by Nicole Fox
“Ah!” I broke free, and tumbled through the air!
So sudden was the release of pressure on my wrists and shoulders, and so enormous the relief that surged through those tortured joints and muscles, that I had no awareness to spare for landing and crumpled to the ground in a clumsy, bleeding, painful heap.
“Ah hah!” I cried in triumph, unbothered by my slipping bandages and bruised bones.
I was free!
Feeling energized, I bounded to my feet, remembered I was supposed to be quiet, and tiptoed to the torture table. There, I found something that at once both filled me with joy and horror:
A pair of pliers.
“Thank Christ he didn’t use these on me,” I muttered as I plucked them up and began attacking the chain of my handcuffs with them. It was difficult, but at long last, I was able to snap the metal apart, and my hands–as least comparatively–were unbound.
What next?
I would have liked clothing, of course, but one has to take what they can get in situations like this. For the time being, I was clothed in blood.
That meant, of course, that my next course of action was to try to break out of this room. Hopefully my clothes were stored somewhere right outside it.
I went to inspect the door: it was a simple tumbler lock, easy enough to pick. I imagined that La Gancho was not too worried about the security of this room: most of its occupants would not even be in a state to try.
I plucked another item from the torture table–a long handled pick with a tapering, needle-like point, rather like a large dentistry tool–and within minutes had the lock opened.
“You really have a nice collection of toys,” I muttered, tossing the tool back onto the table as I chuckled. It was all I could do–otherwise, I’d be engulfed in horror.
Carefully, I pushed open to door, glanced around, and stepped outside.
I saw no one. Perhaps the Crooked Jaws were busy on their heist. I hoped that the Broken Spires, at least, had sense enough to continue with their plans. They didn’t need me for it. They were a well-trained, disciplined group. And a major distraction outside of the compound might be exactly what I needed.
My bared feet chilled by the cold concrete floor, I crept onward.
I had never been this far inside the Crooked Jaw compound before, so, despite my predicament, my surroundings fascinated me. The whole place was dank, cold, and dark, and put me in mind of rats scurrying down deserted hallways. That would be the only way one could move in this place: to slither and sneak, muffling footsteps with hoarse grunts of fear and disgust. The difference between this place and the Broken Spires hang out was enormous. Ours was a bachelor pad, of course. It was not pretty or particularly well-organized. But it was warm, and had places of comfort and relaxation. Beer for guests and lighters and ashtrays on every table.
Still, the ugliness of the place did have its advantages. Twice, I heard people approaching, and was able to hide in time because the pounding of their boots on bare cement floors gave me forewarning. Unfortunately, I could not tell who they were–I did not think them La Gancho or the mysterious Blade.
I did hear one of them mutter, however, the word, “Prisoners.”
My heart leaped. He must be talking about Erica and Thunder!
I stayed ensconced until they were safely out of earshot, and then quickly bolted down the corridor where they had emerged. I had to be careful, and time everything just right. Though I tried to avoid it, I realized that I had been leaving bloody footprints on the floor wherever I walked. Someone was bound to notice.
I would only have one shot at this.
Silently, I tiptoed down the hall until I came to a door that was different from the others: it was heavy, bolted steel, while the rest were flimsy office doors. A massive lock–one that could easily be handled from the outside, but could keep a rampaging elephant within–guarded the door. There was a small, barred window offering a view inside. Carefully, I slid my cheek against the edge, and peered inside.
It was a small, dingy dungeon, though one much “nicer” than where I had been confined. It had a cot, a chamber pot, sink, and a drain. It was much more brightly lit than the abandoned hall, so it took a moment for my eyes to focus beyond that. And yes! There they were! Erica and Thunder, their arms wrapped around each other as they leaned side-by-side upon each other on the cot…
My heart went cold.
I could see the pair of them. Thunder, bruised but steady. Erica, terrified but passionate, her long white arms wrapped around his neck as her lips touched his skin.
“I told you she was a whore.”
I whirled. La Gancho, standing there, a long black gun held in his good hand, grinning at me. I hadn’t noticed him, distracted as I was by the sight of the woman I loved, wrapped around my best friend.
“Argh!” I leapt, catapulting myself through the air, not caring that I was naked, not caring that he was armed. All I wanted to do was to strike him, cause him as much pain as he caused me. To bite, tear, claw, kill.
But he was not alone. Two more Crooked Jaws stepped out from behind him. They were strong, well-fed, and uninjured. And their bodies were sheathed in tough, motorcycle leather. My punches were padded. Theirs fell directly on wounded, bleeding skin.
Within a minute, I was down. Rope bindings were fastened even tighter over my wrists, squeezing the metal cuffs I had not been able to break further into my flesh. I grunted and bucked, trying to shake them off of me, but to no avail.
Just then, Blade emerged from the shadows.
“Can you just kill him already and move on?” He complained. “We’ve got business to attend to.”
The Crooked Jaws hoisted me to my feet, so that I was glaring straight into the eyes of La Gancho.
“All in good time,” he replied. “I’ve waited years to get revenge on the man who stole my hand from me. Tie him up! And then, bring me that little slut.”
The Crooked Jaws sprang to obey him, dragging me back to the room full of hooks while the others unlocked the door to Erica and Thunder’s room. I wanted to scream, to warn them, but I found that all my strength was gone, drained out of me by the sight of the two of them in each other’s arms as surely as La Gancho’s whip drained me of blood.
They threw me back into a room, into some fresh hell I could only guess at.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Erica
I had done it. I had set something in motion that could never be taken back. And I believed that Blade had bought it. There was distrust, now, between Blade and The Hook–a distrust which just might pay off, before the end of all this.
I should have known then that distrust can work both ways.
Hours after our confinement in that terrible prison, someone besides Blade entered the room.
“La Gancho,” I snarled, pushing myself into a sitting position. He grinned at me, his hand held out in front of him, twisted and bony as a skeleton’s. “What do you want?”
Outwardly, I displayed no fear, but inwardly, I prayed that he had not come to rape me. Not yet. My plan wouldn’t have time to work yet.
“Straight to the point,” he chuckled. “I can see why Dominic liked you.”
“Liked?” I wanted to blurt out. “What do you mean, liked?”
But I knew better than to take the bait. Instead, I remained silent and glared back at him.
This must have disappointed him, for he waited several long moments until, at last, trying again.
“He was here, you know, demanding I free you,” he murmured. As he spoke, I noticed something black and shiny, tucked under his arm. He kept stroking like one would a cat.
“That sounds like Dominic,” I spat back. Where was he going with this?
“But when I told him what the cost would be to free you–his life, actually–he decided that it would be too much, and he tried to run away.”
“Ha,” I sneered back. “You liar. Dominic would never run.” That, at least, I knew. I was not sure if he loved me enough
to give his life for me–I wanted to believe it, and yet I could not be sure–but I knew for certain that he would never run away from evil, sniveling cowards like The Hook and Blade.
The Hook grinned.
“I thought you might feel that way, so I brought you proof.”
He took the bundle he was holding and unfurled it before me.
“Dominic’s jacket!” I gasped.
There is was, his shiny black leather, the worn lapel that I knew from resting my cheek upon it, the scuffed zipper, and a squashed box of cigarettes poking from the left pocket. They were his brand.
“Dominic’s jacket,” The Hook mocked. Then, he hurled it into my arms. At first, I thought that this was a tiny act of mercy, until he sneered, “Take a closer look, bitch.”
I gripped it, relishing its cool firmness in my hands. But then, I noticed something else…a stickiness. I took my fingers away and gasped to find them red with blood.
“No!” I murmured, then began frantically searching further. I found it within moments: a small, perfectly round hole at the center of all the blood, punched out of it as if with a bore.
The Hook leaned close to me. “In case you’re too much of a goody-two-shoes to recognize it, you bitch, that’s a bullet hole.”
“No!” I cried again, plucking and tugging at the tear as if I could mend it with the desperation of my hand.
“Yes,” he continued. “So, when Jasy-Baby found out the only way I’d let you go was his death, he ran. And now, I couldn’t let him get away, now could I? So I shot him. Right in the gut. It took him at least an hour to die. Hehehe.”
I gasped up at him in horror, laughing at the pain at the man I loved. Still, a small bastion of hope–of denial–remained. “Why should I believe you?” I managed, my voice choked with tears.
He shrugged. “You got the jacket. By this point, I don’t care if you believe me. My goal has always been to make Dominic suffer. And now that he’s dead, the only person I can turn to… is you!”
He reached out and hit me, right in the face, with his broken hand. It was not a solid punch like it would have been if he had struck me with his good hand. In fact, it felt more like I was swatted hard on the cheek by an old, moist twig broom. And yet, the scratchy, sticky, mutilated feel of it drew more horror from me than any bruise his regular hand could have raised.
“Ah!” I cried out, falling back onto the cot as his words echoed in my ears. He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead! All my courage, all my bravery felt snuffed out, extinguished like a candle at the end of Dominic’s life.
But then, I heard someone behind us stir.
It was Thunder, staggering to his feet.
“I think you’re a liar,” he growled, standing proud and tall. He could not hope to threaten The Hook in the state he was in, but even to be standing there like that, like all the pain was nothing, helped still the screaming in my heart. “But if you’re not, you should let us go. If it’s true what you say, and Dominic is truly dead, then he paid the price. Free us!”
The Hook smiled. I expected him to lash out, or even attack Thunder, but all he did was stand there, grinning like a cat at a pair of cornered mice. “I might,” he said at last. “Or I might not. It all depends on this one’s cooperation.”
He reached down and pinched my breast with that clawed hand. I winced and recoiled. I could not help it. It was purely visceral at that point, like the way one jumps back from a burning stove.
“I’ll be seeing you soon,” he sneered and then left the room chuckling.
I held Dominic’s jacket to me, trying not to cry.
“Do you think it’s true, Thunder?” I whimpered. “Tell me–do you think it’s true?”
“Of course not,” he replied gently, sitting down beside me and wrapping an arm around me. “You and I both know Dominic. He would never run away.”
“But is he dead? The coat, Thunder! The coat!”
I brandished it in his face, turning my sobs into violent gestures. He took my hands and gently extricated it from my grasp.
“All that proves,” he murmured, “Is that they have his jacket. That’s it. That’s all it proves.”
I knew he was right, and yet the fear that Dominic might be dead still pounded within me. It made me feel weak.
“I’m nothing without him,” I whimpered, finally dissolving into tears.
“Shhh, no. Shhh,” Thunder whispered. He took me against him, cradling my head against his chest. “You’re the most kick-ass woman I’ve ever met, Erica,” he said. “And you’ve always been that way, even if you didn’t know it before you met him. And you’ll still be that way, even if…”
He trailed off, unable to finish. And yet, I took comfort from his words.
“Thank you, Thunder,” I sighed.
“I bet,” he continued, “That Dominic is alive and well, and that he’s looking for us right now. Nothing will stop him, Erica. Not even a bullet will.”
I nodded shakily, and pressed myself further against him. He was a friend of Dominic’s. At that moment, embracing him was like embracing Dominic.
He was also, on his own, a friend.
“Thank you,” I repeated, then reached up to kiss him on the cheek. We held together like that for a moment, like two terrified little children, waiting for someone big and strong to come and rescue them.
Waiting for Dominic.
As we embraced, my hands went to explore Dominic’s jacket. It was familiar and smelled like him. My fingers found as much comfort in it as my closeness to Thunder. During my exploration of it, I felt something strange: a hard, firm outline buried in its breast.
“Hey, Thunder,” I whispered. “Look at this!”
There, sewn into the lining of the jacket, was a small, folding knife. With some effort, I managed to tear it free.
“Thunder, this is excellent! This could really help us now!”
He nodded excitedly, then helped me hide it inside my bra, making sure that it could not be seen. When he was finished, his hands fell from my shoulders to around my waist, and he held me once again.
For the first time, we were starting to feel hopeful.
Thump!
I heard something bump against the door. In an instant, I was on my feet, drying my tears. I did not want my captors to see me afraid. Thunder also stood up, and stood beside me.
But, oddly, no one came through.
Thunder limped over to the door, where there was a small, barred window.
“I don’t know,” he said, a moment later. “There seems to be something going on outside, but I can’t tell what. The angle’s no good.”
I was not tall enough to even look through the window, so I had to take his word for it.
“Something, huh?” I pondered. “Well, that could be good. Anything that annoys the Crooked Jaws is good in my book.”
Thunder offered a weak smile in return.
Then, the door shuttered. Someone had inserted a key into the lock, and was coming inside. I composed my face into a neutral expression. Whoever was coming in was not going to be able to get anything from me.
It was Blade, who shuffled in looking grayer and slimier than ever. He bore a strange expression that matched his shifting gait: changeable, unsure. Almost manic. Half the time, he was grinning, and the other half he had a terrible grimace on his face–the look of a fox chewing its own leg to escape a trap.
Before he even opened his mouth, I knew what he was going to say.
“Your time has come, Erica my sweet,” he simpered, his voice like honey dribbling down a wall. I blanched, and gazed at him in horror.
“W-what do you mean?” I asked shakily. It was important to seem afraid to Blade. I wanted to seem weak so that he would think he needed to fight over me. To steal me as a prize from The Hook.
“Lovely situation, huh Erica?” I thought. “Bait Blade to avoid The Hook. Either way, you’re getting pawed.”
Disgust at the thought rose up so violently in me at that moment that
I had to fight to avoid being sick. Blade seemed to sense this within me, for he sauntered over and slipped a hand around my waist.
“Don’t worry,” he hissed to me. “I will make sure La Gancho doesn’t hurt you too bad. After all, you need to save some for me.”
I froze, biting my tongue with the effort it took to gaze at him slavishly, with relief.
“I want him dead,” I murmured. “I’ll do anything for you, Raymond. But I want him dead.”
Blade grinned. He liked my use of his first name. I noted that for possible use later.