Rescue My Family

A short story for your enjoyment

After a long day at work, Janet came home to an empty house and a flashing red light on her phone indicating she had a voice mail. A darkened feeling crept through her, before she played back the message. And her feelings were confirmed when she played it, her husband, son and daughter were being held, and if she ever wanted to see them alive again, she would have to return to the group.

She thought she did everything possible to keep her and her family away from who she used to work for. But there was no more time to waste, she had to rescue her family. She rushed into the master bedroom, spun the dresser from the wall and dialed the combination to her safe. Inside was a knapsack, she tossed it onto the bed and took out the black pants, shirt and ski mask.

Janet donned the clothes, thankful that she had kept up her fitness routine during both pregnancies and after the children were born. The clothes she hadn’t worn in almost ten years still fit perfectly.

There were three possible locations her family could have been taken to, after an hour-long drive, she parked several blocks up from a three-story house. Creeping through the shadows, Janet arrived at the chimney, put her suction covers over her boots and put on her suction gloves. She climbed up the chimney and as soon as she was on the roof, she tied one end of her rope to the chimney and the other end through her carabiners.

She rappelled down the back of the house to a window, took out her glass cutting tool and gained entry. Holding the cut our glass with her suction gloves, she gently laid it down on the floor. After removing the suction gloves and boot covers, she walked silently in the darkness towards the snoring from one of the bedrooms.

The form was too big for a child and her husband, Janet aimed her blowgun at the man and shot a poison dart into his neck. A soft grunt and seconds later there was no more breathing.

Janet searched the rest of the house, took out two more men but her family was not here. She retrieved the rope from the roof and went back to the car.

Two hours later, she arrived at a warehouse, in the darkness it looked deserted, but she knew better. Who she used to work for were experts at disguising their buildings and their people.

She ran her hands along the wall until she found the real door that led inside. With her infrared scanner she didn’t find any traps on the door, so with her lock pick set she defeated the lock and tossed a rock inside and jumped to her right.

The resulting explosion took out a good chunk of the wall, while Janet covered her head shielding herself from the shrapnel. Seconds later, three men rushed out as she got to her feet.

All three of them zapped her with stun guns sending her back to the ground. They zip tied her wrists and ankles, as a van pulled up, pulled her to her feet and tossed her in the back, before getting in and driving off into the night.

Sometime later Janet woke up tied to a chair, the room in pitch darkness, the torture room she remembered so well. Someone was breathing into her ear, “You disappointed me,” he said. She recognized the voice of her old mentor, “We did everything for you, and you betrayed your family.”

“I wanted a real family and a real life,” Janet answered. “We will grant you that, but you must give us one last mission.” Janet mulled this over for a few seconds, she knew what the mission would be, one that would get her and her husband killed, if he wasn’t already dead, and her children into the life she once led. “I will agree to this, but if you go back on your word it’ll be your family that will pay for your betrayal.” “I don’t go back on my word to my old friend.” The lights slowly came on in the room so as not to blind Janet as she was cut free from the chair. The man’s blood red eyes glared at her as she defiantly jutted her chin out. “Feed me the information I need for this mission so I can get it started and finished as soon as possible.” He grabbed her arm, pulled her towards the door and out into the hall. A few minutes later he dragged her into another room, through the one-way glass she could see her family. “They’re still alive, how long they stay that way depends on you.”

“I know that,” she said as she squeezed the nails of her right hand into his forearm.

“What the –” he tried to say before he began choking and yellow foam began pouring out of his mouth.

“I made that little addition to my repertoire,” she said smiling at her dying old mentor. “You were never going to let me and my family live.”

She took out five more people before she rescued her family, as she took off the fingernail caps, her husband looked at her with a quizzical expression. “I always knew there was something mysterious about you.”

“About my past,” she said.

He interrupted her with a kiss on the lips, “All I need to know is are the children safe?”

“They are now.”