I'd Kill You First: when bad meets bad

Chap. 34

SODA:

I stumbled out to my car, head spinning and pounding too much for me to even consider taking my motorcycle. I didn't remember how I ended up nose to nose with Keenon, so I wasn't sure how I remembered my last chance with Boss. I had to be at the pier tonight. I had to be.

I revved my engine and squealed tires out of the parking lot, terrified that I was already too late. I couldn't remember if I had been given a specific time to be there, hell, I could barely remember my own name at this point, but I had to try. Brody's life depended on this.

About an hour later, I pulled up behind the stacks of crates close to the docks and turned off my car. I planned to walk the rest of the way under the cover of darkness, just to be safe. Drake had only said this was my last chance. He didn't tell me what exactly would go down here.

I slipped my gun into the waist band of my jeans and clipped a pocket knife inside the front of my jacket, out of sight. Opening the car door, I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the concrete. I walked until concrete turned to gravel, and gravel turned to wooden planks that were the pier. I peered nervously over the edges of the dock, staring at the feel black water. This really was the perfect place to kill someone. The thought made my throat try to close up shop.

A man I didn't recognize was waiting in the middle of the end of the pier, back to me with a briefcase hanging limply from his left hand. When he heard my footsteps, he spun around jerkily and took me in with wide, scared eyes. I could see he was about thirty with dark hair and a reasonable build, black rimmed glasses with sweat trickling down the side of his head. He was definitely anxious.

"Are you the one I'm supposed to meet?" he asked with a cracking voice, looking around nervously.

"Yes," I answered calmly. I guess this was just the routine. Boss set up another job for me, a client. This wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Are- are you..." he swiped at his forehead with a distraught look on his face. "Are you alone?"

I kept my calm facade, trained to not scare the client away, so I nodded my head. "I am."

In the blink of an eye, the nervous aura about him faded away as his stressed features slowly turned into a sneering grin. "Good," he growled.

Before I could register this sudden change, he swung the briefcase in his hand with great force into my head, sending me sprawling on the wood planks as I cried out. A boot connected with my stomach several times before I heard echoing, seemingly distant voices coming from nowhere, but everywhere, all at once. Too many bodies stood around me, all hitting and kicking and yelling, and then I just sort of slipped away into darkness, just like the dark water beneath our feet.

•••••••••••••••

I woke up with a groan, pain radiating from every part of my body. I forced the only eye of mine that wasn't swollen shut open and looked around. Holy shit.

I was tied with my hands around a pole of the pier, waist deep in shallow water with six men in black clothes standing around me, all wearing masks. One stepped forward and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking backward so that my chin connected with the pole I was facing as I was forced to look at him. I tasted so much blood.

"Where the hell is Boss?!" he yelled in my face, shaking my head around by my hair. I felt something warm trickle down over my forehead, on the verge of dripping into my eye.

"Wh-what?" I stammered, mind still trying to process.

My forehead was slammed forward into the pole, sending things spinning again. "Boss! Your boss man! Where is he?!"

"Who are you talking about?" I asked, putting on a confused and bewildered face.

Another blow to the head. "Don't play dumb with me! Where are his files?"

"I- I don't know what the hell you're talking about," I croaked out, squinting up my good eye as that warm liquid oozed over it. Now I could hardly see anything.

Another man came up and grabbed my leg, stretching it out into the water and angling it inward in an awkward way that sort of hurt.

The one holding my hair slammed me forward again, this time ramming my whole body into the wooden post. "Answer me!" he screamed, bringing an elbow down into the middle of my back. I felt a thud but didn't really register any pain. Everything was trying to shut down in me, trying to give up and fade away. I fought it with all my might.

"I swear I don't understand-" the second man slammed his foot down into my leg as he held it awkwardly to the side, and pains seared through my body. He stomped again, and a sickening crunch reached my ears.

My head was yanked upward again, away from my broken leg, and I was met by the same masked face. "Tell me where he stays! You have to know something, you've been there for years! Tell me where he keeps his files!"

"Who are you talking about?!" I croaked back with my best yell, keeping up my bewildered face.

He growled and proceeded to punch me in the face a few times, opening up cuts around my mouth and eyes.

"Do you see that?" he suddenly hissed, making me look at my leg by pulling my hair. "That man is going to turn your leg until you tell me where you are supposed to report back to your Boss at tonight."

I stayed quiet, willing myself not to black out since it would end in certain death. The man holding my hair shrugged and nodded at the one with my leg, who in turn tweaked my foot to the right, shifting the broken bones together and earning a cry from me. It hurt so much. He continued to turn my foot, holding down my knee to make sure just the broken parts were turning, and I writhed and screamed against my binds. A heard sick laughter echoing around me as the onlookers just stood by smugly, seemingly amused by this.

When my leg had been turned all the way around again and I had screamed myself even more hoarse than I had been earlier, I thought I was going to black out. It was too much, the pain was too much. It was unbearable. I could hear the bones scraping in my head the whole time, blinding me with agony.

"Gonna talk yet?" my captor purred in my ear, tightening his fist in my hair.

"Go to hell," I hissed, barely able to get the words out through my clenched teeth.

Suddenly, a deep chuckle came from his lips as he released my hair and yanked off his mask. I was stunned into frozen silence, not believing what was in front of me, unsure of what to do.

"Well little missy," Drake said with a sinister grin, "Boss has a message for you."

He got on his knees beside me in the water and put his mouth to my ear. "Next time you decide to fuck up, just remember, you can get fucked up too."

He leaned back and actually had the guts to offer me a smile. "Anyway, you passed the test. Boss just wanted to know if he could depend on you anymore. Maybe next time you'll be feeling a little more, how should I say this, uh, cooperative. Yeah? Don't screw up again, Kid."

He stood up, water dripping from his dark pants as he began to walk away. "Untie it and dump it in Leving Town," he called over his shoulder without even looking at me again.

I gaped at what had just happened as two men came and untied my hands. Drake was the one beating me? Boss set me up? This was a test? They tried to kill me! I screamed in pain as a man slung me over his shoulder and began walking up the sloped bank of the pier. With his every step, my leg and head slammed into him. It was too much. The pain took over everything and I just went limp, allowing darkness to have me.