by Mandy Rosko
For the second time since Cindy had been in Jack's home, she found herself chained up and needing to use the bathroom.
She realized that she probably wouldn't have to wait long when the doorbell rang two minutes later.
Cindy had never heard of case workers in the hunting business before, but probably because she'd always been taught to only fear the hunters, the collectors and the labs, nothing else.
Maybe the case workers were part of the life that only hunters and collectors had to deal with. Maybe whoever was coming was just here to check up on Jack and make sure that his permits and licenses weren't expired.
Cindy told herself that over and over as she listened to Jack's footsteps above her, moving to answer the door, and then stepping aside as another person entered. More than one, actually. Cindy wasn't very good at counting people based on their footsteps, but there had to be at least three extra people up there.
Jack's voice was muffled as he spoke to his case worker, but Cindy could still make out the tone he used.
He wasn't happy.
Cindy had a hard time catching her breath all of a sudden. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong, and she started pulling against the chains that held her to the wall even before she heard the footsteps walking toward the basement door.
The damned things were as strong as ever, and the bolts wouldn't be moved from their place. The door opened at the top of the stairs, but she still couldn’t make out what Jack was saying.
"I was told I had three days with her. You can't just show up here with a piece of paper and think you can take her."
"I listened to the recording of your call, Mr. Marilla. You were eager to be rid of her then so what does it matter if we came earlier than you expected?"
"It matters because she's a pyro, and you are a pair of pencil pushers with only one collector behind you. I thought there was going to be a team coming here."
Cindy's heart rate spiked when she heard them on the other side of the door. She was being taken today. The collectors had come and there was one on the other side of that door who was going to take her away.
She groaned and pulled at her chains some more. She tried to summon the fire inside of her but she could barely feel anything at all. There was only the tiniest spark instead of the wild inferno she once had trouble controlling. She couldn't escape these chains with only a spark. She couldn't defend herself or even have a fighting chance.
She was going to be taken away from Jack. Again.
The door opened while she was still furiously yanking on her chains. The shackles bit into her skin, and the frustration was enough to bring a few angry tears to her eyes.
"Why isn't she in the box?" asked the woman who was probably Jack's case worker. Cindy didn't give the bitch the time of day. She didn't want to even look at her.
"It was scaring her," Jack said, and Cindy jumped a little when she realized Jack was standing above her, then he knelt down and took hold of her forearms, stopping her from pulling on the chains and tearing her skin. "Cindy, stop, you're hurting yourself."
"Don't do this, Jack, it wasn't me. I swear to God it wasn't me."
Now she was full on crying. Probably ugly crying, too. That was just great.
"You're both on a first name basis? Not something I would have expected, considering what you accuse her of," the bitch case worker said.
That seemed to stun him. "You know about that? I didn't write it in her file."
"We're not idiots, of course we know you hunted her for the fire incident. Our records show she was living in the same area as you at the time."
"Jack," Cindy said, unable to stop her sniffling. She couldn't catch her breath and her chest was starting to physically hurt from the pain and pressure of not being able to take a proper breath.
"You need to calm down, okay? Cindy, look at me," Jack said, and he squeezed her forearms a bit, staring at her hard like he could get her to just magically get control of raging emotions that were running amok and making her body shake.
"We have a sedative for that," the bitch case worker said, and Cindy finally looked up at the three other people who were in this basement with her.
The second case worker, a man wearing grey pants and a white button down with a pocket protector for his many pens and a clipboard in hand, was studiously taking notes, and then there was the collector.
He was the size of a small giant, if that made any sense. He could be a basketball player. The guy was at least six foot five, and he wore the standard white uniform and helmet with the tinted visor that all collectors were expected to put on before they went out and took the paranormals away.
All three of them wore gold badges. Though hunters and collectors were from different factions of the same organization, the symbols were the same. A hawk in flight. The only difference was that, on the collector, the hawk had small prey in its talons.
The blue-eyed collector had a cold stare as he looked down at Cindy through the clear visor, cold enough to make her shiver. He had his nightstick at his hip, and Cindy could see the folded shield on his other side. All that aside, she was most concerned with the syringe gun that was in his hand.
Her panic overflowed in the form of helpless shouting. "Jack! Jack, don't do this! Jack!"
"Step out of the way, Mr. Marilla. We can take it from here," said the collector.
Jack held out his hand, stopping the man from coming forward. "Okay, hold on one second, this isn't right. You don't need to give her that."
"She's in a panic. Her powers will be at their most dangerous until her heart rate goes down."
"I told you she's wearing spelled cuffs. Will you stop!" Jack snapped, jumping to his feet and pushing against the collector's chest with enough force that the man stumbled back. He stayed on his feet though, and there was real anger in his eyes as he and Jack stared each other down.
Bitch case worker was immediately on her phone, her fingers flying.
"Okay, what are you doing?" Jack snapped.
"Letting the others know that there's a conflict of interests here," she said.
"What others?"
She looked away from the screen of her phone and up at Jack. "It would've been easier if you would just let us do our job, but there are other collectors right behind us. They were running late."
"Late?" Jack asked, though it was hardly a question, and he was sneering at the woman now as well.
"You said it yourself that there's usually more than one collector. Now, we three here decided to come and get this over with because it was on our way, and we got here first. If you're going to create a problem then our backup will need to know about it, you'll be put into a pair of bracelets, stripped of your license, and fined for interfering with our mission. That doesn't include any potential prison time for endangering the lives of a collector and two agents of your government. I'm leaving it up to you whether or not I let the others know you’re causing these problems. I haven't sent the message yet."
"You really are a bitch."
Bitch case worker glared down at her, and Cindy realized she'd spoken out loud, which was fine with her because she didn't give a damn about the feelings of a woman who wanted to strap her down to a table and dissect her brain.
"What're you going to do with her when you take her?" Jack asked.
Cindy's heart flipped, and she had a hard time catching her breath. This was going to happen. It was going to happen and she was going to be taken away from Jack. He didn't believe her and he didn't want her. She could already see herself on a table, being dissected by people who wanted to figure out how her powers worked, and determine whether a profit could be made of them.
"Screw you Jack!" she snapped, her anger consuming her self-control, and all of it was directed at him. She yelled louder to mask the slicing pain in her heart. It would've hurt less if the man had stabbed her through the ribs with a thin blade. "I didn't do it! You bastard! I didn't do it!"
"Does it matter what happen
s?"
"Yes it does fucking matters. What if she's telling the truth and didn't kill my family? There could be other paranormals out there who are guilty and going unpunished because you're too busy punishing her."
Cindy tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Was this the sign she'd wanted? Was Jack starting to believe her? If it was, then he wasn't invoking a whole lot of confidence. It mostly sounded like he just didn't want to take the risk that she was innocent, but was still leaning towards handing her over.
Bitch case worker sighed, lifted her glasses off her nose and put them on top of her head, and crossed her arms. "She's in our custody now. All I can say is that she will be receiving the same treatment as other fugitives. Will you step out of the way now? Or am I going to have to click send? You wouldn't be the first hunter to turn into a sympathizer, so I understand if you're having trouble with this. Don't make things anymore difficult than they need to be."
Jack's lips thinned, and his eyes narrowed at the woman in front of him. Cindy had never seen that look on his face before.
Jack must've come to a decision because he then reached into his pocket, and then he tossed something in Cindy's direction.
She didn't know what it was but it was instinct to reach out and catch the tiny thing. When she opened her palm, the key to her cuffs was in her hand.
The second she realized what she was holding onto, the collector noticed as well, and he surged forward just as Jack did, holding the man back.
"Get out of here!" Jack yelled, but Cindy knew he was yelling at her. Her hands were shaking, and she almost missed the tiny keyhole, but she got it into each cuff, and the metal shackles popped right off of her wrists.
She ran for the door.
Bitch case worker pushed her male colleague into Cindy's way, and the poor guy's wide eyes behind those thick black rimmed glasses almost made him look like a small animal about to be run over.
"What are you doing, Steve? Grab her!" Bitch case worker screamed.
"I..."
Cindy didn't have time to feel sorry for him. She pushed him out of the way, and she put a little fire behind her shove.
Steve screamed and jumped back as the flames jumped out of Cindy's hands and licked at his clothes and body. As she ran past him, she could make out the way he jumped around and slapped at himself, trying to put out the small fire before it burned his skin.
"Come back here!" Bitch case worker yelled as Cindy launched herself up the stairs.
Like there was a chance of that happening.
She burst through the door leading to the first level of the house. She looked around wildly for the direction of the front door. Escape was her top priority.
Jack's pained scream made her stop and she froze in her tracks, breathing heavily.
Jack wasn't the only one screaming. Bitch case worker was down there really giving Steve and the collector a piece of her mind.
Cindy didn't even know what the woman was saying. Adrenaline was making it hard for her to think, otherwise she might not have turned around and ran back down the stair.
"We'll handle this here! Go upstairs and catch her before she gets away!" Bitch case worker screamed at the collector as he put Jack's hands behind his back and put shackles on him. Jack was face down on the concrete floor, and he wasn't moving.
She'd never wanted to hurt anyone with her powers, but after what happened with Stephanie and Stacy, she'd made a deal with herself that she could justify it in times like these.
Cindy whistled, getting the collector and bitch case worker’s attention, who both looked up at her just in time to face a fireball.
Chapter Fifteen
Jack woke up to the sound of panicked shrieking, and it was hot in the room. Too hot, and his ears were ringing.
He'd thought he was just feeling a jolt of pain in his arm from where the collector had broken it. Then the man had punched him hard in the eye hard enough to knock Jack out.
Strong motherfucker.
He groaned and shifted, and the heat in his arm, which was twisted behind his back, flared up so badly it felt like liquid fire under his skin.
It turned out that wasn't the case at all. There was a small flame right next to his body. It looked like a clipboard and several sheets of paper were quickly burning.
"What the hell?" Jack groaned and looked around some more. One of the case workers, the male, was lying down on the concrete floor, and he wasn't moving. The fact that his chest was peacefully rising and falling indicated that he'd fainted. The scent of burning metal and plastic filled Jack’s nostrils.
He noticed the collector’s needle-gun on the floor, destroyed. It was smoking and black in some places, and the sedative was oozing out of the broken glass. Another small fire was about ten feet away from him, and it took him a second to realize it was the case worker's phone. There was also the smell of burning hair all around him.
Cindy had done this. She'd actually tried to fight back, and now she was really going to get in trouble. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She was supposed to run for her life!
Jack tried to move, but he ended up hissing through the pain in his arm, and he called out through clenched teeth. "Cindy? Cindy!"
"I'm here! Jack! I'm up here!"
He hadn't expected a reply, and her call shocked him, but she was coming. He could hear her feet clumsily rushing down the stairs to get to him.
Her body was still surrounded by flames, her red hair almost vanishing within them. She looked like a phoenix; a goddess. She was so damned beautiful and exotic, that he forgot all about the pain in his arm as he stared at her.
She fell to her knees in front of him, reached out to touch him, and then stopped herself, as if noticing for herself for the first time that she was still on fire. "Shit!"
Cindy yanked her hands back, and Jack watched, fascinated, as the flames around her vanished, as if all the air in the room had been sucked out.
She smiled weakly at him, but he could see that her body was trembling. "Hopefully I didn't melt the key."
"The key?" Jack asked, and hissed again when Cindy leaned over him and unlocked the cuffs around his wrists.
Cindy winced and helped him with his arm. It was a pain in the ass getting it curled around to his front where he could hold onto it.
She'd gone up against a collector. That bothered him too much.
"You fought the collector? You won?" he asked.
Cindy reached out and gently touched his face, her fingers tracing over his quickly swelling eye. "I heard what they were doing to you. I couldn't just leave you down here."
"You should have. Cindy, do you know what happens to paranormals who fight against the collectors? He would've been within his rights to do whatever he wanted to you. He could've killed you." Jack paused for a second, a question quickly forming in his mind. "Where is he? Is he dead?"
"I didn't kill him! He's upstairs!" Cindy said, and the way her voice cracked told him exactly how close she was to crying.
Cindy was definitely not a fighter, in spite of her powers.
"I wasn't accusing you. Wasn't trying to, anyway, but what did you do to them?"
Cindy ran her hands through her hair, which made it look even wilder than before. "The collector's knocked out upstairs, bitch case worker got away, though. We need to get out of here."
Jack tried to think of anything Cindy could do with her power over fire that would allow her to harmlessly render a man, a collector no less, unconscious, and nothing came to mind.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing, it wasn't even me," Cindy said.
"It was me."
Jack looked back to the door, and he was shocked to hell at the sight of Jessica, standing there in the doorway, hand on her hip and staring right at Cindy and Jack.
"When did you get here?" Jack asked, and with only a minimal amount of struggling and Cindy pulling on his good arm, he got to his feet.
"You know her?" Cindy asked, staying close to Jack and h
olding her arms around his waist, as if he needed help standing.
He didn't correct her to stand on his own because he liked the way she held him. He did, however, take one step forward and angle his body so that he was in front of Cindy a little. Jessica was still a hunter, like him, and with her here, things were a little more complicated.
"That's Jessica," Jack said, watching the other woman carefully, noting every twitch of her hand, and the way she shifted her weight from one leg to the other.
She clearly didn't want to be here right now.
Cindy paused, clearly recalling who Jessica was. "But...you never said she was a paranormal!"
Jack frowned. "She's not."
"This really isn't the time to be having this conversation. We need to get out of here, right now," Jessica said.
Jack couldn't look away from her, though. She looked as normal as ever in her black heels and grey skirt. Her long hair was pulled back tightly behind her head in a ponytail. There was nothing paranormal about her. However, he'd once said the same thing about Cindy.
"How did she handle the collector?" Jack asked.
Right about then, the case worker still in the room with them groaned, shifted, and then looked up at them with wide and frightened eyes. Some of the hair on the man's head was burned away, his glasses were missing and his clothing was charred in some places.
The poor guy looked ready to scream. Or start running. This obviously wasn't what he'd signed on for.
Jessica's hand shot out, and a blast of cold blue ice flew from her fingertips, like a snowball, and it struck the guy right in the face with such force that he fell backwards and even skidded across the floor on the trail of ice that had suddenly appeared beneath him. He didn't move, but his chest continued to rise and fall, so he was alive. He was knocked out. He'd likely stay unconscious for a while.
Jack slowly turned his eyes away from the man on the floor to his ex-girlfriend. Her hand was blue and glassy from what she'd just done. A tiny bit of steam even wafted from her ice blue fingers in the warm room. As her hand and fingers moved and flexed as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, the blue slowly vanished, replaced with her regular pink skin.
