Bruce’s head popped around the door as he eased it open – without her permission, she noted irritably. The man was still in need of some instruction as to the new world order around here.
“Have you got a minute?” he asked sheepishly.
Summer looked up at him, his demeanour no doubt a careful act for anyone watching. Beyond him in the hallway several people were milling about, no doubt mining for gossip.
“What is it, Bruce?”
“I just needed to talk with you for a moment… if that’s okay?” he added respectfully.
On her way up through the ranks at ARK, she had enjoyed – well no, not enjoyed… that was entirely the wrong choice of words… she had had to grin and bear her way through – a summer of his amateurish fumblings.
Bruce Manners was married with no intention of ever leaving his wife, but his status at the studio was legendary for his treatment of the young female staffers.
She personally knew of multiple girls who’d left under a cloud while amiable Bruce kept on trucking, his face paying a lot of the bills for the station. Settlements were made in private for the more determined of the young women, while the rest were simply crushed under the foot of high-priced lawyers and bullied into silence.
“Make it quick,” she ordered loudly, enjoying her newfound power as the faces in hallway recorded her domination over the old guard and would no doubt be relaying the gossip in short fashion.
“Thank you,” Bruce said as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
She felt his eyes roam over her figure, but she made no effort to rearrange her robe as it slipped off her shoulder, exposing a patch of soft white flesh.
“Like I said, make it quick.” She pouted with sheer confidence as she took another sip.
He started to wander around his old dressing room, the décor having been changed over a weekend and now reflecting a young vibrant woman on the way up rather than the faded dinosaur about to go extinct.
“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” she asked, her voice pleasant but her tone clearly meant to poke him.
“You must really think that you’re hot shit right about now,” he said without turning to face her as he strolled with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Well that’s what the ratings tell me.”
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of women come and go.”
“That’ll happen when you get to be your age. I’m surprised that you can still remember them, but I guess they say that the short-term memory is the first to go while the long-term just hangs on in there, teasing you with the thoughts of what once was.”
“Got some smart mouth on you, too.”
“One of my best features.” She smiled icily. “Not that you’ll ever get to find out.”
“This…,” he said, wafting his arms around the room. “This is all just temporary. You’re just flavour of the month, kid, a passing fancy. All of this will disappear just as quickly as it came when the mood shifts.”
“That a fact, old man?”
“That’s a fact, and you can trust me on that.”
“The only thing I can trust you to be full of is shit.”
“You ought to be more careful, girl.”
“Of what? An old fart like you? You’re done, Bruce. Don’t you know that? Are you really so feeble and addle-minded that you really don’t see it?”
“Don’t you speak to me like that,” he said, his voice dropping and hardening, but Summer was enjoying her moment too much to notice. “I gave you your break. I run this place… have done for a long goddamn time and I still do. I can have you thrown out of here on your skinny ass!”
“Oh really?” she said. She set aside her champagne flute on a small table next to the sofa before standing up.
Her robe gaped but she didn’t care, instead relishing the power that her figure gave her as the man’s face flushed at the sight.
“You want to know why you've still got a job here, old man?” she spat at him. “It’s because you are literally so far beneath my radar that I actually forgot you still worked here. You were not worth my time, not a single second of my thoughts, Bruce, but now? Well, hell now. I’m going to see that you’re run out of here just for pissing me off, and you know what else? I think I’m going to do a story on you, a story about a disgusting old pervert praying on young women.”
“Is that a fact?” he growled in reply.
“Oh yes, it’s a fact. Tell me something, Bruce. How many girls are there? How many young women had to leave the station under a cloud? How many stories are there? How many women are going to come forward once I put the word out that I’m looking?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh yes I would, you old bastard.” She laughed in his face. “I’m going to bury you. How’d that pretty little wife of yours like that? How likely is she to stick around once her meal ticket is stamped null and void? I’d imagine it’d be pretty tough at the country club being the wife of the local perv!”
“You bitch.”
“You’d better believe it, sunshine.” She grinned. “I can just picture you now in a jail cell, finding out what it means for you to be the bitch, but I’m kind of thinking that you might just enjoy it!”
She grinned at her superior attitude and her victory, but she didn’t see that she had pushed him too far until it was too late.
Bruce closed the distance between them before she was aware that he was moving and his hands were clamped around her throat before she could stop him.
The explosion of violence caught her completely off-guard and she would never have suspected the man capable of such things, right up until he was choking her to death.
She kicked at his legs, hoping to land a killer blow in the crotch but flailing blindly. Her nails dug into his hands, drawing blood, but his eyes were dark and distant as they stood only a few inches from each other.
She felt herself starting to fade fast as his grip intensified. Her own struggles were weakening and the sheer stupidity of her life ending this way was too much to take, and then she was free.
Bruce threw her backwards and she landed on the sofa, gratefully gasping for air. Her relief was short-lived though as Bruce advanced on her, pausing only to take his jacket off and show her that there were worse things than being strangled.
His expression was glazed and his eyes had gone black like a shark’s as he moved towards her with slow menace and evil intent. Now she became all too aware of her lack of clothing and quickly snatched the robe together over her bare legs.
“You just take it easy, Bruce,” she croaked. “You just back up now.”
She pushed herself back into the sofa, feeling real fear now as the man kept on coming forwards as he loosened his tie and threw it aside.
He reached her and placed his hands over her and on the back of the sofa, trapping her in place.
“Where’s that smart mouth of yours now?” he hissed in her face. “Got you into trouble at last, I’m guessing… the sort of trouble you deserve.”
“Bruce…, please… Don’t…,” she begged as he loomed over her.
Her eyes searched frantically for some help but she couldn’t see a way out of the situation until the door opened and a woman entered the dressing room; it was Mrs Fontaine.
Summer’s eyes flashed with relief, but the woman merely closed the door softly behind her and stood there watching.
“Help me!” Summer cried out, but the other woman merely folded her arms across her chest.
Bruce seemed oblivious to the newcomer as he reached down to open Summer’s robe with trembling fingers.
Summer could now see clearly that there was no help here for her, none but what she could provide for herself.
She stopped struggling against Bruce’s hands and steeled herself against his invading touch as his breath became long heavy pants.
He buried his face in her open robe and she allowed him to despite her very skin crawling.
S
he reached past him, her fingers searching for the small table. Her stomach churned at the touch of the man’s tongue on her skin. She could feel his heat and his rising passion and fought against the overwhelming tide of desperation.
Finally, her fingers touched against the champagne flute. Millimetre by millimetre, her touch moved the glass until slowly it moved into her grasp.
Bruce’s hand was now creeping up between her thighs and that gave her the final push to do what needed to be done.
She grasped the champagne flute firmly in her hand and squeezed until it broke, sending a jagged shard into her palm that made her bite down on her lip in pain.
Bruce felt the movement and raised his head to look up. That was when she moved her slippery fingers down to the flute’s stem and used the broken drinking glass as a dagger, plunging it sideways into her would be rapist’s neck.
The sharp edges drove into Bruce’s neck and immediately tore open an artery, spraying her face with his blood.
Bruce’s expression seemed to momentarily clear and his passion was replaced with sheer confusion and then pain as blood spurted out.
He staggered back away from her, his hand raised to the open wound as his fingers tried desperately to stop the arterial spray.
Summer looked on, first in horror but then with a growing sense of savage satisfaction. Blood was dripping from her own slashed hand, but she neither felt it nor cared. The only thing that mattered now was watching the man who’d attacked her bleed to death in the middle of her dressing room.
She walked to him as he sank to his knees on the thick carpeted floor. She stood over his dying form as he looked up at her, his hands now grasping his own neck much in the same way as they’d been clamped to hers only minutes ago.
He opened his mouth and tried to speak, to beg, but Summer merely stared down at him. His face was now ashen as the life drained from his body, and the only help she gave was to reach down and pull his weak hands away so that he could bleed out more easily.
“Die, you bastard,” she hissed in his face, and for once, he was agreeable.
“Well played, my dear.” Mrs Fontaine applauded. “Well done indeed.”
“No thanks to you,” Summer snarled.
“Oh, I was rooting for you all the way.”
“Fat lot of good that did,” Summer said, looking down at the body on her dressing-room floor.
“On the contrary. Besides, we must all carry our own water, my dear… a lesson I shall teach all my children.”
Summer’s mind started to slowly clear as she stared at a now dead man.
“Jesus Christ, I just killed a man! I… I have to call the police.”
“No need for that, trust me. Oh, and please refrain from blasphemy; it really is my only rule,” Mrs Fontaine said with a smile.
“But the police… I have… I should…”
The woman took her hand firmly and held it.
“I can take care of this for you, my dear.”
“Take care of it? There’s… there’s nothing to take care of; it was self-defence.”
“But will they see it that way?” Mrs Fontaine asked cynically. “The way that they judge you, the way that they see you. What if they take the word of a dead man over you?”
“But they wouldn’t, they couldn’t…”
“And what about the scandal, my dear? Do you really think that none of this will stick to you? Will they not put you on trial? Your habits, your lifestyle. After all, what were you doing here with this man at this hour, alone in your dressing room and barely dressed? A lover’s tiff gone wrong? A scorned woman?”
The words hit Summer hard, as they were meant to. The daughter of Cynthia Arrow had been raised her mother’s daughter, and she knew the other woman’s buttons and was easily playing them like a virtuoso.
“Let me help you,” she cooed. “Let me make all of this go away quietly. After all, secrets are what bond two people into being friends.”
“Friends?”
“Of course we are, I already told you. We’re going to be the greatest of friends, my dear. The very greatest.”
----------
chapter 28
THE HUNT
Jamie-Lyn held onto the side of the boat as the waves buffeted them about during the crossing.
Their captain was a stereotypically gruff seadog who’d barely spoken to them since he’d picked them up. Even the sight of the huddled CJ ducking down below hadn’t provoked much in the way of a response.
She was grateful for the man’s lack of interest in them or their plans; in truth, she didn’t have much in the way of answers for any of it. It was hard enough just trying to keep moving and stopping the thoughts from crushing her under their weight. The enormity of what had happened to them all had yet to fully sink in, and she wasn’t looking forward to the moment when it did.
She was standing out on deck alone now; the air was cold and the salty sea water on the wind was bitter tasting, but at least it was real and she understood it.
The boat was a fishing vessel and smelled accordingly. It was being crewed only by the captain and his first mate, but both of them were ensconced in the top deck cabin with the captain at the wheel.
There was a lower deck, which she’d explored earlier. This was now where the others were currently taking shelter from the cold.
There were several bunks and a common room with a small galley kitchen which offered welcome hot beverages, and despite their lack of appetites, they had all eaten for the fuel rather than because they felt hungry. First rule of the battlefield was to always rest and eat when you could because you never knew when you’d get the chance again.
The crossing was going to take around three hours, according to the captain in one of the few sentences he deigned to greet them with. It was a slow journey but necessarily so as they avoided any potential prying eyes and stayed out of the main shipping lanes.
After a tasteless but hot and plentiful meal prepared by the first mate, she’d returned back up onto deck alone for the silence.
“Penny for them?”
She turned to see Link standing behind her. He was wearing a large heavy jacket borrowed from down below. He had brought one for her too. She slipped it on and relished the oversized garment as it kept the biting wind from penetrating her own meagre coat.
“Not sure they’re worth that much” she answered with only half a smile.
Their newest addition had spent much of the past ten hours or so using his military friend’s equipment to try and track down a lead on Olaf Gustafson, the Swedish scientist that they thought might be able to help. It was hardly what she would have called a solid plan, but right now, it was all they had.
Link moved and stood next to her. For one crazy second, she thought that he was going to hug her, and for a crazier second, she knew that she’d let him. She had at least 15 years on him but it wasn’t about any kind of romantic physical attraction – it was simply that she felt the need for human contact.
The moment passed as quickly as it had arisen and she was left with blushing cheeks that were thankfully hidden by the effect of the cold wind on her ruddy face.
“How are they doing down there?” she asked.
“Well Jesus is trying to call his fiancée. It’s a safe phone,” Link responded, holding his hands up as Jamie-Lyn’s eyebrows raised on their own accord.
“I bet Crimson loved that idea,” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, don’t worry; he found a bottle of something with a high alcohol content and he’s currently emptying it.”
“CJ?”
“He’s just sitting there, doesn’t seem to have much to say for himself right now. Is he… was he always like that?”
Jamie-Lyn thought about their strange alien visitor and the years that she’d known him and the years that had passed since then.
“Kind of,” was the best shrugging answer she could finally come up with. “CJ’s always been… well hell, he’s different. I mean, that
much is obvious, I guess. But more than just coming from… up there,” she said, pointing up towards the black night sky. “I’d guess that even back home, he’d have been different.”
“I suppose it must be difficult for him. We all look at him like he’s different, strange, an alien. But for him – well, to him we’re the aliens.”
Jamie-Lyn nodded. It was something that had always occurred to her too.
“He doesn’t exactly open up to people,” she continued. “Never did. The team was the only real family he ever had here, and one by one, they all left him, one way or another.”
“And now the whole country’s turned against him.”
“Against all of us it would seem,” she replied as she stared off over the side of the boat into the black beyond that was threatening to swallow them whole.
“What do you really think about this… beast thing?” he asked quietly as though afraid of being overheard by the others. “You really think it’s another alien like CJ said or is it something else?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.” She shrugged with her reply.
“This scientist guy… you really think he’s going to have any answers?”
“It would make life a lot easier if he did if we can even find him. You think you can?”
“I’ve got some leads. On the one hand, no one’s heard from him for decades: no published articles, no breakthroughs, not a peep in the scientific community. But on the other hand, it’s also not like anyone’s been looking for him.”
“During your research, is he really as nuts as Jesus says?”
“Some of his theories and papers were pretty out there back in the day, a lot of talk about metagenes, advanced human development, augmentation, cloning, all kinds of comic stuff – but then again, I guess you guys kind of lived your own superhero lives thanks to a crash-landed alien. After that, I’m kind of thinking that anything might be possible.”
“Even the whole Torvanian uprising?”
“Maybe that’s a step too far,” Link responded after considering it. “But CJ did seem pretty sure, at least to start with.”
“Yes he did,” Jamie-Lyn replied thoughtfully. “But honestly, I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that all of this isn’t down to Cynthia Arrow. What kind of a crazy world would it be where only 99% of it was her and the other 1% was something else completely random? She comes at us all when we’re not expecting it, she ruins all of our reputations, sets us all up, murders friends and pins the blame at our feet, then turns the entire country against while rewriting history to make herself the martyr.”
Capes Page 40