22. Tell

22

TELL

“ W here the hell do you think you're going, kid?” Gavin snaps.

“Fuck. I need to go back. I gotta find out what happened to them.” I turn back, looking back but not seeing my friends. A plan is already forming in my head, a way into the mansion grounds. Ways I can spy on Marco’s men.

Maybe I can take one of their roles, disguise myself. Harder to do on short notice and with no prosthetics.

Infiltrating for info takes time.

Looks like I’ll have to go in covertly, use gadgets to get what I need.

Which means stopping at one of my garages first. Fuck.

Not enough time.

‘Gotta get moving, sorry,” I mutter, reaching for the doorknob.

“Like hell, you do!” Ora protests. “Snap the fuck out of it and hold on a minute!”

“You guys have plenty of strategizing to do here. I’ll just pop over to my dad’s place and I’ll be back by morning with some useful intel.”

“Useful intel, my ass! You're not going anywhere without us.” Ora crosses her arms menacingly. The effect is less than intimidating, but it gives me pause.

“Like, coming with me?”

“Yeah, you're gonna need a backup. Whether you like it or not.” Gavin’s arms bulging as he crosses them behind Ora is far more convincing. I can’t argue against the brick shithouse.

“I can’t ask you guys to put yourselves in that much danger for me,” I protest.

“You want to tell Mini that she can’t come? And don’t even bother arguing with me.” He thrusts a thumb toward Ora, then himself to drive the point home.

Before I know what’s happening, we’re in the jeep heading around town, taking one of the roundabout roads to skirt Marco’s patrols. A quick stop off at one of Gavin’s garages and one of my equipment stashes has us stocked and geared up to infiltrate a government level facility.

The guy knows his shit, to be sure, how to get around unseen.

Vantage points and strategy that I would have made up as I went along.

Can’t say I’m mad they came…

After a quick assessment of the guards, headcount, and rounds, we head toward the west wall. Years of sneaking in and out of my parents’ house taught me a dozen ways onto the property, and at least two of the entry points are unsupervised, completely unknown.

“ Clear on the rear patrol. Go for breach ,” Ora’s gravelly imitation of Gavin sounds off in my earpiece. “ Grr .”

“Cut it out with the tactical talk. You’re going to make me laugh and blow my cover.” I snicker, pressing myself against the inside wall. “Gav, you got me covered?”

The only response I get is the clack of a sniper rifle chamber in my earpiece. Clack-clack .

“Message received.”

Sobering quickly, I scan my surroundings, spotting my first target. The jackass is taking a piss by the bushes near the guest house. Slipping up behind him, I’ve got him head locked and unconscious in a few seconds of minimal struggling.

“ Ooh, I like a good choking every now and again… ” A giggle in my ear makes me flinch.

“Shut up, Ora. You’re supposed to be watching for incoming guards, not watching me!” I hiss, dragging the body back into the shadows. “And choke yourself on your own time.”

“ Roger that, Chicken Choker. You’re all clear .”

“The main house?”

“ All lights on. Lots of bulky bodies moving around inside. They all look to be Marco’s men. No sign of King Dick Bag, though. Probably out kicking puppies and stealing from the elderly. Only one light is on in the upper guest house window, though. I say that’s your best bet .”

“Alright. I’ll check there first. Makes sense he’d lock my dad up somewhere out of sight. I’m going in.”

I leave it be that my dad might very well already be dead. It impacts me more than I thought it would. Mostly for my mom’s sake. For Shannon’s.

Scaling the drain pipe on the back of the guest house, I ease myself down onto the clay shingled roof, taking care not to dislodge one of the tiles. Plus, the last thing I need is to slip and fall.

The upper level is small, only a couple of rooms.

Peering into the window, I can just make out a sliver of the room past the curtains. The locking mechanism is simple, an easy pick, but I have to hope my dad’s security system is turned off, or this will be a very loud, short visit.

Inside, I note the signs of struggle. The furniture in the room has been pushed aside. A single chair sits right in the middle of the familiar room.

Stale sweat and blood tinge the air.

Someone was interrogated here recently. Likely tortured. Dammit, Dad .

Across from me, the door is ajar, leading me out onto the upstairs landing. “ Anything? ”

“No. Heading down to the ground floor.”

Creeping down the stairs takes every bit of muscular control, taking care to keep my steps utterly silent. Good thing, too, as I spot a single guard standing in the entry below.

My focus is razor sharp as I slip up behind him, kicking out his legs and locking him in a stranglehold. He’s just slumping to the floor when I hear a tinkling of glass and a very loud thump behind me.

Turning slowly, I see another guard sprawled out on his back, a huge tranquilizer dart sticking out of his chest.

“ You're welcome .” Gavin’s growl is smug.

“ Nice shot! ” Ora chirps.

The tiny hole in the window between the barely opened curtains to my right tells me just how good of a shot it really was. Gavin must have only had a sliver of a view into the room from his vantage. Shivering slightly, I step over the bodies, drawing my gun as I approach the door to the cellar.

“Thanks for saving my ass.”

“ Thank me when you’re back on this side of the wall .”

He’s right. I’m not done.

Unlocking the door to the cellar, I take a deep breath as foul smells reach my nostrils.

I brace myself for the worst as I descend the old wooden stairs. This basement always creeped me out as a kid.

Now, it’s a whole other level of disturbing.

Especially when I see him, huddled in the corner, a beam of light from the high set window casting him in shadows. He’s clearly been beaten.

My only relief is to find that he’s alone. My mother and sister are nowhere to be found.

“Tyler? Mayor Vanderberg?” I whisper, leaning down to inspect his half-naked body.

I flinch at the sight of razor marks, bruising, lash marks. They went to town on him.

He’s a bloody mess.

“T–Tyler?” His rasping voice startles me. For a minute, I really thought he was dead.

“I’m here, Dad.”

“Good. Good.” He’s delirious.

“Come on, old man. We need to get you out of here.” Not that I have any clue how to do that. Crouching down in front of him, I catch his eye as he raises his head to look at me.

A small, faint grin pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“You look good, Tyler,” he slurs, trying to sit up straighter to see me.

“You look like shit.”

What might pass for a laugh gurgles out of him, and I immediately know there’s no point trying to get him up. The bubbling sound tells me he’s probably got a collapsed lung. He definitely has a broken leg.

“Fucking hell, Tyler, what did they do to you?” I sigh, hesitant to try to move him. He’s fucked up pretty bad.

“Dad… please, call me Dad.”

“You never really earned that name.”

“I hope… I tried to. I really did. Tried to fight back.” Blood trickled down his lip, pooling on the floor with spit and who knows what else. “Wanted to stop what I caused…”

“Yeah. After you brought him here.” I shouldn’t be petty. Not now.

“You’re right. I fucked up. Doomed us. But I did it, Ty. I did one good thing.”

“What did you do?”

“I got them out. Got them to safety. He doesn’t know where they are. Not even I do.”

“Mom? Shannon? Where are they?”

“S–Safe.” All he can do is shake his head feebly. Better if he doesn’t tell me. Better if no one knows.

After a few seconds, I debate leaving, thinking he’s passed out again. A soft gasp gives me pause. So do the tears I hear pattering onto the cement floor a second later.

“I've been terrible to you your whole life. I always knew… knew there was more to you. You had us all fooled.” His chuckle chokes out to a cough. “But I knew…”

“Yeah, well, a hell of a lot of good it’s done so far. I’m sorry, Dad. I should’ve been here to stop them. I should’ve tried to find you sooner.”

“No. No.” He grabs at my hand, pulling me closer. “You are so much more valuable out there, in the shadows. Use it, Son.”

We lock eyes for a moment, reconciling everything that we’ve done to one another over the years. The abuse. The neglect.

“Use it,” I repeat.

“Yes. Use your gifts to stop him. Change your face. Get right up next to him till you can see the fucking whites of his eyes when you kill him. Make that son of a bitch pay for hurting our people. Do you understand me? You make him regret the day he was born .”

Another fit of coughing takes him, and this time, I’m certain. He’s fading.

“J–Junior? Tyler?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“If you ever see your mother and sister again, can you tell them what I did? You tell them how I died defending our home. That I did one goddamn good thing in my life. Will you do that for me? Will you do that for me? Please.”

His voice shifts, his usual commanding presence long gone, leaving only a desperate plea.

“I will.”

“ You’ve got company incoming, Tell. Get out of there ,” Gavin scratches over the com.

I’m already up, backing away and climbing up toward the high window along the side of the building, torn as I watch my father raise his head higher.

“Tell…” he whispers, his eyes closing.

I gasp as he says my name. The name I chose.

“Tell. I’m proud of you, Son. Give them hell.”

I’m halfway to the back wall when I hear the gunshot come from the basement behind me. Then I’m running as shouts go up all over the compound, sprinting off into the dark. Sprinting away from the sadness threatening to drag me back.

The sound will haunt me for the rest of my days.

But not nearly as badly as my father’s final words.