Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (this book - Book 4)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 38
Relief washed over Rocco Lynch as he watched the destruction unfold across the street. The propane tank exploded in a flash of light and sound, and the explosion multiplied when it engulfed the nearby gas tanks. The force leveled the building and propelled a wave of force across the road, where it rolled over Lynch.
He shielded his eyes and ducked his head. When he looked up, flames engulfed the ruins of the building. The conflagration had flattened the structure, leaving behind a twisted pile of wood barely recognizable as having once been a building. Lynch pumped his fist in triumph. There was no way anyone survived the blast.
He scurried back through the brush and darted through the field. Crossing a ridge, he came to a road and found his car parked in a turnoff. He hopped in and sped away from the scene, dialing his phone as sirens sounded far in the distance. He could only imagine what grizzly remains the first responders would find.
“Dillard,” a deep voice answered.
“It’s done, Vick,” Lynch said. “The two women and the dealer are corpses. I need you to do something for me, though. The other agent, Michaels, wasn’t there. I need a tail on him right away. When I get back, we’ll take care of him. Call me when you find out where he is.”
Ethan’s feet pounded the pavement and sweat glistened his skin. The cool March air didn’t bother him as his arms pumped and his legs whipped below him. He had hoped the run would help him get the previous night’s intervention out of his mind, but he couldn’t forget. He and Conner had done their best, but Beth would continue her pursuit of the Savage Gang.
Ethan sighed. He should have known they wouldn’t dissuade her from her dangerous gambit. That knowledge was where he and Conner differed. Conner argued with her, expecting to convince her to change her ways. But deep down, Ethan knew better, because he had known her longer. Or was it more than the length of their friendship? He and Beth had always had a connection, going back to the days when she began dating his best friend, John Devor.
He remembered those days, which started soon after John met Beth at a campus lunch spot. Beth was hanging fliers for a lost backpack, which, by coincidence, John had found while closing up the school’s chemistry lab the previous night, as part of his work-study duties. They arranged for Beth to pick it up at John’s campus apartment, and Ethan was present when she came by, as he was in town for a visit with his friend.
Beth hit it off with both of them during that quick encounter, although Ethan’s unspoken secret was he always believed Beth had connected with him more than John. But Ethan was only in town for a brief visit, so he later urged John to ask her out. And that was it. From that point forward, Ethan refused to think of Beth as more than a friend, first out of loyalty to John, and later, after John’s passing, because he didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship.
Now he wondered — if they had dated, would he have been able to steer her away from pursuing the Savage Gang? Conner had struck out in his attempts, but he’d only be dating Beth for six months.
With a mutter under his breath, Ethan surged forward, his arms and legs churning as he tried to sprint his frustration out of his body. He would never know if the situation would be different, because he’d never allow himself to know. They would forever be friends, and nothing more.
As he turned the final corner of his run and headed toward home, a pang of anxiety shot through him, as if from nowhere. The anxiety turned to a general sense of foreboding — a worry that Beth was in danger at that very moment.
He ripped his phone from its neoprene arm band and dialed Beth’s number. The call went to voicemail, which shouldn’t have worried him, since she rarely kept her phone nearby. But a dull sense of angst roiled his stomach as he thought of her trip to the gun shop.
“Beth, this is Ethan,” he said. “Please call me when you get this.” After ending the call, he texted a similar message to her.
He took a deep breath, telling himself he was worrying for no reason. Why would she be in danger? She was traveling with an FBI agent, and would be speaking with a witness who, by all accounts, liked her. Perhaps the witness wasn’t the problem, though. The history of the Savage Gang suggested that nobody investigating the gang was ever safe.
As he slid his phone into the band on his arm and broke into a trot, Ethan couldn’t shake his worries. He could only hope he was wrong.
The janitor hunched over his mop, shuffling between the cells as he splashed water onto the floor and spread it around the rough surface. Anyone watching the cell block’s video surveillance would have thought him old and decrepit. Which he was. But the video surveillance wasn’t working, so nobody was watching.
The janitor continued his slow pace until he stood even with the last cell on the left. His mop swiped the floor until he was inches from the cell door. The occupant of the cell leaned forward, as did the janitor, until their heads nearly touched through the bars.
“You need to get a message to Savage,” the prisoner whispered. “Tell him Sapphire Angel might be wise to the location of our hideout. She mentioned something about wet boots, which means she might know about the school. Or it might just mean she knows it is near Italian Lake.”
The janitor gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Tell Savage, not Rocco,” the prisoner said, just as quietly as before. “Rocco made this mess.”
“Got it,” the janitor murmured.
The janitor continued mopping, but moved at a quicker pace. Within a few minutes, he finished and pushed his wheeled bucket toward the exit. The door clanged shut behind him, leaving the prisoners alone again.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (this book - Book 4)
Oh, and with Savage about to be informed that Sapphire knows roughly where the hideout is......oh, boy. Seems like Lynch better hope this attack went as well as it supposedly did, or else he’ll be in for it whenever he gets back to the Gang’s base.
What the......? No. No. No. No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-------okay, I already did that bit before, and I try to avoid repeating jokes if I can help it. Got around to reading this chapter a little late today since I had to go attend the orientation for my new internship at Mayo Clinic. It’s really not as neat as it sounds. All it really is is sitting at a lab space, doing experiments to further the mentor’s goals, and also using the desktop computers to calculate data. And I’m doing it for two straight semesters, all ‘cause I apparently “need lab experience” before I graduate. (sigh) Goodbye, free time. xD
But I’m digressing. I know I just didn’t get a chapter with NOTHING about Beth or Lockheed’s fates after the explosion. You’re gonna leave me hanging for a few more days, aren’t you? On one hand, I’m happy; I was practically on the edge of my seat last chapter and I was STILL on the edge of my seat throughout the entirety of this chapter as well.
Maybe Conner should’ve delayed his trip and gone with Ethan to the gun shop, so they could’ve sprang into action if something went wrong. Speaking of those two, what I was initially thinking was that, in the aftermath of the explosion, Conner and Ethan would’ve been revealed to have been just watching or observing from afar, and rushed into the building the moment the destruction ensued, risking themselves to save everyone with maybe even a major character death thrown in (maybe Conner, to give Ethan and Beth some room). Then again, that’d have to assume that the two of them knew about Beth’s visit to the gun shop (almost wrote “fun shop”), and with this chapter’s reveal of Ethan simply being on a run, that kind of debunks all of that.....
So if this really DID get all of its targets, that’d mean that T.L. “Tip” Grim, his wife, and his gun shop were only in the novel for a total of.....part of one chapter before being blown to smithereens, which, considering that he was given a large amount of attention in the pre-novel bios, would’ve been quite shocking indeed. Maybe he survives, but his wife dies and his shop is still destroyed, leading him to go on the warpath against Beth for bringing destruction and loss to his life (after all, the blast would’ve had a much smaller chance of happening if Beth hadn’t been there)?
The janitor of the prison being in on the Gang’s machinations was sooooooo troubling. Sooooooo troubling. Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble---okay, no. Not even Sapphire’s visit to the prison fell under their radar......dang.
Who’s with and who’s NOT with the Savage Gang in this dang city?! This is some “Secret Invasion”-type business going on here (I think I already used that bit, too)!
Can we get some kind of resolution to the gun shop attack in the next few chapters? It’s only one chapter later, and the suspense is already eating away!