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  Trevor ran to his partner’s side. He checked for a pulse but found none. Cain was dead. Trevor swore angrily and began pacing.

  His partner was dead, he had a dead officer in the kitchen, and the young girl was still out of reach hiding in the panic room.

  Spade squinted out his brother’s squad car, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He had heard several gunshots fired, but they had stopped just as quickly as they had started. He waited. Nothing. No sign of Mike.

  He fidgeted back and forth, rubbing his hands up and down against his jeans.

  “Come on, Mike. Come on,” he whispered as if that could somehow help.

  He looked around in hopes of seeing some backup officers, but apart from the chaos inside the house, the street was silent.

  Think, Spade, think!

  At that moment, he was able to see an older woman trying to crawl out of the front door. Behind her was a large man dressed in black tactical clothing. Instinctively, he locked the car doors; his breathing became erratic. Spade saw him bend down with a pretty big knife in one hand and grip the woman by her hair to drag her back inside before shutting the door.

  What Spade did not see was his brother.

  “Lord, we need you. Please help us.”

  He had to do something. He searched for any kind of weapon in the car, but he found none. He caught himself slipping into thoughts of violent acts he had promised himself and God that he would never do again.

  “And just where do you think you’re going?” Trevor asked the woman. He turned her over onto her back, placed both of his knees onto her chest and held Cain’s knife right at her left eye.

  Trevor didn’t know how she was still alive, but he was glad she was. She was about to save this entire operation and make him a very rich man.

  “Listen here, grandma, I need the passcode to that there panic room.”

  The woman whimpered and sobbed at the mention of the room.

  “Yeah, I know about the little room. It’s just a matter of time before I get in there. If you tell me how to open the door, I promise I will kill you quickly. Assuming that’s even possible,” he laughed. “You are one leathery trick, grandma. I’ll give you that.”

  Since Cain was dead now, he no longer had to split the bounty. He was going to miss Cain, but that other half of the money would keep him company just the same. He chuckled at the thought, but it wasn’t going to happen without getting this woman to talk. However, she kept silent.

  “Look here, granny, I’m going to count to three. After three I’m going to stick this knife in your eye. You may not die from it too, given your recent history,” he laughed, “but you will most assuredly be half blind. That much I reckon is certain. What’s the passcode to get in the room?”

  The woman closed her eyes and whispered. He thought he heard her say “Jehovah,” but it was faint.

  “Don’t waste your last words talking to God. I’m about to send you to see Him, anyway. Y’all will have all of eternity to talk to one another. Right now, I need you to talk to me, okay? I need that passcode. Let’s count, shall we? One…”

  The woman looked toward the panic room. She whispered all the more fervently and shut her eyes tightly.

  “Two…”

  Spade hopped over into the driver’s seat to start the squad car. Seeing that no one at the house seemed to notice, he backed up a good distance away. After stopping and shifting the car into drive, he took a deep breath as the car idled.

  Without thinking, he floored it, and the car streaked down the residential street. As the front door edged closer and closer, Spade inwardly questioned the sensibility of this plan.

  “Three…”

  CRASH!

  Brick, siding, glass, mortar, wood and furniture detonated like fireworks on the Fourth of July as a police car came barreling through the house. Car and driver smashed violently into the wall next to the flat screen television, causing it to not only dismount, but ricochet clear across the room. When the dust settled, all anyone could hear was the sound of chaos coming to rest, the spinning back right wheel, and the perpetual hum of the engine as the car tried to press beyond the wall it had become united with.

  The driver lay draped in his own blood across a deployed airbag, several shards of glass from the windshield and side windows, and what was left of the steering column. After a few moments, the car shut off on its own, and as fortune would have it, the panic room door clicked open slightly ajar.

  Trevor smiled.

  “Grandma, I don’t know what you prayed, but praise baby Jesus, it worked. Hallelujah, you get to keep your eyes a little bit longer.”

  He hastily got up to get to the panic room. This little girl had caused enough problems. It was definitely time to get her and get out of here; he could already hear faint sirens in the distance.

  As he walked past the car, he peeked in what was left of the passenger window, which revealed a young man, maybe 27 or 28 at the most.

  Trevor also noticed that he wasn’t wearing a uniform. Before he could consider it further, he heard a noise come from the panic room.

  Blood pouring forth from his forehead, every fiber of Spade’s body cried out in tremendous pain. He tried to wiggle his toes, but they wouldn’t move. In fact, he couldn’t feel his legs at all. Fear and panic suddenly took control as the thought that he might not walk again pushed past thoughts of self-preservation. But as badly as he wanted them to, his legs would not move. A tap at the passenger side door caught his attention.

  Spade eased his head around. The man shook his head upon seeing Spade’s condition. Tall and muscular, he sported a tattoo on his left bicep of a clubs suit symbol from a deck of playing cards, but inside it were two faces looking in opposite directions. He had long, dirty blonde hair tied into a ponytail, either the beginnings of a beard or had just gone too long without shaving, and his neck veins pulsed visibly enough to resemble a road map as he drew breath to speak.

  “You are one stupid son of a gun, but I respect the effort,” the man said before turning his attention to a room that appeared to have opened out of nowhere.

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty…” Trevor taunted as he entered the panic room. Larger than it appeared from the outside, it was filled with perishable items, bottles of water, air mattresses, canned goods and other items suitable for an extended stay. It took him several seconds of scanning the room, but at long last, in the corner, underneath several blankets, he made out the silhouette of a small child. Trevor unsheathed his knife and cleared his throat to get her attention. A few moments later the child removed the blankets and stood to face her assailant, accepting the situation.

  “You’ve got nowhere else to run, little darling,” said Trevor.

  The young girl simply stared at him without responding.

  Trevor sighed, took a few steps toward the child, but stopped when she bowed her head in what seemed to be silent prayer. Trevor rolled his eyes and grabbed her forcefully by her ponytail.

  BANG!

  “ARRRG!” Trevor dropped his knife and wailed as pain coursed through his right shoulder.

  BANG!

  More pain, this time erupting from Trevor’s left quad, caused him to buckle and fall to the floor. A voice called out from behind him to the young girl.

  “Move!”

  The child sprinted out of the panic room. Trevor turned to see who had shot him. He was stunned when he realized that it was the police officer he had emptied his clip into just minutes earlier. The man had crawled on his stomach to the panic room and now held him at gunpoint. Trevor raised his hands, grimacing as the adrenaline was wearing off.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” the officer uttered, still in extreme pain from his own gunshot wounds. “You have the right to an att…”

  Trevor did not wait for the man to finish reading him his Miranda rights. Instead, he bolted toward the gaping wall at the front of the house, gambling that he could make it out before the cop could get off a clean…

>   BANG!

  Trevor swore in pain as three of the fingers on his left hand separated from his body and landed in the bushes just outside of the house. The officer let off several more shots, each just missing him. Trevor hobbled down the street, gripping his injured hand, as adrenaline and sheer will kept him moving.

  Mike calmed his breathing and exhaled, his own adrenaline subsiding and replaced by the reminder that he had more bullets in his body than he had left in his gun. After several moments he noticed the young girl was kneeling over him and smiling.

  “Mike!”

  Mike heard his brother call out. When he turned to look back, the young girl reached out for him. He took her hand, unfastened his badge and placed it in her hand.

  “Take this and give it to my brother. Tell him he passed his ride-along,” Mike whispered.

  The child put the badge in her pocket. She went to the driver’s side door to his brother.

  “Mike!”

  Spade yelled out for his brother, but he was powerless to get to him. He tried desperately to move his legs, but they would not respond. All of a sudden, there was a tap on the window. Spade noticed the young girl that he had seen running out of the hidden room, standing there looking at him.

  She pulled at the driver’s side door handle, only to find it locked. She smiled at Spade and pointed to the lock. As luck would have it, Spade was mangled just so and could get his fingers around the lock.

  She opened the door and eased Spade backwards into an upright posture. Blood flowed from his forehead, down his face, some into his eyes. Without saying a word, she looked him up and down, locked eyes and pointed at his legs—a question in her eyes that asked, “It’s your legs that don’t work, right?”

  Spade wasn’t sure why, but he nodded as best he could. The young girl glanced briefly toward the doorway and considered the older woman who seemed to mean a great deal to her. After a moment she turned back to Spade, her young mind seemingly made up about what she needed to do.

  And what she did, he would never forget.

  The girl’s eyes shone a brilliant white until the pupils were no longer visible. She held her hands near his legs for several moments until the glow of her eyes dimmed. Once they were back to normal, she smiled, looked at Spade and his legs. He had a quizzical look on his face and sighed, his body still feeling the effects of crashing through the door and into the wall. The girl, still silent, looked at Spade again and then at his legs.

  “What are trying to tell me?” he finally asked.

  SLAP!

  She struck his legs and Spade cried out in pain, stopping just short of swearing. He glared at her until he realized what had just happened.

  All of sudden he wasn’t crippled.

  Somehow, this child had completely healed his legs without so much as touching them. She gestured for him to exit the vehicle.

  Spade got out of the mangled car as best as he could. Once free he ran over to check on his brother, only to discover that he was dead. Instantly, his healed legs gave out and he fell to his knees.

  “No … no …” he sobbed quietly, holding him gently by his head. He stroked Mike’s lifeless skull and spoke to him.

  “Mike, I’m here, man. Shhh, it’s going to be okay. Jesus is going to make it all right, I promise. Just stay with me, okay? Stay with me, Michael. Don’t you leave me.”

  Squatting next to Spade, the young girl stroked his back as tears escaped his eyes; the realization that his brother was dead settling in. She gestured to the door. Spade noticed the older woman lying on her back in a pool of dried blood.

  Spade took the girl’s hand as she led him to the woman. When he reached her, he expected her to be dead, but to his surprise, she was still breathing very faintly.

  The woman whispered something that Spade couldn’t make out. His attention wandered to his brother, but the little girl tightened her grip on his hand, refocusing his attention on the woman. Spade crouched down closer to the woman. As he leaned in, he noticed her eyes flicker slightly white like the little girl’s had done, but then go back to normal just as quickly. Once he was close enough she spoke to him again.

  “What…ever you do … don’t … don’t let them t-take her…” the woman whispered painfully, as her breath began giving out.

  The sounds of wailing police sirens drifted in as two unmarked vehicles came to a screeching halt out in front. Spade turned to look, but the woman gripped his arm and forced him to look at her.

  “You … need to get out of … here, you have … to pr-protect her. He’s coming for her. Don’t trust anyone. Promise me…”

  Spade wasn’t sure why but he nodded. Satisfied, the woman laid back and closed her eyes. The young girl reached out with her hand to heal her, but the woman shook her head no. Instead, the woman held out her own hand, and the young girl took it, kissed it and laid it on the woman’s chest.

  Two men exited the unmarked vehicles and whistled at the damage to the house as they made their way to what used to be the door. The young girl suddenly grabbed Spade’s hand and pulled him toward the back exit. As they were about to head out, Spade ran back over to say one final silent goodbye to his big brother before taking off down the back alley with the young girl.

  In full tactical military gear, Trevor hobbled down a residential street in broad daylight, carrying a gun and a knife while leaving behind a trail of blood as he walked. The extraction had been a failure; that much was obvious. He would have to explain things to Mr. Silas, certainly, but paramount in the moment was getting off the grid. He pulled out his smartphone, unlocked it with his thumb print and texted “CL3AN3R” to a private number. It wasn’t long before a black vehicle pulled up next to him.

  “Get in” the driver commanded.

  The car pulled off as if nothing was amiss just as a group of Police Interceptors came speeding past with lights blaring.

  2: Choices

  Trevor Thorn awakened to find himself naked in what his sleep-filled eyes perceived to be a sizeable laboratory. The brushed aluminum walls led up to a bright white ceiling illuminated through some means of recessed lighting. To his left, embedded in the wall was a single panel that appeared to be an alarm system. It featured a series of red buttons resting beneath an interface. A similar panel on the wall to his right had a silhouette of a hand and what he assumed was a retinal scanner perched above it. The room was cold, very sterile and apart from the steel table he was lying on, rather empty.

  When he attempted to sit up, he realized that his arms were shackled to the back legs of the table, and thick silver chains restrained his feet. Fortunately, his injured hand and leg had been treated.

  A sound like a lock unlatching filled the room, followed by the lights brightening. The walls in front of him slid open to reveal a tall Caucasian man in a dark suit perfectly tailored to fit his tall and lean frame. He carried a steel-folding chair in his left hand. Upon entering, he unfolded it down on the floor. He took a seat, crossed his legs, and rested his hands on his knee. In his hands were a pair of hand-sewn, Italian lambskin leather driving gloves and on his feet were a pair of $12,000, handmade, custom, Lucchese, American alligator cowboy boots. They sat in silence for several moments.

  At long last he spoke.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Trevor nodded like a teenager who had been caught surfing for pornography on the Internet. He had never met Damien Silas, but everyone employed by Project January had heard of him.

  Silas could not walk on water, speak light into existence, nor feed 5,000 men with a few loaves of bread and fish, but for all intents and purposes, he was god. Silas was the man that you quietly hoped you would never actually meet. Things generally did not end well for those who did.

  Sweaty beads of fear emerged from Trevor’s pores and slid down the sides of his face as the hopelessness of his current situation became progressively evident.

  “Do you understand why you are here?”

  Trevor didn’t actually know
the precise reasons why he was naked and chained to a metal table, but one did not have to be a member of MENSA to figure it out.

  He nodded yes.

  “Excellent. Then this should not take very long,” Silas stated as he stood to his feet and pressed one of the red buttons on the panel in the left wall. “Send Mr. Arata in, please.”

  A short, stout Asian man carrying a large black duffle bag on his shoulder and a ream of rolled plastic under his left arm walked into the laboratory. After setting the items down, he removed a Bow Viper handsaw, several towels, assorted bandages and a syringe filled with a clear liquid from the duffle bag.

  “Mr. Arata, this is Trevor Thorn. Mr. Thorn is here because a nine-year-old child managed to somehow escape from him and one other heavily fortified soldier. Because of this failure, we are going to give him a choice.”

  Arata nodded his understanding but said nothing.

  “You have failed me and caused me to take a loss, Mr. Thorn. Therefore, you must now also suffer a loss. This is only fair, yes?”

  Sweat bathed Trevor’s face as the heat of reality marinated further in his mind. The sight of the handsaw along with the mention of “suffering a loss” was not lost on him. Not one single bit. He continued to listen and quell his fear, though not very effectively.

  “Your injured leg now belongs to me. Mr. Arata is going use the saw to remove it from your body. He will then wrap it in the plastic he brought with him and place it in a freezer in the basement of this facility for my personal enjoyment.”