Zed

 

Her body certainly looked like it had been abused, even though he hadn't laid a hand on her in anger. The closer he looked at her as she sat in the glaring light, wearing only her bra and panties, he realized how many bruises he'd been leaving on her perfectly marked skin.

 

“Still think this is a bad idea,” Abby said, as he finished duct taping her into the chair he'd previously used for the punitive timeout sessions.

 

He stood up in front of her, tape in hand. “And I still think is the best idea we've got,” he replied, as he stretched out a strip of duct tape, producing that weird tape-tearing noise only duct tape can make.

 

“Are you putting that on my mouth, sir?”

 

“I am. We need to make it look authentic.”

 

She sighed.

 

He leaned down and sealed her mouth shut with the long, silvered strip of tape. He sealed down the edges and brushed his hands down her fingers. “Perfect,” he purred.

 

She mumbled her thanks as he turned around and grabbed his cell phone. He brought up the video recorder and looked to Abby. “You don't need to do anything. Don't worry about having to struggle or anything like that, okay?”

 

She nodded, and he hit record with the camera trained back on him, like he was taking a selfie.

 

“Kara Singh, my name is Zed Hesse. My brother is Kai Hesse, who is on death row for murdering his wife and children while in the midst of a psychotic break caused by years of service in the United States Army. This is a matter of public record. What is not a matter of public record is that Kai was taking a medication named Dimalerax, manufactured by Pharma-Vitae. It clearly didn't work, and may have made his symptoms even worse. Dimalerax is currently being marketed to first responders and service members suffering the same symptoms Kai had, with the promise of helping them to get back to normal mental health.

 

“What is also not a matter of public record is that Pharma-Vitae has proof on its servers, showing that their medicine doesn't work, proof that they were able to fake their data, and to push the approval process through federal oversight.” He paused, licked his lips, then stuck the barrel of the pistol against the side of his love's head.

 

Abby flinched as the cold steel touched her temple, her eyes frantically flickering up to the gun. It was perfect enough that Zed was pretty sure she wasn't faking as he moved the camera around to capture her. “I have Abby Winters, CEO of Pharma-Vitae in my custody. If my demands are not met within twenty-four hours, I'll begin cutting pieces off of her, one piece for each hour, so she can understand what losing a piece of yourself to psychosis and insanity feels like.”

 

He hit the stop button, then switched over to text messaging and sent a copy of the file to Kara Singh's cell phone number. He let loose a deep breath, grateful he'd been able to do it in one take.

 

A moment later, his phone began to ring. Kara Singh, already. Perfect timing.

 

“Zed? Is that you?” Kara said, almost desperately, into the phone. “Zed, what the fuck are you doing?”

 

“You got my recording, I take it?”

 

“Of course, I got your recording! What are you thinking?”

 

“I'm thinking I'm getting you to run the story,” Zed said. “And getting the story the exposure it needs.”

 

# # #

 

Abby

 

Abby squeezed her eyes shut, her breath coming hard and fast as Zed answered the phone. Just listening to his words and hearing the tone of his voice almost made her believe it was possible he'd do that to her—that he'd willingly cut her apart bit-by-bit. She knew, of course, he'd never do that. He'd never seriously hurt her. But, if even she thought he sounded sincere in his promise, what would the world think?

 

Zed took the phone from his ear and put the call with Kara on speaker phone. “Kara?” he asked gruffly. “Can you hear me?”

 

“Yes,” Kara said, her voice tinny and hollow in its digitization, “I can hear you, Zed.”

 

“Do you have a pen handy? I have a list of my demands.”

 

“Yes,” she said. “I'm ready.”

 

“Thirty million dollars deposited for my brother, for payment of his defense fund. Admittance by Pharma-Vitae that Dimalerax is a failure. Publication of the true documentation on their experiments. And an exclusive interview with you, Kara. I want a chance to tell my side of the story.”

 

Kara sighed into the phone. “Zed, do you know how crazy all this is?”

 

“I don't care, Kara,” he growled. “This is my brother's, and now Ms. Winters', life on the line. If Pharma-Vitae won't deliver, I'll start putting pieces of Abby aside for safe keeping. Maybe they'll be able to explain to their shareholders why their CEO was cut to pieces, but I doubt it.”

 

“Okay, Zed, okay. I'll see what I can do.”

 

Zed hit the end button and hung up. He immediately began to help Abby out of her bonds, taking the tape from her mouth and cutting bindings on her wrists and ankles. “You all right?” he asked, soothing her hair with his hand and kissing her.

 

She leaned her forehead against his. “You're sure about this, right?”

 

“I better be. If not, this is all going to go out of control really fast.”

 

Together, they paced the house for the next hour. Zed kept her from the windows with their closed curtains. His phone rang, finally, with Kara on the other line. “Turn on the TV,” she said simply. “You're making more than just headlines, Mr. Hess.”

 

They flipped to CNN and saw the anchorwoman talking about the hostage crisis. A crawler across the bottom of screen read: “BREAKING: CEO OF PHARMA-VITAE (PHV -3%) TAKEN HOSTAGE IN HOME BY DISTRAUGHT FAMILY OF CUSTOMER ON DEATH ROW.”

 

“That making enough waves, Mr. Hess?”

 

“Yeah,” Zed said. “I think it is. Any comment from Pharma yet? They say anything about releasing their papers?”

 

“Nothing yet,” Kara admitted. “But, I'm sure we'll hear something soon. Oh, and Mr. Hess?”

 

“Yeah, Kara?”

 

“I wouldn't try anything stupid. Cops are on their way.”