Hello everyone! Thank you as always for your reviews, and thanks to those that follow and fav too! I'm hoping this is agood chapter, it bounces around a lot between characters so i have it separated as always by lines. I hope everyone likes it. Thanks for reading!
He can feel the cool night air blow across his skin as he stares down the scope of his rifle at the scene before him. He'd finally managed to catch up to Toretto, parking his truck a few hundred yards away on the other side of the lot by an old abandoned building he had managed to climb up some old scaffolding to set up his perch. He'd monitor the situation, knowing that there was a good chance Shaw might turn up and make shit worse. He was frustrated that he'd even have to chase down Toretto, but he understood the man's despair at getting the chance to talk to Letty. He'd do the same for Angel in a heartbeat.
He can't hear a word they're saying, but he can see the look on Dom's face as he talks to her. The slight smile he has as he touches her skin and brushes her curls back, his body language as he stands so close to her. He can see the crestfallen look he gets when she steps towards her car to leave and he hands her his silver cross. He watches as she just looks at it, her face void of any emotion before she gets in and drives away leaving dust in her wake.
He feels bad for Toretto, knowing he must be feeling some intense emotions at the moment. He starts to shoulder his rifle until the sight of another car pulling in catches his attention. Not just any car, he checks through the scope on his gun again, looking closely at the car's body. "Aston Martin." He can tell by the sleek shape, one he's seen many times since Angel is a big fan of the maker. "DB9." He mumbles to himself recognizing the model.
He watches with interest as Shaw steps out the car, a slight grin on his face. He and Dom stay by their respective cars, talking calmly it seems. He's not sure what they're saying but isn't sure he should give up his spot to get a closer look. He scans around the parking lot, knowing that Shaw wouldn't be stupid enough to come out solo without having some form of backup. He scans the horizon with his rifle, not seeing anything yet.
He shifts his focus back to Shaw and Dom, noticing that Shaw is closing the gap between himself and Dom. The talk still seems calm so far, he keeps Shaw in his crosshairs just in case. Deep down he really is looking for any excuse to just pull the trigger, but he did have orders. Not only to secure the device and its pieces, but to bring Shaw in alive. He can't help but think how simple the job would be if he could just plug him full of lead right this moment so he can end this all and make it back home to Angel.
"Come on you son of a bitch." He says gruffly watching as Shaw has clearly noticed the laser sight lying on his jacket just above his heart. He watches the man laugh before he waves goodbye to Dom, walking back to his expensive car and driving off into the night.
"Riley, Shaw's leaving Battersea, heading southeast. Have Tej track him on his live feed, go." He says over his radio as he runs down the steps. "Do you know what would've happened if I didn't put that tracker in your car?" He asks as he gets closer to Dom. He watches as Dom reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling something out.
"This one." Dom holds it up for Luke to see, a sly grin on his face.
He smiles back at the man, not too surprised that Dom was always a step ahead. "You know this just got me one step closer to Shaw." He says staring down at the small electronic device in his hand, "For what it's worth Toretto, I hope it gets you closer to what you want too."
My skills just aren't sufficiently appreciated Lucy thinks to herself as she reaches for the small stone alcove just above her, grabbing hold and swinging her legs up to perch like a bird of prey. "Gotta start hitting the gym again." She says out loud this time as she finds herself winded after her small climb up the side of the building where she was O'Connor head into. She leans forward, dangerously close to slipping back out of her perch, The things a person does in the name of friendship. This is definitely a much better view than sitting in the BMW across the street. From here she can look in through the window and see a few of the people moving around. She recognizes their faces from the photos on file but can't quite remember the individual names.
She sees a nice little cache of weapons and toys sitting on the table as a young woman, tall with long dark hair plays with them. She adjusts the sights and Lucy can tell by the way she moves she knows her way around weapons. A young Asian man stands behind her watching her every movement with a moony grin on his bruised face.
A few feet away a rather handsome man sits in front of various monitors, toying around with what seems to be a harpoon gun. A taller man stands beside him eating a large bag of chips, possibly annoying the man with the computers if the look on his face is anything to go by. The roar of an engine draws her attention and she looks down at the street to see a black muscle car pulling into the first floor garage of the building she's currently on. "Toretto." She assumes because of the type of car. Sure enough the familiar sound of the Beast's engine roars closer and she smiles slightly as Luke pulls his truck into the same garage. "Lover boy's home." She calls out to Angel over the com.
"Great, let me know if he moves." Angel replies.
"Oh joy, I get to sit here for a while." Lucy responds sarcastically before settling into her perch.
Letty rubs her hands over her tired eyes, the bright fluorescent lights of the work room don't help matters. She walks over to the table, her eyes glimmering over the various pages and pictures strewn about. One in particular catches her eye. She picks up the plastic covered photo, staring at the picture as a rush of emotions course through her. They're too fast to capture, too muddled to interpret. One emotion comes to the forefront of her mind. Disappointment. She looks so happy in the photo, in the man's arms. The same man she'd just seen a few moments ago had obviously meant a great deal to her once upon a time. And she no doubt held a lot of meaning for him if their chat was any indication.
She focuses her eyes on him in the photo, willing herself to remember anything about him. It's a few moments wasted as nothing comes to mind. She finds herself running her fingers over the cross, feeling the cold touch of metal against her skin. Still no memories. Suddenly she hears the quiet foot step in the corner of the room and looks up to find Shaw staring at her.
"May I?" He holds out his hand, she runs her thumb once more over the cross before placing it in his hand. She doesn't look at him, instead choosing to stare straight ahead instead. There are too many thoughts racing through her head.
"I'm going to ask you a question, Letty," he pauses looking up from the necklace, into her dark eyes. "and I want you to think very hard before you answer. When I give you the order to take Toretto out, what will your first thought be?" He watches as the fury builds behind her dark eyes, somewhat relieved that she finds his question indignant.
"Why don't you look me in the eye and you tell me what you see." She replies bitterly. He holds out his hand, cross in his palm. "Keep it." She says before brushing past him. He smiles slightly at her response, happy to know that she is with him, before tossing the chain back onto the table before following her out.
"Tej talk to me, what've we got?" Luke says as he stares at the large monitor, hoping that there's good news on Shaw's whereabouts.
"We were able to track Shaw after he left you and Dom, but this guy's smart, so we could only track him so far." Tej says as he stands in front of the monitor beside him. "He seems to know all the city's blind spots. See, we lost him somewhere in here," Tej says zooming in on the location from a birds' eye view "which means he can be anywhere within that half mile radius." Tej says with a shake of his head. "So maybe if we cross reference phone records, leases…"
"No." Riley interjects, "This has got Shaw's name written all over it." She says pointing to a spot on the map. Luke watches closely as she explains. "We've got vantage points, multiple exits, subways, highways and storm drains."
"Bad ass and brains." Luke says with a smile, "Woman, you keep that up and I'm gonna be out of a job." He says with a nod of approval in Riley's direction. She's a damned good agent and he's glad to have her on his team, but in the back of his mind he can't help but think that if he'd had Angel with him they probably would've gotten this done a lot quicker. He smiles slightly at the thought. "Let's go nail this son ofa bitch."
"Umm….Angel you getting close yet?" Lucy asks anxiously wiggling her foot as it's fallen asleep. She groans in discomfort as she feels pins and needles in her muscles as she tries moving them. She's been perched up here for a bit now and it's not fun.
"I've made a slight detour, Meg should be getting their shortly though."
Lucy mutters out a few choice curse words before responding, "Well Loverboy is leaving now with the stupid little trollip."
"Wait who?"
Lucy chuckles at Angel's quick response. "Relax, it's just some stupid young agent who's working with him."
"What's her name?"
"The hell if I know." Lucy replies as she begins the slow climb down.
"I'll just find out later then." Angel mutters.
"You can't kill a fellow agent Angel just cause she's working with your boyfriend." Lucy says still chuckling.
"You underestimate me."
"Yeah I know, now let me concentrate before you end up having to run me to a hospital." Lucy says before disconnecting her com.
Angel shakes her head as she drives the rest of the way in silence. The streets are slowly brightening with dawn's light and she grows slightly anxious at the thought of getting closer to Shaw's location. It had taken her the majority of the flight from California to London to narrow down a search perimeter. Knowing Shaw the way she does helped immensely, and the few details she was able to gather from the past few days activities helped too. She'd already checked out 3 possible locations since landing and was on her way to the last possible hideout. If she could manage to find Shaw before he does anything else she might be able to save some lives. One life in particular of course holds more importance to her.
It had taken all her willpower not to drive straight to Luke's location when she'd landed. All she had wanted to do was lay eyes on him and be sure he was alright, and she had the incredible urge to wrap her arms around him and not let go for a while at least. She knew of course that it wouldn't help matters. No, her best course of action was to find Shaw before shit could get any worse.
She looks down at the GPS monitor on the dash of her car, happy to see she's within a mile of the supposed location. She parks the car behind a building and leaves her crutch behind. With enough determination and pain killers she can walk on it without too much of a limp, though she knows it's definitely going to set back her healing time if she keeps it up. She makes her way towards the large brick wall surrounding the last warehouse on her list. There were a few other buildings on the inside of the wall, but only one in particular warranted her attention.
She notices the various steel gates, all shut tight and locked. She looks up at the height of the wall, easily over 8 feet tall. Normally that'd be a piece of cake, but with her leg in its current state climbing it is definitely out of the question. She looks a little further down the wall, more steel gates, all shut. "Fuck." She sighs as she walks around to the other side. After a few moments of searching she finally finds her entry point. One of the steel gates isn't shut entirely on this side, and using a little elbow grease she manages to wedge it open just enough for her to slide under to the other side. She stands quickly, glancing around to be sure she wasn't noticed. She dusts off her jeans and jacket before removing her Python from its holster. She checks to be sure it's loaded then pulls out her secondary weapon, the Glock, being sure that it's magazine is fully loaded and putting one in the chamber just in case. She puts the safety back on it and holsters it to the inside of her jacket. She keeps the Python in hand as she makes her way quietly and stealthily towards the building using the various abandoned old vehicles as cover.
She hears nothing except the chirp of a few birds flying overhead. No tools banging around, or voices echoing, no car engines. She keeps moving, finally making her way to the building. She notices the garage doors and opts to keep looking for a less conspicuous entrance. After searching she finds a small side door and manages to pick the lock quickly and quietly. She enters the warehouse and lets out a sigh of frustration. It's empty just like the others. She keeps her gun at the ready, aimed out in front of her as she clears the building room by room. After being satisfied that no one else is present she begins searching for any signs that Shaw could've been here. She does see that for an old abandoned warehouse it's quite clean. In the garage bay she can see fresh pools of oil and other fluids. She bends down slowly and carefully, taking a closer look at the fluids.
She can smell the gas fumes, oil, antifreeze and paint, no doubt a car aficionado was here. "Shaw." She curses silently to herself, angry that she's missed him. The silence suddenly breaks with the sound of a door slamming, followed by heavy footsteps. She moves quickly despite her injury, crouching low and moving swiftly against the wall behind cover of crates as she makes her way to the sound. She's not sure if it's Shaw or anyone else.
"Angel where the hell are you?" She hears Lucy call out over the com.
She doesn't reply, knowing that she has the element of surprise on her side she won't give it up by responding to Lucy.
"Angel come in, do you copy?"
The sound of panic in Lucy's voice makes her feel guilty but she pushes forward silently. She can see from the edge of the doorway that the door she entered through is now wide open. She notices upon further inspection that it's also cracked by the door knob, no doubt from being forced open since she locked it when she had come in. She turns right and sees the room in front of her is empty but notices some boot prints, courtesy of some puddles by the door. She had avoided them when she walked in, but clearly someone had missed them. She follows the relatively small boot prints towards the other side of the room and catches a glimpse of some movement.
A woman, about her same height, brown hair in a bun, brown tactical vest and a gun in her hand as she clears the room in front of her. She prepares herself to move swiftly and quietly behind her, but the sound of a gun cocking behind her gives her pause. She moves in a flash, pivoting on her good leg turning her head towards the person behind her and swinging her arm out above her to push the arm and gun away from her head while bringing up her gun towards the unknown assailants head. She ends up with her gun pointing at the head, a gun's barrel pressed up against her ribs and a strong hand gripping her wrist before she finally realizes who she's fighting.
"Luke?"
"Angel?"
They both gasp.
Well? This one took me a while, there was so much to write cause i'm trying to get towards the end of FF6 where all the action is but at the same time not trying to rush through everything all half assed. Was it ok? I sure hope so. Thanks for reading as always! Reviews are oh so appreciated...
