Chapter 32

Static

Jerking awake, I laid there breathing hard. Gwen was asleep in my arms, peaceful in her dreams for once. I should be doing the same. It was three a.m., and something had just occurred to my subconscious mind. I untangled myself from Gwen, who was wrapped around me like a vine, as gently as I could.

Getting out of bed, I crept through the apartment until I was out the door and standing in the hallway. Eyes narrowing, I turned and went down to the last door. The sound of me banging on the wood echoed, but I didn”t care. This was important.

The door jerked open and Lockout glared at me. He was in sweats and that was it, chest bare, hair tousled, and a pissed off expression on his face. ”Why?” he growled at me.

”We need to call church,” I told him. If he glared at me any harder I was going to go up in flames. He wasn”t getting much sleep these days, and guilt pricked at me because he looked wrecked. ”This is important, Lock.”

He sighed, squeezing the edge of the door where he was holding it. ”Fine. Be down there in ten. I”m telling the others that this one is on you, though.”

”Fair enough.”

I went back to my own apartment and got dressed. After I spoke with the others, I was going to have to wake Gwen up. This could be the tipping point for us. We were all going to be missing some sleep.

Ten minutes later, everyone was shuffling into the meeting room, giving me dirty looks. Lock looked like he must have used his time to dump a gallon of coffee into himself because his eyes were focused and shrewd as he started church. ”I know it”s late-”

”It”s early,” Toxic grumbled.

”Whatever,” Lock said, pinning him with a dark look. ”Since we”re here, we may as well go over a few things. Ruck and Kilo asked for more volunteers from their club to give us a hand. They showed earlier tonight. Priest worked with both men and they have come up with a schedule for guarding the apartment complex. The women know what”s going on and they and their children will be sticking close until we give them the all clear. The Berserkers will be watching over our own families.” He looked around, meeting each of our eyes. ”Any problems with that?”

”No,” Hush answered for the group. ”We know these men. Know what they”re capable of. The only way our families would be safer is if they were with us.”

”Except we”re about to confront Fremont,” Butcher stated, ”so we”re not the safest place for them for now.”

”Which is why we”re going to take a few days and lock this place and the apartments down. We”re going to make sure that there are no weak spots, and make sure that everyone designated for guard duty knows their schedule front and back. I won”t have there be any fuck ups. Not when it means the safety of women and children,” Lock said. ”Once we have it all under control, we take the fight to Fremont. Whatever happens, we”re ending this.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

”I think I can help with that,” I announced. Every eye shifted to me, and Lock nodded for me to continue. ”Fremont is the one breaking into Gwen”s house.”

”We all sort of figured that after the storage locker was busted into,” Ricochet said. ”But...why?”

”What would make Fremont start doing something crazy like that now?” I asked.

Toxic sighed. ”I thought you were here to tell us that. It”s too fucking late for this.”

”Early,” Hellfire told him with a shit-eating grin, echoing Toxic”s correction from earlier back at him.

Toxic flipped him off.

”Trent had something on him,” I told the room, ignoring the others. Silence descended.

”Why is he trying to find it now?” Smoke asked. ”Why not before?”

”Because we weren”t putting any pressure on him before,” Lockout answered. His eyes were narrowed, his finger tapping on the table as he thought about the situation.

”Exactly,” I replied. ”We”re closing in on him and he knows it. As it stands we don”t have anything concrete on him.”

”Which is why we”ve been going after his suppliers,” Priest said.

”He can”t afford for any shred of evidence to make its way into our hands or it”s over for him,” I added.

”How would he know? That Trent had something on him?” Toxic asked.

”He tried to use it to get himself out of jail,” Butcher replied. ”Guarantee he told Fremont to get him out or he”d make sure the right people got whatever he had.”

I nodded in agreement. ”That”s what I think, too.”

”Which means Fremont called his bluff, had him killed, and figured he”d find the evidence later,” Hush said. ”Ballsy.”

”Arrogant,” Riptide said. ”Sounds exactly like Fremont.”

”So...what is he looking for?” Ricochet asked.

”And do you think he found it,” Hellfire added.

”I don”t think he did,” I replied. ”Gwen didn”t see anything missing. And I doubt Trent was stupid enough to tell Fremont exactly what he had and where he was hiding it. Which is why he broke into the storage locker after he didn”t find whatever it was in Gwen”s house.”

”Shit, he may try looking again,” Lock said.

”Yeah,” Rip added. ”It”s going to be small. A USB most likely. Trent was an asshole, but he wasn”t stupid. He”d know better than to store something like that on the hard drive of a computer, or in the cloud. It would need to be small and concealable.”

”Why check Gwen”s house first?” Ricochet asked.

”He must have thought he”d be more likely to hide it there,” Hush said. ”Less connection with Fremont.”

”When he didn”t find anything, he moved on to Trent”s stuff,” I continued.

”So, where is it?” Toxic asked. ”If it”s not with any of Gwen or Trent”s stuff?”

”I think I know, or, at least I think I can find out.” I told the room. ”Give me until the morning and I should know where to look for it.”

Lockout nodded, then looked around. ”Anything else?”

Everyone grumbled and shook their heads.

”Good,” Lock replied. ”Go the fuck back to bed. If anyone knocks on my door before eight a.m., I”m shooting through the door and making you clean up your own blood.”

The pieces were finally starting to come together. Fremont backing off after threatening the women and kids at the apartments, the break ins, even the one at Gwen”s work, it was all clicking into place.

Trent was a lot of things, but apparently stupid wasn”t one of them. Unhinged, untrustworthy, sneaky, but not stupid. He knew Fremont might turn on him some day, so he hid evidence. In his coke fueled rage that ultimately landed him in jail, he tried to use that evidence against Fremont, but it couldn”t save him.

Okay, so maybe he was stupid, at least at the end. He was already in over his head by that point. Nothing was going to keep Fremont from silencing him. It would have been smarter to send the proof of Fremont”s misdeeds to his superiors. Or the media. Oh well, it was too damn late for Trent. And he deserved the end he got. But now, maybe whatever kind of proof he”d gathered could help his family. After what he did, he owed it to them.

The question, of course, was where did he hide it? Fremont and his goons had already searched Gwen”s house. They didn”t find it there. And we”re assuming he didn”t find it in the storage locker. If he had, we were fucked anyway.

I slipped back into Gwen”s apartment and cringed when I found her awake and waiting for me on the couch. ”Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.”

She smiled and shook her head. ”It”s okay. What”s going on?”

I sat next to her and filled her in on what we talked about at church.

”You think the USB is here,” she said, voice soft.

That was why I loved her. This woman got me. She understood exactly where my mind went when I realized that if Fremont hadn”t found it anywhere else, it had to be here, amongst the things she”d brought with her. I nodded with a grim grin.

”I wouldn”t even know where,” she said with a shake of her head. ”I don”t have a USB drive.”

Sighing, I glanced over at the kids” doors. ”I think I know.”

She followed my gaze and frowned.

”Do you mind if I talk to Sean? Alone? I know it”s early.”

”It”s okay,” she said. ”He”ll want to help.”

Together we walked into Sean”s room and she woke him. He rolled and yawned as she flicked the bedside lamp on. ”What”s wrong?”

”Hey, Bud, can I talk to you for a few minutes?” I asked. This needed to be delicate. Sean had seen his dad at his worst, but Trent was still his dad. He was already confused and torn up over Trent. I didn”t want to make that worse.

”Sure.” He sat up in bed, looking from Gwen to me.

”I”ll leave you two alone,” Gwen said, smoothing out Sean”s hair before she left. It was easy to see that she wanted to stay and comfort him, but she also knew he would be safe with me. She was trusting me with her boy, and I was so damn grateful for that.

”You”re a smart kid, you know that right? And you”ve been through a lot. But right now, it”s okay to…just be a kid for a bit.” I sighed, trying to gather my thoughts so I could make this make sense. ”Your dad, before he…lost control. He was spending time around you guys, right?”

Sean frowned at the memory. I wished I could pull him away from that night, the one where he nearly shot his dad trying to protect his mom. ”Yeah,” he mumbled, shadows flickering through his eyes.

”Before all that, when he first came back, did he, I don”t know, bring you or your sister gifts or anything?”

”He brought a bunch of toys and stuff, but I threw them all away after…you know.” He stared at his comforter. It had superhero characters on it.

Not good.I didn”t blame the kid for chucking everything, but if anything there had the evidence inside it then we were just as screwed as if Fremont had it.

The anger was giving way to something else on his face, guilt.

”Sean, what aren”t you telling me? You won”t be in any trouble.”

Guilt gave way to fear. I waited for him to process his emotions. For him to feel comfortable enough confiding in me. ”When Dad first came back, I was really excited. He was…nice...at first. He hadn”t gotten mean yet. He was nice to me and Grace and mom for a bit. Like, really fun to be with. Sometimes I pretend that”s my real dad. The nice one. That he only got mean because Fremont used mind control on him and turned him into a bad guy. I know it”s not true, I know it”s stupid.”

He kept his face down the whole time, ashamed and afraid. He was plucking at one of the superheroes on the comforter. It was easy to see where he”d come up with the story about his dad. He was a fan of comic books.

I didn”t blame him in the least. It was hard to come to grips with the fact that your dad is a douche when you”re a kid. I knew from personal experience.

I sat on the bed next to him. I waited until he tipped his chin up, meeting my eyes. ”I ever tell you about my dad?”

”No,” he said, relieved at the change of subject.

”He was a nasty piece of work. Drank all the time. Used to get drunk and beat me and my mother. I hated his guts. I remember hoping he just never came home. One day, when I was just a little younger than you, I heard him stumbling around the kitchen and making noise. I snuck out of my room and watched him from the stairs, worried he was going to go after my mom.

”He saw me, and I was about to run to my room when he called out to me. His tone was...gentle. Something was different, so I came down the stairs. It turned out that he was sober. It was the first, the only, time that I”d ever seen him sober. And he said to me, ”You need to be better than me. You have it in you to be more than I am.” Shortly after that he died. Drank himself to death.

”As a kid I didn”t really understand, but as I got older, I realized he was overcome by some real demons. I never forgave my dad for what he did to us, but I didn”t forget that somewhere under there was a man that at least wished he wasn”t such a bastard. Somehow, it made a difference. So no, Sean, it”s not stupid to think of your dad as the nice version of himself. You may never forgive him, but if he was ever a decent man, even if just for a minute, it”s okay to hold on to that. You need to hold onto that. It”s how you know that you won”t become a demon just like he was. You have to know that something good came from the man that created you.”

The understanding and sadness on his face nearly broke my heart in two. I wished I could spare him from this. In the future, I could, but there was nothing I could do about his past. The only thing I could help him do was to move on from it.

Sean crawled out of bed and laid on the floor. He bellied forward under the bed until he was able to grab whatever he was searching for. When his face reappeared, there was a small smile on it. In his hands was a picture frame.

Right away I noticed that the size of the frame was disproportionate to the picture. I didn”t say anything. He didn”t need to know exactly what was going on. But it was hard to bite back the triumphant grin. Fremont was so fucked.

Sean handed it to me. I looked at it, it was him, his sister, and Trent at the zoo. The smiles on their faces were…genuine. Even Trent”s. Looking at this picture I could believe, just for a second, Sean”s belief that Trent really was brainwashed. It wasn”t the face of that bastard that attacked Gwen. I kept this to myself.

”Mom doesn”t know I have that.”

”It”s okay, you won”t get in any trouble. Do you mind if I keep it for a little while? Maybe it can help me.” He nodded. I stood up and patted him on the shoulder, then headed for the door.

”Static?”

”Yeah, Bud?”

”Thanks, for...you know.”

I smiled at him. ”Of course. Anytime you need to talk, I”m here for you.”

He crawled back into bed and turned the lamp on his nightstand off.

Going back into the living room, I sat next to Gwen on the couch. She watched as I looked over the frame carefully. It was way too thick for a five by seven photo. Sure enough, I found a seam in the corner. Grabbing my knife from my pocket, I dug the tip into it and pried it open. A USB drive fell out.

”Bingo.” I said, picking it up.

Gwen”s eyes met mine. There was hope and excitement there in her gaze. ”Does this mean it”s over?”

”Almost, Sugar. Almost.”

She threw herself into my arms and I grinned. I had everything I fucking wanted, now I just needed to help make it safe for them. Then maybe this nightmare would end for her.