If the weapon is your love, I got my hands up
If you're gonna take me down, I surrender

Chapter 26.2 ~ Hold Up

Trey Carter

After watching yet another raccoon scurry across the street in a desperate frenzy to leap into the dumpster to get its dinner for the night, I quickly became annoyed with my designated position as "the-guy-who-keeps-watch." It had been thirty five minutes since the others left to rescue Owen. They said they'd be quick—in and out, they said—but I had successfully listened to an entire Drake album and they still hadn't returned.

My mind had begun to resort to dark, brooding thoughts about what could be happening right now. If Lucifer was as dangerous and violent as everyone said he was, then it was very possible that Lucifer had caught them and killed them all without any remorse. I didn't want to think like that, though, because that would mean that I was a witness to all of this. I wouldn't even know how to begin to explain this to the police, so I hoped that I would never have to. Still, Owen was in there, and if they couldn't rescue him, who would?

Tugging my earbuds out of my ears, I relaxed in my seat and stared straight ahead at the street. It was approaching the late hours of night, so there weren't many cars in sight. I was sure it wouldn't be too much of a big deal if I abandoned my designated job and tried to figure out what was going on, so I stuffed my earbuds into my pocket and inched out of the car with caution.

I had suddenly decided to play the role of savior, or hero, if you will, but reality was I was shaking in my shoes. My knees must've wobbled enough to hit each other several times for the entire journey toward the warehouse. I willed myself to take deep breaths, to bring myself together, as I maneuvered my way past the same entrance the others had gone through, proceeding with care and simultaneously brushing my fingers against the gun tucked away in my back pocket.

Never would I have thought that I'd be put in such a position. I lived my whole life as a rich mixed guy who lived in a good neighborhood, went to a good school, and led a relatively good life aside from some setbacks here and there. Now here I was, donning a firearm and trespassing in hopes of stopping a major drug lord, thereby succumbing to the expectations society had put in place for a guy like me.

But this thought didn't even deter me. I had gotten way too involved to back down now. I was well aware I could die in the process of trying to be a hero, but that didn't faze me as much as I thought it would—at least it was more exciting than the current boring and repetitive life I lived.

The warehouse was dark; I had to stumble and feel around for the walls to keep myself on my feet. Eventually, I came across a narrow hallway that provided some source of light in this eerie darkness. I followed this hallway until the light source became more prominent and until I could hear distinct voices. Pressing my back against the wall and slowly inching forward, I tried to get a sense of the nature of the conversation these voices were having. One thing was clear: the voices were definitely male and they definitely sounded older and just as intimidating as I perceived men who worked for a drug lord would sound.

"What's for dinner?" one of the men (a closer look confirmed it was the taller of the two) asked the other. They were both stationed at opposite sides of the hallway's clearing.

"Couple guys and I are trying to get pizza after we're done here. Don't know how long Lucifer's planning to take with those kids. I don't have all day—my wife will freak if I'm not home by one and I'm not trying to hear her wrath."

"I hear ya, man, my girl is the same way," was the other's response.

My fingers brushed against my gun, but I released it once I realized that I wasn't actually here to kill anyone. The gun was simply for protection. If there was a way I could rescue Owen without brutal violence, then I might be able to sleep soundly at night.

Deciding to create a diversion, I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and threw it into the clearing at a significant distance from the guards' current position. The phone succeeded in catching the guards' attention so that they felt the need to leave their posts to investigate. As soon as they were gone, I took off in the other direction, being sure not to draw too much attention to myself.

I had been free running for a notable amount of time, turning down hallway after hallway in hopes of finding something that would lead me to Owen. I had begun to think that this was going to be a little too easy—that was, of course, until I heard, "Game's over, kid," from a loud voice, forcing me to stop in my tracks and slowly turn around to face the source. It was another minion, a very large one at that, with a gun clutched tightly in his hands as he approached me with cautious steps. "What's your business here?"

I held my hands up to surrender, being sure not to raise my hands too high to reveal my concealed weapon. "Private business."

The man scoffed. "What's stopping me from putting a bullet in your head?"

He was intimidating for sure, but I've watched my fair share of James Bond movies to know how to play this game. "Nothing," I said with a shrug. "I'm surprised you still haven't done it by now."

He snarled, obviously not amused with my back talk. "I'm only going to ask this one more time," he said with a stern voice that was meant to have me shaking in my boots, "what's your business here?"

"Do you like working for Lucifer?" I questioned instead, choosing to appeal to the man's emotions instead. "What did you have to give up to work here? Family? Friends? A girlfriend—" My rival's eyes narrowed into thin slits, forcing me to continue, "—correction: what did Lucifer threaten to take away from you?"

He was just inches away at this point, still holding his gun with a steady hand. "Shut up, kid, or I'll end you right now."

"Whatever Lucifer's paying you, I'll double it, if you take me to where Owen is being held."

He scoffed. "And where are you going to get this money?

"I'm the son of Isabelle and Wesley Carter," I said which was enough to make the man's eyes go wide with shock. His grip on the gun loosened slightly. "Yeah, that's right. Give me what I want and the money is all yours."

The man pursed his lips as though in deep thought, but it didn't take him long to make up his mind because he lower the gun shortly after. He released a heavy sigh and tipped his head in the opposite direction, gesturing for me to follow. I tailed him to a tee, refusing to let there be any room for him to try anything. Fortunately for me, he led me down a series of hallways until we were left standing in front of a giant steel door with a rusted handle. I rushed to open the door, but the man pushed on my chest. "If you survive this, which I highly doubt you will, I'm gonna be looking for you." He gave me a stern look, one that said he wasn't too fond of being lied to, before he backed away from me and disappeared down the end of the hallway.

I waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps to turn the handle on the door, slowly and carefully pushing it open enough to slip through the narrow opening. On the other side of the door was yet another dark hallway, but there was a sliver of light at the end of the hallway. I proceeded with caution until I arrived at the main room which was lit with a dull, barely-there, white light. I had to squint to make out the figures in front of me, but I was able to successfully confirm five bodies—four of them were chained to the ceiling by their wrists while the fifth was carelessly strolling around the room.

My gaze focused on Owen who was, without a doubt, in the worst shape of them all. He was shirtless with long red gashes stretched across his chest and abdomen. His face was badly bruised, his hair sweaty, but the most notable feature of all was the blood trickling down his shoulder and onto the floor.

Raven was positioned next to him. She wasn't nearly as badly hurt, but she definitely looked uncomfortable. They all did.

I concluded the person who was free to roam around the room was Lucifer. He didn't look as menacing as everyone made him seem. He was dressed in a suit, his sandy blonde hair was gelled back, and he walked around the room like he had all the time in the world. He looked like a man that didn't want to get his hands dirty, but yet, he was here in what I assumed to be a torture room with four unwilling bodies—a psychopath's dream, I assumed.

"Lab results are back," Lucifer announced with a complacent grin on his face. "Turns out, Blondie over here, wasn't lying." He glanced down at the folder in his hands as his grin grew wider, but he eventually sighed before tossing the folder to the floor. "Not that it matters, anyway. You'll be dead before you reach the second trimester."

Frowning, I pressed myself further against the wall. What did he mean by that?

"Because I'm curious..." Lucifer waltzed between the Raven and Owen, picking his feet up with such ease and putting them down again with just as much lesiure. He was enjoying this, "...who's the father? Is it ... Owen? I always thought you two would make a perfect family one day—or is it this fellow?" He sized up Jonah and smiled just before moving onto Ake. "Or is it the delinquent that could never do anything right?"

Raven lifted her head high enough for me to see her face. There was a purple bruise apparent on her right cheek and the thought of how that bruise might have surfaced instantly made me angry, but I tried to bite back a hiss as I continued to canvas my surroundings. "Fuck you," she spat.

"Very well, don't answer." Lucifer's shoulders slumped. "I don't actually care, although it'd be nice for one of these lovely gentlemen to know about their child before they meet their demise, but that's ultimately your choice."

I sucked in a breath. Raven was pregnant?

The pixie-haired blonde didn't make an effort to say anything else; instead, she turned to look at Owen whose head was hung low; in fact, if I hadn't seen the slight rise and fall of his chest, I would've thought he was already dead.

Lucifer clapped his hands together, successfully making everyone in the room, sans Owen, but including me, jump in surprise. "Well, now that the gang's all here. Why don't we get to killing, huh? Let's see ... who should go first?"

When no one answered, he emitted a loud, unsettling laugh. "No volunteers? Okay, how about ... Eenie, meenie, miney, moe..." He hovered beside each person as he broke down the children's rhyme," ... catch a tiger by his toe ... if he hollers let him go ... my dearly deceased mother told me to pick the best one and you are it." His eyes landed on Owen and an unsettling smile quickly surfaced.

"Well, well, well!" He retrieved a sharp dagger from his jacket pocket and moved it between his fingers. "Isn't this fitting? It all started with you, Owen, and now it's going to end with you."

"No!" Raven cried out, in which Lucifer responded by swiping his palm across her face, instantly silencing her.

"You were such a great worker," Lucifer continued as he traced the dagger along Owen's jawline. "You were loyal. Always did what I told you to do. Always respected the man in charge, and yet, you decided to give this wonderful life away just so you could have a life? Little do you know, kid, that there is no such thing as a life without the devil. And now, you will pay for your sins." He retracted the knife from Owen's face and drew it behind him, preparing to plunge the blade into Owen's stomach.

In one swift movement, I grabbed onto my gun, emerged from the darkness, and pulled the trigger.

What happened next continued to escape my mind. A piercing sound sliced through the air, nearly injuring my ear drums in the process. Lucifer had fallen onto the floor, unresponsive, and the knife fell out of his hand. It took me a moment to process what I had just done because I didn't want to admit it to myself. I didn't want to admit that I had just killed someone. My body slumped against the nearest wall as all these discomforting thoughts rushed through my head like an incoming tsunami. My head began to throb shortly after, causing a persistent thump to sound through my ears.

Then everything went black.

I awoke several moments later due to the sound of someone calling my name repeatedly. I jumped up, trying desperately to place myself in my surroundings, to understand what was going on. What I saw before me were four bodies chained to the walls and one on the floor.

"Trey!" Raven shouted. "Please get us down before his followers find out."

"F-find out," I repeated, stammering a bit, "find out that I ... I ... killed him."

Raven was growing impatient. "Trey, the key is in his jacket pocket!"

I scrambled to my feet, nearly losing my balance in the process, and scurried further into the room to where the others were. My vision was impaired, from what I wasn't sure, but I tried to endure as I searched the dead man's person for the keys. I moved slowly at first because the thought of touching a dead person, a person that died because of me, deeply disturbed me, but I had to pick up the pace when Raven and the others urged me to.

As soon as my fingers brushed against the keys, I stumbled away from the dead body and moved quickly to undo Raven's restraints. She snatched the key away from me in order to free everyone else, starting with Owen. He hit the floor hard, like the chains were the only thing that was keeping him upright.

I scrambled over to his side and heaved his body onto his side so that I could see his face which badly battered and bruised. "Owen?" I pressed my ear up against his chest to hear his heartbeat; it was faint, but it was there. "It's over. Lucifer's gone. I ... I killed him."

Owen peeled his eyes open slowly—the motion definitely looked like it took him a lot of effort. He stared at me for some time. His forest green eyes were the dullest they had ever been, but it was such a relief to see them staring back at me. The corner of his mouth tugged into something resembling a smile, but it disappeared once his eyes landed on the dead body next to him. "He's ... he's not dead," he wheezed.

"He's not?" I turned my head to examine Lucifer's body once more. I was sure the bullet had hit him, and he had been laying on the floor for quite some time. Before I could get a good look, Owen grabbed my wrist to bring my attention back to him. "What?"

"Unconscious," he managed to say through labored breaths. "He's losing a lot of blood ... but he'll live." At that, I moved away from Lucifer just in case he decided to regain consciousness anytime soon.

Raven caught my attention when she brushed her hands against her jeans and retrieved the gun I had used to shoot Lucifer. Jonah and Ake were no longer in their restraints and they were just as ready to leave as she was. "Come on, let's get out of here."

* * *

a/n: Hello, everyone! It's been a long time. I can assure you that my absence wasn't because I forgot about you guys or about any of my books. During my second semester at school, I encountered a situation that left me in a very depressed state. I no longer had a desire to write and even when I forced myself to write something so that I wouldn't disappoint you all, I came up empty. I do apologize for my absence, not only from this book, but from my others. I am currently doing better than I was before and hopefully this means I will be able to give you guys more updates!

If you enjoyed this chapter, then please vote and leave a comment! It'd mean a lot!

Until next time,
Lara <3