Grim Ambition

by Jennifer Reinfried

  “What did you do?” Jaxon stepped forward again. More wraiths shot toward Alex, passing through him in a cold flash. He continued struggling to breathe.

  Looking down, he saw not the gravel of the rooftop, but the distant sidewalk below. People stared up at his peril, some whipping out cell phones and aiming them at the chaos in the sky. His focus shifted as the wraiths began to whirl around him as they had Nate.

  Hot, searing sensations tore along Alex’s face and hands. He swung his arms at the figures as if they were a swarm of enraged wasps. As his hands waved through the swirling mist his skin peeled away in angry strips of red. He flailed in terror. His gaze settled on Emma, who was leaning over the rooftop with Isaac pulling on her shoulders, both of them yelling. Alex raised his bloody right hand and pointed directly at her. “She shot Cassie,” he sputtered.

  The hold on Alex’s neck lessened, and he gasped for air. The wraiths paused their torment, and Alex hovered in the sky, skin bleeding freely where they had torn patches from his face and hands. He dry heaved, tears streaming down his face from his good eye.

  —-

  Shawn’s heart leapt as his brother advanced on Emma and her friend. “Where is Cassie?” Jaxon demanded.

  “Leave her alone.” Shawn tried to ignore the screaming pain in his body. “She didn’t do anything, Jax.”

  You heard what Alex said.

  No, he argued with himself. That prick would do anything, say anything...

  Shawn heard fear in Emma’s voice as she suddenly called out his name. He forced his torso up in a slow, painful struggle, dismissing the agony it caused, as well as the sudden darkness that threatened to flood his vision. Emma cried out, and Shawn felt his stomach leap into his throat. “Jaxon!”

  —-

  Emma screamed as Isaac was flung halfway across the rooftop by an invisible force. At the same time, Shawn collapsed backward, unconscious on the roof’s surface, and Jaxon’s head snapped in the direction of his fallen brother, his eyes bright and back to normal.

  Alex’s body dropped out of sight. His scream echoed through the night until it was cut off in an abrupt thud. Faint cries of onlookers rose to the rooftop, drawing Emma’s attention.

  “Shawn?” Jaxon ran to his brother and fell to his knees next to his prone body. He felt his neck for a pulse, then applied pressure to his brother’s seeping leg wound. “No, no. Shawn?” his voice cracked, and he started to cry, holding his hands against the blood flow.

  Emma stood near the roof’s edge, shock numbing her emotions as she stared at the place Alex had just been, her mouth open. He’d been there one moment, gone the next, all in a matter of seconds. She wiped at her face, sticky with drying tears.

  Running to the edge of the roof, Emma looked down. Alex’s body was splayed on the sidewalk beneath her, unnaturally and hideously twisted. A pool of blood had formed underneath him, and he wasn’t moving. Emma stared at him for a moment, a small smile on her lips. About fucking time.

  “Isaac,” she breathed, and spun around.

  Her friend lay in a blood-soaked heap several yards away. She bolted across the roof past Jaxon as he shook Shawn in an attempt to wake him, ignoring the faint sirens in the distance. She fell to her knees next to Isaac’s limp form. The gravel cut into the fabric of her jeans, but she ignored the bright pain. “Isaac,” she choked as she shook him. He didn’t move, and Emma couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “Isaac, please.”

  —-

  “Emma?” Isaac murmured her name. His eyes fluttered open and he grinned up at her. “Did we win?”

  “Oh, Isaac,” she said with relief. “My poor Isaac.” She pulled him into a tight hug. He winced and recoiled, his hand pressed against his wound. His shirt was shredded where he had slid along the gravel, a tattered, bloody mess.

  “Don’t worry, m’lady,” he said in a strained voice. “I think I’m going to live through this after all.” The smile he put on his face masked the burning fire of his wounds, but it all fell away the instant Emma laughed, pulled his face to hers, and kissed him. Warmth flooded Isaac’s face, and he placed a bloody hand gently along the back of Emma’s neck and leaned into her kiss. The world halted for both of them, and their kiss turned quickly from I’m glad you’re okay to I can’t live without you. Their lips stayed connected in a passionate, emotional embrace until a voice shot through the night.

  “This is all your fault,” Jaxon sneered in their direction. “You lured us all into a fucking trap. You made Shawn fall for you and now look at you. He bleeds to death over here but all you can think about is yourself.”

  “No. Jaxon.” Emma let go of Isaac and stood. “Please, listen to me.”

  “Get away from us.” Jaxon’s voice was harsh. He continued to hold Shawn’s wound, but had given up trying to wake him.

  “Jax—”

  “I said get away. Don’t fucking push me.”

  “Jaxon, listen to us,” Isaac groaned from the ground. “Alex would have said anything to get—”

  “She planned it. She weaseled her way into our group of friends and she tore it apart!”

  “Why would you listen to Alex?” Emma pleaded. “You’ve seen what he did tonight, to everyone, including me.” She walked forward slowly, her hands out in front of her, palms up to the dark sky.

  “Emma, don’t,” Isaac warned.

  “Alex used me. He lied to me, to you,” she said softly. Jaxon was watching her approach, his face red, eyes puffy. “You know damn well I care about Shawn.”

  “Get...away.”

  Sirens blared loud and piercing as the police responding to the scene arrived, no doubt called by those witnessing Alex’s fall.

  “If he dies,” he gestured at Shawn with his head, “I’m coming for you, Emma. You better pray I never see your face again.”

  Despondent, Emma knelt back at Isaac’s side once more and held his face in her hands, close to hers. “Laska...” she choked out.

  “I know.” Isaac pulled her close. “I know.”

  There was a loud slam behind them, and Emma jumped. She turned just as the authorities burst through the rooftop door, led by Grant, weapons at the ready. The four were quickly surrounded. Isaac recognized each officer as an employee of Vance, and he slumped, finally relieved.

  Grant knelt beside them. “Hey, kid,” he said to Isaac as his eyes did a quick check of their injuries. “We’re gonna get you patched up, get you to a doctor. One of our own,” he added. He looked at Emma. “Don’t worry, we’ve got two bullets with their names on ‘em.” He jerked a thumb in Shawn and Jaxon’s direction, where officers raised their guns at the two men.

  “Oh fuck.” Emma’s eyes widened. “Don’t let him see—”

  A wave of heavy bodies flew back and thudded in a random formation across the rooftop. Jaxon stood, his eyes pure white again, arms outstretched, and Emma grabbed Grant by the collar and pulled his face close to hers. “We need to run.”

  She stood and pulled Isaac up with her, and she and Grant half-dragged him the few remaining steps to the door. It slammed behind them. Cries rose from above as they descended the steps. The three of them reached the ground floor and hobbled to the back entrance. Grant poked his head outside, his gun at the ready, then nodded.

  “It’s mostly us here tonight,” the cop said as they ran. “Let’s get the kid to an ambulance.” Emma nodded. An odd sensation of déjà vu flared in her mind, and she forced back a confused, exhausted laugh. They moved toward the first white emergency vehicle they could see, Grant shouting orders at the cops still on the ground, yelling for more backup on the roof. A paramedic saw them coming and sprinted forward, taking Isaac’s weight off of Emma and helping him the rest of the way to the waiting ambulance.

  “Treat him, then get him somewhere safe,” Grant instructed the EMT, who nodded and helped Isaac onto a flat, white gurney.

  —-

  “Emma,” Isaac called out. His eyes were glassy from pain, and his face had paled from the loss of blood. S
he stood at the back of the vehicle on his left, careful to stay out of the way of the EMT. She twined her fingers through his hand and held it as the woman strapped him to a flat board that extended into a makeshift table. Isaac winced as Grant helped the paramedic lift him into the back of the ambulance, and Emma climbed in with him, hunched over in the small area. She took in the massive amount of blood that caked his right side from his torso and all the way down his leg; she looked at his torn jeans and shirt, cut from the gravel of the rooftop. Lastly, she took in his blood-smeared, tear-stained face, and Jaxon’s threat floated to the forefront of her mind: I’m coming for you, Emma. You better pray I never see your face again.

  “I have to go, Isaac,” she said softly. She squeezed his hand, dirty and sticky with blood and sweat. The woman at his side deftly slid a needle into the crook of his right elbow.

  “What are you talking about? Emma, no.” Isaac’s eyes grew wide.

  “I can’t be around you. Jaxon will come after me. Shawn might, too, and they’ll hurt anyone in their path to get to me. Alex made sure of that when he told them I killed Cassie. You saw how Jaxon was looking at me, heard what he said.” She sniffled and wiped her face with her free hand. “Vance will take better care of you than I could on the run. He’ll get you stitched up, and protect you. But promise me you’ll get away from this life the second you can.”

  “Emma, just come with me. We’ll run together.”

  “You’re too hurt to run right now. If they find me, they’ll find you.” She was crying now, her heart a knot of sorrow. “I can’t hurt you again.” The EMT turned toward the back of the vehicle, intent on closing the doors. Emma let go of Isaac’s hand and backed out of the ambulance. Isaac frantically clutched at the EMT’s arm.

  “You didn’t do this! No, Emma, please,” Isaac’s voice rose to a shout. “Don’t let her leave, please don’t shut those doors. Emma!” The EMT shrugged Isaac’s hand off and slammed first one door, then the other, caring only about the life she needed to save. “Goddammit, Emma!” Isaac screamed as the ambulance jolted forward and away.

  Emma turned to Grant, away from the retreating white truck, tears in her eyes. “Kill him,” she said. “Kill Jaxon. You have to, tonight. He told me he was going to hunt us down. If he can’t find us, he’ll go after Vance, and everyone associated with him.”

  “Understood.”

  “Grant?” Emma’s eyes took on a hard sheen. She reached out and clutched his arm. “You take care of Isaac like he was your own blood. Get him patched up, then make sure he’s as far away from here as possible. If anything happens to him, I will personally disembowel you while you’re still alive.”

  Grant simply looked at her for a moment as chaos reigned around them, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded once and left her. Emma watched him lead another team of officers into the building. Once he was gone, she turned, slid behind the wheel of a running car, abandoned in the chaos, and disappeared into the night.

  Epilogue

  Isaac awoke to a soft, steady beep in his ears. Two people murmured words he couldn’t hear in low voices, and he forced his eyes open. As his vision cleared, his memory flooded back through him, and he struggled to sit up.

  “Whoa, whoa, kid, hold on.” A gruff but somehow strangely familiar voice came closer as a man hurried to Isaac’s side.

  “Where’s Emma?” he demanded weakly.

  “You aren’t healed,” the man said.

  “Get me out of here. Now.”

  “Lie back down—”

  “Now.”

  “Listen to me, dammit—”

  “Now!” he screamed. He ignored the sudden dull pain in his side.

  “Isaac, please. Listen to him.” A Russian accent drifted over to him. “You must be still.” Vance turned toward Isaac, his face shadowed in the window’s gray pre-dawn light. “I’m afraid the horrors from the roof are far from over.”

  A sneak peek of Grim Inception, the short that started it all.

  One

  Someone needed to kill my boss.

  I mean, I wasn’t going to be the one to actually do it, but he had to die.

  I had just won a huge case, the State of Oregon vs. Ramsey, and was disgusted from the victory. One of our lesser employees, Kenneth Ramsey, had been apprehended during a supply transfer; apparently an upstanding citizen decided he looked “suspicious” and called the police, who swarmed Ken within ten minutes of the tipoff. They found a substantial amount of cocaine and heroin in his pockets in small, unmarked, white envelopes, rolled up and bulging at the seams. Our employer, Ivan Vance, was more disappointed in the lazy way Ken had been transporting his product than he was at him being caught.

  The case didn’t take long to win. I was able to plant and later interview alibis, one of whom was a healthcare provider under Vance’s employ. She created a phony patient record for Ken that showed he didn’t have drugs in his system. Officer Grant Halpern, one of our best assets on the Redborough Police Department, had made all the evidence disappear except for a few small bags of marijuana, which, here in Oregon, has been legal for years. I made up the entire defense, attacking the cops who did the arrest, stating they jumped the gun, that Ken was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time. Vance paid off the judge, as he often did in cases such as this, and boom, Ken’s a free man. We won. And it made me sick.

  Leaving the courthouse, I took the train home. Vance treated his employees well, and provided each with their own decked-out SUV for transportation needs, but ever since he sent Darren on that fucking suicide mission last year, I’ve tried to avoid anything that reminds me I work for the city’s most vicious, unforgiving kingpin. Who happens to somehow always find people who try to leave town to get away from him. Then he or his right-hand man, Alex, tortures them to death over a period of hours, sometimes days. Told you. Vicious.

  I pulled out my cell, a sleek smartphone given to every Vance employee, and stared at the screen. A message awaited, bringing a slight tingle to the pit of my stomach. Scolding myself, I tapped at it, knowing it wouldn’t show Darren’s name no matter how badly I wanted it to. Instead, a text from Cassie lit up.

  Hey, it read. Julie’s performing at Cold Waters tonight. Keep an eye on her for me?

  I smiled and replied back: Of course. I thought you were excited for her?

  Moments later, her reply came. I am! And thank you again for hooking her up with the big gig! I just know it can be dangerous, working in Vance territory. I want to make sure she’s safe.

  She’ll be fine. I sent. I’ll make sure of it.

  Cassie always worried. She’d been working for Lotus Catering for the better part of two years, paying Vance back for funding her college tuition so she didn’t have to get a loan. The girl was bright as hell, so her choice of going to law school was a good move. The catering gig paid her well, too, and was relatively safe. True, it was owned by Vance, but he didn’t need them for every meal; she only occasionally had to cater for the crime boss himself. If she ever got out from Vance’s company, under his eye, she’d go far in life. But I knew now even side employees that don’t contribute directly to the business were always in danger.

  My lips tugged downward as a thought came to my mind. What if she could never leave, even after she paid him off? I felt my heart quicken. Cassie was my friend, had been for years, and I’d gotten her and her sister, Julie, into working for Vance. True, Cassie’s job, when catering for the Russian’s parties, was to ensure no one fucked with his food, but Julie’s put her out in the open more as a singer at his clubs, put her in the spotlight for awful men to possibly want—

  No, I scolded myself. I will not go down this path again. I leaned the side of my head against the window of the train, the cool glass giving me a slight shiver. Cassie nearly begged me to get Julie in. They’re adults. They can take care of themselves. I just wish I had known how horrifying and fatal it was for people trying to leave Vance’s rule before agreeing to hook them up.

  I watc
hed as the train slowed, then came to a gentle halt at Juno Station. I gripped the handle of my expensive briefcase, straightened my tie and smoothed my dark hair, then stood. As I exited onto the platform, a cool yet slightly humid breeze tickled my face. A faint scent of spring came with it, but I didn’t have a single moment to enjoy it. A tall, well-dressed man with dark brown hair and black framed glasses stood a few yards away. His shoulders and back were set straight, the epitome of professionalism. I attempted to stifle a noise that would have sounded somewhere between a groan and a cry for help, and strode toward Vance’s right-hand man.

  “Right on time.” Weston Alexander - Alex, unless you wanted an eye gouged out - extended his hand to me.

  “Trains tend to do that, sir.” I put on a friendly smile and we shook. When my skin touched his, I tried as hard as I could to not think about how many people he’d beaten senseless or how many fingers he’d snapped off with a bolt cutter. Calm down, I told myself. Those are just rumors. A lot of them. Growing in number ever since—

  I spoke again, eager to quell my ever-racing thoughts that always seemed to lead back to Darren. “What can I do for you?”

  Alex began to walk away from the station, not checking to make sure I was following, but you better believe I was. He walked with a quick pace that irritated me.

  “Our boss will no longer be at the club tonight,” he said, staring straight ahead as he strode.

  “Oh?” I weaved away from a woman who was on her cell phone, yammering away. “Has something happened?”

  He glanced at me then, a cold slide of his deep green eyes. The man could be handsome, charming even, if he wasn’t a fucking sociopath.

  “Are you questioning me, Henry?” Alex turned to face me, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “No, sir. I’m just trying to understand—”

  “It is often that you forget who is in charge. That’s not a quality we like to see in an employee.”

  The little hairs on my arms stood up, brushing against the long sleeves of my ironed dress shirt. “I apologize, sir. I don’t mean to come across that way. I want nothing more than to help V—”