"Their pizza is the best food on the planet." Mack moaned.
"But seriously, fuck pepperoni. Shit looks like a fat dude's nipples." I gave a slight chuckle as I rolled up the pizza like a burrito and took a bite. "Where the fuck is Ashlynn and Danielle? They're gonna miss out on all this pizza."
Pulling out my phone, I called Ashlynn first only to have it go to voicemail. Looking at the screen, I called again, and then once more. I had called three times, and had only ended up with her voicemail. Had she been okay? Tapping the back of the phone with my fingernail, I thought of what I could do to get a hold of her. Calling her had been entirely out of the option, obviously. Had Danielle been with her? Calling her number, it rung a few times and was then answered with a near gasping sound - as though someone had been running.
"Ai...Aiden I think someone took Ash." she gasped into the phone. "They...He gave me this old iPhone that has some kind of password on it. Some blonde guy said you would know it."
I stood up, unsure of what I had realistically been able to do. "Where are you? I'll meet you."
"I'm across the street. Give me a minute."
Only moments had passed before Danielle had come through the door and nearly threw the phone at me. Looking at the lockscreen, I had a seen four number slots. How could I have guessed it? I hadn't seen who Danielle was talking about, and I had been the only blonde guy in the area for the most part. I was stuck, thinking and thinking, yet it had been so obvious that I nearly missed it. A blonde guy said I would know it, and who were the only blonde guys I really knew? Crest, who had more brown than blonde, and D-Bag.
D-Bag had four letters in his name, and if that had been transferred to the phones number pad - it would have been "3224", right? It had been at that moment that I had wished I knew a hacker - someone who had been as good as Chrissy. Wait, had this been Below Zero ready to move on? Had Crest finally reached his limit? Now sure that I had been right with the numbers, I unlocked the screen to see a video of Ashlynn and Ava began starting to play. Gagged and tied in the dark, they hadn't made a sound while they were filmed as a address popped up at the bottom. Had they been told to keep quiet for the video?
Rather, had I been looking too far into things? Had Crest really done all of this as part of his plan, or did he have some kind of problem to settle with me? If it had been the former, then it was just like him. However, the latter still could have been possible. Why had he taken Ava, of all people, when he could have just taken Ashlynn and her sister? Wouldn't that have been more effective, or had this been another key he was sending me?
Reaching to the back of my jeans, I had made sure my gun was still there and then looked at Mack. "Can you keep an eye on her? I have to finish something I started."
"Hey." Danielle pushed her way into the conversation. "My sister is there. Let me go."
"I promise she isn't going to get hurt. Nobody will." I sighed. "Just stay here."
Running out of the door, I had found the exit of the neighborhood within seconds and blasted my way through the fence - only to be met with opening of a black van. As I continued to run, I had been unable to stop and had instead went flying full-speed into the van itself. I had been able to do nothing as the doors closed near immediately, speeding off while I was held down and stripped of my own gun. It had been so dark in the van that I had no clue who I was with or where I was going.
Right at that moment, I had heard a familiar sound - a laugh, the faintest of giggles - clearly evil in nature. Had that been who I thought it was? Had it been Chrissy who was there? Who else had been in the van with her, then? Crest's crew, or other people? Had it been the government? The whole thing had been too sketchy for the government to be involved, honestly. While it hadn't been impossible, I felt that it wasn't very likely at all. Turned out, I was wrong.
It was the government - a rogue FBI unit.
"Aiden Jacobson, you have worked under Below Zero's leader, Crest. This puts you at the scene of at least one murder, and a murder that could put you away for life." the woman spoke as she held me down. "However, according to Hannah here, you're the best person for this job - so if you help us out, all of your charges will go 'poof' like they never existed. Clear?"
"Yeah." I responded.
"Hannah left Below Zero after fearing her life, and we gave her the same deal we just gave you. Freedom." the woman turned the light on, and showed me the crew. The only Below Zero member indeed being Chrissy. "Aiden, we want to wire you and get you to make Crest confess on as much as you can. We're going to put that evil bastard away. Hannah was right, you're the key we needed to get into that locked up Below Zero. We need you to do this."
Looking at Chrissy, her lips poked outwards as to silently make a "shh" expression. As she followed that with a wink, I looked at the agent who had been holding me down. She had looked nothing like she sounded, and looked much weaker than her strength had displayed. Honestly, she could have just as easily been a model, and a good one. Her tanned skin had been smooth, all with the prototypical hourglass shape. She was a stunner, both as an agent and as a woman. Relevant? Not really, but I had to take something good out of the situation.
"Ava Bourdain and Ashlynn Rhoads have our priority. As soon as we see a chance to rescue them, we will." she continued. "If Crest or one of his men suspect a wire, then get out of there. Crest and Damien Dines aren't men you want to test. They'll put a bullet in you if they even begin to sniff the police on you."
"I'll be fine, they trust me." I answered. "You guys are the ones who have to be careful."
"What do you mean?" the agent asked.
"You're playing checkers, and Crest is playing Shogi." Chrissy answered for me. "He's five, ten, maybe even twenty steps ahead of you. The guy is a analytical and statistical freak, and probably one of the smartest men in the States. Just imagine if he went somewhere besides crime, this world may have been a different place. But you should know all this already, right, Aiden?"
"I do."
Chrissy had clearly been the mastermind behind this operation. The agent had known how dangerous Crest had been, but not known how intelligent he had been - and that was common knowledge about him. What most hadn't known was that he never injured women or children, yet they had called him a monster. Sure, he had been a monster that made a living off of other monsters, and he never denied that. He was, in a lot of ways, a very decent man. He had just taken the wrong road, much like myself. Where had that wrong road started for us both? My father. My dad had caused the downfall of two people, one who could have potentially been a great man, as Chrissy put it.
Several moments passed as I put on the wire and tested it with Chrissy, or "Hannah". Soon enough, I had been dropped off near the address I had been given on the phone. What had Crest been planning? Stepping through the gate, I went further in until I had found what appeared to be a big, run-down grocery store. While it had appeared run-down, the lights had been on and anyone who had known the area knew that they had been off for years. I hadn't known why, but the land had never been reused nor had the store reopened. Had the owner just given up on the land period?
As I passed through the broken doors, I felt the barrel of the gun touch the back of my head. It hadn't taken a genius to know who it had been, as he was the only person Crest would send out. He was his second-in-command. Honestly, I hadn't quite understood why Crest trusted him so much. He had always seemed like he was a step away from snapping and a second away from popping. D-Bag was similar to Chrissy in the way that he could have exploded at any second, a loose cannon. He had, however, been light-years more put together than she had been - or ever would be.
"About fuckin' time, punk." D-Bag muttered. "Making us wait, as usual. Get fucking moving."
D-Bag pushed me into another room, where I had seen Crest standing. Just as I had passed the doorway, D-Bag walked to the other side of the room and pressed a button on a small cube, glowing as he flipped the switch. Crest pointed at my chest, smiling as he ran two fingers across his throat. He had been noting one of two things, that I was dead or that the wire had been dead. If it hadn't been made obvious by his expression, it had been when he set down his gun.
"It's an electro-magnetic pulse generator that Chrissy got her hands on." Crest poured a drink, lighting a cigarette as he sat on the dusty desk. "She's an evil little shit, but she cares about the people around her. I'm gonna miss her."
"She's fucking nuts." D-Bag added, as though he hadn't been himself. "If anything, I'm glad I won't be watching over her or this punk."
D-Bag picked up a small grocery bag and pulled out a Glock. Looking up, I saw him looking at me seriously. For once, he had looked like a serious person, as though this had been the first time he had been intent on doing anything. As I took the gun, I held the barrel in my hands while I shared a wondering expression with both of them. They had handed me a gun, yet I hadn't known what to do with it. What was I going to do, what had Crest wanted me to do?
"We have about ten minutes until they probably realize what happened with the wire. Let's hurry this up."
ns 15.158.61.20da2
