Gone by Francine Pascal

okay….”
    Oliver’s agents were finally managing to contain the savages. Many of them were strewn out across the blood-soaked pavement, dragging themselves along the ground with their hands—still laughing gleefully, uttering nonsensical ramblings.
    â€œGod says eat me.” They laughed. “God says goodbye….”
    A few of them finally scurried off back down the alley in retreat. Their giggles were echoing off the enclosed walls, floating up high overhead.
    But it was over. The carnage was over.
    â€œThat son of a
bitch,
” Oliver muttered, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the blood from Jake’s face. “I
knew
it. I knew it was a trap, and I let you walk right into it. I should have known better.”
    Oliver’s entire crew had been staked out in positions all over the perimeter of the lot for this very reason: the likelihood of a possible ambush. But still… it had taken them too long. Oliver had gotten there too late. They should have been on the scene in less than five seconds, not thirty. Jake shouldn’t have had a bruise on him. Oliver never should have even let Jake walk into this trap in the first place.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Oliver breathed with a noxious combination of anger and guilt.
    â€œNot your fault…,” Jake uttered, pushing his hands down on the ground to pick himself back up. “We didn’t have a choice,” he grumbled, using all his effortto rise. But he was still too weak. His first two attempts failed.
    â€œDon’t move” Oliver insisted. “Just be still, Jake. Be still.”
    He checked Jake’s body, trying to assess the severity of his cuts and bruises. And then he felt a sudden hitch in his heart. Some inexplicable swelling of emotion in his chest. For Jake. It was a feeling Oliver couldn’t decipher. Some bizarre mix of failure and loss and responsibility. The deeper he searched his feelings, the more he could only liken it to certain feelings he’d had for Gaia.
    Paternal feelings. That’s what these were. He felt like a father trying to tend to his child’s wounds—trying to overcome his guilt for somehow failing him, for not being there when he needed him the most. After all those arguments in the loft—all that insistence that Oliver was anything but Jake’s father, there were apparently some very real feelings to the contrary.
    But Oliver blocked them out. He regained his senses and shook off the foolish burst of emotion.
    This is ridiculous,
he shouted at himself.
Jake is no son to you, he’s just a pawn. That is all. He is nothing more than a necessary pawn in your quest to regain Gala’s loyalty—to bring her back into the fold, alive and unharmed. Stop acting like such a fool.
    â€œSir, this is KS5 reporting, sir.” The voice of Oliver’s operative piped in through the earpiece still buried in his ear. “We have a development on the perimeter.”
    Oliver pressed his hand against his earpiece and spoke up. “Come back? I didn’t catch that.”
    â€œRepeat, we have a development on the perimeter of the scene, sir. WeVe got military presence. I repeat, we’ve got military presence on the scene. Two soldiers in fatigues, sir—I’d say PFCs. They are currently staked out in a military vehicle approximately twenty yards from the lot. Binoculars, sir—both of them are observing the scene.”
    Oliver’s brow furrowed with deep confusion.
Military?
What the hell was military doing there? What interest could they possibly have in this nightmare on Twelfth Street? He was going to find out, that was for goddamn sure.
    â€œMonitor their actions,” he ordered. “Do you copy? We are contained down here. I want you observing those men. I want
everything.
I want visual surveillance, I want audio surveillance. Monitor every communication they make, everything. Do you copy?”
    â€œCopy