“Why did you kill my wife?”
“It’s business. Nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal,” Jack repeated, “She was my wife. Of course it’s fucking personal.” Jack wiped the blood from his eyebrow and glared at the man, willing him to pull the trigger and end it all. “Do it.”
The intruder chuckled, then he turned, aimed his gun and shot Anna in the face. Her hot blood splattered over Jack’s face. Her body slid against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack tried to scramble to his feet, but the gun was suddenly in his face and pushing into his cheek, the muzzle still hot from the shot. “I can’t afford to have damaged goods.”
Damaged goods? What the hell was he talking about?
The man dropped to his haunches. Jack’s heart sped up until he thought it might rise through his throat and choke him. He turned his head away, pressed his cheek against the wall, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing his fear any longer. Jack willed it to end.
“Time to go bye bye.”
Something crackled, and Jack’s body shook violently as high voltage slammed into him. Every muscle went rigid, and when the blackness came, he welcomed it.
10:30 AM
The pounding in his temple pulled Jack out of the blackness and into the real world. The crackle. His body ached like he’d run a marathon before slamming into a wall.
Jesus. It was like the worst hangover multiplied into a storm of thumps and nausea. He wanted to throw up. His hands were tied.
He was still in Honey’s flat. The place was dim. The curtains closed.
Anna was dead. The bastard had shot her in the head.
But, Anna’s body was missing, removed from where she’d been slaughtered. Jack stared at the piece of wall he’d leant against with Anna when the intruder killed her. Blood splattered up the paintwork in a cherry cloud. Jack threw up. The smell made him feel worse, and he retched again, this time managing only a thin drool of phlegm. He spat and tried to wipe his wet chin on his shirt, but he couldn’t reach.
The terror hit him at about the time he noticed a roll of medical instruments had been laid out on the dining table. He tried to control his breathing, slow everything down enough to think calmly, but now that he’d seen the medical equipment, he couldn’t think of anything else.
The thought of escape flashed into his mind with a primal urgency he hadn’t expected. He tugged at the straps holding him to the chair, pulling his arms behind him, but they were wide and leather and had no wriggle room at all.
Were they belts?
He needed a knife from the table. With it, he’d be able to cut through the restraints, but he had to hurry. His captor wouldn’t leave him alone for long. At some point, he’d return and Jack would be at his mercy.
Slowly, he leant forward, trying to put his weight on his feet whilst lifting the chair. It was difficult, and the chair was heavier than it looked. If he went too fast, he would tip over and he doubted his ability to right himself. Once upright in an awkwardly hunched position, Jack tried to move over to the table. It was laboriously slow and with every movement he panicked that someone might hear and come to investigate.
Stop being a wuss.
He didn’t want to wait for the man to return; he had to make his own chances. Closer to the table, he saw there were plenty of instruments to choose from, and all of them looked sharp and clean.
Torture. Was that what he had on his mind?
And then he saw it. Hidden away amongst the rest of the instruments. Jack had used one many times and knew the shape instantly.
An eye extractor. Honey’s presumably.
Pieces popped into place. The ambush at Honey’s apartment was all about the eyes from the memory boxes. Somehow Keeley’s killer had tracked Nikoli’s eye to Honey’s apartment, and now he wanted to take Lavinia’s as well. What the hell was so important about these eyes? Was this all about destroying evidence?
Jack remembered the horrifying attack that Lavinia Wei had gone through. Jack vowed that if he got out of this, he’d go straight to the police. Enough of being the hero.
Voices filtered down from upstairs and footsteps. The voices stopped and then came the sound of someone walking down the stairs. Jack made a last-ditch effort to get closer to the dining table, not caring so much about the noise he might be making. Even if he wouldn’t have time to cut his way through the straps, he might grab a weapon, conceal it, and use it if he got the chance.
In a panic, he reached for the scalpel on the edge of the table. His fingers grasped it, but the metal slipped through his grip and dropped to the carpet. With nothing to lose, he pushed back hard with his feet and overbalanced the chair. He fell to the ground with a thump, pain shooting up the side of his body, but he’d landed well, exactly where he’d intended. His fingers fumbled for the knife behind him as the door opened and the ATL man stepped in.
The ATL man flicked the light switch and Jack blinked hard against the sudden brightness.
“Going somewhere?” the killer said.
Although surprised to see Jack on the floor, the killer didn’t hurry to right Jack.
“Having fun down there?” he asked.
“Go to hell,” Jack spat.
Jack wasn’t ready for the kick to his abdomen. He gasped as his ribs, still healing from Growden’s beating, were on fire again.
His attacker hauled his chair upright. Jack glared at the man eye to eye. “You didn’t have to kill her. She was defenceless. Who the hell are you? Why are you doing this?”
“Her death was a message,” he spat. “You telepaths are all the fucking same. Should have cut your tongue out whilst you were still out of it.” His smirk made Jack’s skin crawl.
Jack would have loved to wipe that smirk from his face, but the bonds around his wrists put paid to that—for now. As long as the ATL man thought he had the upper hand, he wouldn’t notice him quietly, diligently working away at his restraints.
“I don’t know your name. You could still let me go.”
“Alexander Leech, so now you know who I am, I can’t possibly let you go.”
Leech leant into his face. His breath stunk of backstreet spirits.
“Why are you doing this?” Jack asked.
“Would you believe me if I said it was for the money?”
“Is it for the money?”
Leech shuffled around the dining table. “There are many reasons we do things. Can we even begin to explain away our own decision making? Look at you. A man with some status, with support from the most powerful non-governmental organisation in the country, perhaps the world. Supported with housing, and job protection, and I dare say that money isn’t stolen away from you in some government contributions scheme.
“Does it not even bother you that you work for OsMiTech? Or that you’re reading the eyes from dead people? What kind of man would even do that? Now, hold still.”
Jack wondered what he meant by that last comment, then as Leech ran his fingers over the medical instruments, he understood. And he resisted. Jack tried to pull against his bonds, but there was no give—yet. He tried to refocus his efforts on cutting through the leather, ignoring what was happening in front of him.
Leech just stared, a wry smile appeared on his lips. “You’re not going anywhere. At least not yet.”
“Please don’t.”
“I need you to stay incredibly still for this next bit. Let’s avoid a slip-up.”
Sweat dripped from Jack’s forehead.
“Please don’t do this. If you want the eye, let me take it out for you. I’ve done it dozens of times; I know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t worry your little head about it. I’ve watched a video. I know what to do.” He took a tube of Nanosalve from the table and opened the cap. “A little dab of this to start with should limit any tissue damage I might inadvertently make.”
He pressed some of the clear gel around Jack’s eye socket and the mild tingling started immediately.
“Please don’t,” Jack
said again.
“This probably won’t hurt a bit.”
Leech took the eye extractor and held it before him, letting the light from the single bulb above catch the metal as he turned it around in his hands. Then, he held it in his right hand, fingers in the correct positions, and pointed it at Jack’s eye.
Jack flinched. He couldn’t help himself. Leech brought a knife in front of Jack’s face.
“I don’t want to have to use this instead, but I’m quite prepared. I’ve used one before.”
Jack froze. An unbidden image of his wife having her eyes butchered out of her head came to mind and he wanted to scream. But he didn’t. He would get through this in one piece so he could take pleasure in murdering this son of a bitch the first chance he got.
Leech lowered the knife, then brought the eye extractor close to Jack’s head.
Metal touched flesh.
Leech’s eyes gleamed as he put the probe against Jack’s socket and gently squeezed the handles. The probe extruded and sought the edges of Lavinia’s eye. Tiny hair-like filaments stroked past the eyeball and extended past the obstruction, reaching for the tiny connection at the back of the eye.
“Almost there,” he said, his voice purring in concentration.
Leech pulled back with the device.
Jack yelled.
The eye popped out of the socket. Leech released his grip on the extraction tool and the eye fell out of its grasp and bounced on Jack’s cheek, held in place by the neural connection along the optic nerve. Jack screamed. His vision faded almost completely through the removed eye as his brain struggled to process the unusual visual information.
“There, all done.” Leech stood back and admired his brutal work.
It all went wrong in seconds.
Leech reached for the dangling eye.
A crash came from the hallway as the front door smashed open. Jack lifted his head to the doorway and saw Frazier Growden standing there. His eyes glinted like a man who’d found his prize, but he frowned as he took in the sight before him.
“What the fuck’s going on in here?”
Ignoring Jack, Leech grabbed something from the floor—the stun gun. He held it in front of him, body poised to attack. A crackle as he squeezed the trigger and sparks arced between the contact probes.
Was this the chance he’d been praying for? Jack tried to ignore the men and set to work again with the knife on his straps. If he could just get his hands free—
“Get the hell out of here. This doesn’t concern you.” Leech sounded confident, but then he was the one holding the stun gun. Sparks arced again.
“He concerns me.” Growden pointed at Jack. “That cockfucker gatecrashed one of my—Hey, don’t I recognise you?” Growden stepped into the lounge, his hands down by his side. He moved like he owned the place.
Surely, Leech could see what was about to happen?
Growden continued, “Sure, I do know you. You come to the meetings. Quiet fella.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but if you go now, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Growden raised an eyebrow.
The knife sliced through the rest of the strap, and it dropped to the floor, unnoticed by either of the men. When was the right moment to act? Jack pressed his feet into the carpet, staring at the men but taking quick glances at his escape route. His body ached. His vision was fucked. It took all his willpower not to grab Lavinia’s eye and sort out the mess Leech had created, but he had to be patient.
“We’re comrades you and I,” Growden purred, still with his hands by his sides. “Telepaths will be made to suffer, but you must give this man to me. I can’t let him get away with shaming me. His punishment must be more public than this.”
Leech glanced at Jack, and Growden took his chance. He charged forward, knocking the stun gun arm aside and smashing Leech back against the wall. His head struck and he fell to the floor, a flailing arm bringing down a row of Honey’s ornaments. He didn’t get to his feet. Jack didn’t care. He had a more pressing matter. Growden had a mean look in his eyes like a wolf sensing a kill.
“What you did was just rude,” Growden snarled, his attention now fully on Jack.
“You were killing that man in the cinema,” Jack said more confidently than the hammering heart in his chest suggested.
“He’d have lived. But, it seems you did me a favour. He wasn’t who he claimed to be, and I’m not sure you are either.”
“I’m not important.”
“You’re very important,” Growden said and he brought his arms up to show Jack the knife he’d brought with him.
“How did you find me?”
Growden smirked. “This is part of my patch. I’ve got unrestricted access to the security feeds. The moment your face turned up on the system, I knew.”
Jack smiled.
Growden frowned. “You don’t seem overly concerned.”
“He’s still alive,” Jack said, nodding his head at Leech’s fallen body.
Confused, Growden turned to look but fell back under the impact of Jack as he cannoned into him. He held his knife before him and stabbed Growden in the arm, then spun and sprinted for the doorway. Growden howled, and scrambled to his feet, but Jack was already out of the door onto the main corridors of the habitat block. He slipped the knife into his pocket and grabbed the dangling eye on his cheek. This went against all health and safety, but what else could he do? He shoved it back into his eye socket and the socket recognising the organ back in place, contracted to contain it safely.
His vision blurred. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do.
But then, things started looking OK. He could see again, and as he spun to close the door behind him, he saw the murderous look on Growden’s face charging towards him. There was no way to block the door—more time wasted. Jack ran away down into the corridor of the habitat block, not knowing or caring which direction he headed. All he wanted to do was to put as much distance between himself and Growden as possible. The corridor broke open into one of the wider central tiers that encircled the middle cavity of the tower. Jack registered the confused expressions on the few residents that he passed.
No time to stop and ask for help, he headed for the lifts, but there were none waiting so he ran along the balcony wall, peering over the side to spot them. He was ten floors up and there were no lift cars below him, but three above. Impossible to say which direction they were heading. He scanned the area looking for alternatives. A sign pointed to his right, leading towards the stairs. Chancing a glance behind him and seeing his pursuer gaining, he followed his gut instinct and abandoned the idea of catching the lift. There was no chance of pressing the call button and having enough time to wait for it. Instead, he charged through the doors into the stairwell and practically threw himself down them. He gripped the handrail and used it to spin around the bend, hurrying to the next floor. Above, the doors crashed open again and heavy footsteps continued the chase. After turning the next corner, Jack collided with a heavy-set man smelling strongly of beer.
“Watch it!” he yelled as Jack skirted past him. The drunk reached to restrain him but with booze slowing his reflexes, his fingers grabbed nothing but empty air.
Jack’s instinct told him to get all the way to the bottom and then out of the habitat block for good, but his brain, tired as it was, had other ideas. Without a vehicle, he’d be at the mercy of his pursuer as soon as he left the block. Growden would have brought more people with him. He’d have people watching the entrance. Inside the block was a safer bet; find somewhere to hide until he could call the police.
Another shout of abuse from the drunken resident confirmed Growden was still only a flight above him. If he was going to do this, he would have to do it soon—he was running out of floors. Already down to level four and he knew what he would do, feeling the fear of making a mistake grow by the second. At level three, Jack yanked open the exit door and pulled it closed behind him. If he was lucky, Growden would chase him
to the bottom of the stairwell assuming that he would be heading for the ground floor. He had seconds to make good on his advantage.
Jack’s heart lifted as he saw a lift car approaching this level, the silver roof shone through the gaps in the railings. Jack pounded across the walkway and mashed his thumb against the call button.
Then waited.
His breathing came ragged and he peered through the glass doors watching the lift crawl up towards level three. The car was empty, and no one else approached as Jack waited. He needed to get in and get moving without anyone else getting in the way.
In the distance, Jack heard a yell from the stairwell and his heart missed a beat. His momentary advantage was almost up; Growden had realised his mistake.
The lift eased into the loading bay with a hiss of the brakes and Jack swore at the doors to open. Another shout from the stairwell and he banged on the doors. “Come on, come on.”
Eventually, they opened and Jack slipped inside and banged the highest number on the control panel, floor seventy-two.
The doors to the stairwell crashed open, and a pissed-off Growden stormed onto the walkway, clutching his arm where Jack had got lucky with the knife. His heart pounding, Jack stared at the glass doors, wishing he’d listened to his instinct earlier and fled from the building; he might have been wrong about Growden having accomplices. Jack stood with his back to the glass walls, staring at the lunatic racing towards him.
The lift doors were closing. So slowly.
Jack readied himself to have to fight his way out of there, but just as he reached the doors they sealed shut and the lift headed up.
He collapsed on the floor and fought back the need to be sick. A voice came over the speaker.
“Are you OK?”
1:00 PM
Jack sat with his head in his hands, staring at the tabletop in front of him, wondering how it had come to this.
“Are you going to tell us how come you’re implicated at the scene of another two dead bodies?” Burnfield’s voice was strained. To Jack, it seemed to come from another room entirely.
The Remnant Keeper (Tombs Rising Book 1) Page 13