Free Shattered by LS Silverii

across his back and over his left shoulder. He felt the thud of his cell phone wallop against his ribs. He knew Justice would demand it soon, but he debated on how to contact Lawless.
    “Gotta hit the head real quick.”
    Justice pointed to the stream. “Do it there so I can see you.”
    “Fuck if I will. You can wait for me.”
    He heard Justice snort as he walked off. He balled his fist and released then repeatedly—was Justice using him as bait? His intuition was ablaze with danger signals. Signals that his macho attitude ignored.
    [hey man, where are you?] read the message from Agent Graham’s cell phone number.
    St. John swallowed hard—there still weren’t the exclamation points behind his text.
    He decided to draw out whoever the imposter was. [no where. Meet me?]
    [where]
    [idk – where are you] St. John stamped out.
    [no where. Catch you later]
    St. John stuffed the cell back in his vest. That shit went nowhere fast. If he could call Lawless and tell them to triangulate Graham’s cell phone messages, then they might pin him down to a localized region.
    He looked up, and there was Justice standing above him. “You shit yet?”
    “No.”
    “Then pinch it. We’re moving.”
    St. John’s heart pounded at having almost getting busted texting his task force surveillance team. He knew texting Abigail would be too risky. He glanced up—Justice had disappeared. Fuck, that dude was dangerous.

Chapter 14

    “H ere, you’ll need these soon.” Justice handed St. John a pair of night vision goggles, or NVG, with a scope for seeing long range and navigating the terrain in the dark. Their hike from where the bikes were hidden to the target compound was a treacherous journey. More importantly, they’d have to navigate the entire time without being detected.
    Sun fell quickly—and so had Justice’s energy. They’d been on a dusty trail of hills and vines that roughly intersected the Russian River on more than a few occasions. California’s Sonoma County might’ve made for beautiful scenery and wine, but there was something ominous about it.
    “Can we take a knee? We’ve walked the last thirteen hours straight. Fuck, I’m from Florida, we ain’t got these climbs.” St. John hunched over with hands against his knees gasping for air. The hot afternoon temps had finally dropped but the reprieve came too late to be of any relief. His lips folded over his teeth as he fought for air. Bugs gathered around his face—he spit out mosquitoes like hairs in restaurant food.
    Justice felt no compassion. “I thought you were a warrior. Said you were in training for the time when the battle would be fought. Son, this here isn’t the battle—it’s the apocalypse.”
    “I’ll be ready, don’t worry about me.” St. John panted out broken words.
    “Opie, I hope so, because from what I’m seeing this ain’t gonna be nice.” Justice stuck his index finger between St. John’s bicep and chest. He lifted the biker upright. “Standing opens your lungs—more air.”
    Justice suddenly turned away and rubbed the back of his aching neck. He froze at an unknown noise. Felt an increasingly hot sensation like his limbs were tingling. He couldn’t seem to relax all of a sudden and moved from one foot to the next.
    “You okay, boss?”
    He heard St. John’s question but couldn’t form the words to reply—he nodded. Justice smoothed his hair back out of his face and closed his eyes. His senses took over. He was back inside of his CIA Special Ops Group mentality. He felt it, and was glad for the shift—like flipping on a light switch. Over the years it had been difficult to turn it off once it got switched on—that’s what the CIA counted on—his mechanical approach to killing.
    Life’s problems came once Justice was no longer able to turn it off. It’d been a long time since he felt the surge of evil embedded in his spirit by the federal government’s training program. His intuition told him he’d need that evil