All Sales Final

Hector went to his hotel and quickly fell asleep, the memory of those lips burning in his mind.

The space between the buildings was dark and narrow and Hector's shoulders hardly fit. He was aware of the four people in the space behind him, one who was pressed against him very closely and in a very distracting way.

"You sure you wanna be here, Jacin?" He kept his voice low. "I mean... damn, I don't know what I mean. I just don't want you hurt, no matter what happens. I would rather go in alone than have that happen."

"Jacin is the backup," she said, her voice even lower than usual, gaining a huskiness born of pent-up nerves. "I will only watch your back. Do not think of me, Héctor. It will only distract you. Believe me, I have been to many training camps. I am nearly invisible." The flash of her smile lit the darkness.

It was time. Keeping a parked truck between themselves and the target building, they quickly crossed the street. There was a camera over the entrance and one of the men with them signaled to a car parked across the street. The window came down and a dark metal object protruded. A thin beam emerged and quickly settled onto the lens of the camera. The infrared lazer would blind the camera. As soon as the lens was illuminated, they moved.

There was a set of stairs inside leading up from a lobby. Two women and a man sat at a table, and three spits came as three tazers fired. The two women and the man collapsed, twitching, and the three men with Hector and Jacin quickly secured them with zip-ties, winding duct-tape around their heads and covering their mouths. They dragged the bound forms across the room and stuffed them into a closet.

"Going hot," Hector said. Everyone nodded, the three men moving up behind him and Jacin bringing up the rear. There was a door at the top of the stairs, and Hector pressed his ear against it for a moment. Hearing nothing, he opened it a crack. There was a man seated in a chair about 10 feet to the right, but he couldn't see to the left. He signaled to the man behind him to take the target to the right. He nodded, and Hector counted down from three on his fingers.

He sprang through the door, dropping to his knees and facing left. There was a man coming down the hall they had entered, and Hector fired the AK, giving him a bullet, center mass, as he heard two shots behind him. The target was smashed against the wall in a twisting impact and fell. Hector rushed forward, giving the man another tap in the forehead.

There were shouts of alarm, and the sound of two doors slamming. The three men with Hector went right and he and Jacin moved left. They came to a series of doors opening off the hallway. They were all locked, but Jacin had a key, of sorts. As they came to each door, she stepped forward. Angling her shotgun down, she blasted out the latches and Hector looked inside. The first was empty, but the next five contained women. The rooms seemed to be nearly cells, the most prominent furniture being beds. The women were either drugged or in shock, probably both, and cowered away from them.

There were shots and shouts from the other side of the building, and Hector paused only long enough to ensure that the women inside were not Alma. Jacin screamed at each woman, "Salir! Ejecutar!"

They had no time to spend; they had calculated it would take the police about 20 minutes to respond, and their primary mission was Alma.

They continued down the hall, coming to a corner. Hector quickly dropped into a crouch, his knees protesting, and scuttled out. There were two men, armed with handguns, waiting. His crouched posture took them by surprise, and they both took too long in adjusting their aim. He fired two three-round bursts, and both men went down, only one managing to get off a shot, which went harmlessly over Hector's head. He heard the bellow of Jacin's shotgun behind him, and turned to find that she had taken out an armed man who had come up the stairs, possibly from outside.

They continued making their way down the corridor. The layout was square and they soon met the other members of the team coming down the other way. The first shook his head. "No," he said. " Hay escaleras subiendo."

They hurried to the stairs and went up, cautiously entering a corridor identical to the one below. Once again, the three male members of the team made their way right and Hector and Jacin moved left.

There was a woman in the first room, not Alma, and as Jacin blew out the lock of the second door, there were shots fired through the door. Hector waited for a pause in the gunfire, then stuck his head inside, briefly. There was a man and a woman on the bed, the man frantically trying to reload his handgun, and Hector gave him a three round burst.

The woman never moved. Jacin hurried over. "Héctor, it is her," she said. "She is unconscious, drugged, I believe. Help me!"

Hector sent the text he had pre-typed to the team, gathered up Alma's limp form and they hurried to the stairs. The team was waiting and they made their way back to the entrance. They could hear sirens in the distance, and they rushed across the street, down the passage between the buildings from which they had emerged, and got in the van parked at the curb.

Ann sat on the patio leisurely gazing at the architecture and watching the cruise ships as she enjoyed the drink the waitress just dropped off. Checking her watch again, she was content while waiting for Jeremy. After a few minutes, she checked her cell phone to see if there was an update from Jeremy's mother, who was delighted with the opportunity to watch her grandson while her son and daughter-in-law enjoyed their vacation.

"Hey, Ann."

Her fingers tightened around the phone and the muscles in her arms and shoulders tensed. She slowly looked up at Hector, the man who aided and harbored the piece of filth that abused her and killed Jim.

"Jeremy is here with me. He's on his way down now. Get away from me, Hector, or I swear to God, I'll have him kill you."

"Yeah, I know who and what Jeremy is. He served with Jim and was a Ranger. He could probably take me out, no problem. If that's the way this has to go, I can accept that. I ain't got the right to ask this, but if you give me three minutes and still want me to go, you'll never see me again."

Ann pushed the chair opposite her back with her foot. "Sit down. I don't want you looming over me. Keep your hands on the table." She slowly looked around the sidewalk and the street, hoping to see her husband.

Hector reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of flash-drives. Placing them on the table, he sat down. "I, uh... Dammit, there's no right way to say this. Apologizing for what happened to you is ridiculous. No apology in the world can cover it. It just feels, what's the word? Trite? On the other hand, whadda ya gonna do, not apologize at all? That's also wrong. There ain't no words that fit. All I could say is what happened to you, and all the fallout was the worst thing in my life."

He lifted his hands in an open-palmed defensive gesture. "I'm not comparing the two. I know that whatever the fuck I went through was nothing next to what you went through. I'm not a complete idiot."

Trying to bide time until Jeremy showed up, she took a slow sip of her drink. "How did you find me, Hector?"

"Well, this don't make me look so good, but that vacation contest you entered from that marketing company with the survey about auto repair? I sorta own the auto places. Me and my wife."

"It was rigged?"

"Uh, yeah. Sorry. This is my wife's restaurant. So, this is real uncomfortable for both of us. I'm just going to say what I was gonna say and get going. You didn't deserve nothing that happened. Neither did Jim. I should've been there for you. I know that. Jim wasn't just my best friend, he was my only friend and I let you both down. I tried to call you a few times, but I couldn't do it. I was gonna send a letter or some shit, but I'm not good with that stuff. I recorded a bunch of, I don't know, talks or whatever, so I could tell you how I felt, but I didn't have the balls to send them."

He reached over and pushed the flash-drives towards her. "That's them. I'm using a different name now, but I'm going to give you my contact info. If you ever need anything, or if your kid ever needs anything, you let me know." Hector stared at her intently. "I'd rather die than fail you again."

He looked over her shoulder, into the interior of the restaurant. "Look, there's some bad people that don't want me around. In, you know, a permanent way. They'd pay good money to know where I was. If that's the route you take, all I ask is that you give me a heads up so I could take care of business away from my family. But you do what you gotta do. I owe you that much at least."

Your husband is coming, so I'm going to take off. You don't know how fucking sorry I am, Ann. I'm trying really hard to be a better man. If you get down to the cemetery sometimes and talk to Jim, tell him I said hey."

Hector made his way through the busy restaurant and passed by Jeremy, who stood staring at him. There was a lightness to Hector, as if some unknown burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He couldn't describe what it was but he felt something coming alive inside of him. Something bright and long dormant was breaking from the prison he had constructed in his soul.

He had found a woman who loved him for who he was. He stepped up and helped rescue his sister from an unspeakable evil. Whether he had succeeded or failed, he at least tried to make amends with Ann. Tendrils of light were starting to break through the dark façade that he wore like an emotional cloak.

Walking through the swinging doors into the kitchen, he proceeded to the back, nodding to Alma as she negotiated with the fishmonger who seemed to always be underfoot when she was around. With a hopeful, tremulous smile, he stepped into the small office, closing the door behind him. Hector felt empty, like a vessel waiting to be filled.

Putting his back to the door, Hector allowed it to take his weight as he closed his eyes, sighed and tried to stop his shaking.

Jacin put down the receipts she was going over, stood and held her husband as he found solace in her arms.

This story was a joint project between BlackRandl1958 and Bebop3. Chances are excellent that if there were parts of the story that you enjoyed, they were Randi's.

Bebop3 would like to thank Steve M. and the members of the Left Foot, Right Foot Society for their support and assistance. He would also like to thank his sweet inspiration, Mr. Brooks.

Hector, Ann and Jim are the central characters in Returning Home.

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