The Vigilante's Lover #2

by Annie Winters

  “Not sure I recall that,” Colt says. “But let’s see what we can track down.” He opens a compartment next to his seat and lifts up a computer. “Okay, that night the lead fight was Hendrickson vs. Jones. Opener was Peters vs. Lukov.”

  “Lukov?” Jovana’s last name is Lukova, the female version of the surname.

  “Yup. He actually won that one. He was a non-UFC contender and got in on that fight.”

  “What’s he done since then?”

  “Prepared for a big match that’s coming up,” Colt pauses. “In two days. In Nashville.”

  “Can you pull up that footage from the July fight?”

  “Oh, yeah, tons of hits on that if you search. It went a little viral.” Colt brings up a video. The video opens with a title slide that reads “CUTE RUSSIAN GIRL SLAMS DUDE AT MMA FIGHT.”

  The footage starts on a fight. Some lean, muscular boy is being declared a winner. The Jumbotron above him shows his face and he points into the crowd. Whoever’s filming follows his finger and there she is, Jovana, jumping up and down. Her face shows up on the giant screen.

  An arm comes around her neck. I see a flash of blond hair. The image blurs, then comes back into focus as a man tries to drag Jovana from the stands.

  Hell. It’s Klaus. He looks rather healthy for someone who died three months prior.

  The Jumbotron goes back to the fighter, but the man with his shaky phone footage stays on Jovana and Klaus. She tries to stay by her seat, but Klaus yanks on her arm. She executes a perfect judo throw, flipping him over so that he lands on his back on the stairs.

  The crowd reacts, and a man’s voice, probably the one making the video, says, “That had to hurt.”

  I bet. I was on the receiving end of one of those that last time I saw Jovana, the night I killed Singer. Despite all those months together, I didn’t know she was combat trained until then.

  The video ends.

  “Did the woman go to other fights of his?” I ask.

  “No way to tell,” Colt says. He does some quick searches, but nothing else comes up. “You want to go to his fight in Nashville? I can get you tickets.”

  I settle back in the seat. “I’ll get in,” I say. Forging a ticket is something I can do without any need for tech and I don’t want Colt tied to me if anything goes south. “This chopper can’t get as far as Nashville.”

  “I’ve made it to Albuquerque before,” Colt says. “I can arrange for a car for you there, or another chopper.”

  “A car will do,” I say. I’ve got two days to get to this fight, and a car is much lower profile. “Especially if you have something not in your name.”

  “One of those deals,” he says. “I’ll tell Pop.” He taps out a message on his phone. “You must be in a real jam.”

  “Dangerous one at that. Should we drop you off?” I’m feeling concerned about defending a chopper if we’re attacked in the air by Vigilantes.

  “I’m all in,” Colt says.

  I watch out the window. Skies are still clear. Hopefully we’ll make it without incident.

  13: Mia

  I spend a few days cleaning the house, packing up my aunt’s clothes to donate, and sending off her death certificate to various banks and insurance companies to close out her estate. Soon I’ll have to prepare her house for sale.

  I’ve spotted the mouse two more times. I went into town and bought an extra loaf of bread for him. Might as well make a friend. Sometimes I laugh and call myself Cinderella.

  I might be going crazy.

  Josh, one of the grocery sackers, asks me out on a date. I think my neighbor Shirley put him up to it. She came over later the same day wondering if anything special had happened in town.

  I want to say, sure, I got abducted by a rogue spy, stripped in a field, and had my first orgasm in a pile of hay.

  This Josh guy is okay. I probably should have said yes.

  Shirley’s face fell when I said no, nothing happened.

  I lie on my bed midafternoon one day, staring at the blue pantsuit hanging on the door of my closet. It’s pretty much the only thing that ties me to Jax now. I went to the library and boldly checked out Fifty Shades of Grey in front of everyone. But I only got halfway through the first scene where Christian binds Ana and I had to stop. The longing got too much to bear.

  I idly pick up a length of rope I keep by my bed. I’ve been practicing knots, over and over, tying everything I know and seeing if I can untie it again while bound. It’s become something of an obsession, creating slipknots on the banister, yanking them tight, then freeing myself one-handed.

  If I ever see Jax again, I think I can tie him in a way that he can’t escape.

  But I won’t ever know. It won’t happen.

  I roll over and peer under the bed where I pushed Katya’s stolen shoes. I’ve been meaning to clean them, but I’m stupidly attached even to the mud on them.

  They look like such ordinary shoes, but I know better. There’s no way a Phase One Trainee would have plain old sneakers.

  I actually fired up Aunt Bea’s ancient television and put in one of the James Bond movies she was so fond of. Goldfinger. In it, Bond puts a tracking device in his shoe. That movie is sixty years old, and still, they were tracking spies in shoes!

  I pick up one of the dirty white sneakers. I hope Katya didn’t get in trouble for losing them to me. Thinking about that makes me smile. She didn’t see that coming. I wish I could have told Jax what I did.

  The outside of the shoe seems normal. Leather exterior, rubber sole. A stretchy band where shoelaces normally go makes it easy to remove, but keeps it securely in place when you’re wearing it.

  I stick my hand inside. The interior is strange, cushioned by something unfamiliar. It almost flows against my hand, adjusting to the contours it encounters.

  Like the seat in Colette’s car, I realize.

  The very front tip of the shoe is hard. I pull my hand out and bang the shoe on the floor. Yes, steel or something is hidden inside. Makes sense, if you’re kicking in doors or fighting.

  There’s a lot of space between the bottom of the inside of the shoe and the base of the shoe itself.

  Suddenly I realize something. There could be things hidden in there. Chips. Weapons. Trackers. I try to pull the inside layer of the shoe out, but it is well attached.

  I’m torn between destroying the shoe to see what’s inside, and keeping them intact. I pick up the other one to carry them to the kitchen, where I have some extra-strong shears, plus all the knives.

  The pantry door is still open, the metal hatch shining on the floor. I did sweep up all the wood shards, but didn’t bother replacing the rug. There’s no one here to see what I’ve uncovered.

  I wonder, if I destroy these shoes, will that bring the Vigilantes? It stands to reason that if they think one of their own has been harmed, they will come to investigate.

  Do I want that? Dell or Katya or that Sutherland guy? They might send Colette again.

  I set the shoes on the counter. The light is better in here, and I can see the edge of the inner lining now. I take a butter knife and pry at it, seeing if it will pull free.

  After several minutes of trying, I give up and switch out for a steak knife.

  I stick the blade in the seam between the edge of the shoe and the sole. At first it sinks in easily, then it hits something solid. I knew it. There’s metal in there.

  I slice along the heel until I can peel it up.

  Holy smokes.

  Beneath is a series of circuits. If I had to guess what a trainee would have, there would be some sort of tracking device, maybe a motion counter to make sure they ran their miles or whatever physical work they have to do. And surely — hopefully — something that allows them to bypass security in their own facilities. The high-tech silos use those scanners, but probably other buildings in the network have normal doors.

  Like safe houses do.

  I carry the shoe to the pantry and wave it around. Nothing happens. I se
t it on the hatch. Still nothing.

  I back up and sit on a kitchen chair. Dang it. I turn the shoe over in my hand.

  Wait.

  It probably knows whether or not it’s being worn.

  I pat the sole back into place and slip the shoe on. When I stand up, the bottom forms to my foot. I walk to the other and put it on as well.

  Do the shoes know I’m not Katya? I think about her. She was a little taller than me, and definitely more muscular. So she probably weighed a bit more. I look around. The radio. And the toaster. I pick them both up. That’s about right. Now the shoes should register that I’m her, unless there’s something trickier like a chip in her body.

  It’s worth a shot.

  I walk toward the pantry.

  My heart is pounding. I don’t know if this will work. Or what I will find if it does. For all I know, Vigilantes will descend from the sky on lines from helicopters.

  I step up to the pantry door.

  Nothing.

  I take another step closer to the hatch, until my toes are up against the crack.

  And I hear a faint “click.”

  Oh my God.

  The far side has lifted up almost an inch.

  I did it!

  I set the toaster and radio on a shelf and walk around the hatch to kneel before the opening. My fingers fit beneath the lip.

  I lift the metal panel, grunting under its weight. When it gets about two feet up, I notice a steel bar on the side, like the ones used in old cars to prop up the hood.

  It takes a lot of effort to hold the hatch door up with one arm, but I manage to pull the bar up and fit it in a carved-out hollow. I let go of the door with relief.

  It’s pitch black below. I need a flashlight.

  I dodge the open door to run into the kitchen for one. If my heart was hammering before, it’s firing like a machine gun now. The Vigilantes were right! Aunt Bea’s house IS part of their network.

  I stop for a second outside the pantry door.

  Does that mean Aunt Bea was a Vigilante?

  I don’t have time to think about this. Maybe the answer is under that hatch.

  I go back around to the back side. The way it opens, it creates a little space that is easy to defend.

  Interesting.

  I shine the light inside. There are only a few shallow steps. I kneel as far as I can in the cramped space, my feet against the back wall of the pantry, so I can peer into the hole before actually going down.

  Four metal steps lead into a small crawl space. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t go anywhere else. A few shelves are lined with black boxes.

  I take a deep breath and shift around so my feet are on the stairs. I bump down, one step at a time, until I’m sitting on the bottom one.

  I look up. If the hatch came down, would I be able to lift it back? Would I be trapped?

  This idea terrifies me, so rather than looking around, I grab the closest box and bring it up the stairs. In two seconds, I’m out of the pantry and back at the kitchen table, my lungs sucking in and out like I’ve just come up for air.

  Be brave, I scold myself. But I decide I’m not going back down there without at least a cell so I can call someone if I’m trapped. I dash to the living room for my phone.

  I tuck it in my pocket and head back to the kitchen.

  The box looks insidious on my table, black and out of place with the sunny yellow curtains and cheery bird wallpaper.

  I approach it warily. I unlocked the hatch without anyone arriving to stop me. No alarms have gone off. Still, I’m quite sure in some silo somewhere, it’s been noted that I opened it. Though who knows? Maybe Jax disabled things when he was here. He surely didn’t want to be seen.

  The box is about a foot wide and two feet long. It has normal metal latches, like a briefcase. I flip them open.

  Inside I find several Band-Aid trackers like the one Jax put on my neck at the hotel. Five syringes, each marked with a different-colored band. And a few other strange objects I can’t identify, all small flesh-colored boxes, some on Velcro straps, others with adhesive backs. I pick one up. I can’t see anything from the outside.

  I figure this must be a “captive” box, full of things to drug or track someone. I push it to the center of the table. Now for another one.

  With the phone in my pocket, I feel more comfortable down in the hole. There are six other black boxes of varying sizes. I try to lift the biggest one, which is several feet long, but it’s too heavy. So I open it instead.

  And back up immediately.

  Guns. Huge black guns with triggers and strange ammunition in black cylinders. They are laid out in green foam that is carved to fit them.

  I close the box with a slam. Weapons. There are weapons under my house.

  Unease trickles through me. I don’t like knowing they are there.

  I pick up the smallest box. Feeling creeped out by the guns, I take this one upstairs. Aunt Bea’s bright kitchen helps calm me. I need a little normal, as I realize all these things were below my feet the whole time. I’m itching to talk to a Vigilante again and find out what they know. Was my Aunt Bea really this person they called Georgiana Powers?

  Maybe Klaus really was here. Maybe he really was killed here.

  Maybe Aunt Bea wasn’t having strokes at all.

  Maybe they killed her.

  Now I can’t concentrate on the box at all. My mind is racing.

  How would I find this out? How could I know?

  My breath starts coming in fits and hitches. I have to calm down or I’m going to hyperventilate.

  If they came for Aunt Bea, wouldn’t they come back for me? Who are these people? Why are they killing everyone?

  I sink into a chair, every part of me trembling. I want Jax. I want him right now. But I don’t know how to get him.

  I sit there, jumping at every little sound, until the terror starts to settle into a manageable sort of low-level anxiety.

  I pull the second box close to me. When I flip these latches, I have to smile at the contents. A pen. A notebook. Two men’s clip-on bow ties, one black, one red. A bulky necklace that is a cluster of big red beads. And an oversized onyx ring.

  I slip the ring on my finger. It’s big. Really big. The black oval is set in a gold base. I try it on my thumb and it still slips off. Something about it makes me think of Jax, though, so I leave it on.

  The light outside my back door clicks on, timed for sunset. I wonder if the Vigilantes really are monitoring the room, and if they’re watching me go through their things. That Sutherland guy didn’t seem to want me to know anything. Colette played along when she knew they were listening.

  It’s all such a puzzle.

  I’m tired. I close the box. Maybe I should sleep a little and go through the rest of the pantry tomorrow.

  I pause by the door. Should I close the hatch? Something tells me I should. I can almost see the pulsing light on a panel somewhere, alerting someone that the door is open. I walk around to the back side and hang on to the heavy lid as I let the bar fall. Then I lower the hatch into place.

  The two black boxes seem obvious on my counter. If Shirley comes over, which inevitably she will, she’ll ask about them. I open a low cabinet and hide them inside.

  I shove the rug by the back door as though I’m about to take it out for a cleaning. Now everything seems normal.

  I clasp my hand around the black ring as I head back to my room. Too little sleep. Too little food. Coming down from that crazy freak-out I had when I saw the guns. I need to rest.

  Tomorrow I can figure out what I’m doing next. How to find Jax. I know he doesn’t want me. But I want him. I should never have walked out of the barn. I should have made Colette take me back.

  I gave up too easily.

  I kick off the shoes, mad at myself. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to find my way back to him.

  I don’t bother shutting off any lights anymore. I can sleep fine in brightness and it’s too uncomfortable to be al
one in the dark. Especially now that I know about the guns. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to figure out how to use one.

  Or not. God. It’s so frightening.

  Jax invades my vision as soon as I close my eyes. Him at the hotel, holding the drink, watching his jacket fall from my body.

  In the hay, braced over me, shirtless, working my body.

  Soon he’s invading my dreams. I can feel the rope again, tight on my wrist. I smile to myself, reveling in the rush of pleasure and anticipation.

  Then something pinches against my skin and I startle awake.

  The room is dark.

  It shouldn’t be dark.

  I left the lights on.

  I try to move, but I’m immobile. I’ve been tied. It wasn’t a dream.

  I can’t see anything. The room is pitch black. Even my clock is off.

  The electricity has been cut.

  “Jax?” I ask, even though I know better.

  Silence.

  “Colette?” I ask hopefully.

  A light flares, the striking of a match.

  It moves through the air, illuminating a hand. It rises to a mouth, a cigarette, and a face.

  Not Jax’s face.

  I scream.

  14: Jax

  We hit a storm over New Mexico. Lightning flashes in the distance and the helicopter jerks and shudders.

  “Sorry about the turbulence,” the pilot calls back. “Doing my best to avoid the storm but you can’t dodge everything.”

  “That’s quite all right,” I say. “How far out are we?”

  “We’re about 50 miles from the heliport, or about 20 minutes,” he says.

  “At the airport?” I hope this is not the case. Airports mean increased visibility.

  “No,” Colt says. “It’s a private ’port we use. Less paparazzi.”

  “Good.”

  Up ahead I can see the lights of Albuquerque glimmering in the dark. Like many US cities in the Southwest, the edges of its sprawl stand in stark contrast to the empty land surrounding it. Particularly at night, when the city streets pulse with streetlights. The late hour means few cars are out, and fewer eyes.