Saved by Venom: 3 (Grabbed) (30 page)

When they stepped into the alley, Hopper was waiting for them. “I figured I would see you soon.”

Pierce immediately stepped between them and pushed Dizzy back toward the wall of the café to protect her. “How did you know we were coming?”

“Uh, dude, I’m not freaking blind.” Hopper pointed toward the sky. “I can also hear.” She fished a small radio from her pocket. “The Red Feather chain has been lit up tonight. Mouth swears you guys kicked her off her usual frequency. She’s using a backup to give out information.”

“Great,” Pierce growled. “That’s all we need.”

Dizzy squeezed out from behind Pierce. “Look, Hopper, we don’t have a lot of time. I need your help. My dad is missing—”

“He’s not missing. He’s a prisoner.” Hopper flipped up the hood of her purple hoodie to cover her hair. “We need to move. The Splinter rats are everywhere tonight. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

“Neither do we.” Pierce gave Dizzy a push forward and followed close behind as they navigated the intersecting alleys of Low Town. Hopper led them to one of the more remote access spots for the abandoned subway tunnels. She pushed aside a heavy slab of wood to reveal a small manhole.

“It’s an abandoned water-testing checkpoint,” Hopper explained. Sizing up Pierce, she added, “Unless you want to get stuck, you’d better suck it in.”

“Ha-ha,” Pierce replied dryly.

Dizzy smiled as she followed Hopper through the small access panel and into the underground room. It smelled so musty and wet. She didn’t know how anyone could stand to live in these dank, dark sections of the tunnels.

Hopper snapped on a couple of battery-operated lanterns to illuminate the space, sat on an overturned bucket and gestured to another one for Dizzy. “Not far from here, there’s a subway tunnel section that runs parallel to the Low Town sewers. The section has been blocked off for a few months. I had heard from some of the moles—”

“Moles?” Pierce interrupted.

“Old-timers who have lived in these tunnels for decades,” she clarified. “Most of them can’t even see above ground anymore. They’ve all got wet lung.” She waved her hand. “Anyway. The moles were saying that certain sections of their tunnels were caved in and blocked. I was concerned about instability because there are a lot of kids coming down here for refuge at night, especially whenever the snatcher rumors start.”

“Snatchers?” Pierce sounded curious.

“Sex slavers,” Dizzy explained. “They snatch street kids because they won’t be missed. There have been rumors about the sex trade off the colonies.”

Hopper huffed with disgust. “Apparently it’s a growing business for the Splinters.”

Dizzy perched on the edge of the bucket. “What did you find when you went looking for the blocked tunnels?”

“What do you think?” Hopper shook her head. “The Splinters and Sixers were using that section as an underground warehouse. Ever since the food riots and that bust-up at the battery factory, they’ve been looking for alternative places to conduct their business, especially now that the government is doing public crackdowns for publicity. There are crates stacked all over the place down there.”

“Weapons? Food?”

She nodded in response to Pierce’s question. “I think they may be experimenting too.”

“Experimenting?” Dizzy asked, aghast. “With what?”

Hopper pushed down her hood and combed her fingers through her brightly hued hair. “About a month ago, I was walking the tunnels and I found a pile of bodies in an old storage compartment. The smell…” Her eyes closed and she looked sick. “I don’t know what they did to them but they weren’t killed with guns or knives.”

Pierce crouched down between them. “Gas?”

She shrugged. “Maybe? I wouldn’t know what that kind of death looks like. All I know is that these people were packed into that room and it seemed like they’d all dropped dead on top of one another.” Hopper shrugged. “After that, I put that area on quarantine. I told everyone to stay away from that section and they have.”

“But?” Dizzy sensed Hopper was about to drop something important.

“Right after you were Grabbed, I saw your dad hanging around one of the tunnel junctions. I thought that was weird because, I mean, I never see him down here. He’s always kept his business up top. Then—a few days ago—Ella comes to see me, right? And she tells me that she ran into your dad and he looked panicked. She thought this loan shark story was bogus.”

“It was,” Dizzy assured her. “There’s so much more to it.”

“I figured.” Hopper held out her hand to Pierce. “You want me to start drawing or what?”

“Do you know how to use a tablet?” Pierce retrieved one from an interior pocket of his jacket.

“Yes.”

Pierce tapped at the screen before handing it to her. “It doesn’t have to be precise but I need details. I need to know approximate dimensions, ingress and egress routes, blind spots—”

“Yeah. I got it.” Hopper started to draw. “So—anyway—two nights ago, I’m trying to help Molly Mack hunt down one of her wayward twins and what do I see? Your dad with two Splinter dickheads. He was cuffed and gagged and they were pushing him toward that back section. I knew right then that this thing—whatever the hell it is—was so much bigger than I had ever imagined.”

Dizzy’s stomach churned violently. Was her dad still alive? Had the Splinters gotten what they wanted from him and killed him already? She couldn’t stand the thought of the nasty things she had said to him being the last words ever spoken between them.

After twenty minutes of sketching and scribbling, Hopper handed over the tablet. Pierce tapped the mic hidden in his watch and lifted it to his mouth. “Cherry 1 to SRU Alpha. Cherry 1 to SRU Alpha.”

Dizzy could only hear Pierce’s side of the conversation but it sounded as though it was going well as he transferred the schematics. She prayed Hopper’s intel would keep Venom safe and help them locate her father, the fuel rods and Terror.

Hopper tapped Dizzy’s knee. “So what’s it like up there?”

“Different,” she said.

“Different good or different bad?”

“Different good.”

“What’s the ship like? Huge?”

“It’s incredibly huge. Everything is so clean and neat. There’s ample food, good water and doctors. It’s so easy to forget that I’m floating in space.”

“And the men?” Hopper raised an eyebrow and tilted her head in Pierce’s direction.

“They’re…interesting.”

“I bet.” Hopper looked hopeful. “But you’re happy? I mean, your guy treats you well?”

“I’m very happy. My guy treats me very, very well.”

“That’s good. I worried that you might—”

An overhead sound interrupted their discussion. Immediately Hopper was on her feet. She snatched the lanterns from the shelf, switched off all but one and pressed a finger to her mouth, indicating silence. Pierce gently pushed Dizzy out of the way as men’s voices grew louder above them. Hopper pointed down the dimly lit horizontal shaft and the Shadow Force operative nodded.

Hot on Hopper’s heels, Dizzy rushed after her friend. The manhole cover made a scraping sound as it was moved. Pierce was right behind them and whispering into his radio mic. Her heart was pounding so hard Dizzy couldn’t make out any of the words he hissed. She thought he might have said Torment’s name but all she could hear clearly was the
whoosh
of blood thundering against her eardrums.

Suddenly the darkened tunnel lit up as electricity was restored to the section they were running down. A man behind them shouted, “There! Up ahead! We’ve got them!”

Pierce cursed before ordering, “Move it, ladies.”

“There’s a ground-access shaft not far ahead.”

“Faster!”

Dizzy kicked it into high gear, racing after Hopper. She made the mistake of glancing back and saw a group of heavily armed men chasing them. They had weapons that were older, projectile-firing models unlike the highly advanced energy burst weaponry of the Harcos. Pierce had pistols in the holsters under his jacket but she doubted one man could protect them against the seven she counted.

A second later, Pierce proved her doubts were misplaced. With all the ease and skill of a covert operative, he spun around and fired upon the group. Looking back, she watched two men drop like rocks. Another one fell to his knees and clutched his bleeding gut.

Though he had narrowed the odds considerably in their favor, there were still four armed-to-the-teeth men in hot pursuit. Bullets fired from behind them snapped against the concrete walls. She heard a sharp gasp and glanced back to see that a pair of ricochets had clipped Pierce. Bloody spots blossomed on his pant leg and his gray shirt. Shockingly the wounds didn’t seem to slow him down.

Pierce traded shots with the crew chasing them and dropped another two men. As they rounded a corner, Hopper snatched Dizzy’s hand and dragged her into a cutout section of the wall. Pierce used his body to box them into the space. While Pierce ripped a knife from his waist sheath, she held her breath in anticipation of the two men who would soon appear.

Showing his deadly skills, Pierce stabbed the first man to come around the corner right in the neck and slashed backward. With his other hand, he lifted his weapon and fired at the dying man’s stunned companion. The bright burst popped him in the temple and put him down instantly.

Aghast and horrified by the violence, Dizzy could hardly breathe. Shocked into silence, she watched Pierce rifle through the pockets of the two men in search of useful intelligence. He slipped a few things into his own pockets before gesturing ahead. “Get us out of here, Hopper.”

She dragged her wide-eyed gaze from the bloody carnage and nodded. “Yeah. Um…okay. This way.”

Swallowing hard, Dizzy touched his arm. “Pierce, you’re bleeding. We need to do something about your wounds.”

He shook his head. “They’ll keep. These seven probably weren’t alone. We’ve got to get out of these tunnels.” He touched his bleeding side. “A couple of grazes will be the least of my worries if I don’t get you back to Venom and General Thorn in one piece.”

“Hey! Come on!” Hopper sounded as though she wanted to get the hell out of there and Dizzy didn’t blame her. This was way more than she had bargained for when she had offered to help.

They raced along the tunnels for another ten minutes or so before finally reaching an access shaft. The busted-out lights overhead plunged them into darkness but Hopper still had the battery-operated lantern with her. It barely illuminated the dark space. Dizzy tried not to think about what sorts of creepy, crawly things might be hiding around the ladder in the grungy tube.

Hopper climbed out on the surface first and tugged Dizzy up after her. Pierce had just cleared his head when all hell broke loose.

A man rushed from the shadows and snatched Hopper. Another one grabbed Dizzy’s arms and dragged her clear of the shaft. She screamed as a third man kicked Pierce in the back of the head, instantly knocking him unconscious.

“Pierce!” There was nothing to catch his slack body and he dropped down the ladder shaft, knocking into the rungs before hitting the concrete floor with a sickening thud. Was the fall survivable? She prayed so.

A black hood covered her head and someone taped her wrists together. From the spitting-mad sounds coming from Hopper, she figured her friend had just endured the same thing. A cruel hand gripped the back of her neck and propelled her forward.

Dizzy had no choice but to walk. If she didn’t, these men wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between her eyes or Hopper’s. She figured they had a reason for keeping them both alive. Sooner or later Venom would find her—and she intended to be alive when that happened.

Jaw tense, Venom slowly crept along the pitch-black tunnels. The team followed slow-moving robotic balls that mapped the tunnels in real time and relayed the information to their headsets and combat glasses.

The hand-drawn maps and information Dizzy’s friend had provided had proven invaluable so far. Though the advantage remained with the Splinter crew that had taken over this tunnel section, the SRU team outmatched them when it came to training and firepower.

“I’m picking up a G42 trail.” Cipher’s voice dinged Venom’s ear via the bud firmly planted there.

“Do we have a leak?” Raze continued moving forward despite the danger.

“Yes. The levels are extremely low and within the safety limits but let’s try not to stick around any longer than necessary.”

“Copy that,” Raze muttered.

“At least we know we’re in the right place,” Fierce hissed.

“We should expect a heavily armed presence,” Venom added. “Let’s keep it tight. Weapons hot.”

Following the path they had memorized, they took two left turns and a right. At the end of the hall, they would take one more left to reach the last door that allowed for easy access to the Splinter-controlled section.

“Skyhawk 97 to SRU Alpha.”

“SRU Alpha,” Raze answered the call from the pilots of the stealth ship that had brought them to the surface and served as the command center for the mission.

“The debris field has cleared substantially. Satellite coms are back in action. Support teams are in place. Hazardous material crew is on standby to retrieve rods when secured.”

“Copy.”

When they reached the end of the hall, they hugged the wall so Cipher could perform recon on the door down to the left. He scanned with his penetrating and heat-seeking radar to create a better picture of what they faced.

Venom eyed the real-time feed on his glasses. Eleven men, most of them sitting around in chairs, seemed to be guarding the ceiling-high stack of fuel rods. The cases containing the rods showed up white-hot on Cipher’s scan.

In another corner, a huddled body lit up the scan. Judging by the size, it was a man but his arms looked forced behind his back and his legs looked tightly bound.

“Looks like we have a prisoner,” Cipher said. “He’s breathing but not moving.”

“Is it Terror?” Hope filled Raze’s voice.

“I can’t tell.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Venom interjected. As the tactical operations man, it was his decision to make. “Scenario one remains in play. Threat, when we breach, you cover the prisoner. Cipher, stick with the fuel rods. Fierce, Raze, you’re with me. Threat, get that door ready to blow.”

“On it,” Threat said and hurried forward with his bag of explosive tricks.

While Threat applied discs for controlled mini-bursts to the door’s frame, Venom ran the various scenarios in his head. These dynamic situations could quickly spiral out of control. They trained for every possibility, running the same exercises twenty different ways. Whatever happened once that door was blown, Venom knew that the team would respond appropriately and efficiently.

“Charges primed,” Threat said as he hurried back to rejoin the team against the wall. “Execute in five, four—”

“Hold! Raze, damn it! Hold!” Torment’s breathless voice suddenly echoed in their ears.

“Holding!” Raze hissed. “SRU Alpha to Cherry 2, you better have a damn good reason for stopping us.”

“Pierce is down.” Torment sounded as if he were running. “Bad guys have Dizzy and the friend. I’m on foot pursuit but they’re headed your way. We’re underground. I’m closing on your position.”

Venom’s heart stammered. He leaned against the wall for support as Torment’s words registered in the most awful way. They had Dizzy. His sweet, precious, beautiful Dizzy.

“Ven?” Raze addressed him roughly. “Shake it off. She’s no different than any other hostage.”

But she was. She meant the world to him.

Gulping down the fear and panic clogging his throat, Venom got a handle on his emotions. He cleared his mind and focused on the task at hand. The only way Dizzy was getting out of that room alive was if the team did everything right. He refused to be the weak link that put her life at risk.

“I’m good, boss.”

“They’re entering a door,” Torment apprised them of the movements of Dizzy and her captors.

“They’re here,” Cipher whispered. The scanning device he’d attached to the wall allowed them to see the door opening and a stream of new people entering the room. The two smaller heat signatures trapped between three men were obviously Dizzy and her friend Hopper.

Closing his eyes, Venom pushed all thoughts of Dizzy as his wife out of his mind. She was a hostage. She was like the dozens of nameless, faceless hostages he had rescued in his career with the SRU. This was a mission like any other mission.

“Threat,” he said calmly. “Prepare to execute to breach.”

“Execute in five, four, three…”

For Venom, the next sixty seconds blew by as if in hyperspeed. The controlled explosions ripped a hole in the hall and caused the door to fall forward. Before the dust and smoke had even cleared, Raze fired two concussive grenades into the room. Venom and Fierce were through the door first but Raze, Cipher and Threat were hot on their heels.

“On the ground!”

“Get down!”

“Hands in the air!”

“Put down your weapons!”

“On the ground!”

Disoriented by the explosion and concussive grenades, six of the men dropped to their bellies and raised their hands high overhead. Only four were dumb enough to lift their weapons and take aim at the team. Venom, Fierce and Raze neutralized them with precision shots.

One man, the dumbest of them all, grabbed Dizzy. The sight of her hooded head and dirty, ripped dress infuriated Venom. The bastard using her as a shield whipped a hunting knife from a sheath at his waist and started to lift it toward Dizzy’s throat. Venom reacted on instinct, squeezing his trigger and popping off a perfectly placed burst that ended the threat.

Splattered with blood, Dizzy fell forward onto her knees and flattened onto her belly before covering her hooded head with her bound arms. Though the urge to rush to her aid was strong, he muscled it down and finished securing the men who had surrendered first. Being shot in the back wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

Once the scene was safe, he raced to Dizzy and crouched down in front of her. She flinched when he gently grasped her upper arms and hauled her into a kneeling position. Grimacing at the blood spray on her shoulder and arm, he was strangely glad for the hood that had protected her face and hair. It would be easier for her to deal with the aftermath of being taken hostage without the gore.

Carefully he slit the tape binding her wrists and dragged the hood from her head. She had her eyes squeezed shut as if expecting to be hit. Tossing aside the hood, he placed his gloved hand against her face. “Sugar, look at me.”

At the sound of his voice, her eyelids fluttered open. Dazed and disoriented from the concussive blast, she blinked and inhaled shaky breaths. Tears soaked her long lashes and made them clump together. With a ragged sob, she flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight. “Venom!”

“Honey, you’re all right. I’ve got you.”

“Please don’t let go.”

“I won’t, sugar. Not yet.” He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Jerking back, she glanced around frantically. “Hopper!”

“I’m okay.” The young woman in question sat against a wall while Fierce knelt next to her and cut the tape binding her wrists. “My ears are ringing like crazy.”

“It will fade. We’ll have the medics check you, just in case.” Venom rubbed Dizzy’s earlobes between his fingers. “How are your ears, baby?”

“Ringing.” She winced. “I’ve got a headache too.”

“As soon as we get back to
Valiant
I’ll have Risk check you over.” He was very concerned about the effect of the flash-bangs on her delicate ears, especially after having surgery so recently.

“Oh Venom, what about Pierce?” She looked absolutely stricken. “He fell so hard. I don’t how he could have survived hitting the concrete that hard.”

“He’s alive.” Torment stepped into the room. His mouth was fixed in a grim line as he surveyed the scene. “They’re about to evacuate him on a dart. One of the support teams—the SRU beta squad—got to him a few minutes after I made chase to catch you two.”

Though Venom had a million questions that needed answers, this absolutely was not the time to ask them. “We need to move these prisoners and get Dizzy and her friend out of here immediately. One of these cases is leaking and the women aren’t immunized.”

“Go.” Torment stepped aside to clear the way. “I’ve already given the hazardous materials team the green light.”

Venom scooped up Dizzy and carried her out of the room. He ran her down the hall to a safe distance and gently deposited her on the ground. Fierce carried Hopper to the same spot. Venom unzipped one of his pockets and retrieved one of the compactly folded and super-thin warming sheets used for treating shock.

“You and your pockets,” Dizzy said with a laugh. Her teeth chattered as adrenaline saturated her bloodstream and caused havoc inside her body.

Venom snapped open the thin foil-like sheet and wrapped it around shoulders. He tucked it under her bottom and around her legs. “Stay here. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“I don’t think I could walk even if I wanted to,” she said choppily, her teeth continuing to knock.

Pressing a loving kiss to her forehead, Venom forced himself to leave her behind. Back in the room, he found Cipher and Threat assessing and treating the prisoner they had uncovered. His hopes that it might be Terror were dashed. Moving closer for a better look, he nearly tripped over his boots. “Shit. That’s Dizzy’s father.”

Cipher glanced up at him. “You’re sure?”

Venom nodded and studied the bruised face of his father-in-law. “I saw his picture the morning Torment and Pierce dragged her in for questioning. That’s Jack Lane.”

“We’re taking him into custody.” Torment gave the order without his usual edge of coldness. “We need his intel and he needs our protection.”

“Yes, he does,” Venom murmured. There would be no going back for Jack. Whatever had happened here had forever changed the course of his life. Venom could only hope it was for the better.

“The hazardous materials crew is here.” Raze stepped away from the prisoners who lined the wall. “They’re bringing in a prisoner transport ship. Let’s get these guys loaded and get the hell out of here before half The City comes down on us.”

Venom didn’t think he’d ever heard an order he wanted to follow more. He wanted to get Dizzy safely back on the
Valiant
and put this entire mess behind them.