Page 80 of Shadowed With Fear

“Let’s get him fucking home.” Henry grumbles.

“Three.” Alex says.

“Two,” Adam groans, shifting so his weight is on his good leg.

“One,” I breath, grabbing around his was it, and lifting swiftly. He cries out, grasping me frantically.

We move fast, ducking behind anything we see along the corridor as the guards finally spot us. Alex and henry are a few steps behind, the pops of bullets hitting concrete echoing around the shallow hall.

“You got company, Grays.” Brahm’s voice cuts through the earpiece. I look back at Henry who’s already staring at me.

“Already? Alex said two!”

“Yeah, well. Maybe that was from the station. Because I’m seeing red and blues tearing down the service road right now.”

“Goddamn it,” I mutter.

“What’re we gonna do?” Adam’s eyes are wide as he looks out of a barred window, seeing the faint glow of police lights.

I look around thinking, before I look at him. “Got your lighter?”

He cracks a small grin. “Always. But what does that matter?”

“Diversion.” I smile wickedly, putting my back to him, patting my shoulder. “Hop on, pyro. We’re gonna have some fun.”

Dahlia

“News has sparked of the tragedy that befell the town of East End last night. Late, around 11 pm, a building that has been shut down for close to four years caught fire amid a shootout, according to East End’s police chief. Eight night shift guards were gunned down by masked assailants who broke into the building. The motivation is unknown at this time; however, the mayor will be making a statement outside of town hall today at noon about the situation at hand. But as you can see John, the damage is absolutely devastating. The names of the deceased have been unreleased for privacy of the families’ as they mourn their losses,” the news reporter speaks in a mundane tone as we all sit staring, not speaking, at the TV.

Adam’s leg is bandaged up, but he’s got a hell of a burn on his arm. Henry’s got a dozen small cuts on his face and hands from shattered glass. Grayson’s sitting still as a statue, a darkness cast over his blue eyes. He seems relatively unscathed by the night, as does Alex.

The badassery I thought I’d bare witness to become…

a huge fucking shitstorm of bad.

The guys were outnumbered, Adam got shot, Brahm lost connections to their bodycams, and they blew up a huge ass storage building to escape uncuffed and alive.

“Well, I have to say, all things given, the night was a success,” I mutter. Adam chirps a laugh from beside me, it’s mirthless and Brahm shakes his head.

“I mean given the alternative; this is a hell of a lot better than it could’ve been.” I cross my arms, leaning back against the couch.

Henry sighs from the recliner on the other side of Grayson’s living room. “I hate to admit it, but yeah. D’s right.”

Brahm scoffs, standing abruptly, a scathing look over the five of us around the room. “We didn’t learn fucking anything. We’re no closer to figuring out what the hell happened to mom, or even fucking Casey, Dahlia. The more we dig the more shit we find!” He storms off out the front door, the sound of his truck pulling out of the driveway the only noise in the room.

“W—What’s he talking about mom?”

Grayson sighs, standing too, and going around the couch to the kitchen. I can hear the fridge opening and closing.

Adam runs a hand down his face, the bandages on his burns peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“The reason we started doing this…All of this…It was because of what’s happened to all of us. We didn’t wake up one day and think ‘Oh, let’s go beat the shit out of creeps and abusers while finding drugs and destroying them.’

“Brahm—Grays—all of us, we’re trying to figure out the truth of this town. Why it’s gone to shit. Why no one found Casey. What really happened the night your mom died. What my dad was caught up in before he got locked up. Why Henry and Alex’s mom ended up in the psych institute. All of it.”

My mouth opens and closes. My mind is racing a million miles a second, but I just look at him, completely dumbfounded. “I—What—So you’re telling me y’all really aren’t just being like the really broke version of the Avengers for the hell of it?”

Alex chuckles. “Nah, darling. As much as I’d fucking love that. No, we aren’t. When I came to your house that night,” he sucks in a breath, and I cringe. “I worked day and night for months, and just when I thought I was finally getting somewhere. A lead. A suspect. Evidence. Everything. Just when I got close enough, I thought could touch the answer, it got swept away. Alibis, contamination, deaths or missing people, whatever the fuck. That’s why your mom’s case went cold. It wasn’t that there wasn’t any evidence—any proof—it just…disappeared.”