by Michael Todd
Great, thanks. She groaned. I just want to go back to bed and get high. Maybe not in that order, but you fucking get it.
Not anymore, sugar tits, Melneck cooed. We are on the road to freedom here. Freedom from fat, cholesterol, and high sodium.
“I really got to get out of here,” she mumbled to herself as she made the turn.
Ella had gotten very tired of hearing Melneck, so she put her ass into everything else she did during the rest of training. She even went in and ate dinner with the team, getting to know them a little.
She had to admit the whole thing had appeal, but it was not for her. By the time she made it back to her bedroom that night, she had created an entire plan to break free from the compound. She stood at her bed, twisting the sheets she found in the closet and tying them end to end.
She quietly opened her window and lowered the sheets to the ground, securing the other end to the leg of her bed. Slowly she crawled out the window and lowered herself to the ground, making sure to avoid the other glass panels in case someone was awake. She hit the ground with a thud on legs swollen and sore from the early workout. She was just about to make a run for it when she heard a whisper behind her.
“Where you are going?” the voice asked. “Where you are going? I left you a note…”
Ella slowly turned around, slightly nervous about who she would find. She could see two round red eyes staring back at her from the darkness. Her heart started to beat faster and she clapped her palms in front of her. She couldn’t talk much less move by that point, and she was starting to think laps around the gym wouldn’t be that bad after all.
“And the note says,” the voice snarled as Stephanie stepped into the light, blinking the red from her eyes and clearing her throat, “get yourself back in that fucking bed or I will kick your ass so hard you will need to send notes to it via air mail!”
Ella let out a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. She hated that she had gotten caught, but she was thankful the red eyes were just Stephanie. She had thought for sure that she was a goner. She stiffened her face and rolled her eyes before turning and sulking toward the door.
“Nah ah ah,” Stephanie cautioned, waving her finger. “You came out the window, so you will go back in through the window.”
“What?” Ella looked at her in surprise. “I could fall!”
“Mmmhmm, yes,” Stephanie said, looking at her nails. “You could, and I will be right here in the sand waiting for you to do it so I can laugh at your useless ass. Please start climbing, because I really want to watch that happen. It would seriously make my whole week.”
“You are a sadistic BITCH,” Ella growled. “If I fall I’m suing someone. I don’t know who yet, but I will find someone, and I will take them the fuck down.”
Ella walked over to the dangling sheet, looking up it to the open window. She sighed, grabbed the fabric, and put one foot on the wall. Holding tightly to the sheet rope, she slowly pulled herself up. She climbed a bit higher and looked down at Stephanie, who stood there with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
“Fucking assholes,” she mumbled. “They think they are so cute, with the lessons they want to teach me. All I see is a fucking rope that I have to climb. It could come loose at any point, and I could break my fucking legs.”
When Ella got to the windowsill, she carefully grabbed the edge. She got a good hold on it and pulled herself toward the wall, but as soon as she got close her foot slipped, rocks crumbling beneath her. She let out a quiet yelp as she grabbed the sill with both hands and hung there, her arms shaking and nerves blowing up in her chest. Melneck pushed slightly, giving her the strength she needed to get through the window.
Why did you help me? she asked after she was in safely.
Failure would have affected your sleep schedule, he told her. And we are on a very tight schedule.
You, Ella said, pulling the sheet rope up from the ground, are fucking insufferable.
Oh, please. Melneck laughed. Petulant child, I’ve been told that by beings who could gnaw on your longest bone like a toothpick. You telling me that just makes my heart feel warm. It’s like you are complimenting me on a job well done, but I cannot say the same for you with your asinine fourteen-year-old’s plan to escape. I thought you were a genius. Was that all you could come up with?
I’m under a lot of pressure here, she griped, untying the sheets. And I didn’t hear you giving me any good pointers. You were too busy acting like Jane-fucking-Fonda coming up with a new workout routine. If you put Pilates or jazzercise or hip hop or anything like that on that list, I will kill myself just to spite you.
Trust me, honey, no one wants to see you jumping around to hip hop, okay? Melneck chuckled. You need help, and you don’t have time to play around with some at-home workouts. What I got for you is going to tone, burn, and churn those muscles to perfection.
Great, she grumbled. This is my fucking life.
Chapter 12
Calvin laughed. “This girl is quite the handful.” He was sitting in Korbin’s office with Katie and Damian. “She hates what she is doing here, even though she really has no clue about the extent of it yet.”
“I don’t know if I would trust her with a weapon,” Katie mused. “She’s liable to stab herself or one of us by accident.”
“Or on purpose.” Calvin chuckled.
“Oh, I think she would show her true colors in action,” Damian said. “We have to have a little more faith in her than that. We did for you, Katie, and you have become a badass.”
Katie looked at Korbin as he picked up his ringing phone and walked from the room to take the call.
She sighed, thinking that Damian was right. When she’d gotten there she had been nothing but a volleyball player, and they turned her into a killer—though she still wasn’t sure she would consider herself a badass.
Either way, Ella was confused and scared, and she needed all the positive reinforcement she could get. She didn’t need people talking down to her, but she was just such a damn bitch all the time it was hard not to.
With that thought Korbin walked back in, shaking his head. He sat down in his chair and rubbed his face, pulling everyone’s attention.
“What’s going on, Korbin?” Calvin asked. “You look like you just have seen a ghost.”
“Kind of,” Korbin replied. “That was the National Military Advisor on the phone. He wants to see the facilities, since he heard that we took quite a bit of damage recently.”
“Damn!” Calvin exclaimed. “Well, how much time do we have? We can start cleaning everything out right away.”
“There won’t be enough time for that,” Korbin said. “He will be here in twenty-four hours.”
“Shit!” Katie sat up straight. “That’s one hell of a short notice.”
“We need to get all the weapons out of here,” Calvin suggested. “Not just the new ones, but everything that’s not military issue.”
“You’re right,” Korbin agreed. “Those weapons need to be taken over to the new base and stowed away. Calvin, I want you to grab Derek from upstairs, and the two of you will start loading everything into the truck. The new location is in the GPS, so take it over there and find a good spot for it. I think if you look on the blue prints you will find an armory on the property, so try there first.”
“You got it, boss.” Calvin stood up and jogged from the room.
“What about us?” Katie asked as Korbin picked up the phone, putting one finger up to silence her.
“Stephanie,” Korbin said into the phone. “Something big just came up. I need you to come back home right away.
A squawk came out of the speaker.
“I really don’t care about the sale at Nordstrom’s,” Korbin said flatly.
Loud cursing ensued.
“Right. Okay, see you soon.”
Katie chuckled and glanced at Damian. Korbin hung up the phone and shook his head, running his hands through his hair.
“Why now?” he as
ked loudly. “Katie and Damian, I want you guys to get Ella packed up and take her back to New York to finish her training. It will be good for her to train in her home environment, and on top of that the New York team is asking for some help related to a spate of severe attacks in the area. I’m sure they will be happy to have you out there.”
“What about here?” Katie asked. “New York is a long flight away.”
“I know, but things have been really quiet around here,” Korbin replied. “We haven’t gotten any intel about this area lately. I will give them four days of your time to help out and get Ella trained before I want you back here to get everything moved over. This was probably a good thing in disguise, since we were dragging our feet getting over to the new location anyway.
“I do need you back in four days, though, so don’t lollygag over there. Get your shit done, help them out, and come back home. But—do I even need to say this?—please try to keep Pandora from performing any of her more spectacular tricks in public. They still don’t know what you two can do, and I don’t believe this is the right time to let anyone else in on it.”
Pandora snickered, and Katie shrugged. “As if I get a vote, but I will try. Normal demon-hunter shit only, check.”
“Got it,” Damian confirmed.
“Come on, Damian.” Katie smirked. “We get to take your namesake back to New York and get her all tucked in with her new family.”
“You’re an ass,” he said, following Katie out the door.
“Am I going to have to bring tissues?” she asked. “You know I don’t deal well with men who cry. I just want to make sure you have something to blow your nose on.”
“I hate you,” he said pleasantly.
Katie laughed. “That is not nice, considering you are a man of the cloth.”
“You sound like your demon.” He chuckled.
Finally! Pandora squealed.
Stephanie parked her car and left her bags in the back grumbling to herself about missing out on one hell of a sale. She took the stairs to Korbin’s office, stopping for a moment as Damian and Katie came down the hall. Damian was scowling and Katie was laughing, so she knew she was giving him shit about something.
“Hey, guys!” Stephanie smiled. “Anything I should be warned about?”
“He’ll tell you.” Damian shook his head. “It’s always something, right?”
“Yeah.” Stephanie nodded and continued down the hall.
She walked into the office and sat down, watching Korbin shuffle through paperwork and jam it angrily into the shredder. She lifted one eyebrow but let him finish, never having seen him in a tizzy before. When he was done, he straightened up and let out a huge puff of air. He looked at her and nodded.
“Sorry for pulling you from your shopping,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, well, now you owe me a pair of Jimmy Choos.” She smirked. “So what’s up? You look like your head is going to explode.”
“We need to get rid of as much evidence of Joshua’s stuff and the business as we can in twenty-four hours,” he told her. “What can you do with that?”
“Hmmm…” Stephanie leaned back in her chair, thinking.
She sat there for a few moments, rolling some ideas around in her head. There was a lot to get rid of, and unfortunately it was all too heavy just to load in the back of the truck and take off with. Plus, there was some serious ductwork involved with some of the equipment. She knew she would need professional help moving things, and on very short notice—which brought it down to the almighty dollar.
“How much do I have to work with here?” she asked.
Korbin gazed at her for a moment, then sat back and closed his eyes. She knew he had expected it to be done without money, but that just wasn’t how the world worked. Even with the guys, it couldn’t be done that fast. She needed professionals, and that meant a budget. Finally he leaned forward and blew out another large breath of air, rolling his eyes.
“I don’t know. What can you do with fifty thousand?”
Stephanie didn’t answer the question, just nodded and popped out of the chair to make her way out of the office. Korbin shut his eyes as the door closed behind her. He shook his head and turned back to his paperwork grumbling under his breath.
“That woman is inscrutable,” he whispered to himself. “She is going to bleed me dry by the end of all of this. Nothing will go right, not a goddamned thing. Why can’t it just be easy?”
He finished shredding the paperwork and picked up the phone, calling his contact at the airport. He had to put a short-notice trip to New York together for Katie, Damian, and Ella or they would never get out of Las Vegas in time. The last thing he needed was a smart-ass, a priest, and an unstable Damned floating around when the government arrived. He had enough headache on his plate as it was.
“Hey, it’s Korbin,” he began. “I need to put together a quick flight from here to New York, leaving in a couple of hours… No, it’s not an emergency per se, I just need to get some of my people back there as soon as possible.”
The guy put him on hold and transferred him to the pilot, where he explained it all over again. The pilot was a lot easier to work with, and pulled up all the information while they were on the phone. When that was done, he figured it was the perfect time to talk about choppers.
“I had a more personal question to ask,” Korbin began. “I want to find out about acquiring helicopters—or one helicopter—and I need you to tell me what kind would be best.”
“Are we talking the kind that was used before, or a tourist helicopter?” the pilot asked.
“Not tourist,” Korbin replied. “Something like what we used before, only this time we’re not renting. I need to get a helicopter for full-time use, and probably hire maintenance technicians for it as well. Oh, and at least one pilot who would agree to be on short-notice call out of the Las Vegas area—a discreet pilot, preferably with combat experience, just in case we…uh…hit bad weather or something like that.”
“Sometimes I think you are worse than our new trainee.” Damian smiled. “You have gotten too big for your britches.”
“Is that a fat joke?” Katie asked, looking back at her ass.
Damian rolled his eyes and held the door to the main living area open. The two of them entered and found Ella talking with Eric in the living room. She had an innocent look on her face, so Katie knew something was up. Eric was sinking into it, too—just like a man. Ella had him wrapped around her little finger so tightly he didn’t even hear them come through the door.
“I know that Katie and Stephanie are girls,” she cooed. “But I’m just not built for this, you know? I am fragile and sensitive. I shouldn’t be forced to kill or be killed; it just isn’t right. For a man like you it comes easy. You are strong and brave, but me? No way, I need to be in a gentler setting…maybe helping the poor or working with animals or something. Demon or not, I am not a bad person, and all this is just too much to deal with.”
“I under—” Eric stopped and looked at Katie.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Katie raised an eyebrow at Eric. “Ella, go get your stuff packed. We have to go back to New York.”
“Really?” she said excitedly. “Oh my God, I have missed my family so much. I can’t wait to get back home and have a good cup of coffee and just relax. My bed has been calling for me, for sure.”
“Ella…” Katie stopped her before she could leave the room. “This isn’t like that. You are Damned now, and unfortunately there is nothing you can do to change that. You were pronounced dead when that demon entered you, before you were taken away by John’s team. You can’t just show up at your parents’ house. That is the way these things work. I know that’s hard to understand, but you are going to your new base.”
“You mean back with the freaks who did this to me in the first place?” she asked, irritated. “To the team that pushed me off on other people? I wasn’t good enough for you, so now you are sending me back to them.”
“You were always g
oing back there,” Katie reminded her, feeling badly for the girl. “We are going to work with you there.”
“Whatever,” she snapped. “This is all just more bullshit.”
Ella stomped down the hallway and slammed her door, rattling the already-crooked pictures on the wall.
Katie looked at Damian, who sighed and rolled his eyes before going to his room to pack. Katie shook her head and turned back to Eric. The man had a bewildered look on his face, as if he had no idea what had just happened. Katie calmed herself and walked over to sit down next to Eric, and looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“What?” he blurted.
“The female demon, otherwise known as ‘Ella,’ just took over your body,” Katie told him. “Like, worse than the demon you already have inside you.”
“What the hell?” He shook his head. “We were just talking. I mean, she was telling me about her life before this. She seemed so genuine…until a second ago. I would be mad too, but she doesn’t get it, does she? Well, fuck.”
He shook his head when he reached the correct conclusion.
“I got suckered, didn’t I?” he asked, lowering his head.
“It’s okay.” Katie laughed. “It happens, but you are now a veteran here. You have to take a firm hand; don’t allow the newbies to give you a sob story. We got lucky with you and Jeremy—and Stephanie, for that matter. You guys were all gung ho, ready to take on the worst of the worst. Even I didn’t give them as much trouble as she has, but we are going to see it more than not and you need to be ready for it. You can’t let them break your heart. You know there are no other options here.”
Eric sighed. “She was really good at it.”
“Yeah, I have a feeling that had nothing to do with the demon inside her.” Katie looked down the hall. “I think she has been perfecting the art of sob stories for a very long time to get through life. She is super-smart and reads people very well, and she saw you as the perfect target. You aren’t a leader, you have kind eyes, and you were ripe for the picking. It’s really not your fault. She conned you like a guy cons a girl at a bar trying to get laid. She was trying to get you to free her from the invisible cage, but the thing is…she put herself in that cage. If she doesn’t get with it, she is going to end up dead during an incursion.”
