Of Blood and Ashes

by Kyoko M

  He stopped.

  He stared.

  And kept staring.

  "What's the matter?"

  Jack couldn't respond at first. Then he swallowed hard and slowly began to shake his head.

  "Oh, shit."

  It had suddenly dawned on him the substance that Aisaka Tomoda had dumped into his mouth.

  Because he was staring at a clown.

  The clown offered him a friendly smile, his bright yellow costume and oversized red shoes stark against the pitch-black woods around the two of them. "Now, now, Jack, that's not very polite."

  "Fuck," Jack said. "That's what she gave me. A hallucinogen. Can't get out of the forest because I'm seeing shit that's not there."

  "Jack, you're hurting my feelings," the clown said. "I'm trying to help you out, buddy."

  Jack slammed his eyes shut and started breathing slowly and deeply. "Okay, Jackson, take it easy. He's not real. You're not actually seeing or hearing anything. It's your whacked-out brain. Focus. Think through it. Don't respond."

  "But I know how to get you out of here, my friend!"

  Jack coughed out a weak laugh. "This is all your fault, Ma. Shouldn't have taken me to the circus when I was four. Thanks for the coulrophobia."

  "You're scared of clowns?" The clown ruffled Jack's hair. The scientist stumbled backwards on pure impulse and nearly tripped over his own feet. "Well, I'm certainly not going to hurt you."

  "Yeah, and you're the only one, you freaky ass son of a bitch!" Jack spat. "Come any closer and catch these hands, Chuckles."

  The clown clucked his tongue. "Now, I don't respond kindly to threats, mister. You should be on your best behavior."

  Jack narrowed his eyes. "You're not actually there. I've been drugged. So basically, I can do whatever I want and it's not going to make a difference. To that end, kindly fuck off, clownboy."

  The clown went silent. For a moment, Jack thought he'd won the argument and assumed the clown would vanish into the repressed part of his brain.

  Instead, he smiled.

  Revealing four rows of long, sharp fangs.

  "Well," the killer clown smiled. "Is this any better, Jack?"

  "...shit."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR THE GIRL WHO HAS EVERYTHING

  Faye's head hurt.

  She was no stranger to headaches, not with her penchant for tequila shots in the various bars of the Cambridge and Boston areas. She was used to waking up in bed and reaching for a bottle of ibuprofen or possibly demanding that her bedmate grab it for her. Boy, was this one throwing her for a loop. Maybe she wouldn't go into work today. Maybe she'd call in sick and just sleep it off.

  She stirred, about to reach up and pull the covers up over her body, but there was a problem.

  Her arms didn't get very far.

  Blearily, she lifted her head and pried her eyes open.

  She found herself staring at rusted metal bed frame she'd never seen before.

  A bed frame that she was handcuffed to.

  In a room she'd never seen before.

  Faye took a shaky breath and shut her eyes. No, she had to be dreaming. This couldn't be real.

  "Wake up, Faye," she whispered, pressing her face to the thin, cold, stinky mattress. "C'mon, just wake up in your bed in your own room."

  "I'm afraid that's not going to happen, blondie," an emotionless male voice spoke from the corner of the room.

  She jerked hard in the bed and glanced up to see the same man who had delivered her pizza. Her eyes struggled to focus on him for a moment, but eventually her vision cleared. He sat in a plain wooden chair, wearing a Red Sox jacket, a plain blue t-shirt, jeans, boots, and a matching cap. He wasn't holding a weapon; just sitting there giving her a bland, almost bored look.

  She pushed up until she was sitting and her eyes darted to every corner of the room. It was a tiny bedroom with only enough room for the twin mattress, and maybe a couple dressers, but there were none. She couldn't hear any air conditioning running. The room was cold. The windows were boarded up. There was one plain light bulb in the ceiling. There were two doors--one leading out, and the other she assumed to be either a bathroom or a closet. However, she could tell by the low ceilings that it was probably in a basement, not the top floor.

  Her body trembled. She didn't want it to, but it did. How? How had she gotten here? All she could remember was standing next to the ambulance.

  "Deep breaths, Ms. Worthington," the man said. "You'll go into shock and pass out if you keep hyperventilating like that."

  "You kidnapped me," she spat. "What do you care if I go into shock and pass out?"

  "It'd be tedious to have to revive you," he said simply. "And disappointing. So just breathe."

  "Fuck you!" she screamed. "I swear to God, when I get out of these cuffs, I'm going to chop your balls off and stuff them down your throat, you son of a bitch!"

  The man smiled. "That's more like it."

  He stood. Faye tensed. He held up his hands in supplication. "Easy, easy. Let me make it simple for you. I know you've got about a million questions, starting with why I did this to you."

  He took off the cap and ran a hand through his brown hair before replacing it. "I've been hired by a third party to kidnap you to leverage Dr. Jackson and Dr. Anjali into cooperating. My employer wants Baba Yaga. If they hand her over, you're free to go. Quick, clean, easy."

  "Bullshit," she snarled. "I'm not stupid. I've seen your face. You're going to kill me no matter what happens because I can identify you to the police."

  "It's not always that simple," the man said. "You watch a lot of movies, I take it?"

  She didn't answer. He shrugged. "I'm a hired hitter. I change my appearance every single time I take a job. This isn't even my real face. In my experience, I only kill when they pay me to or if I have no choice. All I'm saying is you've got a real shot at getting out of this mess alive."

  He narrowed his empty brown eyes at her. "If you behave. None of that hero stuff. Don't get cute. I'll feed you and let you take care of yourself until the exchange happens, but only if you're a well-behaved captive. You make an attempt to escape and I'll revoke those privileges. Do you understand me, Ms. Worthington?"

  She went rather still. "You want me to behave."

  "That would be preferable."

  She smiled through the thin tracks of tears on her cheeks. "Oh, I'll behave. I'll behave so good for you, baby. I'll be just as sweet as honey until you get close enough for me to tear your jugular out with my teeth."

  He laughed. "I knew I was gonna like you from the second you picked up my Uzi. I've had a lot of people point a gun at me in my lifetime, but never a civvie. You meant it. You were gonna kill me over the beanpole, weren't you?"

  "It wasn't for him," Faye whispered. "It was for me. You tried to kill me."

  "Sorry. Part of the job. If it makes you feel any better, I hate that sort of thing. I try not to reel in innocent bystanders, but it happens sometimes."

  She eyed him. "You run your mouth a lot for someone who kills people for a living."

  "Kidnappings get boring if all I do is let you stew in your own juices," he said. "I'm not a rookie. The rookies are the ones who leave you in the room alone the whole time. That's how people end up escaping. I think you're plenty smart enough to figure out a way out of here, so it looks like you and I are about to become best friends for a bit."

  She lowered her eyelids slightly. "Come a little closer. I'm plenty friendly when you get to know me."

  He grinned. "Gosh, you're gonna make me blush in a second here, blondie. Now, you wouldn't be trying to seduce me so I'll get closer and you can attack me, would you?"

  "Me?" she said, widening her blue eyes. "Never."

  He clucked his tongue. "Shame on you. You're going to hurt my feelings in a minute."

  He walked towards the door. "Sit tight. Be right
back."

  He left. Faye immediately began yanking on her handcuffs. The bed shook, but the frame didn't budge. She glanced down to see that the bed frame was bolted into the ground. She yanked the corner of the mattress up to see it wasn't the kind of bed frame that simply clicked into place. It was an old-fashioned contraption that was all welded together.

  Gritting her teeth, she placed her feet against the edge of the frame and pulled on the cuffs, hoping to bend a link. Her wrists ached. Red lines and bruises formed. She kept pulling. She pulled until her fingers went numb. Nothing. The cuffs had to be stainless steel. She was as likely to start breathing fire and melt them as she was being able to bend them off of a cheap iron bed frame.

  She let her tired arms drop and inspected the room again. One wooden chair. Nothing else. He was definitely a professional. She couldn't hear anything outside the bare walls, but she did hear footsteps above her. The basement theory solidified in her mind. But where? Where had he taken her? Why didn't he seem concerned about her screaming for help?

  Faye shut her eyes. No, they were probably outside of the city. The floor and walls were concrete. Maybe an abandoned house? Maybe a farm? If he felt confident enough not to put duct tape over her mouth, they had to be alone, wherever they were.

  She ran through the conversation they'd had a moment ago. She was a bargaining chip. He could certainly hurt her or do whatever he wanted to her, but he hadn't yet. She was a valuable asset alive, but orders could always change, and it was very likely he had lied to her so she wouldn't panic. She had to assume she'd be dead the moment the authorities cut a deal with his employer.

  Which meant she'd have to escape before that point.

  She licked her dry lips and focused on that thought. She had options. One, build rapport with the hitman until he managed to slip up. It was probably unlikely, if he truly was a professional. He would know better than any of the obvious tricks she could use on him. Two, comply enough to be let into the bathroom and see if there were any small tools she could use to escape. Also an unlikely option, but she wouldn't know that until she took a look around. Three, incapacitate him and call for help on his burner phone. Then again, it was probably encrypted or password-protected. Four, figure out a way to get the boards off the window and make a break for it. He was smart. He'd probably boarded them up on both sides, but if she somehow managed to get free from the bed, it could be an option. The door was a better bet.

  Faye opened her eyes and examined the door. It looked heavy, but not reinforced. Maybe he'd searched for a property that had been foreclosed on and this was just an opportunity rather than somewhere he'd had time to set up. She'd heard him lock the door on the way out. Locking it meant she had to keep an eye out to see where he kept the key.

  The doorknob turned. She tensed again as the man walked back in, this time with an unopened bottle of water and ibuprofen.

  "Here you are, madam," he said, tossing them both on the mattress next to her. She fought the urge to scowl. She'd hoped maybe he'd get close and she could kick him. No such luck.

  "You expect me to drink that?" she said.

  "You've been out for a while. You must have dry mouth and I know you've got a headache from where I had to knock you out. Besides, I told you. No reason to hurt you. Think of me as the babysitter."

  She stared him down for a while, and then slid the bottle over to her cuffed hands with one knee. She popped the bottle open and stooped enough to shove a few pills in her mouth. She opened the water and took a few sips.

  "You ever see that movie The Mexican?" the man asked, taking a seat.

  She capped the bottle and set it behind her on the bed. "Yeah. What's your point?"

  He spread his hands. "Maybe we can be like that. Start off with a kidnapper-kidnapped relationship and then progress into a bizarre but interesting sort of friendship."

  Faye offered him a cold, venomous smile. "Do you remember how that friendship ends?"

  "Well, I had planned on rewriting that ending. And please don't tell me you're expecting your Brad Pitt to come save you at the last minute. Not going to happen."

  "Jack's not my Brad Pitt. We're just friends."

  The man smiled. "Friends don't dive in front of bullets for each other, blondie."

  "True friends do. Maybe you'd know if you ever had one."

  "Had a few in my time. But I saw the look on his face when I tossed that flash-bang at you. He didn't know it wasn't a grenade until afterward. It could have killed him when he tackled you out of the way. Maybe you're not ready to face it, but that ain't just friendship."

  "Really? You wanna be my gal-pal and talk about my relationship with Jack?"

  He shrugged. "I got nothin' better to do."

  "Men don't define me," Faye snarled. "I don't do love."

  "Why is that, exactly?" he asked, folding his hands over his stomach as he reclined in the chair.

  "You're not worth it."

  "Wait, me or men in general?"

  "Men in general," she said, taking another sip of water.

  "Wow, that's a pretty bold statement."

  "Says the man who kidnapped me."

  "I wouldn't say that's reflective of all men, though."

  She rolled her eyes. "Did you really just say Not All Men to me right now?"

  He frowned. "Hmm, suppose I did. Let me rephrase that. I think we can still surprise you."

  "There are no surprises. This is what you are at your most basic level. I'm just ahead of the curve. I don't let men control me. I don't let them own me. I don't let them manipulate me."

  "And you've always been this way? You've always been She-Ra, Wonder Woman, Xena, to all men everywhere?"

  "Yes." Faye's mind slid into a memory. James McGruder's hand on her wrist, yanking her back around to face him. She'd never seen that look on his face before--that unbalanced, possessive, selfish anger. He'd snapped that she didn't walk away from him, not after what they'd been doing for weeks, months, and that she couldn't just decide when she'd had enough. Faye was seldom wrong about men. She could read them with accuracy, and that was how she determined which ones were worthy enough to share her bed for a while. With him, she'd made her first mistake.

  She had been determined that it would be the last.

  Her heart had felt as if it were going to vibrate right through her rib cage, it was beating so fast. She was alone. It was dark outside. Maybe she could get out a scream before he hurt her, but who would come to her rescue? No one.

  So she saved herself.

  She'd slammed her knee up into his unprotected genitals as hard as she could. He'd crumpled to the floor and whimpered. It almost made her pity him for a split second. But just that second. She'd kicked him in the ribs for good measure and snarled that he would never touch her again before she stormed out of his bourgeois home and never returned.

  Her hands shook the entire drive home.

  She hadn't meant to tell Kamala, honestly. It slipped out of her later that night while they were smoking weed on the back porch. Kamala had been so kind and understanding. She'd held her hand for a while and gently asked if Faye wanted to press charges, but Faye had known better. She knew he came from money and it would be impossible to prove anything, and with her reputation for sleeping around, it wouldn't be worth it.

  But she still had nightmares about it.

  "You sell it pretty well, you know."

  "Sell what?" Faye sneered.

  "This whole blonde Amazon goddess thing. I'd buy it if I hadn't seen you out on that street the night we met. When guns are involved, people change. I find that most of them show their true colors. There are a lot of cowards in the world. People fold. People betray their friends, their loved ones, because they don't want to die."

  He stared at her, and for a moment, she thought he'd seen straight through her. "I saw the real you out there, blondie. Whatever's between you and the beanpole ain't
about sex."

  She swallowed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Maybe I do." He pulled a stick of Big Red out of his pocket and folded the gum into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a bit. "I'll take a wild guess. Your body language suggests you haven't slept with him. I'm thinking maybe you offered and he said no, even though he was attracted to you. This happens to a lot of guys, ironically enough. He's The One that Got Away, in a sense. Your intentions were far from pure, but he ended up being the only guy who wasn't impressed with how beautiful you are or the fact that you're open about loving sex. He saw who you really were and you became fixated with the idea that maybe he didn't like it, but then you found out that he did, and you're hung up on it. Stop me when I get close."

  "When I want a therapy session, I'll hire an expert. You don't know the first thing about me."

  "I know you hate this hostage situation because it took away your control," he said in an unsettling, soft tone. "I know you hate that I could do anything I want to you right now and you couldn't stop me. I know that you hate that it's all because of the guy you're hung up on and even if you get out of here alive, you're never going to think about men the same way."

  He offered the Big Red to her. "Gum?"

  "Go to hell."

  "Probably am," he said, tucking it into his pocket. "But I think I'm getting warmer, no pun intended. Gotta say, you're pretty interesting for a civvie."

  "And you're an asshole."

  "Yeah, s'why I kill people for a living."

  She almost nodded. He had a point. "So what am I supposed to call you, then? Asshole?"

  "You can. But for the sake of argument, you can call me Winston."

  She eyed him. "You really like The Mexican, don't you?"

  "It was a pretty good movie."

  "Are you also gay?"

  Winston barked out a laugh. "No, I'm not. But like Winston explained in the movie, relax. I'm not a rapist. I'm an asshole, not a sicko. My interest in you is purely psychological. I want to know what makes you tick."

  "Yeah, well, don't hold your breath. I won't be here long enough for that."