plan.”
Depending on whose plan we were talking about, anyway. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes as we made our way back to the prison.