by P. S. Power
It was kind of a joyless place really, compared even to the hospital, which had looked sharp and refined. Then, police stations always had that kind of feel to them. No one really wanted to be there, so no one bothered trying to fix them up in particular.
A crash came from inside the room in front of them, a few raised voices yelled things that she couldn't make out and the sounds of pounding feet. Suddenly a man ran through the door, pushing past Mr. Vernor hard, sending him slamming back into a wall just under an empty row of metal hooks that reminded her of the coat closet of an elementary school. They were matte black and high off the ground, about six foot, which worked out well, because that meant that Mr. Vernor didn't hit any of them when he impacted with the paneling beneath with a thud.
From inside the room running toward them Daniel Chuan yelled.
“Stop him!”
Chapter six
Gwen hooked the running man's arm with her own and spun him into the opposite wall of the narrow hallway as he tried to push past her. As he rebounded, she disengaged, punching him in the side of the head with her right hand, a sharp pain running through her chest, making her pull back slightly, lessening the force of the blow.
Grabbing his hair with both hands, she walked backwards quickly, pulling first until he lost his balance, then pushing his head into the floor, the force going straight down suddenly, making him fall flat on his face. When he was on the ground, lying mainly on his stomach, she let go of his head, a swear word of some kind coming out of him that she couldn't quite make out, his mouth being smooshed against the floor a bit. He tried to get up, propping himself up on his left hand, which she stopped by simply kicking it out from under him, making him fall again. A low kick with her right foot, luckily, since much higher would have gotten her leg wrapped in the skirt. That would have been annoying.
She grabbed his hand and put him in a simple wrist lock, pushing his hand forward hard, pulling his arm straight, so that it stuck up behind him, and dropped to kneel on his back with her right knee, the other leg sticking out for balance.
“Stop struggling or I'll break your arm,” she threatened, knowing that the best she could do from this position would be to pop the tendons in his wrist, not break a bone at all. He didn't know that, most likely, but kept struggling anyway, calling her names the whole time. Really he was being kind of rude about the whole thing, but Gwen decided to give him a pass on it, since she was already kicking his ass.
Propping the back of his hand against her upper chest and leaning against it, on the side away from the stab wound, which made the move a little awkward, but less painful for her, so he didn't have enough slack to move easily away. She let go with her right hand, keeping the hold with her left and hit him in the back of the neck, hard, stunning the man.
“Listen fuckwad, I told you to stop struggling or I'll break your fucking arm, do you understand?” Each of the last words were punctuated with a blow to the back of the head, which didn't quite knock him out, but did make him decide struggling wasn't worth it anymore. It really wasn't, she knew. If he didn't comply, another few punches would take him out, even weak as she was. The back of the neck, just under the skull was about the worst place to be hit if you wanted to not be knocked out.
Detective Chuan had run out almost immediately, but stood back while she handled the man, observing her. The other detectives looked frozen in place, except Bethany, who sat in the other room at a desk that was the first thing visible inside the room through the door, not even bothering to look over at the commotion.
Gwen looked up at Detective Chuan, carefully moving so that he could take over the wrist lock from her, while another man, this one wearing a dark blue suit, no mustache, pale blond hair, brought what looked like manacles, rather than handcuffs. The chain was longer than in her world and the cuff part thicker, about two inches wide.
The blond man looked at her when the large man on the floor had been secured.
“Nice catch there!” He told her, smiling.
Mr. Vernor fussed over her for a minute, asking if she were alright, and if she perhaps needed to sit down after such an exertion, or if she needed to go back to the hospital. Then he offered to get her water and when she declined it all, he watched her carefully, as if expecting her to burst into tears. Why she'd be doing that she didn't know, the man hadn't had a chance to touch her. Mr. Vernor was the one that had been slammed into that wall and even that wasn't a big deal, he'd ducked his head correctly and took the force across the shoulders nice and flat. If he had bruising it would be incredible. Daniel simply waved them through into the office after the would-be fugitive had been returned to a chair on the other side of the room.
When she walked into the room, the manacled man started yelling.
“You fucking whore! I'll slit your throat! Just let me get up and I'll show you what a real man is! I'll fuck you so hard you won't leave the house for a month!” He kept on in this vein for a moment and one of the other detectives, an older looking man, picked up a truncheon and made ready to help the man realize his situation, and just possibly, remember his manners. When Gwen waved at the prisoner, smiling, the older man smiled too, looking bemused, and stepped back.
Gwen walked over to the man, his hands attached to a chain in the floor by the wrists and stared him straight in the eye. She kept looking at the man until he fell silent, realizing that everyone else in the room was watching him. It was hard to act like a moron when the whole world was watching.
She put out her hand to the older detective, who raised an eyebrow, but handed the truncheon to her giving her a small half-bow as he did so.
“See this?” She hefted the thick stick, a polished piece of wood that was nearly black in color it was so dark brown. As long as her forearm and nearly as thick as her wrist. “If you don't shut up and start cooperating with the kind gentleman here, they're going to give you to me and I'm going to take this and shove it up your ass. I won't use lube either. Go ahead, try me. Do you think anyone here's going to protect you if you aren't of some use to them? The only thing standing between you and,” she stuck the end of the truncheon's shiny lacquer against the end of his nose, “your date here, is the good will of these gentlemen. I wouldn't have even thought of the idea, you know, except for your so tempting offer to rape me... really, when you're chained up like this it may not be the best time to give people ideas... just saying, you understand?”
She backed away, holding the stick up for him to see between two fingers daintily, making sure that the man could see it clearly and would be focused on it.
Instead of simply shutting up, or even muttering softly to himself so that everyone could ignore it, he started screaming obscenities again. Gwen sighed hugely and asked the two closest men to turn him over and hold him, giving them a wink, so that they'd know, she hoped, that she didn't intend to actually do anything to the man. Public sodomy probably being against the law here. She'd seen something like this on a late night cable show once. Though, now that she thought about it, the cops on that program actually had sodomized the man which was accompanied with a lot of screaming. But then he was a child murderer and they needed to find a missing girl before she suffocated, having been buried alive. He'd given them the information they wanted too, if she remembered right. This guy probably hadn't done anything that bad.
Having heard all the noise, Warren Peals came out of his office and stared at the strange situation.
“Ah, Miss Farris, if I might inquire as to this...situation?” he asked in a strangely jovial voice. He even smiled lightly, as if it were a social function and not an impending anal rape.
She nodded and told him of the one-sided bargain she'd struck with the man.
“So, he's opted for “date night” instead of cooperating. I don't get it myself, but that's his choice and it would be wrong of us to deprive him if that's what he wants. This is awfully thick... but what can we do? It's what he's picked... I'd give him another chance to choose again, or at least
opt for some lubricant, but I don't want him to think I don't keep my word.” She shrugged, going for comedic effect.
The bald man looked at her for a moment and then turned both palms up.
“Alright then, get his trousers off boys. Mr... Sorry, what's his name?” He asked the room of detectives.
“John Wright,” the man in green who had gotten Bethany the other day filled in, his face blank this time, instead of filled with disgust. That got her attention. Bethany filled him with revulsion but threatened rape was fine? Gah. Well, hopefully the guy just figured out the game and was playing along.
“Mr. Wright, doesn't want to take the other side of the deal, and we owe Miss Farris far too much to deny her or make her a liar, besides, it's her collar now.”
The detectives started fumbling at the front of the man's pants.
“Get off! Get off! I'll talk, ya bleeders. I'll talk. Lady, look lady, I didn't mean it or nothin', I just didn't want to look bad, being beaten by a girl like that and all, that's all... I'll talk.” The man seemed panicked, trying to squirm away from the detectives.
Gwen stood for a second then hit the man's chair, which he no longer sat in, with the flat of the stick in her hand, hard enough to make a noise, but not hard enough to damage the chair seat, she hoped.
“Well... OK... I'll let you change your mind this time, but you better give these men something useful, or well, you know... “date night”. Really, it had better be pretty good too, because now I'm kind of curious as to whether you can take this or not. How often am I going to get an opportunity like this after all, with all these big strong men to help me shove it in?” She grinned at the man, realizing that it wouldn't have nearly the intimidation factor that it would have had from her original face. Her smile used to look like an animal's snarl, showing a lot of teeth and pulling her lips back. Now her smile might look too normal to work that way, she thought, then reconsidered.
Pretty smile or not, the guy certainly seemed to react to it the way she'd wanted. Tears wet the man's cheeks and sobs came out every few seconds, even as he clearly tried to suppress them. Hopefully this would be enough to get him to talk about something to the detectives or at least get him to not run away again. Really it surprised her that the man hadn't called her bluff. It was like he hadn't seen ten thousand programs where things like this happened all the time. She smiled to herself at the thought, remembering where she was. The man whimpered a bit at her expression when he saw it.
Near the door, Mr. Vernor and his solicitor stood with their mouths open, not even trying to hide the shocked looks.
Gwen looked at them and smiled. “Sorry you had to see that, but I hate it when people don't cooperate with the authorities.” She pitched her voice loudly enough to cause the man, still manacled to the floor, to cringe a little. He started talking in hushed tones to the detectives near him. Rapidly too. Even if he was just calling her a bitch or something he'd at least learned to do it quietly.
The chief Constabulary Detective called them into his office speaking in soft, even tones and shut the door behind them firmly. Gwen expected to be chewed out, since what she'd done had to have broken several laws, but instead he simply offered her a seat and started laughing.
“That sort usually won't talk even after a beating. That was masterfully done, Miss Farris! Whatever made you think of it?” He asked, interested.
“Oh, well, he was trying to pull a strong man routine, trying to act intimidating and whatnot after being taken down by a girl, which I kind of guessed would be a big deal in this culture? So I figured that a little more pressure in that area, challenging his manhood, might get him to talk. Of course I have no clue what he's here for. I just guessed that he wouldn't be running from the room like that if he was just here to deliver sandwiches. It would have been really embarrassing if Detective Chuan had just wanted to give him his payment. Speaking of sandwiches, has anyone remembered to feed Bethany lately?”
The sudden change of topic took him off guard.
“Let me check.” He walked to the door and asked Bethany to come into his office.
“Miss Westmorland, have you eaten recently?”
Without inflection, she answered.
“I had a sandwich yesterday afternoon.”
Gwen looked at the older man squarely. Before she could say anything, he pulled a small box from his desk drawer and opened it, revealing several containers of food. He handed them over to her, and provided a spoon from a side compartment of the same box. She tried to hand it to Bethany, who just stood, unmoving.
“Bethany, take this food and eat it please,” she finally said to the thin woman next to her. Standing there, she took the food and began to eat. After a few moments, Mr. Grimes stood, suggesting that she take his seat while eating, which she did, not stopping at all as she lowered herself a little clumsily.
Her head tilting at Peals, Gwen gave him a look, one that the other man seemed to interpret correctly.
“She... We don't have any other women here, to take care of her. It's not much of an excuse, but most of the men become uncomfortable around her, being a Westmorland and a woman, which means that we all forget to tell her to eat. Things were different before her last caretaker left to get married, about two weeks ago. Now she just has us and, I'm afraid, we aren't doing a very good job so far.” His hands came up, as she had noticed others doing here, palms simply turning up instead of a shrug.
Gwen stopped, not knowing what to do exactly, but feeling that she should do something. After nearly a minute of silence she looked around the room.
“Bethany, would you like it if I stayed with you for a while, made sure you got food and rest and stuff?” Gwen asked the still eating woman.
“Yes,” she said, and continued eating, not bothering to say anything else.
The men looked at each other, shocked for some reason. Gwen didn't get it, since it seemed like a good idea to her. Nearly perfect really. It gave her something to do and would help keep Beth from being starved to death. For that matter, how had she been able to survive at all without regular water? The woman must be tough as nails.
“OK then, I guess we'll need a place to stay and access to food until I learn how to cook here. Since I doubt I could even turn on one of your stoves yet, if you use stoves. You... you do have restaurants and things like that right?” She asked, looking around.
Once again, the solicitor answered. He'd rapidly become one of her favorite people here, she realized, just because he bothered to answer her questions so completely.
“Yes, we have a wide variety of food establishments, so that won't be a problem. I'll hire a cook and house cleaner for you, if you wish. A house cleaner at very least. I believe the Vernors have a local property where you two could stay...” He started pulling out his writing pad.
Peals considered everything and spoke quickly.
“Miss Westmorland has an apartment within walking distance of here, actually, with a room dedicated to her companion. There is a small bit of remuneration that goes with the job, if you wish to take it full time, Miss Farris. It isn't much considering the nature of the work, twenty-five metric per month, but you do get room and board.” The man sounded relieved but looked at the other men, as if expecting them to protest.
Rubbing his face, Mr. Vernor told the chief that Miss Farris, of course, didn't actually need the money, with her stipend and other funds she could draw on.
“It wouldn't do to take tax monies from where needed, after all. As she has a stable draw of a thousand per month already, with access to more at need.” The good looking businessman waved his hand gently as if to say it was nothing.
In front of her, the bald man blinked.
“Wait, you mean to tell me that you, Miss Farris, have access to that kind of money, but are willing to take on the position of caretaker for Bethany? That's... amazing isn't too strong a word. Aren't you worried about her mental abilities? Mind-reading and whatnot? Most worry about it. Even on our own force,
men try to stay distant from her as often as not for that very reason, and they know for a fact that her abilities only come into play in regards to the case she's working at the moment. It's a big part of why we haven't been able to fill the position with her.”
Waving this away herself, trying to copy the gesture she'd just seen Vernor use as exactly as possible, Gwen smiled.
“That's silly of course. If she needs to read my mind to find out more about what happened to me, she's welcome to, as long as we take these,” she censored her language, knowing that what she'd almost said would bother the men around her, “people that tried to kill me, and have killed those others, down. We need to stop them. Not that I can really get myself to believe in mind-reading yet, but if it's what it takes, then so be it. After all, I really doubt that anything in my head will shock her overly, not if she reads other people's minds too.”
Bethany finished eating then and sat, thinking about the case, or at least that seemed likely to Gwen. The detective still held the spoon in her right hand and the small food container on her lap with her left hand holding it in place.
