by Alana Melos
“Still trying to get your payday?” I sneered, my voice surer now.
He cut a look to me, his mouth set in a line, then looked back to my abdomen. Most of the cuts had been there, but it was the stab wound he paid the closest attention to. With gentle fingers, he probed around it, causing me to wince. “I don’t think it hit anything vital.”
“Your girlfriend was careful,” I said, trying to sit still. The urge to whack him over the head possessed me, but I took deep and even breaths to shove the rage aside. I’d probably miss with how my shoulders felt and it wouldn’t be hard enough to knock him out. The thought of knocking him back then stomping him to death occurred to me as well… but he’d just been resurrected from the dead, and seemed more or less in control of himself. I wasn’t so sure I’d be so calm and steady were I in his shoes.
“She wants you gone, out of here,” he replied as he cleaned the main wound. “She thinks you’ll come after us.”
“God damn right I will!” I said. “I’m going to cut you into so many pieces people will think you’ve been through a wood chipper!” The anger burned bright still, even with steps to calm myself. It wasn’t just that he betrayed me: he was a rat, a no good dirty rat. He’d thrown away all the values I held dear. His existence was like a walking violation of the criminal code. Snitches got stitches.
At that, he half-smiled. I saw the old Harry and the charm he had. “You’re not making a convincing case for yourself,” he chuckled.
That chuckle infuriated me even more, and I did kick him. He grunted and cut a look up to me, his normally light eyes darkened in warning. “I’ll behave,” I said, sounding sullen. “You can overpower me anyway, but if I was at full strength, your ass would be mine.”
“Not with that bracelet on it wouldn’t,” he said, nodding to the power inhibitor Emily had put on me. “Just hold still. I’m going to put some temporary sutures on this, but if you keep moving, they won’t hold.”
“Alright, alright,” I said, grumbling as my mind scrabbled for a way out of this. He still hadn’t searched me, so if I could reach one of my knives or… or maybe the Clarity in my pocket. The knife might or might not kill him. I didn’t know how potent the nanotech in his system was, especially since they were affected by magic now. The Clarity was just as uncertain. It might not be any good or might not give me enough of a boost to bust through the inhibitor. At least I had options. The knives were at the small of my back in sheaths. The Clarity was in my front pocket. Neither were good for getting at without him noticing.
“I remember the last time I patched you up,” he said as he worked. “That was… that was something.”
“It was pretty decent,” I admitted. He had been a good fuck. And that thought gave me an idea. “You know where you’re marching me off to death?”
He shook his head. “I never asked. Doesn’t go over well to ask too many questions.”
“Origin,” I said, watching his reaction. He shrugged as if he didn’t care, but I knew he took that information and hid it away in his ever working brain. “I guess my mom was from there.”
At that, he did look up at me, then down to the kit to bring out gauze pads. “I didn’t know that,” he said slowly.
“I didn’t either. It wasn’t something she really talked about,” I replied. Harry looked up again at me, one brow slanted up. “Well, it wasn’t.”
“I… see,” he said, his voice stilted, then affixed the pad over the now sutured wound. He pressed hard, but the pain had subsided enough I could take it without wincing. It wasn’t a bad kind of pain. Without warm up, it didn’t do much for me.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with me,” I said, letting my nervousness about the whole deal show in my voice. That was true. I didn’t know. “I have an idea, and it’s nothing nice. Certainly nothing I’ll survive.”
He glanced at me, but continued his work in cleaning the myriad of other wounds. I looked down at myself and saw a pile of bloody wipes to the side. My stomach and sides were covered in cuts. Not too deep or too long, but they all added up. The bill for the Doctor for all this was going to be expensive.
“If you let me go, I’ll promise to leave you and your cunt alone,” I said, lowering my voice and making it more intense. When I shifted, the pain in my shoulders flared into life again, though briefly. My arms almost felt back to normal. “And unlike you, I keep my promises.”
He shrugged again. “I’m not an idiot,” he said. “It’s safer with you gone.”
“I’ll even pay you,” I said. “Probably not as much, sure, but enough for you guys to live comfortably. I have friends, resources.”
Harry shook his head as he set about wrapping my stomach with long stripes of gauze. It was probably easier to do that than trying to address each individual cut. They still bled, but slowly as the blood coagulated. “I told you, I’m not an idiot,” he repeated.
“You might be,” I said, my voice growing heated and haughty. “You know who my parents are, don’t you?” His hand hesitated for only a split second, but long enough that I knew he did. “If they find out what you did, there will be no place for you to hide.”
“‘They’,” he said as he finished wrapping me up and pinning it together. He ran his hands over the gauze, testing it and tucking it into itself where necessary. “I’m sure they will,” he said, his voice lightly mocking.
“It’s not a joke, and not something I’d take lightly if I were you,” I said, my anger growing. It was much harder to force back when he dissed my family.
“Oh, I know it’s not,” he said as he cleaned his hands free of my blood.
I chewed my lip for a moment, hoping I looked indecisive or uncertain. “There’s nothing I can say that’ll change your mind, is there?” When Harry shook his head, I heaved a long sigh, letting out a pent up breath. “Alright, fuck me then.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty fucked,” he said with that same infuriating chuckle.
“No, I meant, you fuck me now.”
That got his attention and surprise. I knew how much of a horndog he was, how much he loved sex. He’d never been loyal to Emily, though she was to him. I almost felt sorry for her for falling hard for such a philanderer, but it worked to my advantage.
His eyes met mine, skepticism in them along with interest. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking,” I said. “This might be the last time I get to. They’re going to do who-knows-what to me over there. Maybe dissect me like a lab experiment. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be good… and if I can’t get free now, I’m not going to.” I let my shirt fall and my hands came to rest in my lap. “I might as well get one last fuck in, right? Throw caution to the wind? Live for the moment?”
“You hate me,” he stated, his voice flat again as he tried to hide his interest.
“I’m sure you hate me too,” I replied. “Hate fucking is pretty damn awesome though.” I leaned in close to him. He didn’t pull away, so I whispered in his ear, “You can take me as hard as you want to. Do things your precious Emily would never let you.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. He placed his hands on my thighs, about the only part of me which didn’t hurt at the moment. “She lets me do pretty much what I want.”
“I’m already tied up and at your mercy,” I whispered, then licked the edge of his ear. His hands slid up further so they were flanking my groin, his fingertips on my hips. “And you want to make sure everything… works, don’t you?” He still hesitated, his big brain overriding his little one. I shifted and pressed into his hands, offering myself to him. “And wouldn’t it be perverse knowing that I went to my death with your cum in me?”
He backed up just enough to stare into my eyes. I read the interest there, and bit my lip, thinking I had won. “I’m not an idiot,” he said for a third time, his voice steady. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice….”
“God dammit!” I swore, headbutting him. My forehead hit the bridge of his nose, though
I didn’t break it as he leaned back fast enough to avoid a serious hit. His hands clamped down on my upper arms. I thrashed in his grip. “Let me go right now, you bastard!”
“Settle down,” he said, his voice firm. I imagined it was his voice he used to try to settle one of Emily’s whining fits. “You’re going to tear the sutures open. Just calm down!”
“You fucking asshole!” I screamed at him, then spat on him. Truth be told, though I continued to buck and squirm in his grasp, I didn’t have the energy to do much more to protest. The fight, the cuts, the day had taken it out of me. I was hungry. I hurt. My left eye throbbed. Even though it appeared I was having a tizzy fit to end all tizzy fits, it was an act. I let my thrashes go quieter--that was the easy part--and tried to look defeated. In reality, I had to get him to let his guard down so I could get the Clarity from my pocket without him noticing. If it worked, I’d escape. If it didn’t, I’d figure something else out. I still had my picks and knives, after all.
As I wound down, his grip eased on me though the annoyed look didn’t. “I don’t know what I saw in you,” he said when I took a deep breath then slumped in the chair, acting more tired than I really was. “You’re just like she is, going with your first emotion and running with it.”
What she’d said to me in the tunnel came floating back. “Don’t you compare me to her,” I growled, trying to sound as menacing as I could.
“Why not? You’re both the same, except you’re not clingy,” he replied letting go of me as I stopped moving altogether. Harry took a few steps back and stroked his goatee.
“This comes from a man who follows his dick,” I snapped. “And we’re not anything alike, so stop trying your pop psychology on me. It ain’t gonna work, son.”
He pulled out another chair and sat down, which was not what I wanted. I let my cuffed hands rest in my lap, more towards the right which held the Clarity. I felt the bottle with my forearm, and tried pushing it up a little towards the top of the pocket.
“It’s not pop psychology,” Harry said, his tone just this side of superior. “It’s psychology-psychology. Women are more emotional, more needy than men.”
“Yeah, you did your research great on me, dick,” I replied.
At that, his face soured. “I did.”
“So that’s why instead of knocking me out when I was vulnerable, or slipping me a roofie in my food, you decided you wanted to fuck instead,” I said, my voice full of scorn.
“Anybody should have been dead to the world after getting a beating like and and expending so much energy,” he said, irritated. The way he settled back in his chair also made it clear he wasn’t planning on leaving me alone. “You left maybe a half hour before they arrived.” He held his hand out, his fingers a half an inch apart. “It was that close.”
“Still screwed you in the end,” I laughed. Leaning forward, I smiled at him, sweet and nice, “I hope the memory of what I did to you hurts still. I know it hurt during. Such a sweet, sweet song you sang to me.”
His face darkened, which made me laugh harder. “I get joy knowing you’ll be going through a lot worse,” he said, leaning back. Harry shifted in his seat again, unable to hide his discomfort. “As you said, they want you alive for a reason and it’s not going to be for anything good.”
I shrugged it off. “I’ll get out, eventually, and come find you again. Make it last longer next time. Or maybe, since your nanotech keeps healing you, just keep you around for shits and giggles. Let you be my torture bunny anytime I need a quick pick me up.”
“Good luck finding me,” he retorted and glanced at his watch.
“You plan on retiring someplace warm? Tropical maybe?” I shook my head. “There’s no happy ending here for you, Harry.”
“There’s no way you’ll be able to find me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, still smiling. “You know about magic users right?”
That caught his attention and he looked at me, staring me down. He might have been uncomfortable, but he wasn’t afraid or cowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Sorcerers, magic users… their magic stuff,” I went on. “I’ve got a friend--”
He gave a curt laugh. “You’ve got a friend. That’s rich.”
“I do,” I said, feeling just a touch wounded by that. “He does jobs--”
He laughed harder, and it was my turn to shift. “You pay him. That’s so fucking awesome.”
“Alistair,” I said, snapping the word. “He does jobs for me, and yes, I pay him, but he’s got my back. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t looking for me and his girlfriend now. You know, the one you let Richter haul off to Axis.”
That got his attention. “She’s dating him?” he asked. When I nodded, he shook his head, but he didn’t disbelieve me. I had a rep for telling the truth because I always did. “It’ll be longer before he looks, and he’ll look for her first… not you.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said. “You know him. If you’ve seen him in action?” He shook his head again. “Right, well, his aura is a sickly kind of green, like… I don’t know. Something rotting.” I shuddered. “You don’t want to know why. But I’ve seen him work his magic, and it’s the same color as his aura, from what I’ve been told. And Richter? He’s got that fake blood looking crimson, like in Phantasm. The dayglow blood, probably because he’s a necromancer.”
“Your point is?”
“Your beloved Emily’s magic is black.” With that, I leaned back and let him put two and two together. I watched the realization dawn a half second later, though he controlled his facial expression pretty well. “I think she’d burn anywhere near the equator anyway. Too pale.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but a door banged opened downstairs. Both of us swiveled to look that direction, though nothing was visible from the upper office window. I did take the opportunity to try and get to the Clarity, but he turned back to me too fast.
“Time’s up,” he stated.
When Emily opened the door, Harry stood up and crossed the room to her. She moved to the side, and he gave her a kiss on the cheek. However, It wasn’t the puke inducing kiss that brought vile thoughts to my mind, but the one who walked in after her. Tall, lean, and in a suit, my attempted kidnapper from a few months ago smiled at me. She had fled when we’d defeated her companions and rescued Gerard. He hadn’t been their target, I had. Her hair was still cut short, shorter than Rebekah’s, making her lean face look harder than it was. She wore shades so I couldn’t see her eyes, but her amused smile spoke volumes.
“How wonderful,” she said. Her head canted ever so slightly and I knew she was looking at Harry. “I see someone can deliver on their promises.”
I felt rather than saw him bristle at that. Emily stepped between them, breaking her line of sight. “Delivery, now payment,” she said, sounding like a professional, though I knew she wasn’t. He was right about her being emotional. I wonder if he knew exactly how unstable she was, spurred on by his many betrayals of her. Learning the dark arts couldn’t have helped that.
I shook my head and huffed a sigh, knowing what was coming next. I wasn’t disappointed. “Of course,” she said, stepping into the room and to the side. Behind her were two of those guardians I’d seen before. They were tough, almost impossible to beat. The slick black suit glowed in the fluorescent light, and the circuitry which was imbedded in the head to toe jumpsuit shone softly silver. The helmet was like the helmets from the dead slave workers in The Black Hole. It covered their entire face, reflecting the room back to itself. Numbers and letters in silver ran across the front of it like a computer screen, spouting out gibberish for all to see. Silent and creepy, the two guardians stalked forward. I coiled my feet under me, getting ready for action.
“Kill them both and bring our wayward child to me,” the woman said, sounding and looking bored.
“You promised!” Emily said. A bright green glow erupted around Harry’s hands as she spoke. He had been ready for b
etrayal, since they’d turned him in to Titan last time when he hadn’t delivered me. Emily’s hands mirrored his darkly, save that the energy around hers sucked up the light.
The first guardian wasted no time in blasting at Harry, who moved out of the way nimbly. The second stretched up with its arms, intent on bringing them down on Emily. She raised her hands above her. A black cascading shield erupted from them. I fully expected her to go down in a heap, but the guardian’s fists bounced off of it. It staggered back, footing unsure. I bet they hated magic too. The woman stepped out of the way, sliding along the wall, and I took my shot, launching myself at the door. The second guardian swung at me, but an eldritch blast from Emily knocked it away into the wall by the door. I ran, grabbing the railing right outside and jumping over it. I landed heavily on the crates below, softening the shock to my feet by rolling, as if I were landing after a parachute dive. I felt the gash in my side open up again. Blood seeped through the bandage and trickling down.
Freedom had never tasted so sweet. Once I climbed to my feet, I ran, hopping down the various crates and equipment until I hit the floor. The building shuddered with the fight upstairs. Light and darkness spewed from the doors and windows, spilling into the warehouse. A single glance was all I spared, then I ran straight for the closest exit, weaving my way in and out of the crazy aisles I’d memorized before. The door loomed ahead, and I set my hands on it, twisting the knob and jerking it open.
I plowed straight into the woman from upstairs. “Tsk, tsk,” she said. “You’ll learn better than to run.” She raised up a neural disrupter as I tried to slam the door in her face. My reactions were too slow. My body convulsed as she zapped me and I fell. Another zap and I was out.
When I woke, I was in the same warehouse, though on the bottom floor in the center. I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling. My knives were gone, their familiar weight vanished from the small of my back. I felt around my body slowly, looking for more injuries. I didn’t find any, but I did discover my lockpick set had vanished as well, though the bottle was still in my front pocket. They must have thought they were just aspirin. Bully for me.
