Black Widow
Page 28
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But it was an exterior wall and the only part of the cell not lined with silverstone bars, so I forced myself to look at it again. There had to be some way to get through it, even if there wasn’t a window, and the only things attached to it were the two toilets—
My gaze locked onto the toilets. At one time, they might have been clean white porcelain. Now they were so filthy that they were grayer than the floor and spattered with blood and other things I didn’t want to look at, much less smell. But I breathed in through my mouth to lessen the stench of vomit, urine, and blood, squatted down next to one of the toilets, and looked at how it was attached to the wall.
And I thought of something that might actually get me out of here.
It was a long shot, but it was the only chance I had. So I used the toe of my boot to flush the toilet, cocking my ear to the side and listening to the gurgle of water in the pipes. When I was satisfied, I did my lady business, flushed the toilet again, placed my hand on the cleanest spot of porcelain I could find, and reached for my magic. Elemental Ice crystals formed on my palm, then spread out, climbing up over the rim of the toilet and then down into the bowl of water below.
I kept my power at a low but steady level, feeding more and more Ice into the toilet, until I was satisfied that it would do what I wanted it to. When I finished, I waited three minutes, wondering if someone might have sensed me using my power and would storm into the room to check on me. But Dobson thought that he’d finally trapped me, and I didn’t hear the slightest sound of movement beyond the bull pen. So I felt safe enough to repeat the process on the second toilet.
Once I’d set my plan into motion, there was nothing to do but wait until Dobson or someone else came back here. Besides, I needed to rest to help replenish the magic I’d used. I might still be breathing, but this was just a temporary respite, and I’d need every scrap of power to survive what was coming.
So I curled up on one of the hard wooden benches, made myself as comfortable as possible, and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
I wasn’t really all that tired, since it was only about four in the afternoon, but the roller coaster of the day’s events and emotions had taken its toll on me, and I quickly dozed off, especially given the unnatural silence in this part of the station. But it wasn’t long before the blackness receded, and I started to dream of my past, the way that I had ever since Fletcher was murdered last year. . . .
We were in trouble.
Fletcher and I ran side by side, trying to get out of the warehouse. But no matter how hard we pumped our legs or how fast we sprinted, it didn’t seem like we had moved at all. No wonder, since the enormous shell of a building covered the better part of three acres. Bare bulbs dropped down from the ceiling, casting out more shadows than light, while old, empty wooden crates covered the concrete floor, along with odd, loose bits of metal, long snakes of stripped wires, and rusted lengths of pipe.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
But what really concerned me were all the bullets zipping through the air in our direction.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Along with the balls of elemental Fire.
Zing! Zing! Zing!
And the razor-sharp crossbow bolts that further splintered the wooden crates as we darted past them.
Oh, yeah. The old man and I were in serious trouble.
And to think that the evening had started out so well.
As the Tin Man, his assassin code name, Fletcher had been approached about taking out Liza Malone, a crooked cop who liked to strong-arm protection money out of small-business owners over in Southtown . . . and then do absolutely nothing in return when some real danger came calling. Like, say, the three gangbangers who’d deliberately crashed their stolen car through the storefront windows of a mom-and-pop grocery and then stormed inside and shot up the place, including the owners’ thirteen-year-old son.
The kid had died in his big brother’s arms. A news photographer had captured that heartbreaking sight, and the image of the guy clutching his baby brother’s bloody, lifeless body to his chest had run on the news for days.
According to Fletcher, the Colson family had demanded that Malone find the people responsible for killing their boy. She told them that she would—for another fifty thousand dollars. Up front, of course. The Colsons didn’t have that kind of cash, but they’d scraped together what they could and given it to Malone. In return, the cop had done nothing but sit on her ass and jack up her prices for everyone else in the neighborhood who was paying her protection money.
Through his various cutouts, dead drops, and back channels, the Colsons had reached out to Fletcher to get what justice they could, and the old man had handed things off to me, since I was twenty-two now and far more spry than his aging bones. I had found and taken out the three gangbangers a week ago. The fools had been bragging all over Southtown about how tough they were, robbing a family and killing a kid. I didn’t even have to bribe anyone to find them. Easiest job Fletcher had ever sent me on. One of the most satisfying too.
But the gangbangers had told me all sorts of interesting things before they died—like the fact that they’d been paying protection money to Liza Malone too. As long as they slipped the cop a cut of their take, she was perfectly happy to look the other way as they went about their reign of robbery in the neighborhood. Now, double- or even triple-dipping was nothing new in Ashland. More like a long-standing tradition and a favorite sport. But this time, it had cost an innocent boy his life. The Colsons wanted payback, and I’d been dispatched to get it for them.
So I’d started following Malone on the sly, tracking her movements, analyzing her habits, and learning every single thing I could about her. When I had a plan of attack I thought would work, I took the final step and talked things out with Fletcher, the way I always did now, even though I’d moved out into my own apartment and was doing most of the jobs solo. The old man had agreed with my assessment and plan, and he’d even tagged along with me on this one, since taking out a cop—even a crooked one—could be tricky.
I’d learned that Malone liked to host an after-hours poker game for cops, lawyers, and whoever else had enough coin to buy in at her ten-thousand-dollar, cash-only minimum. Fletcher and I had decided to do the hit here at the abandoned warehouse where the game was played every couple of weeks, since plenty of bad folks would be around who would be sure to blame each other for killing Malone. Besides, the warehouse was out in the sticks, miles away from anything, so there would be no one around to hear any gunfire, should things come down to that. So we’d locked and loaded up our supplies, driven out to the warehouse two hours before the game was supposed to start, and gotten into position, waiting for our target to arrive.
My gaze locked onto the toilets. At one time, they might have been clean white porcelain. Now they were so filthy that they were grayer than the floor and spattered with blood and other things I didn’t want to look at, much less smell. But I breathed in through my mouth to lessen the stench of vomit, urine, and blood, squatted down next to one of the toilets, and looked at how it was attached to the wall.
And I thought of something that might actually get me out of here.
It was a long shot, but it was the only chance I had. So I used the toe of my boot to flush the toilet, cocking my ear to the side and listening to the gurgle of water in the pipes. When I was satisfied, I did my lady business, flushed the toilet again, placed my hand on the cleanest spot of porcelain I could find, and reached for my magic. Elemental Ice crystals formed on my palm, then spread out, climbing up over the rim of the toilet and then down into the bowl of water below.
I kept my power at a low but steady level, feeding more and more Ice into the toilet, until I was satisfied that it would do what I wanted it to. When I finished, I waited three minutes, wondering if someone might have sensed me using my power and would storm into the room to check on me. But Dobson thought that he’d finally trapped me, and I didn’t hear the slightest sound of movement beyond the bull pen. So I felt safe enough to repeat the process on the second toilet.
Once I’d set my plan into motion, there was nothing to do but wait until Dobson or someone else came back here. Besides, I needed to rest to help replenish the magic I’d used. I might still be breathing, but this was just a temporary respite, and I’d need every scrap of power to survive what was coming.
So I curled up on one of the hard wooden benches, made myself as comfortable as possible, and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
I wasn’t really all that tired, since it was only about four in the afternoon, but the roller coaster of the day’s events and emotions had taken its toll on me, and I quickly dozed off, especially given the unnatural silence in this part of the station. But it wasn’t long before the blackness receded, and I started to dream of my past, the way that I had ever since Fletcher was murdered last year. . . .
We were in trouble.
Fletcher and I ran side by side, trying to get out of the warehouse. But no matter how hard we pumped our legs or how fast we sprinted, it didn’t seem like we had moved at all. No wonder, since the enormous shell of a building covered the better part of three acres. Bare bulbs dropped down from the ceiling, casting out more shadows than light, while old, empty wooden crates covered the concrete floor, along with odd, loose bits of metal, long snakes of stripped wires, and rusted lengths of pipe.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
But what really concerned me were all the bullets zipping through the air in our direction.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Along with the balls of elemental Fire.
Zing! Zing! Zing!
And the razor-sharp crossbow bolts that further splintered the wooden crates as we darted past them.
Oh, yeah. The old man and I were in serious trouble.
And to think that the evening had started out so well.
As the Tin Man, his assassin code name, Fletcher had been approached about taking out Liza Malone, a crooked cop who liked to strong-arm protection money out of small-business owners over in Southtown . . . and then do absolutely nothing in return when some real danger came calling. Like, say, the three gangbangers who’d deliberately crashed their stolen car through the storefront windows of a mom-and-pop grocery and then stormed inside and shot up the place, including the owners’ thirteen-year-old son.
The kid had died in his big brother’s arms. A news photographer had captured that heartbreaking sight, and the image of the guy clutching his baby brother’s bloody, lifeless body to his chest had run on the news for days.
According to Fletcher, the Colson family had demanded that Malone find the people responsible for killing their boy. She told them that she would—for another fifty thousand dollars. Up front, of course. The Colsons didn’t have that kind of cash, but they’d scraped together what they could and given it to Malone. In return, the cop had done nothing but sit on her ass and jack up her prices for everyone else in the neighborhood who was paying her protection money.
Through his various cutouts, dead drops, and back channels, the Colsons had reached out to Fletcher to get what justice they could, and the old man had handed things off to me, since I was twenty-two now and far more spry than his aging bones. I had found and taken out the three gangbangers a week ago. The fools had been bragging all over Southtown about how tough they were, robbing a family and killing a kid. I didn’t even have to bribe anyone to find them. Easiest job Fletcher had ever sent me on. One of the most satisfying too.
But the gangbangers had told me all sorts of interesting things before they died—like the fact that they’d been paying protection money to Liza Malone too. As long as they slipped the cop a cut of their take, she was perfectly happy to look the other way as they went about their reign of robbery in the neighborhood. Now, double- or even triple-dipping was nothing new in Ashland. More like a long-standing tradition and a favorite sport. But this time, it had cost an innocent boy his life. The Colsons wanted payback, and I’d been dispatched to get it for them.
So I’d started following Malone on the sly, tracking her movements, analyzing her habits, and learning every single thing I could about her. When I had a plan of attack I thought would work, I took the final step and talked things out with Fletcher, the way I always did now, even though I’d moved out into my own apartment and was doing most of the jobs solo. The old man had agreed with my assessment and plan, and he’d even tagged along with me on this one, since taking out a cop—even a crooked one—could be tricky.
I’d learned that Malone liked to host an after-hours poker game for cops, lawyers, and whoever else had enough coin to buy in at her ten-thousand-dollar, cash-only minimum. Fletcher and I had decided to do the hit here at the abandoned warehouse where the game was played every couple of weeks, since plenty of bad folks would be around who would be sure to blame each other for killing Malone. Besides, the warehouse was out in the sticks, miles away from anything, so there would be no one around to hear any gunfire, should things come down to that. So we’d locked and loaded up our supplies, driven out to the warehouse two hours before the game was supposed to start, and gotten into position, waiting for our target to arrive.
