Sound of Survival (Book 2): Fight or Flight Read online

  The roar of the engines of approaching cars reminded me that we didn’t have a single second to worry about that shit right now. I looked around frantically, trying to find a place to hide.

  “There!” I said, spotting a ladder that led to what looked to be some kind of maintenance platform above the main floor of the warehouse. It was hard to tell from the darkness, but it looked to be reasonably well hidden.

  The engines grew closer and closer, finally cutting out when they sounded to be right next to the warehouse. Amy and I hurried over to the ladder, her going first and me following after. Right as we both reached the top of the ladder, the doors opened below, dim light pouring in.

  Just as I’d feared, Dante Arco himself strolled in soon after. And he wasn’t alone.

  2 Amy

  Everything had been happening so fast that I hadn’t even started to process it all. One second I was crouched in the sand hiding behind a rock, the next I was running for my life, and then I found myself hiding on some maintenance platform in a warehouse full of drugs.

  And on top of it all, the man that I’d somehow gotten saddled to in all this madness wasn’t telling me a single thing about what was going on. Ed knew more than he was letting on, no doubt, but instead he was treating me like some kid who didn’t need to worry her little head with minor details, like, for example “who were these guys and why were they killing people,” and “why is there a freaking drug distribution center in the middle of the one of the biggest concerts in North America?”

  Just little stuff like that.

  “Ed!” I hissed, making sure to keep my voice low. “What the hell is going on?”

  A frustrated expression formed on his face for a split second, as if he wanted to tell me to shut up. But instead, he jabbed a finger down at the small group of men who’d just walked into the warehouse.

  “That guy,” he said. “Is the last fucking person we want to be dealing with right now. So stay quiet and don’t let him know we’re here, got it?”

  Not nearly as specific as what I was hoping for, but I realized it was the best I was going to get. Hopefully, listening in on these guys would prove more helpful than Ed was currently being.

  The man in charge, the guy with the long black hair and matching braided beard, the guy who looked like the kind of hard-ass, tattoo-covered biker sort who’d shoot someone for looking at him funny, strolled into the place like it was his living room. Other men who looked to be members of his group or gang or whatever it was followed in after him. There were ten men in total, more than enough to make our day even worse than it already was.

  The main guy approached one of the tables, taking a look over the spread of drugs and processing gear. He picked up one of the packets of powder and looked it over, as if inspecting it. Once he was satisfied with whatever he was looking for, he tossed it back onto the table where it landed with a soft thud.

  “Looks like you dumbfucks manage to hang onto one of the warehouses at least,” he said, his voice deep and craggy as he spoke.

  “But Dante—” came a voice from past the open doors.

  Dante. So that was this guy’s name.

  “Shut up,” he growled. “I’m not in the mood for excuses. Not even a little.”

  He turned to one of the men who looked to be in his gang.

  “Bring those assholes in here,” he said. “I want to get to the bottom of this bullshit.”

  The nearest man nodded before stepping out of the warehouse. Moments later he returned with two more gang members and four men who looked to be part of the festival security staff, their hands tied behind their backs.

  “Dante!” said one of them, some beefy guy with sandy-blond hair and arms inked up and down in tats. “Please, let me explain!”

  Dante flicked his glance over to one of his men.

  “You got something to eat?” he asked as the security guards were lined up in front of him. “I’m fucking starving.”

  The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out what looked to be an energy bar.

  “Just this,” he said.

  Dante snapped his fingers, the man quickly handing the bar over. After unwrapping the bar, the crinkling sounding through the warehouse, he took a bite.

  “Hate these things,” he said. “Basically just shitty candy bars. And people think they’re healthier because they’re not covered in chocolate. But just as much sugar, you know?”

  No one said anything as Dante slowly worked his way through the bar, sucking his fingers and tossing the wrapper onto the ground when he was done. The tied-up men were visibly terrified, and I got the impression Dante was enjoying watching them sweat. I hated this guy already.

  “So,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Imagine me, trying to relax at Venice Beach, when the fucking power goes out. Whole city. And LA’s soft, too—average rich fucker there isn’t mentally prepared to go more than five minutes with fewer than three bars on his phone, let alone no power.”

  He paced back and forth slowly in front of the men, signaling for them to get to their knees. They did as he asked. I glanced over at Ed, who was watching the events with a look of total focus.

  The importance of Dante’s words hit me. This meant that the power outage hadn’t just hit Dead Air—it had affected electricity all the way to LA. At that moment, the entire LA region was in the dark. I could only imagine what a shitshow it all had to be.

  “I figured I might want to check things out at Dead Air, maybe get out of the city while this shit all got sorted out. I got a lot of money wrapped up in this place, you know. But I hired a whole crew to handle it, boys who knew what they were doing, knew how to get shit done.”

  He stopped and stared at one of the men, the guy with sandy-blond hair.

  “Or so I thought. Imagine my shock when one of the crew from the concert stops my convoy on the way here, tells me that people are breaking into the warehouses left and right, stealing my fucking product, and making my men look like total assholes!”

  Dante’s voice boomed through the warehouse. No one said a word.

  “Dante!” the man finally stammered out. “Just let me—”

  Before he could finish, Dante pulled his pistol out from his waist, flipped it around in his hand, and brought it across the face of the sandy-haired man with a hard swipe. My stomach tightened at the sight of the blow.

  “Okay, Jason,” said Dante. “You’re so eager to give me excuses, let’s have them. Tell me why this place went straight to hell within a few hours of the power going off. Tell me why it looks like a goddamn zoo full of coked-up animals out there. Tell me why you not only failed in the task I’d set you, but failed so fucking spectacularly that I’m, actually, in kind of awe.”

  Jason said nothing at first, apparently realizing that his life hung in the balance of whatever his boss’s next words were.

  “But it’s not me!” he cried. “It wasn’t my fault! All the power went off and nobody was listening to me and—”

  “Ho-ly shit,” said Dante, cutting him off. “That’s what you’re going with? You get the chance to give me any explanation you want and you pick telling me that it’s not your fault? Hell, you could’ve told me aliens caused the power outage then showed up and took everything and I might be inclined to at least appreciate your creativity. But this…”

  “It’s true!” said Jason. “And when the power went off everything just went to shit. Dante, there was a few dozen of us and a whole fucking city’s worth of them! What were we supposed to do?”

  Dante scoffed. “You were supposed to do exactly what I told you to do in the event of shit getting out of hand—falling back and defending the stashes. Simple-fucking-as. But instead…instead I don’t know what you did. Grab some coke for yourselves and party with the rest of them?”

  “The power going out meant we couldn’t talk to each other,” said Jason. “We couldn’t coordinate. And the crowds made things even worse.”

  “Ah,” said Dante. “You co
uldn’t talk to each other.”

  He said nothing for a long moment as he continued to go through the drugs and material on the tables, inspecting them carefully.

  “You how big Alexander the Great’s empire was?” Dante asked.

  Jason cocked his head to the side, clearly confused.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “You know Alexander the Great, right?” Dante said.

  “Uh, yeah, sure.”

  “And you know he had a big empire, right?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “And do you know how big it was?” asked Dante, taking a look at another packet of coke.

  “Um, big?” asked Jason.

  “Give me a size,” said Dante. “Just take a stab at it.”

  “It was…it was Roman, right?” he asked. “So…Italy? Was it the size of Italy?”

  Dante shook his head dismissively as he wrapped a rubber band around a packet of white powder.

  “So wrong that I don’t even know where to begin,” he said, turning around and leaning against the nearby table. “He was ancient Macedonian, and his empire stretched all the way from Macedonia to India. Pretty big, right?”

  “Uh, sure,” said Jason.

  “Sure as hell a lot bigger than the Dead Air festival, right?”

  Jason said nothing, apparently getting where his boss was going with this.

  “And he didn’t have phones, or guns, or fucking golf carts,” said Dante. “So when you tell me that you ‘couldn’t get in touch with one another’ what I hear is that your dumbasses took your phones out of your pockets, saw that they were broken, then stood around with your thumbs up your asses because you couldn’t think of what to do if you couldn’t send a text!”

  He shook his head and went on.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I could put every one of you motherfuckers together and not get an Alexander the Great, so I’m not expecting miracles. But I did expect you to be able to go five hours without letting the operation I’ve been planning for the last year go to shit!”

  Jason said nothing, and the scene was so quiet I could hear his nervous breathing.

  “When I made you second-in-command that meant I thought you’d be able to handle something like this. Sure, the power going off was some bad shit, no doubt, but your job is to adapt and improvise and overcome—that’s what they told you in the Marines, right?”

  Jason said nothing.

  “But you didn’t improvise, adapt, and overcome,” Dante went on. “You fucked up, then fucked up, then fucked up a little more. In fact, I don’t think you could’ve fucked up any more if you’d tried, bud.”

  He went on, the sick feeling in my stomach growing by the minute. I had no idea what this Dante guy had planned for Jason, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  “Dante,” said Jason, a pleading tone now in his voice. “You have to let me—”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” said Dante. “Other than clean up your fucking mess, that is.”

  Dante looked over the four men, all of them clearly scared out of their minds.

  “Which one of these clowns is your second-in-command?” he asked.

  “Me,” said one of them, a shaved-headed, muscle-bound man, not even hesitating for a second before speaking.

  “Good man,” said Dante. “Was worried I’d have to beat it out of you. At least someone here has some sense of accountability.”

  Dante leaned back against the table. “Your name?”

  “Rick,” said the man.

  “Rick,” said Dante. “Well, Rick. I’m sure you know what happens when a fuck-up goes down right under my nose, right?”

  “Consequences,” said Rick, his voice stern.

  “Right on the ball again,” said Dante. “Impressive. But you’re right—consequences.”

  Without another word, Dante stepped towards Rick. I gasped as I watched his hand reach for the silver pistol in his waist, take it out, and raise it to Rick’s face. A pop sounded out, and a red spray shot out of the back of Rick’s head as he slumped into a heap.

  I wanted to scream, something Ed must’ve sensed, because he quickly moved to my side and clamped his hand down on my mouth.

  “Consequences,” said Dante as he turned his attention to a shocked Jason. “Rick’s consequence was that his life was forfeit. Same goes for you, buddy. The only difference being that Rick was gone before he even knew what hit him, while you’re going to go out with the last thoughts on your mind being that you fucked up and cost a man his life.”

  Dante raised the gun to Jason’s head.

  “You got that?” he asked. “I want the last thing that goes through your head—other than this bullet, of course—to be that you fucked up bad.”

  Jason opened his mouth to speak out one final word in his defense. But he didn’t get it out. Another pop echoed through the warehouse. Another spray of blood coated the cement floor. Another body fell over in a bleeding pile.

  Helpless tears formed in my eyes as Ed’s hand remained on my mouth. I felt on the edge of a panic attack, and through the fear I knew that if Ed hadn’t been there to keep me quiet I would, without a doubt, have given away our hiding place.

  “Stay calm,” Ed said, his voice low and even. “We’ll get through this, okay?”

  Tears trickled down my face as I did my best to look away.

  “Okay!” said Dante. “I think that’s enough consequences for now.”

  Through my tears I watched as he tucked his gun back into his belt.

  “Now!” he said, clasping his hands together. “First order of business is that I want these two sorry motherfuckers out of my sight.”

  He gestured dismissively towards the bodies of Jason and Rick. Within seconds, two men hurried over to them and dragged the bodies out of the warehouse, both leaving a red trail of blood on the ground behind them.

  “Bury them in the desert,” Dante said. “Don’t need any coyotes poking around, you know?”

  Once the bodies were gone, another member of the gang hurried into the warehouse, his posture suggesting he was scared as hell that he might be next. He stepped to Dante’s side, whispered something into his ear, and hurried away.

  “Finally,” Dante said to the men in the warehouse. “Rest of the crew bosses are here.” He clasped his hands together one more time. “I don’t know about you, boys, but I’m ready to get this show on the road!”

  3 Amy

  Mean-looking men poured into the warehouse, around a dozen in total. They chatted among themselves as they entered, and I took advantage of the noise to turn to Ed.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “He finds us, he’ll kill us!”

  Ed closed his eyes, as if trying to whip up a plan right then and there.

  “We have to get one of those cars,” he said. “It’s the only way we’re going to make it out of here.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “Why can’t we just walk?”

  “Because if we walk they’ll spot us,” he said. “And they’re not letting anyone out of the festival grounds on foot. Best we can do is snatch one of the cars or bikes and haul ass out of here before they know what’s going on.”

  “They’ll kill us if they catch us,” I said, the mental images of the executions I’d just witnessed still fresh in my mind.

  “Well, we don’t have many other options,” said Ed. “Because this place is under Dante’s control. As far as he’s concerned, we’re all problems he needs to deal with. And you’ve just seen his preferred way of dealing with problems.”

  The sick feeling returned to my stomach as the men finished entering. Dante stood in front of them, waiting for them all to form up.

  “Hurry it up,” he snapped. “Don’t have all fucking day.”

  The men stood in front of him with the discipline of soldiers—soldiers with tattoos and scraggly beards, that is. I did my best to push the fear out of me, knowing that being quiet and calm was th
e best I could do.

  His hands behind his back, Dante strolled up and down the line of his men. I could feel the tension, and figured that was intentional.

  “You get a chance to say hi to Jason and Rick on the way in?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

  None of the men said a word, and from where I was hidden I spotted a few of them taking quick glances at the still-fresh blood on the ground.

  “You might’ve said hi,” Dante said. “But neither of them was sure as shit saying a word. Now, you boys might be wondering what my second-in-command would have to do to incur such a punishment. Any of you want to guess?”

  One of the men, a tall man with a gleaming bald head and a fire-red goatee, cleared his throat and spoke.

  “They failed to secure the site,” he said. “They were unprepared for all possible contingencies, and were overwhelmed. The warehouses containing the merchandise were broken into, and the secrecy of our operations at Dead Air was compromised.”

  Dante nodded slowly once the man was done.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s certainly the detailed way to put it.”

  He then stepped in front of one of the other men, an olive-skinned man with long, dark hair.

  “Marco,” he said. “Give me the short version of why I shot those two.”

  Without missing a beat, Marco spoke.

  “They fucked up,” he said.

  “There it is,” said Dante. “In plain-as-day English. Sure, we can do a post-mortem on what happened, get into the nitty-gritty and tactical failures and all that crap. But the big takeaway is that Jason screwed up, and he screwed up bad.”

  He went on. “A fucking EMP blast knocking out the power is a hell of a curveball, I’ll admit. But was the possibility of the power going out and cell-phone reception getting knocked out that far-fetched of a thing to imagine? Might’ve been a generator or kicking the bucket, who knows? But the job wasn’t just to stand around and look tough. It was to plan for the worst possible thing happening to happen.”