Arson, p.19
Arson, page 19
We both circle around the warehouse and meet up a few minutes later. My eyes dart everywhere, looking frantically. I see Linus doing the same. “Alright, let’s think about this. Where is the amp? He may be staying near it, and he may have Darby there,” Linus suggests.
“That’s not a terrible idea,” I mutter, and it kills me to admit that he’s right. “Any idea where that would be here?”
“No. You’re the warehouse pro here. Where was the amp when you found it previously?”
“In the middle of the warehouse. Darby and I looked at several pallets, but we missed some in the middle. It doesn’t seem like it’s in the huge main warehouse here unless it’s in the ones we missed.”
“Where else can we look?” Linus asks, crinkling his forehead. He’s getting frustrated too.
Before we can even discuss it, we hear loud beeping, and water rains down from the sky onto the entire warehouse floor as Linus and I both look up in confusion.
“Why are the sprinklers going off?” Linus asks, looking up at the ceiling and squinting as water starts to saturate our clothes and hair.
“This is all we fucking need,” I yell.
“Think it’s Porter trying to get rid of us?”
“Actually, I think it’s my girl trying to get help. I think Porter wants to fly under the radar, and the fire department will be here in a bit. There are no units based near here, so there’s probably a ten or fifteen-minute response time.”
Linus looks around and wipes his face and hair. I stand there trying to think for a minute.
“Linus, go look in the middle of the warehouse again,” I yell, pointing in the direction of the pallets we left unchecked. “There were a couple of pallets we didn’t check. See if the amp is there. If it is, grab some and put it in your car. Then meet me in that smaller admin area of the warehouse. The only place I haven’t checked is upstairs. I want any amp secured, though. I don’t want anyone else to know about it.”
Linus heads to the middle of the warehouse to look, and I take off for the admin area. I’m going to go through the admin area and up to the second floor. Darby has to be up there. It’s the only place I haven’t looked. If she’s not up there, Porter has taken her out of the building.
I run through the sliding garage door into the admin area. The sprinklers are on in here and saturating everything. Coffee mugs fill with sprinkler drops. Filing cabinets are soaking wet and water runs down their sides. Sparks even fly from the phone system and computer system as water saturates the electronics.
I run around the admin area for a minute to make sure that Porter doesn’t have Darby huddled in a corner that I can’t see, but they’re not here. I also find a couple of storage closets that I check just to be sure he doesn’t have her behind shelving or cleaning supplies. Nothing. They have to be upstairs.
I run to the other side of the office and take the metal stairs two at a time to move faster. Worry sinks into me, and getting to Darby is all I can think about. I really think it was her that tripped the sprinklers. I just hope Porter didn’t hurt her for it.
I pull open an old-style office door at the top of the stairs, and my heart nearly stops as I walk into an entirely separate warehouse area. I’d yell for Linus right away if I didn’t think Porter would hear. Amp. It’s all here. Tons of it. At least there was amp.
Bottles of it are over-turned. I see a couple of unopened bottles at the bottom of the pile, but other bottles are scattered around the room and dripping. Something serious happened up here. The sprinklers rain down on the emptying bottles from above, and the amp and water swirl around the floor drains that must be connected to a piping system in the floor. Those pipes in the ceilings we saw are drains in case extra products leaked in this storage area. However, the draining amp is the least of my problems right now.
Off to the side, I see more stairs up to another level. It looks like a loft-type structure up above, possibly a manager's office. Muffled sounds come from behind that door at the top of the other set of stairs. I give no thought to my own safety as I head up those stairs. I’m sure Darby is in there.
I burst through the door and freeze in terror. Porter has my girl taped to a chair, and her hair is half out of her ponytail. Bruises are forming on her cheek and eye area, and blood dribbles from her lip. Even more alarmingly, he’s pointing a gun straight at her head.
“Come in and get over in the corner, or I shoot your girlfriend,” Porter demands as he points the gun at Darby while holding a handful of her hair. Darby winces.
“Go, Archie! Get out of here!” Darby yells.
Porter slaps the back of her head so hard that Darby’s head is forced forward. She winces and gasps to catch her breath, rolling her neck.
No way am I leaving her here with this guy. I want to charge toward Porter but change my mind. If I can get my hands on the gun, I can disarm Porter easily enough. However, Porter’s eyes are manic, and I can’t risk Darby getting hurt or killed because I want to play the hero.
Putting my hands into a defensive position in front of me, I walk slowly into the room. I’m trying to keep my face as calm as possible, hoping it will calm Porter. I'm anything but calm, though.
“Alright, Porter. Just don’t hurt her. I’m walking,” I whisper huskily, trying to lull him into a calm mood. “Nobody is going to fight you. We just came to talk to you. Why don’t you let her go, and you can talk to me about whatever you want?”
Porter walks slowly away from Darby and circles the room as I come to Darby. He’s now pointing the gun at Darby and me as if he’s unsure which one of us he’ll shoot first. I should have just backed out and called the fucking police, amp or no amp in the next room. However, I refuse to leave Darby, so I position myself in front of her to protect her.
In the back of my mind, I’m also irritated at myself. I put us in a position where the only fucking person that can possibly save us now is the arrogant genius downstairs that could model underwear and used to fuck my girlfriend.
Porter comes over to me and holds the gun up to my face. If he held it stupidly, I might have a chance, but he’s obviously held a gun before and holds it properly. I have no doubt that he’s not a scared kid, but someone who has been around firearms and has probably practiced. “You’re the guy from the news. You’re the guy that can control fire,” Porter whispers. “It got on you, didn’t it? You got this shit on you somehow, and it did this to you. Fascinating,” he says under his breath while looking at me all over like I’m a prize pig at the county fair.
“That’s the only reason we’re here, Porter. We don’t care about your bullshit. We just came to talk to you about the goo. Our scientist friend calls it amp.”
“Someone else knows about it? Fuck! You fucking idiots!” Porter screams as he jolts forward and punches me in the face. My head whips to the side, and Darby screams behind me. “Who else knows what it can do?”
“That’s it. Just us and our friend. We won’t tell anyone, Porter. I just want to know what it is,” I say.
Before I can even bring a hand up to my lips to check where he punched me, he punches me from the other side. “Fuck, Porter! Stop. We just came to talk.”
“You think I believe you? If you two figured it out enough to come find me, it won’t be long until someone else comes. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Why don’t you tell me instead of hitting me? Tell me what you did at Dallas!”
Porter laughs maniacally, “I didn’t do shit. It was all Corbin and his desire to create a substance that would bond to plastic and make it stronger. He wanted to have the strongest plastic products so we wouldn’t have any competition.” Porter paces back and forth in front of me.
Every time he moves, I move to block Darby from his view. If he wants to hit someone, he can hit me. He’s not calming down. If anything, he’s getting more agitated.
“It worked. What happened?”
“We worked for months until we came up with a substance that would work right. We got it to attach to plastic and actually make it stronger. We were ready to use it in production. Can you even imagine? Hangers that don’t break. Medical supplies and gloves that don’t leak. Hell, we even combined it with latex for condoms. He was obsessed with making unbreakable condoms. We would have buried competitors.”
“It attaches to whatever is around it and makes it stronger. Why did you cancel the project?”
“I didn’t. Dallas did. He said something could go wrong. Part of me wonders if he knows what it can do.”
“Do you? Do you know what it can do?” I ask as Porter continues to pace and hold the gun on us.
“I have my suspicions. Dallas shit on the project before I could do tests or prove anything. That’s why I came here. I came here and found it. I’ve been taking it out bottle by bottle to see what it can do. Maybe I can develop my own plastic company. I won’t need to work for Dallas.”
“Is there someone like me? Is that why he canned the project?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. But he’s not easy to talk to about it. He says he wants nothing to do with it. Don’t expect engraved invitations to meet about it. He fired me for knowing too much.”
“He fired you for knowing about amp?”
“Yep. Pinned me with a porn reputation and had IT track my every move. Everyone looks at porn at work, but I got busted for it.”
I roll my eyes at the comment about everyone looking at porn at work. What a douchebag. I touch my cheek to check for swelling, but I’ll take all of Porter’s anger if it keeps Darby safe.
“I even got a stupid cease and desist order from Dallas saying I couldn’t talk about or develop anything I may have worked on at Dallas. I rerouted my mail to a neighbor to keep from having to deal with any legal letters. I could just say I didn’t get them because of a mail error.”
“Porter, you need to put the gun down. You hurt Darby pretty bad, and you’ve assaulted me. You don’t want a murder rap on top of all of this. Put the gun down and walk away.”
“Fuck you! I’m not doing anything like that. I worked on this shit a long time.”
“Why’d you burn it then? Why did you burn down the other warehouses?”
“That was all for Corbin. He stored the shit in the warehouses. I knew I had this stockpile. Nobody but Nancy ever comes to this warehouse, and she never comes up here to the second floor. I knew I could keep this stockpile and get it if I ever wanted it. The other fires were a big ‘fuck you’ to Dallas.”
Behind me, Darby rests her forehead onto my lower back, and I know she wants the connection to me right now. I try to telepathically calm her, but I’m still trying to figure out what to do here. If only Linus would come through the fucking door and distract Porter enough so I’d have a split second to get the gun. Where the fuck is Linus?
“It looks like I’ll just have to burn this one, too.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my stomach sinking into my balls.
“Your little bitch here dumped out all of my product. There’s no reason for me to stay around. I’ll have to figure out another way to get back at Corbin. I’ll try to develop it myself with what I’ve managed to smuggle out if needed.”
“You can’t recreate it. You’re not a good enough scientist, are you?”
“I’ll try. In the meantime, I’m really sorry I’m going to have to kill you both. Then, this poor old run-down warehouse is going to experience an accidental fire.”
“You can’t think you’ll get away with this. Seriously?” I ask, trying to buy time. “The fire department will be here any minute. The sprinklers alerted them.”
“Either way, I’ll be long gone. Too bad for you,” Porter says, stepping back and squaring up to shoot.
“Close your eyes, baby. Don’t watch,” I Say over my shoulder to Darby. I can’t let her watch this. The unfairness of it all makes me want to throw up, and Darby screams “No” over and over until Porter can’t take it.
“Shut up, you fucking cunt,” Porter practically hisses as spit flies from his mouth.
In what I hope isn’t my last moment, I take a brief look over my shoulder at Darby, but I can’t see her face. Her face is still buried in my lower back, and she shakes as she sobs my name. My heart almost explodes with grief that I can’t comfort her now, especially when she starts chanting that she loves me over and over. Porter cocks the pistol, and it’s all I can do not to piss myself in fear for her. What will happen to Darby after he shoots me if this doesn’t work? I won’t stand here and let him shoot us both, but I’m going to have to leave Darby for a moment.
I lunge forward with the speed I’ve built from running through fire for years. Porter’s not as strong as me, but he still has a gun, and even if I get it pointed away from me, it could still hit Darby behind me. I go for the hand holding the gun first, and the asshole headbutts me hard in my nose as the gun goes off. I feel it graze my shirt over my left shoulder and look back frantically to make sure it went over Darby’s head behind me. The fact that he could have hit her enrages me, and I punch Porter in the face. He’s relentless, though, and won’t drop the gun. He fights back with headbutts and uses his free hand to block my punches as best he can.
I’m bigger and stronger, but he has a gun I have to be very careful of, so it’s a weird matchup. I’m sure I have a concussion from the head-butting Porter is giving me, and he looks like he’s having trouble standing up. I punch harder, and he’s still not going down even after I break his nose. Fuck, was this guy a professional boxer or something?
Not letting go of his wrist, I squeeze hard, so he’ll drop it. I hear Darby behind me, and it pushes me forward. If I don’t get the gun, I’m never going to get to marry Darby. I’m never going to have children with her. That’s all I can think about as I wrestle with Porter in what feels like hours but is probably just ten seconds. I finally get in a great punch that he can’t block, and he starts to go down. I’ve got him. I just need to wait a couple more seconds until he drops the gun. I’m so busy holding Porter’s wrist and waiting for the fucker to hit the floor that I’m startled by the sound of something large and metal also hitting the side of Porter’s head.
He makes a large grunt as he slumps to the ground and drops the gun. Only when I’m sure that he’s actually knocked out at my feet, do I even try to figure out what is happening. I expect to see that prick, Linus, standing there looking smug, but Linus is just now walking into the room and heading to Darby’s chair. He frees Darby from the chair while I try to understand why the fuck Remi is standing in front of me, dripping wet and holding a shovel.
Chapter 24
Darby
“What the ever-loving fuck are you doing here, Remi?” I scream through the room as I pull away from Archie, satisfied that he’s not permanently hurt. I ran to him as soon as Linus freed me from being duct-taped to the chair. I’m flustered, and my words aren’t making much sense. “How? Why?” I sputter.
“Uh, Darbs,” Linus steps forward from behind Archie and me. He untied my hands, and I’m still rubbing my wrists from the pain. “That’s my fault.”
“Not that I’m not glad to see you two assholes, but I don’t understand.”
“Well, you texted me to come get some more amp to work on,” Linus says and looks lost. His eyes swivel between me, Remi, and Archie as if he’s unsure of whom to direct the conversation. “I may have, uh, accidentally texted you back in our group chat for volleyball on our messaging app and not through our normal text.”
Archie lets out a loud laugh and runs his hands through his hair. “That fucking volleyball team.”
I didn’t even think to check the app our team uses to chat. I turn to Remi to confirm Linus’s story. “Did you know we were here because of the volleyball group chat?”
“Yes,” Remi says quietly. For the first time, I notice that Remi is sopping wet from the sprinkler system and trembling from the cold water and winter weather. Her teeth chatter, and her black sweater is stuck to her like a second skin. Her hair hangs down like a wet blanket as drops fall from it to the ground. Linus also notices her wet clothes and takes off his own jacket, kindly rubbing her back as she takes it from him with a smile. They've always been good friends. “After I got the message, I called Linus and demanded to know what the fuck is going on. He told me everything about the amp and everything that happened to Archie.”
I narrow my eyes at Linus. “You can never just keep your mouth shut, can you?”
“Nope. He can’t. He let Remi come here and put herself in danger. You should be outraged. I’m outraged! That’s totally irresponsible, Linus,” Archie chimes in, looking at Linus and scolding him in a fatherly tone. I almost laugh.
“Look. It all worked out. If anything, you should be glad I told her," Linus says. "I’m a pacifist. I wouldn’t have had the balls to swing and take that douchebag out with the shovel we found downstairs. Remi grabbed it when we heard the gunshot.”
“Lucky for us, Remi has bigger balls than you,” I say as Linus grimaces, and Archie snorts behind me. I can almost feel him flipping off Linus behind my back.
“To be fair, Archie about had him knocked out. The gun was still in his hand, so I did what I could,” Remi says, walking over to Porter and nudging him with her toe. “Did I hit him hard enough to kill him?”
“Who cares?” Linus, Archie, and I say at the same time.
“Listen, I need to call this in to the police if they’re not already on the way. The sprinklers should have alerted the fire department, but Zeke is off tonight. We all move a bit slower when we don’t have the taskmaster chief there to kick our ass into double time. Even so, they should be here any minute,” Archie says, running his hands through his hair. “Let’s think about this. There’s no fire. We have a couple of bottles of shit that looks like lemon soda, a scientist, a fireman, a call center manager, a mortgage processor, and an unconscious guy fired from his last job for looking at porn. Thoughts? Anyone a great bullshitter?”
