Cruel Bargain
Twin Masters #1
by
Claudia Balvenie
@claudiabalvenie
claudiabalvenie.com
Copyright 2015.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
All characters are above the age of 18
CHAPTER 1
“And that mistake is going to cost the company around...” the man went quiet for a moment, no doubt typing the figures into his computer's calculator. “Two million dollars.”
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, hard. “You've got to be fucking with me.”
“Sorry Regina, I wish I was.” I could hear him take a deep breath. He was afraid I'd kill the messenger. He probably should be. Someone was getting fired for this. Could be him. Might even be me.
“All over a misplaced decimal point?” I asked, trying to reign in my fury. Such a simple, stupid mistake.
“Yes... yes, ma'am. That appears to be the issue. And you can see why. They're a collection agency. They expected five hundred dollars back, and are now getting five. One thousand becomes ten, and so forth.”
I let loose another string of curse words, more than one bringing a gasp to Tim, my assistant's mouth. He was a new hire and still a little green. He'd learn or he'd get cut. It was that simple.
“And Q.A. didn't catch any of it, I assume?” I tapped my perfectly manicured nails against the steering wheel, seething. You go on one business trip and the whole damn company falls apart.
“N-no ma'am. And it gets worse.”
I sighed but didn't close my eyes, I had to keep those on the curvy, backwoods road. I had to get to the airport as soon as possible, and my GPS assured me this road in the middle of nowhere was the best route. It wasn't the way I'd come, but I trusted it. When I got there I'd still have to beg my way onto a flight, but one problem at a time.
“Well? Spill it...”
“Lawyers are getting involved.” Fuck. Of course they were. After all, if the people were told they only owed one percent of what they thought they'd owed, and they paid it, just saying it was a mistake wasn't going to be enough.
I should never have taken this job. The man who I had replaced warned me. He said it was set up to fail. You couldn't control this many workers trying to do this much work. There were no standards. It was like programming in the damn wild west. Everything was so rushed and so hobbled together it was a wonder it even worked at all.
“Tim. Explain this to me.” He seemed frightened by my change in tone. My anger had faded away, giving rise to frustration instead.
“I've spent four hundred dollars on my shoes. Two hundred on the perfect haircut. All in all, what I'm wearing today is worth a couple of grand, of my own money.” I continued, knowing the heat was rising in my voice. “And what good is it? Why should I dress so nicely and bring in new clients if this... is... the.. best... we can do for them?” By the end, I knew I was shouting.
“I'm so sor...”
The phone cut out abruptly. In front of me there was a blinding light. I had to throw my hand over my face to try to block it out. My foot went to the brake automatically, since I couldn't see. Right afterward there was an impact to the air, one so forceful as to actually shake my rental car.
The car had begun to swerve. I grabbed the wheel, struggling to keep it from spinning. But I was blinded. I had to guess where the road was. I had been coming up on a turn, that much I knew. But I wasn't slowing as quickly as I thought. I pumped the brakes, thinking maybe I'd rented something that wasn't anti-lock. Strange, the things you think of in a moment of panic.
Chunks of grass began to fly up around me as I fought the wheel. I'd gone off road, that was obvious. But I was slowing. I prayed that I wouldn't hit anything.
Finally I came to a stop. I kept the death grip on the steering wheel for a long moment, catching my breath. I'd just had an accident. My first one. And I'd survived. I said a little prayer of thanks.
I tried to peer out the windows and windshield, but between the darkened sky and the mud that had caked against them I couldn't see much. I had to call 911. I grabbed my phone from where it had been tossed in the passenger floorboard. It had turned off. Strange. It was still plugged in to the car.
That's when I noticed the car was dark too. That was really, really odd. It should have still been running. I reached forward and twisted the key, turning it “off”. I tried to crank it again, but nothing happened. It didn't even make one of those noises like it was trying.
“Shit. I gotta get out of here...” I muttered to myself. This was a perfect end to a perfect day.
There was a tapping at my window, causing me to both shriek and jump. A voice sounded from outside, out of breath.
“Ma'am, are you OK?”
CHAPTER 2
I took a deep breath and glanced to the glove compartment, willing it to contain the concealed pistol I always kept with me. Of course it wouldn't. I wasn't one of the chosen few who got to carry their weapons aboard planes. Damn.
“Ma'am?” He asked again, more insistently.
“I'm alright,” I finally said, unbuckling my seat belt. I shouldn't be so paranoid. I'd had a wreck, I needed help, and here was someone offering it. I tried to roll down the window, but of course it didn't work. Instead I unlocked the door and very slowly opened it.
A man stood outside, holding his hands up as if to show he was no threat. While that did ease my mind, I cloaked myself in propriety. When in doubt, treat everyone like a business associate. I was pretending that I was not afraid, and that I was one hundred percent certain that he was there to help me. All those thoughts of him kidnapping me and leaving me in boxes all over the country side, well, I just shouldn't have those thoughts. After all, most people really did want to help. OK maybe not me, but the average person.
I fully pushed open the door to look him over. He was a tall and muscular, his arms bulging against the flannel shirt that he wore. His long, stringy, dark hair was pulled back into a knitted cap. A few wisps had come loose and framed his face. He had thick gloves on each of his hands. This was a man who truly worked for a living. That was about all I could tell in the moonlight, at least.
“They alright?” Called out another voice in the darkness. Another man rushed up, wearing a similar, beat up outfit. He was so identical, even in the dimness that I found the idiotic question rushing to my lips before I could stop it.
“Twins?”
Neither seemed surprised by the question. The one next to me nodded his head. He yanked off his glove and offered me his bare, thick, hairy hand. “I'm Adam. Loser over there is named Seth.”
“You poisoning the well on me already, Adam?” Seth made his way closer, pulling his own hand out of his glove and offering it to me. “A pleasure, my lady.”
The ridiculousness of his greeting made me smirk. “Regina.” I shook his hand.
Adam's eyes looked me over again, from my perfectly pulled back hair all the way down to those beautiful, expensive high heels. “Are you really sure you're OK?”
I thought about it for a moment and did a cursory check of my body. I didn't see blood rushing from anywhere vital. My heels were sinking into the mud, but I was sure that wasn't what he meant. “I mean, I think so. Do you have a phone I could borrow? My cell phone went dead.”
Seth nodded and began to fish around in his overalls. He pulled out an older flip phone and handed it to me. Strange, I hadn't seen one of those since high school. He looked somewhat emba
rrassed before explaining. “Didn't see much need to upgrade. Not a lot of folks out here. Me and my brother kind of keep to ourselves.”
I flipped the phone open. It didn't have any lights either. I frowned. “This one's broken too.”
He took it back from me, puzzled. He opened the phone, checking, I guess to see if I was too stupid to use it. He shook it, frowning. He began to hold down a button on the side, maybe trying to reset it.
Adam's thoughts seemed to be somewhere else. “Do you think it has to do with that big flash?”
My eyes widened. “You guys saw it too?” I wasn't sure what I was thinking. Of course they'd seen it. There was nothing else on this back road to block our view. It was just straight flat plains all the way to the city. The drive out had been almost pleasant, as I headed to try to woo the client. I'd taken the highway, again at my GPS's suggestion. Must have been some delay the other way, since it sent me all the way out here. Wherever “here” was.
Seth was frowning over his phone, trying to get it to turn on. “Probably was just a generator or something nearby. But it had to be something strong enough to trigger an EMP when it discharged.”
“An EMP?” I asked, frowning. “That's something out of a bad science fiction. They don't exist.”
Seth frowned, at me this time. “Course they exist. It's just a matter of overloading electrons, breaking circuits.”
Adam piped up. “Well, we have a land line in the house. You want to try that out?”
I nodded. I didn't think I had a choice. The whole time we'd been standing on this deserted road, not a single car had passed. My rental was safely off the road, so I wasn't worried about it getting rammed if a car did happen to pass by. But if I wanted to get to the airport, this looked like the only way. I'd have to trust these men.
Adam began the walk down the dirt road through a wind break. He unlocked the chain link and we both followed through.
Seth was still lost in his thoughts. “A nuclear device could cause an EMP. Someone could bring it into space and detonate it, leaving just the EMP to touch the ground and keep the people alive.”
I chuckled softly. “You really think someone just nuked the city? We're what, an hour and a half away still? I mean I doubt we would even have seen that.”
“An hour-forty-five,” he corrected, but grew silent again. Adam kept chatting as we walked, asking me about why I was there and where I was from. He said he and his brother were farmers and owned the land that they worked. He was still telling me about their bumper crop when their house came into view.
I almost ran right there. If I could imagine a haunted house, this would be it. I imagined in the daylight it already looked like a dark, ramshackle farmhouse. In the night, it was the stuff of nightmare. I supposed the men poured their money into farm equipment instead of home repair. That was pretty normal in these parts. Still, it looked like somewhere a serial killer lived. I prayed their landline worked.
Adam opened the door for me, ushering me inside. Nothing in the house looked newer than the seventies, much was significantly older. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls. Stacks of old papers and magazines covered much of the entry way.
“I'm so sorry, Regina,” Adam began, gesturing to the house. “We don't get a lot of guests around here. But I can get you some coffee at the very least.” He smiled jovially.
“That would be great.” See, I can be nice if I have to. Seth had brushed aside a few items on the table. He'd already taken the back of his phone off and was peering into it's innards. Adam turned on the stove and filled a kettle, settling it down to boil.
OK, they were both busy with their little hobbies. I had a two million dollar mistake to deal with. I couldn't wait around. “Your phone?” I asked.
Adam threw up his hands. “Oh yes, of course! Come with me.” He led me through another hallway. It too was piled high on one side with dusty old magazines. I glanced at one, frowning. It was from 1961.
We stopped in front of a small, circular table holding one of those old school phones. You know, back from when only one or two types of phones was even available for purchase? It even had one of the wheels you had to spin in order to get the numbers. It was before my time, but I had seen it on television.
“Thanks,” I murmured as I grabbed the dusty handle. I picked it up, willing it to not be full of spiders.
There was no dial tone.
“This is dead too.” I said, handing it to Adam. He held it up to his own ear, then put it back in it's cradle.
“That is so strange...” he trailed off. I made my way back to Seth, just in time to see him pull a table light over. He flipped the switch, and nothing happened.
“Power is out here too, I suppose?” I asked. Strange, the house was so old that I'd only now realized the only lights we had were from actual, gas lamps.
Seth leaned back in his chair, tossing the useless phone to the side. “Doesn't make any sense. We're off grid.”
Adam stepped back into the room, his own voice growing serious. “None of the solar, none of the generators?”
Seth shook his head. “You may think I'm crazy, but I'm really starting to think this is an EMP.”
I felt my mouth working, but no sound came out. It was Adam who blurted out what I was thinking. “Was this an attack?”
Seth shrugged. “You know as much as I do.”
I had sunken into one of those dusty chairs without even noticing. “An EMP wouldn't break something with batteries, would it? I mean, if it didn't have any batteries in it, maybe?”
Seth shook his head. “The battery works because our atmosphere is a poor conductor for electricity. When something, like an EMP, touches it that allows it to conduct, it runs the risk of shorting out. Since there's no resistor set up... well, that's a very basic explanation for why everything's shorted out.”
He fished around next to him and came back up with a nine volt. He tossed it to me. It had become gooey on either end. Blown. I sighed and set it back down next to me.
“What now?” I asked.
The twins gave each other a look. Adam began, “We do have an old antique truck in the back. I haven't driven it in a couple of years, but we could probably get it running. Doesn't have any electrical in it, it was strictly mechanical.”
I smiled then. “That is really amazing, Adam. If you can help me to get to the airport, then I will be happy to pay you for your help.”
“It's not that simple,” Seth said. He was leaning forward heavily, his eyes on the floor. “EMP means that the airport's not going to be operational. Cars will have stopped, abandoned all over the city. There will be no restaurants or grocery stores. No way to check into a hotel.”
“There will be mass panic,” I added, jumping to his conclusion.
Seth nodded. He stood, stretching his back. The kettle had begun to boil. Adam swiftly moved to it, pouring the water into a French press. Even the smell of fresh, delicious coffee couldn't soothe my fear. Something extremely bad was happening, and we couldn't do anything about it. Seth handed me cup and I took it gratefully.
That's when the second flash hit.
CHAPTER 3
I was again blind from the bright light. The impact came faster this time than before, shattering all the windows and making the house tremble. The coffee fell uselessly from my hands, the sound of the mug shattering lost with all the rest of the commotion. I was deaf as well as blind. There was a hand on my shoulder, guiding me, tugging me along when my feet didn't seem to want to respond. I was drug through the house. My hip caught on some random piece of furniture, my shin on another. I'd be bruised in the morning.
Then we were moving down a flight of stairs. I stumbled, not expecting it. One of my hands was quickly put on the banister, but the tight hold around my other arm was still hurrying me forward. Down and down we went, at least two stories. Maybe three.
Finally, the hand released me. I sank to my knees, trembling. My eyes saw nothing
but white, my hands were still over my ears. All I could hear was that ringing numbness. It was like you'd gotten too close on a shooting range and didn't have your protective gear on.
Slowly the world came back into focus. My hearing came back first. I could hear the sounds of two men arguing nearby. Had to be the twins.
“Why did you bring her?”
“I couldn't leave her out there to die.”
“You don't know it would have killed her!”
I couldn't tell which one was which. Their voices were too similar. I blinked my eyes, then rubbed them, willing my sight to come back faster.
“She can't stay here. You have to kick her out.”
Twin Masters Bundle #1: Post Apocalyptic Rough BDSM Page 1