Naughty and Nice

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “The trouble is,” Julian said, “there’s no way to know for sure until we’re freed. We can free ourselves fairly easily, but… we may not be alive long enough to see ourselves actually untied.”

  “What do you mean we can do it easily?” I asked.

  Julian nodded toward me, but his gaze was fixed on something over my shoulder. I craned my neck to see what he was looking at.

  The basement had been a work room of some sort, and there was a carpenter’s table in the corner with a fluorescent light over it, providing the majority of light in the room that wasn’t coming from a squat window near the ceiling of the other side of the room. On the table sat a number of tools, any one of which, I realized, could be used to fray or cut the rope enough that we would be able to, though painfully, separate ourselves from one another.

  “Well, that was stupid of them,” I said, “leaving all of those tools there.”

  “Or it’s bait,” he said, his mouth set in an ugly frown. “They’re there so that we have this exact conversation, and think we’re just going to cut ourselves loose and be on our way.”

  “Why not just kill us?” I said. “If that’s Manuel Brown’s intention, why go through the mind game of letting us think we’re going to get away? Why take the chance that we actually could get away? I mean,” I continued, my stomach filling with dread as I heard the words in my mind before I said them out loud, “you’re basically saying we’re dead right now. That there’s a bomb detonator on one of us, and the only reason we’re alive right now is because we’ve been talking and not escaping.”

  “He didn’t kill us because he likes the mind game,” Julian said in a flat voice. “Why do you think he kept Brad’s son for so long? He doesn’t like to kill people because he doesn’t want blood on his hands, but, more than that, he likes to fuck with people. He lives to fuck with people.”

  I felt a drop of sweat fall from Julian’s cheek onto my collarbone. I tried to shrug it off as it tickled my shoulder, watching Julian’s eyes watching it move.

  “We have to try,” I said. “We… just have to try.”

  “I agree,” Julian said. His arms were already wrapped around me, but he tightened them and I felt the ropes loosen on my wrists. “Space your feet so that one is between mine and the other is on the outside. Let’s move slowly; no sense blowing up before we need to.”

  I looked at him sharply.

  “What,” he said, “you’re the only one allowed to make a joke?”

  “That wasn’t funny,” I said. I looked at his chin because looking into his eyes was far too intimate, far too charged, especially in our current situation. We began to move, and I imagined that if anyone saw us from the outside, we would look like a couple very into one another slow dancing in our basement.

  We found a rhythm and moved toward the table. I scanned the table looking for something like a saw, but, of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  “There’s an ax,” Julian observed, nodding over my shoulder.

  “You want to chop us apart?” I asked. “Without detonating a bomb that may be attached to us?”

  “Well, do you have a better idea?” he shot back.

  I looked at the tools on the table. “There’s a flat head screwdriver,” I said. “We could use it to fray the rope bits apart.”

  “And, if we had a week, that would be a great idea. My guess is we’re on something of a time limit here, though I don’t know how long.”

  I nodded, my stomach sinking. He was right, of course. “If you use the ax, how are you going to use it?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment, and I watched his eyes as the thoughts moved across them.

  “We’re going to hope it’s incredibly sharp,” he said. “And, hopefully, we won’t need to actually chop anything; we’ll be able to slide the blade through. If the detonator isn’t being held by our stomachs or our wrists, we should break apart quickly.”

  “And if it’s dull? Or the detonator is on us?” I asked.

  He shrugged, giving me the look that said I knew exactly the answer to that question. And, I did. If the detonator was on us, we wouldn’t know if the blade on the ax was dull or not. Not for more than a second.

  “Okay,” he said, grabbing the ax. “Are you ready?”

  I held my breath, closed my eyes, and nodded.

  Brad

  My brain re-engaged with a surge of panic before I could even open my eyes. When I did open them, all I saw was blurry shapes that, while they looked familiar, had no place in my memories. I shook my head and spikes of pain moved through my neck and head; I closed my eyes again as nausea rolled through me.

  I tried to bring my hand to my head; I felt like holding my temples in my hands might somehow help. But, I couldn’t move my hands. I strained and tugged, but they were stuck at my sides. I took some deep breaths, then tried again, using more strength. I growled out loud, a growl that turned into a frustrated yell as I couldn’t get loose from whatever was holding me down. I collapsed back.

  I opened my eyes again and, this time, waited for things to clear in spite of the pounding, sickening pain in my skull. I focused on one object at a time until it became a little more clear. Then I moved onto another, then another. I saw a rug on what appeared to be a hardwood floor. I saw a sectional couch. Gradually, I began to realize I was home. Not at my house, but at my suite at London Legacy. When I had an idea of where I was, the images began to sharpen faster. I looked down at myself. I was tied down to one of my dining room chairs, my forearms bound to the chair arms, and my legs bound to the front two legs of the chair. My ribs were bound to the back, explaining why even the deep breaths I thought I was taking weren’t helping me much.

  I turned my head toward the door and, once again, pain splintered through my head. I had a concussion, almost certainly. The question was, who had done this? And, more importantly, was that person still in my suite? This thought sent my heart into a pounding dance and I held my breath, listening for any sound, trying to feel for any sensation, anything that didn’t belong in my room. The place sounded empty, deserted.

  Cassie. Her name shot into my mind, and I remembered everything. The failed raid, the UC that had stood in Cassie’s place. How everything had fallen apart when we realized Manuel Brown had seen us coming a mile away and had taken Antoine… at the thought of my son’s name, my stomach rolled with nausea again. We were right back where we’d started, except I was tied up in my home and Cassie was… Where was Cassie?

  I looked toward my bedroom and knew that I had to get to that room, specifically, though it was the furthest space from where I was. I looked around for my cell phone, but somewhere in my gut I knew my phone was long gone. Smashed to bits, probably, by a lackey of Manuel Brown’s.

  The chair I’d been tied to was no joke; it was one of the heavier moveable chairs in the suite. I remembered ordering them. Yes, I wanted solid oak, the heavier the better, and yes, I wanted captain’s chairs. Of course the fabric should be heavy, durable, and luxurious. The chair weighed well over a hundred pounds.

  Still, I knew I needed to move in the chair to the bedroom where the panic button was hidden, under a lamp, on the side of the bed I typically slept on. I cursed myself for thinking that I’d be able to use my hands in the event of needing to push the button. All sorts of thoughts for modifications, greater safety, voice activation, pushed through my mind and I had to push them back out. Survival first, then technology.

  I began to inch my way across the floor. It was slow going, and each centimeter I moved sent shooting pains from my feet to the top of my head. I began to assess my injuries as I moved. A concussion was a given, and possibly an even more significant head injury. The pain in my shoulder suggested a cracked collarbone. The pain each breath caused me meant almost certainly at least one broken rib.

  I was sweating, and twice I stopped because I was sure I was going to vomit, but I kept going. Centimeter by centimeter, angry with myself for not being able to move faster,
yet feeling like if I did, I might actually die from the efforts. I imagined Cassie or Simon finding me, tipped over on the floor, dead. I shook my head and redoubled my efforts; I couldn’t let that happen.

  Hours went by in the time it took me to cross the living room. I could tell by the way the sunlight shifted in the sky. I smiled ruefully as I realized the sun was actually moving faster than I was. As late afternoon arrived, I made it to the bedroom door. I’d thought about tipping myself over and sliding my way over, but I didn’t think I’d be able to get the traction I needed. Still, now, the bedroom presented a new challenge: carpet. I blinked my eyes closed in pure anger and frustration. Small tears mixed with the sweat pouring down my face.

  You have to do this, Bradley White. You do not have a choice. You have a son. You’ve done nothing but survive for him since the day he was born, and you will not give up now. Do you hear me? You will not give up. Get your ass moving. It’s carpet, not poisonous snakes. Be the man you are—the leader, the CEO, the billionaire—be everything you are that no one else can be, and get to that button.

  Do it now.

  I gave myself the usual pep talk I gave myself before walking into mergers, meetings with Manuel Brown, or any other stressful situation in my life, only, this time, I heard it in Cassie’s voice. I saw her passionate, burning eyes, her hair flaring around her shoulders as she waved her hands, punctuating each sentence.

  I took a deep breath and moved. If I’d been going a centimeter across the hardwood floor, against the carpet, I moved a millimeter. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was moving, but I kept my eyes trained on the lamp. I was sure that I was building enough energy I’d almost be able to push the lamp over with my mind when I got there. My anger turned aggressive and I pushed myself forward hard on the chair. I felt it tip… and I went over on to my left side, landing on my left shoulder with a sharp, painful thud. I heard a snap as my collarbone broke fully, and I saw stars of pain. I laid there until the sun finished moving across the sky and began to set.

  Move!

  Cassie’s voice, again, sounded in my brain. I opened my eyes and began to, somehow, slither my way across the floor. I shut the pain out, it was so intense, and focused my eyes on Antoine, imagined him sitting on the floor right by the lamp. Telling me that if I could get to him, he would reach up and hit the button and all would be well. We would be together again.

  I closed my eyes and I began to move.

  When I finally felt the cool leg of the night stand, it was pitch black outside. I leaned my forehead against it and breathed a sigh of relief while the cool wood soothed my head for a moment. I looked up. The lamp looked like it was a thousand miles up in the air. I tried to pull my hands loose and screamed at the pain in my shoulder. I tried to pull one of my legs loose, but they were still bound so tightly to the chair legs I couldn’t even turn my ankle. I couldn’t imagine what my feet must look like after being tied that tightly.

  I stared at the lamp on the table, letting my brain process what to do. The cord, which I had painted to blend in against the wall, came clearly into my vision, and I smiled. A life line.

  I shifted over a few more inches, the only thing saving me from passing out from pain was the imagination of the lamp hitting the ground, hopefully close enough to my fingers to be able to press the button. I got close and reached out with the only grabbing tool I had at my disposal: my mouth. I wrapped my tongue and teeth around the cord, and I jerked my neck sharply to the right, knowing the pain that would come would be enough to probably make me pass out.

  The lamp fell to the floor in front of me, barely missing smashing my skull for at least the second time that day. I smiled and stared at the red button, solidly attached to the bottom of the lamp base. I reached out to press it with my tongue… and I couldn’t reach it.

  “Fucking fuck!” I screamed in pain and anger. I shifted my body, now ignoring the feeling of my actual bones shifting in my body as I moved against them, and, from sheer rage, I shot my tongue forward and jammed it against the button.

  When I heard the siren sounding in the suite, the siren that indicated the panic button had been activated, I wept. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried for anything other than Antoine, but these tears were involuntary. They fell out of my eyes and I laid there, quietly sobbing, until I heard the yells outside my door and, a moment later, the splintering smash of my door as Simon and Antoine, the two most important protectors I had, burst through it.

  “Sir!” Antoine yelled. “Sir, where are you?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, to try to yell, but no sound came out.

  “In here!” I heard Simon yell, and then, “Call an ambulance, holy shit.” There was a shuffle in the room and then I saw Simon leaning over me, his palms open as if he wanted to touch me, adjust me somehow, but he didn’t know quite how to go about it.

  I tried to smile. “The panic button works,” I said.

  “Sir, you’re going to be okay. I’m not going to touch you, though; the police are on the way and we’ll get you to a hospital.”

  “No,” I said, struggling against the ropes and failing. “Cassie. I need to get to Cassie. No hospital.”

  “Is he asking about Cassie?” I heard Antoine’s voice from the doorway to the room. They had turned the lights on and I saw his shadow cast over Simon and me.

  Simon nodded, and then he looked back at me.

  “Where is she? Is she okay?” I demanded.

  “We’re looking or her,” Simon said gently. “And Julian. We think they might still be in the house where the raid took place.”

  I looked into Simon’s eyes and knew he was speaking the truth. Then, I heard another rush of voices and everything went black.

  Cassie

  When I felt the rope loosen on my wrists, I involuntarily drew myself inward to protect myself from the blast to kingdom come I was sure was about to happen. There was silence. I couldn’t even hear my own heart beat or my own breath.

  “Did I go deaf?” I whispered. “Was there a blast that killed us?”

  “No,” Julian whispered back, his head meeting mine as I dropped my forehead to his shoulder. “No, we’re alive, and we’re free, and we need to get the living fuck out of here before the bomb detonates. We’ve been here for hours; it’s dark out. I don’t know how much time is left, but it can’t be much.”

  That pulled me out of my trance, and I could suddenly hear all sounds. Not just my heartbeat or my breath, but I could hear a car engine revving down the street. I could hear mice running through the walls. I could hear the ticking of an alarm clock I suddenly was positive was not an alarm clock.

  Julian pulled away from me and we disentangled ourselves from the ropes. They fell to the ground and he grabbed my hand. We tripped-ran up the stairs, but we were stopped short when Julian’s shoulder hit the door at the top of the basement stairs and didn’t push through.

  “What the fuck,” he muttered. He tried to push against it again; it didn’t budge. “Step back,” he said to me, and I took three steps down the stairs, giving him room to move. He took two steps back and then began a running start that ended with him smashing into the door as if it was a wall and not a door.

  “It doesn’t even sound like it’s going to move!” I said.

  “I think they barricaded us in,” he said. “It’s… a technique.”

  “For fuck’s sake!” I said. “Can’t we catch a break?”

  Suddenly, there was a huge crash from the other side, the sound of splintering wood.

  “Get back!” a voice said.

  “That sounds like Simon,” I said, and, before I could listen any more closely, the door disintegrated in front of us and Simon and Antoine stood in the doorway peering at Julian and me.

  “Thank God,” Simon said, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as he saw us. He reached past Julian toward me, and I was moving toward his embrace when Julian interrupted.

  “Let’s not thank God until we’re out of here,” he
said, nodding back down the stairs to what he and I had just escaped. “You got in; is there an easy way out?”

  Antoine looked confused as he nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. He led us through the living room and out the front door as easy as it could ever be done under the best of circumstances. The fact that it was nighttime, that an entire day, basically, had passed while I’d been trapped with Julian in the basement highlighted that I hadn’t talked to Brad.

  “Where is he?” I asked, knowing that who I was talking about wouldn’t be a mystery to anyone standing on the lawn.

  I saw Simon and Antoine exchange a look. Julian looked at them with as much curiosity as I had.

  “Tell me what happened!” I screeched, the full force of everything that had happened hitting me like a brick wrapped in a sock. “Where is Brad?”

  “The hospital,” Simon said dully. “He’s in intensive care. And, he needs to see you.”

  I’d like to say that I ran to the car, but, the truth was, I think I literally flew there. A moment after Simon said that Brad was in ICU, I was sitting in the back seat of the car demanding that they drive, fast, to the hospital.

  When we got to University College Hospital, the same hospital where I’d visited Patrick, I couldn’t help but notice, I immediately took the elevator to ICU and walked to the same nurses’ station I’d visited the first time I’d visited Patrick.

  “Bradley White,” I gasped, out of breath and leaning on the counter. “Where is Bradley White?”

  The nurse, maybe the same as before, or maybe not, greeted me with the same attitude I’d come to expect from that hospital.

  “Are you family?” she asked, not looking up from her chart.

  “Yes!” I said. “I’m his wife! Obviously!” I glared at the woman, but I knew that, if push came to shove, I had nothing on me, not even a ring, to show that I was telling the truth.

  She regarded me with one eyebrow raised and sighed. I prepared myself to stand my ground. There was no way I wasn’t going to get in to see him, one nurse or a million nurses. But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to go on the attack.