Story code: ST-001164
Part 2: Crossfire
The heavy brass door handle rattled, the metallic clatter echoing down into the concrete pit. Dust drifted down from the floorboards overhead, settling onto Teo’s shoulders. He pressed a grease-stained finger to his lips, locking eyes with Micah. The boy’s breathing was a frantic, whistling wheeze, loud enough to cut through the heavy silence of the dark garage.
Teo reached blindly along the oily concrete ledge behind him, his fingers finding a bundle of clean shop towels and a thick roll of black electrical tape. He didn’t ask for permission this time. He grabbed Micah’s injured arm, pinning the boy’s wrist against the cinderblock wall with his knee. Micah thrashed, a muffled whimper escaping his throat, but Teo held firm. He shoved a folded blue towel directly against the bleeding tear in the denim, wrapping the tape tight, pulling it hard enough to restrict the blood flow just above the wound.
Above them, a heavy thud shook the floor. Someone was kicking the steel security door.
“Teo!” Sarah’s voice was muffled by the thick metal, but the shrill, frantic pitch pierced straight through. “Do not interfere! The elders have authorized this extraction! He belongs with the flock!”
Teo ignored his sister. He kept his grip on Micah’s arm, staring at the rectangular bulge under the boy’s jacket. The torn brass button had exposed the edge of it-heavy-duty packing tape, layered thick over plastic. A kilo. Maybe more. Teo had spent a decade fixing cars for every bad element in this county, keeping his head down and his hands on his wrenches. He knew exactly what a brick of that size looked like.
“Whose is it?” Teo whispered, his voice barely a rasp.
Micah shook his head, pressing his chin into his chest, trying to fold his body around the package.
“Micah,” Teo said, his tone hardening. He leaned in, his face inches from his nephew’s. “The men outside think they’re saving your soul. They’ll just lock you in a basement and pray over you until you break. But whoever you stole that from? They will peel the skin off your bones. Who?”
“R-Reyes,” Micah stammered, the word hitching on a sob. “It was in a car… at the impound lot. I just took it. I needed the cash to get to Colorado.”
A block of ice formed in Teo’s gut. The Reyes syndicate ran the entire corridor from the border up to the state line. They didn’t send warning letters. They didn’t negotiate. They left bodies burning in scrapped sedans.
Another booming kick hit the front door. The steel frame groaned. A sharp, metallic screech followed-the unmistakable sound of a crowbar sliding between the door and the jamb. The church enforcers weren’t waiting anymore. They were actively breaching the building.
“Teo, open this door or we will tear it down!” Sarah screamed. “He is sick! We are here to cure him!”
Micah jumped as a sharp, rhythmic buzzing vibrated against his ribs. He fumbled in his jacket pocket with his good hand, pulling out a cheap burner phone with a cracked screen. The sudden glare illuminated the tight, claustrophobic space of the oil pit in a harsh blue hue.
Teo looked at the screen. A single text message glowed against the cracked glass.
*We see it moving. Don’t go to sleep.*
Teo snatched the phone from the boy’s trembling fingers and killed the screen, plunging them back into the dim orange gloom. He looked from the dead phone to the taped brick pressed against Micah’s chest.
“Let me see it,” Teo ordered.
When Micah hesitated, Teo didn’t wait. He grabbed the front of the jacket and yanked the fabric back. He ran his calloused thumb over the tight layers of packing tape, feeling the dense, powdery brick underneath. Near the bottom corner, his thumb caught on a small, hard irregularity. A rigid square, barely the size of a postage stamp, completely taped over.
A GPS tag.
“They didn’t text your phone to track it,” Teo whispered, the realization tasting like ash in his mouth. “They’re tracking the brick. They know exactly where it is.”
“Throw it away!” Micah gasped, finally trying to pry the package away from his own body. “Throw it in the drain!”
“Too late,” Teo said, shoving the boy’s hands down. “If they know it’s here, they know who owns the building. If I throw it away, they’ll just kill us both for losing their product.”
Upstairs, the heavy metal security bar screeched against its brackets. The church enforcers had incredible leverage. The deadbolt snapped with a loud, echoing crack, ringing off the corrugated steel ceiling. The front door was failing. It would hold for maybe sixty more seconds.
Teo had to move. He needed to get Micah out of the pit, into the heavy flatbed tow truck parked in the second bay. The truck had reinforced steel bumpers and enough torque to punch straight through the bay doors and the church van blocking the exit. It was their only chance at breaking the perimeter.
He grabbed Micah by the collar, hauling the teenager to his feet. “Up the stairs. Stay low. We’re getting in the wrecker.”
Before Micah could reach the first rung of the metal ladder, the abrasive roar of high-performance engines drowned out the scraping of the crowbars. The sound was deafening, a synchronized rumble of heavy machinery pulling into the gravel lot at high speed. Headlights flashed violently against the frosted bay windows, casting sharp, chaotic shadows across the garage ceiling.
It wasn’t a single car. It was three.
Sarah’s preaching cut off abruptly outside. For two seconds, there was only the low, menacing idle of the newly arrived engines.
Then, a man with a thick accent shouted something unintelligible.
A deafening crack shattered the night air. The glass of the shop’s front window exploded inward, raining jagged shards across Teo’s workbench.
Sarah screamed.
Teo shoved Micah hard against the slick concrete floor of the pit and covered the boy’s body with his own as a second barrage of gunfire shredded the metal walls above them.