Way Down I'll Go

This Life of Mortal Breath

Not much scared Frank anymore.

He'd survived a home of chaos and turmoil. His mother didn't care who she hooked up with, provided they supplied her with enough heroin to float blissfully through the rest of the day; it didn't matter if her "date" got a kick out of beating her kid. Because of her addiction, he'd been in and out of the foster care system, and had experienced the good, bad, and ugly of life lived with strangers.

He'd found her dead after injecting too much. The tourniquet was still around her blue, swollen arm, a 10-mile stare fixed on her waxen face.

He'd been tossed into a foreign and formidable world after foster care, a lonely 18-year-old desperate to find a home. Members of People Nation had been quick to snatch him up and induct him into their patchwork family. Before he knew it, he was pushing the same product that had brought his mother to her demise.

He'd experienced prison at the tender age of 20, though he was anything but tender by then. If it hadn't been for the cook, who took him under wing and pushed him to be better than his environment, he'd still be behind those bars.

He'd ratted out his fellow gang members for a chance at a new life. He'd worked with the very cops he'd run from for years. He'd received numerous death threats and had been shot twice.

At 38 years old, Frank had seen a lot. And not much scared him.

But as he sat in his car, staring at the abandoned house, mentally begging Charlie to get his ass there faster, using every drop of self-control he possessed to keep himself from busting through that door, he wasn't just scared.

He was terrified.

The image of 12-year-old Jo rummaging through a dumpster flashed through his mind. The fear in the kid's eyes as he clutched the rotting food to his chest had nearly broken Frank's hardened heart. He'd seen himself in that kid. But Jo was so much more than he'd ever been. He had a natural kindness, a nurturing spirit, a quiet strength. The more Frank learned about him, the more his heart softened for the child who'd never experienced love. Who'd experienced evil in lethal doses and yet remained selfless and gentle.

Who was likely being tortured only yards away from him, hidden only by a layer of crumbling brick and decaying wood.

Anger, impatience, and panic welled up inside him. It had taken him forty minutes to speed across the city in the damn Chicago traffic. At Charlie's demand, he was now waiting for the cops to arrive. Five minutes had ticked by in agonizing delay. Pulling a gun from the glove compartment, he slipped quietly out of his car.

He couldn't wait any longer.

As he reached the dirt patched yard, tires crunched on the pavement behind him. Four heavily armored SWAT officers climbed out of the vehicle, followed by Charlie, who was strapping on a vest.

"What the hell is that in your hand, Frank?" Charlie asked, still focused on the vest.

Frank moved his arm behind his back.

"Put that damn thing away. I'm going to pretend I didn't see it."

"The fuck took you so long?" Anger colored Frank's voice.

As the team moved into position, Charlie's voice lowered into a whisper.

"It's not exactly easy to put together a tactical team under the radar, Frank. Especially after hours."

"We can trust all these guys?"

Charlie nodded.

An officer approached them, having quickly surveyed the entire property.

"We're clear. No one out back. One door behind, but it's boarded up."

"Alright, let's move in." Charlie signed his intent to the officers by the door as he prepared to join them. "Get in the car, Frank."

"Like hell."

"Get you ass in the car, Frank."

"Fuck you, Charlie. I'm going in."

"Damn you, you fucking pigheaded son-of-a-bitch," Charlie growled under his breath. "Then put the gun away. I don't want to have to explain your rounds to ballistics."

The gun went in the back of Frank's pants. Charlie sighed as he turned toward the door.

"Stay behind me. You get shot, it's on you."

Frank nodded to the back of his head.

Officer 1 raised the battering ram and, on Charlie's signal, thrust it full force into the door handle.

At the back of the lineup, Frank couldn't see what happened very clearly. Shots were fired. Feet scrambled across the floor. Shouting came from all sides. The scent of blood stung his nostrils.

And then he saw him.

The mayhem of the room faded and slowed to a torpid twirl.

Jo hung from his hands, mostly naked, suspended from the celling by a large hook. Blood trickled from his mouth, running down his body to join with multiple lacerations, and landed in a slowly spreading pool under his feet. His torso was a mangled mess, ribs protruding from skin in some places. His chest didn't seem to be moving, and his face was as pale as it could get under his naturally tan complexion.

Without thinking, Frank rushed toward him. Bodies were smacking into each other and shouts rang out in the night, but he barely heard it, his mind solely focused on the corpse-like figure. Reaching him, he slid an arm around his back, lifting Jo's body enough to free the handcuffs from the hook. He collapsed in Frank's arms and Frank lowered him to the ground, noticing that his arm was now wet with blood. Rolling the man over slightly, he surveyed his back.

It was shredded. Skin hung in flaps, white bone gleaming from underneath. Frank swallowed back the vomit that crawled up his throat and lay Jo gently onto his back. The kid wasn't breathing, and Frank checked his pulse frantically. It was there, but thrummed sluggishly against his fingers.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," he chanted mindlessly.

He began to blow is own breath into Jo's lungs, watching in horror as broken ribs ground against each other with each forced movement of his lungs.

Blue and red lights flashed through the open door and he was soon shoved aside by a team of paramedics. Tubes, needles, and lines were shoved into Jo's body and Frank could do nothing but watch.

"No pulse," one shouted to another.

As they began to compress Jo's shattered chest, blood pulsing from countless wounds, Frank sank to his knees, hands clutched in his hair. Alien tears leaked from his eyes, washing away the red smeared on his face.

"I'm sorry, kid. I'm so sorry."