by Zoey Parker
Jewel
By opening and shutting my jaw, I was able to loosen the duct tape on my mouth just enough for one end to come loose. I scraped my face against the floor of the trunk over and over again until I was able to get the tape to peel away. I knew struggling against the tape on my wrists and ankles was probably useless, but at least I'd be able to scream for help when they opened the trunk.
It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
I felt the car slow to a stop and heard the doors open and shut. I could hear what sounded like crowds of people nearby, with children screeching and playing. I sighed, relieved. That would make it much easier for me to draw attention.
A few moments later, I heard a high, reedy voice just outside the trunk.
“Is this the girl?” the reedy voice asked.
“Yeah, it's her,” said the man I'd kicked. “We had to kill our way through half the Reapers to get her.”
“No cures for cancer lost there, I'm sure,” the reedy voice sneered. “All right, open it up and get ready to move fast. If she's made it this far, she shouldn't be underestimated.”
I took a deep breath, preparing to scream. But when the trunk popped open, a hand filled my field of vision, quickly stuffing a rag into my mouth to stifle me. The hand belonged to a thin, pale man in his thirties, with moist blue eyes and curly hair dyed bright red. He wore a white suit with a purple turtleneck underneath.
“See what I mean?” the red-haired man said, pointing to the loose strip of tape dangling from my face. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket and produced a covered syringe, looking around to make sure no one was watching.
“Don't worry,” the red-haired man said. He leaned into the trunk, uncapping the syringe and inserting the needle into my arm. I screamed deep in my throat, but the rag swallowed the sound completely. “This is just a little something I put together to keep you nice and drowsy. You probably shouldn't try to talk or walk on your own while it's working its way through your system. Or operate any heavy machinery, for that matter,” he added, giggling.
My world started to shimmer around the edges, and I could feel the thoughts in my head starting to screech to a halt and slam into each other. My body felt like a fist that had been clenched for too long, and it took me several painfully-slow seconds to remember that I'd been hit in the kidney before my brain washed the thought away again briskly along with the question that preceded it, like laundry being tossed and churned in a washing machine. Who was this man? Was I supposed to recognize him? Why was he doing this to me?
“There we go,” the red-haired man said. “Nice and docile. Let's get the tape off her and stand her up.” He pulled the rag out of my mouth, tossing it aside.
So that's why my jaw was aching so much, I thought sleepily as the other men untaped my limbs and dragged me out. That was nice of him, to take that out for me. I wish he hadn't told them to stand me up, though, because...
...Did he tell them to stand me up?...
...because I'm actually very tired right now, and I feel like I should just rest here before I go play with those children I hear. Just a little nap, that's all. Maybe if I tell him I'm too tired, he'll change his mind and have them put me back down.
I opened my mouth to speak, and nothing but slurred, drawn-out vowel sounds came out. My chin and chest felt surprisingly wet, and I realized I had drooled all over myself.
“Okay, let's get her over to the boat,” the red-haired man said.
I felt myself moving forward, and briefly congratulated myself on being able to walk until I remembered I was being carried. Families and their children floated by me, laughing and bickering and carrying flags and lit sparklers.
I wished my parents could be there with me so we could celebrate with the rest of these happy-looking people. I couldn't quite remember who the men on either side of me were, but they didn't seem like friends or family, and all at once, their hands on me started to feel very heavy.
A sharp pang of fear suddenly darted through my mind, the emotion flickering like lightning followed by the rumbling thoughts that conjured it.
Growler was dead. I'd watched him die, and these men had taken me.
Whatever had been pumped into my veins, I knew I needed to shake it off and try to break free or call for help. As a young, fresh-faced couple passed by, I tried to call out to them and instead let out a long, gurgling croak. More saliva dripped from my lips, spattering on the sidewalk in front of me.
“Hey, is she okay?” the woman asked, frowning at me.
No, I'm not okay, I thought. Nothing's okay. Growler's dead and Rafe might be dead and I think these men want to make me dead too. Please help me. Please see that there's something wrong and get me away from them before they murder me.
“Yeah, it's just our sister,” the red-haired man said. “No matter what the holiday is, she's always drunk by 10 AM so we gotta carry her everywhere. Family, am I right?”
“Heh, yeah, tell me about it,” the woman answered. “My aunt's the same way. Well, happy Fourth of July!”
“Happy Fourth! Enjoy the fireworks,” the red-haired man replied. The young couple walked away and I felt myself moving forward again.
The sun was starting to go down, and I could see its rays glittering on the surface of water like a handful of scattered gold coins. I realized I was at the harbor, and I tilted my head to one side, watching the docks pass by in a blur.
“Steady, girl,” the red-haired man whispered in my ear. “Almost there.”
The men turned and marched me down the last dock in the harbor. My head lolled forward and I saw that we were approaching a red yacht at the end of the dock. I could feel the gangway under my shoes and the world tilted backward slightly as we ascended to the boat.
I heard a familiar voice say, “This smells like a trap. We need to go. Now.” There was a thunder of footsteps heading toward us, and I saw Rafe's surprised face appear at the top of the gangway a few feet away from us, along with Sperm's and Bard's.
Rafe's alive! I thought giddily. We're all alive, thank God! I just hope we all get to stay that way.
But even in my drugged haze, I knew the chances of that were slim.
Chapter 38
Rafe
“Nice to see you again, Rafe,” Jester smirked. He'd dyed his hair red since the last time I'd seen him and his taste in suits had improved, but there was no mistaking that dead-eyed smile—like a sick hyena crunching on the bones of its kills. He had Angelo with him, and the bald flunky from the alley next to Maggia's was behind them.
He also had Jewel, and even though I didn't see any marks on her, it looked like they'd messed her up badly. She could barely stand or hold her head up, and her eyes were glassy.
Every nerve in my body suddenly felt like a wire that had been stripped down to the copper. I tasted hot metal at the back of my throat as a berserk fury possessed me. All I wanted in the world at that moment was to sink my fingertips into Jester's throat and rip out his windpipe.
“How was Potawatomi?” Jester continued casually. “Did you get lots of exercise? I know I sent you a personal trainer or two while you were up there, but I don't seem to recall getting a thank-you card from you.”
“What have you done to her?” I snarled.
“Just a temporary chemical paralysis,” Jester replied. “Now, the question you really should be asking is, now that I have her limp and helpless, what am I going to do to her? I must admit, Rafe, this is quite the little jaw-dropper and pants-popper you've got here. Nice firm tits, round pillowy ass...I might have to take a bite of it myself.”
I knew this was Jester's style, running off at the mouth and digging into people where it hurt to get them to lose control. I desperately wished it wasn't working on me, but it was. My veins felt like they were boiling with acid.
“Still,” Jester continued, “looking at her, I can't help but feel like you downgraded, man. I mean, curves aside, you really think this frumpy, boring-looking bitch is b
etter than my niece? You must think that, 'cause I don't see no bruises on her like you put on my niece, so I figure you must like her more. What's she got that Abby didn't have? 'Cause Rafe, I swear to God, if you'd just stayed with Abby from the start an' treated her right, you could've spent the past seven years sniffing the free air and none of us would have to be here right now. And then you had to go and pull some Rambo shit on the highway and steal what belonged to me.”
“We're not here to rehash old grudges,” Bard said. “We're here to negotiate. We know what's on the memory stick, and we know just how damaging it would be for you if it got sent to the wrong people. You want the stick, we want the girl, and both you and Rafe want a chance to settle things once and for all. So it seems to me like we can all get what we want this evening without things having to get too dramatic.”
Jester paused for a moment, then threw his head back and cackled. “Wow! I have got to hand it to you, Big Bard. After all these years, you still make the best speeches. Inspiring, truly. Four thumbs, two stars up, fine holiday fun. But I think you're forgetting something.”
He hooked his thumb and forefinger into the side of Jewel's leggings, pulling out the memory stick. “I've got the stick already, you pedantic fucking know-it-all! You hold no cards. You have nothing! I could have Angelo and Richie here pump you full of lead right now.”
“Not true,” Bard said. He slowly reached into the front pocket of his denim vest and yanked out an identical memory stick. It was one of the ones Sperm had bought.
“Did you really think once we had the stick, we wouldn't copy it?” Bard asked. Sperm reached into his own vest pocket, producing another stick. I pulled another from my vest too.
“We've got five more Reapers with these sticks riding around the city right now, waiting to hear from us that the deal went down,” Bard continued. “If they don't get a coded text in the next five minutes, one of them will go to each of the five major crime families and hand the lists over. So stop playing tough and smarten up, before you and every other Thorn ends up as mulch in some godfather's rose garden.”
Angelo and Richie were starting to look uneasy. “Hey, Jester, uh, maybe we should hear them out,” Angelo said. “I mean, just 'cause you've got some personal beef with this Rafe guy, it don't mean the rest of the Thorns gotta go down with you. I'm pretty sure they'd back me up on that if they was here.”
“First of all, they're not here and I outrank you clowns, which means you do as I say,” Jester snapped. “Second, you have nothing to worry about. Bardie Boy is bluffing. That memory stick was code-protected against copying. There's no way they could have done what they said they did.”
“You seem to forget I was in Delta in Iraq,” Bard said.
“Oh, yes, God forbid any of us forget that little tidbit about you, G.I. Jerkoff,” Jester sneered. “I'm sure it drops plenty of panties at parties, but the rest of us aren't impressed.”
“Then you should know,” Bard continued smoothly, “that while I was there, I worked with the NSA and COINTELPRO. I've seen stronger anti-copy codes in camel droppings. Dismantling yours took all of thirty seconds.”
“Jester,” Richie said warningly, “I don't like this. I really, really think we need to back off a little, call the other Thorns, see if we can maybe tone this whole thing down just a bit...”
Jester eyed the three of us warily. Judging. Deciding.
“Hey, Jester, I get that you're in a bind, man,” Angelo pleaded, “but if they're not lying, then the clock is fucking ticking, okay? Please, I'm begging you, be reasonable. Err on the side of caution, here. Let's work this out.”
“No,” Jester spat, glaring at us. “No, I don't think reasonable is gonna be on the menu tonight. I think instead we'll be serving up gruesome revenge drizzled with blood, with a side of violation and fucking armageddon for dessert. I think Bard's more full of shit than an assless elephant, and those memory sticks they're carrying are even emptier than their heads.
“Incidentally,” he said to us, “all three of you will want to take those guns from the backs of your trousers and drop them on the deck before Richie pulls the trigger and turns your girlfriend's spine into abstract art. The negotiations are over.”
My eyes flicked over to the bald flunky behind Jewel. I could see he had a mini-Uzi pressed against her back, and I knew that once he'd drilled her, it would only take him seconds to turn the machine gun on us. Our three pistols versus his Uzi and whatever else Jester and Angelo were carrying could turn very messy for us.
Bard sighed and dropped his memory stick on the deck, followed by his gun. Sperm and I did the same. We thought we'd been clever, but Jester had seen through our bluff.
At that moment, my only source of relief was the fact that Jester was a sick fuck who wanted to keep us alive just a little longer. Good. It could give us the chance we needed to escape.
That, and the one final surprise we'd prepared in case everything else went to shit.
I just hoped we could hang on long enough to use it.
“Okay, fine, you've got me,” I said. “Now let everyone else go. This isn't about any of them. It's between us.”
“No, it was between us,” Jester corrected. “Then you went crying to your gang of grease monkeys for help and went around playing White Knight with some tart. They're plenty involved now, and everything that happens to them from this point forward is on your head. I think it's important that you treasure that thought in the hours to come.”
My rage boiled over and I couldn't control myself any longer. I lunged for Jewel and Richie, hoping to somehow shove her over the side of the gangway, buy Bard and Sperm time to reach for their guns, and maybe get my teeth around Jester's throat before the shooting started. It was more of an excuse than a plan and I knew it, but I didn't fucking care. I needed to end this before Jester could say one more word about hurting Jewel.
Everything seemed like it was happening in slow motion. Richie acted on instinct, releasing his grip on Jewel and raising his Uzi. Angelo stepped in, grabbing Jewel with both arms before she could slump to the side and into the water. Jester reached into his jacket to grab his own gun.
I was too close for Richie to get his bearings and aim the gun, so he swung it upward wildly, as though trying to shoo away a fly. The metal muzzle connected with the side of my face and pain flared through my skull like wildfire. I felt the world spin around me again before some invisible force reached in and snatched it all away, like a magician yanking a tablecloth, and everything went black.
Chapter 39
Jewel
The fog in my head was just starting to clear a little bit.
I heard Rafe call the red-haired man Jester, which seemed to make sense. Somehow, now that I was this close to Jester and could see his real face, he seemed even scarier than the leering mask in my dreams.
He and Bard had said a lot to each other, and the words had seemed very important, even though I hadn't been able to understand any of them. Then Rafe, Bard, and Sperm had all dropped their guns.
My thoughts seemed like they were floating up slowly from the bottom of a deep pool, accompanied by a sense of dread. Why had they dropped their guns? How were they going to save me now?
That was when Rafe charged forward like a bull, and got hit in the head by the gun of the man behind me. I winced inwardly.
Shouldn't have done that, I thought. Shouldn't hit a person in the head when they're getting over a concussion. That's not right.
As I watched Rafe fall over and the other two Reapers dive for their guns, I could feel my mind awkwardly starting and stopping, trying to get back on track. I knew I had to think of some way to free myself, to get out of the way so Bard and Sperm could fire back without having to worry about me. I needed to be lower, but Angelo had his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides so I couldn't move.
Except for my legs.
I summoned all of my strength and focus into my right leg and drove it down hard, mashing Angelo's foot with my
own. Through the thin leather of his Italian shoes, I could feel a couple of bones break. He squealed with pain, and his grip on me loosened. I followed my own weight down, sinking to the gangway and trying to make myself as small a target as possible.
Bard and Sperm picked up their guns and fired. Most of their shots missed, and I knew that it was probably because they didn't have time to properly look down the sights on the barrels of their guns.
Rafe taught me that, I thought. I looked over at his prone body and saw that blood was leaking from his nose. I prayed that the smack from the gun hadn't damaged his brain.
Angelo was crouched down and reaching for me, trying to get his arms around me again. Jester had a pistol with a silencer on it, and was returning fire. Richie leveled his machine gun at the Reapers, but one of Bard's bullets went through Richie's shoulder and he dropped the gun. I reached for it, but my numbed fingers misjudged the distance and it went over the edge, splashing down in the lake.