The White Shadow 1: The Dancer

Chapter 10

Darryll had surrendered without a word. This alone didn't unnerve the Dancer, who knew the boys mental fortitude well. What unnerved her was the way he had waved at her as she came to his car door. He had left his vehicle willingly, and had offered to walk her and her current accomplice, Flores, over to her warehouse. However, what unnerved the Dancer the most, what really set her on edge and made her incredibly angry, was the way Diane's necklace, within which the tracker used to find Darryll had been planted, was situated around the boys neck, purposefully placed over his white shirt. The Dancer had decided not to ask questions in an attempt to remain anonymous.

And now, as he walked, Flores's gun to his head, over to the Dancer's office, he remained just as content, and the Dancer could only worry that Darryll doing more than a stupid bluff. She led Darryll down a set of stairs into a secret basement, which she'd had removed from the plans of the building. Darryll and Flores followed behind her as she glided down the chainlink steps and into the brightly lit corridor, lined with doors on either side leading into rooms for her personal assistants and bookmakers to work. As the Dancer showed her guest down the corridor, she heard a door open behind her, and turned to see Gerald approaching. The small, wispy man in his right grey suit bowed in his bosses presence, and then asked, "Ma'am, I have news regarding..." And then he saw Darryll, and stammered, "should I talk in the presence of our enemy?"
Darryll suddenly laughed incredibly loudly for several seconds, despite Flores pushing the pistol harder into the back of his head. The boy mimicked Gerald with a mock voice, "In the presence of our enemy," and the said breathlessly in his normal voice, "Please, what is this, a cult? Oh, and small guy," he pointed at a quivering Gerald, "Don't worry about me, I'll be dead in a bit, ain't that right Dancer?" And he turned to the Dancer, who, fuming beneath her mask, threw her arm at Darryll, connecting directly at his temple with a satisfying clank. Darryll screamed violently as a hidden set of brass knuckles with the Dancer's gloves sent a throbbing shock of pain through his head, "FUCK! Ow!" and he instantly fell to his knees, hunched on the floor, his right hand in a fist, clawing at the air in pained desperation. The Dancer reached out her hand, and Flores handed her the gun. She put her hand to the slide, pulled it back, and the one bullet fall onto the floor, at Darryll's knees. She spoke softly in the hardened air, "That was for you." and then she used the guns barrel to nudge the side of Darryll's head. She dismissed Flores with the wave of her other hand, and she commanded Darryll, "Get up." So Darryll pushed with his free hand, onto his feet, and shakily rose to full height. The Dancer then took him by the shoulder, and, with a gun to his gut, led him down the corridor.

Darryll was thrust into a small, marble room with one table and two chairs. However the Dancer didn't bother with either chair. Instead, she simply locked the door, and turned back to a shaking, moaning Darryll, who gripped his lowered head with his only free hand, his face obscured. The Dancer chuckled, her voice scrambled by the mask, "It's actually quite pathetic. You," she pointed the gun at Darryll, and began to walk toward him, "so confident that you could kill me, yet you didn't notice me when I was right in front of you-"
"At the store?" Darryll's voice was breathless and strained, but he still ran his tongue, "I knew it was you. I knew that after Daine revealed that she knew where the bug was by squashing it, you would plant a new one on her person, in the necklace."
The Dancer was stunned, but maintained her composure, and removed her mask, to show Nia's face with a snarling grin, "So you knew who I was," her voice was back to it's normal, mature sound, "but what did you you do with that information? Nothing." She flung her free arm at Darryll's neck, grabbing him by the chin. But as his head tilted up, Nia saw that he was still grinning. Infuriated, she bought her gun to the boys temple, and pressed with as much force as she could muster, her finger twitching on the trigger. Darryll only continued to grin, as he remarked, "You're a smart woman, but you know that I'm smarter"
Nia hissed, "Arrogant prick. Velicky Somar-"
"Ey, there it is!" Darryll exclaimed, "I knew that your accent was Koslorian! Anyway, as I was saying I'm smarter than you, and your plan had several faults. I'm dead wether or not I tell them, so if I may?" Darryll gestured with his arm as if her were bowing, and Nia, despite her absolute hatred for Darryll's constant provocation, she let him go. "You have five minutes."
Darryll began to pace as he spoke, "So when you sent the three guys after me, I knew someone was going to go for Diane at the same time. When she got back she told me no one did, so I knew the person was a good friend minimum. So I figured we were already bugged. Then, knowing I was going into a trap, I attempted to get myself caught for a distinct reason. I wanted to learn more about how your organisation worked. Once captured, I heard you mention that you would replace a "Micheal" if I remember correctly with his cousin "Jonny"?"
Nia could have kicked herself. "So what if you heard that," she spat, "Jonathan's dead now."
Darryll quickly interjected, "Yeah, cause I knew that if he was family, he would be easier to kill, just like the other two men you replaced with family members, because you don't hire people, you threaten them. That's why you tried to make a show of me at the theater with Diane's knife, which failed rather miserably. Tell me," Darryll stopped and turned to Nia, pointing a finger at her, "How many people did you need to kill because of that mishap? Fifteen? But of course you cant do that, otherwise you need to replace all of those people!" Darryll returned to pacing, only to be interrupted by a gun to his temple. Nia's action may have been threatening, but Darryll felt the gun shaking, so he continued to talk, "Anyway, I knew that I would survive your attempt to copy my strategy of smoke and goggles due to this knowledge. All your goons were either new and inexperienced, or demoralized from the mass failure to kill two people. Well, one technically, cause you're gonna want to capture Diane alive since you're working for Mr Verez, obviously. What, not gonna shoot me?"
"Your five minutes is up."
"Then kill me. Anyhow, as I was saying, You're obviously working for Verez, since you're Koslorian, and Verez acts as a thoroughfare into the war in Kosloria. Got any family there, Nia?" Nia was fuming, her cheeks growing more crimson by the second. She repeated, "Your five minutes are up, you child." Darryll scoffed, smirking, and replied, "Then bloody kill me! After all, Verez doesn't have a bounty on my head, only on Diane's... Unless..." and then Darryll gasped, "He does now! That would explain why you arent just killing me now! Heck, maybe you only set those three after me at my apartment simply to capture me! Wow!" Darryll was ecstatic, and he pumped a fist into the air, "Yes! Now I have leverage!" He turned toward Nia, who at this point was seething, and added, "When you sent the three guys to my place, you could've just blown the building up with heavy duty explosives, which I know you have since your goons have grenades. God knows the law doesn't care if you level an apartment complex, what with the police force being in your impious employers palm."
In an infuriated rage, Nia threw the gun to the floor, and grabbed Darryll by his right arm. Then, wordlessly, she put the grinning boys wrist in one hand and his shoulder in the other, before thrusting her knee up into Darryll's elbow, snapping the joint clean in two. Darryll cried out in pain, but continued to grin wildly. Despite the throbbing pain rushing through his arm, he spoke again, through his teeth, "Unless you only spared me because you actually cared for Diane, but let's be real, you only got with her so that you could have an easier time kidnapping her for Verez, right?"
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW!" Nia snapped, "all you do is kill people!" She grabbed Darryll's throat and slammed him by this grip into a nearby wall with an echoing thud. Darryll only kept smiling, having gotten Nia to say exactly what he needed.

He had won.

Unable to speak with a leather glove around his neck, Darryll shakily raised his bleeding left arm, and placed a thumbs up into the air. Nia laughed at this aimless action, taunting, "Ha, finally lost it Darryll? I'm going to enjoy turning you i-"
And then she heard the sound of flying metal behind her and ducked with no time to spare, her fedora taking a blow from Diane's knife. The red flower was slashed in two, sending a thousand blood red petals into the air dancing around Diane, who stood with one leg forward and her knife hand raised, blade to the side, sharp edge facing the Dancer. Now, for the first time, there was no mask between them. Nia, however, saw that behind Diane's knife, her eyes were red, and streaming tears. Her brow was knotted in frustrated sadness, and her knuckles were white around her weapon.
Nia choked on her words, "D-Diane, I, I didn't-"
Another blisteringly fast flash of steel arced through the air with a sonorous ring, aimed directly at Nia's neck. But she simply vanished, only to reappear behind Darryll, who had stumbled away from the wall. Nia crouched, reaching out for her dropped gun, and Diane swung for her arm. Unfortunately, the blade dug into the floor as Nia teleported again, reappearing with her gun to Darryll's neck. The boy was hunched and beaten, bruises forming all over his hace and neck as he carried two dead arms at his sides. He was helpless as a hostage. Diane paced herself, knowing Nia could react to her swings, and held back, keeping her distance.
"Please, Diane," Nia asked gently, "Hear me out. Let me justify myse-"
"You tricked me." Diane replied, her eyes damp and teeth gritted, "keep your sparkled tongue to yourself."
Nia pleaded, "please, my mother needs me to-"
Darryll scoffed, despite being at gunpoint, "Fuck your paraplegic grandma! What about my bloody family!" He cried, despite his wounds, "I bet your boss never told you about how he killed two innocent teens!"
Nia retorted, "They couldn't have been innocent if they were dealing with Verez!"
Beads of sweat ran down Diane's anguished face, her breath heavy and her legs like lead underneath her. As Darryll and Nia yelled at one another, her mind raced, and her eyes flicked between her partner and her lover. Through gushing tears and clenched eyelids, Diane felt like she was knee deep in mud as she stepped forward, and pulled her cloak over herself whilst Darryll and Nia argued profusely. Then Diane dashed toward Nia, and wrenched the gun out of her grip, before losing her cloak and aiming the pistol at Nia, who immediately raised both arms in surrender. Her eyes protested, though she didn't say a word, and outwardly accepted her fate. Darryll's face grew into wide, maniacal smile, his eyes swelling and his lips curling as he laughed, "Hahahaha! You tried! You really tried!" And then he turned to Diane, and with resolute eyes and an unwavering voice, he commanded Diane, "Do it."
Diane did not pull the trigger. She squinted at a broken image of Nia through bleary eyes and pinched brows, and with a hoarse throat, she said one, quiet word. "Go."
Nia stumbled at Diane's unexpected mercy, and she made for the door. Darryll was stunned, and then furious, limping over to Diane, "What the fuck!" And he stole the pistol from a brokenhearted and hollow girl who made no resistance. Darryll aimed the weapon with shaking and bloody arms, and fired. There was a cry of pain, and then the door slammed shut. Darryll snapped back around to Diane, his eyes bloodshot and menacing, as he yelled, "Diane! What the fu..." And his eyes rolled back into his head as the adrenaline evaporated from his blood, leaving him weak and frail, and he collapsed in a heap.