Karin Slaughter - Fallen

Faith crouched as she turned left, entering the family room. She scanned along the walls, checked the sliding glass door that led into the backyard. The glass was shattered. A breeze rustled the curtains. The room had been ransacked. Someone was looking for something. Drawers were broken. Cushions gutted. From her vantage point, Faith could see behind the couch, that the wingback chair was clear of extra feet. She kept her head swiveling back and forth between the room and the hall until she was sure she could move on.

The first door was to her old bedroom. Someone had searched here, too. The drawers in Faith’s old bureau stuck out like tongues. The mattress was ripped open. Emma’s crib had been busted to pieces. Her blanket was ripped in two. The mobile that had hung above her head every month of her life had been ground into the carpet like a pile of dirt. Faith swallowed the burning rage this ignited inside of her. She forced herself to keep moving.

Quickly, she cleared the closets, under the bed. She did the same in Zeke’s room, which had been turned into her mother’s office. Papers were scattered on the floor. The desk drawers had been thrown against the wall. She glanced into the bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled back. The linen closet gaped open. Towels and sheets spilled onto the floor.

Faith was standing to the left of her mother’s bedroom door when she heard the first siren. It was distant, but clear. She should wait for it, wait for backup.

Faith kicked open the door and swung around in a crouch. Her finger went to the trigger. Two men were at the foot of the bed. One was on his knees. He was Hispanic, dressed only in a pair of jeans. The skin across his chest was shredded as if he’d been whipped with barbed wire. Sweat glistened on every part of his body. Black and red bruises punched along his ribs. He had tattoos all over his arms and torso, the largest of which was on his chest: a green and red Texas star with a rattlesnake wrapped around it. He was a member of Los Texicanos, a Mexican gang that had controlled the Atlanta drug trade for twenty years.

The second man was Asian. No tattoos. Bright red Hawaiian shirt and tan chinos. He stood with the Texicano in front of him, holding a gun to the man’s head. A cherry-handled Smith and Wesson five-shot. Her mother’s revolver.

Faith kept the shotgun trained on the Asian’s chest. The cold, hard metal felt like an extension of her body. Adrenaline had pumped her heart into a frenzy. Every muscle inside of her wanted to pull the trigger.

Her words were clipped. “Where’s my mother?”

He spoke in a twangy southern drawl. “You shoot me, you’re gonna hit him.”

He was right. Faith was standing in the hallway, less than six feet away. The men were too close together. Even a headshot carried the risk that a pellet would stray, hitting—possibly killing—the hostage. Still, she kept her finger on the trigger, the shotgun steady. “Tell me where she is.”

He pressed the muzzle harder against the man’s head. “Drop the gun.”

The sirens were getting louder. They were coming from Zone 5, on the Peachtree side of the neighborhood. Faith said, “You hear that sound?” She mapped their path down Nottingham, calculating the cruisers would be here in less than a minute. “Tell me where my mother is or I swear to God I’ll kill you before they hit the door.”

He smiled again, his hand tightening around the gun. “You know what we’re here for. Hand it over and we’ll let her go.”

Faith didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Her mother was a sixty-three-year-old widow. The most valuable thing in the house was the land they were standing on.

He took her silence for equivocation. “You really wanna lose your mommy over Chico here?”

Faith pretended to understand. “It’s that simple? You’ll trade?”

He shrugged. “Only way we’ll both walk outta here.”

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit. Even trade.” The sirens got louder. Tires screeched in the street. “Come on, bitch. Tick-tock. Deal or no deal?”

He was lying. He’d already killed one person. He was threatening another. As soon as he figured out Faith was bluffing, the only thing he’d give her was a bullet in the chest.

“Deal,” she agreed, using her left hand to toss the shotgun out in front of her.

The firearms instructor at the shooting range carried a stopwatch that counted every tenth of a second, which was why Faith knew that it took her right hand exactly eight-tenths of a second to draw her Glock from her side holster. While the Asian was distracted by her shotgun dropping at his feet, she did just this, pulling the Glock, snaking her finger around the trigger, and shooting the man in the head.

His arms flew up. The gun dropped. He was dead before he hit the floor.

The front door splintered open. Faith turned toward the foyer as an entry team in full raid gear flooded into the house. And then she turned back toward the bedroom and realized the Mexican was gone.

The patio door was open. Faith ran outside as the Mexican vaulted over the chain link fence. The S&W was in his hand. Mrs. Johnson’s grandchildren were playing in her backyard. They screamed when they saw the armed man heading toward them. He was twenty feet away. Fifteen. He raised the gun toward the girls and fired a shot over their heads. Brick siding sprayed onto the ground. They were too scared to scream anymore, to move, to save themselves. Faith stopped at the fence, lined up her Glock, and squeezed the trigger.

The man jerked as if a string had been pulled through his chest. He stayed up for at least a full second, then his knees buckled and he fell backward onto the ground. Faith jumped over the fence and sprinted toward him. She slammed her heel into his wrist until he let go of her mother’s gun. The girls started screaming again. Mrs. Johnson came out onto the porch and scooped them up like baby ducklings. She glanced back at Faith as she shut the door. The look in her eyes was shocked, horrified. She used to chase Zeke and Faith with the garden hose when they were little. She used to feel safe here.

Faith holstered her Glock and tucked Evelyn’s revolver into the back of her pants. She grabbed the Mexican by the shoulders. “Where’s my mother?” she demanded. “What did they do to her?”

He opened his mouth, blood oozing beneath the silver caps in his teeth. He was smiling. The asshole was smiling.

“Where is she?” Faith pressed her hand to his battered chest, feeling his broken ribs move beneath her fingers. He screamed in pain, and she pushed harder, grinding the bones together. “Where is she?”

“Agent!” A young cop steadied himself with one hand as he jumped over the fence. He drew down on her, his gun angled toward the ground. “Back away from the prisoner.”

Faith got closer to the Mexican. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. “Tell me where she is.”

His throat worked. He wasn’t feeling the pain anymore. His pupils were the size of dimes. His eyelids fluttered. The corner of his lip twitched.

“Tell me where she is.” Her voice got more desperate with each word. “Oh, God, just—please—tell me where she is!”

His breath had a sticky sound, as if his lungs were taped together. His lips moved. He whispered something she couldn’t make out.

“What?” Faith put her ear so close to his lips that she could feel spit coming out of his mouth. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Please tell me.”

“Almeja.”

“What?” Faith repeated. “What did you say?” His mouth opened. Instead of words, blood pooled out. “What did you say?” she screamed. “Tell me what you said!”

“Agent!” the cop yelled again.

“No!” She pressed her palms into the Mexican’s chest, trying to force his heart to pump again. Faith made a fist and slammed it down as hard as she could, beating the man, willing him to come back to life. “Tell me!” she yelled. “Just tell me!”