Chapter 28
Lily sat in the warehouse watching the commotion around her. Everyone was busy getting ready to rescue Matt the street man. Lily didn’t even know his last name, but that didn’t matter. It probably wouldn’t even matter if she knew his first name. He was a person, a good person. She felt he had value because of that alone. He was worth saving.
Shazzi had eaten lunch with Lily, but after that, she had been on her own. She thought she would try her hand at the shooting simulator if it was ever free, but it never was. Lily hadn’t had time to tell Malaya or Landon about her last minute trip to New York, so she figured she should call them. She was dreading talking to Landon about it the most, so she called Malaya first. Malaya was so thrilled about how well the double date had gone the night before that she didn’t want to talk about anything else. When Malaya finally let her off the phone, she called Landon. He was busy with a last minute paper for a class, and he said he couldn’t talk long. Lily had a feeling that wasn’t the whole truth, but she didn’t want to go into it with all the team members around her. Their conversation was over in a few short minutes and hadn’t filled as much time as she had hoped.
Lily whipped out the book she had brought from her literature class. She had to read three chapters by Monday, which usually wasn’t a problem because she loved to read, but in the warehouse she had a difficult time focusing on it. It wasn’t just because of the commotion in the room either. Her own thoughts and worries filled her mind. She just didn’t have room for much else. Lily tried reading for an hour or so, but she finally gave it up when she realized she had read the same paragraph five times and still didn’t know what it said. After that all she could do was watch everyone else prepare for the last minute rescue mission.
“Alright everyone,” Mr. Turner said calling the team to the giant conference table in the center of the room. “I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Let’s go.”
“Ahem,” Shazzi cleared her throat loudly.
“Oh, yes, go ahead,” Mr. Turner said quickly. Shazzi bowed her head and offered a short prayer for their safety and successful retrieval of their friend and coworker.
“Okay, now let’s go,” Mr. Turner said as he began walking towards the garage. Lily never would have thought Mr. Turner to be a religious man, so she wasn’t sure why he would begin every assignment and most meals with a prayer.
“Hey, Shazzi,” Lily said catching up to her in the parking garage. “You might think this is a strange question, but why do you say a prayer before everything? I’m kind of surprised Mr. Turner lets you.”
“He has to,” Shazzi replied grinning slyly. “It’s in my contract. When I was a kid we always said a prayer asking for safety whenever we traveled, and to bless every meal we ate as a family. Whenever I say a prayer before an assignment, I feel calmer and I feel like I can think more clearly. When John asked me to be a part of the team, I told him I would only do it if he let me pray before every assignment I went on. He wanted me bad enough that he agreed to my terms. Eventually it turned into every meal we ate as a team too. The moral of the story is to stick up for yourself and what you want.”
“So why did he want you so badly?”
“I have 20/10 vision, which means I can see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision can see when they’re 10 feet away. That alone made me an excellent candidate for being a lookout. I’ve also been a black belt since I was sixteen, I have exceptional hand to hand combat skills, and I rarely miss my mark with a handgun. Those were all appealing as well.”
“Wow, no wonder he wanted you so badly.”
“He wants you even more.” Lily didn’t know what to say to that.
***
The team was once again split up into different vehicles to approach their destination unnoticed. Lily was assigned to sit in a van again with her three body guards. The van they had entered this time was white and covered with painted on cupcakes and assorted baked goods. Across the top were scrolling letters that read, “A Piece of Cake Bakery”. It was explained to her that a black van in the area they were going to would be more suspicious than a bakery van.
They all rode in silence along the streets of New York. When they came to a stop, Lily craned her neck for some clue as to where they were. It seemed they were in front of some sort of residential building because out the front window she could see laundry hanging outside on a line. It was hard to tell if the buildings were for single families or apartment buildings, but the small portion of the red brick exterior that Lily could see was aged and crumbling. The buildings she could see were all old and decaying to some degree.
“This is it,” Mr. Turner’s voice sounded over their ear pieces. “You all know what to do. Remember, this is the mafia we’re dealing with here. They won’t hesitate to open fire. Lily will update the van men what she hears, and they will update you. Good luck everyone.” The plan wasn’t anything special. Go in as quietly and as undetected as possible, find Matt, and get him and everyone else out unharmed. It seemed simple enough, but there were so many variables that made the simplest of plans incredibly dangerous. Lily closed her eyes to focus on the faint buzzing that had been building since they had pulled the van curbside. She quieted her mind and let the thoughts come.
First there wasn’t much information that would have helped the street team. Then one voice stuck out to her. One that she thought she had heard before.
“I hate these people. They put me here in this dark, basement. I’m alone except for this stupid guard outside the door who wouldn’t know the sharp end of a tack. I wish I could slam the door into his head and knock him out and break out of here. This is Matt, by the way Lily. Get me out of here now or I will shoot everyone in this place dead. Thanks, I mean, no thanks to you.”
“Hey, hey,” Lily cried out a little too loudly. “It’s Matt. He’s told me exactly where he is. He’s in the basement with one guard outside the door, who isn’t very smart.” Lily laughed almost giddy. Everyone around her was almost as excited as she was. One of the van men relayed the information to the amazed, but pleased street group. Lily continued to listen for more information from Matt, but he said he didn’t know much else. There were mafia men in and out of the house all day, but he didn’t know how many there were.
“This dumb house, that I want to blow up, is quiet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that no one is there. There are dogs in the small back patio that I want to rip apart. They will bark an alarm if anyone approaches. Man, I’d like to take a bat to those dogs. They yap away all day and night.” Lily passed on what Matt had told her, and continued to listen to his thoughts hoping he would give her more information, but he didn’t. In fact, he gave her the same thoughts over and over again. She kept wondering why, and then she realized that he didn’t know they were there. He was repeatedly thinking those thoughts for whenever his team showed up, and he was hoping she was with them when they did. She wondered how long he had been thinking those same thoughts over and over and over again waiting for them to come for him.
The street team updated the van men that they were entering the house. They split up into two groups. One group climbed an escape ladder to enter through an unlocked window three stories up, and the other group decided they would try their luck walking in through the front door. Lily wasn’t sure how they would get through the front door, because any smart person holding someone hostage would have it locked at all times. To Lily’s surprise, somehow each team reported that they all got inside the house unnoticed. The street team was silent for what seemed like a long time. Lily began to get nervous for them. Just when she thought she couldn’t take the suspense any longer, a voice was heard over the ear pieces.
“We got him.”
“Now they just have to get out,” one of Lily’s guards said positively. They hadn’t been noticed at all somehow, even though they must have knocked out the guy guarding Matt. The house seemed to be pretty deserted, but Lily had sworn she had heard voices coming from inside before she had heard Matt. She closed her eyes and tried to listen again for any sign that they were there. There was a small hum, and then a sporadic buzz in her mind taunted her for a moment before giving way to the thoughts she wanted to hear.
“I’ll send Jake to the left hall and Art to the right hall and through the kitchen, and we’ll blow them out of the water. They’ll never know what hit them.”
“Wait,” she spat out quickly. “They know they’re in there. They’re coming. One guy from the left hall and another coming through the kitchen and then there is a third guy in charge, but I don’t know where he is.” Lily was almost panicking by the time she finished. The van men alerted the street men inside the house while the guards tried to calm Lily down.
“They will be fine. Just wait.”
“They do assignments like this all the time. They are trained to do this.”
“Remember, they’re armed too.” Their words were comforting, but Lily still worried. Her nerves felt like they had been run over repeatedly by a cheese grater. They were rubbed raw.
“Please let them get out safe,” she pleaded in her own mind hoping someone, anyone was listening to her thoughts. “Please, please, please let them get out of that house safely.” She didn’t really know who she was talking too, but if there was anyone listening, she wanted to be sure they were on her side. Lily sat silently listening for any other thoughts that might come her way. She heard one here and there, but they were the kind that were threatening to a specific person rather than about the situation itself. There were no more clues. It seemed her part of the rescue was over. Now all she could do was sit and wait.
***
“So then what happened?” Lily could tell Malaya was on the edge of her seat at the other end of the phone line.
“Then there were some gunshots and I could hear glass breaking. Maybe a window, I don’t really know. I couldn’t see anything. Not long after that, all of our team members came out with Matt and we all got out of there before Gambino’s men could call for reinforcements. One person got shot, but the bullet didn’t do much damage so he will be fine.”
“Well, Miss Superhero,” Malaya said playfully. “I think it’s past your bedtime. You’ve been yawning after every sentence, and I’m beat anyway. Thanks for filling me in. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, okay?”
“See you tomorrow,” Lily said before pressing the end button on her aunt’s cordless phone. She was pretty exhausted. It had been almost midnight when she got home from New York Saturday night. Sunday morning she was wakened earlier than normal to a neighbor banging away with a hammer and another neighbor mowing his lawn. That afternoon she had wanted to take a nap, but her aunt had decided that with all the time Lily had spent out of town, they needed some family time. So the majority of the day was spent playing games together and stuffing themselves with her aunt’s homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Then the evening was devoted to homework and reading the literature chapters she hadn’t finished in New York. When she had completed every scrap of homework, she called Landon, who actually asked to hear about her trip. She told him everything, and to her surprise he was happy that everything went so well for her. When she had commented on his change of heart, his response was one she wouldn’t soon forget.
“After you called me on Saturday morning, I thought a lot about it. I know that you won’t run off and leave me to work for my dad, but for some reason I was still irritated that you left and went to help him. And I didn’t even know about it until after you were already there. So yesterday I thought about it a lot and I realize I have a lot of resentment towards my father, and the agency for taking him away from me. Those are things I have to deal with somehow, and I shouldn’t let my anger get in the way of what you want, because at the end of the day, what I really want is for you to be happy. If this job makes you happy, then I support you one hundred percent.” Lily was so glad that he finally saw himself clearly. He saw what his hate for his father was doing to their relationship, and more importantly, what it was doing to him. It was eating away at his soul. Now that Landon finally recognized that, he was headed in the direction of forgiveness and peace.