“Please help me,” the woman begged through her tears.
“I’m not here for you,” I told her. “I’m here for him.”
“Who sent you? Was it Dadetech? I can double what they are paying you to take me out. Triple it!” Mr. Henley bargained.
“I’m listening.”
“Okay, good. Just let me get to my computer—”
“I want cash,” I said. It was untraceable. Plus, I didn’t know my joint account number with Jordan by heart.
“Fine. Cash, I can do that. How much are they paying you?”
I thought quickly about a number. “Fifty grand.”
“I’ll double that.”
“You said you’d triple it. That’s what’s going to save you tonight.” I kept my gun aimed at his head with the flashlight in the Graham technique. “I’m a merc, I go with whoever shines the prettiest coin in my direction. So make me a nice offer.”
“Deal. One hundred and fifty grand, tonight, cash. But I want something else in return,” he said. He squinted a little in the light as I kept both that and my gun aimed at him. He also made sure to keep his head partially hidden behind the woman who was now reduced to just whimpering.
I scoffed. “Your life isn’t enough?”
“I want the life of the son of a bitch who sent you to take me out.”
“That’s an extra fifty grand.”
“Done.”
“Cash first, and then I’ll leave.”
“Follow me,” he said as he dragged the woman, who had started crying and begging again, down the hall towards what looked like a room with double doors. I followed behind him closely, making sure he wasn’t going to get away. The limp I gave him was keeping him at a slow pace and that was good enough. I didn’t have super speed, but I could still move damn fast.
Eventually, we ended up in what looked like his office and he shoved the woman to the floor. She landed with a hard grunt. “Stay, bitch,” he said with a little more confidence. Like he was no longer afraid for his life. Sure, he’d lost his entire security team, unless that one guy wasn’t still knocked out. But he’d managed to wrangle a deal for himself.
“Don’t try anything,” I warned.
“I won’t, trust me. I want the head, literally, of the man who tried to kill me. You definitely have the skills to make that happen. Can you shine the light over there?” He pointed toward the wall lined with what looked like books. “Also, I’d feel a lot better about our new partnership if you’d put your gun away.”
I did what he requested, it wasn’t like I needed my gun to kill him anyway. “Better?”
Mr. Henley nodded. “Much.” He walked over to the wall, removing a book slightly, and looked to be punching in a code. I heard a lock release and I followed Mr. Henley towards his safe. He opened the door that was hidden behind a painting and started removing stacks of neatly wrapped bills. Each stack looked to be about ten grand.
“There,” he said, putting the last stack on the pile. “That’s two-hundred grand.”
I’d guessed right, each stack was ten grand based on the amount of stacks on the table.
“Excellent,” I said, then grabbed him by his throat before he could close the safe, and lifted him up with one hand. His feet were dangling and kicking as he struggled in vain in my hold. He choked and strained to breathe as my fingers tightened around his throat. His eyes bugged out as he stared at me in shock and fear. He grabbed my hand in a feeble attempt to break my grip, but I had his ass right where I wanted him. “I’m afraid I cannot fulfill your request, you see. The man you want killed…” I shrugged. “Is me. I wanted you dead and came here all on my own to make sure you didn’t see another sunrise.”
“We…had…a…de…eal,” he sputtered.
“So?” I said, then snapped his neck with a simple twist of my wrist.
His limbs went limp at his sides and he ceased his kicking and struggling. I let go and his corpse fell to the ground in a heap like a broken manikin. I snorted, because I had no intentions of honoring that deal. He was a piece of shit and the world was better off without him in it. I returned my attention back to more significant matters. With the safe open, I removed the rest of the money I saw… only the money. I looked around the room for something to carry it in. Then I looked at the woman cowering in the corner. I shined the light on her and she looked like a complete mess. She was bleeding from her nose and lip. Her mascara was running and one of her bra straps was torn. She was only wearing her underwear and her legs were covered with Mr. Henley’s blood… I was guessing. I knew I hadn’t shot her.
“Pl—please don’t kill me,” she begged. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Did you bring a purse with you?” I asked.
She looked a little confused as she shielded her eyes from the flashlight. “Y-yes.”
“Not one of those little dainty ones, is it?”
She shook her head. “It’s in the living room.”
I walked over to her and she started screaming. “Shut the fuck up, I’m not going to hurt you. Get up,” I commanded. Lord knows I’d heard enough of her wailing and screeching to last me a lifetime. She scrambled to her feet and I grabbed her by the arm, then led her back to the living room so she could get her purse. She grabbed it from the loveseat and then I walked her back, past all of the dead bodies, to the office where my treasure laid. She wasn’t lying, it was a nice sized bag and I made her stand beside me as I dumped the contents out, which consisted of sex toys, feminine shit like perfume, vajay-jay spray to keep the cooch smelling fresh, make-up, and tampons. There were also a bunch of condoms. Those I put back into the purse.
I loaded all but one stack into the bag and tossed it over my shoulder. You can call me a vigilante, dark knight, or even a hero, but you wouldn’t be calling me broke. I took great risks, I wanted great rewards.
“That’s for you.” I gestured to the stack I’d left on the table. “Go buy yourself something nice.” I walked away.
“Wait,” she called out, catching my attention.
“What?”
“Th-thank you. I was really afraid of him, he wouldn’t let me leave and I think he was going to really hurt me. But you saved me,” she said.
“He probably would have killed you, seemed like that was his kink.” I didn’t bother to hold any more conversation with the chick. I turned and ran out of the mansion. It didn’t take me long at all to get back to my car. My adrenaline was pumping, fueling a ton of emotions in me. I was stoked, horny, happy, and proud at the same time. I headed back home and called Jordan to open the door for me. Once he did, I pulled in, killed the engine, and climbed out of the car.
He rushed over to me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I hugged him back. He looked up at me, beaming. “Did it go the way you wanted?”
I smiled and nodded. “Better.” I even have more money now to buy new equipment. “The son of a bitch was getting ready to hurt another woman just like I suspected. Well, he’s dead now.” Jordan let me go and I took off my eye mask, tossing it on the table.
“You look so sexy right now,” Jordan said. “Except for the purse.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? This thing is the sexiest thing here.” I took it off my shoulder, turned it upside down, and out poured all of the money and condoms, spilling all over the table.
“Holy shit, how much money is that?” Jordan asked as he walked over to the table.
“My guess would be close to half a million dollars.”
“Jesus Christ!” Jordan gasped, then looked down at the money again. “I may not need to work.”
“Well, let’s say we don’t have to worry about rent for a while. As for me, I’m going to need more and better weaponry and equipment. For one thing, I’d like a garrote.”
Jordan frowned. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“You don’t need to know, it can’t be programmed. Now, enough talking. I’m all fired up, my cock is rock hard and I’m ready to fuck the living shit out
of you,” I growled, snatching up one of the packs of condoms. I reached out, grabbing him by his waist, and hoisted him up. He locked his legs around me and we started kissing as I walked us to our bed.
I tossed him on the sheets and he giggled.
“You ready for this cock?” I asked as I took off my jacket.
He smiled up at me, looking so fucking cute. “Why Cobra, I thought you’d never ask.”
Aaahh yeah, I was about to tear his ass up. Today was a good day.
Chapter Five
Noble
I’d been sitting on this rooftop for the past half an hour watching this shady looking bastard across the street. He was selling drugs to anyone who drove up to him to purchase. I was contemplating on jumping down there and fucking up his night. I mean, he was scum… although he wasn’t forcing anyone to buy the drugs. He didn’t hold a gun up to their heads and rob them of their money, then toss them a meth rock for their troubles, possibly robbing them of their futures. They all came to him willingly for his meth.
This place had a bunch of motherfuckers just like him working day and night. You could throw a rock in any direction and hit one. Last month, I took one out who was selling marijuana and bath salts. I made use of the sticky-icky and money, but left the bath salts on him for the police to use as evidence when they booked his ass. That was my good deed for the day. But then by the next day, there was another dealer on the same corner doing the same thing. Motherfuckers popped up like weeds.
Sure, I’d been doing my superhero… or in my case, anti-hero thing for three months now. I had taken out pimps who were beating the shit out of, and even killing, their whores… but not the whores. Who was I to tell a woman or man what to do with their bodies? Not only that, but prostitution was a public service, as far as I was concerned. Not everyone wanted to have to work hard at getting laid. Sometimes, just paying for it was easier.
Anyway, I’d taken out abusive pimps, murders, thieves, gangbangers, and child molesters… but drug dealers were a gray area for me. Were they like fast food places? Sure, we all knew that shit wasn’t good for our bodies and if we continued to eat there, we would probably end up dying of some food-related illness. But no one was making any of us go in there. Or were dealers just as horrible as the other pieces of shit I’d flushed away? Ah hell, this was going to fuck with my head.
I supposed I would take his ass out. When I decided to take up the mantle of vigilante, it was to make the city a better place. Couldn’t have it be a better place with drug pushers on corners. Man, I swear, if someone would have told me I’d be perched on some rooftop like a gargoyle in black leather with an armory strapped to my body to defend the people, I might have laughed at them. Sure, I was a soldier and had even signed up with a secret organization to become an elite mercenary for the government… or what I thought was the government at the time. However, working within the law and outside of it were two very different things.
I flexed my enhanced muscles, watching them move under my impenetrable skin. I couldn’t help but think back to the day that changed my life forever. Mr. Carl Swanson had approached me after I had completed my second tour. Painted some perfect picture about how I had the credentials to go even further in my military career. That if I were to join their secret government organization, I would be sent to where the real fight was, where I could truly make a difference.
He even showed me footage of one of their elite teams saving a foreign diplomat I hadn’t even known had been kidnapped. Let’s just say, the footage and the agent convinced me I needed to be where the action was. I was so gung-ho at the time and wanted to make my country safe, so I joined like a fucking idiot, with little to no questions asked. I wasn’t in their secret facility seventy-two hours before they were strapping me into a fucking chair and injecting me with some serum they were calling XSR14.
I remembered the shit hurt like hell and I felt like my body was melting into liquid as that shit worked its way through my system. The whole time I suffered, their scientists were standing over me, discussing the possibility that I might not be a success. How six other candidates didn’t make it because their bodies had rejected the solution. I remembered panicking out of my fucking mind, thinking I was about to die. I couldn’t voice my concern, as they had gagged me. I just knew I was terrified and thought I was going to die.
“Just try to remain calm, Agent Nineteen,” one of the scientists said, placing his hand on my chest like that little physical contact was going to do the fucking trick. Calming down was impossible at that point. “If you survive this process, you will become extraordinary. You will have abilities that mere humans can only dream of. That is how you can become an elite solider. Remember, you signed up for this.”
The hell I had! I shook my head and I remembered the scientist nodding. “Yes, you did. You knew we were top secret and whatever it was we were going to require of you, Agent Nineteen, you had agreed to when you walked through those doors. Our soldiers are the best in the world and we are doing the real work that truly protects our country. If you survive this process, you will be fitted with a neurochip, one of our own patented designs. It will ensure our investment in you stays intact.”
What he was saying wasn’t what I had been told. I had signed up to join a team to go do real work that was saving my country. Not to be some fucking lab rat. But there was nothing I could do about it. I just had to lay there and take it. All I knew was that I felt like I was dying and the pain was so intense, I almost wanted to, just to have it all end. At some point, I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was covered in dirt.
Again, I panicked and started clawing my way out of the grave they had buried me in. When I was finally able to take in fresh air, I had a chance to look around at my surroundings. I didn’t know where I was, all I knew was that I was in a forest because there were trees everywhere. I was also naked as I climbed out of the grave. For a minute, I thought I was dead and maybe that was what hell looked like. I had assumed it was hell, because heaven was supposed to feel more serene. At least, that was what I’d been led to believe.
It didn’t take me long to realize I was alive and well, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I’d been buried alive. Was that the last step in the process? As I took in more of my surroundings, I realized that my grave wasn’t the only one there. Six more were in the area. I guess I was assumed to be number seven. So did that mean they thought I was a failed experiment? Let’s just say, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I covered the hole I dug myself out of with dirt, making sure it looked untouched.
While I had done that, I noticed that my strength and endurance had increased. I wasn’t even tired, and I should have been. I just started running in the first direction my feet took me. Eventually, I came upon a cabin a few hours later, which meant they were burying those bodies truly in the middle of nowhere. Lucky for me, the cabin was empty. I washed up and stole an outfit that was really too big for me, but something covering my naked ass was better than nothing. I raided the pantry and found some canned goods that I devoured.
I didn’t want to stay at that cabin for too long, especially since I didn’t know who it really belonged to. What if one of the scientists lived there? I had to get as far away from the area as I could. I hitchhiked several times until I found myself four states away from where I crawled out of my grave, which had apparently been in Aspen.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was different. That whatever those scientists had done to me with that serum, had changed my metaphysical form. I was strong as fuck, for one thing. I probably had the strength of at least fifty bodybuilders, maybe more. I never seemed to get sick, even when everyone else around me did. I didn’t feel pain for long, only a few seconds, and my skin never punctured. Although, I didn’t find out about my ability to shape change until a month later.
In order to survive, I got a job at a diner washing dishes, and made enough money to hit the road again. Eventually, I found mys
elf in Silver City, and it seemed like the perfect place for me to put down some roots. The truth of the matter was, I was tired of traveling like some fucking fugitive. I was sure that organization wasn’t looking for me, as they thought I was dead, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling they somehow knew I had survived. It was one of the reasons I wanted to keep a low profile.
I was in Silver City a few months before I met Jordan, and well, you know the rest of that tale. I had to admit, I liked what I was doing now. Every time I saved someone, it made me feel really good inside. And often times, it made me pretty fucking horny. There was just something about the adrenaline rush I got from putting an asshole in their place that got my dick hard as fuck. Over the past few months since donning the mask, I’d come home after a night of crime fighting to fuck Jordan’s brains out, if only to release some of my pent up energy. Not that he was complaining, my little nerdy slut.
Well, I supposed I’d wasted enough time on this rooftop, time to do what I needed to do. I jumped off the five story building, landing relatively quietly on the pavement. I waited until he was done making his illegal transaction, then I advanced on him. Because of my super strength, I could run a bit faster than your average human. In no way did I have super speed, which would have been awesome, but I wasn’t slacking, either. When he saw me coming at him, he attempted to run, but only got a few paces before I caught up with him. I shoved him against the wall and he yelped in pain and fear.
“What the fuck, man?!” he cried out.
“What the fuck, indeed,” I said. “What this city doesn’t need is a piece of shit like you out here making things worse by selling that bullshit.”
“I’m just trying to make a living. It’s not like I’m forcing people to buy it. If they aren’t buying it from me, they’re going to buy it from someone else,” he replied.
Well, he was right about that… It was one of the reasons I had been sitting on that rooftop so long, contemplating whether or not I’d be wasting my time bothering with the guy. How could you save people who didn’t want to be saved?
Cobra- The Vigilante Box Set 1 Page 7
