by Emily Bishop
“I’ll tie her up. Richie wants to debrief with you.”
“Just try not to fuck us over again, will you, Gareth?”
“You better watch your mouth, Aaron, or you’ll be joining her.”
His eyes are intense, his tone laced with dire warning. I’ve never seen this side of Gareth before, and it’s terrifying. My captor seems to take his words seriously, because he releases me, the blood rushing back into my limbs as I tumble to the ground.
He glares at Gareth as he makes his exit. I don’t bother to thank him for saving me from rape. I imagine I’ll be experiencing worse by the end of this.
He stares down at me, not moving. I wonder if I can dodge past him and make one last-ditch escape effort.
He shakes his head, apparently reading my thoughts. “Don’t try it, Scarlett. You’re not making it out this time.”
His voice is sad as he steps in, lifting me up. I would find it a gesture of kindness if he didn’t instantly pin my arms behind my back. He pulls out a chair from a side desk and sits me down before reaching for a handful of zip ties, which he uses to connect my hands and feet. The plastic digs into my skin, stinging every time I shift. He steps back, about to say something when a voice echoes in from the other room.
“Gareth! Tie the bitch down and then get in here. We have to get started.”
Gareth takes one last look at me, and conflict roils in his gaze. Maybe I can use that to my advantage.
“Gareth, don’t do this. Please. You loved me once. You wouldn’t harm someone you love.”
He shakes his head before walking out the door. He leaves the portal open.
They haven’t once tried to conceal their location or faces from me. They know they won’t have to, that I won’t be telling anyone anything after tonight. My stomach twists as bile rises up my throat. It takes everything in me not to throw up as their meeting begins.
Apparently, Chantel wasn’t a total liar.
They’re talking. They’re acting as if I’m not even a person, someone who can hear their plans.
“This meeting will come to order,” a man says, and someone snorts.
“Honestly, Richie. We’re not exactly formal here.”
“Shut the fuck up, Gareth. You have no say in any of this. Let’s do a round up before we discuss the girl. What’s everyone’s status?”
Voices around the room begin reporting on identities they’d managed to steal and how much money they’d acquired. Broken accounts. Viruses in mainframes that copied passwords and funneled random dollars into a Swiss bank account. Worms that couldn’t be rooted out. They speak in millions.
“Great. You know what to do with the funds. Now let’s talk about the girl. She’s already been a huge pain in the ass. We should just kill her and get it over with but we don’t want any possible traces to us. It would be nice if Chantel fucking decided to show up to help us out with that tonight but apparently, she’s too busy.”
The mention of Chantel has my mind racing. Why isn’t she here? Because she knows I’m scouting—or at least, I should be? The anger in Richie’s voice is real as he goes on a tirade, bashing Chantel in colorful language.
“Richie, move the fuck on. No one cares that Chantel isn’t here,” Gareth says.
“Your opinion doesn’t matter, Gareth. What do you know about it anyway?”
“Would you stop being a fucking dick? Just tell us what you want us to do.”
“Well, do you think you can handle another little fire, or is that too much for you? Because last I checked, this should have been taken care of weeks ago, yet here we are.”
“It’s not my fault the fire department got there in time.”
“Yes, it is. They shouldn’t have been made aware of it in the first place. You should have hacked their system and brought it down. But you didn’t, and now our biggest liability is sitting in that fucking room!”
“Just let me handle it, okay? I won’t fail again.”
“Oh, do you pinky promise?” Richie says, his voice high pitched with mockery.
“Fuck off, Richie. I’m going to take care of it.”
“You better. Because if you don’t – and I don’t care if you’re my brother – I’ll fucking tie you two together and burn you alive myself.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Gareth counters but even I can hear that he doesn’t believe his own words.
Richie laughs, and the room laughs with him.
“Just go get her prepped. Let’s not draw this out too long, okay? We’ve got work to do.”
Feet shuffle as the meeting adjourns to another room. A solitary pair of footsteps head in my direction.
Gareth appears in the doorway, his expression angry. “He’s such a fucking asshole sometimes,” he grumbles as he approaches me.
“Seriously. Why do you even work with him?”
Gareth’s eyes land on me, and I’m watching him carefully. One wrong move and I can find a way to free myself. I have to believe that I can.
“You don’t remember the past few months, do you? That’s almost a shame. You have no idea what’s going on right now.”
“I have a fucking clue,” I sneer. Fuck it. They’re going to kill me. Why not tell it like it is? “I hacked your bugs. Chantel was an obvious plant, motherfucker. Your criminal record erased. And I found the code for your route into that federal website.”
I have to do anything I can to delay this. I have to.
Gareth stares at me, taking in my features as though memorizing them for the last time. “You know, you found that code on my computer,” he tells me, his voice soft and wistful. “It was my fault, Scarlett. We were about to leave for the movies and I was in the shower. You tried to check your email, and I didn’t close down that one little file. Such a tiny… yet critical… mistake.” Gareth’s eyes glint coldly. “From that point on, as much as it hurt, I knew that you were as good as dead. When you got amnesia, I thought we might be able to let you go… but then you had to keep digging. Besides,” he adds, “you fucked that fireman. So forget it. Just die.” He clenches his jaw and whispers, unbelievably, “I did love you, you know.”
I can’t help but stare at him in utter disbelief.
“Gareth,” I whisper, horrified. “How can you be like this? How can you say that you loved me, and then let me burn alive? Because fucking Richie says so?” I hiss, plying on the tension I sensed between him and his brother. “Untie me. Let me go. Set the building on fire. I’ll run away. No one will know.”
“No.” Gareth’s voice is a whisper, too, and his eyes are strangely sad now. “If he found out, he would kill me. That would be my third strike. There’s too much at stake now. It’s me or you, Scarlett.”
“You can run away, too. You don’t have to do this. It’s just money. You’re not like this. I know you’re not.”
“It’s not about the money,” Gareth says, sprinkling gasoline around the room now. “It’s Richie. We grew up criminals. We were orphans outside the system… and Richie took care of everything. I helped him.” He looks over at me after spraying an arc of that foul liquid. “This is my world, Scarlett. Don’t tell me what I’m like. You never knew me at all.”
23
Isaac
I pull my truck up in front of a house down the street from the address, the towering turret of the Victorian visible even from here. Eyeing the street, I can tell that the cops haven’t arrived yet. I’m on my own. I’m ready to jump out of my truck and run in, consequences be damned, but I hesitate, eyeing the front door to the place.
There are two guards set up out front, likely more scouring the back. If I run in now, the likelihood of me getting killed increases pretty substantially, and if I’m dead, Scarlett is, too. Instead I sit back and watch, waiting to see if there’s any more movement, either inside or from the cops outside. It shouldn’t be taking them this long to get to a scene of an emergency, and I’m pissed at them for it.
If Scarlett didn’t have me on the trail, she’d likel
y be dead depending on the police. Then again, she won’t need them. I have to find a way in there. I have to make sure that she’s unharmed. I open my truck door and close it silently, creeping my way along a white picket fence in the direction of the house. One of the guards looks in my direction, and I duck down, waiting a few minutes before I peek back up.
The guard is looking the other way now, chatting with his friend. I consider entering from the front, just taking them both down at once and pummeling my way inside. It’s likely that they are well armed. Not only that but this is territory they are familiar with, and I’m going in blind. That way isn’t going to work.
I’m crouching in front of the next door neighbor’s house now, though the place is entirely empty. The building is a stately red brick tutor-style house, complete with blue shutters and a white door. Along the side there’s more white picket fencing, because apparently, this is Stepford paradise, and a small latch gate that leads to a backyard.
I sneak in that direction, flipping up the latch and stepping inside, closing it silently behind me. As I walk down the length of the gate that connects the two properties, my eyes skim the area next door, eyeing through the thin fence slats to catch a glimpse of anything I can. The yard is pristine, the grass green even in the dark. Warm light pours over the yard, providing a quaint little backdrop for committing murder.
I think about Scarlett inside, hoping against hope that she’s actually in there. And if she is, what have they done with her? My blood boils as I think about the myriad of ways she could be tortured, and I feel the urge to run in again, to use my strength to my advantage and mow down any man who gets in my way. I know it’s irrational. It doesn’t change shit.
Footsteps crunch a few yards from me and I freeze, standing against the fence as I listen in.
“Hey, Adam wants you to do a sweep of the opposite end.”
“Have they started the meeting yet? Are we going to be invited this time?”
“You know the answer to that, Kyle. Get off your fucking high horse and do your job. You’re the muscle. You don’t need to be in the meetings.”
“Fuck off. I’ve got just as much of a say in this as anyone else. I’m the one who got her here.”
“Oh, great job! You can drive a van! Now shut the fuck up and do your job. I’m not here to babysit you. Scan the perimeter along the whole back of the house and report anything suspicious.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle says, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“I should have you fucking left behind. We don’t have time for egos like yours.”
“Well, maybe you should. Maybe if I was in charge, we would have actually succeeded in getting rid of her last time.”
“Probably not. Now start your patrol, or I’m going to report you to Richie. Would you like to get on his radar?”
“Fine. Just leave me alone to do my job.”
“Gladly. Get ready, Kyle. Things are about to heat up.”
The second guard chuckles at his own joke before he walks away, passing by me without noticing that I’m there. I get a good look at his face, even through the fence, taking note of distinct facial features so that I can track these suckers down later and make sure they get what’s coming to them. My mind is racing as I process their conversation.
They’re angry that they weren’t able to kill Scarlett in the first place, that much is obvious. What I can’t be certain of is what they’ve done with her now and where she might be. Still, the fact that she is a topic of conversation gives me the faintest hope that she is here.
I walk a little bit further down the gate, and a gleaming black surface catches my eye – the van in which they took her away.
Bingo.
I know she’s here. Now I just have to find a way to get her the fuck out. I walk past the black van so that I’m level with the front end of it. Peeking over the fence, I watch Kyle the guard walk around the other end of the house to do patrol. No one is guarding the back in this moment, and I take full advantage, pressing my palms between the pointed slats of fence and launching myself over, landing in a crouch behind the black van.
Out back, Kyle returns to his post, looking grumpy. He’s mumbling to himself. “They’ll see. Those fucking morons. They have no idea what I can do. I’m the best member of this fucking team.”
I’m sliding along the side of the van facing the fence, counting my steps, my breath, listening to Kyle as he mumbles and grumbles like the discontented murder accomplice that he is. I dare a glance over at him once I get to the edge of the van, and he’s looking at his cell phone.
Yeah, man, you the real MVP.
I take stock of him. The man is bulky but he doesn’t strike me as particularly muscular. He’s one of those guys who carries his fat in such a way as to make him stronger by default, able to use his weight to pummel and intimidate. His dark hair is shaved in a buzz cut and makes him look like an army vet who let himself go. I try and locate a gun on him but there’s nothing outwardly apparent. These guys want to guard without being too obvious about it in this ideal suburban neighborhood.
As he continues to stare at his phone, I give myself a count, and then sprint silently across the grass. Before he can sound an alarm, I slam him across the head, and the guy goes down like a bag of potatoes, heavy as fucking hell. I don’t bother to break his fall, instead allowing his head to crash against the fancy tiles. I grab his phone to see what he was doing, lest it have something to do with Scarlett.
The motherfucker was watching porn. And he thought that he was the best man for the job? I would laugh in any other circumstance but my humor is all out. I comb through the phone, looking through his texts, trying to glean any information as I keep looking up for any sign of someone else. His texts are just as vulgar and useless as the man himself, and I toss the phone into the grass.
Behind us, the house has one back door entrance with a window. The blinds are open, so I’m careful when I look through. I don’t see anyone there. I press my ear against the door.
I glance down at the guard, and a crazed idea formulates.
He seems like a pretty big nobody, based on his texts and conversations. A hired grunt who no one notices. Each of the guards is wearing a nice dark suit with a clean white shirt underneath, like some kind of white collared crime uniform. What if I disguise myself as this idiot? Do I take the chance that these assholes have egos big enough not to notice what their guards look like? How interchangeable are these people?
I roll Kyle onto his back, his eyes rolling back into his head as I do. I check his vitals and see that he’s perfectly fine, just knocked out. Time passes way too quickly. I begin to unbutton the man’s jacket, prepared to sneak in under the guise of being a guard.
“Kyle!”
A man’s voice echoes from around the house. I hesitate, knowing they will expect an answer.
“What?” I call back, in my best approximation of Kyle’s whiney voice.
“We’re moving out. Meet us at the rendezvous point. It’s time to go.”
“Fine,” I call back, waiting to see if they noticed that change in voice.
No one responds. Carefully, I move away from the windows to the side of the house and glance around. There is no one to be seen but the front door opens and the muffled voices of men travel through as they leave the premises. I strain my ears to hear, silently begging Scarlett to call out or say something so I can know that she is with them.
I listen for another few minutes until the sound of footsteps and conversations dies out, everyone headed somewhere else. I am now faced with the decision to follow the crowd or stay behind and see if I can find Scarlett here. Did they leave anyone behind, just in case they were followed?
Kyle groans and rolls slightly to the left. I step back and smash his face with my fist, needing to get my anger and anxiety out somewhere. Kyle’s nose starts to bleed, the liquid pooling around the corner of his lip before dripping onto that nice tile.
What a shame.
I le
an back against the house, the idea of changing into his clothes now gone.
How much time do I have before they realize that one of their guards hasn’t made it to the rendezvous point-wherever that is? In the past, I would have simply charged in, and holding off is killing me but this isn’t just a fire. This is Scarlett’s life on the line. I have to be more careful than I’ve ever been.
I decide to go around the side of the house and see if I can find anyone else. If everyone is gone, I can give the house a good sweep, though if Scarlett was with them, I might have just blown my chance at finding her. Somehow, I don’t think she was. I have to believe that she would fight and scream, find a way to be heard.
Because the alternative means that she was silent, and if she was silent, she might already be dead. Cold fear washes over me as I scan the area, seeing no one. I now have to make a choice.
Do I stay and look for Scarlett here, or do I track the men who did this and find her there? Whatever I choose, one of those options leaves Scarlett dead.
24
Scarlett
“Why does this fall to you?”
Gareth walks behind me and shoves something aside. I hear the whip of a sheet being pulled off a bed but I don’t remember a bed being in the room when I was tossed inside before. Gareth returns, carrying a red gasoline can, the fluid sloshing around inside.
He’s planning on a redo of the last situation.
“Because I’m the one who fucked this up the first time,” he says, tilting the can and splashing clear fluid all over the floor around me. He walks around the room, dumping gasoline on the sleek wooden floors.
“I thought I meant something to you. Was it all a lie? A ruse just to get me killed?”
He stops what he’s doing to think on my words, and I’m thrilled at the little minute I’ve bought myself. Maybe this is a card I can play. Maybe I can use his feelings for me to be set free after all.
