Rain
“OOMPH.”
Austen’s breath exits his body as my fist sharply powers into his right side. Connecting a shot like that used to give me an adrenaline rush. Back then, it was like a sport to me. But unlike before, each hit is just as unsatisfying as the one before it. Charlie. I still have no idea where she is or if she’s okay.
“Where is she?” I ask firmly.
I never thought he was a very smart man, but having him in front of me now in this old abandoned house, he’s dumber than I could have imagined. His lips turn up in the corners, showing his bloodied teeth. He knows where she is and he also knows that I’m aware of that fact. If I kill him, it might be too late before I find Charlie. But I will find her with or without him. I’m the best scout in all of Portland, but I can’t have my eyes on him and hunt down Charlie at the same time. Not only would he slow me down, but it would also draw too much attention and not just with my enemies. Being that he’s a bigwig in this town doesn’t help me at all. I’d be in jail before I could turn my head and cough.
“She’s not your type,” he spits.
“She’s not yours either,” I say, crossing my arms against my chest in attempt to stop myself from choking him out. Had he said that months ago, I wouldn’t argue. Charlie was nothing like the type of woman I used to date. But those days were long ago and everything has changed. I have changed.
“Twelve years of bliss would say differently.”
“Bliss?” I ball up my fist and swing hard into his left jaw. “There. How did that feel?”
Austen breathes heavily, trying to push down the pain surging in his face. The struggle is written all over him. Bending over him, I get close.
“Did it feel like bliss?”
His heavy eyes lift to mine. No remorse. Not one single drop of shame. At this rate, he’s not going to survive another hour, much less until I find out who has Charlie and where. I walk behind him, making sure his hands are still secured behind his back. My foot kicks the back leg, causing the chair to fall backward, and I drag him into the room that used to be my bedroom years ago. Working for Klipp meant I made enough money to buy my first house. When I made the decision to leave Portland, there was no time to sell it. So I kept it all these years and paid to keep up the outside so no one would have any idea no one was living here, unless of course they walked inside and only saw a dining table and chairs with a good two inches of dust on them. Standing at the windows in the living room, I find the number I need and watch the moon fall back behind the clouds.
“I need you to find someone,” I say to Devino in the phone.
“You couldn’t find him?” he asks, laughing.
“I’m wearing his blood on my hands as we speak. Someone else.”
“Are you sick? I don’t work for you. You’re also out of favors.”
“Am I?”
“Tell me,” Devino grunts.
Describing Charlie takes no effort on my part. I remember every small detail of her face. Every line. Every crease. Every curve. I know her exact height, weight, hair color, and the shade of pink she stains her lips.
“Jesus Christ, Rain,” he says in disbelief. “Do you have a lead?”
“Someone in a van took her from a parking lot in California. But I have every reason to believe whoever took her brought her back to Portland.”
“Before I agree to any of this, who is she?”
“She was Austen’s girl. He wasn’t very nice to her. Now she’s mine, and I’ll destroy this entire town and every fucking person in it to find her.”
The lack of response on the other end is not a surprise. I know just as well as he does what this means. This isn’t going to be an easy job. Most likely, this is going to end up in some kind of pissing match. Whoever has her probably isn’t just going to hand her over. By agreeing to this, he’s agreeing to have my back just like I had his all those years ago.
“I’ll be in touch,” Devino says, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
A thud comes from the back room where I stored the piece of shit. I laugh when I see Austen has fallen forward onto his face trying to get out of the restraint.
“Good luck with that,” I say, smirking. “I learned how to tie those knots in Boy Scouts. They’re impossible to get undone if you don’t know what you’re doing. Were you ever in Boy Scouts, Austen?”
His grunts echo in the empty room as he struggles on the floor. Casually, I walk to the window and pull back the old bed sheet to look out to the backyard. I’m worried as hell about Charlie, but there’s no way I’m going to let Austen see that.
“It’s surprisingly mild out for a winter night. Don’t you think?” Again, Austen doesn’t answer my question, and he hasn’t given up on trying to get loose. “Oh, here, let me help you,” I say sarcastically.
I grab Austen by his blond hair and one shoulder, and fling him backwards so hard that as the chair lands on all four feet, his head bounces of the wall. His face puckers for a second on the impact, but then his eyes focus in on me.
“You must really want her,” he chokes out.
If he starts talking about Charlie, all my self-control will be gone.
“Stop talking.”
“I don’t blame you. She is a little spitfire, isn’t she?”
“I said, stop talking.”
“Her tight little body.” Austen closes his eyes. “You should see how she comes undone for me.”
“That’s it, fucker.” Unable to stop, I pull my pocket knife out and cut the ropes I used to tie him to the chair. “Get up.” I put my knife back and readjust my gun in my waistband holster to make sure it’s secure.
His face loses the confused look from when I began cutting the ropes, and it quickly turns sinister. There’s nothing I want more than to put a bullet through the middle of his eyes, but instead, I’m going to load him up into my truck and he’s going to bring me to Charlie or accidentally fall into the Columbia with a weight. As I’m about to begin tying new rope to his hands, his phone chimes in my pocket. I took it from him when I forced him into my truck by gunpoint on the side street. The distraction from the phone isn’t enough for me to miss Austen’s attempted advance in my direction. The phone will have to wait. Austen’s fist goes to the right, so I duck left. The trick to a fistfight is being able to predict your opponent’s moves before they make them. He failed at the right and I’d give fifty bucks he goes left next. As I straighten, sure enough, to the left he goes. It’s easy to see what an unskilled fighter he is. My right hand barely moves, but it’s enough to trick him to think I’m throwing a right punch, but my left hand jolts out, and the blow sends him to the ground.
I use the time to reach into my pocket and pull out Austen’s phone. Bingo!
“Well, look what we have here.” I read the text to myself, and the metallic flavor of blood enters into my mouth. I keep biting my cheek harder and harder the more I think about someone having her. Having their filthy fucking hands all over her. I’ll free her. Then I’ll kill every single last one of them.
“That was easy. Want your girl? Bring the money. Don’t make me wait.”
“How much did you pay them?”
Austen raises his busted eyebrow. For someone who has had their ass handed to them repeatedly, he’s a cocky fuck.
“Who?” He doesn’t even hide his exaggerated fake ignorance.
Years ago, I would have had great fun with Austen. But not with Charlie on the line. My patience is gone. Drawing my gun from the holster, I slowly point it in his direction.
“I’m all done with this. Tell me, or I shoot you. Your choice.”
Austen begins to chuckle as he shakily stands. “You won’t shoot me. You don’t have the gu—”
Bang!
I hold the gun steady as I smile from my impeccable aim. He needs to stay alive to take me to whoever sent this text. The bullet barely grazed the surface of Austen’s shoulder. Klipp and I spent a lot of time together. He taught me everything and made me an outstanding marksman. I know exactly where to plant the bullet. I’ve done it before. But I’ve never done the kill shot. Today, that may change.
“You were saying?” I ask.
Austen sits on the ground, holding his unfortunately barely bleeding arm. His face now suggests that he’s taking me a bit more seriously. With the gun still trained at him, I take slow steps in his direction until I’m toe-to-toe with him. Kneeling down, I press the deadly steel to his temple.
“Take me,” I demand.
I back up only enough for him to get up off of the floor. His right hand is holding tightly onto the flesh wound he now has on his shoulder. Even though he’s keeping his lips tightly pressed together in a thin line, I can hear the internal groans of pain. Pain that isn’t nearly great enough to compare to the years of complete agony he put Charlie through. I have no sympathy.
“Get. The. Fuck. Up.”
Austen slowly struggles to his feet. I have a feeling his body will give out much quicker than his stupid mind. I kick the rope up with my foot from the floor and catch it in my free hand. Once I’ve placed my gun back into my holster, I pull his right hand to his back. I’m a sick son of a bitch for wanting to hear his scream as I jerk his left hand back and pull it high between his shoulder blades. As I come around to face him, the look on his face unnerves me.
“What’s that look about?”
“There’s just one little thing you’re forgetting.”
“Yeah,” I smirk. “What’s that?”
“I don’t have the money.”
“Oh, ye of little experience.” I chuckle. “I’m not going to need money.”
Goddammit, Devino, pick up the phone. Irritated, I slam my finger on the screen, hanging up on his voicemail. Leaving a voicemail feels like making a speech in front of a hundred people in an auditorium, so I just don’t. Sitting outside of an old apartment building that looks like it should have been condemned years ago, I text Devino the address, also warning him that Austen could be lying about this being the place.
When we first pulled up to this building, the adrenaline kicked in full force. If this was the place, it looks as though this could get interesting.
“C’mon,” I tell Austen as I scoot across the truck and push him out the passenger door by his arm. With my gun deep in between his shoulder blades, I slowly walk him towards the side of the closest building. “Don’t make a sound or you’ll be the first to go.”
During Devino’s training, I stressed the importance of observation. Always be aware of your surroundings. Exits, entrances, people who could become witnesses, and most important, a route for escape. Looking around as I make a note of these, the industrial area brings a cold chill down my spine. I’ve been here before. The sound of the train roaring off in the distance places me right back to the night Klipp had sent me here to find a target. Those thoughts fade quickly. Surrounded by concrete and busted-out windows, I surge forward with only one thing left on my mind. Charlie.
“You better be right on this address.”
“It is.”
His arrogant tone makes me wish I could shoot him dead right here in the street. It takes an overwhelming amount of willpower not to squeeze this trigger. He nearly trips as I forcefully push him towards the angled door in the front of the building. I don’t see anything inside but a few bookshelves against the back wall. If this door opens, then I know this is probably the place. At this time of night, if the buildings are occupied, their doors are going to be locked up tight to prevent the riffraff from getting in and shooting up drugs inside. A slight tug on the door pulls it from the frame.
“Speak and die,” I whisper to him. Then I push him first through the door. We make our way through the front of the building. The air is heavy and nauseating. A sound comes from the stairwell, and quickly, I plaster my back to the wall and hold dickhead in front of me. If someone comes out shooting, he’s getting it first. Even though my trained step is light, this fat fucker has a step of an elephant in a glass house. My mouth parts to tell Austen to quiet, but the click of a weapon in my ear stops me. Fuck. This isn’t going to be the first time I’ve been caught. The last time I got caught, it didn’t turn out too well for them. My head turns to look at the thick barrel in my face, and then my eyes focus to the man behind it.
“Bill?” I ask, still in a whisper. He doesn’t flinch at his name. He just stares at me, straight faced and unmoving. The last time I saw Bill he was with Jansen. But what the hell is he doing here? And where the fuck is Charlie?
“Let him go,” he orders, flicking his gun towards Austen and then back into my face. That’s when I lose it. All blood that kept me alive from the chest up runs straight down to my feet. My heart feels like it’s been poked by a thousand needles and each hole is gushing blood.
“You hired him?” I ask Austen, breathless.
“No. But I did hire his boss,” he says as he pulls his hands out of mine and backs away from my gun.
“Drop it,” Bill orders.
Oh, fuck no. Please no. I know who Bill’s boss is, and if he has Charlie, things have just gone from bad to the worst scenario possible.