Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(49)

We hadn’t really talked about being boyfriend and girlfriend, but we were. We also hadn’t shared any feelings that we were feeling, though the ones that went through my head all day every day when it came to Rowen Roberts were anything but platonic.

And never would be.

I wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but one second she was just a friend. Hell, not even that. A child of my boss likely the better description. Whatever way I described it, though, I knew that we’d changed.

We’d morphed into a relationship that men often killed for.

Picking up my mic, I said, “This is Unit 453, arrived on scene.”

“10-4,” came the dispatcher’s more even, slow drawl.

Once she knew I was there, I got out of the SUV and headed up to the front of the gate.

There were three men outside, all of which were likely carrying.

All of which were looking at me like I was an outsider and a snitch.

When I got to the call, I wasn’t sure what I expected.

I mean, yes, an unconscious man for sure.

I walked into the room and took it all in.

There was a woman smoking pot in the corner of her trashy single-wide trailer. She was staring at the commotion in her kitchen as if she wasn’t sure what to expect.

“You the owner?” I asked her, eyeing the pot.

She blew out a breath and nodded.

“For today,” she admitted.

I looked at all the drug paraphernalia on the counter. A bong. A couple of spoons that I’d bet my right nut had cocaine on them, and what looked to be ecstasy in a couple of plastic baggies.

Jesus Christ.

Could they not have at least tried to clean up?

Pressing the mic on my shoulder, I said, “Dispatch, this is Unit 453. I have a 374 in progress. Requesting backup.”

A 374 was a drug dealer, or the equivalent of one.

I wasn’t sure, yet, if that was exactly what we had, but I had a suspicion that it was.

“10-4, Unit 453,” dispatch said.

I gave the woman one last look then walked into the bedroom where I could hear the volunteer firefighters trying to get the man to wake up.

Since it was so far out of the city, I hadn’t really expected anybody to be here. I definitely knew that the fire department wasn’t the one to respond to this particular section of backwoods trashy homes since it was so far out of the city, but sometimes jurisdiction lines were blurred between ‘city limits’ and ‘not city limits.’

This particular house hugged that line.

And since I was so close, I’d been the one to respond.

Looking at the drug paraphernalia in the house, I almost wished I hadn’t.

This was going to be a lot of paperwork.

There were pot plants growing in this man’s room. I could see thousands of pills spread out on every available surface.

And to put the icing on the cake, there was a rat in the corner chewing on a white pill that was likely some kind of pain pill if the bottle’s label could be trusted.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath.

A big man that was obviously there and wished he wasn’t turned to look at me.

“Gave a sternal rub,” he said. “Didn’t wake.”

A sternal rub was a way of waking a person in hopes that he’d have a response to pain.

“I…” I trailed off as the man that was lying flat on the bed went from non-responsive to up, moving like a freight train, and heading right for the young volunteer firefighter that’d been taking his vital signs.

The young woman being Avery Flynn.

“Oh, shit,” Avery said.

I made a split-second decision.

One moment, I was across the room, and the next I was grabbing the very angry, very big, very crazy man by his throat and body slamming him back down to the bed.

He bounced off the bed, went about two feet into the air with his momentum, and fell to the floor in the next second.

I crossed over the bed in one hop and came down on the other side of the room, dropping to the ground in the next second to put all of my body weight on the man’s back.

Seconds later, I had him cuffed.

A heartbeat after that, he went absolutely fucking nuts.

He trashed the walls. He trashed the roof. He trashed everything.

And each new hole that appeared in the plaster, the more drugs that fell out, until there were drugs everywhere.

I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.

On one such pass into the wall, he hit so hard that an entire imprint of his body in plaster fell right out of the studs.

And he was in the other room.

“Shit!” I said, hurrying out of the room.

I found him with his hands on the locks, trying to open the door backward.

But each time he’d make an attempt, he’d hit himself in the head.

Yet, he continued to try as I came closer and closer to him.

On one such tug, he hit himself in the head so hard that his head split open and blood started to pour down his neck.

“Sir,” I said. “If you could…”

He launched himself at me with such speed that I barely had enough time to react.

I did manage to deflect his momentum enough that he didn’t land on top of me.

My head, unfortunately, busted in the hollow door of the kitchen cabinets.

Good news, a bag of meth the size of my head broke my fall.