Twig

by wildbow

  The Fishmonger hit me. I went from a standing position to a dangling one, hanging from my wrists as the thug held me.

  He hit me again, then again, as if I were practice and nothing more. The blows were focused on my head and face. Striking where I was already cut and bleeding, with the first and third strike being aimed at my bleeding ear.

  The final blow was to the midsection, making me double over. The thug’s grip on me kept me from keeling over.

  Pain, I could handle. Only Lillian could handle Lillian, though.

  My reminiscence of the earliest field work of the Lambs had been apt. There were parallels to be drawn between my sharing what I’d learned and my understanding of the world with Jamie and Gordon and what was happening here with Lillian.

  Lillian marched in my direction. There was a wild look in her eye. Blithely, as if she couldn’t even see, she walked right into the reach of the man with the oil-slick skin. She didn’t even startle or glance at him. She continued to pull against his grip, trying to approach me.

  The Fishmonger signaled. The man who held Lillian released her, and she stumbled as she took her next step toward me. She recovered, and the Fishmonger stood out of her way as she closed in.

  A fistful of needles in hand, various colors of fluid within each, she stabbed me.

  She didn’t depress the plunger. The needles weren’t being used for that. She pulled them out and slashed them against the less injured side of my face, raking me with needle points, one of them breaking off in the process.

  She was a wild animal, entirely on autopilot, not thinking, only acting. She stabbed me again and again, the same four or five syringe points penetrating flesh over and over again. Shoulder, shoulder, side, abdomen, arm, chest.

  The last hit was delivered with both hands. The needles went in as far as they could go. She pressed, and leaned forward in the doing. Her forehead rested against mine.

  “I liked you,” she said, quiet but not so quiet the Fishmonger couldn’t hear. “I trusted you.”

  “That’s your own fault,” I said, my voice soft.

  “Enough,” the Fishmonger said. He grabbed the back of Lillian’s collar and pulled her away. She took one step back and sank to her knees.

  I still had the needles buried in my shoulder.

  Lillian’s hands formed gestures.

  Poison. Bad. Drug.

  She’d dug deep and found something, and she’d gone wholly against what her entire purpose in the Lambs was, on paper, to keep us healthy and safe. She’d torn into me, presumably avoiding vital areas, to arm me.

  The Fishmonger stepped closer to me, reached out, and touched the syringes. He gripped them, or most of them, and bent them, until they started to break.

  He left the wreckage in place, fluids dribbling down my front, only one or two syringes still intact.

  “I think she’s realized there’s no way out. She’ll come with me, she’ll work for me.”

  Still kneeling, eyes on the ground, Lillian nodded.

  “You, I think we’ll have to devise a fitting end for you, little boy. You spoiled what was supposed to be a good night, and you killed my pet.”

  “I don’t get paid?” I asked. Keeping up the role.

  He hit me again.

  Bastard.

  “I get paid, I hope?” Ratface asked. He was off to one side, leaning against a stack of crates.

  “You do,” the Fishmonger said. “Three bodies and an employee.”

  Three bodies. Me, Gordon, and Jamie.

  My eye went toward the front door. Mine wasn’t the only one.

  Jamie still lay there, but Gordon didn’t. The man who’d been standing watch over the pair now lay face down on the warehouse floor.

  It had been a hard lesson to learn. To trust my teammates.

  “I thought you had them sedated!” the Fishmonger called out. His face was red and a vein stood out on the forehead.

  “I jabbed ’em,” the altered thug with the spines all over his body spoke. He sounded spooked. “We were quick about it. Wasted no time, as soon as we got the signal.”

  “And somewhere in there you stabbed him?”

  “No sir,” Spines said. “The others will tell yeh, crazy little shit stabbed himself partway through the scuffle.”

  Stabbed himself?

  Entirely without meaning to, we’d given him the distraction he needed.

  Might as well make the most of it. Bleeding, beaten, stabbed, I managed a chuckle. Then I laughed. Wide eyes to sell the crazed aspect of the laugh. Eyes turned my way.

  “You’re right, Fishmonger. There is no way out.”

  Then, as if to echo my statement, likely because Gordon heard and was playing along—I’d have to buy him a treat later as thanks—the lights went out. We were plunged into almost absolute darkness, the only light being that which came from lamps outside the building and across the street.

  Good boy, I thought, still grinning, but for my own benefit this time.

  Previous Next

  Bleeding Edge—8.8

  The light that filtered in from outside the warehouse was only barely enough to let me see the Fishmonger’s movement. A flash of his arm, raised, catching the light, moving—

  I moved my head in response, just in time to absorb the worst of the hit.

  The Fishmonger’s fingers were strong as he gripped my throat and chin, fingertips digging in.

  “Who are you?” he asked. Then he amended his question. “What are you?”

  “We’re mercenaries,” I said. “You cornered a bit too much of the local market, threw your weight around, and some of your enemies banded together to pay our price.”

  “Bullshit,” the Fishmonger spoke into the darkness. “Business has been good. We’ve been cooperating more than ever before.”

  Because of the books?

  No, I don’t believe that. You have bodyguards for a reason.

  Rather than come up with a clever response, I laughed instead. Better to keep his attention on me and off Gordon. It gave Gordon time to move, took focus away from Lillian.

  I got punched for my trouble. I was a little slower to turn my head, but I went with the blow, absorbing it with the movement of my head.

  “Would have to be Slim’s son,” he mused aloud.

  “The son? He’s not a real crook,” Ratface could be heard to comment.

  “If he’s doing this, he’s real enough,” the Fishmonger said. Then he seemed to come to a decision, “Deal with the boy.”

  Less cause for laughter, now. The light from outside drew a faint orange line along one man’s head, shoulder, arm and leg as he approached me.

  Strategize, think…

  “Jerrod, Tony, get the one by the door. Bring him in. Or better yet, put a knife in him, then bring him in. York, get a damn light from outside. I want to see what the hell we’re doing.”

  I was held by the wrists, arms held straight out behind me. I still had the wreckage of the syringes stuck in my shoulder. I considered trying to rub the broken glass and poison against the man who held me, then decided against it. He wore a coat and multiple layers.

  “The other one’s gone,” came the report from by the door. I could see the men standing there. York, the one who’d been sent to get the light, stepped through the doorway, momentarily blocking the little light there was.

  Jamie’s gone. I could imagine Gordon managing a trick, containing the paralysis or whatever the spines were supposed to do to him to one part of his body. But Jamie?

  Someone had moved him.

  The Fishmonger was silent.

  Back to my situation. I couldn’t rub broken glass against the man who held me. I bent my head down, grabbed one of the only intact syringes in my teeth, and hauled it out. I had to twist myself to my limits to bring it around and stab the man in the side.

  “The fuck?” he asked.

  “What?” the Fishmonger asked. “We’re in the dark, when you say things like that, without explaining, it’s wo
rrisome.”

  “Little fuckspit stung me somehow.”

  He didn’t let go to check the source of the injury. Damn shame, but being in the dark like this, with barely anything to go by, it also meant he couldn’t draw the appropriate conclusions.

  “Augment?” the Fishmonger asked. “You—”

  He wasn’t talking to me. Had to be Lillian.

  “—What is he? What are you?”

  “He’s poisonous,” Lillian said. “More poisonous with the syringes I jabbed him with.”

  The other one was drawing nearer. My view of the doorway was blocked by the body of a large man. He might have been one of the ones with armored skin.

  I reached around, twisting, and this time the man who held me fought me, making the act harder.

  I managed to get my teeth on the syringe, ripping it out, I raised my face skyward, letting gravity hold the syringe in place as I adjusted my grip on it, and twisted again—

  The one who’d approached to finish me off grabbed me by the throat, probably to make sure he had me in position to cut my throat or put a bullet in the side of my head.

  I twisted my head up and tilted it, until I could stab at the underside of his wrist with the needle, and wasn’t able to hold on to it as he pulled back and away.

  “Damn it!” the man barked. “Stung. What’s this? Syringe?”

  I went limp, dropping, head down, weight of my body pulling against the hands that held my wrist.

  Let me go, let go. Assume I’m dead, that he got my throat, let me go.

  He didn’t let me go.

  “Poison, like I said,” Lillian said. “Probably one of the hyperkalemics. The other poisons would be burning in your veins like fire. Since you aren’t screaming, I assume he didn’t stick you with one of those.”

  “What the fuck is a hyper…”

  “Hyperkalemic. Your cells are becoming porous as we speak. You’ll vent potassium into your bloodstream, and you’ll feel awful, like you’re getting sick. Then you’ll feel your muscles go weak. Your heart’s one of those muscles. It’ll stop, and it’ll stop soon.”

  She seemed more coherent, now that she was reciting from a textbook. Clinical.

  I didn’t actually depress the syringe, though.

  “You have two to five minutes to live,” she said. “I might be able to save you, depending how much he gave you, and if there’s any light for me to see my bag. Every second counts, obviously.”

  “Stay right where you are, you tell me what the cure is, I’ll find it myself,” the Fishmonger said. “Where the hell is York?”

  The only sound in response was the noise of the rain pattering down outside.

  “York!” the Fishmonger called, voice harsh and loud.

  No response came.

  Gordon had to be inside the building, to mess with the lights. If he hadn’t circled around to the front, then it had to be Hubris.

  Stealth dog.

  I continued to hang, limp. I felt the man’s grip on my wrists tighten.

  “Giles!” he barked. “You get me that damn antidote!”

  “Both of us,” the other said. “Girl! You’d better give it to us, or your little friend here dies.”

  “Someone’s holding me,” Lillian said. Her voice sounded distant, disaffected. As if it wasn’t wholly her speaking. Too calm. “If they let me go, I can try. But if you hurt Simon there, then I won’t help you at all. If you’re feeling the symptoms, then it might be too late already.”

  “Fuck, shut up, stop talking, get the antidote!”

  “I’m feeling the effects,” the man who held me said, quiet enough that it was probably meant for his fellow poisoning victim.

  Except I didn’t depress the syringe, I thought, again.

  “Stop panicking,” the Fishmonger said, sounding annoyed more than anything. “Jerrod, Tony, go get some light and find York. Go together.”

  They weren’t far from the door, standing by where Jamie had fallen. I saw their outlines as they headed through the doorway, and I saw Hubris fly at one of them, a bounding leap, without a snarl or bark to mark the occasion. Stumbling away, the one Hubris had attacked fell back against something by the door—a crate or something.

  “The dog,” the Fishmonger said.

  “It’s not really a dog,” Lillian said. “Not really.”

  Hey, look at that. She actually managed a convincing-ish lie.

  “Call them off!”

  “They wouldn’t listen if I did. They almost never listen to me.”

  “If you’re their handler—”

  “I just keep them functioning. Or I try. You saw how Simon is. Baiting you, getting himself hurt. Well, that was partially my fault.”

  I wished she hadn’t mentioned me. I’d made myself big and noticeable, laughing, doing the talking, drawing attention. Now that I was limp and silent, I was hoping they would assume I was dead. If they gave me more than a moment or two of thought…

  “Giles,” the man who held me shouted.

  “I know! Shut up,” the Fishmonger snarled. “I have her bag.”

  “I couldn’t find it in the dark,” Lillian said. “I doubt you could find it in the light. It’s not conveniently labeled ‘antidote’.”

  I hadn’t moved a muscle in almost a minute, and still dangled from the man’s grip. He didn’t think to ask before letting me go, dropping me to the floor of the warehouse. His focus was elsewhere. My chin banged the floor and the broken needles in my chest tapped against the floor, making me feel the jabs and the bits of broken glass that had clung to my shirt and jacket.

  With barely a sound, I rolled over onto my back, and took a second to pull the bits of syringe out of my shoulder. I collected the needles and broken syringe-ends, holding them between my fingers, the broken glass against the heel of my palm.

  That done, I brought my arms over my head, wincing at the pull against the damage in my shoulder, lifted my butt up off the ground, and rolled forward into a crouching position.

  I was as blind as any of them, but they were big, I was small, and my footsteps were comparatively quiet in contrast to the big man’s. I closed the distance, and slammed the needles out in his direction, slamming them into his side and his back, before dancing back and away of the retaliatory strike.

  “Motherfucking fuck fuck fuck! Little fuckspittle!”

  “Stop doing that!” the Fishmonger barked. “Say why you’re swearing, you moron, or it doesn’t help!”

  “The one you were punching is gone. He just stuck me with the needles!”

  “Serves you right for letting go of him, you fucking dunce.”

  “He was dead! Playing dead…”

  I loved that they were talking and making noise. It let me locate them.

  “If he got you with more than the one needle then you’re definitely dead,” Lillian said. “I’m sorry. You can blame your boss for that. I would have helped if I could.”

  “Shut up!” the Fishmonger barked.

  I heard a pained noise from Lillian.

  I went by limited memory of the battlefield, where the table was, where the crates and shelves were, and I moved between them, heels of my shoes scuffing the floor lightly as I rolled my weight from heel to toe. I didn’t make much noise, and being where I was, zig-zagging through their ranks, the light sounds were excusable.

  Light flared through the room, shadows flying forward, then reversing direction to head back. One of the men who’d gone outside had retrieved a light, and was returning inside, victorious, light held high. I was among the now-visible details of the room.

  All eyes present moved to me, with the exception of the eyes belonging to the poor soul on the table. Me, with two thugs behind me, two thugs between me and the shelves to my right, table with patient to my left, and Fishmonger, thug, and Lillian in front of me.

  A gunshot sounded from among the shelves at the back of the warehouse. The eyes that had looked my way looked between the source of the sound and the destination—a
hole in the wall just beside the lantern-holding man’s head.

  Gordon’s aim was better on the second shot. The man fell, and the lantern crashed to the floor.

  It wasn’t like the dime-store novels. The container didn’t shatter and it didn’t ignite into a nice distracting fire.

  I moved, dashing between the table and the Fishmonger to get to Lillian’s bag.

  “Mutt!” I hollered. “Get rid of the lantern!”

  I seized Lillian’s bag, and I grabbed the tools that Lillian had laid out, the same ones that I’d been handing to her.

  In the same moment I turned around and made a beeline straight for the man who held Lillian, Hubris snatched up the lantern, carrying it away. The light slid away from the room, plunging things into darkness in a second’s time.

  I went low. My elbow struck out, once, twice—

  Point of reference enough to get a sense of what and where I was elbowing. He twisted, trying to put Lillian between us, but I was already reaching around the far side of his leg, scalpel in hand. I pulled the blade against the back of his leg.

  Too shallow a cut. It didn’t stop him from driving his knee into my already bruised ribs. Already crouching, I tumbled the short distance to the ground.

  I rolled forward, going for the ankle this time. I couldn’t remember what he’d been wearing on his feet. Boots? Would the scalpel go through?

  No. Last minute change of plans.

  I stabbed for his groin instead.

  He kicked out, and managed to get me in the hip, right where it joined my bent leg. I was thrown onto my side, my attack never connecting.

  He was strong.

  This wasn’t working. The leg he’d kicked was slow to move as I asked it to move. His hand grabbed me while I was still trying to get myself moving again.

  I could have stabbed him, but I didn’t. He was on guard against that. Instead, I reached out. My hand touched Lillian. I pressed the scalpel and scissors in my fist flat against her stomach. She took them with her free hand.

  For the second time, I was thrown hard against the table. I heard a gun cock from his direction.