Girl Undercover 10 & 11: The Abduction & Dante's Inferno (14 page)

“I’m okay,” Dante replied. And he was. We had managed to stop the blood loss completely by tying a couple of towels around his leg tightly and putting a hand towel folded so many times it was the size of a male fist against the bullet wound.

“Why are you doing this, Javier?” Dante asked. “Even if you do get that cash, they’ll catch you. The area is about to be packed with police blocking any possible escape route. And on the other side, it’s all miles and miles of water. There’s no way out for you.”

Javier gave him a lopsided smile. “Don’t worry about how we’ll get out of here, boss. We will. And if we don’t, at least we made a good try of it. Being dead is still better than the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?” Dante asked.

Javier gazed out the window momentarily, a sad smile spreading across his lips. His starkly blue eyes returned to us. “You’d never believe it if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Nah,” Javier said, shaking his head. “It’s not enough time. Sorry about killing Todd and Rico. But you saw what they tried to do. I really had no choice but to take them out. They should’ve listened to what I told them and they’d have been fine. But they were stupid and went against my orders.” As he tskd, shaking his head, my eyes went to the two muscular dead men on the floor, one of them lying face down at the other end of the studio. The other was much closer, staring up into the ceiling, his eyes glassy. I had seen him a couple of times, training clients here at
Cuerpos
.

I studied Javier as he kept talking about how stupid it was to even try go against someone with a gun as big as the one he held onto, thinking that maybe he was a hybrid after all. Why else would he be saying stuff like “you’d never believe it if I told you” and that there wasn’t enough time to tell his story? I definitely didn’t think he and Tim were killer hybrids that Stenger had sent out for some kind of test ride before his coups, though. A hybrid controlled by The Adler Group would hardly speak like Javier, claiming that being dead was still better than the alternative.

Which meant that, hybrids or not, they were doing this for their own reasons. In order to have the best chance of getting out of here alive, we needed to find out why. I decided that I had nothing to lose by revealing to Javier that Dante and I both knew about The Adler Group and what they were up to. If he was a hybrid, he would likely be encouraged to keep talking, and if not, judging by how friendly he acted at the moment, he probably would just ask me what the hell I was talking about and not shoot me.

But before I got a chance to say anything, a woman started yelling that her friend had passed out.

All of us turned toward the upset voice at the other end of the studio. A slender black woman in her twenties was on her knees and pointing toward another woman who had passed out on the floor.

Tim told the mayor to hold on and walked over to the pair, peering down at them.

“What happened here?” he demanded from the black woman, who looked up at him. Her cornrows reached midway down her back.

“She just passed out! She isn’t breathing. Please
help
her. She’s my best friend.”

Tim screwed up his face, looking like he was pondering this. Then, scanning all the people, he said, “Does someone in here know how to give CPR?”

I raised a hand. “I do.”

“Come over here and resuscitate this girl,” he said, tilting his head in her direction.

“There’s an AED behind the front desk,” Dante said. “In case she has no pulse.”

I nodded and got to my feet. “Can I get the AED?” I asked Tim, who was standing near the front desk again.

Scowling slightly and looking like he was pondering this, too, he finally sighed and said, “Yeah, fine. But make it quick.”

I dashed over to the front desk, walked behind it and found the box containing the automated external defibrillators, then headed over to the prone white girl on the floor. She was curvy with lots of wavy dark hair that fanned out unevenly around her head. Sinking to my knees beside her, I asked the black girl, “What happened?”

The girl, who was borderline hyperventilating, took a deep breath to control herself enough to answer my question. “I’m not sure. She just began complaining that she was feeling dizzy and nauseated. Then she said that she couldn’t breathe. All of a sudden she
passed out.
It went really fast.”

She gasped to get more air into her lungs after the long explanation. I turned to the friend on the floor. While checking to see if she wasn’t actually breathing, I put a hand on the other girl’s arm and told her to calm down and keep breathing or I’d soon have two people to resuscitate. As I took a closer look at the unconscious girl, I noted that her complexion had begun to turn a very light blue. Still, I put my cheek against her mouth to feel if there was a breath at the same time as I looked to see if her chest was rising and falling. I felt nothing coming out of her mouth and her upper body was immobile.

“What’s your name?” I asked the black girl while checking for a pulse on her friend by placing two fingers against the carotid artery in her neck. As I had feared, I couldn’t feel any signs of one.

“Rianna,” the girl responded.

“Okay, Rianna. Does your friend have a history of heart problems? Her heart’s not beating.”

“Oh, God, really?” Rianna said, turning ashen. “That’s really bad, right? I don’t think she has heart problems. She’s only twenty-four.”

“What about a pacemaker?” I asked as I opened the AED box and removed the defibrillators from it.

“Not that I know, but I really don’t think so,” Rianna replied.

I pulled the prone girl’s workout top all the way up to her neck, not caring that her breasts were now displayed to the world. Saving her life was more important than her modesty. I made sure the areas where I would attach the pads were dry and clean.

Rianna stared at her friend’s bared boobs and gasped; she clearly wasn’t okay with them showing. But she didn’t say anything.

“She’s healthy, but I’ve heard that she takes diet pills,” a tiny woman beside me inserted. I recognized her as one of Dante’s two Pilates instructors. “Todd was her trainer and told me that she kept doing it against his advice. They probably have methamphetamines in them.”

Attaching the two defibrillator pads to the girl’s chest, I asked Rianna if her friend took such diet pills.

“Yes,” Rianna whispered ruefully. “And today she took like
five
of them. I should’ve stopped her. I knew it’d end badly.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said and motioned for her to step away from the unconscious girl. “I’m about to give her heart a shock. Nobody touch her.”

I pressed the first button on the AED, and the device began to analyze the heart rhythm. Five seconds later, an automated voice advised me to apply a shock to the girl. I did, and her entire body jerked slightly as it went through her. Immediately after, I tilted her head backward and blew two big breaths into her lungs. Then, having laced my fingers together, I placed the heel of my hand in the center of her chest along the breast bone and gave her thirty quick, deep compressions.

I sensed how I had everyone’s attention as I kept pumping my hands hard against the girl’s body, hoping that she’d show some signs of life. She didn’t, so I had to do use the AED again to analyze her heart rhythm. Still nothing. I blew two more breaths into her lungs, then resumed chest compressions. Again there were no signs of life, but her skin had lost that disturbingly blue tinge.

The blaring sirens outside had gotten so loud now that several police cars and surely some emergency vehicles must have arrived on the premises at last. The unconscious girl stood a better chance of surviving if she got some professional help. My arms were getting tired from the many powerful compressions I had to give her to ensure oxygenated blood floated through her system. I was on my fourth round and she was still not responding. Not even her heart had begun to beat again.

“How about you check if there’s an ambulance outside and we get this girl to some paramedics?” I called out to Tim, sweat pouring alongside my face now. I was strong, but I didn’t have more than one or two additional rounds of proper compressions in me before they’d weaken significantly, and therefore wouldn’t be effective. Unless I got two inches down, the oxygenated blood wouldn’t flow throughout her body and she’d sustain brain damage, then die shortly thereafter.

“No,” Tim said. “You save her or she’ll have to die. I’m not risking my own or Javier’s life for a drug addict’s. This would not have happened to her if she didn’t overdose on all those pills. If you knew what we’re facing, you’d understand why I’m not reverting from our plan. It’s the only way we’ll live. Sorry.”

Tim actually looked sorry before he turned his head away from me and gazed out the glass door again.

Desperately, I looked around at the other hostages to find someone who could keep giving the girl proper chest compressions when my arms finally gave out. It had to be someone who was not only strong, but who could also stay focused in the midst of all the drama going on around us. I didn’t think anyone looked like a particularly good choice, given how terrified they all seemed to be.
Well, I can keep going for another couple of minutes,
I told myself. It’ll be okay. As I kept working, I heard Tim chatting with the mayor and learned that the money apparently was on its way, the LAPD having cleared all the highways from Downtown L.A. to
Cuerpos.

A voice in a loudspeaker was suddenly echoing through the air:

“You are surrounded with police. Come out of the building with your hands in the air.”

“Did you hear that, Mayor?” Tim sounded furious. “Who the hell is that? Tell them to shut the fuck up or I’ll blow the head off a hostage right
now!”

“Okay, okay, Tim. I’ll tell them not to bother you. Please leave the hostages alone.”

“I will as long as no one bothers us again. We have enough stress on our hands.”

“My people are speaking to the LAPD right now, telling them to stand down,” the mayor promised, his voice tense.

“Good. What’s the status of the delivery?”

“Let me find out the latest. Just a sec.”

I was perspiring so profusely now that sweat came into my eyes, blinding me. My arms felt more and more like Jell-O. Any second, they’d give out and someone else would have to take over. I finished my latest set of compressions and pressed the Analyze button.

Catching my breath, I searched the hostages for someone who could replace me, still not confident that any of them would do a good job.

“Heart rate detected. Shock not advised.”

At first I thought I hadn’t heard it correctly, that I had only imagined the device saying those words because I wanted it to so badly; after all, I had been pushing the Analyze button several times already only to receive the same disappointing message. But when I turned to look at the AED, I saw that the red light indicating No Shock Necessary was lit, then the automated voice also repeated the same positive message.

Relief streamed through me so fiercely I was filled with renewed strength. As long as her heart was working again, she’d live. Just to be sure she had enough air in her system, I gave her two more breaths and then applied chest compressions, no longer feeling weak and exhausted. Right as I was about to reach thirty, she started to move, so I stopped.

She moaned as I removed my hands. She opened her eyes, blinking against the setting sun that shone straight into her line of vision.

“Linda?” Rianna said, grasping her friend’s arm. Jerking it lightly, she repeated her friend’s name.

When she didn’t immediately answer, I went cold, sure that she’d sustained some brain damage despite all my efforts to ensure all of her body received oxygenated blood. But then she mumbled “yes.” Turning her head side to side, she asked where she was.

Exhaling again with relief, I explained that she was still at
Cuerpos
and that she had passed out. Then I quickly removed the AED pads and pulled down her workout top. If she realized how her boobs had been on full display as all eyes had been on her, she might be so mortified that she’d pass out again. I wasn’t about to resuscitate her
again.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she looked around the big fitness studio, her eyes widening as they found first Javier with his machine gun, then Tim. They were both darting glances in her direction.

To calm her down, I immediately assured her that everything would be okay; help had arrived and we would soon be out of the building. She seemed satisfied with my words because she nodded and asked for water.

I turned to Javier. “Can she please have some water? There is a fountain right there.”

I pointed to the water fountain at the opposite side of where I was.

“Sure,” Javier said. I got to my feet and headed over there, getting a glimpse of the outside through the glass door entrance. As the man with the loudspeaker had announced, there were tons of police cars outside, and also a couple of ambulances. I spotted a camera crew as well. I got one of the plastic cups stacked on a side table and filled it with water.

As I returned to Linda, the mayor spoke, his voice so tense he could barely speak. “Um, there’s unfortunately been a huge car accident on the Santa Monica freeway. All lanes are blocked. We won’t be able to get through with the money in time.”

Chapter 4

“Really?” Tim said tersely. “That’s too bad. Well, if you’re that convinced the money won’t get here in time, I guess we’ll have to shoot one of the hostages.” Tim turned to Javier, who was walking back and forth along the wall where all the hostages sat, holding his gun at the ready. “Anyone in here who’s always annoyed you?” Tim asked him. “Let’s shoot them first. If not, I wouldn’t mind putting a bullet or two into Lindsey Dash to send all actors a message that it’s just not okay to
sell out
like she did.” He huffed, disgusted.

“No, please don’t shoot anyone,” the mayor begged, sounding sincerely terrified. “I just got word that the LAPD have dispatched a helicopter to get the money out of our car. As soon as they get the money, you’ll have it in a matter of minutes. Before the deadline. I promise. How does that sound?”