Renegade

Chapter 4

1 Year Previously

         Ben walked through his apartment door; he had worked the late shift at the meat factory.

     "Diana?" he called, setting down his bags. "How's our little girl doing?"

     Ben walked into the living room of his apartment but stopped. Everything was trashed; the chairs were overturned, the television had been broken, and papers were all over the floor.

     "Diana?" Ben asked, panic rising in his voice. "Diana!"

     He ran into his daughter's bedroom, but everything in there was destroyed too. He ran around the house, screaming his family's names. There was no response, and he stopped before the far wall.

     Etched into the very plaster was a burnt image in the shape of a black dragon. Scrawled in dark lettering were the words: GONE.

     "What?" Ben stammered. "No!"

     His family was gone. They had been taken, but by whom he did not know. It wouldn't be until the authorities came that the culprits were identified as members of a terrorist organization known as the "Black Dragon".

     Around the country, people had gone missing in similar scenarios. Thousands of people, families, and children had been taken by the Black Dragon for mysterious reasons. No one knew why, no one knew how, and no one could stop them.

     "NO!" Ben had yelled in agony.

**

Present Day

     "Bastards!" Ben screamed, throwing himself at the men in front of him.

      He practically flipped the table, lunging at the monster in the navy-blue fedora. He punched him in the jaw, feeling the flesh give way under the force, and whirled around to hit the other man as he jumped on top of Ben.

     "Stop!" someone yelled.

     Ben's arms were painfully pinned behind his back, and his body was harshly shoved to the floor. Over him stood one of the men that had been sitting next to the man in the fedora.

     "You sick-minded bitches!" Ben hissed under his breath. "How dare you think that you would get my aid after what you did. I'm going to fucking kill you!"

     "We understand what we have done," the man calmly said back to Ben, casually dabbing at the blood on his lip. "But we have a proposition for you."

     "To hell with you proposition," Ben spat.

     "If you aid us," the man continued, "you will be reunited...with your family."

     Ben stopped struggling, stunned by the unexpected news, "T-They're still alive?"

     His enemy nodded, "You will be reunited with them, but only if you give us your assistance."

     "Liar!" Ben screamed. "You're nothing but a deceitful liar! I saw what you did all those months ago! I saw the explosion over the water! You're nothing but murderers!"

     The man pulled out his cell phone and flipped across the screen a couple of times. He came to a video and showed it to Ben.

     "This was taken seventy-two hours ago," the man said.

     On the screen was a video feed of a woman sitting, in what appeared to be, a cell. She was looking around, but then she gazed almost directly into the camera. In a heartbeat, Ben already knew the identity if the woman, his heart had known before his mind.