DutyBoundARe (38 page)

“I’m okay. Jacques is almost to the side of the house. I just drew their fire.” She twisted and leaned to the side, peering around the cinderblocks.

John wasn’t there anymore.

Odalia lay on her stomach and aimed at the stump again. She fired one shot and waited.

No return fire.

“Something’s wrong. They’re ignoring me now. Jacques?”

“I smell smoke.” His words chilled her. The house was so old, the wood so rotten that it would go up like flash paper.

“Is the house on fire?” Karen asked.

Odalia scanned the windows, peering at the edges of the house set against the bright blue morning sky.

“No, I don’t see any smoke. Wait! Yes, there’s smoke. It’s coming out of the left side of the house. Jacques? Do you see anything?”

“Windows are all drawn. I got nothing. We need to get in there,
bébé
.”

“Karen, how far away is back-up? Shit, that smoke is starting to pour out. There’s not time.”

“They’re at least five minutes out.” Karen’s voice was fraught with worry.

“Fuck. Okay, I’m going to draw their fire, Jacques, go in the back,” Odalia said before she could think better of it. Jacques wasn’t exactly the type to take orders from anyone, including her.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said, startling her.

“Okay.” She blew out a breath and wrapped both hands around her gun. “On three. One. Two. Three.”

Odalia straightened and aimed for the window. If John shot at her this time, she’d have to shoot to kill.

Except nothing moved.

She could hear the
thump, thump, thump
of Jacques’ boots on wood through the headset, then a grunt and the sound of rustling.

“What’s going on?” Karen asked.

“Jacques?” Odalia started toward the house.

He didn’t answer. Odalia broke into a run, sprinting for the front of the house. She yanked the front door open and flattened her back against the house, peering around the door jam.

The girl she’d seen in the ice cream truck lay bound and gagged on the floor. She’d rolled over mostly onto her back. Her eyes were large, fear rimmed.

“Jacques?” she yelled.

A hazy black fog hung in the air, growing thicker. Smoke.

“I’m here.” Jacques entered through what appeared to be the kitchen. “They rushed me as I came up the stairs and ran out back, just the man and woman.”

“I need your knife. We need to get anyone else out of here and put that fire out.” Odalia knelt by the girl.

Jacques handed her a six-inch hunting knife he always kept on his person.

“I have one teenage girl here.” Odalia sliced through the ropes like butter. Jacques liked a very sharp knife. “I’m Officer Foucheaux. You’re okay. What’s your name?”

“Michelle,” the girl sobbed.

“Were there any other people, Michelle?” Odalia helped the girl to her feet.

“No.”

“I need you to go out to the road. There’s a Jeep. Get inside of it and wait for the police.”

Michelle ran for the road. Odalia turned and blinked, her eyes already watering from the smoke.

“Odalia, downstairs,” Jacques said through the headset.

She headed for the kitchen where a set of stairs led down into what must have once been a root cellar. Except now it was lined with at least nine, large dog crates. And inside four of them were more teens, except these boys and girls were emaciated, their limbs skinny and clothes dirty.

Flames licked the side of the cellar. A dirty rag heap raged with far more intensity than bits of cloth should have. John and his wife must have used an accelerant: gasoline, alcohol or any one of a number of other household items.

Jacques held part of his shirt over his mouth and was trying to beat the flames out.

“Karen, I’ve got a lot of kids down here and there’s a fire. We need that back-up now.”

“Help,” one of the girls said. She grasped the bars and rattled them.

The others took up her chant, seeming to finally realize they weren’t their captors.

“We’re going to get you out of here.” Odalia approached the first crate closest to the flames. The crate was locked and she didn’t have time to pick the lock. She met the eyes of a scared boy who couldn’t have been much older than thirteen, if that. “I need for you to get as far back as you can. I’m going to kick the door in.”

He nodded and balled up inside the crate. It wasn’t even big enough for him to stand up in or stretch his limbs.

Odalia took a step back and kicked with all her might. The cage rattled and the top hinge hung a little lopsided. She kicked again and again and again before the door hung on by chance alone. She grasped the wire door and yanked it free.

She didn’t know if they would be able to save all the children. The smoke was almost so thick she couldn’t see the other cages, and they didn’t know what other horrors this house held.

chapter Three

Tracking

Jacques knew they couldn’t put out the fire. It had already caught the floorboards above on fire and from there, it would collapse the house. They were going to have to give this up and focus on getting the kids.

“Help is on the way,” Karen chanted in his ear. The woman was holding it together with the strength of Samson, but right now he needed more hands, not words.

Another of those damn cage doors clanged open and he caught a glimpse of a second walking skeleton trying to climb the stairs. When he found those fuckers, he’d make them hurt for what they did to these children. He didn’t care what the letter of the law said to do, no one should hurt children.

“Fuck it.”

He whirled and three strides until he was at the last cage and kicked. The door came apart as if it were built of toothpicks. The brunette girl inside stared at him, tears making the grime on her face smear.

“Come on, baby girl.” He reached inside and had to help her move, practically picking her up and lifting her out of the prison. He would make sure whatever pain those two creeps suffered would last. “I’ve got you,” he said to the girl.

Odalia got the last cage open and helped the boy out.

The brunette put her feet on the ground and almost collapsed. She clung to the front of his shirt, her eyes wide.

“T-the others,” she said.

“There are more?” He picked her up and followed Odalia up the stairs. A coughing fit took him as it became almost impossible to breathe.

“Karen, these kids say there are more people here.” He could hear Odalia better over the headset than over the fire.

“I’ve got these two, you go upstairs,” Jacques said as they reached the kitchen.

She transferred the boy’s grip to his arm and he started toward the front of the house. God, he didn’t want Odalia in this house. The kitchen wasn’t on fire, but whatever was next to it had to be.

He got the two kids out the front of the house and urged them farther. He could see the first child cradling a little boy up by the road. Sirens could still be heard in the distance, but they might not make it in time.

“I need you two to go up to the road. Can you make it?” He set the brunette down.

She turned and grabbed him. “Please, the others.”

“Yes, I know. I’m going back for them, I promise. We’ll get them out.”

She nodded and took several wobbling steps. He had to turn his back on her even though all he wanted to do was hold the poor thing and weep for the innocence she’d lost. Instead, he raced back into the house. Flames were tearing across the living room and out from under the stairs that opened up into the foyer. If he went upstairs, he might not have a way back down.

Bam. Crash.

But Odalia was upstairs and knocking down doors, it would seem. He took the stairs two and three at a time.

Odalia had begun at the end of the hall. One door stood open and she’d begun her assault on the next. She stepped back and so did a figure at her side. They both kicked. The door rattled in its hinges. He didn’t stop to ask, if whoever was in these rooms could help they’d take it.

He grabbed the first door on his left and twisted. It rattled in the doorjamb, but not by his power.

“Help me, please!” was the muffled cry from inside.

“Step back, I’m going to kick the door down.”

He gave them a few seconds, stepped back and hit it squarely with his boot. Two of the three hinges popped off.

Two sets of eyes stared at him. The twins clung to each other, staring at him as if he weren’t real.

“Are you hurt?” he stepped through the door.

The two girls pressed up against the wall.

What was he supposed to do with them?

“The house is on fire, you need to get out. I’m going to step back. Will you go downstairs and outside if I step back?”

The girls nodded. Well then, that was one solution.

He backed up and went one door down. The girls peeked around the door, but he really didn’t have time to coax them out. Screaming had started behind his second door. Adrenaline gave him the strength to knock it almost clean off its hinges in one kick. He owed his fellow bounty hunter, Remy, for dragging all of them out to practice just this maneuver.

A Hispanic boy scurried out from under the door as flames crawled up his curtains.

“Shit. Get out, now,” he said to the boy. Jacques turned. There were still three closed doors. Odalia and a little gaggle of teens were at work on another door. “Odalia, those kids need to get out of here, this place is going to start coming down.”

She said something to the kids or maybe it was Karen’s voice in the headset. Between the blood rushing past his ears and the fire, it was hard to hear her.

The kids pressed close to the wall and made for the stairs. Somewhere else, wood splintered and cracked. This house was going to come down around them if they didn’t get out soon. His vision was growing fuzzy from the lack of oxygen and the smoke in his lungs, but he’d die before he left anyone behind.

He kicked down another door, but this time it took two tries. He stepped into the room and froze. There weren’t any children here. It must have been where the couple slept. Pictures of the children were tacked up on the wall with an aged photograph next to them, as if there were some correlation between the adults in those pictures and the children. He didn’t have time to puzzle it out, but he grabbed a handful of the images and shoved them down his shirt.

Odalia was at work on another door. One more and they were out.

“I can’t get it,” Odalia yelled between coughing.

“Get out of here,” he got out in a wheeze as he crossed to her.

“No, I’m not leaving you.”

“Together then. On three.” The heat was near unbearable. His clothes stuck to him and the sweat got in his eyes, making it even harder to see.

“Kick now.”

Half a second behind her, he nailed the door with his heel. It cracked in half, the hinges not even budging.

“Oh fuck,” he said. “Get the other door.”

A person, he wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl, alive or dead, lay on the bed. One arm flopped. Alive then.

Jacques could hear Odalia coughing and hitting the last door while he crossed to this poor soul. He didn’t bother with words. Couldn’t at this point. Emotion and smoke clogged his throat. He gathered the teen in his arms and braced himself as the floor shifted.

Fuck.

He crossed to the door, glimpsing flames around the windows across the hall.

Odalia was half-carrying another teen. He followed her to the stairs, but their way was barred by a wall of fire.

“Out the window,” he yelled and ducked into a room on their right.

Odalia followed, going straight for the window, except it was nailed shut and had chicken wire over the panes. There wasn’t even furniture in the room to use to break it down.

He lay the teen down on the floor and motioned for Odalia and the other to step back. He pulled off his shirt, pushing the pictures at Odalia and wrapped it around his hand for a cushion. With a single step, he put his whole force behind the punch, cracking the glass. The wire bent under his force and wood splintered.

It wasn’t enough.

Movement down below caught his eye, but the glass was too dirty to make them out. He hauled back and punched again. And again.

A hand touched his back and Odalia was next to him. She had a dirty bit of cloth around her hand. As one, they took a half step back, one step forward and swung. The combined force popped the chicken wire off and more glass shattered.

“Again,” he thought he heard, but couldn’t be sure.

Once more they hit the window and he could feel the fresh breeze on his skin. He set his hands against the frame and pushed. It creaked and groaned, giving a little, a little more, and then slid completely out of the housing.

“Go, go, go,” he yelled at Odalia and the able bodied teen.

He scooped up his precious charge and stepped through the opening and onto the slanted roof. Oxygen stung his throat and his whole body tingled. He was dizzy and the roof was old, slippery.

Sirens clamored all around them and a red fire engine rolled onto the grass, the ladder extended up toward them. The house shuddered as more beams collapsed inside. The firemen reacted fast, guiding first the teen then Odalia down.

He edged toward the ladder, unsure how to get the teen down. There was no fight left in the nearly lifeless body in his arms.

The firemen seemed to understand and came up the ladder to him. In one motion he slung the teen over his shoulder and crawled onto the rungs. Jacques wobbled as the house shifted. His ass hit the shingles and his legs slid over the edge of the roof. He made a wild grab for the ladder as it shot past him, closing his hands around the rungs. His shoulders screamed as his weight dropped onto the joints, but he wasn’t dead.

It was only a six-foot drop to the ground, so he let go, landing and going to his knees. Firemen were by his side almost immediately, ushering him toward the road. He glanced around, relieved to see the area swarmed with police, paramedics, and firemen.

“Karen?” he croaked.

“I’m still here.” Her voice was calm, steady. The woman had nerves of steel.

“Everyone’s out.”