Chapter Six
“Look, I don”t know what you want, but I”ve got nothing to say to you,” Alan spat, his voice rough with fear and anger.
“Alan, listen to me. We have no interest in you. Not really. We just want to ask you a few questions, and you aren’t being very forthcoming.”
Alan Fishwick was bound tight to one of his rather rickety kitchen chairs, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. His split lip oozed a little blood, a dark contrast to his pale, sweat-slicked skin.
I’d like to say the room was dark with a single bulb hanging above him, spotlighting his sorry self, but it was mid-afternoon, and we didn’t have the time for dramatics.
“Fuck you,” he spat.
Bast sighed. He sat opposite Alan, the chair backwards, his arms resting on the back and his legs astride it.
“It’s simple, Alan,” Bast continued, unfazed by the silence. “You were on duty at my girl’s dorm five out of seven nights of the week, and somehow a man got past you in the early hours of the morning on over thirty different occasions to push threatening notes under her door. Over thirty times, Alan. Now, how did you manage to miss that?”
“I don”t know what you”re talking about,” Alan replied defiantly. “I do my job.”
“Then how come you didn”t see anything unusual like a complete stranger in the premises at night.” Bast reached out casually and flicked an invisible piece of lint off Alan’s sweat-soaked shirt. “Are you really that shit at your job, Alan?”
“I told you,” Alan rasped, defiance flickering in his eyes. “I didn”t see anyone. Don”t know how he got past me.”
Bast narrowed his eyes at him. “Alan, are you blind or simply incompetent?”
“I keep to myself. If they ain”t causing a ruckus, I don’t pay them no mind,” Alan defended.
Bast leaned back on the chair, drumming his fingers against the backrest. His gaze was cold, calculating.
“Interesting,” he mused aloud. “Alan, did anyone ever teach you the importance of doing your job properly?”
Alan’s silence was damning and Bast smirked.
“Knight,” he said without taking his eyes off Alan. I stepped forward, my fists clenching at my side.
“Yes, boss?”
“Can we ensure that our friend here understands what failure means?” Bast ordered, a chilling note in his voice.
A nasty grin spreads across my face. “With pleasure.”
I stepped forward and delivered a punch straight to Alan”s gut. His face contorted in pain as he sucked in a sharp breath.
“So, Alan, perhaps my friend here has managed to jog your memory and you can tell me how this happened so many times on your watch?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Alan wheezed, glaring up at Bast. “It’s a fucking shit job. I show up, clock in, walk round every two hours, clock out. I get paid. It’s a fucking job, I’m not a shitting bodyguard, and these rich bitches bring guys in at every hour of the day and night. Your whore probably invited him in, and he left the note after fucking her raw.”
My fist connected with the side of Alan’s face so hard I heard a cracking sound just before he crashed sideways to the floor.
Bast”s gaze hardened. “Wrong answer,” he said, his voice like ice. He rose from his chair, stalking around the table until he stood next to Alan.
“I don”t think you understand the situation you”re in,” Bast said, leaning down. I could see the guard shiver as Bast spoke. “You let a threatening individual get close to my girl without noticing anything amiss. And now you’re insulting her. That upsets me, and it upsets my friend here. And you really don’t want to upset either of us.”
“I told you; I didn’t see anything!” Alan insisted, voice shaking but resolved.
“Alan,” Bast drawled ominously, “You should consider being more cooperative.” He straightened up and walked back around the table, resuming his seat across from the guard. I leaned down and picked Alan’s chair back upright again.
“I’m not one for patience,” Bast warned him. “So, I suggest you start talking.”
“It’s just some fucking notes, mate,” Alan whined.
“Well, some notes, a threatening gift, and then last night he snuck in, went through her belongings, and covered her bedroom in pigs’ blood and left a dead bird on her bed with a knife through its chest. Can you see how that behaviour might upset her, Alan?”
He nodded. “Shit, yeah.”
“Exactly, I’m glad we’re getting on the same page here, Alan. That bodes well for you. Now, clearly this person managed to get a hold of a spare key to her dorm. Do you have a spare key?”
Alan shook his head. “I have a master, but it stays on my keyring the whole time, and there’s another at the main university office, but they’re kept locked up. Honestly, mate, I have no idea how he got hold of a copy.”
“Unless maybe you thought you’d make a little cash on the side?” I asked. “Take a little sweetener to lend someone your key when you weren’t on shift?”
“What?” He looked up at me, eyes wide. “What are you on about?” He sounded genuine, but there was a nervous twitch at the corner of one eye that made me think I’d hit on something.
“We know you”ve been slacking off. Letting just anyone waltz past you. What I can”t figure out is—are you that incompetent, or did someone pay you to look the other way?”
“I”m not involved in anything,” Alan growled, turning his head away. I straightened up, exchanging a look with Bast.
Bast nodded. I turned and punched Alan again. His head snapped back, and he gave a cry of pain.
“Wrong answer, Alan,” I said. “Let”s try again.”
“I told you.” He glared at me. “I didn’t do anything.”
I turned and walked over to the kitchen units. I pulled open each drawer until I found what I was looking for. The look on Alan’s face as I turned around holding one of his kitchen knives was priceless.
“No more chances, Alan,” Bast warned. His voice echoed in the room ominously. “I want the truth.”
Alan’s fear-filled eyes flicked to the knife and back to me. “I swear, I didn”t do anything. I wouldn’t... I didn’t…”
His voice trailed off as I stepped closer, pressing the cold blade lightly against his throat, just enough to make him understand the gravity of the situation.
“See, Alan,” Bast said, his voice cold. “You”re playing with fire and the thing about fire is... it burns.”
I brought the knife down hard, feeling it slide into his thigh. Alan screamed.
“Fuck! Fuck! What are you doing?”
“This is what happens when you don’t answer our questions, Alan,” Bast said calmly. “Now the other,” he said to me. I raised the knife again.
“Alright!” Alan yelled. “I took bribes! He showed up one night, near the start of term. Said it was part of the shit those idiots play. Just playing jokes on people. I didn’t think it was anything serious.”
Bast frowned. “What idiots?”
Alan rolled his eyes. “Those Reaper twats, with their skull masks. He was wearing one.”
I raised my eyes, looking over his head at Bast. His eyes were like steel. The plain black balaclavas we wore hid any hint of our identities from Alan, but hearing Paige’s stalker had used one of our Reaper masks to terrorise her had my fury rising. I slammed the knife down into Alan’s other thigh and he gave a high pitched scream.
“What the fuck? I’m talking you fucker!”
“He spoke to you?” asked Bast, his voice like ice.
“Yeah, fuck, yeah… the first time. Said he needed to pull a few harmless tricks on people, leave them some clues for some shit over the next few weeks, and he’d see I got paid for it. That’s the problem you see, all these stinking rich fuckheads, think they can do whatever the fuck they want-”
I ran my gloved hand through his hair, gripping hard and jerking his head back as I brought the knife to his throat.
“So how much did you get paid to put a girl’s life in danger?”
“Come on, mate. Come on… look, I just thought he was messing around, I swear…”
“How much?” I growled.
“Fifty each time. He’d leave the money on the desk on his way past.”
“Was there a pattern?” snapped Bast. “Did he come on certain nights, or was it random?”
“Random,” answered Alan quickly this time, his eyes shooting up to mine. I lowered the knife and released his hair, and he sighed in relief.
“Did you notice anything about him that could help us identify him?” Bast asked.
Alan shook his head, wincing as he shifted to try and alleviate some of the pain.
“Don”t know,” he said. “Always wore a mask, like I said. Never saw his face.”
Bast sighed. “Fuck. What about his voice? Accent?”
“Nothing special,” Alan replied. “Just sounded normal. English, no accent or anything.”
“And the key?” I asked.
Alan shook his head. “I swear, I never gave it to him. It was on my belt the entire time. Never went missing. That’s not on me.”
“Really?” I scoffed, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest. He squirmed uncomfortably. “If you’re lying…”
“I”m not!” Alan blurted out quickly, almost desperately. “I”ve told you everything I know!”
“Let”s hope for your sake that it”s enough,” Bast snapped. He stood up and walked over to us, leaning down so he could look Alan in the eyes. “Your job was to keep watch over those students, but instead you let a dangerous man terrorise my girl for weeks. You didn’t ask questions, you didn’t raise any alarm, and you sold off her safety for fifty quid a time. I’m not happy, Alan. And neither is my friend.”
Alan’s eyes flicked to me, and I smiled coldly. He swallowed and looked back at Bast, murmuring something I didn’t catch. Bast laughed and straightened up. He looked over at me.
“He said, he’s sorry.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t think he is sorry enough,” Bast said, stepping back. Alan’s eyes grew even wider.
“No, I am! I’m-”
“I’m going to call an ambulance, Alan. They’ll be able to deal with those stab wounds in your legs and all your other injuries. But if I ever find out you’ve done something like this again, or if I find out you’ve lied to us, next time, I won’t need to call the ambulance. I’ll just call the morgue.”
Bast nodded at me and walked out of the kitchen. I walked around Alan who was watching Bast walk away.
“What other injuries?” he shouted after Bast. “What other injuries?”
I twirled the knife around my fingers and grinned under my mask.
“Let”s find out, shall we?” I lunged forward and buried the knife into his shoulder. Alan screamed, a raw, guttural sound that echoed through our tight space. I pulled the blade back, blood following the groove of the steel as it left his wound. “That”s one,” I said simply.
“No, enough! Please!” He begged, his voice hoarse. I chuckled dryly, finding some twisted satisfaction in his desperation.
“You put my girl in danger, Alan. Do you really think that’s enough for what you did?”
“Your girl? But I thought she was his?”
“She belongs to us both.”
“That’s fucked up- fuck!” I sank the knife into his other shoulder.
I watched as Alan’s body jerked in response, a strangled cry catching in his throat. I twisted the knife, leaning in to whisper, “Who”s fucked up now?”
He whimpered, blood gushing from his fresh wound and pooling on the tile floor underneath him. His face had turned a sickly pale colour and sweat was pouring down his head. His eyes met mine and I could see the fear in them. Good. He should fear us. No one fucked with what was ours.
Bast appeared in the doorway, gloves on and Alan’s phone at his ear. “Yes, ambulance please.”
Alan opened his mouth to yell, but I stepped around him and clamped my hand down over his mouth and nose. He went rigid, then tried to shake me off, but I pulled him back against my stomach, holding him there. I dragged the knife down his chest, slicing through the thin shirt and drawing blood. He squealed in my hand, which was rather stupid, because it meant exhaling air when he couldn’t technically breathe any back in. Bast continued speaking.
“Yes, I think someone’s being attacked in a house on Ridgeway Street. Number thirty five. I can hear screaming. No, I’d rather not give my name, it can be dangerous in this area. Please hurry.”
He hung up, and I released Alan who gasped for breath.
“Let”s clear out,” he said simply, and I nodded in agreement. We had to get away before the authorities arrived.
Alan sighed in relief, then screamed again as I sank the knife into his side, before kicking him over. He crashed to the ground on his side, still bound, weeping as his blood pooled slowly next to him.
I crouched down and ran my fingers over the knife handle protruding from his side.
“I wouldn’t move about too much Alan, and it would be a bad idea to pull the knife out before the ambulance gets here. We wouldn’t want you to bleed to death before they arrive now, would we?”
He whimpered, and I stood up, glancing at Bast who was watching from the doorway.
“Time to leave,” Bast said, his eyes cold as he watched Alan writhing on the floor.
I nodded, following him out of the kitchen and into the living room. I retrieved a black bag from the couch containing our unmarked clothes and gear. We stripped out of the bloody outfits, quickly changing into clean clothes. I stashed the bloody ones in the bag, zipping it shut. I picked up our bag and followed Bast outside. We didn”t bother looking back.
We’d brought a burner car, a reliable looking beat up family car no one would glance at twice. Not that anyone in this neighbourhood would snitch to the police. People kept themselves to themselves around here. I climbed in the passenger seat. Bast didn’t like anyone driving except him if he was in the car. It meant he wasn’t in control. I could understand that.
He started the car up and pulled away, heading back towards the university and home. Neither of us spoke, lost in our own thoughts. Three streets across, we pulled over to let an ambulance with flashing lights and sirens blaring past.