Trained To Kill

twenty one: cutting deals.

I don’t fight them. What’s the point? No matter what I do, I can’t get out of this one. What does happen, though, is my heart rate kicks up to an alarming speed.

They know about me.

They know and now they’re going to kill me or torture me or punish Jacob or God knows what.

I quietly submit as the two men grab both of my arms and roughly drag me along towards wherever. I return to the room where I was taken the first time. The chair awaits.

This time, though, I’m not handcuffed or bound or even blindfolded. They just sit me down in the seat and wait at both corners. The silence is killing me.

Almost as if he can read my mind, the man with the crooked smile laughs. “I swear you’ve just gotten more beautiful through the years.” I look at him with disgust and roll my eyes. “Certainly the spitting image of your mother.”

Now, what on earth does he know about my mother? I want to spit that question at him in the nastiest way possible, but I bite my tongue. It’s best to keep my mouth shut. Only, it’s hard to do when he starts walking my way with that nasty smile plastered on his face. He reaches forward and strokes my cheek and I turn my head away from him. For whatever reason, this makes him laugh too. “It’s nice to see you again, Karma.”

His words make my skin crawl. The feeling of his hand on my skin makes me want to shout. And that stupid, stupid smile makes me want to kill somebody. My chest starts to rise and fall due to the anger that’s welling up in me. I try to stop it, so he won’t think he’s getting a rise out of me. But that’s exactly what’s happening. “Get the fuck away from me.”

He starts to back away, thankfully. “I see you’ve got a smart little mouth there. I never knew that about you. Last time we met, you were having trouble speaking.”

I shoot him daggers with my eyes. I don’t even bother playing into his games. I don’t care about them. I just want whatever’s in store for me to happen so I can just get it over with. This whole Control thing is getting old.

Down the hall, I hear the click of heels against the floor. Oddly enough, I recognize them from our first encounter back from what feels like years ago. For a minute, it seems like the entire room holds its breath, waiting for whatever monster is about to step through those doors.

The door opens and a petite, brown haired woman steps through. Her appearance is cleaned up to a t, starting with how perfectly her shoulder length hair is cut down to her tightly fitted pencil skirt and lower to her red bottom heels on that look sharp enough to kill a man. She gazes at me and smiles with these piercing brown eyes. “Hello again, Karma.”

I don’t respond. My eyes were glued to hers as she walks across the room, walking forward to me and then back again. She looks at the man with the crooked smile and nods pleasantly. “I’m here to talk business with you. Think you’d be willing to do that?”

Come on, Karm. Don’t be a pussy.

“Why on earth should I believe anything you say?” I try to remain expressionless and emotionless. But it’s hard to do when I’m kind of freaking out. Do they know about me or do they not?

She smiles and it makes me want to stab her in the face. I wonder if one of the side effects of the drug makes you more violent? Probably. “Normally, I’d say you shouldn’t. But these are different circumstances.” She pauses for a moment, walking a little bit closer to me. “We’d like to cut you a deal.”

“Who’s we?”

“I’m not here to play games. You know who we are. You see Karma, I’m afraid you’ve seemed to make friends with the wrong company, and I can tell you right now that you all have seemed to gotten yourselves in a situation that’s not going to end well.”