by J. A. Huss
She chuckles. And if I wasn’t just poisoned, dragged into some kind of interrogation room, and loomed over by her menacing bodyguard… I’d think it was a good-natured laugh.
But it’s not.
“Honey, please. You come from—” She looks at her bodyguard. “What was it she told Frank?” But it’s a rhetorical question, because she looks back at me and says, “Her family is pretty much nothing but bikers and tattoo artists?”
“That’s right,” I say, forcing my bravado. “And you do not want to mess with us.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. We don’t even want you. We don’t want any of you. We only want the men you bring along.”
I can’t help it, my face scrunches up.
“Women are, for the most part, at least, the weaker sex. Don’t you agree?” She’s asking the bodyguard again, and again doesn’t wait for an answer. “But they are useful in many ways.” She appears to think about this for a second and then adds, “Necessary.”
“So you’re weak?” I ask, wincing as my stomach protests against the remnants of the poison.
“Oh, no. I’m not weak at all. But it’s not me Silver wanted when they invited me in. It was my stupid brother. He’s too young yet. I’m just an insurance policy. It’ll be a few years before they get their payoff. But by then, I’ll have climbed my way to the top. And I’m going to do that by using you to get your precious Five Aston to play along with our plans.”
“He won’t do it,” I seethe. “Not the way you think, at least. He will… he will…” But I cannot come up with a menacing enough threat to make her think twice about what she’s doing.
What is she doing? I try to look around the room better, but I can’t see past the bright spotlight shining down on this single table.
I swallow hard and say, “You’ve severely misjudged him if you think he’s coming here to make a deal with you.”
“He’s already here, dear. We’re about to get him right now. And we’re going to use you to do it.”
“I won’t,” I say, shaking my head.
“You will. Or,” she says, holding up a thin white wafer, “you’ll eat this and die before he finds you.”
I stare at her. Who the fuck is this lady?
“He’s quite a prize. Genius-level hacker. Old-money family. Company connections, I hear.”
I have to close my eyes to hold down the vomit when she says the word Company.
“He even builds robots.” She laughs at that. Like it’s absurd. “But the most interesting thing about your man, Princess, is that his grandfather tapped him to take over a prominent Chinese Triad. We already know he’s reluctant from our inside sources. But once he sees you… well…” She offers me a fake sympathetic smile. “He’ll get on board, just like all the rest.”
“I bet you never had a man love you like that, did you, Blondie?”
Her smile falters just the tiniest bit.
“No,” I say. “I cannot imagine a man giving up anything for a woman like you. Let alone his family name, and wealth, and his future. You’re all alone, aren’t you, Blondie?”
She blinks at me. Slowly. Smiling. Like she’s an overly patient pre-school teacher talking to a three-year-old. “Well, you’re wrong, honey. I do have a man. A very well-connected one. Jack Joseph. Five knows him well. And Jack knows all Five’s secrets. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
I look around the dark room, wondering who the fuck she’s talking to. But a man steps forward from the shadows and smiles at me. “Pleased to meet you,” he says in his typical British accent. He looks at his watch and then at me. “Five should be here soon. I hear he just broke into the building. You did call for him, Aurora? Like a good little helpless princess?”
Shit. They knew all along.
“We just killed Cliff Middleton, by the way,” Blondie says. “He came here tonight with silly notions of revenge for his pathetic little sister.”
“What?” I say, unable to hide my shock.
“Would you like to play who’s-got-more-power with me, Aurora?” Blondie says in her overly sweet voice.
“It’s Rory,” I growl, my anger back. Fuck these people. They killed both of my friends and I’m going to make sure that if I go down, it counts. Twice.
“Not anymore. It’s Aurora now. You will marry Frank Fulbright tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be Aurora Fulbright.”
Disgusting. I’d rather die. “I can’t wait to see the wedding pictures.” I laugh. It’s a forced laugh. But I don’t care. If taking down Frank Fulbright is the only thing I get out of this night… it’ll have to do. “I think I might’ve knocked out a tooth.”
Blondie’s smile turns into a frown. “I wish you had more control, Aurora.”
“Yeah,’” I ask. “Why’s that?”
“Because he’s gonna make you pay for that.”
“And no one”—I turn in my chair to find Frank coming through the steel door holding a bloody handkerchief to his face—“will give two fucking shits what I do to you, Aurora. No one,” he says, walking quickly over to me, so fast he startles me and I get up, but he grabs my hair, yanks it hard and puts me back in my place, “will come to your rescue. No one will ever take you from me. You’re mine.” He looks over at Blondie and says, “Do it. Now.”
Blondie nods to the bodyguard and he brings a small silver plate with one of those silver dome lids over it. He places it on the table and lifts the lid. Sitting on the plate is a single silver wafer, about the size of a half dollar.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“Kill yourself, bitch,” Frank spits. “Just like Tera did.”
I glare at him and steel myself. Remind myself why I’m here. For revenge.
Before they even know I’m moving, I snatch the silver wafer from the tray and pop it into my mouth. They tackle me, their fingers in my mouth as they knock me to the ground. All three of them, making me gag on the acrid-tasting wafer, until they scoop it out and fling the remnants on the floor.
“No, no, no,” Blondie says, tsking her tongue at me. “We tell you when you’re allowed to die, sweetie. Not the other way around. We control everything about your life from this moment on.” She stops her speech and looks up at the bodyguard. “Where is Aston?”
“The double doors,” bodyguard says.
“Good,” Jack Joseph says. “Right on time. Take her,” he says to Frank.
Frank, still tightly holding my hair and happy to get his chance to hurt me again, yanks me up until I’m standing. He squeezes me close to him, my back pressed against his chest. His blood-smelling breath seeps into my nose, making me want to puke.
My head is spinning. Not in a way I’ve ever experienced before. And my vision begins to blur as I lose control of my muscles and slump against Frank.
“What the fuck?” Franks asks. “Did she swallow some of that wafer?”
He sounds worried, but he’s not worried about me. He’s worried about losing his little reward for being an obedient, power-hungry lackey. His prize. His place in this… this… cult.
Five will never stop if they kill me. He will burn down the world if anything happens to me.
And maybe that’s better? At least they’ll be gone.
Everyone is up next to me then. Blondie is calling out instructions to someone. Jack Joseph slaps my face and screams, “Open your eyes! Open your fucking eyes!”
“Five,” I moan. “Get them all for me, Five…”
I spin, and spin, and spin, and then I realize they don’t want me dead, that I’m of no use to them if I’m dead. My impulsive final act of defiance might actually win this game right now.
My smile forms through the foam and saliva spilling out of my mouth until words turn jumbled and the world begins to fade into black.
Chapter Thirty-Three - Five
I can hear people yelling down a dark hallway.
Then footsteps behind me. I look over my shoulder, pull the pistol from my pocket and aim—
“It’s
just me!” Chen says.
I lower the pistol as he walks up, looking warily round for enemies.
“They’re down here,” I say, surprised at how calm my voice is. “They’ve got Rory. Middleton told me just before he died.”
“I saw his body,” Chen whispers. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Nothing?” Chen asks as we stalk forward. We’ve both got our guns ready, our backs pressing against a wall as we come to another hallway.
I don’t hear anything, but I stay flat against the wall as I peek around.
No one.
I slip to the right, down the new hallway and continue forward. The yelling is getting louder and I can barely make out a sliver of light.
Suddenly there’s more gunfire behind us. Chen and I both look at each other, then back the way we came.
“They’re coming in after us,” I say. “We gotta do this now, man. Fuck everything, we gotta do this now.”
Chen looks uncertain. He glances back at the commotion, and that’s when I take off for the door.
I expect it to be locked when I turn the long metal handle, so when it’s not, I almost hesitate.
Rory.
That’s the only thing I care about right now.
I do not hesitate. I throw the door open and stand there, gun pointing at the chest of Jack Joseph.
I knew that fuck was behind this. I knew it.
“Five!” Jack bellows in his fake magnanimous greeting. “You’re right on time.”
A blonde woman is on the floor with my princess, who does not look good. She’s pale and there’s foam coming out of her mouth.
“What the fuck,” I growl—so low, so dangerous—“did you do to my wife?”
“Your wife?”
I glance over to where the voice came from, find Frank Fulbright smiling at me.
He opens his mouth to continue with some smartass remark, but I shoot him in the chest before he even utters another word.
That’s when a gun is pressed to my back and Chen, the one man my father trusted—never should have trusted—is behind me.
“Put the gun down, Five.”
“You,” I say, my gun trained on the woman now—I don’t know why I think she’s the one in charge here, but she is, I know it—“killed my grandfather.”
Chen huffs a laugh. “And you’re about to lose your precious princess too. Unless. You. Drop. That gun.”
I drop it. It clanks loudly to the hard, concrete floor.
“Good boy,” the woman says, nodding her head to some big guy, who picks up the gun and backs away into the shadows with it. “Now listen carefully, Mr. Aston. Princess Shrike here has taken upon herself to end her life tonight. But I can stop this reaction.” She holds up a syringe. “We use the poison wafer to scare people, really. It’s a tactic, you understand, right?”
Her eyes dart over my shoulder. To Chen, I realize.
“So this is how you did it?” I ask, looking at the woman, but talking to my father’s most trusted advisor. “This is how you betrayed him?”
“We don’t have time for small talk, Mr. Aston,” she says in an overly calm manner. “Aurora will be dead in less than three minutes if we don’t give her this antidote. But I can’t give it to her. I can’t save her life unless you agree to be one of us.”
“Fine,” I say. It’s an automatic response. I don’t even think about what her offer means. I don’t even care at this point. “Fine,” I say again when she makes no move to push those drugs into Rory. “Do it!” I yell. “I said fine. I agreed. Now save her fucking life or I will take down every single one of you.”
The woman smiles. Confident. “Every one of us?” She actually laughs. My eyes fall to Rory lying helpless on the ground. Her body is shaking, like the beginning of a seizure, and she’s moaning. Is that a good sign? Or a bad one?
“Save her,” I say, calm now, my threats gone. “Just do it. I don’t give a fuck what I have to do for you people after this, just save her.”
“Now that’s what we like to hear.”
But still… she makes no move to plunge that antidote into my dying princess.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” I ask. “Do it!”
But there’s a squeaky noise behind me. That big guy has wheeled in a stretcher.
It’s not for saving Rory. It’s not for transporting her to a waiting ambulance, and then to a hospital.
It’s for an escape.
He lifts Rory up off the ground. She’s seizing up, her arms folded, but stiff, on her chest. Her head falling back, the saliva pooling in her mouth until some reflex takes over and she begins to choke.
I rush forward to help her, but Chen grabs me from behind. I elbow him in the kidneys, making him falter. Big guy is still holding Rory, so he’s no help. Jack is clumsily pulling a gun from his jacket pocket, but I shoot him. Not in the chest. Fuck that shit. I shoot him in the face.
All of a sudden the lights come on. I blink, then cover my eyes, trying to adjust to the brightness. The woman and her bodyguard have Rory on the stretcher, and the big guy’s arm is moving, lifting a shotgun at me when—
Wen’s men appear—finally—from the door I came through with Chen.
They shoot Jack in a spectacular show of power. They spray him with bullets. The walls are made of mirrors and I watch, transfixed by his jerking body until it’s pinned to the cracked slivers of silver.
The next thing I know, the entire room is up in flames and the woman and her bodyguard are gone.
So is Rory.
But she left something behind.
The syringe.
And it’s empty. That bitch lied.
It never had the antidote in it at all.
Chapter Thirty-Four - Rory
I realize I’m on a stretcher.
It didn’t fucking work! I want to cry right now. I wanted to go out a hero, saving Five from their trap, and it didn’t fucking work!
I begin to choke, and then Blondie’s face is right up next to mine. She’s running alongside me. “You’re fine, dear. We can’t afford to lose you,” she coos in my ear. “So I saved your life. Your man did show up, but he’s burning back there.”
Smoke is filling this… this tunnel we’re running down.
“What did you do?” I croak.
“Took care of things, dear. That’s all. Now be still. We’re almost to the car and you’ll be fine when I get you back to headquarters. I gave you the antidote. You don’t get to die unless we say so.”
So I’ve heard.
I struggle. If you can call it that. My whole body is weak from whatever it was I swallowed along with that wafer. I’m tied down, anyway, my wrists and legs strapped to the gurney they’re pushing me on.
I hear gunfire behind me. Bullets ping off the walls, cracking the concrete blocks and sending up a spray of dust.
“Hurry!” Blondie barks to the bodyguard.
“Five!” I say, sobbing. “Five!” I scream it louder. “I’m here!”
Her hand clamps down on my mouth, covering my nose. She’s gonna fucking smother me!
I bite. My teeth find her flesh and she pulls back, screaming. A hard slap hits my cheek with such force, I see blinking lights in the darkness that threatens to take over again.
The smoke is so thick now, the one gasp of air I manage before she clamps her hand down again is nothing but soot.
I struggle again. The binding on my right wrist is loose enough to slip my hand through, and one hand is all I need.
I grab that bitch’s hair and pull. The gurney slips to the side when she falters, and falls to the ground.
We stop, gunfire still pinging off the ceiling.
Five is back there. He’s firing to miss. To slow us down. To give me a chance to fight back.
I reach over, fumble with my other wrist binding, just as the woman starts shooting back.
She’s not aiming for the walls or the ceiling. She’s aiming for Five.
&nb
sp; I sit up, desperate to save him. She will not kill him. I will never allow that to happen. I grab for her gun as she shoots, knock it loose from her grip, but it falls into my lap, and she’s there, reaching for it.
We struggle, her hands in my hair—she’s fighting like a goddamned girl.
I don’t fight like a girl. I fight like a Shrike.
I grab her head the same way I did Frank and smash her face into my knee.
She falls over, blood gushing out of her mouth and nose.
The bodyguard grabs me, but I have that gun. And I’ve shot a gun with my daddy so many times before this night, my fingers know just what to do.
I pull that motherfucking trigger and take his face off.
Everything stops in that moment. There’s an echo of my gunshot. There’s thick, black smoke billowing up from behind me. And then… nothing but silence.
Fuck.
I snap out of my daze and reach down for the bindings on my legs.
“Rory!” Five calls from down the tunnel.
“Five!” I yell. But I choke on the smoke.
The heat is intense now too.
“Five!” I try again.
There’s a thundering behind me as I get the last binding loose and fall over to the side of the gurney. My legs give out, weak from the poison I swallowed. And I collapse to the hard ground.
The thundering turns into a barrage of boots running towards me.
“Five,” I call again.
“Rory!” he calls back. “Where are you?”
“I’m here,” I say, but it’s so weak, I know he can’t hear me. He can’t see me either.
I look for the woman, expecting her to be right beside me, but she’s gone.
A set of red taillights appears through the thick, haze of smoke up ahead.
She’s getting away!
I begin to crawl towards her car.
“Rory!” Five bellows.
“She’s getting away!” I scream it as loud as I can. “Don’t let her get away!”
I’m still crawling toward her receding headlights when Five finds me.
He wraps me up in his arms, kisses me over and over and over. On the head, on the cheek.
Someone says, “We need to get out of here. The House is gone. We’re underneath the neighborhood now, and the whole block is about to go up in flames.”