Chapter 18

<Gavin Forrester>

The alarm clock goes off and I slam my hand down lazily on the snooze button. The annoying ringing stops and I sit up, grumbling to myself about how I got the worst night of sleep. Blaze and slick are still snoring in the next bed over and Jeffrey seems to have left the room for some reason.

I rub the back of my neck and go off to the bathroom to shower before everyone gets up. My mind is heavy from the conversation I had with Victoria last night and my guilty conscience won't leave me alone. I feel bad that it took me so long to call her but I have spent the last three weeks exploring every dead-end lead I could find. I even once went to Talon's headquarters but Blaze stopped me from infiltrating it because he knew I wouldn't make it very far. I feel ashamed that after three weeks I haven't found anything and I didn't want to worry Victoria with that fact. My plan backfired, though, because I worried Victoria more by not calling.

I turn on the shower while my thoughts continue to wage a war in my head. The water warms up quickly and I feel a bit less tense as I slip under and begin to wash myself. After at least half an hour, I get out and locate a towel, wrapping it around myself as I look in the mirror.

My brown eyes are surrounded by dark circles, a testament to how much sleep I've actually lost. My hair is overgrown and bedraggled and there's a shadow of a beard covering my chin. My looks on the outside match my mood inside perfectly. I'm tired and completely out of sorts. I wish I'd never even gone out on this quest because I have accomplished absolutely nothing and probably won't.

That dumb address Carter gave me was even a dead-end.

Wait; the address!

I race out of the bathroom, holding my towel tightly around my waist as I reach the pile of duffle bags in the corner. My hands fumble with the one on top which thankfully is mine. I bite my lip as I practically tear the bag apart.

Clothes, shoes, extra bullets and an armored vest fall onto the ground but the very thing I'm looking for stays crumpled at the bottom of it. My fingers shake as I pull out the piece of paper and read the address Carter wrote in his sloping scrawl.

2354 Fairview Drive, Mockingbird Gated Community.

"Gavin, what are you doing? Please try to sleep." Blaze groans and sits up in bed.

"I know where we need to go next." I stand up, the paper clutched in my hand.

"Home?" Slick says hopefully, even though his eyes tell a different story.

"No but this is my last hope. If we don't find it at this address than we can go home." I snap and shove the paper at them.

I know it's been three damn weeks but I need their support right now. If we don't find these files than we might as well hand ourselves over to Talon.

"Okay," They sigh simultaneously and get up to get dressed.

Jeffrey comes back into the room bearing brown paper bags filled with food no doubt. He hands one to each of us and then sits down on the edge of the bed with a solemn look.

"Where are we going today?" He asks with little to no interest.

I hand him the paper Blaze discarded on the other bed and his eyes widen a little.

"Is there something wrong, Jeffrey?" I ask with an edge in my tone.

"Just that this gated community has been closed down for years. It used to be where Talon housed all the people he'd banned from New York." Jeffrey shrugs and hands the paper back to me.

"How do you know this?" My eyes narrow in suspicion as Jeffrey averts his from my intense glare.

"Gavin, you'll learn after a bit more time on this island that everyone is connected to Talon in one way or another." Is all Jeffrey says before he goes off to the bathroom and slams the door shut.

Jeffrey knows way more than he's letting on.

~~~~~

Despite Jeffrey's bombshell, we decide to go check out to the gated community just to make sure. Dressed in bulletproof vests and holding assault rifles, we all pile into the Jeep along with all of our luggage. This address is our last hope and if we don't find my files there, then we'll have to go home empty-handed. The thought of facing Victoria after three weeks and not having the files is giving me nervous goosebumps. As much as I love Victoria, I highly doubt she'd be very understanding if I showed up empty-handed after three weeks of searching and not calling her.

I guess I've kinda screwed myself over...

Jeffrey parks the car a few yards away from a pair of large, wrought iron gates. He puts on his sunglasses and a bandana to disguise himself; he gestures for the rest of us to do the same before getting out of the Jeep.

I tie a black bandana around my face and slip the sunglasses over my eyes. In retrospect, this is not the brightest disguise if you want to try to look innocent. To any passerby, my friends and I probably look like we're part of some illicit gang.

Not that there are any passerby near here; it looks like this area of the island hasn't seen human activity for at least a century. The grass is overgrown and dry, almost like a tumbleweed. The sparse vegetation is under-watered and shriveling up in the island sun. My work boots crunch on the grass as I break into a run towards the iron gates.

The gates are rusted and half-covered by a large 'No Trespassing' sign. I shake the bars of the gate a little and they practically fall out of place, as if someone else has already gotten in. I examine the metal bars and discover that the three fallen ones had been cut away cleanly with some sort of power tool.

Great, now we have company.

I put my finger to my lips and tilt my head towards the community complex. My body slips easily through the hole in the metal gate and I somersault to the side when I hear a crashing noise a few feet away. I stand up and lean against the chipped brick of one of the houses in the gated community.

I check to make sure my gun is loaded before I make a stealthy move down the street. Jeffery was wrong when he described the complex as just closed down; it's more like abandoned. It looks as if some horrific event had happened and all the people who'd lived here just left.

Another reason that it doesn't look closed down is the fact that the houses aren't boarded up and there are no ordinances from the government stating the reasons for closure. Knowing Talon, though, he probably made sure that the government weren't even aware this place existed.

The houses still show some signs that people once lived in them. I peek inside a few of them where the doors were left open and I find a table full of moldy food in one, some laundry folded in a basket in another , a few children's toys scattered on the floor of the third one and on the stove of the last one there was still a pot of soup, which has long since gone cold.

It was as if Talon had come through and people just ran away; as if the thought of being near him was so scary that they'd rather leave everything behind than confront him head-on. I don't blame them for wanting to leave; I don't really want to face Talon either because I highly doubt I'll be fortunate enough to make it out with my life.

I hear another crash and a yelp of pain. I race out of the house I'm currently snooping through and sprint down the street towards the source of the sound. I come into a sort of alcove and then I find Blaze and a masked person engaged in some sort of fist fight.

I sling my gun over my back and secure the strap before running towards the masked assailant. I grab his flailing arms and pin them behind his back. Blaze punches him hard in the stomach and the force causes me to drop the person. Whoever they are lie down on the ground and clutch their stomach while wheezing heavily.

"Damn it all to hell." They mutter as they struggle to catch their breath.

That voice sounds too familiar. I bite my lip as my mind puts two and two together; there's only one person who can be underneath that mask. My fingers brush the wool of the ski-mask and then I forcefully rip it off of the person. Just as I thought.

Carter Jacobson is sitting right in front of me, more fear in his bloodshot eyes than I've seen in a long time. An evil smile plays on my lips as I grip his shoulder tightly, pulling him up off the ground.

"Gavin, please don't hurt me; I promise I came to help you." Carter holds up his hands in surrender making me almost burst out laughing.

While maintaining a grimacing façade I respond to Carter, my grip tightening on him. "You are the last person I'd want help from."

"I know I'm the last person you'd want help from but that doesn't mean I can't help." Carter talks nervously, as if he knows saying the wrong thing could end very badly for him.

"Get me something to restrain him with." I mutter through tight lips to Blaze.

"The death grip you have on him seems to be restraint enough." Blaze grins as he pulls out a pair of handcuffs he kept from his dirty cop friend when I escaped.

Blaze tosses them to me and I attach one to Carter's left wrist. I drag him by the other one towards a stair railing. I attach the remaining handcuff to the metal bar and then force Carter to sit down. He does so grudgingly and then huffs, wincing from the pain still present in his stomach. He glares up at me as I stoop down to be eye-level with him.

"Why would I want help from the person who tried to stab my girlfriend to death?" I whisper, each word coming out angrier than the last.

"Gavin, you have to understand something about that..." Carter begins but I interrupt him.

"What is there to understand? You tried to murder her for Talon because I wouldn't; plain and simple." I cross my arms and sit down on the paved cobblestone street in front of the stairs.

"Not everything everyone does is because of you, asshole." Carter spits and continues to glare at me.

"Don't insult the guy with the assault weapon." I mutter and gesture for Blaze to point his gun at Carter's head.

"Wow, what's this, the fifteenth time someone has pointed a gun at my head in the past few months? Gosh, it keeps getting scarier." Carter drawls sarcastically, the fear now absent in his eyes.

"Tell us something good or this'll be the last time someone points a gun at your head." I mock him and then watch as the fear becomes present in his eyes once again.

"Okay, so as I'm sure you're well aware, I'm a crack dealer and addict...or at least I used to be. Back when I'd hurt Victoria, I was completely wasted and I had enough cocaine in me to pay college tuition at Brown." Carter bites his lip and stares at the ground, probably hoping I won't make him continue.

"That's hardly a reason." I mutter, my fists clenched to keep me from strangling the life out of him.

"I was scared out of my mind because I was in trouble with some hardcore drug lords and Talon promised me he could get me away from that trouble if I did something for him. Obviously I agreed because the other alternative involved me being shot in the head multiple times. He told me what I had to do and where I had to be but not who the victim was because he knew I had enough of a soul left to not want to kill my alleged fiancée..."

"You mean you had enough of a reputation to upkeep that he figured you wouldn't want to kill your own fiancée." The back of my neck flames red in anger as those words come out of my mouth.

"Yeah, so he just gave me a description of the girl and then got me a cocaine fix. Since I was in trouble with the drug lords, I couldn't get any drugs either so Talon also promised to get me my fix. What I didn't know about those drugs, though, was that Talon had altered them so I wouldn't know where I was or what I was doing. I would be like his robot and currently all I remember about that night is what Talon and a few other people have told me. I know the basis of what I did but the details are still non-existent." Carter picks at a thread in his shirt and then looks up, making eye contact with me.

Honestly, it seems like something Talon would do...

"Do you remember going to see Victoria while she was in the hospital?" I ask with suspicion.

"I remember injecting the whole bag of drugs into my veins in Talon's office and then I remember waking up in some rundown bar in the Bronx. Apparently, I did lots of things in those hours while I was high." Carter answers almost instantly and sincerely, thus proving to me that he had no recollection of those events.

"What about the night of the rehearsal dinner when you, Talon and Mrs. Grayson were hell-bent on killing Victoria?" I clench my fists at the memory and then wait for Carter's answer.

"Talon kept giving me those drugs and I was addicted to the intense high I got from taking them. Talon was the only person I could get them from and my brain was completely screwed up, so all those jackass things I said were because I thought Talon wanted to hear them; it was just word of mouth so I could get my next high."

"Those things seemed pretty sincere to me." I mumble, the words he said that night still on replay in my head as well as the sounds of satisfying bullets piercing through enemy skin.

"I'm pretty convincing when I want my drugs." Carter says half-heartedly, as if he's disappointed he was once that person.

"What sort of help can you offer to me?" I ask, finally leaving the subject of Victoria alone.

"I lured you to this address and I swear it wasn't for nothing." Carter utters quickly like he's trying to convince me to let him live a little longer.

"Better not have been." I smirk, enjoying the amount of power I have over him.

"That day when you guys were on the boat, I knew what Talon was going to do. I knew exactly what Talon was going to steal and I knew how to get it back. I left all of my stuff on the bank in the hopes that you guys would discover it and go try to find the address. I was going to get all of the files back as soon as possible and leave them here for you to find." Carter breathes deeply and looks me in the eye, gauging my reaction.

"Where are my files?" I grit my teeth and will him to divulge that critical piece of information.

"They're in that metal case over there." Carter uses his free hand to point out a large silver case laying unattended by the community post office.

"Blaze, watch him like a hawk." I give Carter an apprehensive look as I go over and pick up the case.

I walk briskly back to Carter and drop the case at his feet.

"What's the combination?" I grumble, bending down so I'm level with the large metal box.

My mind is waiting for Carter to say something along the lines of 'Sike, you thought I'd actually changed.' and then laugh in my face at his own punchline but even I knew Carter wasn't that creative.

"0, 2, 14," He gives me a tense look as he finishes the sentence.

He made the combination Victoria's birthday...

The lock opens flawlessly and I practically throw the lid off of the box with anticipation. Nestled inside is everything Talon stole from me, organized just as it had been before. For once Carter has been good to his word. A smile spreads across my face as I run my fingers over the worn manila covers of the files.

"Why did you do this for me?" I ask, my tone much more gentle than before.

"I told you, I've done some screwed up things in my life and I want to make amends. I want to make Talon suffer for what he's done. I know it isn't much and it sure as hell doesn't make up for all the things I did to you and Victoria but it's a start. Also, I wiped his computer memory of everything he'd saved from your files and I restored your computer so everything should be just as it was before. I'm serious about making him suffer; I've never been more serious about anything in my life." Carter looks at me confidently after finishing his speech and I almost feel something resembling respect towards him.

Everyone wants to make Talon suffer; I don't think I've been more proud of the human race than I am right now.

"Are you still working for him?" I ask, just as a clarification question.

"Only to leak information, wipe his computer memory and wire money to my friends in higher places." Carter grins with satisfaction and I even find myself smiling a little.

"You're still an asshole, Carter Jacobson but at least now you're a respectable asshole." I clap him on the back and sit down next to him on the stairs.

"Thanks, I think." Carter looks at me oddly, not sure whether he should accept my very back-handed compliment.

"Welcome to team take-down. Blaze, let's unlock him." I hold out my hand and Blaze drops the key into it.

I stand up and walk over to the railing where Carter's hand is still shackled. My fingers steadily turn the key into the keyhole and Carter's hands are free in no time flat. He stands up and stretches his wrists, a grateful gleam in his eyes.

"Gavin, I want you to know that I am truly sorry for everything that happened back in New York. I was a scared, dumb kid with way too much money to spend. It doesn't excuse what I did but I want you to know that I'm a different person now and I never want to go back to who I was before." Carter holds out his hand for me and I grip it firmly.

"A few months ago, I never would've thought I'd accept an apology from you but times change, circumstances change and even people can change. I'm glad you've seen the error of you ways, Carter." I let go of his hand, barely able to comprehend the fact that I'd just halfway forgiven Carter Jacobson for something.

I shudder internally as I bend down and pick up the metal box of my belongings.

"I'm going to go back to Talon's home office before he realizes I'm gone. Here's the number for my burner phone. Call it if you ever want some inside information." Carter tapes a piece of paper to the top of the box before slipping the ski mask back on.

He runs down the street like a criminal on the loose and then disappears behind a brick house a few yards ahead, thus leaving my friends and I alone in the deserted community square.

"Should we follow him to see if he leads us to Talon's house?" Blaze asks, as if I'm his superior officer or something.

"No, I don't need to give Talon an invitation to shoot me. We'll find his house when the time is right." I mutter, a faraway look in my sleep-deprived brown eyes.