‘Oh God,’ I thought. I didn’t need to look down, I didn’t want to look down, I knew it was a body.
Opening the door as fast as I could added more light and I saw Stone laying on the ground by the door. I closed my eyes tightly, and blindly reached in, feeling for that switch. Once my finger touched it, I turned it on and the area lit up. I spun around for a full charge back to Callie, when a man, another man, stepped before me.
I didn’t breathe, move or panic, I just fired the weapon. He was so close, I couldn’t miss. The shot hit him center chest, and the force of the close range gunshot, sent him down to the ground.
It was an instant pause on everything.
The assailant over Callie, had his hands on her throat and he looked up in shock at the sound.
The second his head raised, I fired again.
That moment when he fell to the side and Callie rolled him from her and sat up… that moment, I shook. Every part of me shook. No amount of crisis training at work, monthly required classes at the range, simulated sieges of our office, none of that shit prepared me for that moment.
Good or bad men, I took two lives.
Two.
The pistol toppled from my hand, my knees weakened, and just as Callie coughed and stood, I saw her.
Madison.
Where the glow of the spotlight met the dark, Madison was huddled on her hands and knees.
Callie approached me. “Thank you. Are you…”
I didn’t hear what else she said, I raced straight to Madison. I dropped to the ground right by her, sending a cloud of ash into the air.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Are you okay?”
She lifted her head, her long hair dangled in her face. Her cheeks were streaked with dirt. It was hard to see how badly she was hurt, but I could see the blood on her lip and running from her nose.
Frantically she shook her head. “They grabbed me. They…” she spoke through hyperventilated breaths. “They were waiting on you.”
“How bad are you hurt?” I asked. “Where did they hurt you?” I reached out to her.
She kept shaking her head, crying.
I heard the thumping footsteps, and looked up to see Callie.
“Are there any more?” she asked Madison. “Did you see any more than two men?”
Madison shook her head.
“I’ll be back. Stone’s been stabbed. He’s alive. I have to stop the bleeding. How badly are you hurt?”
“I’ll figure that out,” I said. “Go help Stone.”
Callie nodded once, backed up and then stopped. “Thank you again, Lacey.” She turned and ran back to the Humvee.
“Madison…” I reached again to her.
She pulled back, spun around and resumed her position on her hands and knees. She moved in circles, her hands flung through the ash, and with each swipe of the substance, she sobbed out an aching cry.
“Madison, what is it? Stop. I need to know if you’re hurt.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Please… please help me,” she looked at me. “Please.”
“Help you with what?”
“Help me find it.” She placed her hand on her chest. “They tore off my locket.”
Hearing that, my heart sunk. The desperation, the crying, they didn’t hurt her physically as much as they killed Madison emotionally. After telling her I’d be right back, I sought out, the working spotlight and joined Madison.
It didn’t matter how dark it was or how futile the search seemed, I just knew I had to look for that locket with her, until I couldn’t look anymore.
Earlier, Stone complained that we would have nothing to do, that the ten hours until daylight would lag. How wrong he was.
Stone was stabbed in the side, fortunately, the blade hit the flank. Callie put a field dressing on it and gave him some antibiotics. Her biggest concern was the head injury, they had knocked him out. This was all information she conveyed while she tended to him. Once he was stabilized, she came over to us.
“I need to see if she’s okay,” Callie said. “Madison.”
We had moved some. Trying to figure out where she was grabbed, how far she was dragged and where exactly the locket came off. It was difficult, because it was still so dark.
“Can I ask what you’re doing?” Callie asked.
“Her locket,” I said. “They ripped it from her. It’s very special.”
“It was all I had left of my daughter,” Madison said. “Her ashes and now it’s lost…” she released a defeated sob. “In the ashes.”
“Look, you aren’t going to find it out here,” Callie said. “It’s too…”
“I have to look!” Madison blasted.
“I know you do. But it’s too dark to see.”
“We want to find it before you leave,” I said.
“I won’t leave without it, I won’t. You can go. I can’t leave without it.” Madison kept looking. “It’s all I have left of her. It’s all I have.”
I expected Callie to say something cold, crass, but instead she surprised me.
“Then we won’t leave until you find it,” Callie said. “We’ll look again when it’s light and we won’t stop. But come to the truck, let’s check you out, get you some water, clear your head, and as soon as there is any light, I’ll get out there myself and help you look. Deal?”
Both Madison and I just looked up at her.
We made the deal. Madison needed a break. She needed to clean her wounds. Her nose was broken, her face full of abrasions, lip split, and it looked like her wrist was in pretty bad shape.
I saw a different side of Callie. She was still rugged, but she cared.
It also was obvious to me, she was shaken as well. Not only was Madison’s face a mess, so was Callie’s.
I offered to help her. She declined, but asked for one of my airline bottles of vodka. I gladly obliged.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Callie asked.
“Work,” I said. I handed Madison a bottle. She took it, but kept staring out the window, waiting on the little bit of daylight.
“Where did you work?” Callie asked.
“Public housing complex. We dealt a lot with cash and were robbed one month like four times. They decided when a coworker was shot that we needed classes. We had a gun in the office and each of us had to be certified to use it.” I shrugged. “I never thought I would.”
“I’m glad you did.”
There wasn’t much talking the remainder of the night. Stone kept falling in and out of consciousness, but he seemed to improve.
At the first sign of light, Madison raced from the Humvee. Keeping true to her word, on her hands and knees Callie joined us in the search. With some daylight, it was easier, but still, a silver locket buried in ash was a needle in a haystack.
Finally, hours later, I knew Callie had found it.
She was by the rear tire on the driver’s side, when she went from her knees to a sitting position, staring at her hand. “Madison,” she called out softly.
Madison scurried over, and when Callie placed it in her hand, my friend clutched it and sobbed. After a few moments, she uncurled her fingers and showed it to me.
The chain was gone, probably broken and lost in the scuffle, but the chain wasn’t what was important. The locket was.
The open locket was more than likely stepped on during the exchange. It was dented and dangling on its hinges. Even though it was damaged, what was important still remained. While the covering on the picture side was cracked, the picture of her daughter was still there, and even more than that, the ashes were undisturbed in their tiny locket size urn.
We spent hours on the side of the road searching. After it was found, we were able to get moving. I felt horrible for Madison, she couldn’t process that her precious locket had been so badly damaged. It broke my heart to see it.