Lacey.
A flashing red light filled the room, signaling to stop the simulation practice. I gritted my teeth together. This was bound to affect my score.
Josh, one of the others in the simulation who thought he was better than every single person he encountered, marched around the obstacles in the way to head towards me.
We were in a big concrete room and a group of us were set up to reach the enemy target and apprehend him. It was set up with boxes and crates in place of trees, cars, and rocks to hide behind.
"What the hell, Carson?" he yelled.
"I was going to ask you the same thing," I answered as politely as I could.
"Some back-up would have been nice."
I put my hands on my hips. The target was one of the workers here and was in a room full of cardboard cutout people that represented hostages. I watched as he went back to his original location in the hostage room, ready to start again.
"I'm the lead on this run," I answered. Every time we did this, a different person was selected to lead to test their skills and if they could complete the task without anyone dying. "That means I get to decide what approach we take. I said wait. You wait. If I had said jump, you're supposed to jump."
Josh rolled his eyes. "I found a way in."
"You got yourself killed," I pointed out. The target had seen him as soon as he entered the room and shot his fake gun. That meant points off of my score since Josh couldn't listen to authority.
"I didn't have any back-up because you all didn't follow me in," he stubbornly pointed out. The rest of the people on the team remained quiet.
"No offense but it was stupid. You march in there, get shot and now they're angry and probably going to kill the innocent people they've got. That guy's dead, that couple's dead - probably someone's parents, that teen is dead," I said, pointing at random cutouts. "I'm in charge this time."
"That's the stupid thing," he said and stormed off back to the starting point. The red light stopped blinking finally.
I crossed my arms. I'd known him for the last two and a half years, after I called the program to join with them. Before that, I finished school, went to physical therapy as often as I could, and went to support groups. The support groups weren't so bad and it was a requirement if I wanted to join the program as a trainee and work on taking care of gang activity. It was like boot camp but instead of joining the regular police, you were sent on special missions and from what I could tell, a lot of them sat in a car just observing possible gang activity and taking notes. We had classes on gunfire, interacting with gang members, laws, mob mentality, how to talk to victims, how to search records, first aid, the correct protocol for taking down a gang member, anything they could think of you went over either hands on or read it in a book.
Josh was fine to be around unless he had a chance to show off how much better he thought he was. If you were in a situation that didn't involve competition, he was a lot easier to be around. We had a sort of love hate friendship depending on who else was available to talk to and what kind of mood he was in.
I sulked back over to the starting point with the rest of the group.
One of my friends, Elle, elbowed me lightly. "I thought you were doing great," she said.
"Lacey Carson!"
I looked to the entrance door and saw one of the officers in charge of the program, Mr. Tuft, looking expectantly at me.
"Ooooo," some of the group teased like I was in trouble with the principal.
"Good luck," someone else whispered.
I sighed and left them to head towards Mr. Tuft. He didn't say anything as he left the simulation room. I followed hesitantly after him.
We ended up in his office, where he sat behind his large desk covered in paper stacks and files.
Again, he didn't say anything and just stared at me. I bit my lip with nervousness.
"We have some news," he said, looking down at his hands like he was deep in thought. They were going to fire me. Could I be fired from this? They could let me go. 'Sorry Lacey, you're just not cut out for this. Best of luck.' Oh man.
"Yes, sir?" I asked, ready to put a brave face on.
"There has been some unexpected progress with the Melkin cases."
My forehead scrunched up with confusion. "I thought that got moved to the back burner," I answered quickly. "I mean, what progress, sir?"
Some other projects had taken up a lot of the program's attention shortly after I joined and very little progress has been made from what I was able to sneak. Instead of an entire team of six to ten people working on it, just two were.
"We had Dylan and Owen keeping tabs on places you advised we watch and checking in on how things are going there. We installed a few cameras around town. Most have been taken out," he said. I tried to give as much detail about Sterling Dacosta as I could when I first got approved for the program. "Things have gotten unusually quiet there."
I nodded, not sure how this was news.
"The boys got a lucky hit on some information and put up a camera the day before. Unfortunately, they showed up to the scene the next day too late. We think, well I'll just show you," he said.
Mr. Tuft leaned in closer to his laptop and started clicking on it before turning it so that we could both see the screen. It was footage from a security camera, the quality was mediocre and it was void of all color. I scooted my chair closer to his desk to get a better view. He pressed play and I watched the silent taping.
With his pen, he tapped on a car on the screen. "Here is Sterling Dacosta," he said as the car came to a quick halt and four guys jumped out of the car. He paused the video, using his pen to single out Sterling before playing it again.
"Dacosta and his guys go into the building."
More cars and people ran up fighting. I strained my eyes trying to make out anyone but without the ability to pause on my own, it was hard to tell. A group of people stood in front of the building, guarding it while others came at them.
"Now over in the corner, we've got Cameron Casey and who we think is-"
"Travis."
"Correct." he said sounding impressed. He paused the tape only for a second while his pen hovered over the two figures clad in all black with dark hair in the corner hiding by the building's edge. The only people that would be alongside Cameron would be Finn who had blonde hair, Travis, or Annabeth. Ben was probably in the car.
At this point, I was on the edge of my seat.
"We see Cameron Casey and Travis Miller go into the building. This next part's a little boring," he admitted. I disagreed.
People ran around each other and ducked behind vehicles. Every time someone tried to run into the building, they were stopped. I wanted to play it in slow motion to see their faces better but instead, I kept my eyes on the building.
"Alright, so this little joker throws some stuff in. God knows what it is," he said and I looked away from the building to see if it looked like Finn.
It didn't.
People started running away from the scene and out of shot as smoke billowed out of the building. I watched the door anxiously, biting my lip. Before anyone came running out, the building came down, engulfed in flames. The police pulled up afterwards.
"Wait, I don't..." I began but clenched my jaw together before I said anything I would regret.
"Six guys go in. None come out," my boss said casually and I wanted to yell at him to replay it. I wanted to ask if this was a fake. I wanted verification. Proof. I needed Travis to come out of the building.
No, no, no.
He continued on like it was no big deal, "Couple of twenty something year olds that think they know everything and just make stupid mistakes. Their loss, our gain."
I didn't bother to tell him that I was twenty years old. It said it in my file and he didn't seem like he was in the mood to have particulars pointed out to him.
"We think the quiet is a direct result of this event," he said, "assuming the Casey and Dacosta people didn't make it out, we have no one kicking up trouble which makes it an excellent opportunity for us to go and disband the affiliations before anyone decides to take matters into their own hands down there."
He closed the laptop and I finally looked away from it to him.
"You think someone's going to take their place?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around this.
"In these situations we often have a lot of trouble when the head leaves or is killed. Everyone wants the glory and power. Displays of destruction are made to show off, fighting with each other, nothing good. We can get in before they get organized again."
I was silent for a second and sat back on my seat, trying to find some sort of comfort. "Did you find bodies?"
He shook his head, "Not yet. The fire didn't help with that."
I nodded in acknowledgment.
"We're sending a team down to Melkin to take care of the two organizations while they're hurt. Our goal is to confirm the deaths and collect anyone else in the area that's still sticking around until we clean the city up. I think you could be a beneficial part of that team."
I stared at him, shocked. I was still an entry level rookie. I read training guides I was tested on, took part in simulations, and accompanied people in the office on a lucky day.
"You have a handle on what you're doing and know the area. That's good."
"I, uh, yeah, sure. I mean, okay, yes. I would love to help." I said, still wrapping my head around this. This was what I has strived for the last three years but I didn't imagine it would be this situation.
Mr. Tuft looked at me seriously. "You must be professional about this. If this starts to get too personal, let us know."
"Of course."
"Everyone is leaving in two days. We'll have living arrangements handled and you'll get everything you need beforehand. All you need to focus on is your job," he said, and stood up from his desk. I mirrored his actions.
"Follow me."
He led me down the hall into an office with the names Dylan Sanderson and Owen Wales on it.
The room was small and cramped. It smelled damp. There was a whiteboard on one wall with facts and theories about when different people from Melkin were meeting up. Different pictures of people were taped to the whiteboard with facts written underneath and where they have been spotted.
Sterling's picture was him getting out of a car and had a giant "X" drawn on it with multiple people posted around him. All of the pictures looked like surveillance photos from afar with the target either getting in or out of a car or walking out of a building. Some were crossed out as well.
Cameron's picture was also up on the wall with an "X" over his face. However, unlike Sterling's, Cameron was looking directly at the camera from a distance.
"It seems the Casey organization was more aware of our presence when we went to investigate initially. That's something you'll have to be careful about."
Various other people were around Cameron's picture, including Ben, Annabeth glaring, and Finn waving. Travis was outside, seemingly across the street from whoever was taking the photo and gave them the middle finger. A giant "X" was also carelessly drawn over his photo. I couldn't stop staring at it.
"Alright. This is the command center as Owen continually tells me. We've got all of Melkin's files and notes in here," he said, tapping on the top of a metal filing cabinet. "Take the rest of the day and tomorrow to catch yourself up. The guys should be in tomorrow morning so report to them. I've got to talk to Josh and Mike too, so they might be joining you in here if they accept."
I glanced from the metal cabinet back to the pictures on the walls. "Oh yeah, okay. Wait, Josh?"
"I know he gives you a hard time, but he's top of your class and we need a few fresh faces that haven't been spotted snooping around."
He left the room and I walked closer to Travis' photo. My finger traced the lines of the "X" and my eyes started to water.
Someone walked by in the hallway so I quickly wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt and walked over to the filing cabinet. Now wasn't the time to get upset, I would get thrown off the team and this would have all been for nothing. I kept telling myself it wasn't true in order to hold myself together.
Notes and more notes. Nothing concrete. Everything had a question mark after it or contained the words "possible" or "maybe" like Possible list of Sterling Dacosta crimes, Annabeth Taylor??, Meetups going down maybe, and Who is the blonde guy?
Finn would be pleased to know they hadn't worked out his name yet. They had Ben's papers from when Cameron became his guardian. Annabeth's family linkage to Cameron with a giant circle around her full name and Annabeth's father's prison history.
Sterling's gang had one drawer, but I didn't care about that right now. Cameron's group had their own and I was deep into that. Cameron had his own large folder, almost double the size of any other folder in the drawer and I opened it up to see Killed? at the top of the last note that was put into it. I closed it quickly. This wasn't what I was looking for and couldn't deal with it at the moment.
I pulled out the folder with Travis' at the top. It was almost as big as Cameron's. A similar note to the one in Cameron's was at the top of the papers in his file with Killed? effectively destroying my gut.
I continued flipping through some of the pages. They had his police records. All of his possible charges seemed to go on forever, most filed by Officer Gordon with no further action taken because they had no evidence.
Mr. Tuft came in with Josh and Elle but I ignored them, not bothering to ask why Elle was here instead of Mike. Instead, I continued reading Travis' reports and everything they had on him.
Eventually, Josh and Elle sat down on the floor next to me, picking up different files to go through and familiarize themselves with.
I'm not sure how much time went by when Josh finally spoke up, but I could've gone a lot longer without hearing his voice tonight.
"So, you happy to be back in your little town?" he teased.
I ignored him.
"Makes sense I was picked. Don't know why you were picked," he added.
"She's second in our class and you said it yourself, she knows Melkin," Elle said.
I didn't answer.
"Mr. Tuft said he was asking Mike, not you," Josh said, sounding annoyed now.
"I guess Mike said no. You're stuck with me," she said and Josh groaned.
I continued to read the possible breaking and entering charges Travis had racked up but again, no proof was given that he was there, just that the gang was there and the police figured he was there.
"I can't wait until we wrap this thing up and get promoted. This is the ticket in," Josh said.
This caused me to look up at him. "What?"
"Mr. Tuft said if this mission goes smoothly, he'll promote the three of us out of trainees and we'll get to go on more of these. Be a real part of the team,," Elle said.
I glanced at the both of them, feeling stupid that I had no idea of the minor details. "Oh. I didn't think to ask."
Josh laughed. "What were you doing when he was talking to you?"
Thinking about Travis. Thinking about Travis dead. Thinking about how he needed to come out of the building. Travis dead. Thinking about how it wasn't the time to cry. Cameron dead. Thinking about how I missed him.
"Thinking about who I was going to get to watch my cat while I was gone," I lied.
"You have a cat?" Josh asked, laughing again.
Elle piped up, "You can get Leah to cat sit," she said about one of the girls who worked here, "She has two of her own, I'm sure she'll love to."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks," I said.
Great. Now I had to find a cat.
"Is it going to be weird for you?" Elle asked.
Was she still talking about the cat? Yes.
"Because you were there and all," she added apparently picking up on my confused face.
"Um, no. I don't think so. It's been awhile, you know. I wasn't really friends with them."
Dead, dead, dead.
I closed Travis' file and grabbed the recent file that corresponded with the video.
After running over some of the notes that I would undoubtedly have to go over again because my mind couldn't get that video out of my head, I looked up. "Don't you think it's weird that they went in without anyone else? Just the two of them?"
"Maybe lack of back-up is contagious," Josh said bitterly.
"Get over it, I was in charge."
Elle shrugged. "Maybe they didn't know how many of the Dacosta organization were up there."
"Hmmm," I said, looking over more of the notes. "I guess."
Cameron was an expert planner. He somehow managed to orchestrate missions while controlling dozens of people and keeping them all safe. How did he mess up? Where did he mess up? No one disobeyed him like Josh and caused themselves to die if Cameron could help it.
Killed, killed, killed.
I let out a long groan and shut the folder, getting up off the ground.
"I'm going home," I announced.
I didn't get far on my drive back to my apartment before I started crying. I was too late. I wanted to rescue Travis and give him the life he wanted, without having to look around for his safety constantly. I imagined it countless times, the different types of lives we would have. Each one of them involved his smile. A relaxed smile. An entire day of not having a care in the world, that's what I wanted to give to him but for each day to be like that. And I was too late.
I pulled into my apartment complex and wiped my eyes but it didn't do much to make me look any more presentable. It was dark and quiet out, so I doubted anyone would run into my sobbing mess. After I unlocked my door and went in, I dropped my stuff immediately and walked to my closet despite my teary, blurry vision.
That night, I cried until I fell asleep in a leather jacket.
Two days later, I was wearing the same jacket over my clothes as I entered the training simulation room. I had suitcases filled with supplies, weapons, files, and clothes. I put them down at the door and kept walking in. We were leaving for Melkin today and we were all supposed to meet down the hall but I was early. I didn't sleep much that night and the sooner I got on the road and got to Melkin, the sooner the pit that was growing in my stomach would either double in weight or disappear, depending on what we found out. I just wanted to get started. I had sat in my apartment for about an hour doing nothing before I decided to just come down here.
I put my headphones in and turned my phone to the playlist I had made the other night to basically go along with me bawling my eyes out like my life depended on it alone in my room. If anything, the playlist just made it worse but finding songs had distracted me for at least twenty minutes.
I heard that it helped with the grieving process. They were wrong.
Sara Farell's cover of 'Faded' played and I danced slowly around, twirling to the beat to try to get my mind off of everything. Dancing calmed me down but with the playlist of despair going along with it, it didn't work as well as I planned. I ended up just lazily moving around in circles, trying to get a grip on my feelings.
"Carson!" I heard, snapping me out of my daze.
Josh was coming into the room and walking over to me. "I saw the lights on in here. What are you doing here so early? I thought I'd be here before everyone else. You want some coffee? I got some for everyone coming."
"No thank you," I answered, pausing my music.
He shrugged but kept walking until he was next to me. "Whatcha listening to?"
I quickly pressed next on my phone and handed him one of the earphones. The next song, XOV's 'Lucifer' wasn't much better.
I liked dancing in this room. It was wide open and unless there was a session going on, it was almost always empty. Seeing as Josh practically lived in this office to try to be #1, he often walked in on me dancing.
"Kinda dark, I like it," he said as he bobbed his head to the beat. He was in one of his more personable moods this morning. It may have been the coffee.
He held his hand out to dance and I took it. We slow danced around in a small circle and I bit my lip to stop from crying again.
"Why don't you become a professional dancer instead?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes. This question always popped up.
"With you gone, my scores will look even better," he said with a laugh.
I sighed and went to pull my earbud back but he held it in with his hand.
"Okay, okay, sorry. Someone's testy today. Where'd you get the leather jacket? It's edgy. A little big."
I focused back on the song, calming down slightly. "It's comfortable."
Josh shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy."
He didn't say anything for a bit while we danced and I went back to biting my lip.
"Is this song getting you hyped to go on the mission? Lucky motherfucker you don't know what I'd do to you. I used to kick it with Lucifer," he sang.
I didn't know how to explain that it reminded me of Travis without making it sound like I was closer to him that I let on for all these years or having Josh make fun of me for being emotional so I just shrugged.
When the song ended, I moved away and took my headphone back. The lack of music let us hear some chattering down the hall. The others were here.
"Ready to get promoted? I sure am," he asked, rubbing his hands together excitedly before heading out.
I followed, grabbing my bags along the way.
I'm going back, I'm going back, I'm going back.
_________
Thoughts on Josh? Love or hate?
Let me know what you guys think so far! Lacey's going to be back in Melkin, woo. I cannot wait for you guys to read the next few chapters. I'm so excited. Expect it soon!
I love you guys, don't forget to smile and have a great day (: