Black Rose

Chapter Four

Tepito, Mexico City

"Qué saben acerca de la carga?
"I already told you, no lo sé, no sé nada acerca de un cargamento"
She screamed back.
"mentiroso!" He screamed
She couldn’t see whom she was talking to clearly, but she could feel his stinky breath on her face. The room was dark and the only thing that kept it dimly illuminated was a small window which was in one corner of the room. She thought she might be in a garage, she had been there for long. Her arms and feet had been bound as she sat on a chair, her lip must have been cut because she could taste blood. Her eyes were swollen from being beaten up for days and she was starved.
"Por qué estás aquí, huh?"
"I already told you I am a journalist, I came here to cover a story on an attack on tourists thats all, I know nothing about a cargo or whatever, I'm telling you the truth" She said weakly.
"I know you, gringa, you're that journalist that pokes her nose in people's business right?" He said with a thick Spanish accent.
"Y que?, Aren't I at a disadvantage then? but I must say, I feel honored"
She said sarcastically and he hit her, then walked away.
"You are going to tell me who you work for gringa, and you will do so before all your nails come off"
"Boy this is gonna be a long day" She thought.

Kristen was not your regular girl from New York, she was tough, she had actually trained as a Marine at the Marine Corps Base, Quantico and had come out completely refined, that was before she made up her mind to go into combat journalism, despite the fact that she was a journalist, she was once a marine and had published cases from the battle ground. She left the Marine Corps but she had built a reputation for herself and it was easy getting a job, she loved travelling and gathering up huge stories, sometimes she poked into the FBI since she had friends there but it really wasn’t easy with all their classified info, she wasn’t getting the meat she needed, so she decided to do things her way.
When the first body showed up In Florida, they all thought it was just some regular person with a pretty tattoo, but when bodies started surfacing, they realized this was something way bigger than a tattoo parlour, this was the work of a huge organization that specialized in crime and the tattoo was a way of branding their victims, probably to send out a message, but what exactly was the message?
She followed the voiceless victims, till a woman had led her to Tijuana and eventually Tepico where she was kidnapped. She'd found out that she happened to be a Ghanaian reporter by the name Freema Addai.....

New York, Manhattan

"Seriously Adesha you have got to quit appearing like that, God! do you want me ending up like you?"
"That doesn’t sound like a bad idea"
" who then is going to save your sister?"
"You have a point though, for this reason I need to keep you alive"
"Wait can you do that?"
"What?"
"Prevent me from dying?"
"Yeah, I can tell you not to drink coke over mints and not to walk on heels on escalators, Ha! that would be a sight to behold and yes, electric blankets, dread them, the reapers favorites"
"Do they actually exist, reapers?"
"You can die and see for yourself" She chuckled, her arms folded.
"You are really sarcastic you know that? and to think I'm about to travel across the globe for you, a stranger, how do I know all you've said are not lies"
"Ghosts don’t lie, if we do we'll grow a tail"
"You're kidding right?"
"Of course I'm kidding" She laughed.
"Ok would you just cut it out and let me pack, "
"Not stopping you am I" She said and propped herself against the wall.
"How are you able to do that?"
"I've been around for quite some time, I'm pretty sure I can push things around and open doors"
She watched as he placed a bag on the bed, opened it and began to pack his stuff into it.
"So what story are we going to go by?" He asked.
"You'll tell her you are a distant cousin, very distant on our fathers side, we really don’t know most of our relatives from our Fathers side so she'll believe you. Tell her you had a strange note from dad asking you to come down in the case of his death and since you have a background in corporate law and the general business field, you are here to prep her to take over his businesses"
"You just said ghosts don’t lie"
"Well I'm not growing a tail am I?"
He frowned, trying to figure out what she meant.
"That doesn’t make it ok, anyway she will find out the truth, then we go to plan B"
"Which is?"
"You tell her you see ghosts and I appeared to you" Adesha said nonchalantly, walking around and staring and touching stuff.
"Why don’t we just go with that?"
"She'll freak out and call you a liar"
"And we'll just proof I am not"
"She will ask a lot of questions and trust me I know my sister, she will freak out knowing we were probably murdered, she might just ran into the arms of those coming after her life"
"Why would anyone want her dead?"
"My father was into a lot of businesses and deals and for that reason he made a lot of enemies"
"I see"
"Well a month is enough time, I hope this doesn’t take too long, I have a life too"
The doorbell rang.
"Seems you have a visitor"
"Who is it?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?"
He shrugged.
"What kind of ghost are you anyway?" He walked out of his room to go check it out. He looked through the peephole and opened the door.
"Amy, what are you doing here?"
"Errrrm, you were supposed to help me figure out a contract deal"
"Oh yeah, sorry do come in" He let her in.
"Thank you"
"Want anything?"
"No thanks, let's just get this over with"
Adesha was nowhere in sight. He was glad at least she got the concept of privacy.
"I'll be right back"