by Martha Carr
She jumped back, avoiding the bag’s return and wiped the sweat from her brow with one of her gloved hands – the fingers exposed. Sweat trickled down her belly into the top of her black lycra pants.
Warehouse One contained a few hidden weapons – standard practice for all the locations – but One primarily served as her training facility. Technology could help a lot on a tomb raid, but it wasn’t fool-proof. In the end, the only tools I can depend on are my body and mind. Shay wanted to make sure both were as strong as possible.
The building was conveniently located only a half mile from Pizza Coast, one of the better pizza joints in L.A. Primo pizza locations were a prerequisite for the location of any of the warehouses.
“Maybe I should have stored Peyton here,” Shay muttered, giving the bag another hard jab. “Man-boy needs a little more exercise. And he needs to learn to better defend himself.”
Her gaze drifted to the boxing ring dominating the center of the room. She snickered at the idea of Peyton in the ring with her.
That would be too fucking funny. At least for me. Not so much for Peyton.
A little pain in the service of personal growth would be a gift. He should thank me if I brought him here and kicked his ass. Make sure he’s around for another birthday.
Shay unwrapped her fingers and shook out her hands. Combat training was important, but so was rapid mobility and fitness training. One of the best ways to not die was to haul ass.
The tomb raider turned away from the punching bag and bounded the few feet across the cement floor to a climbing wall near the corner. An obstacle course ringed the room, starting with the wall.
It was time for a few rounds through the course.
Shay easily jumped onto the first handholds, digging her fingers into the small nooks and crannies, her feet lightly touching down. She wasted no time and scurried up the wall, letting go as she let her weight fall back. At the last moment she pushed off, leaping from the top to a bar resting in the bottom rungs of a salmon ladder, the muscles in her shoulders flexing under the black sports bra.
The echo of the metal clacking on metal filled the cavernous room as she moved up each rung of the obstacle toward the sunlight streaming in along the ceiling. A slight ache hit her arms as she got to the top of the ladder, and let go with one arm, swinging out and grabbing on to the next challenge. A narrow metal balance beam connected to the ceiling by bungee cords.
The balance beam swung back and forth as she pulled herself up and got her feet under her. Shay stretched out her arms on either side, determined not to fall. The sunlight played across her wet skin as she dug deeper for more strength. Good training for a bad day.
Now that she was closer to the ceiling than the ground, the mats thirty-three feet below would cushion some, but not all of the impact.
Maybe I should start training without the mats. Talk about motivation.
Shay nimbly arrived at the end of the beam, even as it continued to sway, and jumped onto a small flat-topped pole anchored to the floor that only had space for one foot. She pushed off, immediately jumping to the next, completing a circuit of six poles with a last jump to a freestanding ledge near the wall that faced an alley. A thick blue and white rope hung underneath and Shay knelt down, going over the side as she grabbed onto the rope and rappelled to the floor.
A series of truck tires lay in front of her. She moved from tire to tire with quick feet, jumping in and out, before hitting another climbing wall.
Shay moved right up the handholds, taking her up fifteen feet to a series of chains and ropes hanging from the ceiling. Each hung too far from the other to reach without a hard swing and letting go of one to grab onto the next.
She jumped to the first chain, swinging even as the muscles of her legs were taut and grabbed the next rope without a second thought. Several more exchanges followed, including a turn in the corner of the room that forced her to push off the wall to regain her forward momentum.
The final rope brought her to another ledge connected to a wooden ramp angled down at forty-five-degrees. The ramp fed into another steeply curving ramp set up on an incline that was connected to a tall concrete block wall ten feet high.
Shay ran down the first ramp at full speed, feeling the muscles in her thighs engaging, and charged up the second, sucking in air, as she pushed off from her toes, catching the top of the wall with her fingers. She pulled herself up and rolled over the top of the wall, dropping down to the other side.
Several deep breaths followed. Pure Zen. Physical exertion usually worked that way for her, but it was hard to relax when someone was shooting at you or trying to gut you.
Ha ha. Maybe I should ask the next merc asshole if he’d like to dance instead.
“Let’s see you do half of that, Peyton,” Shay said, wiping away sweat from the end of her nose. She clapped her hands together and stretched her arms above her head. “Okay, let’s do that shit a few more times.”
A couple hours later, Shay was back at Warehouse Two, showered and changed, staring at something so grotesque and offensive to human sensibilities she was half-convinced some sort of dark Oriceran magic must be involved in its creation.
“A pink flamingo shirt and… I don’t even know how to describe your pants,” Shay said, her gaze locked on Peyton. “It looks like some preschooler ate all his crayons and vomited all over your pants, and you didn’t bother to wash them.”
The man blinked and looked down, his hands held out to his sides. “I think this outfit has character.”
Shay narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Where the hell did you even get those clothes? It’s not like you were carrying around a suitcase when I kidnapped you. Please tell me you weren’t such a fucking moron that you went shopping.”
“I was bored and looked through some of the crates. Tons of clothes in them. Plus, tons of old toys. You’re bitching me out for an outfit I put together from your supplies.”
“Those aren’t my fucking supplies.” Shay rolled her eyes. “First of all, there are a lot of old crates in several of the warehouses that I haven’t thrown out. That shit came from a lot of failed movies. Getting a clue as to why they failed. Second of all, those are men’s clothes, so I would never wear them. Third, they are awful. Have some damned taste.”
Peyton shrugged. “I like them. I had an outfit a lot like this back home. Well, back East. Guess I should stop thinking of it as home.”
“How the hell did you ever hide from anyone? Shit. People can now see you from space. Darken!” The lights immediately dimmed overhead, and blackout screens fell in front of the few windows near the top. “I knew it. I can fucking see you in the dark. Lights!” The lights rose again as the screens came up, uncovering the windows.
Peyton scoffed and stomped over to a desk set up in the old office surrounded on three sides with glass. “Hey, a man has to have some small comforts after he dies.”
“Whatever. You adjusting okay, other than feeding into your increasingly twisted and masochistic sense of fashion?”
“I’m fine for a man stuck in a city he doesn’t know who can’t talk to anyone. Sure.” Peyton stared at Shay, burning curiosity in his eyes.
“What?” She glanced down, hoping that the man hadn’t decided he suddenly wanted to hit on her. She didn’t want to have to beat him down.
“I heard all about it when you died, you know. Burned down house, confirmed body. They said they even did a DNA test using material from your teeth. It wasn’t just some fuzzy pictures on some dark net forum.”
“Is there a point to any of this, Peyton?”
“Yes.” He nodded, rubbing the rough blonde whiskers on his chin. “How? How did you pull all that off?”
Shay chuckled. “It helps when you know someone’s coming for you. It means you can plan.”
“You knew someone was coming for you?”
“Oh, yeah, Natalie Leon.”
Peyton’s eyes widened. “Wait… I heard she retired right after your death, after collecting
on the hit contract for you.”
“Retirement’s one way of putting it.”
“You’re saying she’s dead?”
“I’m saying I killed her first.” Shay grinned. “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet to collect on your own bounty. That was a lot of money. Nice to know I was worth so much.” She winked, her hands on her hips. “I had a solid lead that Natalie was coming for me, and I started preparing…”
The memories flowed freely into her head as if the event happened only the day before.
Shay glanced down at her watch and stood up from her couch, shaking her head. “It’s fucking rude to keep a woman waiting when you’re coming to kill them. They had a new damned pizza sauce over at Gino’s I wanted to try.”
Her lights died.
“Huh, guess, you’re here after all.”
Shay smirked and flipped down her night-vision goggles. The trained killer yanked her 9mm from her shoulder holster and crouched behind her pale yellow upholstered love seat, the only noise the sound of her own shallow breathing.
A squeak from the kitchen cut through the silence. Shay spun and stood, blasting several rounds in that direction as another woman in night-vision goggles rolled away from the back door and returned fire, piercing the love seat. “So much for paying for interior decorating.”
Shay pivoted behind a wall. “If you were going to kill me, Natalie. You should have just blown this place up.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Explosives and sniper rifles are for chickenshits.”
“Why are you even here? I thought we were friends.” Shay ducked.
“We are friends, and this is business. The Nuevo Gulf Cartel isn’t happy with you. You killed one of their big boys not all that long ago. The money they’re offering for you…” She gave a long whistle. “It’s too much to pass up. You would do the same thing. Be glad the end is coming from a friend.”
Several bullets blasted through the plaster wall. If Shay hadn’t changed position, she would have taken three to the chest.
Should have worn a vest if I was going to get all fancy for this shit.
“Yeah, I probably would have gone after the money,” Shay called back, and rolled toward the edge of the doorway. “Glad to hear that at least I’m not a cheap date.”
After several more rounds pierced the wall, a faint click reached Shay’s ears.
The bitch is changing mags.
Shay grabbed her phone and brought up a light app. She set the app to maximum brightness and strobe mode. She tossed it into the other room as she pulled the night vision goggles off her face.
Natalie hissed, and Shay took her chance, running into the kitchen and firing in the general direction of the other woman’s voice. Something hard clattered against the tile floor.
The eerie strobe light highlighted the room in sharp relief, making the overhead fan seem as if it was moving in jerking motions.
Shay carefully walked toward the granite-topped island in the center of the room, her gun still drawn. Natalie was a tricky bitch. An arm rested on one side of the island, along with a gun several feet away. A dark pool of blood was already starting to puddle out toward the center of the kitchen. Doesn’t mean she’s dead.
The trained killer trusted her instincts and burst forward, snapping her gun down to finish Natalie. But no gun or knife awaited her, just a middle-aged assassin bleeding out from bullet wounds to the gut and chest.
“Too fucking slow,” Natalie said through gritted teeth. “The second I saw even a hint of light I should have shut my eyes and pulled the damn goggles off. Fuck.” Blood gurgled in her throat as she spit hard. “I’ve even done that exact shit to people before. Well, not with a damned phone, nice touch.”
Shay kept her gun pointed at the other woman’s head. “Do you regret coming after me now?”
The other woman let out a harsh laugh. “Fuck no. The money was too good.”
“Apparently so was I.”
Natalie let out a wet hacking cough. “Don’t get too cocky. You’re just twenty-five years younger than me. It’s not luck. It’s just time… and time’s gonna catch up with you in the end, too.”
Shay shook her head. “So, this is how it ends for you, after a lifetime of killing people? Bleeding out in someone’s kitchen?”
“How the fuck else was it going to end? It’s not like there’s an old killer’s retirement home.”
“But you had money. You could have retired. Shit, you could have moved and set yourself up as some retired businesswoman or some other fairytale. Why stay in the game?”
Natalie shook her head and coughed up blood. “People like us can’t leave the game, Shay.” She looked up, a grin on her face despite her imminent death. “We don’t do it because we have to, but because we want to. It’s exciting, a rush, and you know it. You started earlier than I did.” More bloody coughs followed as she struggled to breathe. “You put your own life… against someone… else’s. Just… like… you…”
Shay pulled the trigger, finishing off her rival and would-be assassin. She stared down at the dead body for a good minute, taking several deep breaths.
She crouched down and took a closer look at Natalie. “Damn,” she whispered.
If even her friends were willing to come after her, the payout for the hit would bring every greedy asshole in the world to her door. The cartel had almost kept it quiet.
She stood back up, still holding the gun by her side. I might miss the next callout, especially if it went wide. She had confidence in her skills, but she didn’t think she could win against the entire east coast.
Her attention drifted back down to the dead woman at her feet.
Is this what I want? To end up dead in some bitch’s kitchen? Fuck that.
Shay snorted and looked down at her hands. Her conscience stopped bothering her a long time ago. It helped that most of her kills had been assholes who had it coming, including the attempted rapist fuckwad who had been her first kill.
She looked down at her gun. Killing had been the only thing she’d ever been any good at, but maybe it was time for a change. The only thing she needed to do first was die.
Shay glanced over at Peyton. He didn’t need to know everything about her past, not yet. Trust would be earned, not given.
“Natalie came after me. I killed her. The whole thing made me understand it was time for a career change. Even if I wanted to keep killing people, I needed to disappear permanently, so no one would ever think to come looking for me. Doing the same job in a new location wasn’t going to accomplish that.” She shrugged, straightening out a wrinkle in the linen gray pencil skirt that hugged her hips. “I set fire to my own house. I had a convenient bullet-riddled body to burn beyond recognition already inside. It wasn’t that hard with the help of a little money to make sure DNA testing linked the body to me.”
Peyton stared at her, not saying anything.
Shay shot him a bright smile. “You see. That’s the difference between you and me. When my life caught up with me, I killed the bitch who tried to kill me and used her not only to convince everyone I was dead, but to earn me a payday. You, on the other hand, needed my ass to pull you out of there before you ended up floating in the East River in several pieces.” She pointed at him, looking up and down at his outfit. “And I’m still trying to figure out whether me helping you out was stupid or not. Remember what I said. I’m not doing this as—"
A loud yowling echoed in the warehouse.
“What the hell was that?” Peyton said, looking over his shoulder. “You have some sort of rogue troll running around here?”
“Oh, stop wetting yourself. It’s just a little alert system I set up. It’s telling me I might have a possible lead on one of my jobs.”
Visible relief descended on the man’s face as he pressed the heel of his hand to his chest. “Or, you know, I could just hook that annoying ass sound up to your phone, so you’ll hear the alert that way, anywhere you happen to be. Like someone living in the 21st century.”
“Phones can get lost or misplaced.”
Peyton snorted. “And when’s the last time you’ve lost something? Come on, just let me try.”
“Knock yourself out. You can check out how I’ve set it up on the office computer, but I have to go now.”
“Wait. Go where?”
“To another warehouse. I need to get some things to verify the job.”
“Let me come with you then. I can help.”
Shay shook her head. “You already know too much about Warehouse Two. If I give up another warehouse’s location, I’m almost asking you to screw me over.”
“You did save my life, you know. I kind of owe you.”
“And I just got done telling you how a good friend of mine tried to kill me over money. I haven’t put it past you to sell me out to save your ass.”
Peyton’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything back.
Shay shrugged. “We’ll do this a day at a time. You’ll earn my trust, and then we can talk about other shit.”
“You have to give me a chance if I’m going to earn it.” Peyton locked gazes with her. “How do your alerts work?”
“Huh? Why do you suddenly care about the details?”
“Because I’m trying to begin planning how to make them better.”
“Spiders crawling the web and the dark web, mostly. They are looking for certain combinations of information.”
Something approaching interest appeared on Peyton’s face. “You’re better at this kind of thing than I would have thought.”
“It’s useful not to have to rely on others when you’re killing people for a living. Makes people nervous. That means I have a lot more skills than you might think.” She shrugged into her light jacket and picked up her Cambridge Satchel. “Go check out the code. You’re supposed to be the fucking expert, so make it better. Prove you have a place here.”
5
Only an hour had passed before Shay returned to Warehouse Two, pulling her car inside as the roll top door came back down. She hopped out of the Spider and popped the trunk, her high heels clicking along the pavement.