Gone Black

by Linda Ladd

  Max gazed evenly at her and said a lot of nothing. Not exactly biting on her barbed hook. Psycho Bitch started growling like a rabid dog, all low and crazy, and looked pretty much like one, too. A tall, skinny fox terrier, maybe. Zeus growled, too, getting into the act, but the animal did not move. He was trained very well. But Jaxy obeyed her brother and kept her sap on her belt and off Claire’s head, trained, too, apparently. All that made Claire pretty damn sure that the idiot girl’s hands were pretty much tied when it came to abusing Claire, at least for the moment. And that was a very good thing.

  “Just sit down in that chair before I knock your teeth out,” Jaxy ground out through a tightly clenched jaw.

  This girl is hovering on the edge of losing control already, Claire thought. It hadn’t taken much more than a shove to make her act stupid and make mistakes. It would not be difficult for Claire to goad Psycho Girl into making the wrong move at the wrong time, one that would give Claire a chance to escape. And Claire was positive that she could take Jaxy down, given a fair fight, at least, and she’d just have to figure out when and how to push her over the edge into Unleashed and Hysterical Crazy Town.

  When the engines suddenly roared alive and the cabin started its slight vibration in readiness for takeoff, Claire chose one of the deep, upholstered recliners, one that was angled in such a way that she could see everybody on the plane and where nobody could sneak up behind her and knock her head off with a sap. She said nothing else. Neither did any of her new deadly enemies. She had stood up to them right off and hoped that earned the big guy’s respect. Even more than that, she hoped that Black’s analysis had been right. And he usually was right on target. Or Max could simply be waiting until they landed in Marseilles before beating her to a bloody pulp and feeding her to the sloppily drooling Zeus.

  Everybody buckled their seatbelts as the plane slowly rolled forward. Then the engines screamed and the plane was rushing down the runway. They were pressed back against their seats as the aircraft went up into the air at a steep angle and then finally leveled off high, probably somewhere above Columbia, Missouri. After that, everybody ignored her and just did the things any ordinary traveler would do on very long flights. Max and his dog read a hardback novel with a French title printed on the front above a picture of a bloody corpse, par for the course for his life’s work. Probably a how-to-inflict-bodily-pain manual.

  Jaxy filed her sharp black talons to even sharper points, no doubt for use on Claire’s eye sockets as soon as she was given the green light. The two hired goons stared at Claire with even more stupid and noticeably lustful stares. Since they were all so ultra-relaxed and settled in, maybe they’d doze off, and she could just kill them all in midflight, commandeer the plane, save Black, and take him home in time for a quick wedding. Well, it was a good daydream, anyhow. And took her mind off her imminent death and what Marcel Soquet might be doing to Black while they were in the air.

  After about an hour of flight, Goon One did drift off to whatever kind of dreams defective cretins enjoyed, and Claire hated to think what was going through his head. Max Soquet seemed utterly engrossed in his novel. Maybe it was Fifty Shades of Grey or something of a similar sadomasochistic ilk, and Claire wondered if he really was all that absorbed with the book, or if he was observing her every move for some ulterior and painful motive and/or to report to Papa Soquet.

  Several more hours passed in a similar fashion, and Claire sat rigid and poised on the straight edge of a mental razor, trying to figure out what direction they were going. She hoped to God they were headed to Marseilles and to Black’s location. She was fairly certain they had to be. Booker and company were probably in the air now, too, right behind them somewhere. Her major concern centered more on Black and the state of his health. They did horrible, inhuman things to their captives. She had read about their torture techniques in detail, and it had turned her stomach. There was no good reason to think that they weren’t torturing him and would torture her, too, once she arrived at their dungeon of death. But she couldn’t worry about that. She had to think positively, that she would get away and so would Black. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

  After a time, Psycho Girl sat up from where she’d been dozing, stretched out luxuriously, like some kind of lithe but ugly stray cat with long dangling silver earrings on, and then she put her newly polished devil fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Everybody looked up, and Claire frowned and stiffened in her seat, not sure what was coming next. Maybe Zeus’s signal to take a chunk out of Claire’s body. She jerked her head to the right when she heard a cabinet door click open. A very small child crawled out, a little boy, who looked to be around eight or so. Maybe even younger. He was a tiny thing, very thin, very frail-looking, and very scared to death. He was filthy, too, his dark curly hair matted with dirt, his face smeared with grime, and he had a pink sequined dog collar around his tiny neck. She could see the tear tracks streaking down through the dirt on his cheeks. Rage began to rise up so fast inside Claire’s chest, and she became so furious that she didn’t think she could stand it. She froze where she sat, trying desperately to control her anger.

  Grinning at Claire, Jaxy reached down into a side pocket on the wall beside her chair and retrieved something. Some kind of pink strap studded with rhinestones. It took Claire a moment to realize that it was a dog leash. Then the awful girl grabbed the little boy by the back of his shirt and jerked him over to her so hard that he fell down. She snapped the leash onto the dog collar. Then she presented Claire with her baby-toothed, crazy-ass smile.

  “So, how do you like my new little pet here, Clairesy girl? My little doggie boy.” She frowned down at the kid. “He’s not a very good doggie boy, though. He’s a little stinker, that’s what he is. A little thief, always getting loose and stealing food out of the kitchen. So I have to punish him a lot. Come here, little doggie boy,” she said to the child. The child crawled obediently until he was close to her. Then Jaxy’s voice changed to a deep, gruff tone as she gave him a command. “Sit, Doggie Boy.”

  The little kid quickly sat down on his heels and held his hands up in front of him, wrists bent, and started panting like a dog.

  “See how well trained he is,” the Bitch said then. “That’s his new shock collar that I got for him. He obeys me very well when it’s turned on or he gets a jolt through his body like you wouldn’t believe. Don’t like that to happen much, do you, Doggie Boy?”

  “You are sick,” Claire said, utter disgust dripping off her words.

  “Roll over, little Doggie Boy. Show Miss Claire how you can do tricks for your supper.”

  The child lay down and tried to roll over but got tangled up in the long leash. The girl pressed a button on some kind of little remote and shocked the hell out of him. He yelped in pain and that’s when Claire shot up to her feet. She moved so quickly that she was on Jaxy before the bitch had time to react. The child was crying and holding his throat, and Claire knelt down beside him. She kept her voice soft and calm and soothing. “Hey, it’s okay, sweetie. Let’s just get that thing off you, okay? Then you can come sit with me.”

  Claire unclipped the leash and threw it a good six feet down the cabin and was unbuckling the collar from the child’s neck when Jaxy came up behind her. “Get away from my dog.”

  Claire finished taking off the collar and threw it even farther. Then she stood up and pushed the little kid behind her. She took a step closer to the other woman.

  “Make me,” she said, very low but very confrontational, wanting a chance to beat the cruel woman to within an inch of her life and make her feel the kind of pain she was inflicting on a helpless little kid.

  Claire could easily read the shock on Jaxy’s face. Probably nobody had ever stood up to her, especially not a prisoner. Jaxy set her teeth, swung the sap that was now hanging off her wrist, tossed it up expertly until it lay gripped inside her right hand. “I’m going to enjoy this,” she said, getting up close into Claire’s face.

>   “Me, too,” said Claire, and then she brought her bent knee up into the girl’s stomach with as much force as she could put behind it. Jaxy lunged over, all the air knocked out of her lungs, and Claire jerked her back up by her stupid braids and slapped her across the face so hard that it stung her palm. She had never hit anything in her life as hard as she hit Jaxy, and she had never felt so good about doing it. When the girl cried out with pain and staggered to the side, Claire grabbed the sap out of her hand and sent it down as hard as she could on the back of Jaxy’s head.

  When she fell to her knees and then all the way to the floor on her stomach, Claire tried for a second shot with the sap but didn’t make it before the two goons had her by her arms, holding her back. One of them grabbed the sap out of her hand, and Claire stopped struggling. She was overpowered and knew it. She was gonna get hit now, too, and it wasn’t going to feel good. But it had been worth the pain to slap the holy hell out of that crazy bitch, just like Jaxy had done to Black. And Claire was glad the poor kid got to see his tormentor get some payback.

  Still a bit unsteady on her feet, Jaxy struggled up, rubbing the bright red handprint that was now emblazoned on her left cheek. Claire smiled. “You don’t take blows nearly as well as you dish them out, Jaxy. Maybe we ought to put that shock collar on you. Toughen you up a bit.”

  “I’m going to beat the life out of you,” Jaxy cried, completely losing all remnant of control and grabbing her sap out of the goon’s hand.

  Claire prepared for the first blow, determined to take it for as long as she could without crying out. She sure as hell wasn’t gonna beg for mercy from that freak. Hell, the first blow would probably knock her unconscious, anyway. Maybe that would be a good thing, considering the look of absolute insanity twisting Jaxy’s freckled face.

  “Leave her,” remarked Max Soquet, glancing up nonchalantly from his novel. And so casually uttered it, as if it were all such a bother when trying to read. As if he were a patient and indulgent father, tired of reprimanding his recalcitrant toddlers who were always fighting and interrupting his peace. Probably thinking: Good grief, the tiresomeness of little sis maiming her victims.

  “No, Max, come on! You’ve got to let me! She hit me first! You saw it! She deserves what I’m going to do. Let me teach her a—”

  “Leave her, I said. I will deal with her when the time is right.”

  The two siblings stared each other down for about thirty seconds, but Big Bro won without much of a contest, and hands down. Max was in complete control all right, and Jaxy was afraid to cross him. At his signal, the two men let go of Claire, and Jaxy stalked off in a huff and disappeared through a curtained door at the rear of the cabin. Claire stared at Max, considering his intervention, and when and if he preferred to mete out the punishment himself. He returned her stare for a couple of moments, and then he went back to his book. Good God, that must be one helluva good read.

  The little boy was hiding behind one of the seats, still trembling all over. Claire knelt down and smiled at him. “It’s okay now. She’s gone. Come sit with me. I’m not going to let her hurt you.”

  The child continued to cower there, looking around for the mean girl, his dark eyes so full of fear that Claire wanted to cry for the suffering on his little face.

  “I promise I won’t hurt you. Okay? Just come sit with me.”

  After another minute or two, the child rushed headlong into her arms. His thin little arms wrapped tightly around her neck, and he wrapped both his legs around her waist. He felt tiny and scared and so very pitiful, and Claire’s hatred for the Soquet woman soared up to absolute and tremendous super loathing levels. She stood up with the little boy still clinging to her. Goon One and Goon Two watched her with surly expressions. Max read his book, blasé. So Claire sat down and rocked the shivering child, whispered soothing things, and wondered what horrors he had endured so far under the control of a cruel psychopathic maniac mistress. Then she shut her eyes, not wanting to think about that or anything else regarding the Soquets.

  The flight seemed to go on for days. By that time, Claire was certain they were heading for Europe. She had no way of knowing exactly where they were and it probably didn’t matter where they were. She was pretty much on her own now, anyway, and she had accepted that. Jaxy had not shown her face again, probably embarrassed at having been dressed down by her big, tough, but well-read brother right in front of Claire and said subservient goons. He was still reading right along. But he had saved her bacon when she had let her own protective instincts get the better of her. She was lucky, too, that she wasn’t lying facedown and unconscious on the floor with bloody sap welts all over her body and a shock collar around her own neck. But Max had protected her from his sweet little sister/accomplice in bloody nightmares. Why? So he could enjoy hurting her himself later, most likely. Or was he under strict orders from Marcel Soquet himself? The child slept deeply as if he hadn’t gotten much rest lately, still clutching Claire’s neck with both arms, his dirty cheek resting on her shoulder. He was breathing hard, as if he had a cold or some kind of respiratory problem.

  It felt good to hold a little sleeping kid. He felt like her own darling little Zachary used to feel when she rocked him to sleep. Clinging so very tightly to her neck, so little and sweet and helpless. Oh, God, she couldn’t let herself think of her dead son, not now. Not with everything else going on. Not while she was walking a tightrope strung between strung-out psycho siblings. Staring at the silent man named Max, she decided to find out if he’d talk to her, make nice for a bit, see if she could find a way to use him to her advantage. Assess his inclinations and see if he had any vestige of humanity left inside him.

  “Hey, Max,” she called out to him. “How about getting us somethin’ to eat? Or do you plan to starve me to death before you get me home?”

  Max glanced up. Didn’t look pleased to be bothered, but lo and behold, he placed his book on the table next to him. Wow, must have been in a boring chapter. Claire waited, not sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. Maybe he beat people to death who made him set his books aside. Maybe he killed them for being rude enough to interrupt novel time. She was pretty sure he was capable of it. Nothing about these people would surprise her. The big scary dog snoozed on, snoring a little, huge head on huge paws.

  After a few minutes during which Max didn’t say a word, just contemplated her as if she was some alien creature that he’d never seen before, she tried again. “Okay, look, I can fix a snack for myself and this poor kid. Just point me in the direction of the galley. You do have a galley aboard this plane, right? You know, foodstuffs and water, maybe a little coffee or tea? Pepsis, maybe. Some kinda caffeine to keep up my strength? How about it? You don’t want me all weak and passed out for the main event, do you?”

  “You are a very brave woman.” Max hesitated there, thought about things for a few seconds. “Or you are a very stupid one. I am trying to decide which it is.”

  “Oh, it’s brave all right. Trust me. I’m not known for stupidity, not that I know of, anyway. Nobody’s ever told me that in so many words. And I am one helluva cop, if I say so myself. I’ll show you right now how good I am, if you’d just cough up my weapons and my handcuffs.” She put on a big fake grin, just so he’d know she was just joshing and havin’ some fun with him so he wouldn’t kill her on the spot or sic his snoozing devil dog on her.

  Surprisingly, he grinned back, and Claire took that as a very positive sign. Sense of humor in crazy man, check. Then he got up and walked down the aisle and stood above her, holding her eyes with his somber midnight gaze. Up close he was even more intimidating. “If you are trying to use me to your advantage, you are sorely mistaken to think I would fall for that kind of ruse. Nor will you ever goad me into making an emotional display like my sister did earlier. She is highly impulsive and easily provoked. I am not. I do have to compliment you on your manipulation skills, however. You played her like a Stradivarius.”

  Claire contemplated him in silence
, too. Their searching looks locked until he sat down in the recliner across from her. They stared at each other some more without speaking. He was not to be trifled with. She would have to be very careful not to push him too far. He would just kill her and go back to the next chapter in his book. But she had a feeling he liked her attitude. Maybe because of that grin. So Claire said, “So, what’s it like to have a psycho bitch for a sister?”

  The man actually smiled. “It is trying at times. She has no sense of humor.”

  “But you do? That’s the reason why you’re letting me say whatever I want without slitting my throat and feeding me to your slobbering puppy?”

  “All right, now I suppose I do know. I now suspect that you are stupid, and not so brave. Don’t you realize that your life is in our hands?”

  “I noticed that, true, and right off the bat, too. But I’ve faced worse people than you. Believe me.”

  “If you truly do believe that, you are kidding yourself. I am a dangerous man. My sister is worse than I am. My father has taught us well.”

  “One big happy, dangerous, lunatic family, huh? You must be so proud of your lineage.”

  “Alas, we are proud. That is part of our problem.”

  “And what problem would that be?”

  Claire was pleased that the guy was getting so chatty. Go ahead, get comfortable, tough guy, let down your guard for one single second, and I will get that gun you’re wearing in that shoulder holster under your jacket. And then you are dead, baby, dead. And your little monster sissy not far behind you.

  “My father is obsessed with vengeance. Any slight to him, large or small, and he has to take revenge tenfold. If somebody kills one of ours, he kills ten of theirs. Doesn’t matter who he puts down or if they are involved or if they even know what it’s all about. Women, children, no matter. It is a weakness that he does not see and will not acknowledge, but that I try to manage somewhat for him. My sister is the same way. They are very much alike, and it gets them into trouble at times.”