Miss Taken

Chapter 14-Brideya

"She" was bald.
I'll be honest, had Karter not told me to watch my mouth in here just seconds before, I may or may not have let slide a comment about her hair-or lack thereof. Surprisingly, aside from her hair situation, nothing else about her looked to have even reached her forties.
She was darker skinned, so her head didn't seem quite so bulbous as it might have. In fact, I thought that She pulled off being bald as well as anyone could hope to.
"We've retrieved Riley," Barry the Boss announced. I was disappointed that he didn't address her, because while his usage of "She" and "Her" was intended to be mysterious, I was interested to see if he would call her "You," which was admittedly less intimidating.
She waved her hand at me. "Who is this one?" she asked in an accent that was a confusingly beautiful mix between a Manchester and Eastern Irish accent.
"That's... Lauryn. We chose not to release her for security reasons," Barry said.
"Lauryn," She said contemplatively, looking me over. "I don't like complications, agent."
I meant to be offended, but the way she said my name was so pleasing that I forgot to be.
"I know, Miss. I apologize for her."
Temporarily forgetting my promise to Karter, I opened my mouth to object but was interrupted by a sharp pain on the back of my neck. I reached back and felt a hand there, pinching me, which I followed back to Karter. He gave me a warning look and I scowled.
"What would be the consequences of returning her?" She asked.
"The organization could go under," Barry said regretfully. "She knows where the headquarters are, and she's met you, and all of us."
She raised a dark eyebrow. "She knows where the headquarters are?"
Barry nodded. "Yes, Miss."
"You didn't knock her out? Or even blindfold her?"
Barry hesitated, and then shook his head. "No, Miss."
She opened her mouth, and then pressed her lips together in a firm line, letting the unformed words dissipate while she thought up new, placid ones. "Did you take any precautions with Riley?"
The issue with this seemed to reveal itself to Barry, and he couldn't bring himself to speak his negatory, so he only shook his head.
"Do you understand why this may be an issue if we intend to return her to her parents, agent?" She said, obviously putting quite a bit of effort into remaining calm.
He gulped, and nodded.
She nodded in return. "Good. In this case, I suppose our last option is to take them to Brideya."
"No," Karter said quickly.
She turned her head to him. "No?" She said curiously.
He wetted his lips briskly with his tongue, gathering his thoughts. "I think there's another way to do this."
"Do you?" She said, twirling a pen between her long fingers. "And how is that?"
"We..." he glanced down at me and swallowed. "We keep up the ransom deal. But this way we offer the return for both of the girls, so we can ask for more money."
She peered at him from beneath her long, heavily mascaraed lashes. "Money isn't the problem, agent. They know more than kidnappees should... In any case," she added with a pointed look at Barry, who wilted.
"But we don't give them back," Karter said. "You can send them to Brideya afterward. But you keep them alive until the money exchange in case the parents want proof of life."
She stared at him for a minute, and even though my arm was only brushing Karter's, I could feel that his muscles were rigid. Slowly, the corner of her mouth turned up in a sly smile. "You're quite young, but you're good. I like you."
The tension that had been pressed against him released and I felt his body relax. "Thank you, Miss," he said.
She nodded. "Alright, then. Take them somewhere until we can get this deal finalized. Barry, stay."
As we turned to leave, a couple of questions burned in my mind-one of which I asked almost immediately after we had left the room. "Who's Brideya?"
I got no response, only the steps on the cold tile floor toward doors near the back.
"Okay, let's try that one again. What is the identity of Brideya?"
Silence. We had nearly reached the doors now.
"I'm running out of ways to ask it, guys," I said.
Nothing.
"Who dat, who dat, B-R-I-" I started.
"Bow, could you take Riley to get some breakfast, please?" Karter said, though it was around noon here. Bow nodded, and tossed Karter a set of keys which he caught easily and inserted one into the door we had just reached. A half-buried part of me wondered why I found key-catching sexy.
"Karter, I know you had to understand at least one of those ways," I said, but he answered by pushing the door open and pulling me inside.
The interior was about as white as everything outside, except the walls were painted a grungy green. I wrinkled my nose at the color, which resembled mold more closely than mold did.
"I didn't want to tell you out there," Karter explained.
"Why? Do they have security cameras?" I asked.
"No, I just knew you'd make a scene," he said.
My mouth felt strangely dry, though he hadn't actually said anything bad yet. Maybe my tongue's psychic, I thought, as the rational part of me gave the other part of me the Jim stare.
"Why would I make a scene? Who's Brideya?" I asked, disappointed in my voice box for sounding weird. You had one job.
"She's the execution manager of sorts," Karter said.
Now my mouth was dry, and I had become painfully aware of all the acid in my stomach. "Execution? Like... Off with your head?"
"Lauryn, don't freak out-"
My head was spinning, which was strange since the rest of me wasn't (I added spinning to my mental log of things I could do next time they locked me up alone for a long time before I realized that I may not have another one of those times on Earth). "Your vote is to kill us? That's your plan? But they just can't kill us right off because you have to get the money first. Does life mean anything to you? I can't imagine you spending yours this way if it does, and mine obviously doesn't. I-I can't believe you. See, you've made me start stuttering, and I don't stutter. Ever. I ramble on and on for ever and ever. I never stutter. That's like my trademark. You've got to make me really mad to make me stutter, Karter, and I'm stuttering now. What does that mean to you, though, since you're like some eighteen-year-old assassin or whatever. You know, killing people is so not attractive-"
"Lauryn," he said, pushing my back to the wall and holding me there by my shoulders. The force of the wall against me hadn't been enough to hurt, just stun me a bit, which I supposed was exactly what he needed to happen. The half-buried part of me was screaming. "Shut up."
"You will not tell me to shut up," I said, my voice trembling a bit, but I forced it down before he could notice. "I am angry with you, for being a-a murderer and an anti-lifeist and-"
"I'm not a murderer, Laur," he said. "I only gave them that idea to buy me some time to get you out of here."
No, my brain told me. He's trying to shut you up again. He'll slit your throat with a playing card where you're standing. Don't listen.
"Liar," I said.
"I'm not lying."
"You are," I said. "Your pants are practically smoldering. You wouldn't work for these awful people if you cared about people's lives."
"I work for these people because I care about people's lives," Karter said.
"Those hardly go hand-in-hand-"
"They have my sister," Karter said.
That one shut me up. My brain argued back and forth, and after a quick court session it came to a conclusion that no one would be so terrible as to lie about something like that just to get me to give into being murdered.
"...what?"
"They kidnapped my sister," Karter said. "They made me work for them on this job, in exchange for her life."
I swallowed, not sure how I felt about the fact that I believed him. "I'm sorry?"
He looked at me. "You kind of remind me of her. She would always tease me like you do."
"I would advise you to never hit on a girl by comparing her to your sister."
At that, something in his eyes changed and he was looking at me with a very un-Karter-like expression. To my complete surprise, my comment earned me a deep kiss that pushed me further against the wall.

A/N: Y'all weren't even gonna get an update today, but someone commented and let me know that there were people that cared about it (haha) so here you go. It's kinda short, sorry.
Thanks for reading, as always :)