MANIC: Rook and Ronin, #2 (26 page)

And now I'm trapped.

I stumble across the floor, tripping over some light cords, fall on my face, scramble to my feet, and fall again, then settle for crawling towards the back of Spencer's space.

I scramble around the partition that served as my changing room all summer, then lean back against the back wall, desperately trying to silence my gasping breaths. I can hear Veronica and Jon fighting out in the hallway, she's bitching him out, and then a gun goes off and I have to cup my own hand around my mouth to shut myself up.

Chapter Thirty-Four - ROOK

The gunshot is still echoing through my ears and the smell of powder invading my nose when I catch the creak of the door opening. I almost shit myself this time. I clamp my mouth shut and pinch one side of my nose together just like that cop did when I had my panic attack.

If I panic now, I die.

I die.

I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing, listening for footsteps at the same time. I can hear them, but they are not coming towards me, they are walking over towards Director Larry's station.

The lights come on and laughter is blaring through the speakers on the other side of the room.

"Funny, Rook,"
Ford's voice says.

"You know what's funnier?"
my voice says.
"The fact that all you dumbasses got the joke. I know what you're reading at night."

He's been watching me since I started this job. He's been here since the very beginning. He probably tapped into the camera system. He saw everything, he saw me standing naked in this room, five days a week for the last three months.

A slow clap sounds off from the crew station. "Very nice, Rookie. You look very nice in that bikini. Oh, no wait. That's not clothing, that's
paint
. You're posing nude for these sick freaks. I always knew you were a whore."

The vomit wants to come up again, but I swallow hard and keep very, very still—and I'd like to say quiet as well. But my breathing betrays me. In my own head my breath sounds like a raging tornado. The talking covers up most of it, but it also covers up Jon's footsteps.

I have no idea where he is.

Please, Ronin. Please, please—find me!

"I know you're still in here, Rookie. I'm going to take you home now. We can work this out. Of course, there's a price to pay. And you know, I'm always sorry about that, but you're mine. And you make me do those things. Those terrible, terrible things."

He is closer now. I can't hear his steps, but his voice is near. By the couch Ronin and Ford sit on when I'm being painted. I sit up on my haunches, ready to spring up if he finds me, fisting the knife handle.

Something goes crashing across the room, Spencer's artist lights smashing to the ground, shattering, more things go flying and something hits the partition in front of me.

It shakes.

And he laughs.

"Clever little Rookie. You always tried to hide, but you were never very good at it, were you."

I whimper.

"That's right, love. I've caught you. But I'll make you a deal. You come out and say you're sorry, and I'll wait until we get home to teach you a lesson."

I'm nodding.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I'm nodding! I shake my head and grip the knife harder. Then I stand up.

I can see him over the partition.

He's smiling.

I swallow. "I'm sorry."

"Oh," he laughs. "I'm
sure
you are, Mrs. Walsh. I'm
sure
you are."

He waits to see if I'll say anything else, but I just stand quietly, trying to stay as still as possible.

"Is that it? That's the extent of your apology?" He unzips his pants and points to his crotch.

I swallow hard again and force my feet to move, just far enough to get to the edge of the partition wall. Then I stop and wait.

"All the way over here,
right now
!" He growls out the last two words between clenched teeth.

But I don't move. I know what's gonna happen if I go over there and it won't be anything as simple as a blow job apology.

"Now!" he bellows.

I jump a little in fright, but I stay right where I am and shake my head at him. "No, you're going to hurt me," I say in a shaky voice.

"I came all this way to find you, why would I hurt you, Rookie? I'm not gonna hurt you. Not as long as you apologize correctly."

I take a deep breath and repeat Ford's words in my head. No one can fix this mistake for me, I need to fix it myself. Jon has no right to be here, let alone make demands of me. No right. He's lucky I let him go, not the other way around. He's the dick who abused me, not the other way around. I'm the one with the power of righteousness on my side, not him.

So I count to three, stand up a little straighter, and smile at him.

He smiles back. "That's more like it."

"That's more like it?" I ask. "That's more like it? Look, Jon," I say in my most brave voice as I think up a kick-ass way to really piss him off. I can't take this tension. I can't, I'd rather get it over with. If this is my end, I'd rather just go out fighting like a ballsy street bitch and not whimper and fade away like some pathetic loser. So I force his hand and dig around in my brain for one of my God-given gifts. "I'm real sorry you came all this way to get me, but… even if I were blind, desperate, starved, and begging for it on a desert island, you'd be the last thing I'd
ever
fuck."

His face betrays him. He doesn't know what to do with that remark and I almost laugh. I stole that line from
Scarface
and his dumbass woman-beater brain is struck stupid by it. And then it occurs to me, I've got a million of these movie insults in my head. How many times did I imagine telling this prick off? "And I'll tell you something else,
Jon
, the day I need a friend like you, I'll just have myself a little squat and shit one out." Thank you very much, Frank Darabont and
The Mist
.

And now I do laugh, because that was damn funny.

He charges me, I raise the knife just a second too soon and he sees it, knocks me in the head and sends me flying against Spencer's art supplies. I crash into an art cart, lose hold of the knife, and go sliding across the floor. He picks me up by the hair and starts pulling me towards the exit.

"We're leaving now, Rookie, and you won't be back. So take a good look around and—"

"Just who the fuck do you think you are, you crazy ass-faced bastard?"

Veronica is standing in her ripped-up fishnet stockings, her lipstick smeared, her cigarette dangling out of her mouth, and a bloody gash crossing her billowing white blouse at the waist, like a bullet just missed some very vital organs a few minutes ago.

I laugh again. "Ha! Shoot his ass, Veronica! Shoot him!"

And then shit happens so fast I can't process it. Veronica nods and I can seriously see her finger getting ready to squeeze that trigger when Jon pushes me to the floor and charges her. He hits her dead in the chest, knocking the wind out of her and kicking her ass at the same time, and the gun goes off.

Veronica screams.

My feet know what to do and even though I'm ashamed to leave Veronica there, I scoot around Jon before he can get back on his feet, dash through the door and book it down the stairs.

"Help!" I yell, but this fucking place is totally empty.

Jon is right behind me, only a few steps off actually, and I jump down an entire flight of stairs to the next landing, my exercise with Ford finally paying off, and I gain a few seconds on him. When I get to the first floor I head to the back where the crew should be packing the RV and the vans for our trip. I burst through the first security door and I'm pushing on the long silver bar that will open the second door and take me outside when Jon grabs my shirt and we both go down.

I don't even think, I elbow him in the nose, wince at the sound of cracking cartilage, and I'm back on my feet, stumbling out into the parking lot.

No one. There's no one. I stand there, stupid for a second, then focus on Spencer's truck.

I scramble over to the driver's side door, pull it open and launch myself inside. Jon's got me by the ankles, pulling me back out. And I know, if he gets me out of this truck, I'm dead. I kick out hard and crack him in the mouth with my sneakers.

I reach over and open the glove box, praying that there's a gun in here. I pull out a map and some bullshit papers, my palm searching. I feel the cold hard metal of the weapon, slide my hand around the grip, cock that bitch-ass safety back, then point it right at his face.

"I will blow your motherfucking head off, I swear."

He hesitates and I open the passenger side door, jump down and run back to the building. I'm keying in my code before he comes to his senses and realizes I didn't shoot him. I swing the door open again, running all balls out now, and then smack right into Ronin.

I mow him over and we go down together. Jon catches up, but now he's not worried about me, he's focused on Ronin.

And there's no fucking way this batshit-crazy woman-beater is gonna hurt my new friends.

So I shoot that fucker.

And the gunshot is so loud, it rings in my ears long after Jon falls to the floor, screaming.

Chapter Thirty-Five - RONIN

The smoke is still spilling out of the barrel of the revolver in Rook's hand and that psycho rapist is writhing on the floor, his knee blown out and blood pooling under his body. Rook and I are all tangled up and she's shaking uncontrollably as I try to move her aside and figure out what the fuck is going on.

Spencer comes barreling in from the back door, while Ford enters from the front.

"Yes," Ford says into his phone. "I need an ambulance, there's been a shooting at Chaput Studios… "

Rook gasps and looks back at me. I put a hand on her shoulder. "Keep calm, Gidge. I'm not fucking around right now, let me handle this." I hold out my hand. "Give me the gun."

She looks down at the gun, then over to her ex. He's moaning on the ground, blood is still spilling out at an alarming rate.

My little Gidget might've hit an artery.

I smile at that, then turn back to her. "Rook, look at me. We've got about three minutes before the cops get here."

She nods her head and hands the gun over.

"You are in shock, OK? Do not say anything. You are in shock. Do you understand me?"

She nods again.

"The whole building is wired, we've got it all on tape. But you are in shock, you will not make a statement until the shock wears off."

I get up and then pull her up along with me.

"Is he gonna die, Ronin?" Her voice is very small and shaky as the reality of what just happened sinks in.

"No, Gidge, we're not gonna let him die. Death is too good for that prick." I take her hand and walk her out the back door. There's people everywhere now. Elise and Antoine are talking to the crew, just getting back from breakfast. Elise is bordering on hysterical, while Antoine catches my gaze and rushes over babbling frantically in French.

"She's OK, she's fine. Let us handle this, Antoine. You two were at breakfast across town, you never saw anything, so step the fuck back and just say
I have no idea
over and over until they get sick of asking you questions."

I open Spencer's truck door and sit Rook down on the passenger side. "Pay close attention, Gidget." She's scared out of her mind right now, so I lean in and kiss her on the head just as half a dozen Denver police pull in the back alley. "You're in shock, remember? Just stay quiet until I'm done talking."

I'm not the genius who perfected this plan.

That's Spencer.

I'm not the hacker who executed this plan.

That's Ford.

I'm the liar who cleans up the mess.

And my job starts now.

"Threatening text messages," I tell the cops. Because that's innocent, really. Easy. And you always want the job to be easy. "If you check his phone, you'll see he sent her text messages this morning, threatening to kill her, me, all of us."

The law about searching cell phones is iffy at best, so we needed a fool-proof way to make sure his phone would be checked on scene—no room for mistakes, no way to hide what he's got on there.

Jon is too smart to send threats by text. But Ford took care of that because sending threats, followed by Jon's genius plan of breaking and entering and attempted murder, means no search warrant is required to access the phone and look for that evidence.

And guess what pops up on the home screen of our friend Jon as soon as the cop swipes his chubby fingers to wake it up?

No really, just guess.

It's almost a giveaway, the Feds use this one all the time. Our version is a new take on the long con bait-and-switch, because we're super-awesome lying, hacking geniuses like that.