10
Patrena
Blaaa! Blaaa! Blaaa!
I jump out of bed, unsteady on my legs and shaking off sleep. The boom blast ringtone on my emergency phone was sounding off and alerting me that someone was in serious trouble.
“Patrena, get up,” Lady D’s voice blasted in my ear when I answered.
“What’s going on?”
“Mecca just put in a call for backup, all-hands. It’s a blackout affair, all gear, multiple targets in the Overtown projects.”
I swiped sleep from my eyes. Were my ears working right? “Wait. What did you just say? O-Town? What the hell?”
“Fucking Haitians acting up again,” she replied. Her irritation was so icy that it practically reached through the phone and touched down on my skin.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath while rummaging through my dresser drawer for something black to throw on.
“I’ll see you at the spot,” I called to Lady D.
“Okay. See you soon,” she replied before hanging up.
Later,we met at our spot, an old meat-packing warehouse sitting among a city of other run-down warehouses that were barely operational. We operated out of the basement that had been renovated to keep out stragglers. This was where we geared up, got our directives, and switched to a tactical ride.
The ground crew consisted of Ladies D, E, and P, me. Lady A would stay at the warehouse and work her tech magic, Lady B was probably calling up the devil to find answers we didn’t have yet, and Lady Z was on standby if bodies got dropped.
“Does anyone know specifics?” I queried, while strapping on my blade.
“The Haitians took a female last night. She’s one of Mecca’s street crew members. They contacted Mecca and said the only way she was getting her back was to come to Overtown and get her.”
I let my eyes fall closed and shook my head against the nagging thoughts tap dancing on my temples. This was going to get bloody if those Haitians put a hand on that girl.
Slap!
Lady E had slapped a full magazine in the well of her rifle, making the sound echo throughout the warehouse.
“Those dread heads have no idea what kind of smoke they just asked for,” she stated, her voice laced with enough ice to cause frostbite.
Although Lady E had vocalized her distaste for the group, it was the dead expression in Lady D’s eyes that gave me pause. The level of sinister intent she possessed sent a chill up my spine.
Some people liked to kill. Some were born to kill. People like me killed to survive, to protect the underdog and the innocent. Lady D was the scariest kind of killer because you couldn’t read her. Though she was friendly and outgoing with us, she never talked about killing, only executed without question when she was called to do so.
She was the ghost of the crew that we never saw outside a mission. I considered myself a logical killer. For me, the kill had to make sense and be reconciled in my brain before I squeezed the trigger. I didn’t find any type of gratification in killing, but I understood it was necessary for survival in our world. Lady A rarely left whatever digital devices she worked from, but on the rare occasion when she had to pull the trigger, rest assured, she didn’t hesitate.
We all had multiple things in common, the life we revealed to people and the life we lived. We all had past demons, some so bad that keeping our kill résumé up to date was a necessity. Unlike the other women who knew where their demons came from, I was the one who didn’t have any real knowledge of who or what mine were. All I knew was that I had not been trained to kill as a young girl for no reason. Something was out there waiting and I wanted to be prepared when it decided it was time to come for me.
We were fully dressed in all-black tactical gear with AR-15s, custom to fit our personalities. Glock-19s were strapped to our hips for backup. Combat boots, Kevlar, and helmets were a few more of the items strapped to our bodies. You name it, we had it and knew how to expertly use every piece effectively enough to make SWAT jealous and a S.E.A.L team nod with pride.
We rolled out after strategizing our staging area at Lincoln and 22nd, behind an old burnt-out church about a half mile outside the Overtown Projects.
We rolled up in a black armored Range Rover SUV. The area was where drug dealers often flaunted their rides and although our vehicle fit the stereotype, we had a lot of extra bells and whistles in our ride.
We strolled into the alley next to the church, crept around to the back, and parked the vehicle under the canopy of the old, covered parking area. The back of the structure bore smoke stains but remained intact. The rumor mills had spread that the place had been set on fire by the shady pastor for the insurance payout.
After dismounting, we scoped out our surroundings and waited. Lady E had gone ahead to scout us a route. Minutes later, we kept to the dirty alleyways and the occasional abandoned house or business to keep from being spotted. Once we were all in position, we confirmed our status with Mecca and waited.
We had gotten there early, before Mecca’s expected arrival time to canvass the scene. Although we hadn’t spotted the girl who needed to be rescued, we figured out where most of the Haitian lookouts were hiding. We easily spotted them climbing onto buildings, hiding inside of dumpsters, and aiming their weapons out of the windows of hand-picked dilapidated apartments. They were all armed, uneasy, and gearing up for a fight.