by Deanna Chase
A voice across the other side of the room drew my attention, so I went in that direction. “Hello?” I repeated but with no reply.
When I turned the corner, the area opened up and I could see clear to the other side of the room where a dark haired man was pinning a guy up against the wall with his forearm pressed against his throat. The guy that was pinned was the same guy I’d kneed the other night. He wasn’t having a good run.
“Stay out of it! I’m going to handle it. I told you!” The dark haired man was a mere inch from the other guy’s face as he spoke.
It wasn’t exactly clear to me if the guy was going to choke him or if it was just a threat. The guy was a creep. Maybe he deserved what he was going to get. After I mentally debated it for a moment, I didn’t think I could watch the guy kill the man who attacked me. I’m not sure what that said about me, that I’d had to think about it. Some people would have just leapt to his defense. I guess I wasn’t one of those people. Nope, not really a shocking revelation.
I started looking around for a weapon of some sort to hit the one guy over the head with, when I heard a horrible growl and paused. Just wonderful, they brought a dog, too, I thought to myself. I turned to locate the furry critter, but there were only the two men still there. Then something flickering near the pinned man’s face caught my eye. Bumps were breaking out and growing out of his skin. I stood and gaped at what happened next. The creep I didn’t like morphed into a tall fur covered monster, complete with a muzzle full of pointy teeth.
If I hadn’t been in shock, I might have just quietly run, as I didn’t think either of them had noticed me. Unfortunately, that’s not how things worked out. Once I saw those horrific teeth snap and growl, I screamed bloody murder. Both men instantly turned and stared at me, forgetting their own fight in the process. I belatedly turned and ran straight into what felt like a brick wall. I tried to pull away, but I was held firmly.
I looked up at the living mountain and saw that it was Buzz. He was Hawking’s man; it would be okay. He was tough. Between the two of us, we could probably take them.
“Come with me,” was all he said.
I eagerly preceded him from the room and didn’t look back, just walked quickly away with Buzz at my back. I was too relieved to press my luck. As long as I didn’t feel sharp teeth piercing me, all was right in the world.
When I headed toward the elevator, he grabbed me quickly and motioned toward the other direction. He let go of my arm as soon as I turned around so it didn’t set off any alarm bells. He had been sent to protect me last night, perhaps Hawking had been the one having me followed?
“What was that thing?”
“I can’t speak about it.”
“You know what? That’s completely okay with me. I’m just glad you showed. Those guys looked like they wanted to rip me to pieces.” He didn’t respond, and I didn’t care. I was just happy I wasn’t a bloodied mess chewed up for dinner. The one guy, or creature, or whatever he was, looked like he’d have been a tough fight in his new form. I wasn’t sure my little trick would work through a thick coat of hair. I’d never zapped an animal before.
I turned to make sure we weren’t being followed.
“They aren’t following us. I locked the door. They won’t get out until I send someone back there.”
“Where we going?”
“To the top.”
I looked and saw the elevator at the end of the hall. Boarding the elevator, I suspected he meant we were going to Hawking. I watched the buttons light up until it blinked on the top level, Hawking’s level. I didn’t realize it initially, but this must be Hawking’s private elevator.
The doors opened to the familiar tan hallway of art, but this time the penthouse door opened for us as if on cue. The butler type person didn’t speak, just shook his head, shut the door after us, and left the room.
A muscular man in his mid thirties, the type you would expect to see at Gold’s Gym, came out of the living room area. He was tall and muscular like Hawking, but without any of the refined feeling to offset it. He seemed a bit brutish, closer to the impression Buzz gave. He had very dark hair, but it was brown, not the true black of Hawking’s.
“What’s this?” he asked Buzz.
“She saw Tracker change,” Buzz replied.
Right then and there, I got a sinking feeling in my gut. He hadn’t been saving me at all. On the outside, I played it cool, but on the inside, I was shooting off a list of expletives that would do the most jaded streetwalker proud. After all these years, I knew better.
“Can I use the bathroom?” I asked, trying to act dumb. They both looked at me and shook their heads in unison. Okay, so they weren’t as stupid as they looked I guess. I scanned the foyer, but there was nothing I could use as a weapon. I’d never had to take on two men at once. I guess today I’d see how special I really was. Was I X-Men special, or just a little different? You know, in the movies they always learned about their powers slowly. God my life sucked.
“Why did you bring her here?” the guy asked.
“Cormac had me watch her the other day. I didn’t want to just handle it without checking. I got a weird vibe that he liked this one.”
Okay, whatever they planned, they wouldn’t do it without Hawking. I’d gotten the same vibe. I wasn’t sure if wanting me in his bed was exactly something to take to the bank, but it was better than nothing. Cormac was in charge. He wouldn’t let these people kill me, even if he didn’t want to sleep with me. I mean, that would just be insane. No one does that.
“You better bring her in, then. I’ll go get him.”
“Thanks, Dodd,” Buzz said to the other man’s retreating back, and then he waved me in the direction of the other room.
We were alone in the foyer. It might be the best odds I’d get. I’d never be able to get away from three of them, so I lunged at him and concentrated on my hands. I didn’t know exactly what happened when I did this, but it was usually painful for the other person.
I stood there, hands on his chest but he wasn’t moving. Looking up, I saw Buzz looked down at my hands. I felt a deep rumbling in his chest before his laughter broke the silence.
“Not going to work,” was all he said.
I dropped my arms to my side, a tad embarrassed. “I had to try.”
“Of course.” He held out his hand and pointed me toward the next room.
Hawking entered the room less than a minute after us, and our eyes met and held.
“Mr. Hawking?” I asked, the question clear in my voice. I didn’t say the words, but the need was there. It was as close to begging as I would ever get in my life.
When he broke eye contact first to look at Buzz, the knot in my stomach grew larger. I didn’t know if he would do it, but he could, and that scared the shit out of me.
“Are you a hundred percent sure?” he asked Buzz.
I eyed the distance to the doorway and Buzz repositioned himself in front of it. They knew I’d never get past them. Not alive, anyway. I looked around the room, searching for any possible escape route.
“Sorry, boss, but I’m a thousand percent.”
The room fell deadly quiet as Hawking walked toward the wall of windows and all three of us watched his back. I knew my life, or death, was being decided as we waited.
“I don’t know who you are, or what, but if you kill me, there will be a herd of people coming for you.” Other than the Harvey’s and Lacey, I wasn’t sure anyone would even know I was gone, let alone a bloodthirsty horde seeking vengeance.
“If we don’t do it, you know what we’ll have to deal with. Not to mention, it might be kinder this way,” the man named Dodd interjected, sensing the wavering in Hawking.
“Could my day get any worse?” he said to the room in general.
“Really? You’re complaining about your day?” I responded.
Hawking smiled at me, but it was more of the bittersweet variety. “You’ve got a lot of spunk,” he said.
He turned his b
ack and stared out the window, his body going deathly still, then a burst of motion as he punched a perfect hole through the glass window. I knew my fate had just been sealed, as I looked at the bloodied hole he’d left behind. He didn’t say anything, and he wouldn’t look at me, just nodded his head and walked from the room.
“Sorry, but this is much larger than you,” Dodd said apologetically in my direction.
“Fuck you,” I replied calmly.
He didn’t seem fazed at all, just gave me a sad smile, like he regretted this as well, but not enough to save me from the fate I’d just been dealt.
He shook his head, as he eyed me up and down. “What a waste. Make it quick Buzz.”
I looked at Buzz and saw the gun he now aimed at my head.
“You better hope that there isn’t an afterlife because I’ll haunt your every last step.” I refused to cry or grovel. If this was the end, then so be it. I’d lived a tough life, and there was no way I’d spend my last minutes groveling to these assholes.
The last thing I heard was a gunshot. My last feeling was exploding pain, like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life. And then nothing.
Chapter Five
The crippling pain was the first thing that made me realize I was alive. I refused to believe there were headaches like this in Heaven. Unless I’d ended up at a more southerly locale? Could happen. I had been far from a saint.
Then I felt Hawking’s couch beneath me. No, I was alive. Did that idiot just graze me? At least they could have given me the courtesy of killing me correctly. The pounding in my head was beyond severe, I didn’t even want to open my eyes, but I couldn’t ignore the shouting that was happening around me.
“What do you mean she’s alive? What’s the matter with you? You can’t even shoot straight?” Thank you, Dodd. That’s exactly what I would have said to the big dope. “Just shoot her again, you idiot.”
“You think I didn’t try that? That I’ve been sitting out here whistling Dixie? I shot her five times! She goes dead for about two minutes then the god damn bullets push out of her head.”
Blessed silence fell over the room, for all of two minutes.
“Oh, my god, you moron, she’s one of us. She’s a Keeper! Humans don’t spit bullets back out! I gotta go get Cormac. This isn’t good.”
I wondered what wasn’t good, that I’d made it? Or that they’d shot me? And what on earth did they mean by saying I was a keeper? It sounded like a name, not just like, eh, let’s keep her.
I’d never had such a headache in my life. I tried to squint my eyes open slightly, but the light did me in, and I shut them quickly. The contents of my stomach churned with the pain.
“Get me a bucket,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure why I cared about throwing up all over their rug. Maybe it was habit. I felt too sick to think about my motivations.
“What?”
“Bucket!” I said, as I leaned on my side, my arm hanging over the edge of the couch.
I felt the coolness of the metal slide next to my hand a second before I leaned over and emptied my stomach. The pain shot at the backs of my eyes, and then I leaned back and moaned. I prayed that now they would shoot me.
I felt a warm large hand reach down and grab my wrist, and I tugged it back abruptly. I hated being touched, and I certainly didn’t want to have any of these men touch me. He grabbed me again and held firmer. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was positive it was Hawking. I felt his fingertips feeling for my pulse.
Even as my head pounded, I couldn’t stop the sarcasm from dripping out, “Clearly, I’m alive.”
He ignored me, and kept his fingers at my pulse.
“I want a blood sample done, and I want the results back within the hour,” Hawking said.
“Who do you think did it?” Dodd asked.
“Whoever it was, they probably didn’t know. Why would they hide it? There would have been no reason not to register her.” I felt a pinch at my elbow but couldn’t pull away, because Hawking had a firm grasp on my wrist.
“Stop pulling. You’re just going to make the needle jab you.”
I pulled even harder.
“Stop,” Hawking said. I opened my eyes as I felt a weight press on my chest to see Buzz sitting partially on top of me.
“Get off of her,” I heard Hawking say, or perhaps growl might be a better description of the tone, and Buzz quickly jumped off.
“How old are you?” Hawking asked.
“None of your business.”
“That’s all right. I’ll find out anyway.”
I didn’t bother replying. Just pretended he hadn’t spoken.
I looked over and saw Hawking remove a needle from my vein and I yanked my arm back again, and this time he let go.
“Dodd, look up Josephine Davids on our system,” Hawking ordered.
I tried to push myself upright, but had to stop midway as the searing pain that the movement brought crippled me. If I wasn’t so miserable, I might even laugh. Let them look me up. I sat there and waited.
“There’s nothing here,” Dodd said.
Thank you, Oslo. Once I turned eighteen, the first thing I had done was buy myself a new identity from Oslo. I’d needed a clean break from my past. I’d met some unsavory people in my life and a few of those people had known something was off. I didn’t want to leave a trail. Oslo, I didn’t know his last name, had created a new identity for me. It had been worth every saved penny I’d had.
Cormac left the two guys hunched over the computer, and sat next to me on the couch. Wearing black slacks and a dress shirt, partially unbuttoned and rolled up at the wrists, he looked as handsome as he had the other night, but now instead of admiring his looks, I wanted to stab him in the heart with the first thing I could find that would get the job done.
“I know you’re angry.” He was speaking to me as if I were a wayward child, not a person he had just ordered killed.
“You’re a bright one, aren’t you?” The loathing was clear in my voice.
“When Buzz shot you, we didn’t know you were one of us.”
Which was what? Here was someone that could finally give me some answers, and I’d kill him before I’d admit I wanted anything from him. I sat there silently and refused to even to look at him.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
That shocked a response from me. “That’s a cop-out. You always have a choice.” I looked at him now and hoped my disgust was as clear and evident as I felt it.
His pale blue eyes looked back at me. I’d never seen eyes of such a pale blue. I also saw hardness, or perhaps cynicism, in them.
“You see things in black and white because you’re young.”
“Don’t you even try to lecture me. You just had someone try to kill me for doing nothing. If not understanding that is a fault of youth, then you can keep the wisdom you gained in that extra ten years, Mr. Older and Wiser. You’re a joke.”
Any softness I thought I had glimpsed quickly disappeared. He stood and looked at me now with harshness. “I wish I had the option of making choices only for myself. I can’t be that selfish. Maybe when you grow up you’ll understand that.”
“Yes, when I hit thirty and I know it all, I’m sure I’ll understand, then.”
“Don’t you even want to know what you are? Or are you too stubborn to even admit that you’re clueless?” he asked. He was staring at me intently and it was making every cell of my being feel more alive and intense than I’d ever felt in my life. That made me hate him even more.
“I know exactly what I am.” I looked across the room, staring at the expanse of Vegas in its fully lit glory.
“You have no idea. And what’s worse, you’ll sit here in ignorance rather than temper your pride,” he said scornfully, still watching me. “Your records before age eighteen are nonexistent. What’s your real name?”
I started to fidget and stopped myself, but I couldn’t stop my palms from sweating or from breathing erratically. I’d always had nerves of steel, b
ut I had just reached my maximum. “I’m not staying here all night with you. Either shoot me, again, or let me go. Since you people can’t even seem to kill a person correctly, it might be easier just to let me go. Unless of course you want to try bungling it a few more times?” I could feel my control slipping. I needed to get away from here before I lost it completely.
The jerk had the nerve to laugh at my last comment.
“I can’t just let you walk out of here. I can’t have you repeat what you saw.”
“I won’t.” I jumped at the sliver of hope and was instantly annoyed with myself. He was probably just toying with me. I stood uneasily, and slowly made my way over to the window on shaky legs. I stared at the lights of Vegas that always called to me. I needed to get my nerves under control. My head was pounding so hard, it was difficult to think straight.
“Perhaps you won’t. I have a feeling you don’t say much to anyone. I’m having your blood run now to confirm what I think you are. When that comes back, we’ll discuss what is going to happen.” He turned back to Buzz and Dodd who were still standing next to the computer on the other side of the large room. I didn’t know if they’d been listening, but I suspected they had.
“Dodd, get the sample taken care of. Buzz, go make sure that the other issue is handled and make our apologies,” Hawking told them.
I watched them leave, and I knew I was alone in the place with Hawking. I wasn’t sure if this improved my odds, or worsened them, because of all the people I’d ever met in my life, he rattled me worse than anyone. That said a lot. I’d met some pretty bad people.
“Do you want to take a shower?” he asked now that we were alone.
My knee jerk reaction was that he had just sexually propositioned me. Then I caught a glimpse of a bloodstain in the reflection of the window, and I realized what I looked like. I lifted my hand to my hair and felt clumps matted together. I looked down and saw that my blood had caked on the skin of my chest, and for the first time, I realized that they had really shot me. How was I even alive? I felt for a gash in my head, but there was nothing. I clearly remembered the shooting pain right before I blacked out. My hands started to tremble uncontrollably, and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.
