No Rest For The Wicked

by James, Harper

  There was a sudden flurry of activity behind her, a rapid scampering of feet and something slammed into her legs.

  She let out a loud shriek, her heart thudding wildly in her chest. She fell forwards into the double doors, knocking them open, tumbling into the kitchen. Emily, the Harris’ seven-year-old daughter tumbled in after her, laughing with glee.

  She saw Luca and another guy she hadn’t seen before, wearing black and white chef’s pants. They were both red in the face as if they’d been arguing before she burst in so unexpectedly. Relief flooded through her. What the hell was wrong with her?

  Then she saw the trickle of blood at the side of Luca’s mouth. His nose was bloody too. Did the chef hit him? Sure, chefs are volatile, but how upset can you get over a burned breakfast?

  ‘What’s going—’

  There was a noise behind her. Somebody stepped up and put a hand on her back, shoved her roughly into the middle of the room. She stumbled and fell into Luca who tried to catch her. The guy who pushed her grabbed Emily, pulling her into his body with his free hand, a sawed-off shotgun in the other.

  A second, leathery-faced man stepped across from the other side of the double doors, a small black pistol in his large hand. With his V-neck sweater over a shirt and tie, he looked like a retired insurance salesman—except the only thing he’d be selling today was death benefits. He gave Gina a long look, stopped just short of licking his lips.

  ‘Uh-oh.’

  ‘What?’ the guy with sawed-off said.

  ‘You’re going to have trouble keeping junior in check with this one around.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe I won’t even try.’

  Emily squirmed in his grip as he talked, but he held her tighter, making her snivel. He clamped his hand over her mouth. She bit it.

  ‘Ow!’

  He jerked his hand back. She twisted away, but the other guy caught hold of her before she got far.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Todd. Can’t you even hold onto a five-year-old kid?’

  ‘I’m not five, I’m seven. I want my mommy.’

  She bit him too.

  ‘What was that, Mason?’ Todd laughed, as Mason shook his hand.

  ‘I want my mommy.’

  Mason pushed her towards Gina.

  ‘Jeez, you can have her. Remind me never to have kids.’

  But Emily turned and made a dash for the doors. Todd caught her again, tucked her up under his arm, a frown on his face.

  ‘So you’re not mommy?’ he said to Gina.

  Gina didn’t answer.

  The double doors flew open again and another guy, a lot younger than the other two, came in. Like them, he had a gun in his hand.

  ‘Hey junior, look what we got for you,’ Mason said.

  ‘Will you quit calling me that . . .’

  His voice trailed off as he looked Gina up and down, the irritation twisting his face slipping away to be replaced by a leering grin.

  ‘Junior, Sonny, what’s the difference?’ Mason said.

  But Sonny wasn’t listening any more.

  Chapter 4

  GINA STARED IN HORROR at the scrawny kid they called Sonny. She shuddered at the sight of his bad skin and lank hair that looked like he styled it by sticking his head in the toilet bowl and flushing. He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering openly on her breasts. Unlike the older one, Mason, this one licked his thin lips as he stared at her.

  Something foul lived behind his bright, mean eyes that you didn’t want to look at. It made her feel dirty. It was obvious, just from looking at him, that he wasn’t quite right. Anything could happen when he was around.

  Instinctively she knew he enjoyed hurting people.

  He trotted across the room towards her like a hyena that had spotted a wounded calf. He grabbed her roughly by the jaw. His fingers dug into her cheeks, untrimmed nails sharp on her skin. He turned her head from side to side as if he was inspecting her, like she was a horse he might buy. Letting go of her chin, he grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her head backwards, exposing her throat

  ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm.’

  He leaned in close, nuzzled her neck, the patchy stubble on his chin scratching her. A shiver of revulsion rippled through her, made her legs weak.

  He tightened his grip in her hair but he had a dilemma. With one hand in her hair and the other holding his 9mm pistol, he needed a third hand if he was going to violate her in any other way.

  ‘Leave her alone, Sonny,’ Todd said, but there was a faint smile on his lips and no conviction in his voice.

  ‘No way. I haven’t started yet.’

  He bent her backwards over the stainless-steel counter top and shoved the barrel of his gun under her chin. She arched backwards, her breasts thrust tightly against her sweater. He pushed himself into her, the hardness in his pants pushing against her leg.

  ‘Leave her alone.’

  This time it was Mason. His voice had a harder edge.

  ‘Piss off Mason, you don’t get to tell me what to do.’

  He pulled his gun out of her face, jammed it down the back of his waistband, freeing up his hand. Gina’s skin crawled as he slid it under the hem of her sweater and over the bare flesh, moving slowly upwards to cup her breast.

  She shuddered as the last two months were stripped away in an instant. She was back in a desolate warehouse, alone and tied to a chair, as a vicious deviant with a blowtorch and hands like sandpaper tore at her clothes and threatened to scar her for life.

  ‘Tsk, tsk. No bra,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘You go around dressed like that, you’ve only got yourself to blame. Prick-tease.’

  His voice snapped her violently back into the horror of the present. It did her a favour. She brought with her the same grim determination that saved her life back then. She slammed her knee up hard into his groin. He yelped, letting go of her hair in his surprise. The other hand slipped out from under her sweater as he doubled over in pain. She straightened up and reached around behind him, grabbing his gun from the back of his pants.

  He backed away from her, clutching his privates, a satisfying grimace of pain replacing the obscene leer on his face. Behind the pain, there was something else, better than the pain—fear—as he stared into the barrel of the gun pointing at his face.

  It got very quiet.

  Everybody in the room held their breath, all eyes on her finger as it curled around the trigger, the thoughts of most of them willing her, do it.

  Then she did something dumb instead.

  She should have stayed focussed on the gun in her hand, taken advantage of his fear and confusion.

  Instead, all the memories from her abduction that she’d spent the last two months suppressing came flooding back in an avalanche of humiliation and pain. She was back in the filthy warehouse again. All she wanted was to lash out wildly at anything and everything. In front of her, Sonny was bent almost double, hands clamped between his legs. He was pathetic. She aimed a vicious kick at where he was nursing himself. She craved the gratifying, sickening feeling of a heavy hiking boot mashing the delicate body parts her knee had recently squashed, hearing a proper howl of pain, not just the pitiful nngh, nngh, nngh sounds slipping through his teeth.

  But once bitten, twice shy. He was on his guard now.

  In her hurry to get downstairs and find some coffee, she hadn’t tied her bootlaces, just tucked them in the top. She kicked violently at him. The boot flew off her foot. It sailed harmlessly past his leg, landed on the other side of the room. His arm whipped out and caught her bare foot easily, held it tight. In the same instant, Mason took a fast step forward. He grabbed her wrist, yanked it upwards, away from Sonny. Stretched tight between them, she felt like a piece of meat being fought over by a pack of wild dogs.

  It wasn’t so far from the truth.

  The gun went off, the bullet punching a hole clean through the ceiling.

  The sharp, ear-splitting crack wasn’t more than a foot above Gina’s head. Mason twisted her wr
ist, snatched the gun out of her hand before her startled shriek was past her lips. Emily screamed. Luca and the chef ducked, arms covering their heads.

  ‘Nice try,’ Mason said, as he pulled the gun away.

  His manner suggested gun shots were a daily occurrence while he was making breakfast in his own kitchen. He flicked his fingers through his hair, brushing away the dust and plaster that had settled in it from the hole in the ceiling.

  He pushed his face into Gina’s. Up close—breath-mingling close—she smelled whisky, saw dirt in the wrinkles around his eyes.

  ‘Next time you want to try anything stupid like that, wait until he stuffs it down the front of his pants. With any luck it’ll go off and save us all a ton of aggravation. Save a lot of women a ton of disappointment too.’

  He stepped away, Sonny’s gun safely in his hand.

  ‘Fuck you, Mason,’ Sonny said.

  Mason paused, mid-stride, looking like he was thinking of sticking Sonny’s gun somewhere he couldn’t lose it. He caught Todd’s eye, thought better of it.

  Sonny was still holding Gina’s foot. She had to balance herself against the counter behind her. He straightened up painfully, keeping hold of her foot, lifting it higher. She tried to shake herself free but she was too much off balance. He raised her leg higher. She felt so vulnerable with her legs pulled apart as if she wasn’t wearing anything.

  Everyone knew what was coming next. Luca and the chef stared at the floor. Even Emily stopped wriggling under Todd’s arm, her eyes wide.

  ‘Okay, bitch, let’s see how you like it.’

  He drew back his foot. She stared helplessly at the pointed toe of his boot, could almost feel the burning pain between her legs, the wetness as her blood ran down the inside of her thigh.

  ‘That’s enough, Sonny.’

  It was Todd again, no smile in his voice this time. Sonny might have been an inbred retard, but he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know the difference. That didn’t stop him from considering it.

  ‘I said enough. She already got your gun once. You don’t want her to kick your ass too, do you?’

  Sonny threw her leg to the floor, the color rising in his cheeks. He stepped quickly forwards, turning sideways to protect himself, and stood on her bare toes. Gina stifled a gasp, ignored the pain, thought about spitting in his eye.

  He stuck his face into hers, patted her on the cheek a couple of times.

  ‘We’ll finish this later.’

  ‘You tell her, Sonny,’ Mason laughed. ‘Here, take your gun back. Be more careful with it next time, okay. There might not be any grown-ups around to help next time.’

  Sonny snatched the gun. He stomped away as if he was looking for someone, something to hurt. It was lucky for Emily she was still firmly clamped under Todd’s muscular arm, because she was more his size. She’d stopped wriggling, just hung there, arms and legs dangling limply. Conserving her energy, Gina hoped.

  The back door to the kitchen opened letting in a rush of cold air. A fourth man came in, dripping snow onto the tiled floor. Gina turned to look at him, her eyes also taking in the girl standing silently in the corner. A voice on the radio came back to her.

  Sonny Day

  Took a female clerk hostage

  The fourth member of the gang

  Everything had happened so quickly she hadn’t made the connection before. It was the gang who’d held up the liquor store, killing the manager in the process.

  She was suddenly aware of Todd standing in front of her, Emily once again struggling to get free.

  ‘Now that we got that excitement over with, we can get back to what we were doing. It’s obvious you’re not this little one’s mommy.’

  He adjusted Emily under his arm. She’d started to snivel again.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop wriggling, will you? And stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.’

  ‘Let me take her,’ Gina said.

  He considered her carefully for a moment, a look of confused suspicion on his face, before putting Emily down. Gina held out her hand. Emily rushed to her side and buried her face in Gina’s sweater.

  ‘If you try anything, I’ll let Sonny take out his disappointment on little Emily here. Understand.’

  Gina nodded.

  He turned away, shook his head.

  ‘Christ, what a day. And it’s barely started. Okay, Mason, Loyd, you go check out the rest of the hotel. Find the kid’s mommy and her daddy too. Wonder Woman here has probably got somebody with her as well.’

  He looked at Gina who ignored him, kept her face passive.

  ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend. I know there’ll be someone. Nobody comes to a place like this on their own. Nobody looking like you, that is. Or maybe we’ll just look in the closet for his clothes.’

  He gave her a tight, think-you’re-so-clever smile.

  ‘Did you hurt your mouth or something?’

  The smile turned into a scowl. Mason and Loyd headed towards the door, leaving him wondering what the hell he did to deserve this bitch.

  ‘What about me?’ Sonny said, his voice petulant.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll go too.’

  ‘No, you stay here. I don’t want you out of my sight, now you’ve got all excited. Who knows what you’d do if you found mommy in her nightie. Or maybe the kid’s got a big sister who’d kick your ass and take your gun.’

  Sonny extended his finger at him but didn’t answer.

  Todd turned to Luca.

  ‘Is that everybody? The kid’s parents and her’—he inclined his head towards Gina—‘boyfriend?’

  Luca nodded.

  ‘You better not be lying.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’m going to find a nice big meat cleaver and chop off a finger for every extra guest we find. How’s that sound?’

  Luca held his gaze.

  ‘It’s good by me. There’s nobody else.’

  ‘What about staff?’

  ‘Just me and him.’

  He pointed his thumb at the chef.

  Gina looked at the chef. She hadn’t paid him any attention up until this point. He was mid-thirties, maybe six-one and solid, someone who liked to work out. Maybe he was the one who gave Luca a bloody lip before the others arrived.

  ‘No maids?’

  ‘They come in later.’

  Todd seemed satisfied for the moment, content to wait for the others to get back with the remaining guests.

  Luca’s words came back to Gina: Three lucky couples.

  The ones who’d cancelled would be feeling very lucky at the moment if they knew what was going on. She hoped Evan hadn’t come back early—perhaps because it was too cold outside, or maybe because he knew he had something warm waiting for him inside. For once she was grateful for his dedication to his exercise regime, praying this wasn’t the one time he decided to be a wimp.

  Chapter 5

  ‘I’M STARVING,’ SONNY WHINED. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had anything to eat.’

  Todd gave him a look.

  ‘Duh, you’re in a kitchen, dummy. Look in the fridge.’

  Sonny opened one of the doors of the massive double-doored stainless-steel fridge and peered inside. At least three people in the room would have liked to push him inside and lock the door.

  ‘There’s nothing to eat in this.’

  ‘What? You mean no potato chips or popcorn? Just meat and veg, crap like that you mean?’

  Sonny picked up a chunk of cheese and took a trial bite of it. He chewed a couple of times, pulled a disgusted face and spat it out, back into the fridge. Then he hurled the rest after it.

  ‘Call that cheese? How can you eat this shit? Jesus.’

  The chef coughed politely, a small ahem sound.

  Sonny pulled his head out the fridge and looked at him.

  ‘On the other side,’ the chef said. ‘I think there are some snacks. They’re at the back, behind the
real food.’

  Gina watched the chef as he talked, saw the veins on the back of his hand bulge as he gripped the counter top tightly.

  Surely, he wasn’t going to make a move against two armed men. He’d get them all killed.

  He was suddenly aware of Gina staring at him. His gaze shifted from Sonny to her face. Their eyes met. Something passed between them. She tensed in anticipation, already committed. She caught Luca’s eye. He was in too.

  Todd was busy watching Sonny, too interested in what he might find, to notice.

  Sonny gave the chef the withering look of a man whose every meal came with large fries and a coke.

  ‘Yeah, well you can shove your real food.’

  ‘I’m sure there are some barbeque wings in there.’ He looked directly at Gina. ‘Last time I looked there were at least five.’

  He mouthed the five directly at Gina. She nodded, barely moving her head, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, the weakness in her legs, praying her limbs would respond when the time came.

  Five.

  Sonny opened the other door, the one nearest the chef.

  Four.

  Todd watched with an amused half-smile on his lips, the sawed-off hanging down from his hand, pointing at the floor. He licked his lips, as if barbeque wings sounded good to him too.

  Three.

  Sonny leaned in, moved some stuff noisily around, muttered complaints drifting out into the room.

  The chef nodded in time to the countdown in her head.

  Two.

  She could barely breathe. Her throat was dry. She swallowed. It didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Her whole body vibrated. She looked down at Emily and winked.

  One.

  ‘Ow! Emily. Don’t do that,’ Gina screamed.

  Todd spun around towards her.

  Sonny pulled his head out of the fridge and turned her way.

  The chef leapt forward, slammed the heavy metal door in his face, driving him further into the fridge. Sonny let out a surprised yelp as the door busted into his nose. The chef pulled the door open again, slammed it harder, putting all his weight behind it, squashing Sonny’s head between the door and the metal shelves.