by Hart, Callie
“Oh, Sera. There you are. Been waiting for you to develop a fucking backbone. Are you gonna fight back? Are you finally going to do something to make this a little more interesting?”
A scream built in the back of my throat, itching and clawing, begging to be released, but I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed it down. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of hearing me cry out, even if it was in anger. I knew him; he wanted me spitting and cursing, calling him every name under the sun, as I fought for my life. He wasn’t going to get a word out of me. I wasn’t going to make a goddamn sound.
He lowered his face closer to mine, and his rank breath washed over my face, snaking its way up my nostrils, making my gag reflexes come alive. “Don’t let me down now, Sera,” he growled. “This is your final moment to shine. Make me remember you. I want every second of this etched into my memory. I want to be able to relive it for years to come…late at night, when I’m lying in bed with my hand around my cock…I want to remember that look of defiance as it faded in your dying eyes.”
Disgust roiled inside me. He was subhuman. He was the lowest of the low. I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. And more than that… I wasn’t going to let him do this to anyone else, ever again.
I was much smaller than Sam. Small enough that I was able to twist my leg up to the side and gradually drive it sideways, into my chest, wedging it between our bodies. Sam didn’t even try and stop me. He laughed, looking down as I drove my kneecap into his chest, trying to push him away from me. “Really? That’s it? That’s the grand plan? That’s your move? Honestly, I expected more from Sixsmith Lafferty’s daughter. Something far sneakier.”
That’s right. Keep laughing, you fat fuck.
Tears welled in my eyes, but I left them unshed. There was no time for tears. Later, maybe, when all this was over, I would sink into shock and horror, but not now. Everything hinged on this moment. I had to keep calm. I had to keep a clear head…
I pulled my other leg up to the side, cringing away from the position I’d put myself in by raising both my legs; Sam’s erection was now digging greedily into my jeans between my legs, as if it could burrow through the material and inch its way inside me. Sam groaned, his eyes drifting over my head—the promise of what was to come must have been too much for him, because he allowed his focus to wander, just for a moment. It was a mere split-second, but it was enough.
See, I was Sixsmith Lafferty’s daughter. I was sneaky as fuck. Trying to push him away with my legs was a fool’s errand. There wasn’t enough space between us for me to build momentum and force him away. The struggling, though. The determination in my eyes. Sam fed off the weak and the helpless. Their pathetic efforts fueled him in the most fucked up, depraved ways. Which is why he didn’t notice, as I was heaving and battling with his considerable weight, that I had been very busy with my right hand.
Misdirection wasn’t a skill I was well versed in, but I knew enough: make someone look to the left, when the magic was happening on the right. Poor Sam never saw it coming. A part of me wished he had. I would have liked to commit the moment to memory—the moment he saw the huge, jagged piece of glass coming flying out of nowhere, slashing across the meat of his neck. His look of confusion was going to have to do instead. One minute, he was leering down at me, flicking his coffee stained tongue over his bottom lip, excitement dancing in his eyes, and then the next he was gurgling, choking, coughing, spluttering, dying.
A stream of vibrant crimson blood arced from the hole in his throat where I’d opened up his flesh, as I dug the wickedly sharp shard of glass from the broken coffee table through soft skin and firmer muscle, until I reached sinew and bone.
I gasped as a jet of blood sprayed me in the face—hot, metallic, reeking of iron—but I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until I’d dragged the make-shift weapon from his left ear to his right. Sam’s eyes bulged out of his head, his tongue protruding, veins straining under his skin at either temple.
He rolled himself sideways, away from me, onto his back, his fingers digging at the tattered edges of his flesh, as if trying to press them back together, but he knew it as well as I did: he was a dead man. His body was simply taking a moment to catch up with the inevitable. He gurgled, making a wet rasping sound as he tried to say something to me, but he couldn’t do it. The terrified, accusatory look in his eyes said all he needed to say.
He was cursing me, damning me to hell, and I didn’t mind. He could damn me all he liked. I didn’t believe in hell. And even if I was wrong and the place did exist, then it would be okay. I’d pay my penance and gladly, because at least Sam would be there, too, paying for his crimes, which were considerably worse than mine.
The hatred flared and then dimmed on Sam’s face as his muscles fell slack, his fingers stilling at his throat. A shudder ran down his body, making his stomach and thighs wobble, and then… nothing. He was gone.
I was too shocked, too numb to feel it right now, but I knew what had just happened would haunt me for the rest of my days. I stood, my legs weak and unstable beneath me. My heart was barely beating, and my ears were ringing, but none of that worried me. A peaceful calm had fallen over me, dulling my senses. I didn’t feel the sting of my skin breaking as I brushed tiny fragments of glass from my white shirt, which was now soaked in blood and colored red, as if it had been tie-dyed. I didn’t see the slender, dark-haired figure standing in the doorway of Sam’s bedroom, covering her mouth with her hands. I didn’t hear the strangled sob that came out of Sam’s daughter as I made my way down the hallway, my body made of wood. I didn’t feel the blazing sun beating down on my tender skin as I walked all the way across town.
I barely even felt the throb of hatred that pulsed through me when I arrived home, walked through the front door, and found Sixsmith sitting on the floor in the living room, his back resting against the couch, surrounded by empty beer bottles. He let out a raucous bark of laughter when he saw the state I was in, and then shrugged. “It was only fair, Sera.” Taking a swig from his beer, his thin lips curved into the shape of a smug smile as they formed a seal around the beveled rim of the glass. “I took everything from the bastard. Figured I’d let him have one last fuck for the road.” He laughed harder, snorting as his head rocked back. “Looks like old Sammy boy got more than he bargained for, though.”
I waited for weeks for the authorities to come and take me away. I waited to hear about the murder in the news or it being gossiped about it in the hallways at school, but no one breathed a word of Sam Halloran’s gruesome demise.
In the end, the body had just…disappeared.
Three months later, I ran into Peter Fairley at the convenience store. He told me he’d taken care of the situation and Julia had gone to live with her Aunt in Texas. Turned out he hadn’t been completely spineless, after all.
Six months after that, the name Halloran had been forgotten altogether in the town of Montmorenci, as if the old Dutch thug had never even existed in the first place.
THREE
SERA
I’d witnessed many dawns.
The way the sun crept up over the horizon, stretching its fingers into the sky, banishing the darkness, was spectacular to watch. The world always seemed to still. As if it had momentarily ceased to turn just for those few minutes, while the first shafts of lifegiving light, the very first light of the coming day, washed over the earth and painted everything it touched a shimmering gold. The land, the sea, the sky—everything ached in its sheer perfection during those still, silent minutes.
Not this morning, though. The day broke into a storm. Rain hammered at the huge windows that overlooked the city, the sun barely forcing its way through the heavy, gunmetal grey of the pregnant clouds overhead. All was dark, the air buzzing with electricity and tension, and the crash and rumble of thunder in the distance filled me with a sense of foreboding that made me nervous.
I’d known Fix was going to The Barrows when I’d fallen asleep last night. He’d seemed so confident. So relaxed
and at ease. I hadn’t questioned him, hadn’t given it another thought. But when I’d woken up and found myself alone in his bed, I’d started to worry. Rabbit had wanted Fix to go to this Barrows place instead of accepting a large amount of money. He’d implied that only certain people could go there, would be able to go there, which now made the place sound pretty damn dangerous.
I’d never cared where Gareth was. I’d never needed to know where any of my other previous boyfriends were at every hour of the day either, but things were different with Fix. He hadn’t just gone to run some errands and was taking longer than expected. He’d gone somewhere unsafe. He’d been gone for hours, and he hadn’t reached out to let me know he was alive. That complicated things.
I would have texted him, but I still didn’t have his number. How fucking stupid was that? I’d be keying his digits into my cell the moment he got back, that was for damned sure. Until then, there was nothing for me to do but wait, and waiting was not something I was very good at. I made myself a coffee, and then I sat at the dining table, stirring a spoon around a mess of sodden, mushy cereal, pretending I might eat it at some point, while I watched the heavens roil and rage out of the window.
Lower Manhattan looked like the backdrop to a sinister dystopian movie—I could imagine civilization descending into chaos and anarchy right before my very eyes. Planes took off and landed on the other side of the city, and ferries risked the choppy waters of the Hudson river, and all the while the rain came down harder and harder, exploding off the glass and rattling the windows with every squall of wind that buffeted the building.
At nine a.m., I decided I needed to distract myself and hunted down my phone, intending to message Sadie. As soon as I scooped the device up in my hand, however, I remembered Fix ordering me to remove the sim card. He’d flushed it, just in case this Carver person had hired someone really tech-capable and they could have used the small chip to track me down. He’d promised we’d get another sim for me later on today, but in the meantime, I was completely without any means of contacting the outside world.
Damn it.
What if Fix ended up dead at The Barrows? What if he didn’t fucking come back? My heart was climbing up into my throat as I stood from the table and jogged my way over to the front door. There was a keypad affixed to the wall, just as there was on the entry to the building down in the alleyway. Fix had given me the code, but I was damned if I could remember it now. Still, I tentatively took hold of the handle, turned, and pulled…
The door opened.
It wasn’t locked.
Ahh, Jesus. Did that mean it could only be opened from the inside, or would anyone be able to waltz right in if they came up here? I closed the door and pressed my back to it, my heart thrumming like the wings of a caged bird. This was a fucking nightmare. The door probably wouldn’t open from the other side if the code wasn’t entered. Fix was safety conscious. He would never have left in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and then neglected to make sure the penthouse was secure. I reassured myself of that as I paced up and down, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, chewing at my nails.
An hour passed.
I showered quickly, brushed my teeth and distracted myself by applying a small amount of makeup.
Another hour passed.
I was so jittery by the time I heard someone out in the hallway that I’d already figured out how to operate Fix’s M4; I was sitting at the table, and I had the butt of the assault rifle nocked against my shoulder, the muzzle aimed at the entryway, with my finger on the trigger. The door swung open.
The man standing in front of me wasn’t Felix. He was nothing like Felix. Just as tall, just as broad, but that was where the similarities ended. His arms were covered in tattoos, and his eyes glinted with a furious kind of malice that made a shiver skip up my spine.
It was him.
The guy Carver paid to murder me.
I hoisted the rifle up, quickly sighting the guy’s chest, I inhaled…
And the guy held his hands up.
“Easy, tiger. I’ve been shot at enough recently. I don’t need another orifice,” he rumbled.
I jabbed the rifle toward him, baring my teeth. “Who the fuck are you? And where’s Fix?”
“My name’s Zeth. And Fix is right behind me.”
“Bullshit.” I scanned him from head to toe, wildly committing him to memory. He was a fucking mess. His t-shirt was drenched in blood, and his face, neck, and arms were covered in cuts, scrapes and darkening bruises. Fix hadn’t said anything about a Zeth. There was no way he’d allow someone up here without telling me first. I eyed the black bag at the guy’s feet—the one he’d been holding in his hand before he caught sight of the M4 aimed at his chest and he’d dropped it to the floor. “Kick it over to me. Now. And get on the ground.”
The guy looked like he’d been beaten half to death, but the smirk that lifted up his left cheek into half a cocky smile made him seem none the worse for it. He hooked his boot behind the duffel bag and shoved it across the floor toward me. When it had skidded to a stop next to the table, he said, “Search through it, by all means. But there’s only one way I’m gonna end up on the ground, woman, and that’s if you shoot me.”
I ground my teeth together so hard it felt like they would crack. “Do it! Now!”
He shrugged. “No.”
“I’m serious. I’ll fucking shoot you.”
His eyelids lowered as he scanned from the crown of my head down to the rifle I held tightly in my hands. “Hmm. I actually believe you. Still. A guy’s got to have rules. My number one rule is don’t lie down for someone unless you’re about to fuck ‘em or you’re dead.”
A cold anger took hold of me, creeping up my neck; I must have been turning redder by the second. This man, whoever he was, was a threat. Fix wasn’t here. I had no idea if he really was moments behind this stranger, as he’d claimed he was.
I did the math in my head. I could wait a few seconds and see if Fix did show up. I could hit pause on the situation and play it safe. But a lot could happen in a few seconds. Everything could turn on its head. I could find myself lying in a pool of my own blood, my life slipping away from me, regretting the moment that I hesitated.
I swore I’d never deal in regret again. I promised myself years ago that I’d never hesitate again.
There was only one thing I could do.
I aimed, took a sip of oxygen, steadily blew it out down my nose…
…and I fired.
******
FIX
Oscar Finch wasn’t going to fuck with me again. It would be a long time before he fucked with anyone again, and that was the god’s honest truth.
He hadn’t sent the elevator down for us. No surprises there; the guy wasn’t completely insane. He knew the moment we hit the roof, he’d find himself neck deep in some serious shit. While I’d climbed hand over hand up the service ladder bolted to the wall inside the elevator shaft, Zeth right behind me, the piece of shit had tried to flee down the fire escape. Only, when Zeth had come up it earlier in the evening, Oscar had ordered the metal staircase ripped clean from the wall, and so he’d found himself well and truly, ironically trapped.
He’d been spitting teeth and choking on his own blood by the time he reached into his suit pocket and handed over the thumb drive. Zeth had taken it from him, then handed it over to me—a show of good faith? We’d left together, riding the elevator down to the bottom floor, and no one had stopped us. Not even Falco or Foster, who were nowhere to be seen. A hail of gunfire chased after us as we climbed into Zeth’s ride—the same pristine, gleaming black Camaro that I’d noticed when I parked up outside The Barrows hours ago.
Zeth had snarled, cursing violently as Oscar’s braver men took potshots at the car. He’d seemed really fucking relieved when none of them actually hit the paintwork. Guy obviously liked his car. Understandably. It was a sweet fucking ride.
Besides the odd direction I supplied back to the Gas and Elect
rical Works—he was going to have to come back with me and wait while I copied the drive—we didn’t speak much as Zeth tore through the bleak, stormy dawn toward Brooklyn. Halfway home, the sky split open and a curtain of torrential rain descended, fat droplets of water slamming onto the windshield. By the time I gestured for Zeth to pull down the side alley and park up next to the chain link fence that split the alley, I could barely see three feet in front of my own face.
Zeth kept his thoughts to himself as he climbed out of the Camaro. In the darkened alleyway, I mentally surveyed my body, noting the points where I was stiffest or sorest, cataloguing them and plotting out a contingency plan. If this Zeth Mayfair guy was going to try something, he was gonna do it here, in the alleyway, away from the watchful eye of the public. In his head, he was probably thinking how easy it would be to jump me, take the thumb drive and burn off in his car. I readied myself, prepping to start throwing punches all over again, even though it felt like my arms were barely hanging in their sockets. Zeth simply peered up at the building, running his tongue over his teeth.
“Keyless entry. Smart. What about the windows? They reinforced?”
I didn’t miss a beat. He’d never know that I’d been planning on staving his face in with the butt of my gun only seconds ago. “Only three windows on the ground floor haven’t been bricked up. All the other windows are reinforced. No one gets in or out unless it’s through that door.”
He placed a hand against the building, leaning his weight against it, looking up at the brickwork. “Oscar knows you live here?”
