by Liz Crowe
Backing across the room, I slid open the closet door as silently as I could and stepped inside amongst X’s weapon stash. I couldn’t risk Weiss finding me. There was so much I didn’t know, so many players that had different faces. I couldn’t trust anyone but X.
I closed the door, plunging myself into darkness. Turning, I pressed my palms into the false panel until it clicked. There was a thud from out in the apartment and I bit my bottom lip to stifle a gasp, before shimmying into the crawlspace.
The panel clicked home just as I heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. There was evidence that I’d been here all over the place. Clothes, ropes… Fuck, my bag and boots were out there. Weiss would know I’d been here. A bumfuck hick with two brain cells would know I’d been here. I was screwed and if he knew about the crawlspace, I would be up shit creek without a paddle.
I pressed my back against the wall, my heart hammering painfully in my chest. Surely he would hear it and come for me. The panel would fly open and hands would tear me out and take me away from this place. Away from X.
Weiss wasn’t a nice man. Weiss was X’s handler. Weiss would kill me himself if he knew who I was.
If Weiss was here, did that mean he suspected X of hiding something? If he was still refusing to hand me over, then I still had a chance at winning his trust. I could win his heart, I could…
The closet door slid open and I shoved my hand into my mouth and bit into my flesh. A thin piece of ply stood between me and what felt like certain death.
Please don’t find me, please don’t find me, please don’t find me...
After a sickening moment, the door slid closed and footsteps left the bedroom. Still terrified, I curled up against the safe, shoving my knees into my T-shirt and burying my face into the material.
What if he knew I was here and was waiting for me to come out? I shivered, my entire body rigid, listening for the moment that he left. A few minutes later, I heard the front door open and close, but I didn’t trust that he wasn’t still out there, so I waited.
I waited so long I think I fell asleep. The darkness lingered and my toes became numb from cold and my stomach cramped from being curled up in a tight ball for hours.
Hiding in the darkness like a scared little child, lacking the ability to pull the trigger...even to save my own life. You’re not a killer Alison Crawford. You’re not a killer Mercy Reid. A name doesn’t change anything. You’re still the same petty coward you were all your life.
A thud brought me back to consciousness and my head snapped upright. The panel clicked and was wrenched to one side, light flooding into the darkness. Blinking hard, I held a hand up to shield my eyes, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Fuck.”
It was a low hiss, but I’d recognize his voice anywhere now. It was encoded deep into my skin and seared into all the dark corners.
“X?” I choked through my terror.
Strong arms reached down for me and I was pulled from the crawlspace. I fell against his chest, clinging to him as he brought me out of the closet and into the bedroom, the sudden light forcing me to squint. I breathed in his scent, trying to commit the feel of his body against mine to memory.
“Do I need to ask what happened?” he murmured, a slight twinge of annoyance in his voice. Somehow I knew it wasn’t directed at me and I tightened my grip.
“Weiss,” I whispered. “He came looking.”
“You hid from Weiss?”
I nodded. “I know what he does. I’m not stupid. If he found me, he would know. He’d take me away from you.”
X ran a hand through my hair and I stiffened slightly at his odd display of softness.
“There’s food in the kitchen,” he murmured after a moment. “Nobody will be coming back here anytime soon.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked, pulling away. “There’s evidence all over the place. He knows I’ve been here. They’ll come back for me...”
“Come,” he said, ignoring my plea. Curling a hand around my arm, he led me down the hall and into the kitchen where a pizza box sat on the bench.
Fucking hell. My stomach growled as the smell of cheese hit my nostrils. He brought me food.
“Eat,” he said as I stared at the cardboard box. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Where are you going?” I cried, trying to grab his arm.
X turned, his expression cold. “I’m going to end this.”
My heart lept to my throat. “End it, how?” I called out after him, but all the response I got was a door slamming in my face.
The word ‘end' in X’s vocabulary only meant one thing as far as I was concerned.
X was going to kill Weiss.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
X
Mercy Reid hiding in the crawlspace behind my depravity.
I’d come back to the apartment with thoughts of the future and a pizza in one hand to find the deadbolt unlocked on my front door. The first thing I’d thought about was her.
I’d opened the door to the apartment and something was different. There was a change in the air and I’d realized it was because she wasn’t there. For a sickening moment I thought she’d run from me…or had been taken. This little thing tickled at the base of my skull, this little thing that I was now understanding was faith, clawed at my mind and I’d dropped the pizza on the bench and went for the one place I knew she was smart enough to find. She’d gone through my things and was still spouting crap about fighting together and believing in me, so she had to know the one place in the apartment she could hide if forced to.
Mercy Reid was smart. It was one of the things that commanded my fixation.
Her intelligence and her pussy. It was all interconnected.
Knowing that she was safe, that she was still with me, did things to my insides that I didn’t understand. Maybe in time they would make sense, but not today.
It was around two am by the time I pulled my motorbike up out the front of The Gambler’s Inn. Closing was at two sharp and the lights were still on, which meant somebody was still home. Weiss’ bike was still in the no standing zone where he usually left it, so it was safe to say that he was still chain-smoking like a nasty fuck in his office.
I didn’t care who the fuck he was, nobody broke into my apartment and fucked with my shit and lived to regret it. Nobody fucked with Mercy and… I shook my head. This was about more than a bit of pussy.
Opening the outside door to the pub, I stepped inside to silence. Brock glanced up from behind the bar and narrowed his eyes. Striding across the nasty carpet, I rounded the bar and fisted my hands into his shirt, yanking him close.
“Hey man,” he exclaimed, holding his hands up. “Fuckin’ psycho.”
“If you know what’s good for you,” I snarled, “you’ll get the fuck out of here and keep walking.”
“Or what?”
“Or, I’ll put a bullet in your head and believe me, that’s me being kind.”
His eyes widened slightly and he nodded. I let him go and he backed away, his gaze never leaving me. Once he was around the bar, he bolted for the door. Slimy bastard knew what was good for him.
Fixing my gaze onto Weiss’ office, I crossed the pub, one question on my mind. How much did he know?
I shoved open the office door with a violent jab and it swung inwards and collided with the wall. Weiss’ head jerked up and he stiffened when he saw who was standing in front of him.
“Don’t look so surprised,” I snarled.
Glancing over my shoulder out into the empty pub, he snorted, leaning back in his chair. “I see you cleaned the place out. No witnesses, right?”
I cocked my head to the side.
“Oh, c’mon X. Do you really think I’m that fuckin’ dumb?”
“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “I have known you a long time.”
Weiss leaned forward again, his hand disappearing underneath the desk. I knew he kept a handgun strapped there and it was no surprise he’d think about drawing
it on me now. I was out for blood after all.
“Find what you were looking for?” I asked. “Or were you disappointed she was long gone before you could fuck her?”
“Club over all, X,” Weiss snarled, his usual calm exterior starting to crack. “Or have you forgotten that?”
“On the contrary,” I said. “I’ve forgotten nothing.”
Weiss shook his head like he couldn't fathom that his pet had deigned to develop a will of his own. “What has she done to you?”
“She's opened my eyes Weiss. I always understood what happened to me, but I didn't have the capability to give a fuck about it. Greggor took that away from me and Mercy helped me find it again.”
“Where is she, X?” He raised the gun from underneath the desk and pointed it straight at me.
There was a slight tremor in his hand, which gave away a lot of things, but I wasn’t interested in any of them…except one. Fear. Yeah, he should be fucking scared of the monster he'd had a hand in creating. The monster that was turning against his masters.
I stared right into his eyes and replied, “Somewhere you'll never find her.”
He rose to his feet, rounding the desk to come and face me. “Where she is is no concern,” he spat. “You, however…”
I strode forward, letting my expression change into pure anger. I let the thing I so carefully locked away inside me flare to the surface and for a split second I felt my control slipping. The barrel of the gun pressed into my chest as I faced down Weiss, silently daring him to pull the trigger.
“You’re going to kill me now?” I asked. “Your dog isn’t going to heel at your command anymore, so what are you going to do about it?”
Weiss’ lip curled into a sneer and he flicked the safety off.
Did I want him to shoot me point blank? Did I want this suffering to end? I thought of Mercy and knew that there was something else inside me living with the monster that Royal Blood had created. My hand flew up and grasped Weiss’ wrist and pushed upwards. The gun went off with a boom that echoed in the close confines of the office, the sound making my ears buzz.
Twisting, I rammed my back into Weiss’ chest and heaved, throwing him over my shoulder. He landed hard on the flat of his back, his grip still wound around the handle of the gun. With a roar, I straddled him and pounded a fist into his face, blind rage taking over everything. Blood erupted from his nose as I hit him again and again, delighting in the pain I was causing the man who would take her away from me. The man who’d been a part of keeping me in line.
“I know all about you, X,” he choked out through a mouthful of blood.
I hesitated, my fist halting mid-punch, and Weiss sneered in satisfaction.
“I know a lot of things I bet you’re dying to know.”
Did it matter? Did I give a rat’s ass about who I was before? All that mattered right now was the fact that Weiss already knew I was deviating from my scheduled programming and Mercy would come into that equation easily enough. It was only a matter of time before he realized who Mercy Reid really was.
I was so engrossed in my rage that I didn’t see the gun coming until it collided with the side of my skull. I fell to the side with a grunt, stars shooting through my vision.
Weiss was on his feet in one swift movement, and I did the same, my training kicking in and keeping me in the moment. The gun was pointed straight at my head and I knew that whatever happened next, that this was going to end badly for both of us.
“You know it’s inevitable,” Weiss said, wiping his bloody nose with his free hand. “Either way, you’re dead. It’s nothing but protocol. Don’t take it personally.”
“Protocol?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. It was never mentioned or implied, everything Greggor, Weiss and Royal Blood did was to welcome me into the fold. They’d treated me like a brother from day one, but underneath all of that was the unspoken fact that if I went against them for any reason…they would kill me on the spot. I was expendable.
Like fuck I was going to let that happen.
“Have you got a protocol for this?” I snarled and lunged, grasping Weiss around the wrist. I smashed his hand against the wall with all the force I could manage and his fingers loosened on the gun. It clattered to the floor as his left hand came at me from behind. Ducking at the last second, his fist clipped the back of my head making me stumble and lose my hold on him.
We dove for the gun at the same time, but Weiss was closer. His fat, grubby fingers curled around the muzzle and swung. The butt collided with my temple with surprising force and my head snapped backwards, my vision blurring.
I was out like a light before I even hit the floor.
*****
Vanilla.
And something else. Darkness? No, not darkness. Betrayal.
Consciousness came back to me in pieces. Images, faces of the now, interlaced with the past. Blood, gunpowder and Weiss. Weiss had been there, but where was that?
Awareness started to flood back and whatever my subconscious was trying to reveal to me was flung back into the darkness.
My arms were bound behind my back and my hands were underneath my shoulders as I was dragged across broken earth. Plastic dug painfully into my wrists, biting into my flesh. Cable ties. Smart. If I got out of this, then my hands would be scraped raw. A little pain didn’t faze me, it was an anchor to keep me focused in the now.
At first I thought I was going blind, but I realized that it was dark out. Had to be at least three or four am, since the sun began to rise around six this time of year. Wind brushed against my skin, the sound of rustling leaves high overhead.
He’d taken me out into the forest to kill me. I hope the asshole had a shovel.
I was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, boots crunching on the undergrowth as he stepped away.
“On your knees, X.”
There was no playing dead on Weiss’ watch. He knew most of my tricks, but I still had plenty of cards left to play in my hand. Plenty that he didn’t know about.
Groaning, I rolled over onto my side, pushing up onto my knees. My head throbbed from the blow he’d given me back at The Gambler’s Inn and from the beating he’d probably given me getting me to the forest. No sympathy for a dead man. Still, I assessed the situation like any skilled killer would do.
My hands were bound behind my back, a plastic cable tie biting into my skin. There was no knot to loosen and no way to get out of this unless I cut my way free. The darkness was almost total, which meant we were miles from the city. He’d had to have thrown me into the boot of his car, driven here and dragged me a ways from the road. He’d shoot me and then bury my body out underneath the stars where nobody would ever find it.
Then he’d go and find Mercy.
An image of her bound, beaten and bloody came to mind and anger began to flare once more. I wouldn’t let her suffer the same fate.
I had to make this quick. I knelt in the dirt on the balls of my feet and stubbed my toe against the hard earth and glared up at Weiss as he pulled a gun out of a holster under his jacket. The blade that was hidden in the heel of my boot worked its way free and I began sawing as he screwed a silencer onto the end of his gun.
So that’s how he was going to do it.
My chest heaved as I stared up at my once best friend and handler as he held his gun to my head. The barrel pressed into that spot right between the eyes, the same place Sykes had put bullets into Mercy’s family. I had to get back to her. They knew where she was.
“It’s done X,” Weiss said. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but it’s time to put you out of your misery. Greggor said if you ever started to revert, then I was to put you down.”
“So you’re just going to shoot me like a dog?” I asked, my fingers twitching as the cable tie snapped. “After all the shit we’ve been through?”
Weiss laughed, shaking his head. “Seriously, X? I’m not that stupid. I know how you operate. No mercy.”
He clicked the safety off.
“It’s been a long eight years, X, but deep down you knew this day was coming.”
They’d promised me my freedom. I’d taken it to mean an out to live my life however I wanted, but now I realized their idea of freedom was a bullet in the head. I was never going to get what I wanted. I was never going to be free and knowing that now? Option three was the sweetest deal in the history of the world.
Weiss’s body stiffened as he went to pull the trigger and I chose her.
My right hand flew up and smashed into the silencer, knocking it from Weiss’ hand. It went flying into the darkness, but I didn’t need a gun to take the son of a bitch down. Rising to my feet, I jammed a shoulder into his stomach, pressing up into his ribs and driving the air from his nasty nicotine soaked lungs.
Weiss doubled over, gasping for air and I brought my fist up, punching underneath his jaw. His teeth clacked together with the force of the blow and he grunted, falling to his knees.
It never occurred to me to stop as I worked the secondary blade out of the toe of my boot, kicking with all the strength I could muster. The steel sunk into Weiss’ flesh, right between his ribs and a roar tore from his lips, echoing off into the night. Falling to his side, his hands instinctively clamped down on the wound.
I could kill him right now. I could end his miserable life once and for all. Before today, I never wanted to cause him real harm. He was my best friend after all. We were nasty fuckers, did terrible things in the name of Royal Blood, but that was the code. That was the life. He was my handler, but now I knew I was the pet. Pets were never equals to men like Weiss.
My life was a lie.
Weiss’ friendship was a lie.
Royal Blood was a lie.
I fisted my hand into the front of his shirt and yanked him off the ground. He stared up at me with panic in his eyes as my fist came down hard on his temple. The force of the blow sent him back onto the ground, cracking his skull on the hard earth.
He blinked hard, trying to hold on to reality, but that wasn’t good enough for me. Not by a long shot.