6. Cazimer
“ S orry about this, but I doubt you’re gonna cooperate and we have a tight window for escape.” I wince before carrying out my dreaded deed.
Those cinnamon eyes of hers look at me with such profound hatred as I shoot her full of the sleeping serum Seb concocted for just this purpose.
Thank goodness, the searing glare is short lived. As soon as I’ve injected her, Louise Penny’s eyes roll back into her head and all the fight leaves her posture as she slumps, boneless, into the couch.
“Alright, everybody start moving!” Frank barks, his alpha aura expanding with oppressive force as he rallies us into action.
“Caz—start torching the tech,” Frank commands me before moving down the line.
“Q, figure out our next safehouse and travel arrangements.” He spins on his heel—grabbing a tall metal drum from the far wall and rolling it into the center of the room, dumping clothes, blankets, papers, and trash inside as he goes.
“Seb, give our Lucky Penny a little something stronger than the sleep serum—and deal with that pesky tracker,” Frank grunts, reaching into his pocket for his gentleman’s folder—tossing the closed blade to Seb, wooden inlay handle flashing in the light as it arcs through the air.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Seb catches the knife, but tosses it reluctantly from hand to hand like a hot potato. “You want me to cut that thing out of her!? I may allow it when you call me your ‘chemist,’ but I’m not a fucking doctor Frank!” he balks, Seb’s thick, dark brows pinched together with dismay.
“She don’t need a fuckin’ doctor Sebby, we just need that fucking chip out of her arm,” Frank spits disapprovingly—pulling a silver flask from his coat pocket and dribbling the clear liquid inside over the contents of the metal drum before he flicks his lit cigarette into the barrel; the crackle of orange flames flickering to life inside.
I feel a shiver crawl down my neck.
This is far from the most gruesome shit I’ve seen happen on a job with Frank Stone and the rest of his ragtag ‘Saints’—but I can’t shake the feeling of wrongness that creeps up my spine when this FBI chick comes to harm at one of our hands.
It’s bogus to concern myself with this kind of shit of course—she’s a fuckin cop and the kid of Landon and Margot Penny, genius scientists.
Even though she may really think that she’s ‘one of the good guys’ behind that tainted badge and she may not have been complicit in their work, she’s the best chance we have of getting some answers about what the Penny’s were up to.
If that doesn’t work out? Well, she’ll make an excellent hostage-bargaining-chip.
“Seb—are you fuckin’ listening!? I said get that chip out now!” Frank uses his alpha bark this time, hurdling Seb into action.
I turn away as Seb launches himself down the hall, muttering under his breath, “Maudit cochon, you wanna cut her up to get the chip out—do it yourself, fucking charcuter.”
Before I can take off for my own room and my machines, Q finishes a hurried call in what sounds like it might be Brazilian Portuguese and tosses his burner phone at me. Frank follows suit—pushing past me to collect his go bag.
Six months ago, I was still living in my Mom’s basement, working day shift as third tier tech support for Saleshorse—balls deep in a Galaxy of Guilds addiction; subsisting on pepperoni hot pockets, schwaggy weed, energy drinks, and the latest seinen anime serial.
I met Sébastien in an Eris server for Sorcery Battle Academy Masters.
He and I had the same characters, the same ships, the same totally batshit headcanons for every little bit of show lore that wasn’t explicitly laid out by the creators.
We didn’t even talk about work stuff or the so-called ‘Saints’ until almost a year after we met.
I had just begun to let on my particular set of skills when it came to technology—unbeknownst to me, Seb had been considering bringing me in on a job Frank was cooking up.
Of course, when he heard my name, Cazimer Rybecki, he dissolved into manic laughter.
“Well, that all but decides it! Another Saint!”
The rest, as they say, is history.
I scrap the phones, my machines, but keep hold of my tablet and the shitty smartwatch I used to scan her tag; then gather my own go-bag, making my way back down the hall to the others just in time to witness Seb—whispering something under his breath as he draws a pale blue solution from a glass ampule into a fresh syringe.
“Oh good, petit phantom,” Seb sighs with relief as he sees me enter the room—his maroon eyes fixing me with a silent pleading.
“I’m going to do my best to make sure our piece brillante doesn’t feel any pain or wake up from her beauty sleep—but I’m going to need you to hold on to her just in case, mon ami. ”
My backpack rattles to the floor as I cross the room to Seb.
I swallow down the saliva flooding my mouth—the telltale precursor to a technicolor yawn.
“Hey—don’t fucking puke on me, Cazzy,” Seb warns me—catching wise to my draining color and notoriously weak stomach when it comes to blood and viscera.
“Ok—then stop dicking around and get it done,” I snap back at him, doing my best to avert my eyes.
I hear the soft hiss of breath from Louise as Seb injects her with whatever potion he’s brewed in his makeshift lab on the other side of the horsehair plaster wall. Her slow, steady, sleepy breathing fades to shallow near-silence as she slips further from consciousness.
“This is going to be quick and dirty,” he warns, tossing the spent syringe into the flaming barrel behind us, a set of gauze bandages and medical tape laid out on the nearby side table; producing a small steel key on a ball chain hidden beneath the neckline of his sweatshirt.
“Lose the cuffs—hold her down, once the chip is out, we bandage her up—and haul her down to the wheels, yeah?” Seb tosses me the handcuff key, then flicks the folding knife open—the blade shining, cruel and poised above Louise Penny’s arm.
I’m so focused on unlocking the handcuffs from the radiator that I don’t see Seb drive the point of the blade into her soft flesh—but the wave of her scent that escapes her, along with the trickling of ruby blood as Seb quests deeper in search of the tracker chip, nearly knocks me on my ass.
While the medical-grade suppressants Louise has been given don’t actively give off a false scent profile or designation, before her blood made contact with the air she had given off almost no scent at all beyond a vague, clean, sweetness.
Now that her precious claret flows—so much blood for such a tiny little hole; I have to struggle not to be crushed by the velvety sweet Iris, juicy-tart green apple, and spicy, floral pink pepper.
For a dizzying moment I’m struck with the wild, possessive fantasy of pressing my lips to the wound in her arm like some vampire prince, so that I might drink of her fragrant, sanguine bounty—forever hiding part of her deep within myself; a treasured secret ever belonging only to me.
“Aha! Le voici !” Seb cries victoriously—shaking out a teensy cylinder of metal and glass beaded with blood onto the couch cushion.
I confirm that Seb has been successful, my scan clearing away any shadow of a doubt that the tracker has in fact been removed before taco-ing the tablet over my knee, ditching the watch and the hunk of metal and glass into the burning barrel.
“Go get your bag.” I nod to him, grabbing the roll of gauze from the side table. “I’ll get her patched up.”
“Bless you, Cazzy,” Seb blows out a breath.