by Dena Christy
She scrolled through the contact list David had set on her phone, until she found Dany’s number. Her thumb paused over the screen of her phone. The information she was about to impart to him might cause him to bolt, but then again, it might earn her a few brownie points. It might enable her to get close enough to him to kill him.
Her decision made, she pressed his number and put the phone to her ear. Her heart pounded in her chest when Dany Cavanaugh’s smooth voice came on.
“Alicia, what do you want? Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Sir, it’s the Order. They’re outside the warehouse. What should we do?” Simone did her best to sound panicked and breathless, exactly like the person Dany thought she was would react. He was a long time in replying, and when his voice came back on the phone it was cold enough to make Simone shiver.
“I suggest you figure it out for yourselves,” he said with little inflection. The call disconnected and Simone didn’t think it was accidental. So much for her boss offering helpful advice. But what else could she expect from a monster who would turn innocent people into mirror images of himself.
An ear piercing siren shattered the stillness of the building, and Simone dropped the phone as she covered her ears. Her head darted around, but she could see no one. Squatting down she picked up her phone and tucked it in her pocket. The sound of guns firing, and people screaming soon joined the siren to make an ear damaging crescendo of noise.
She forced her feet to move, and she ran down the hall, her panicked mind only thinking of escape. Two agents from the Order stood at the end of the hall, and Simone skidded to a halt. She tentatively raised her hands as they lifted their weapons and aimed them at her.
“Get on the ground,” one shouted, and Simone slowly lowered herself to the floor.
She put her hands out at her side as she turned her head to press her cheek against the cold linoleum. Their booted foot falls came to where she lay prone on the floor. The barrel of a gun pressed against the side of her neck, just under her ear. Simone closed her eyes, and for a brief moment she thought about asking them to shoot.
“I…I can help. I can help you save the women,” Simone said as she opened her eyes. She kept her body still and tried not to flinch when the gun pressed harder into her neck.
“Shut up, bitch,” said the man with his gun buried in the soft flesh of her neck.
“Vince,” the other man growled. “Cadric wants the women being held here brought out alive, and if she can help, maybe we should let her.”
Simone held her breath until she felt the pressure of the gun lessen. She melted into the floor for a second, before strong, rough male hands grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. Her eyes darted to the man who held her, and quickly lowered her eyes in a show of submission.
“Well, start talking. Where are the women?” the man said as he gave her a shake.
“Vince, that’s enough. She’s cooperating, so just go easy.”
“You deal with her. I’ll go see if I’m needed elsewhere.” The man who held her shoved her away and Simone winced as she hit the wall with her shoulder. She stood where she was, trying her best to keep calm when all she wanted to do was run screaming away from this whole situation.
“You going to be a good girl?” the agent said, his voice rumbling in her ear as he stepped closer. “You better not try to run, because I will put a silver bullet in your brain.”
Simone nodded her head, but remained where she was. He took her by the arm, in a hold that was firm, but not as bruising as his partners.
“Where are the women?”
“Just down that corridor,” Simone said as she inclined her head toward the direction the women were being kept. “but you need the keys to let them out.”
“Show me where it is,” he demanded.
Simon led him back to where her desk was located. She yanked open her desk drawer, and his weapon came up, and he rested the barrel against her temple.
“Just go easy and let me see exactly what you are doing,” he growled.
Simone swallowed hard as she slowed her movements, and let him see everything that she was doing. She made sure he could see the keys laying in her drawer, and she took them in her hand and held them up. She made no move to do anything else.
He lowered his weapon, and extracted the keys from her hand. She glanced up at him, and he shoved the keys in his pockets. “Turn around and put your hands on the desk.”
“But don’t you need me to help you get them out?” Simone said, buying time to think of a way to get out of this.
“Turn around,” he demanded again as he brought his gun up. “Do it now.”
Still Simone hesitated, unsure what he would do to her. He turned her and shoved her against the desk in one quick movement.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.
He hesitated behind her, and then he drew her hands behind her back and she heard the clicking of handcuffs around her wrists. They were made of silver and they burned in her skin like rings of flame. She screamed, the pain of the cuffs finally shoving her over the edge of hysteria, and she bolted away from him. She made it a few yards before her shoes slipped in a dark wet substance on the floor and she fell. With her hands behind her back, she was unable to break her fall and she only just managed to turn her head at the last moment to keep her face from smashing into the floor. As it was she hit the side of her head. Stars exploded in front of her eyes, and the last thing she saw before she succumb to the darkness seeking to claim her, was Amanda’s sightless eyes staring at her.
Consciousness brought a thumping pain in the side of her head. She slowly eased her head up and nausea gave her stomach a hard turn. She looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. It was dark, and cold metal surrounded her, and she could hear the wind rushing outside. She was in some sort of van, going God knows where.
“You’re on your way to Kingston. You should consider yourself lucky, since you are the only one of your colleagues who is alive to make the trip.”
Simone turned her head slowly toward the voice, and saw the man who had cuffed her at the warehouse, sitting on a bench across from her, his rifle resting across his thighs.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she said, her voice coming out in a croak. It took a tremendous amount of effort not to throw up, and she lay her head back down and eased over onto her side. Her hands were now cuffed in front of her, and as her stomach gave another hard turn, she managed to roll onto her knees in time to lose the contents of her stomach. Her companion put his weapon aside, and came over to her. He took her by the arms and helped her sit on the bench on the other side of the van.
“Thanks,” she mumbled as she wiped her face on her sleeve.
He grunted and resumed his seat, putting his gun back on his lap and watching her every move. He needn’t have worried about her making a break for it, Simone thought to herself. The worst she could do to him at this point was puke on him. She would have laughed if it didn’t require every ounce of strength she had just to hold her head up. She gave up the fight as the back of her head came to rest against the wall of the van, and her eyes slid shut.
Her eyes opened again when the van came to a halt and the man guarding her dragged her to her feet.
“Welcome to the Order of Odin headquarters,” he said sarcastically. “I hope you enjoy your stay with us.”
The back door of the van opened, and her guard pulled her out, and Simone stumbled when her feet hit the ground.
“Come on sweetheart,” another man said as she was pressed between the two guards. “This way.”
They took her to a small building, through a door and down into a tunnel. She shivered as they made their way along the tunnel, not from cold, but from the misery she could feel seeping through the walls. They went through another door at the end of the tunnel, and just when she thought the place couldn’t be any scarier, it got worse. The door led to a room that had old rusty chain
s and manacles hanging from the walls. The air felt heavy with old wounds, and Simone noticed that even the guards picked up their pace in a hurry to get to the door at the opposite side of the room and up the stairs.
She blinked her eyes rapidly when pain lanced through her head as they came into a brightly lit corridor that looked at odds with the torture room she’d just come out of.
“Come on, your accommodations are this way,” one of her escorts said as he took her down the hall. They turned a corner and a man sat at a desk, typing into a computer in the center of the room. Heavy steel doors lined each side of the room, with only small windows in the centre of each one. She knew instinctively that these rooms were some sort of holding cell. Some form a madness she didn’t know she possessed leapt inside her and she tore herself away from her guards and took off back in the direction that she came in. A rational part of her brain knew that now was a really stupid time to escape, that she should have done it much earlier, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She made it around the corner when shock brought her feet skidding to a halt.
At tall dark haired man stood at the end of the hall, and his face was so achingly familiar that pain tightened in her chest at the sight of it. He looked exactly like her former lover, Lee, the man she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She stared at him as her guards roughly grabbed her by the arms. She put up no resistance as they dragged her away, and took her back to the cells. The words they spoke only registered as a low buzzing noise, and when they shoved her into one of the cells, all she could do was fetch up against the wall and slide down it, until her butt came to rest on the floor. Her legs splayed out in front of her, and her head came back to rest against the wall.
Lee is here. The thought echoed in her head, and she didn’t open her eyes when the heavy steel door holding her in this room clanged shut with a heart sinking sense of finality.
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