TBD (Babydoll & Warren) - Chapter 1 (Pre-Release Draft)

Warren –Levantadas’ Haven

The tactical clock in Warren’s head read 2147 hours as he cut the engine three blocks out from the target address. Old habits from compartmentalized operations died hard; even civilian surveillance required proper approach protocols. The black F-350 coasted to a stop beneath a burned-out streetlight that provided excellent concealment while maintaining clear sightlines to the operational zone.

1025 E Waverly Street sat in the kind of neighborhood where people minded their own business after dark. Warren appreciated the tactical advantage. Fewer civilian complications, reduced chance of interference, minimal law enforcement patrol frequency. The kind of terrain that allowed for honest conversation about dishonest business.

Ulysses had delivered solid intelligence. The house matched the description perfectly: single-story ranch construction, defensible perimeter, mature landscaping that provided both concealment and blind spots. Warren’s professional assessment catalogued details automatically—sight lines, entry points, potential escape routes, neighboring structures that could provide over-watch positions. Twenty-seven years of keeping people alive in hostile territory had burned certain reflexes into his neural architecture.

The ambient lighting told him everything he needed to know about the inhabitants. Windows glowed with warm yellow instead of the blue flicker of television screens. Purposeful illumination rather than passive entertainment. Active occupancy by individuals maintaining operational security while projecting normalcy to casual observation.

Smart girls. Whoever had taught them basic tradecraft understood the fundamentals.

Warren slipped from the F-350 without engaging the door locks—tactical withdrawal required zero delays—and approached through the neighbor’s xeriscaped front yard. His boots found purchase on decomposed granite and river rock that wouldn’t telegraph his movement to anyone listening for the distinctive crunch of feet on the concrete sidewalk.

The soft drawl of his childhood whispered the mission parameters: Locate. Assess. Establish contact. Extract intelligence. Maintain operational security.

Three houses down from target position, Warren’s peripheral vision caught movement in the Waverly Street residence. Male figure, approximately six feet in height, medium build, moving with purpose from the front door toward the street. Warren dropped to a tactical crouch behind a cluster of barrel cacti and focused his attention on threat assessment.

Unknown male. Likely Ray Crown. Otherwise operational zone compromised.

The figure carried what appeared to be several plastic bags, movements consistent with routine domestic activity rather than tactical deployment. Garbage disposal. Warren’s trained eye tracked the individual’s gait, posture, hand positioning. No obvious weapons profile. No scanning behavior that would indicate security awareness. No backup or over-watch that Warren could detect.

But presence of unidentified male personnel at the target location represented a significant deviation from expected parameters.

Warren’s hand found the familiar weight of his 1911 without conscious thought. Three decades of muscle memory had encoded the draw sequence into automatic response patterns. The weapon cleared leather in a single fluid motion, safety disengaged, barrel tracking toward the center mass of the potential threat.

Distance: ten yards. Clear field of fire. No civilian casualties in the engagement zone.

“Freeze. Hands where I can see them.”

Warren’s voice carried the calm authority of someone who’d delivered similar commands in considerably more hostile environments. The slight Southern drawl didn’t soften the steel underneath; if anything, it made the words sound like they came from someone who had all the time in the world to wait for compliance.

The figure stopped moving immediately. Smart. Hands remained visible, though they still clutched the garbage bags.

“Turn around slow. Keep your hands up.”

The unknown male rotated to face Warren’s position with deliberate, non-threatening movements. Warren’s tactical assessment updated automatically: Black male, early twenties, wearing civilian clothing that hung loose enough to conceal weapons but didn’t show obvious bulges. Alert expression but not panicked. No immediate reaching for concealed carry positions.

Experienced with law enforcement contact. Street smart. Potentially dangerous but currently cooperative.

“Who the hell are you?” Warren kept the .45 trained center mass while his mind processed threat parameters. “This is private property.”

“Ray ‘King’ Cross,” the young man replied, voice steady despite having a service pistol pointed at his chest. “And technically, you’re the one trespassing, bro.”

Warren’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Either this kid had nerves of steel or he was too stupid to understand the tactical situation. Given the steady hands and controlled breathing, Warren voted for nerves of steel.

“King,” Warren repeated, just as Ulysses’ reported. “You live here?”

“This is my place,” King’s answer came without hesitation, though Warren caught the slight pause that suggested the situation was more complicated than simple ownership. “Question is, who the fuck are you, and why you pointing that cannon at me?”

Before Warren could respond, the front door of the house opened with enough force to bang against the interior wall. Rocket appeared in the doorway like a caffeine-addicted tornado, taking in the scene with the kind of rapid-fire situational assessment that spoke to survival instincts sharpened by experience Warren didn’t want to think about too closely.

“¿Qué carajos?” Rocket’s voice carried across the distance between house and street. Warren watched her dark eyes track from King to Warren’s position, cataloguing details with predatory efficiency. Then, her focus landed on the gun, “Puta madre, is that—”

And then something shifted in her expression. Warren had seen that look before, in the faces of soldiers who’d been hit by shrapnel they hadn’t seen coming. Confused recognition. Adrenaline spiking in directions that didn’t match the tactical situation.

But whatever internal crisis she was processing, Rocket recovered quickly enough to defuse the situation with characteristic verbal precision.

“Uh, Soldier Boy,” she called out, using her own sarcastic nickname for Warren with the kind of casual familiarity that immediately shifted the threat assessment parameters. “This is King. He’s ours. King, this is Warren.”

Warren kept the 1911 trained onKing for another three seconds while his mind processed the intelligence update. He’s ours. Personnel designation confirmed. Asset rather than a threat.

The weapon returned to its holster with the same unconscious efficiency that had drawn it.

“Warren Sterling,” he said, closing the distance between himself and King with measured steps that kept his hands visible and non-threatening. “Sorry about the gun. Unknown personnel at a protected location makes me twitchy.”

King lowered his hands slowly, the garbage bags rustling as circulation returned to his fingers. “Protected location,” he repeated, and Warren caught the slight emphasis that suggested King understood exactly what kind of protection Warren was talking about. “Yeah, I can see how that would make you cautious.”

Warren’s tactical assessment updated again. This kid wasn’t just street smart; he was operationally aware. Understood security protocols. Knew the difference between civilian law enforcement and professional surveillance. Either he’d learned from experience with serious people, or someone had educated him in fundamentals that most young men his age never encountered.

“Ulysses gave me this address,” Warren explained, settling into the casual authority that had served him well during countless similar conversations over the years. “Said I’d find the girls here.”

“Don’t know any Ulysses,” King replied. “You the one the girls mentioned? The investigator?”

Warren nodded once. “I’m looking into who’s been creating and abandoning folks like these girls.”

By now, the disturbance had attracted additional attention from inside the house. Marigold appeared in the doorway behind Rocket, her presence immediately shifting the ambient tension toward something more manageable. Where Rocket projected electric volatility, Marigold radiated the kind of calm steadiness that naturally de-escalated confrontational situations.

“Warren?”Marigold’s voice carried cautious recognition. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Warren replied, though his eyes continued scanning the neighborhood for additional complications. “Just a misunderstanding about territorial boundaries.”

Copal materialized next to Marigold, followed by Blondie, who assessed the tactical situation with the calculating gaze of someone who understood power dynamics from multiple angles. Warren noticed how the girls arranged themselves—not quite defensive formation, but not casual grouping either. They’d developed instinctive protocols for managing unexpected situations.

Professional survival skills. Someone had taught them well.

“So,” Blondie said, her honey-smooth voice carrying just enough challenge to test Warren’s intentions without escalating toward confrontation. “You found us. What now, mi amor?”

Warren looked from King to the assembled girls, processing the group dynamics and operational security protocols they’d established. Five young women who’d survived systematic victimization and emerged with enough tactical awareness to maintain a secure haven in hostile territory. Plus one human asset who’d demonstrated courage under direct threat and operational knowledge that suggested specialized training.

Not what he’d expected to find. Something considerably more impressive.

“Now,” Warren said, his slight drawl carrying the kind of understated authority that didn’t need to prove itself through volume or posture, “I’d like to have a conversation about mutual interests. If y’all have time to talk.”

Rocket had been staring at him throughout the entire exchange, and Warren caught glimpses of internal processing that seemed to involve more than simple threat assessment. Her dark eyes tracked between him and King with the kind of intensity that suggested she was working through cognitive dissonance that had nothing to do with the tactical situation.

Her pupils were blown wide—dark pools that had nothing to do with feeding hunger. Her breathing had quickened despite vampires having no biological need for oxygen, chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. She shifted her weight restlessly, tried to press her thighs together but couldn’t seem to hold the position—her legs kept shifting apart as if her body refused to let her hide the response. A flush crept up her neck and across her cheeks, blood she’d recently fed redistributing in ways that mimicked mortal arousal but shouldn’t be possible for the undead.

Warren’s tactical assessment catalogued details automatically—and caught on something that made his stomach turn. The girl’s jeans showed darkening fabric at the crotch, the kind of visible evidence that left no doubt about what the violence had triggered in her. This wasn’t subtle teenage attraction. This was a trauma response so deeply embedded that her body was reacting involuntarily to threat displays, and she either didn’t notice or couldn’t control it.

He’d seen similar responses before, in contexts that made his skin crawl. Arousal triggered by violence and dominance displays. The kind of wiring that came from systematic conditioning, from learning that danger and intimacy occupied the same neural pathways. He’d encountered it in soldiers who’d been POWs, in trafficking survivors, in people whose bodies had been trained to respond sexually to threat as a survival mechanism.

But this was different. This was a vampire—something that shouldn’t experience sexual arousal at all according to everything he understood about their nature—responding with the kind of involuntary physical response that suggested she had zero control over what the violence was doing to her. Whatever had been done to this girl, it had broken her so fundamentally that even death and transformation hadn’t reset the damage.

But whatever psychological complexity Rocket was navigating, she managed to translate it into characteristic directness that cut through the residual tension.

“Wow,” she announced, loud enough for everyone to hear, voice breathy and rough. “Two men in a standoff over who gets to protect us. That was hot.”

She didn’t even seem embarrassed by the admission, though the way she kept shifting her stance—trying and failing to keep her legs together, the flush spreading down her neck, her hands flexing restlessly at her sides—suggested her body was betraying her in ways she couldn’t control and maybe didn’t fully understand. The comment landed with the impact of a tactical flashbang, instantly shifting everyone’s attention from potential violence to Rocket’s distinctive ability to process dangerous situations through filters that defied conventional logic—or more accurately, through the warped logic of trauma that had taught her body to respond sexually to threat displays in ways she apparently couldn’t suppress even when standing in front of her entire family.

Warren made a point of directing his attention elsewhere immediately, giving her what dignity he could while recognizing that the girl standing in front of him had been broken in ways that went deeper than most trauma he’d witnessed. He focused on Marigold instead, the steadier presence, the one who seemed to hold maternal authority within the group dynamics.

King actually laughed, though the sound held less amusement than recognition. His eyes flicked over Rocket’s flushed face, blown pupils, the visible evidence on her jeans—a pimp’s professional assessment cataloging damage he’d seen too many times before. Girls who got wired wrong, whose bodies learned to respond to danger because that’s what kept them alive, whose arousal became a survival reflex rather than a choice.

He’d trafficked enough women to know exactly what that reaction meant. Seen it in girls fresh off the streets, in survivors who couldn’t separate threat from intimacy anymore, in women whose bodies had been trained so systematically that violence became foreplay whether they wanted it or not. The kind of damage that made them useful in his old life—reliable performers who could fake enthusiasm or, worse, didn’t have to fake it because their wiring was that broken.

But he wasn’t that man anymore. Babydoll’s blood had changed more than just his heartbeat.

“Girl, you got serious issues with appropriate emotional responses,” he said, deliberately looking away to follow Warren’s lead in refusing to engage with what was clearly a trauma response. His tone carried the weight of someone who understood exactly what had created those issues—and chose not to exploit them. The knowing look he gave Warren acknowledged what they’d both recognized: this girl had been broken by professionals, and her body was still performing the scripts they’d written into her nervous system.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Rocket replied, but Warren caught the slight tremor in her voice that suggested her casual honesty was covering deeper currents she didn’t fully understand herself.

He recognized the pattern because he’d helped create it in others. Systematic conditioning that made girls respond to dominance displays, to violence, to the kind of masculine aggression that should trigger flight responses but instead triggered arousal. Useful for the work, profitable for the business, and absolutely fucking devastating for the women who got wired that way.

Rocket didn’t even know she was performing. That’s what made it worse—this wasn’t calculated seduction or professional performance. This was involuntary, reflexive, the kind of deeply embedded damage that survived even death and transformation. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t control it, and probably didn’t fully understand why threat made her body respond like she was watching porn instead of potential violence.

And both he and Warren were choosing to ignore it, to treat it as the symptom it was rather than the invitation it resembled. That’s what separated men from monsters—recognizing when a girl’s body was lying to you because someone had trained it to lie, and choosing to protect her anyway.

Marigold stepped forward with the diplomatic grace that seemed to be her natural role within the group hierarchy. “Warren, why don’t you come inside? We can talk properly without putting on a show for the neighbors.”

And then Warren saw her.

Babydoll appeared in the doorway behind the others, moving with the careful control of someone who’d learned to manage every gesture. She looked older than her thirteen years—partly from trauma that aged people from the inside out, partly from skillful makeup that transformed a child into someone who could pass for college-age. But when her dark eyes met his, something shifted in her expression—recognition that went deeper than their conversations at Bisbee’s place and Abuela’s garden.

“Hi, papi,” she said quietly. Two words that carried the weight of everything she couldn’t figure out how to say yet.

Warren felt something ease in his chest that he hadn’t realized was clenched tight. Here she was. The girl Abuela had told him was steadier now, quieter, but still fighting to figure out who she was underneath the survival masks.

“Babydoll.” His slight drawl gentled around her name. “Good to see you.”

Warren caught the subtle shift in King’s posture—shoulders dropping slightly, stance becoming less ready for violence. The young man had heard that quiet “papi” and recognized its significance. Whatever psychological tests Babydoll used to sort the world into threats versus family, Warren had apparently passed.

Marigold’s invitation hung in the air between them, but for a moment Warren’s mission parameters simplified down to this: he’d found her. Whatever came next, at least he’d found her.

Warren nodded, appreciating both the practical security considerations and the implicit acceptance her invitation represented. As he followed the group toward the house, his professional assessment continued cataloguing details: King’s protective positioning relative to the girls, the way they moved as a cohesive unit while maintaining individual autonomy, the balance between caution and hospitality that suggested hard-won wisdom about managing dangerous situations.

And Rocket’s reaction to the confrontation, which carried psychological complexity that reminded Warren uncomfortably of trauma responses he’d witnessed in soldiers who’d survived captivity. Something about the power dynamics and threat display had triggered patterns that shouldn’t exist in someone her age, patterns that spoke to experiences Warren hoped he was wrong about.

But those were questions for later conversation, conducted in a secure environment with proper privacy.

For now, Warren Sterling—professional problem solver, apex predator, and self-appointed protector of abandoned children—prepared to discover whether Ulysses’ intelligence about the girl’s matched the tactical reality he’d just encountered.

The mission parameters had definitely become more complex than anticipated.

But complexity, Warren had learned over the years, was where the most important work usually happened.