Pike: The Pawn Duet, Book One

by Frazier, T. M.

  I open my eyes and race over to the wall where one of the blocks has cracks surrounding it on all sides. It’s the only one in the room like it. I push on the block and send out a silent prayer in thanks to whatever deity made this possible when it shifts. I wiggle my fingers through the cracks and pull on the block on one side until it slides far enough where I can reach in. I pat around finding only dust until I reach a little bit further and my fingertips graze something cold and metal.

  I slide it back and wrap my fingers around it, retracting my hand until it’s free of the wall.

  I look down and smile at the knife gleaming in my hand.

  * * *

  Pike’s kitchen is small, too small for two people to work in at the same time, but clean. The walls are white but a dim white as if the years of paint colors beneath are trying to fight their way through to be seen.

  It’s a galley style kitchen with a small window at the end of the narrow walk space that lets just enough light in to make out the shadows of the bars covering it on the other side. Framing the window are a pair of matching yellow, brown, and orange plaid drapes tied together with tassels faded only on the inside facing the sun, telling me the curtains are always in the same position.

  On one side is a half-moon shaped table pushed against the wall, its brown paint chipped at the edges. Three backless stools with deep orange cushions faded in the middle from wear are pushed underneath. The other side of the kitchen is lined with dark, stained butcher block counters topping yellow faded mustard color cabinets housing a small refrigerator, a one basin stainless steel sink, and a black countertop microwave. Hanging above the mud colored tile backsplash is a pair of out of place white contemporary cabinets, complete with a horizontal sliding obscure glass door on one side.

  The living room walls are a deep orange. Two fake potted plants sit on a round table with a broken leg beside the large window. A futon takes up the majority of the wall beside it, covered with a simple grey duvet and a painting so dark I think it’s just a framed piece of black canvas.

  An air conditioning unit sits inside the window, blowing around yellowed lace curtains like a dirty ghost haunting the place until someone spared it with some bleach.

  The far wall is a flat screen TV, which I assume one of the fifty remotes on the coffee table are for, and a bookcase lined with hundreds of titles and two shelves of records, each covered in plastic.

  “What were you expecting? A hole in the ground?” Pike asks, startling me out of my thoughts.

  I whirl around to face his smirk and take a deep breath, trying not to look as rattled as I feel. “I didn’t expect to be here, that’s for sure.” I continue on my expedition as if I don’t care that I’ve been caught snooping or that his presence makes the hair on my arm stand on end. He had me brought up here and according to his logic about kidnappers and captives and who started what, leads me to believe that what I’m doing isn’t intrusive.

  “Funny, it seems like you planned to be here. Or did you and the other goons just decide you hadn’t robbed me enough and it was more like a last-minute thing.”

  I open my mouth to reply and close it just as quickly. He’s got me on that one.

  I shrug, continuing to pretend to be unaffected by his presence.

  “Cat got your tongue, Mic?” he asks, leaning against the counter on his elbows.

  “I like cats,” I reply, sounding bored. “Loyal. Self-cleaning. Affectionate. You’ve got a bunch of them in the alley. They look hungry. You should feed them.”

  “I need more than hunger as a reason to feed anyone,” he replies. His lip twitches. “You like cats?” he asks as if he can’t believe anyone can like cats.

  “I love cats,” I reply, opening and closing one of the kitchen cabinets without really looking inside.

  I glance at Pike who’s trying not to smile and realize what he’s doing.

  “What?” I ask, standing across the counter from him. “No sarcastic sexists comment about how you like pussy?”

  His eyes hold mine. “Nah, too easy.”

  “Ah, so you like a challenge.” I point out, mirroring his position with my elbows on the counter.

  He grins. “Trying to figure me out, Mic?”

  “Nope. I’ve already got you figured out.” I point to the worn black leather couch in the small living room. “Single.” I wave a hand at Pike himself, to his tight white tank top encasing his ab muscles like one of those vacuum packing machines from the infomercials. It’s ridiculous how beautiful he is on the outside. The perfect mask to hide what he really is inside.

  Pike clears his throat, smirking as he catches me staring.

  I tear my gaze away, feeling the blush rise in my cheeks. “You take care of yourself. You obviously workout to look...uh, like that. You eat clean.” I gesture to the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “But you also don’t play by the rules, and you’re willing to take chances, knowing full well the consequences.”

  Pike isn’t impressed. “So, I guess they’re handing out good IQ scores to anyone with eyes in their head?”

  I take it as a challenge to dig deeper. He’s obviously done his research on me, but the only research I have available to me when it comes to him is in this apartment.

  The bookshelf in the corner is completely empty. “Intelligent and crafty, but not book smart. I’m going to say you didn’t finish school, not because you weren’t smart enough, because you are, but because you lacked interest.” I spot a note on the counter. It’s to Thorne about inventory. The lettering is barely legible. Inventory is spelled wrong, and it’s written in all lower-case letters with no commas or periods. I smile confidently. “Also, in regards to school, I’m guessing the dysgraphia didn’t help.”

  Pike cocks his head and plucks the cigarette from his lips. “The fucking what?”

  I explain. “What dyslexia is to reading, dysgraphia is to writing. It’s a visual impairment where the person has a hard time using capital letters or punctuation consistently. Adults who weren’t diagnosed as children tend to stick to lowercase letters, plus they tend to avoid punctuation all together.” I slide the note over to him.

  “First off, anyone could tell me that I’m single and intelligent. That don’t mean you figured me out,” he points at me with the cigarette. “And I was diagnosed as dyslexic from the time I was a kid. Never heard of the other thing, but that sounds about right. That was…”

  “Impressive?”

  “Irritating,” he counters.

  A new kind of uncomfortable makes its presence known. As if the universe is fully aware that having this kind of easy back and forth banter with the man whose been torturing me goes against everything that’s natural or right in the world. I make a mental note to inform the universe that I’m fully aware of this oddity and ask how to make amends.

  I remember the knife tucked into the back of my pants.

  As soon as I escape.

  My bare feet scrape on the rough floor. I look down to see that half of the kitchen flooring has been ripped up, and there are several boxes marked TILE against the wall under the small kitchen window.

  “Renovating?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yeah, when I bought the building, there was a tenant in it. Had to wait until she was gone to move in and start renovating.”

  “How land-lordy of you. A killer, a torturer, a drug dealer, and a DIY-er. Who would have thought?” I bat my eye lashes.

  “Smart ass,” he grumbles. He stands straight, and for the first time, I notice something other than anger in his eyes. He looks tired. The kind of tired that wears on the soul and not just the body.

  The same kind of tired I feel.

  I clear my throat. “Uh, your tenant. Did she move to a better place?”

  Inwardly, I grimace at the stupid and irrelevant question.

  Pike runs his hand through his hair and shakes it out. “I guess you can say that if you believe in the afterlife. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her son. He still comes in t
he shop from time to time.”

  I don’t hear the rest because I’m cringing so hard I’m worried I’m about to implode.

  He notices my discomfort and smiles, leaning on the counter once again. “Don’t tell me the scientific genius is afraid of ghosts?”

  Slowly, I raise my chin to see the amusement in his eyes. I huff. “Listen, I’m a logical person, and ghosts have no place in logic. I know that. My brain knows that. But knowing it’s not logical doesn’t prevent fear because fear itself is not rooted in logic. Therefore,” I take a deep breath and shiver. “I fucking hate ghosts.” I tick a list off on my fingers. “Along with scary movies. Any mention of graveyards. The afterlife. Haunted houses. And Steven King novels.”

  He laughs, and my entire body freezes because his laugh is deep and genuine and even though I hate to admit it, as beautiful as he is.

  “You win,” I say. “No more ghost talk.”

  “You’re not even going to ask me if she died here?” Pike asks, goading me. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s enjoying this kind of torture as much as he enjoyed the other kinds.

  I hold up my palm. “Nope, it didn’t occur to me. Don’t care.”

  “Really?” he asks, genuinely sounding confused. “That’s what most people ask first when they come here.”

  “You mean most girls who come here,” I correct.

  He doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t have to. I can see him with my own eyes, and as a straight female who isn’t currently dead, that’s all I need to know I’m right. And because of my damn photographic memory, long after this nightmare is over, if it’s ever over, I’ll be able to look upon every detail of his barbaric perfection for the rest of my days and recall every second of this living hell.

  “I’m not most people or most girls.” My words are a reminder to myself of the teasing I was subjected to in school.

  Too smart. Too nerdy. Show off. Outcast.

  Suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the small kitchen, I make my way past Pike who doesn’t make any effort to stand aside. As I turn to the side and shuffle past him, my breasts lightly brushing his back, I’m pretty sure he can feel the blush I’m currently feeling deep down in my fucking toes.

  When I’m in the safety of the living room, I turn to find Pike staring at me as if seeing me for the first time. His eyes rake me over from my face down my body slowly, heating me and my embarrassment until he reaches my toes and makes his way back up again as if he doesn’t care about being caught looking at me. As though he doesn’t have a care in the world. “No, you aren’t,” he mutters.

  “What did you say?” I ask, not sure if I heard him correctly.

  Pike shrugs, “Not a damn thing. You’re still hearing things, or maybe, it was your sister again.” He smirks that annoying smirk that makes a dimple pop out on his right cheek. The rugged man with scars on his knuckles suddenly looks boyish, and if I didn’t experience what he was capable of firsthand I might even call him sexy.

  Fuck.

  “Or maybe it’s the ghost?” he teases, wagging his eyebrows. “Because Edna has been known to wander around here at…”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not that afraid of ghosts,” I reply. I’m afraid of you.

  Pike walks over to me and places his hands on my shoulders. “I need you to do something for me.” His tone isn’t a demand or an order. “Close your eyes.” It’s a soft request.

  “I don’t know what kind of sick––”

  “Just close your eyes. It’s an experiment to see how this works.”

  Eager to get whatever this is over with and even more eager to see what exactly whatever this is and get back to planning my escape, I comply and close my eyes, taking a deep breath.

  What he says isn’t nearly what I expect. “What does my kitchen look like?”

  “What?” I ask, my eyes springing back open.

  His face is serious, his lips in a straight line. “Close your eyes,” he says, this time with a little more demand in his voice.

  I close them again and he repeats his question. “What does my kitchen look like? In detail.”

  I scrunch my nose. “Ugly.”

  His fingers tighten on my shoulders. “Tell me how you see it right now. From your memory.”

  This request is an easy one for me. It always has been. Just as easy as looking at a picture in your hands and rattling off what you see. I give him every detail complete with faded tassel curtains over the small window and a description of every chip and scrape on the butcher block counter to the crooked bars over the outside of the window. “At least, they’re ornate bars and have a little bit of charm. The fleur de lis design in metal of what is basically a cage over your window is a nice touch as far as decorative cages go. But do bars over windows really need to be decorative? It’s kind of an oxymoron if you ask me. Like flower boxes on the top of a pile at the garbage dump.”

  For a few seconds, there’s only silence. I open my eyes to find Pike staring at me with bewilderment in his eyes.

  “Did I pass or fail?” I ask, not knowing what the hypothesis of this experiment was to begin with.

  Pike’s face returns to cold and emotionless. “Both.”

  His hands slide from my shoulders, down my arms then around my waist, pulling me tightly against his chest. He drops his hands to the tops of my thighs then higher, kneading my ass. “What are you doing?” I whisper, feeling my body burning with embarrassment and shock and fucking biology.

  His lips brush my earlobe. A full body shiver rakes over my skin.

  Pike takes one of his hands off my ass and runs his knuckles down the goosebumps on my forearm. The other hand moves off my ass to the small of my back, pushing up the back of my shirt. I’m as still as a statue.

  “The question is, Mic, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He drops his hand from my back and the other grabs my forearm tightly. “You won’t be needing this.” He shoves my arm away with look of disgust twisting his otherwise beautiful face.

  He steps away, and my gaze drops to his hand.

  A hand that’s now holding my knife.

  The fucking cameras.

  A Kidnapper’s Commandments

  THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CARING FOR YOUR CAPTIVE

  By Samuel Motherfucking Clearwater

  Have you found yourself in the position of having to torture and care for an unwilling captive? Are you planning on obtaining an unwilling captive in the near future? Or maybe, you’re just daydreaming about the day when you’ll have an unwilling captive of your very own.

  Well then, these guidelines are for you.

  Having been both an abductor and a captive, I’ve designed these foolproof guidelines to ensure a successful experience for the abductor (you) while keeping in mind the needs of the unfortunate fuck in your grasp.

  I’m not just the president, folks. I’m also a motherfucking member.

  The Guidelines

  *Do not abandon your captive. One other person besides the abductor (you) must be aware of your captive’s whereabouts at all times in the unlikely case of the abductor's untimely demise. And remember, a lonely captive is an uncooperative captive. They’re already receiving your torture. Now, give them the gift of your time.

  *Allow your captive some freedom. How, you ask? House arrest bracelets with built-in explosives are a good way to keep your captive terrified of becoming human abstract art while allowing them a wee bit of exercise. It’s good practice to get the blood flowing before you get their blood flowing. Also, the mind-fuck alone the captive will experience while questioning said restricted freedom is motherfucking priceless.

  *Wounds must not be allowed to fester. The attached torture starter kit contains everything you’ll need to clean the puss out of all kinds of wounds, including but not limited to those inflicted by: guns, knives, icepicks, shanks, shivs, razor blades, baseball bats covered in barbed-wire, ropes, household lamps, broken Britney Spears CD’s, and children’s toys. I recommend that you take this ti
me to open your kit and familiarize yourself with the contents before engaging in your next abduction. Remember kids, inflicting new wounds won’t be effective if your captive is dying from sepsis. A happy abductor is a prepared abductor.

  *Water must be given to the captive every twenty-four hours. Trust me, this will still suck balls for them, but it will keep your captive alive until it’s time for them not to be.

  *After four days, food must be offered to your captive. Think healthy and nutritious. Attached, you’ll find the FDA guidelines and regulations for a healthy diet. If you’re reading this in email format, I’ve included links to some of my favorite thirty minutes or less recipes sure to please in any imprisoned-against-their-will situation. Try the pancakes. Yum!

  *Any captive held longer than a period of one week must be either killed when the clock strikes midnight on the 5th day or welcomed into the family with open arms. All information about wedding dates and times can be posted on my shared KNOT.COM website. You’ll also find that I made pre-filled wedding registry templates available to you from Amazon, Home Depot, Kinkyshit-R-Us and Weapons Depot, just to get you started.

  *Don’t forget the most important rule of all. Have fun! Make this kidnapping a pleasant experience, one you’ll want to remember for years to come. So, get creative! Express yourself while expelling your inner demons at the expense of your captive. Remember, just because your captive isn’t enjoying himself/herself, doesn’t mean that you can’t. They’re fucked, but you won’t be if you follow the aforementioned guidelines.

  That’s all, folks.

  Remember to help control the pet population, and have your pets spayed or neutered.

  Word to your mother,

  Samuel Motherfucking Clearwater a.k.a. “Preppy”

  Chapter Fourteen