RUSTY | frank castle

FOUR

"Do you always talk this much?"

Dave chuckled as Frank used his knife to eat some canned food he found in one of Dave's cupboards. 

"I guess I talk when I'm nervous."

"Well, guess you're not as stupid as you look."

Frank continued to eat the food, whereas the Lieberman father was sat tied to his office chair, buck naked and cold. Frank wasn't one to be nice to people who disrupt his peace, and, hell, did Dave disrupt his motherfucking peace.

There seemed to be an awkward silence when an alarm started off from one of the computers. Dave looked back and saw the timer going off. This wasn't good.

"What is that?" Frank asked, his voice calm as he stopped eating from the old can.

"Shit." The Lieberman muttered. "Okay. . ."

Frank walked to where the alarm was going off, but turned back when Dave started talking. 

"Okay, this place is rigged."

"What do you mean it's rigged?!" Frank has lost his intimidating stature and was now close to shouting. "What is that?"

"It means, I don't type a code into the central terminal, then. . ." Dave paused, trying to find the right word, "kaboom." 

 •••

Heavy punk-looking Dr Martens entered the diner by the train station. The bell rang as the sombre woman entered the cheerful looking building. Her two dogs sat outside the door, waiting on their owner.

"Hey, uh. . .", the woman's almost croaky voice with a weird-sounding accent called to any worker available, "can I bring my dogs in here."

A middle-aged waitress with a plump body and brown hair came up to her, a hot coffee pot in one hand. She looked outside and sighed at the dangerous-looking dogs that sat respectfully outside Pete's Diner and Grill.

"They won't cause any trouble, ma'am. They're well-trained dogs." Rusty spoke, taking off her black cap.

"Alright. But make sure they don't get in the way." The lady pursed her lips and walked away to serve an awaiting customer.

"'Course."

Rusty walked to the glass door, where the two dogs sat. Their tails wagged happily when they saw that Rusty was coming to them. She opened the door, and the bell dinged again while the dogs came in.

The trio took the last booth; the wall behind where Rusty sat was mirrored, and the window was to her right. Fender lay down by her seat while Lexi took her place under the table. The darkly dressed woman slipped off her black coat and unzipped her grey jumper as the air in the diner was hot and smelled like burned oil. She slipped out a small laptop from her backpack and continued her research through newspaper articles and online chat rooms. 

  ••• 

"Hey!" Lieberman called. 

Frank was in the. . . kitchen. He was refilling the steel bucket he just used to throw water on the man tied to the chair who was shouting at him. 

"If somebody was coming who would it be?"

Frank looked up, a slightly pained expression on his face. He remembered the time he wasn't an innocent man anymore. He remembered the time Rusty wasn't an innocent woman anymore. He remembered the man that started it all. That one fucking man.