5. Louise
I wake to the sound of old steam heat radiators clanging loudly—their thunderous clatter dampened slightly by the dense clutter that crowds the small room I’m in.
My eyes, lids still heavy and vision clouded by the dregs of the heavy duty tranquilizer I was shot with earlier; struggle to adjust to the dim kaleidoscopic lights that paint the room.
I’ve been laid across a half-disintegrated sofa—a threadbare quilt tossed over me; my left wrist handcuffed to the feeder pipe of the radiator clunking angrily less than a foot away from my head. I flex my hand, my fingers stiff, but no pins-and-needles from lack of blood flow.
My tongue feels dry and dusty like a salt flat, my lips cracking painfully as I manage to open my mouth—which still feels as if it belongs to a stranger, my jaw not quite working in time with my brain’s commands.
Scanning the room, there’s simultaneously a great deal and nothing at all to see.
Colorful overlapping rugs cover an ailing, ancient hardwood floor—bits of soundproofing foam, corrugated cardboard laden with decoupage, mismatching posters ,and long empty record liners cover the walls.
The large bank of windows on the far side of the room have almost all been papered over with yellowing newsprint; only a few panes here and there open to the night, letting the soft blue light filter in through the open panes.
Movement catches my eye. And my gaze falls to the hammock by the doorway; the fabric swaying as a body emerges from the taut fabric— the gunman from the hallway I exchanged blows with earlier wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Good evening, Chère,” he yawns, nodding lazily in my direction before traipsing to the door and swinging it wide.
“Hey, boys. It looks like our Sleeping Beauty has awoken,” he calls to the others, lit in the greasy wedge of yellow light from the hall.
There’s a distant commotion, and the sound of footfalls as the rest of my captors make their way towards us.
Now that I can get a good look at him, I'm surprised that I was able to handle him in the hall. He's gotta be at least six foot three and built like a damn bear; with those ceiling beam arms, thighs, and a soft dad-bod tummy.
I see the bruise, deep blue and purple, high on his bronze cheekbone, and realize vaguely that I must have given him that earlier.
“So how was the nap?” he asks, not quite a taunt. His heavily tattooed hands with their matte black polish crawl over his zip up hoodie—moth eaten and full of holes—sleepily dipping into one of the half-unstitched pockets for a beaten-up pack of cigarettes and a plastic bic lighter.
It’s not easy to sit upright, but I manage it—left wrist dangling over the arm of the sofa so that I don’t put tension on the hand cuffs or myself.
My throat struggles to work itself, no saliva to swallow down—my voice a shriveled husk of its normal tone as I force the sound through my parched vocal folds.
“Water,” I croak desperately. The feathered dry skin of my lips underlining my urgency.
“Hey, Cazzy—bring our guest some water, eh?” My recently woken captor leans backward out of the lit doorway to call down the hall, lounging against the door frame as he places a cigarette between his lips and spins the spark wheel backward with a faint rhythmic clicking—his glacial blue eyes still fixed on me.
“Did you sleep well?” he baits me, his full lips quirking in a cruel smirk.
I don’t say anything, just glare back at him for a dramatic beat before hazarding a glance out of one of the rare, unpapered panes of window.
Tracks of rainwater, bright colorful reflections of neon and LED signs dance in the disjointed squares of glass.
We are no longer in the DC area… if I had to make a guess.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been unconscious, but the hot water radiators and wintry rawness to the air make me think NYC is most likely.
“Goodness, she looks like death warmed over—you may need more than water to fix that.” The posh British accent snaps my attention back to the doorway. A man with well coiffed copper brown hair and vibrant chartreuse eyes leans on the door frame, the top of his head just barely grazing the lintel.
I recognize his hulking frame—even if the face and the hair have changed since our tangle in the massage suite.
Vaguely, I remember seeing his face—prosthetic nose peeling away from his finely sculpted visage; the fine mesh of the lace-front coming unglued from his sweaty forehead as he threw the ‘Hans’ nametag out the window of a panel van.
Buzz-cut, absolutely-not-a-caterer, blond boy bursts through the two meatheads in the doorway—a chipped mug that reads “World’s #1 Poodle Mom” in flaking pink glitter paint clutched in his extended hand.
I snatch the cup greedily from his hands—forcing myself to take the sweet, cold water in small sips instead of gulping it down like I want to. Well, if there was any doubt, that shockingly refreshing swig of tap water sealed the deal—we’re somewhere in the Big Apple.
“Hoo boy Q, you really weren’t kidding—” that familiar accent, simultaneously comforting in its immediate feeling of home, and jarring in its Pavlovian association with me getting shot with a tranq gun earlier.
Now that he isn’t merely a silhouette against the midday sun—I can see the de facto ringleader of this band of criminal idiots; a well-built man with a toss of wild shoe polish-black hair and a shaggy beard over his square jaw; something familiar in his Prussian blue eyes besides the flickering fires of hatred.
I keep my eyes on my captors over the chipped rim of the mug, slaking my thirst enough to manage a few words that don’t crumble to dust on my tongue.
“Sorry I fail to impress after being drugged and kidnapped. Oh wait… I don’t give half a rat-fuck what you amateurs think,” I snip back.
Grim though it may be, I take stock of my surroundings. Quiet, mostly clean. While I don’t have a working memory of the last… I don’t know how many hours; from what I can tell, they haven’t done any tampering with me besides the initial tranquilizing.
Lucky for me, these idiots are still running amateur hour—I’m still alive, and my left arm is blissfully intact, and thus the digital tracking device installed deep in my forearm is still broadcasting my location to my superiors back at FBI headquarters.
It’s only a matter of time until they successfully trace the signal and get me the fuck out of here.
Now, I just gotta play for time.
“Kitty’s awake, and she’s still got claws.” Mr. Most-Likely-In-Charge beams, his eyes wild with possibility.
I pass the empty mug to my handcuffed hand, offering the boss man my middle finger—thumb extended, as my quartet of captors looms over me.
“She’ll play nice and be a good girl if she knows what’s good for her,” the tall one scoffs, like some cruel prince laying forth his edict.
“Please, you’re obviously one of those insecure men who’s pissed off that I kicked your ass.” I roll my eyes, extending the empty cup to the blonde one—the obvious baby of the crew, batting my auburn lashes at him. “Can I please have some more water?”
The loud burbling of my stomach seems to remind me that this water is the only thing I’ve taken in since breakfast before checking into the Diamond Center, god knows how long ago.
“No water or food until we get some cooperation out of you,” Bossman interjects, reaching into tall, dark and handsome’s ratty sweatshirt pocket to retrieve the beat up box of 27’s.
Like a petulant child, I keep eye contact with him—those dark blue pools of deep cold fixed on me—as I lift the mug high over my head before spiking it downward onto an exposed square of hardwood, my legs folded protectively beneath me on the sofa; the white ceramic and pink glitter paint shards scatter everywhere in a high-pitched shatter of glass.
“That’s about as much cooperation as you shit stains are going to get out of me,” I sneer, slumping back against the beaten up couch cushions, my eyes still locked on Mr. Leaderman.
I’ve been so focused on the boss I don’t even see the tall, fancy one until he eclipses my vision—his massive frame suddenly all I can see. Before I can open my mouth—his open hand flies across my face in a stinging stroke of pain.
He hits me with such force that everything dazzles—little stars dancing at the edges of my vision.
“I have a feeling you’re going to be changing your tune sooner rather than later, darling,” Posh Spice sighs as if he’s bored, leaning down so that we’re nearly nose to nose.
Then his perfume hits me like a ton of bricks.
Panic grips me. I should be able to sense his aura, but I’m on higher-than-market-grade suppressants provided by the government that not only block my sigma perfume production, but also minimize my susceptibility to impact from others’ scents.
Such precautions are mandatory for field work, but I’m admittedly on the downward swing from my last dose, considering I was anticipating several weeks stay at a placement center in order to be matched with my prospective partner(s)—and right now, I am feeling the impact of his omega scent deeply.
Rich, creamy Bulgarian rose—sweet, earthy sandalwood, and peaty scotch invade my nostrils, threatening to bring me to my knees.
He’s 1000% omega—and he smells so delicious that it takes every last fiber of my being to keep my head clear of lascivious thoughts and focused on maintaining a closed, cold front until the cavalry arrives.
I must be making one hell of a face, because pretty boy’s lips part in an easy smile as if he knows he has me exactly where he wants me.
“There we go. Someone seems a bit more pliable now.” His yellow-green eyes soften, lids hooded with pleasure as he senses the edge of my desperation.
I sit on my right hand, so that I don’t try to reach for him with it. Quentin , that's what the boss man called him.
“Tch, that’s cheating! Cazzy could put her to sleep too—but you don’t see him flexing that shit.” Tall, dark and handsome scoffs, waving his smoking cigarette through the open air as he gestures to both boss man and blond buzz boy; as if making his case to a judge or an umpire at a sporting event.
“Jealousy isn’t a good look for you, Sebby,” Quentin sniffs imperiously, tilting his head like an observant bird of prey at me.
His big chartreuse eyes with their coppery lashes are almost in line with my own gaze.
I bite my tongue, unsure of how much my body—my mind—will betray me in favor of my base sigma biology.
Right now, every cell in my body is screaming out to touch him—to crush his mouth with mine and taste him.
I don’t trust myself, even with my hands tied and my pride on the line—so I close my eyes and breathe deeply through my mouth, doing my best to minimize taking in his scent, but the damage is already done. I can feel his aura expanding, encroaching on the frayed edges of my resolve.
“Oho, she’s a tough one!” he croons approvingly—one of his long fingers tracing its way through the open air to rest beneath the point of my chin. “She’s already shown more resolve than any of you lot did the first time I flexed my aura on you.”
My eyes fly open, and I grit my teeth in silence—lest I beg him for the opportunity to… I don’t know what—do something .
“She’s on government issue suppressants,” tall, dark, and moody with the French accent grumbles—his maroon eyes setting on me almost pityingly.
“Give it six to ten days and that shit will have completely left her system—not to mention once she’s in heat…
” he sneers officiously. “Little red fox would probably gnaw off her own arm to get that remaining hand on our favorite hussy.”
“Uh guys? I hate to interrupt, but I think we have some bad news,” the buzz cut blond pipes up from his place at the back of the pack—a small tablet balanced in one of his hands.
The others turn to face him with looks of annoyance—like the cool, older siblings forced to endure the youngest of the bunch during a treasured hangout session.
“What is it this time, Cazzy?” Quentin sighs, the pad of his index finger traveling along the line of my jaw to tuck an errant lock of hair behind my ear.
“Uh well,” the so-called ‘Cazzy’ hiccups anxiously, as he approaches the pair of us—me on the couch, Quentin, squatting on the ground before me.
“Unless I’m mistaken, our dear miss Penny is hiding a little bit,” he mumbles, his fingers flying over the touch screen in a series of complicated gestures—his boyish features twisted with fear.
“Quit burying the lead Caz, spit it out,” Bossman grunts, losing patience.
Caz fiddles with the smart watch with a shattered screen on his wrist—checking his tablet again before his hand shoots out over my right arm, my legs, the top of my head, the nape of my neck; his tablet is a mess of tiny nested windows I can’t quite make sense of.
He sweeps his hand over my shoulders and the front of my chest before working his way toward my left arm, handcuffed to the radiator pipe.
With nascent horror, I realize what this Caz is doing just as a loud machine beep issues from his tablet—his hand returning to the space beneath the hinge of my left elbow where my implant is.
“Fuck,” Bossman hisses under his breath.
“Yep—so uh, we better figure out uninstalling that bad boy, and a new safehouse ASAP,” the tech-wizard informs his bozo buddies—much to my chagrin.
“Well, isn’t she just our lucky Penny,” Frenchie grouses, grinding out his cigarette on the nearby windowsill before running his hands back through his curls, Quentin already on his feet and in motion—no longer demanding my entire focus.
Before I can protest, or get a better handle on where we might be headed—Caz taps the screen of his tablet—eyeing me uneasily, almost apologetically, as he leans in.
“Sorry about this, but I doubt you’re gonna cooperate and we have a tight window for escape.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a long, skinny gray plastic cylinder with a bright red plastic button at one end.
I rise up onto my heels—free arm ready to swing, but his theta aura expands fast; poppy, dragon’s blood sap, and smoked vanilla pods threatening to pull me down beneath the current of sleep as he jabs the auto-injector into the meat of my thigh.