by Katy Jordan
A tear escaped from the corner of his eye and travelled down the side of his swollen cheek. He wanted to see her.
Just one last time.
His gaze rested on one of the men at the back of the room.
The deliveryman.
Jack could recognise those tattoos and beady eyes anywhere after that day. The man just stared at him, still as a statue.
Dead in the face.
Expressionless.
Dead.
The blood around his mouth sat dry, the cord around his neck unwavering, the hook on the wall slanting downward under the man’s weight, the tip of his toes dangling just above the floor and no more.
Horror hit Jack like a sucker punch to the gut. He threw himself around frantically, his chair screeching across the floor.
His head shaking uncontrollably from side to side was a scene from a mental institution. Abruptly, he sat forward and let out a scream like he had never screamed before.
With a look of confusion, Neon looked around behind him at the two dead bodies hanging from the wall and then back at Jack.
“I forgot about them,” he claimed, turning his back and walking over to them, eyeing them up and down as though admiring the Mona Lisa. “People hang up paintings or their kid’s drawings, but… this masterpiece couldn’t be hidden away now, could it?”
“How… how did…” Jack started, but as much as he tried he couldn’t finish. Neon picked up the candleholder so as to move the light closer to them, and held it up to their faces.
“I snapped their necks. See?” he said, gesturing to their neck area. “See that wee bit sticking out the side there? Do you know how to do that?”
Neon turned to Jack menacingly.
“I’ll show you!”
He put the candle back down on the floor and went around behind Jack. He placed the palm of his hand firmly on the side of Jack’s head.
“I put this hand here… he’d be lying face down on the floor obviously… but I put this hand here on the side of his face, aligning the underside of my middle knuckle with his temple,” he explained, demonstrating to an enchained Jack while he talked, “you hold it firm, and then with your other hand, you just punch right into the side of his neck, but when you do, apply force to the side of his head.”
For a minute, Jack thought he was actually going to do it to him. He thought Neon was going to end it all there.
For a minute, Jack actually wanted him to.
But, he didn’t.
“There’s a certain satisfaction from doing it that way,” Neon explained further, “it’s either that incredulous noise that it makes… SNAP! Or it’s just the idea that you’ve literally detached their head from the rest of their body without breaking the skin. Or it’s both.”
Neon picked up the candle again, this time walking back over to Jack.
“Let me get a look at you.”
He leaned in, assessing Jack’s red puffy cheek, his bullet wound, the nicks and cuts across his body inflicted by Neon’s knife.
“There isn’t as much as I thought there would be,” he thought out loud, looking down at his legs. “Just a few grazes here and there.”
Without looking up, he smiled.
An awful, demented, sinister smile.
“I know, I thought so, too,” he glanced up at Jack’s curious expression. “You could use a little more.”
Before he had time to consider what Neon was talking about, a searing pain hit Jack’s chest and slithered down to his stomach. He couldn’t even decipher what it was as he clenched his eyes shut and let out a cry.
The hot wax singed its way through Jack’s skin, every pore melting into nothing, the smell of cooling wax and burnt flesh filling the air.
“Oops, sorry!” Neon chuckled sarcastically.
He held the candle up in front of his face, staring at the flame like he was seeing one for the first time.
“I’ve always found the fire to be extremely interesting, haven’t you?” he asked Jack.
Neon bent down to Jack’s feet, which were securely attached on to the legs of the chair, and yanked off his shoes. He threw them behind him, one of which smacked against the legs of one of Neon’s masterpieces, although he never looked around to notice.
Jack tried to lean in any direction he could as a means of observing Neon, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get a decent view.
“I just love how fire keeps us warm when we’re cold… we can’t be too warm though, or we’ll die. But, we can’t be too cold either, or we’ll die. Life is so funny, don’t you think?”
Jack said nothing. The time had come.
Neon had officially lost his mind.
“I’ll show you what I mean,” he insisted.
Jack retracted his last thought about Neon. He hadn’t lost his mind.
He knew exactly what he was doing when he held the candle against Jack’s toes, slowly running along each one, and then moving over to his right foot. He could feel the soft skin turn to liquid in seconds, his socks smouldering and singing, nipping its way up his foot.
Jack was losing the energy to express pain anymore. The thing he felt most was merely just reluctance now.
Reluctance at being with Neon, with having to listen to him, with having to endure his torture methods, with not being with Bullet.
Reluctance at being alive right now.
“Come on, Jack,” Neon teased, “you know that as soon as you start talking, as soon as you start telling me the truth, I’ll start to go easy on you. I have all the time in the world, and I have very few hobbies; I don’t mind filling my time with inflicting pain on you. I’m really rather enjoying myself actually.”
Jack breathed deeply.
The room was spinning.
Earth’s movement in the solar system had sped up immensely, and Jack couldn’t keep up. Neon was breaking away into three different figures and then back into one, and Jack couldn’t work out which one was the real thing.
“Why did you really come back? Why did you lie?” Neon probed.
Jack tried to talk, but words still wouldn’t form. His throat was extremely dry, unlike the rest of him. He tried to lick his lips, but nothing worked. He was completely parched, and his mouth had a horrible taste.
Watching him, Neon had an epiphany.
“Hang on… I think I had this fine gentleman bring me a bottle of water a while ago,” he said, looking at the unidentified man hanging from the wall.
“Yeah, I did, because when he went to get it, that’s when I killed my friend over here,” he continued, referring to the tattooed deliveryman.
He walked up to the dead man that Jack didn’t know and reached around behind him. Pulling his hand out, he presented a bottle of water to Jack, who only by looking at it, realised just how thirsty he was.
Sauntering over to him, Neon unscrewed the bottle cap and leaned Jack’s head back. Carefully, he dribbled a little water into his mouth. Loving the sensation of the fluid washing over his very dry mouth, Jack slurped at the water for not even a second.
As quick as it had begun, it stopped, and Neon downed the rest of the bottle. He crunched the empty plastic container in his hand and threw it to the side.
“Fair’s fair,” he informed Jack, “I’ve been doing all of the work, all you’ve done is just sit there.”
He walked around to face Jack, and leaning his hands on Jack’s thighs and pressing into his newly placed cuts, Jack grimaced with pain.
Neon smiled.
“So… why did you betray me?”
Jack was tired. Exhausted.
The will to keep trying, or even to live, was gone.
“Bec… because I fell in love,” he croaked.
“Awwwwww! Isn’t that just adorable?” Neon almost seemed convincing, but in a flash, he was back to his menacing self. “Fell in love, what kind of pussy excuse is that? Okay, lover boy, fell in love with who? The Fuschia Flare? She got Stockholm Syndrome now?”
Jack was like a half
shut knife. His eye felt heavy and his muscles felt weak.
He didn’t know how long he had been here for, but it felt like days. He didn’t know how much longer he could cope with this, but he really wanted it to end now, in any way possible.
“The Black Bullet… she’s alive,” Jack murmured, “and she’s going to kill you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Bullet quickly marched down the passageway, her gun extended in front of her, ready for any guards that might be keeping a lookout. Even the door at the end of the infinite passageway was fearsome. Like an old Victorian gate, its dark brown door was held in place by black metal hinges that protracted across part of the door front.
Like the house of a Lord.
Bullet stood outside the door, her heart a pounding timpani, her breathing rapid, her pores open to the environment around her and sweat free falling from them. Her leather jacket squeaked as it stuck to her damp skin, loose strands of hair matted to her forehead.
A noise behind her had her duck down and do a 180, pointing her gun to the door. As quick as it started, it stopped.
An odd, echoey clunking sound. Once again, she was surrounded by nothing but the sound of the flames licking the air around them. She listened intently as Jack gave her up.
As he admitted he was in love with her.
As he said she was going to kill Neon.
That was her cue.
She kicked the door in, surprised at how little it moved under her tenacious move, and flung her hands out in front of her, ready to fire her gun.
“STOP!” she yelled, pointing her gun aimlessly around the dark room.
Nothing.
She flicked the switch on her torch and shone it around cautiously.
There was no one there. No Jack. No Neon.
No nothing.
Nothing but a speaker sitting on the floor.
Bullet walked over to it, confused and horror-struck as Neon and Jack’s voices continued to project from it.
“She’s alive?” he grilled Jack.
“Yeah… and she’s pissed at you…” Jack croaked.
“And you knew the whole time?”
Silence.
Jack’s screams penetrated the air, almost bursting the speakers, and Bullet ran from the room.
“Youth, we were played! There’s a speaker in Neon’s bunker, it seems like it might be getting recorded live, can you track the feed?”
“I’m on it. Get out of there!”
Bullet made her way to the end of the passageway and climbed the stairs to the bunker door.
It was locked. Confused and panic-stricken, she fumbled with the handle, but the door didn’t budge.
The noise.
Someone locked her in.
“Gecko, Sparrow, Tide, get out! Now!” she cried, continuing to claw frantically at the door.
“What about you?” Sparrow shrieked.
“I’ll meet you all at HQ! GO!”
Bullet took a step back and began forcefully thrusting her foot at the door. It began to loosen, but not enough. She could hear people shouting on the other side.
They were heading for the old sewage pipe.
“Sparrow, take position behind the sniper. You’re going to have company. Tide and Gecko, run back to the open panel and make your way to the van,” she instructed.
“Copy that,” Sparrow replied.
“Stay safe, Bullet,” Tide pleaded.
“We’re on our way to the van, but we’re not leaving without you,” Gecko informed her in between breaths, as he ran with Tide back up the sewage line.
Bullet fired a couple of shots at the hinges before twisting to fire at the lock, and gave the door one final blow with her entire body weight. In the small hallway, there was an outcry from multiple voices in the main hall.
“She broke the door, she’s out. Take aim!” a man cried.
Guns cocked and clicked, and silence settled in the warehouse.
A gunfire had Bullet jump out of her skin.
Her sniper.
“One down,” Sparrow reported.
Sparrow… his drone.
Bullet looked up at the gap between the wooden wall and the ceiling. Bits of the wood were crooked, so she positioned her foot on a piece that was sticking out of the otherwise flush wall near the bottom and, fumbling slightly, thrust herself up to the gap, reaching it with her ripped gloves and taking a firm hold.
She positioned her dangling leg on another piece of uneven wood, trying to get a half decent stance, and pulled herself up to the gap. Her head just fit through and no more, as she cocked it to the side and navigated herself through.
A quick head count showed that twelve men and one woman stood outside, guns aimed at the only exit to where Bullet was. She swung her arms through and hung over the gap. Nobody could see her.
“What’s she doing?” a man whispered.
“She’s surrounded. Outnumbered. She’s probably cowering in the corner like a baby.”
“Neon said she’s lethal, so don’t bank on that, Brian,” the woman snarled.
With no hesitation, Bullet began to fire.
She made her way along each man, all of them falling like dominos, no one having a chance to fire back as they tried to work out where the shots were coming from.
The woman stood watching in horror and dropped her weapon.
“DON’T SHOOT! DON’T SHOOT!” she cried helplessly. “Wherever you are, I’ve lowered my weapon. Please don’t shoot.”
“Kick it away,” Bullet instructed.
The woman burled around and looked behind her, trying to find the source of Bullet’s voice.
“Kick it away,” Bullet forced again.
The woman kicked the gun across the room and Bullet lowered herself down the wall. She flung open the door, gun clearly exposed and marched straight over to the woman who was backing away from her.
Bullet slammed her against the wall, sticking her face into the whimpering woman’s.
“You work for Neon?”
“Unfortunately,” said the woman.
“What’s your name?”
“Anna… Anna Hamilton. Please don’t kill me.”
“I’m not going to kill you, Anna. Where is Neon?”
“I-I-I don’t know. I swear, he went into that bunker yesterday and I haven’t seen him since,” Anna claimed. “He said you were dead, and he had to deal with a traitor.”
“Jack?” Bullet probed.
“Yeah, yeah the Burns guy. Jack Burns. He went down there with him, I swear I never saw them leave.”
“Why are you here, Anna?” pried Bullet as Anna began to cry. “Just tell me why.”
“My husband went missing… Neon promised to…”
“Help you find him?”
“Yeah… how did you…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Bullet, “did you find him?”
“Yeah, he was dead. A stab wound to the neck. But, Neon wouldn’t let me leave, he said I owed him and he could really use my skills.”
“Skills?”
“I’m a prison officer.”
Bullet slowly released her grip on Anna.
“Go. Get out of here. But, whatever you do, don’t go back to wherever you’re from. That’s the first place he’ll go looking for you,” Bullet said, as she walked towards the door that would lead her to the old sewage line.
Anna went to leave and turned back.
“Hey… umm… only one man went to the sewage line. Everyone else turned back when they heard you shoot the door. It’s all clear,” she informed Bullet. “But, the other guards will be on their way.”
As she stood at the door to leave, Bullet nodded to Anna with gratitude and ran as fast as she could down the corridors, making her way to the condemned section of the warehouse.
“Sparrow, don’t shoot, I’m coming in.”
She approached the trap door and dropped down into the sewage pipe, the smell there to greet her once again. Sparrow was gone.
Not taking any time to linger, Bullet ran up the pipe.
Noise followed her.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw three figures drop in and chase after her. Guns started to fire. Bullet started to zig-zag. She thrust her arm backwards and fired, hoping that the bullet hit someone.
The footsteps maintained. She heard no one fall.
She fired again, and again. And again.
From the sound of the struggle, only one out of the three was chasing her now.
The light shining in from the night sky was visible at the location where they entered the pipe a while ago. It travelled towards her until she stopped underneath it and leapt up, grabbing the edge.
Bullet started pulling herself up, in a frenzy, gasping and panting, shaking with adrenaline.
Something pulled her back down.
Bullet landed flat on her back, splashing into the sludge, the stench covering her. The man bowled over her feet and fell down face first. He barely even made it to his hands and knees when Bullet fired, catching him lethally in the back of the head.
The man slumped back on to his front. Dead.
“Bullet?” Rocket yelled in her ear. “Bullet, are you there? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” she whispered, relieved that she could hear nothing but silence, “is everyone okay?”
“Sparrow just got here, Tide and Gecko made it back a while ago. I’ll meet you at the drop off point, you know where it is?” Rocket asked.
“I know what road it’s on, I’ll find you, just get out of here.”
“The outside looks clear, you should be good to go,” Youth claimed, as he held on to Sparrow’s tablet.
“Copy that,” Bullet replied, as she stood up and took one last leap at the edge of the open panel, and pulled herself out.
Exhausted, she rolled off the side of the pipe and on to the cold, frosty grass field. She scrambled to her feet and ran along the edge of the field, the grass crunching under her boots, branches and twigs whipping her face ferociously.
Her small cuts nipped in the chilly air as she ran over the uneven earth, the roadside coming closer and closer. Out of nowhere, machine guns fired from the warehouse perimeter. She ducked low, still running, still frenzied, still panicked.
