“My savior,” Cecily said, taking several sips of her coffee. “Still hot, but not too hot to enjoy. Excellent. All right, what are my appointments for today?” She took a bite of her bagel.
As our car took off with the other following, I knew I had to play the part just a little bit longer. I pulled out Nancy’s tablet, punched in the code, and found the agenda folder for Cecily. “You have a meeting with Councilman York at nine. A City Hall meeting at ten and an interview with Channel Six News about the new renovations on Willis Park at two this afternoon,” I informed her. Geez, it sounded like a boring fucking life. No wonder they were seeking entertainment in the most outlandish ways. But still, there was bungee jumping, sex parties, hell… even paint ball. Plenty of healthy, legal ways to get your jollies off that didn’t involve a game of murder.
“Jesus fuck, I had almost forgotten about the damn meeting with the councilman. Ugh, another bitch and moan fest about… about…” She swayed a little as she jerked and blinked her eyes, trying to focus them.
“About the property development in the projects, right, ma’am?” I provided, keeping up pretenses. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
“I… I don’t… feel… good,” she slurred as she swayed again. Finally, the sedative was taking effect.
“Carl, please pull over, something is wrong with Cecily!” I exclaimed.
The bodyguard turned. “Ma’am, what’s wrong?” he asked.
As our car pulled off the expressway, the other car followed, and our guard was relaying to them through his com that Cecily was ill. Once our car stopped, I promptly kicked them both in the back of their heads. Both men slumped forward, the driver leaned to his side and the guard’s head hit the dashboard. I made sure to strike them hard enough to knock them out but not kill them. As far as I knew, they were just doing their jobs. If I could spare their lives, I would.
I looked at Cecily and she was now leaning forward, completely unconscious. The rest of her coffee had spilled on her outfit, the seat, and the floor, but it did its job by knocking that bitch out. I grabbed my purse, which contained my tranq gun, and climbed out of the car. I jogged like I was panicking and the two guards in the sedan behind us climbed out to assist.
“Ma’am,” one of them said as they both approached me.
“Something is wrong with Cecily,” I shrieked, and both guards ran past me, heading towards our car.
One was on his com, trying to get in contact with the other guard in the car whom I’d knocked out. As soon as their backs were to me, I shot them both, rendering them unconscious. I hated that this had to be out in the open, but I had to do what I had to do. Hopefully, no cops would be interrupting me anytime soon. I ran back to the car, popping the hood to disable the tracking GPS. I quickly pulled both the driver and other guard out of the car and climbed in behind the wheel.
With everything falling to place, I drove the Mercedes sedan to a different location because if she had a meeting with the councilman about the property I had intended to take her to, chances were good it wasn’t going to be as abandoned as I had hoped. Had to be prepared to make those last-minute changes. It was good there were enough rundown and boarded up properties on the poor side of town, giving me plenty of options. So, I didn’t have to stress too much. I pulled in behind an abandoned storefront that had a large drop-down door to receive truck packages.
I climbed out of the car and lifted up the door with ease, breaking the lock. I loved having superhuman strength, it made doing such tasks like this so much easier. I still wasn’t entirely sure what all I could do. In the past week, I’d ripped the door off a drug dealer’s safe. He was none too happy about it, but with his legs broken and his eyes blinded, there wasn’t shit he could do about it. His two hundred-grand sure came in handy as it was well spent. Getting back to the present, I pulled the sedan inside the building, knocking over dusty crates and empty boxes.
With Cecily knocked out, I was able to do what I needed to do to get her ready. I stripped her down to her underwear only. Seeing her naked, I really had to give her props for keeping herself so fit. I continued to get her ready by laying her on the hood of the sedan. I took some rope I had in my bag and bound her wrists, then ran the rope back to the car doors, using the doors as anchors by closing the ends of the ropes inside the doors. I bounded her ankles and ran the rope around the car’s front tires and made a nice set of knots around the front axle, which kept her body spread eagle.
I transformed back into my own skin and endured the pain of the transformation until I felt my balls drop, which was always a welcomed relief. I dressed quickly, adding my mask last, then I went to my bag and began pulling out several knives and other torture tools. I laid them on the hood of the car beside her body. I wanted her to see what I’d be working with as soon as she woke up.
I set up my battery-powered light, directing it at her, which would make it hard for her to see her surroundings. I wanted this bitch confused and terrified. Finally, with everything in order, I cracked open a pack of smelling salts and waved them under her nose. She twitched as her nose wrinkled a bit. She sniffed some more, her nostrils flaring before her eyes fluttered open. I tossed the smelling salts aside, then receded behind the glare of the light as I waited for her to gather her wits about herself.
Cecily’s eyes opened wider as the panic began to settle in. She didn’t know where she was or who she was with. She couldn’t see my face because the light shining in her eyes was so blinding. Good, I wanted her discombobulated enough to make mistakes.
“Oh my god!” she shrieked once she realized she was bound to the car. I watched as she struggled to break free, twisting and pulling on the ropes. “What the fuck?”
I remained silent as I watched her go through a bunch of emotions, finally settling on panicked.
“Where…where am I? Where’s… where’s Nancy?” she asked in a shaky voice that made her sound more fragile than she was. That feminine timbre wasn’t going to fool me. I knew what she was capable of. “Please… Please, I can give you money. Please don’t hurt me,” she begged.
Maybe my silence would prompt her to provide information without me even having to ask. She already knew she was guilty of doing evil things, maybe she’d start spilling the beans on her own.
She lifted her head off the hood as much as she could and tried to look around. The rest of the room was pitch black, but even if she could see everything, she’d only be able to see the discarded garbage and shelves of a business long since passed. I doubted if she’d even be able to recognize what the store used to be. I watched as she tried to squirm and twist out of her bindings, but she wasn’t going anywhere. I knew how to tie a fucking knot. Soon, another level of panic set in and she began to cry.
“Please, whatever it is that you want, please tell me,” she pleaded in her desperation to be set free. “If it’s money you want… I… I don’t have much, but I’ll give you everything that I have. Please, just don’t kill me.”
Again, I was silent, but I moved into the light a bit so she could see my form. By the way her eyes widened and her body begin to tremble, I knew I was having the desired effect.
“What do you want? Please tell me!” she cried.
“You know what I want,” I said, finally breaking my silence.
“Is it money?” she asked again.
Well, truth be told, I always wanted money. This vigilante shit was costly. Having to replace my costumes when they got riddled with bullet holes or shredded to pieces was a hassle. Then I had to eat, pay rent, buy gadgets, not to mention everything Jordan needed. Yep, money was always on my list, but right now, it was a secondary desire. I wanted information first.
“Tell me what I want,” I said, really fucking with her mind.
She licked her trembling lips as she tried to figure out what I wanted from her. “I… I wouldn’t know what you want. If it’s not money… is it sex?”
Bitch, please. Even if I was straight, after seeing what you did to that man, I
wouldn’t be able to get my dick hard enough to fuck that sixty year old pussy of yours.
“It’s not sex,” I said. I wanted to get her off that road and put her on the path I wanted her on.
“Jesus Christ,” she whined as more tears streamed down the sides of her face.
“Tell me what I want to know,” I demanded.
“About what?!” she yelled in a half frustrated, half angry tone.
I gave her the silent treatment again.
“Listen, I can pay you. If someone put you up to this, I can pay you,” she whimpered.
While I listened to her try to weasel out of what I had in store, I thought about methods I could employ to get her to fess up without coming right out and asking her what she knew or could tell me about this Killing Game bullshit. Fucking murder syndicate for bored, sick, rich bastards. Well, I knew she always paid cash, thanks to her assistant giving me the info on that. Maybe that would be what I’d go with.
“You were short in your last payment,” I said, just throwing that out there to see where it’d get me.
She blinked and frowned as if she didn’t know what the fuck I could be referring to. “What? What is this about? Where’s Nancy?”
“Dead.”
“Oh my god!” she shrieked. “Please, I’m just the mayor. I don’t have a lot of money, but I can give you what I do have.”
Now the bitch was just insulting my intelligence. I knew for a fact that although she wasn’t rich like my last target, she was using city funds for her own personal pleasure. To cover up the illegal spending, she came up with property deals she never planned on following through on. I had put a lot of that together last night. Cecily Danvers was one clever psychopath.
“You gave the money to my associate last month. It was short. I’m who they send when it’s short,” I lied, though with me telling that lie, I could see that she was coming around to understanding what I was talking about.
Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. “That’s impossible! I made sure every cent was there,” she exclaimed. “I swear, I would never cheat your boss out of his money.”
Jackpot. Now to just word my interrogation questions correctly and I’d be making real progress. “It was short, and as you know, my boss doesn’t take too kindly to being robbed.”
“I swear, I didn’t rob him. Jesus Christ, Nancy made the drop. Perhaps she stole the money. It wasn’t me! On my life, I swear it!” she pleaded.
I liked how she pushed Nancy under the bus. It would seem she didn’t deserve Nancy’s loyalty.
“Nancy swore with her last dying breath that she didn’t take the money.” I chuckled. “If you would have seen what I did to her before I killed her, you’d know she was telling the truth. So, that leaves you, Ms. Danvers,” I threatened.
“No! No, I swear, I’d never betray your boss. Maybe it was your guy who stole it,” she offered. “He’s the one who picked the money up.”
“Mr. Chance?” I supplied.
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
At this point, I found myself in the middle of a forked road. I could just come clean and go all vigilante on her or I could continue to pretend to work for this mysterious boss. Which path I took would depend on how I went about questioning her for more information. I decided to keep up the ploy and continue with the line of interrogation I was on.
“Mr. Chance wasn’t the one who picked it up the last time. Do you know who did?” I asked. I wanted to see if she knew anyone else who could work for this boss I’d been hearing about.
She shook her head. “I only deal with Mr. Chance. That’s who they told me would be picking up the money. I swear. If it was someone else, don’t you know?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you. We don’t all know each other, but I’m dedicated to getting to the bottom of this,” I said, hoping I hadn’t blown my cover.
“I—I don’t know who Nancy gave t—the money to if it wasn’t Mm—mm—Mr. Chance,” she stammered.
I sighed. “I’ve got to tell you, Ms. Danvers, I don’t like having to deliver bad news to my boss.”
She started crying even harder now. I mean, really bawling. “I swear to god that I don’t know. I would never double cross your boss. Please, please don’t kill me. Let me talk to your boss, I’m sure I could explain myself.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll let you call him,” I said, hoping to make that very special connection.
“I—I don’t have his number,” she admitted, to my disappointment. “I was hoping you’d…you’d call him.”
Okay, this line of questioning just hit a motherfucking dead end. Time to come clean. I walked over to her so she could see me more clearly. “Cecily, I’m going to come clean right now. I don’t work for this boss you mentioned, I’m working against him. See, I don’t like what he’s doing with that Killing Game website.”
She frowned in her confusion. “I—I don’t understand?”
“Then listen very carefully,” I said, enunciating every word carefully. “I want to know everything you know about who these people are and where I can find them.”
“I will tell you if you promise to let me go,” she bargained, as if that was in the cards.
“If what you tell me pans out, I’ll let you live,” I lied. I had no problem lying to a piece of shit like her. I wasn’t letting this bitch go, but I needed her to believe she had a chance of surviving this if she cooperated.
Cecily nodded. “I want to live, so I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”
“That stands to be seen. Now, tell me what you know.”
“Is Nancy really dead?” she asked.
The question kind of threw me off because maybe she really did care about Nancy, even if it was only a little bit. Or maybe she was just trying to see how much of a threat I posed. Now that I thought about it, I bet it was the latter.
I nodded. “Oh, that bitch is dead. She wouldn’t play nice, so I sent her to her maker.” I decided to show her a picture of Nancy’s body still tied to her bed at home, all sliced up and bloody.
Cecily gasped in horror and started trembling in fear all over again. “How? I—I—She was with me this morning!”
“Ahhh, I see. That was actually me. I have the ability to transform into whomever I want to be. Man, woman, child… I’m not sure if I can do animals, though. Frankly, not sure I want to try. But that’s neither here nor there. Bottom line, I want answers,” I stated.
“You’re… you’re one of those Enhanced Humans,” Cecily said.
I nodded. “I am. Now, tell me what you know.”
“I just have a number where I can reach him when I have to send in a payment.” She gave me the number, which was local. That was nice.
“I’ll check this out right now.” I sent the number to Jordan with a text for him to look into it and see what he could gather.
Duh, he texted back.
Smart ass, I replied. As I sat and waited while Cecily continued to plead for her life, the fact that I wasn’t talking to her made her even more nervous and that was perfectly fine with me. About fifteen minutes passed before I received a text from Jordan.
It’s an active local number, all right. A burner, so no personal information could be gathered about the owner. The GPS was disabled, too. Maybe you can get her to call the number and set up a meeting with the guy, was Jordan’s message.
Thanks J, I texted back. All right, I needed to see where I could go with this. I walked over to her and stepped into light again. She looked up at me all sweaty and trembling, seeing as she was full of fear.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Cobra.” I said my name, wondering if it meant anything to her. Sure, my antics weren’t front page news… yet, but maybe she might have heard something about the new vigilante in town. By the frown of confusion on her face, I guessed it was just wishful thinking on my part. No matter. After tonight, she was going to know my name.
“Look, I’ve told you what you wanted,” s
he said. “Please let me go.”
I shook my head.
“You promised you’d let me live,” she reminded me.
“You haven’t given me anything revealing. You did give me a number, but so far, it’s useless to me unless I can meet the owner of said phone. So, are you willing to call him and set up a meeting?”
“You have to untie me before I do that,” she demanded.
I shook my head, then grabbed her by the chin. “Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not somebody you can negotiate with. I want what I want… I’m sure you can relate to that sentiment. I want answers to my questions and if I don’t get them, I’m going to start cutting off body parts. Have I made myself clear?”
She cringed at the mentioning of losing body parts and I saw more tears flow from her eyes, but I was undeterred. “P—please—”
I squeezed her jaw and she cried out. “Am. I. Clear?”
“Yes! Ow, please, yes,” she cried.
Well, I’ll be putting her cooperation to the test.
“Who owns the Killing Game website?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. They’ve never shown their faces, okay?”
“How did you find out about the Killing Game?”
“I can’t tell you that—No, stop, please!” she screamed as I picked up a knife from the hood and grabbed her left hand. She was trying to ball it up into a fist, but I easily pried her hand open, exposing her fingers. “Please don’t do this!”
I decided to cut off her pinky so she’d know I wasn’t fucking around. She screamed and thrashed on the hood of the car as I carved through her flesh and bone, severing her little digit. Blood squirted from the open wound and I didn’t bother to tie a tourniquet around it. Instead, I picked up her severed finger and held it up so she could see. Her chest heaved as she looked on in horror. I could see the pain in her eyes and knew she really didn’t want any more torture.
Cobra- The Vigilante Box Set 1 Page 16
