Ashley said, “Honey, where are your parents?”
“I don’t know. I never met them.” She took another unsteady breath, blinking against the gathering tears in her eyes. “Please don’t make me go back.”
Ashley patted her leg. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We won’t.”
*
“Either this kid is yanking our chain and happens to be a really good actress,” Ashley started.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Neither do I. Which means some weird shit is going on.”
Ashley had found some clothes for the poor girl, some sweats of her own that swallowed the little redhead whole, but were warmer than the scrubs. She already wore a pair of white, soft-soled shoes without laces, the kind prisoners might wear. That was the dark conclusion Rooster was beginning to come to: she was a prisoner of some sort. Someone who, without a name or parents, had been held captive at the very place that was offering assistance to wounded vets. The idea made him sick.
They stood in the kitchen, both of them taking turns to peek into the living room where they’d set the girl up with a blanket and a mug of hot cocoa. Ashely held her phone in her hands, thumbs flying over the screen.
“Okay, here,” she said, and Rooster glanced away from the girl – she stared down into the cocoa and its bobbing raft of mini marshmallows like someone seeing the face of God – and turned back to his landlady. “I’m on the Ingraham Institute website, right? Well, once you get past all the shiny front page stuff, miracle drugs and all that, there’s a page dedicated to the weapons technology they’re developing for all the branches of the military.”
“’Cept the Corps,” he said with a snort.
She tipped her head in acknowledgement. “Y’all will get it in fifteen years, I’m sure. But listen to this. There’s a list of their projects. Project Royal. Project Kashnikov – I don’t know about you, but that sounds super Russian to me – and some others. Then, down at the bottom: The LC-W Initiative.” She looked up from her phone, face illuminated by the screen. “Didn’t she say she was called LC-5?”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”
Ashely sighed and slipped the phone into the pocket of her robe. “What the hell’s going on over at that place?”
“I don’t–”
The back door flew open with a shower of splinters and the muted thud of a police-issue battering ram busting the lock to pieces.
Years of training honed to instinct compelled him to move, and for the first time in over a year, his body actually responded. He picked Ashely up around the waist, tucked her in tight to his chest, and launched into a tuck-and-roll that carried them up over the breakfast bar and down to the floor on the other side. Through it all, Ash didn’t make a sound, so he heard the thump of the door landing on the kitchen floor, the bark of angry male voices, the treads of a dozen pairs of boots crunching over debris, and the particular click of riot gear shifting on the human body as suited-up men poured into the house.
He took a moment to get his bearings, kneeling on the tile with Ashley caged in by his arms. She’d dropped her phone, and had one hand clapped over her mouth, breath whistling through the gaps in her fingers.
“I need a gun,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled her hand away enough to say, “Upstairs.”
Shit.
“You two behind the wall, get up,” one of the intruders commanded. “Nice and slow. Hands behind your heads.”
Weaponless, and probably harboring a fugitive, there was nothing to do but comply.
Rooster stood up first, slow as ordered, hands clenched together behind his head. He kept himself between the men and Ashley, a barrier they didn’t like.
Facing off from them was a knot of guys in helmets and all-black tac gear, armed with a combination of rifles, handguns, clear riot shields, and batons. Facial details were lost behind the clear face shields of their helmets. Too many for the small kitchen to hold, they spilled out into the hallway and the attached living room – where the redheaded girl had been only moments before. She wasn’t there now, and Rooster was strangely glad.
“Separate,” the closest guy, the leader, said, motioning to Rooster and Ashley with the end of his baton.
Rooster didn’t move; he’d shielded Deshawn before, and he would shield his wife now.
But Ash hedged away a few steps, palms facing the cops, and said, in her calmest, most commanding voice, “Problem, officers?”
“Where’s the girl?” the leader asked. He motioned over his shoulder and three of his boys broke off and headed down the hall, toward the front of the house, floorboards popping under their boots.
Rooster wasn’t a cop, so he would admit that he didn’t know the ins and outs of raid protocol, but several things stood out to him:
For starters, the girl was just that: a girl. Young and slender as a reed, and so obviously not a threat, and these guys were tricked out like they were busting up Taliban spider holes. An unarmed teenager in white pajamas shouldn’t have brought out the big guns.
Then there were the cops themselves: there was no lettering on their vests. Whether Homeland, or FBI, CIA, DEA, or even just NYPD, they should have had their agency printed in bright white across their backs.
Then there was all that stuff Ash had found about the Ingraham Institute on her phone.
Throw in the fact that Rooster’s internal alarms were going off like air raid sirens, and none of this sat right with him.
“Are you people deaf?” the leader asked. “Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?” Ashely asked, smooth as silk. “It’s just us, and my daughter. You’re the ones who broke down my door, so maybe you’d like to show me a warrant, or the next time we speak, we’ll be in court.”
Desiree! Rooster remembered with a jolt. Shit, those three guys were at the foot of the stairs. Surely they wouldn’t…
The leader took an exaggerated, aggressive step forward, baton just a handspan from Ashley’s face. “Shut up,” he said, calm, expecting to be obeyed, and all the more threatening for it.
More of his men branched off. In the living room, Rooster heard a chair overturn.
He said, “Which agency are you with?”
The baton came to his face, and hung there, a silent warning.
This wasn’t right.
“Found her!” someone called, and a moment later two men came back down the hall into the kitchen, dragging the girl between them. She resisted like a little wild cat, thrashing and struggling, kicking at them with her socked feet. They overpowered her easily.
She lifted her face and looked right at Rooster through a screen of tousled red hair, her green eyes huge and terrified. Help me.
“Be careful with her,” the leader said, turning to look over his shoulder at his men. “She burned Simmons back at the lab.”
Rooster felt Ashley step on his foot.
This wasn’t right.
He was going to do something about it.
He nodded his head, one slow, careful movement, and the girl’s brows lifted: she understood.
“Get down,” Rooster whispered to Ashley, and grabbed the baton that still wavered in front of his face. He snatched it loose, flipped it around, and the man who’d been holding it didn’t turn around fast enough.
Rooster caught him with it at the vulnerable place where the corner of his jaw met his throat, and the leader fell sideways into his own men, sending four of them down in a tangle.
The redheaded girl went up in a blaze of fire.
Fire.
Shouts. Flailing arms. Clap of riot gear crashing together.
If she was on fire, Rooster would get the extinguisher from under the kitchen counter. After he dealt with these idiots.