Liona
Nervous and agitated, Liona paced back and forth in the rec room. This was insane. She couldn't believe she’d let Cutter run off on his own like this. He didn't know what Wyland was capable of. Even though they were friends years ago, he thought Wyland was just some prick in a suit. Cutter thought that, as president of the Vanguard, he was some top dog on the street. But, Wyland was crazy. There was no telling what he'd do.
She chewed at her thumb, gnawing away at the tip as she tried to think of what she could do. She had an idea, but she didn't know if it would work or not. She remembered seeing some sleeping pills in Cutter's medicine cabinet when she'd been rummaging for some face wash. Maybe, if she could get the guys to have a drink with her, she could slip one of them, or both, a mickey. She looked furtively back over her shoulder at Smalls and Squirrel, who had returned to their seemingly genteel game of pool.
“Come on, man,” Squirrel said as he chalked the tip of his cue, “you can't make that shot.”
“Boy,” Smalls said, grunting as he leaned down over the pool table and got a bead on the eight ball with the cue ball, “don't tell me what I can and can't do. This shit's child's play.”
Squirrel barked out a laugh. “Believe it when I see it.”
“Hey guys,” Liona said.
Smalls and Squirrel glanced her way, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, girl?” Smalls asked.
“I'm gonna head back to Cutter's bunk. Try to read or something, take my mind off things.”
“Alright,” he said, nodding. “We'll keep an eye out for Cutter. Either of us hear anything, we'll let you know, okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
She left them in the rec room and went back to Cutter's bunk. She went into his bathroom and to his medicine cabinet. Only, they weren't there. “Shit,” she swore to herself, slamming the medicine cabinet shut. She leaned down and began to dig through the drawers just below the sink. They had to be here somewhere!
Outside in the rec room, there was a loud yell. “Goddammit, Squirrel!”
She stopped and cocked her head. It was Smalls, probably yelling about Squirrel snaking the winning shot out from underneath him, or some other crap. Even before the rest of the guys had been locked up, those two had been at each other's throats over little competitive games like cards and pool. As far as Liona could tell, it just seemed to be part of their natures that they were both competitive.
She went back to digging around in the drawers. Nothing in the first one, just an empty bottle of aftershave an old, half-filled canister of shaving cream. She slid it shut and went onto the second.
There was a loud thud, then a door slammed. Probably Smalls going off to his room to have a drink in some peace and quiet. She wasn't too worried about it. Just meant she'd only have to drug one of them. And, quite frankly, she didn't mind drugging Squirrel. He was kind of an asshole, if she was being honest.
At the bottom of the second drawer, she found the half-filled bottle of sleeping pills with Cutter's given name typed out on them. She gave them a shake and closed up the drawer. She didn't know why he had this prescription, but she knew they'd work pretty well for what she wanted. A few years back, she'd had the same thing prescribed to her by her doctor after Wyland had mentioned she seemed to have problems sleeping.
At the time, she'd wanted to scream at him, “No asshole! I just don't want to sleep next to you!”
She pocketed the bottle of pills and closed up the medicine cabinet, then headed back out towards the rec room. Squirrel was still in there, picking up pieces of a broken pool cue from the ground.
“Woah,” Liona asked as she came around to his side of the table. “What happened?”
He shook his head. “Smalls got all pissy when I won,” he said in a frantic and frustrated voice, “and stormed off to his bunk. You know how he gets sometimes, acts like a real goddamn asshole of a sore loser. Big time, you know.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. But, hey, would you like another beer?” she asked, gesturing to his nearly empty one sitting on the table. “I'm going to grab one, and I hate to drink alone.”
“Sure,” he said, perking right up as he collected the last of the pool cue and took it over to the table. “That'd be great,” he added over his shoulder.
She didn't like doing this. The guys here were rough, but who among the Vanguard wasn't? To join an outlaw gang like this, you had to, pretty much by definition, be a social outcast and misfit. It didn't necessarily make someone like Squirrel a bad person, or mean there was anything wrong with him. He was just an odd duck, as her father would say.
Liona went into the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge. She twisted off the tops and set them down on the counter, then went and rummaged for a spoon. She pulled the pills out, shook a few into her hand, and stuck the pill bottle back in her pocket. She set the little blue pills on the counter top and, with the back of the spooning bowl, began to crush the pills into a fine powder. She pulled out the bottle and checked the recommended dosage again. Just one pill. Liona screwed up her face and bit the inside of her mouth. Okay, five pills. That should be more than enough to knock him out, and make it last.
She finished crushing the rest of the pills till she'd hit her quota, then slowly and deliberately brushed the narcotic dust into the mouth of the beer bottle. The powder dissolved easily, and mixed well with the drink. Then she very carefully picked up the laced drink in her left hand, and made sure her intended beer was in her right. Satisfied she knew the difference, she headed back out into the rec room. First, she'd dose Squirrel. Then, when he was groggy enough for her to slip away, she'd go find Cutter and help him figure this out. She just hoped Smalls wouldn't wake up while she was trying to make her getaway. She didn't know if she had enough pills to dose a man his size.
“You wanna play another game of pool or something?” she asked as she put the beer in her left hand down in front of him. She gave him a big, friendly grin. “Promise I won't break the stick when I lose.”
He returned her grin so wide she could see those bad and missing molars of his near the back. “Sure thing, little lady. Love to.”