The Love Language of an Assassin

7

“Beta, state your position,” Naomi, the Alpha of the team spoke crisply into the headset.

Jesse climbed the fire escape ladder on the outside of the dilapidated building, hating the creaking sound it was making. The noise was a potential risk and she despised it when she was in this situation. “Stupid fire escape,” she muttered to her team, “who said this was an easy way in? It’s noisy as hell.”

“Are you nearing the apartment where our target is located?” Naomi asked again.

“Yes,” she grunted as she swung like a gymnast on parallel bars and swung herself upward and onto the broken rung up high, her grip slipping a bit as she grabbed the rusted rung. She let out a chuckle as her Delta Arwen, who obviously had eyes on her, let out a low whistle from her little slip. “Did you catch that, Delta?”

“Beta, I don’t want to be sending clean up crew to scrape you off the ground. Need I remind you, you’re eight stories up.”

“Good thing heights don’t bother me, huh. We should go to Coney Island for team building, ride the coasters.”

“Beta, state your position,” Naomi echoed her previous command. “We’re in the hall and we will not enter the apartment until you give us the go-ahead.”

Jesse slid the bathroom window open and squeezed her lithe frame through and dropped into the tub. “I’m in the bathroom. Let me scope it out.”

“You gonna clean the toilet in there, Beta?” Naomi mocked her.

“f**k you Alpha,” Beta rolled her eyes knowing the entire team was snickering.

“Just don’t stop to smell the soap, we have a job to do,” Arwen teased her from her vantage point.

Jesse lifted a finger over her shoulder knowing the woman could see her through the window she had left open.

The team had been given a directive to infiltrate this apartment, locate the two girls who had been kidnapped by a man who had catfished one of them. He had drugged them both and brought them to his lair in a shady part of town. It was the kind of neighborhood where nobody interfered in anyone else’s business. The building was mostly vacant and the people who did live in it were criminal types.

Jesse had climbed the rickey fire escape to the sixth floor, had swung to the eighth and now she was in a ninth-floor apartment and the sound of crying caught her ear.

Cat, the Gamma on their team of four, mocked her impatiently, whining in her ear, “come on Beta, you’re moving slow.”

“You literally got to climb stairs while I scaled a bloody building,” Jesse grumbled. “At least one girl is awake and conscious. I hear crying,” she slid her camera under the door aware the team could see on their gear what was happening in the hall. “Two doors in the hall, both closed. Looks like the corridor goes into a living and kitchen area.”

A man’s voice screaming at a girl to shut up made her hackles come up. “Get in here ladies, because if you don’t, I’m going to kill him in front of her.” She opened the door and marched down the hall. She kicked the bedroom door open and stared down the man who was wrestling the teenager on the bed. He’d had her tied up, her wrists bound to the headboard, and he was straddling the girl who was struggling furiously against his advances.

“What the hell!” the man yelled at her and jumped off the bed and Jesse flung a knife with practiced precision in his direction and the man staggered backwards as it lodged deep in his thigh.

The girl was screaming at her to help, and Jesse turned her head, aware in her full cover not even her eyes were visible. She pulled her glasses up, “Hey, CeCe, right?” The girl seemed surprised the person in the balaclava was a woman who knew her name. “Sweetie, I need you to be quiet for a minute so I can deal with this asshole. Then we’re going to get you out of here and you’re going to go home and see your mom and dad, okay?”

“Alpha?” Jesse called out, “you get the other girl yet?”

“Right behind you, I’ll deal with him, you get her out?” Naomi stood in the door. “Why do they always have their d***s out?”

“CeCe, did he touch you?” Jesse ignored the man writhing on the floor with the large knife in his leg as she cut the girl’s bindings. The girl flung her arms around Jesse’s neck in gratitude. “Did he touch you?”

“He tried earlier but he couldn’t do it and said he had to wait for his medicine to work.” She sobbed into Jesse’s neck.

Cat was at the door with her arms around another young girl who was staring wide-eyed at the team of what was apparently three women sent to rescue them. “Hey, can you walk?” She looked to CeCe who nodded. “Good, get your ass over here. You, me, and Kaya are going to get out of here. When we get to the bottom of the stairs there’s going to be a van. I don’t want you to ever look at him again,” her voice was commanding as Jesse passed the girl off to her.

Naomi was lifting the man off the floor, “let me know when they’re out of the apartment. I’m going to make him cry like he made her cry.” She twisted the knife in his thigh and yanked it out tossing it at Jesse as blood spurted high in the air, “did you want this back?”

Jesse grinned bitterly at her Alpha, “yes but only so I can put it back in him.”

The man screamed in terror.

“Do you know what we do to men who prey on little girls?”

“She’s sixteen!”

Naomi slapped him hard across the face, “and you’re forty-eight.”

Jesse pulled a drawer open in the nightstand, “hey Alpha, Creepy McCreepster has a whole stash of photographs of very young women in his nightstand.” She threw the photos on the bed. “Pretty certain a few of these are not sixteen, several don’t seem more than eight.” She looked over her shoulder at where Naomi was tying him to the footboard of the bed. “You know, I hate anyone who hurts a woman but when they hurt kids, well, I feel a whole other level of violent.”

Naomi grunted, “dude, she is mean on a good day. When little kids are involved though, she’s a whole other level of messed up.”

The man whimpered gripping Naomi’s arm as if she would protect him from Jesse.

“What should we do to him?” Naomi asked her curiously as Cat reported into their ear she was coming back up. Arwen on the nearby rooftop begged them to open the window so she could see better, and Naomi chuckled as she simply busted the window out. “We should just throw him out the window.”

“What? No!” the man shrieked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong, but I can’t help myself.”

“Well, that’s why you need to die, asshole,” Jesse grunted at him, “you have no control over your mind or your limp dick.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“And CeCe didn’t want to be catfished, drugged, held at knifepoint, kidnapped, and almost raped by a flaccid-dicked jackoff. It seems like neither of you were having a good day, today. Hers just got better. Yours, um, not so much,” Cat said as she skidded into the room.

“What if I told you there is a guy in this building who has a girl trapped in his apartment?” the man tried to negotiate

Naomi looked to Jesse and Cat and put a blade to his throat, “we’re listening. Go on.”

“He’s on the third floor!” he yelled trying to pull his neck away from the throat. “He kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and her kid. She got out and ran into me in the hall and wanted me to get them out of the building.”

“And you didn’t help them,” Naomi shook her head.

“He’s huge. He scares the s**t out of me. She had two black eyes. I never saw the kid, but I heard her crying.”

“When?”

“Three days ago,” he shrieked as he finally answered when Naomi punched his bleeding thigh. He was starting to appear faint from the blood loss. Jesse’s knife wound was killing him slowly, he just didn’t know it. It was her favorite way to kill a pervert.

Naomi looked to Cat and Jesse. “How do you feel about making a second recovery?”

The three women stood up and walked out of the room

“What about me?” he sobbed from where he was tied to the bed.

Naomi looked at him coldly, “Delta, take your shot.”

The man looked in terror in the direction of the window and the trio left the apartment as Naomi called in the amendment to the plan. They raced down the stairs while Arwen confirmed her kill and said she was repositioning for better vantage of floor three.

Jesse stood at the entrance to the third floor with Naomi and Cat waiting for Artemis, the head of Bellona, to get them additional intel on what apartment was occupied.

“It’s taking too long,” Cat moaned.

“The girl’s waited at least three days. She can wait five more minutes to make sure we have decent intel,” Jesse argued with her and bumped her with her hip, “to make sure they both get out safe.”

Artemis’ voice came into all their ears giving them the go-ahead to move forward in getting the woman and her child from the apartment. “Ladies, be careful, we don’t have enough information and your source was faulty at best. What I have been able to find, the name on the mailbox matches an ex-con who is bloody massive. He’s ordered a lot of takeout the last week including several kids’ meals.”

Arwen spoke, “I’ve moved to a lower vantage point. There are three heat signatures in the apartment, two in one room in a bed and the other must be the child in the other room.”

“Gamma, you get the kid. Grab her and get her out, hand her off to the second team coming into position and get back and get the woman out.” Naomi instructed, “Beta, you have my six and pray to Jesus he’s unarmed.” Naomi looked to Cat, “work your magic and get the door unlocked. He probably has dead bolts.”

Cat moved to the door, and it took ninety seconds for her to pop the three locks and get the door opened. One advantage of working in the middle of the night was occasionally, the perps slept. They made their way through the apartment, Cat following Arwen’s direction towards the smaller bedroom where the small child was. Jesse followed her Alpha and rubbed her nose against the smell of the place. Why did they always have to stink?

Naomi moved the door and immediately a loud rattle happened.

Jesse groaned as she realized the man had booby-trapped the door to make noise in case the woman tried to get out from the bedroom. Immediately he sat up in the bed. Jesse threw her knife and it lodged in the giant’s man’s shoulder as he swung his legs off the bed.

“Jesus Christ,” Naomi whispered.

Jesse chuckled at Naomi’s words. Naomi, one of the toughest women she’d ever met was only five foot four and this guy was easily six four and as wide as a truck. “Hey buddy,” Jesse called out hoping her voice woke the woman in the room, “I’d like to say we just want to talk but you don’t look like the talking kind. You more of an action guy, bub?” she watched as he pulled her knife out of his shoulder and tossed it to the floor.

“Hey lady,” Naomi called out to the woman in the bed, “you awake?”

“Who are you?” the woman sat up in terror of the two heavily armed women in black camo.

“Nobody,” Jesse answered for her, “but we heard from a friend of a friend, you didn’t want to be here. Do you want to be here?”

“No,” the woman started crying. The man started screaming and went to move towards the woman in the bed and Jesse moved to get between them.

“He’s like the goddamn hulk,” Jesse commented, ducking as he went to reach for her and landing a series of hard blows to his kidney and back, before kicking him in the balls. “Hey, lady, what’s your name?”

“AJ.”

“AJ, my friend just took your little girl outside. You should go find her.” Jesse huffed as she dodged a swing from a thick beefy fist.

“She’s not going anywhere,” the man roared. Jesse punched him in the face and it barely registered.

“AJ,” Naomi called out as she moved behind the big man and tried to distract him, “run now.”

“I’m naked. He raped me and took all my clothes,” she was shaking in the middle of the bed.

Jesse called out again, “AJ, can you walk?”

“Yes, but I’m naked.”

“Sweetheart,” Naomi cut in, “it’s the middle of night, we’re all women and you really don’t want to see what we’re going to do him.”

The man threw his head back and laughed, “what you’re going to do to me? I’m going to kill you and her!” he yelled.

“Nah, buddy, we’re here to make sure you never hurt anyone again,” Jesse motioned for the woman to run behind her, and she stopped the man from reaching her with a solid jab to his throat where he immediately grabbed his throat in panic.

Jesse heard Naomi address Cat who had just come back, “get her the f**k out of here!”

It didn’t take Cat a minute to get the woman out the front door and back to help the women. Arwen was in their ear, “get him by the window and I can take the shot.”

Cat skidded to a halt as she watched Naomi and Jesse interacting with the large man, landing blow after blow on his back, sternum, and throat. Cat spoke to Arwen, “negative Delta, if you can’t see what’s going on, you’re missing the best thing since this mission started. They’re beating up this asshole and he is flummoxed.”

“Flummoxed is your word of the day?” Arwen taunted.

“This is hot to watch, if I were into chicks, I’d be wet,” Cat called from the door. “Has Goliath even landed a hit? What’s wrong with ya, big guy? You find a girl you can’t beat up?” Cat laughed when her words pissed him off and he tried to move towards her, and Jesse jumped up and landed two feet into his gut sending him toppling backwards. “Very cool Delta. Just FYI, guys, there isn’t a part of her body he didn’t bruise, and the little girl has a broken arm and a black eye.”

Jesse stopped moving, “you hurt the little girl?”

“Dude that’s a f**k-up, my friend really hates when kids get hurt,” Naomi struck him hard in the throat a second time and this time he collapsed to his knees and Jesse leaned from behind him and slit his throat.

The man grappled with his neck, his eyes bulging as if confused how two women, one almost pint sized, had managed to take him down. Jesse leaned into his face, “you will never hurt another woman or child again, you giant dickwad.” She landed one more punch to his face before he fell sideways. “God, I hate when they hurt kids.”

“You’re such a softie, Beta,” Cat called from the door laughing.

Arwen moaned in her ear, “I really wanted to shoot him. Beta stole my thunder.”

“You can still shoot him,” Jesse laughed, “he’s still sort of breathing.”

“I really just wanted to see him topple,” Arwen complained.

“You can watch my go-pro cam footage later,” Jesse grinned.

Artemis’ voice in their ear told us the second clean-up crew was on site and they needed to leave. Jesse kicked the man one more time ignoring the laughter of her team. She pointed at Cat, “you did a good job just watching.”

“I didn’t want to steal your thunder. I knew telling you he broke the kids’ arm would set you off.”

The woman passed the clean-up crew in the hall and nodded curtly. Jesse watched as Cat exited through the back entrance of the building and Naomi moved to the front. Jesse knew she was to go to the second floor, climb out the window from the vacant apartment into the dark alley and make her way to the rendezvous point. It typically gave them a ten minute cool off before they collected again and headed for debrief. Somehow, she knew debrief would be hard on her. It always was when kids were involved.