pleasuretoburn (pleasuretoburn) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-08 14:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | noah restic, npc |
Deal With the Devil
Who: Noah/NPC John Schram (Written by Rae)
What: Pay Up
Where: Las Vegas, John's office
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Very High, Intense, Disturbing, Violent
Pacing.
He found the motion methodical and comforting as he neared the cusp of anxiety and panic. John had requested something of another human being and once Noah had left the hotel room he had found himself swollen with a mixture of regret, fear, and elation. Up until now the concoction had been maddening; Roman had bragged about going on some short business trip, and John knew that the man wasn’t coming back.
Afterward, Noah had sent a text. A meeting at the office, disable the cameras. John had done just that.
Everyone else had gone home. John told the receptionist he would be staying late, it was the usual excuse though this time it truly was a fib.
Unlike others, he actually stayed after to do work and not orchestrate meetings of the unsavory type, especially like this.
When the knock at the main door to the office came, he had to contain himself to keep from running to the barrier. Instead, John opted for a brisk walk, feeling nervous and giddy at the same time. His problems had been solved and he had Noah to thank.
The door to the practice swung open and John stepped aside to let Noah in. “Is it done?” The lawyer asked hurriedly. He couldn’t hide the anticipation and excitement, though he felt bad about it.
“How brash of you. This is a human life we’re talking about,” Noah remarked in a bored tone, entering the office and looking around curiously. So this was where Roman spent the bulk of his time. It was nicely designed and furnished, though he hadn’t expected anything less. He focused his attention on John, instantly noting the man’s demeanor.
“Yes, it’s done. I took pictures, would you like to see them?” The pyrokinetic waved his phone underneath the squirming lawyer’s face.
John instantly felt bad about asking. Noah was right, that was a human life even if that life wasn’t a good one. A nod. The door closed behind Noah with a soft click and the once present elation had evaporated. He felt more like a deflated balloon.
The pictures caused him to shake visibly, John shook his head and waved the phone away. “No, no, I can’t look. I don’t want to see it.”
Noah shrugged and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Suit yourself.” He nodded toward a door with John’s name inscribed on it. “Let’s go to your office. We’ll discuss your end of the deal.” The pyrokinetic led the way, taking charge. He opened the door and slipped inside, examining the framed photographs on the lawyer’s desk. Two elderly people he assumed were the man’s parents, another of John and a man about his age on a fishing trip, holding up a prized bass.
“This place is your whole life, isn’t it?” Noah mused.
He needed the guidance more than he realized and without thinking, John was following Noah without question. To the door with the frosted pane of glass bearing his name in gold lettering. His end of the deal. He hadn’t wanted anything more than Roman gone. His stomach twisted in knots with guilt but his curiosity was piqued in regards to what lay ahead for him.
The door eased shut behind him.
“Yeah, I feel like I live here sometimes,” John admitted, words tangled in what was supposed to be a laugh. He moved across the room, around the small wooden desk piled high with paper, and sat down in his large, leather chair.
At least the chairs for clients and guests were far more comfortable in here than they were in the office down the hall, the office of the now deceased partner. For a second John wondered if he would get that office. Then he decided he didn’t want it.
“I want to watch you delete everything that you have on me,” Noah told John. He moved to stand behind the man, his eyes on the computer screen. “Once that’s done, I’ll be out of your life. You will never see me again,” the pyrokinetic promised. He arranged his features into a mask of sincerity.
Inspired, he added, “You did what you had to do, John. What any smart man would have done, when faced with an impossible problem like Roman. You have to be a predator to truly succeed.”
As Noah came around the desk, John flinched visibly. He wouldn’t deny that he was afraid. Noah made him nervous. “Oh, okay. Yeah, sure,” John nodded.
The top of his laptop eased open. Fingers settled against the keys, they danced across the pad and his password was entered. A few more swift motions and John erased all of the data and information he had on the man behind him. “It’s gone. All of it.”
His laptop would snap quietly closed.
“Good.” Noah smiled and moved around to the front of the desk, settling into one of the leather chairs. He reached out and picked up one of the photographs, showing it to John before staring at it. “Your parents must be very proud of you,” he remarked idly.
“You know, toward the end, Roman begged for his life?” the pyrokinetic continued. He met the lawyer’s eye and held his gaze with dark, impassive eyes.
“Spoke highly of you. Said you were a good man, that you would end up doing great things. Maybe in another life, you two could have been friends. How sad.”
At the remark John looked up and at Noah. “They are.” He’d gone through law school, graduated almost top of his class from Harvard. The grueling pace of education had been worth the end result, all of those evenings spent riding on the high of Adderall and cramming while everyone else partied and carried on.
The next bit surprised him. “Really? I didn’t think he cared about me at all.” His actions were void of the care and consideration most people offered in the casual sense. “Like every time we spoke he would go through the motions and find a way out of the conversation.” Maybe he had misinterpreted the situations. He felt that pang of guilt brush against his insides.
“Maybe he felt inadequate next to you,” Noah said, repressing a smile. “Or maybe he knew how everyone felt about him, this younger lawyer coming from California and upsetting the balance.” He put the photograph down, setting it so that the faces of his parents were staring John down.
“Do you think they would be proud of you now, knowing what you’ve done?” The pyrokinetic’s tone was gentle but prodding.
Whatever that surge of pride had been, it deflated as quickly as it had come when Noah asked about what his parents might think about what John had asked.
Both of his folks were Bible toting, god-fearing people who walked the line that the lord set down before them. They’d raised their son to follow the same pathway. John had been tempted by the devil, he’d been weak. But God had shown him the way, the truth, the light.
“No,” he confessed. John lowered his eyes from the photograph, unable to look at the faces of his smiling, elderly parents. “They wouldn’t be proud.”
Noah leaned forward, anticipating the next part with relish. This man had shoehorned himself into the pyrokinetic’s past, had threatened everything that he had built for himself in Vegas. A flash of anger reflected in his eyes, he uncoiled like a snake to strike.
“I could easily send evidence to this firm about what you’ve done. I rented the home Roman died in with your credit card. The conversation we had in the hotel was recorded.” This was a lie, of course.
“I think you’ll know, John, that Nevada is a one-party consent state.” His gaze fell on the man’s desk once again. “Your parents will know. Bert will know. This whole firm will know. Not only will you be disbarred, but you’ll go to prison. And I’ll be long gone.”
“You can’t do that,” John choked. The color has left his face leaving eyebrows much too dark and the blue in his eyes much too dim. His chin lifted. Beneath the desk his right leg was shaking, bouncing up and down. His posture had stiffened and his hands grasped the edge of the desk leaving his fingers white at the knuckles.
“I’ll expose you. You can’t turn on me!” His voice began to raise a touch and over the fear, anger started to flood in. Noah was the bad guy here, not him.
“Oh, you’ll expose me?” Noah laughed. “Who do you think wanted to declare me dead, to sweep me under the rug? Fuck, you might just be the dumbest smart guy I’ve ever met. I was a science experiment gone wrong. My own government was in on it. It’s better for everyone that they think I’m dead, and they’ll make sure it stays that way.”
He leaned back comfortably in the chair. “I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m a killer, an anomaly. I can settle anywhere, like a parasite. But you? This is all you are.” Noah gestured to the office around them. “You’ll be known as nothing more than the pathetic, groveling fool who couldn’t even take care of his own bully. The church-going hypocrite who couldn’t hack it.”
A fist would slam down onto the top of his blotter. The pens in the cup holder shivered, his laptop wiggled a bit but overall was unaffected. The picture of his parents tipped forward and he barely registered the shattering of the pane of glass in the frame.
“You are a killer,” John murmured, agreeing with Noah. “You’ll never get away with it. Even if you said something, with your reputation everyone would know it was you. I won’t let you ruin my life!” Now his voice lifted another octave, that irritation evident.
The fist on the blotter lifted. John pointed his finger at Noah. “I’ll finish you.”
Noah remained calm during this demonstration of righteous anger. Ignoring the lawyer’s statements, he stated matter-of-factly, “At midnight tonight, an e-mail is scheduled to be sent out company-wide from your address stating that you can’t handle the emotional toll of this work any longer. It will detail how lonely you are and have been, how the toxic work environment has worn you down. It will end with your full confession.”
He stood slowly, resting his palms on the edge of John’s desk. “At that same time, Roman Skye, who is not dead, will be reporting to the Las Vegas police how you tried to falsely blackmail an associate of his into killing him. The press will also be contacted. All of this will happen, unless you do one simple thing.”
For a second time that evening the color in John’s face melted away. He went from angry to meek, eyes wide as he peered up at the looming man whose face was now shadowed from the angle he stood against the dimmed light of the office.
He’d been conned. Tricked. Roman had outsmarted him again somehow and he felt embarrassed, furious. He should’ve known not to ask favors of someone he knew associated with Roman Skye.
“What’s the thing?” John inquired, voice breaking mid sentence as the air escaped him. Utter ruin was impending and he felt desperate to evade it.
“All you have to do,” Noah explained, adopting that earlier soothing, friendly tone, “is go out onto the roof of this building, and jump. I’ll even go up there with you, so you don’t have to do it alone. And because I’m fair, I’ll let you compose some goodbye texts to your parents and Bert.” He picked up one of the broken, jagged pieces of glass, holding it up to the light.
“Or we can do it the hard, slow, painful way. It’s your choice, John. But either way, you’re not leaving here alive.”
He gulped, shrinking back into the leather of the plush office chair. The fight had left him. An idea of trying to fight his way out occurred - maybe he could take this man, but something in his brain told him Noah was a contract killer for a reason.
“J-jump?” He didn’t want to jump off of the roof. He didn’t want to die. “Please,” John begged. “I’m sorry. I never should’ve asked for this. Please!”
“No, John,” Noah replied. “What you shouldn’t have done was threaten me. I tend to take it personally. And now I know what you know, and while I’m fairly certain it won’t have a lasting impact on me, it’s the principal of the matter. I don’t back away from a challenge.”
He turned the glass over slowly so that the sharp point faced upward. “Like I said, you have two choices. Do you really think I’d go easy on you? You saw what I did to my own family.”
John cowered in the seat. It was clear that Noah meant business, he was a professional for hire after all. He hadn’t meant for any of this to escalate so quickly - it all had started as an idea from a man with a problem and now he really did have a problem larger than he’d bargained for.
“Please,” he asked again.
But he slowly began to stand up. His whole body shook from fear and moisture welled up in his eyes. “You don’t have to do this.” Again, repeating it over and over so that Noah knew that this didn’t have to be an option. “I can leave town. Disappear. Never come back.”
Noah shook his head regretfully. “But I would know that you still existed, John. That you would be out there, somewhere, starting over. No real consequences for what you’ve done.” He crossed the space between them, gently pressing the tip of the glass against the lawyer’s throat. With his other hand, the pyrokinetic grasped the arm of the chair so that he couldn’t scoot away.
“If you think you’ll have any kind of life after everyone finds out who you really are, you’re wrong. You won’t work in law. Your parents will be ashamed of you, they might never speak to you again. No more fishing trips with your buddy. You’ll be reduced to a story that Roman can dine out on for years. That time the milquetoast John Schram tried to put a hit out on him, and failed miserably. Just like he failed at everything.”
That pressure on his throat set reality upon him. He nearly screamed, biting down on his lips to keep himself from doing that in case it worked Noah up. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.” He knew he wouldn’t, God knew he wouldn’t, but it didn’t seem to matter. “Jump.” The last part was mumbled miserably.
He’d failed to get Roman out of his life. This had all gone horribly wrong.
John sniffled. He nodded. “I’m ready.”
Noah pulled the glass away, the tiniest imprint left in the man’s skin. He knew John would choose the easy way. The pyrokinetic didn’t really care if the man lived or died, but it was important to him that he and Roman share this secret. It was leverage, but also a strange sort of bonding. He would elevate Roman to his level, above the bureaucracy, above the bullshit, stripping it all away to reveal true, raw human nature. Eyes wide open.
“Give me your phone, please.” He held out a palm to receive the device.
A bit of fumbling. John stood up as Noah backed off, fingers pawing across the pockets of his expensive, tailored suit in an effort to find his mobile device. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, he saw it laying on his blotter having taken cover when he’d pounded on the desk abruptly a bit ago. “H-Here,” he managed, voice laden with emotion as he plucked the phone up and handed it to Noah.
John took a shaky breath, lungs vibrating within their cage, before he exhaled deeply.
His cheeks and chin shimmered with moisture. He may have been sweating, his hair was damp which caused it to begin to fall over out of its style.
Around the desk with heavy feet he moved, heading for the door which ultimately would take him out of the office, down the hallway to the roof access and then up to the final act.
Once on the roof, Noah held the phone up to John’s face to unlock it. “What would you like to say to your parents and Bert?” he asked, thumbs poised over the screen. He would keep his word, and anyway, the messages would help solidify the picture of the lawyer’s demise that the pyrokinetic was painting.
The breeze pushed through his hair.
John could smell the evening as it stretched out before him from his perch on the ledge of the high rise building. By now he had closed his eyes. He was shaking hard, trembling. Moisture pooled around and over his Italian leather shoes, soaking and ruining them.
“Tell them I love them, and that I’m sorry I’ve failed.” His words choked on the way up, stumbling out over trembling lips. John barked out a sob that commingled with a scream of pain at the idea that he was about to meet his maker.
He didn’t want to dredge the moment with lengthy linguistics, not that he was considering Noah’s dexterity or thumbs for the content purpose. His mind had drawn blank.
“That’ll work,” Noah murmured as he typed out the messages and sent them. “Nice and vague, but ominous.” He looked up at John, noted the sweat, tears, and trembling. He was unmoved, having witnessed this many times before.
“Don’t worry,” the pyrokinetic assured the lawyer. “This way, you’ll be missed. You won’t be a disgrace. It’ll be sad, instead of scandalous. Trust me, this is preferable.” He sidled over to the ledge, looked down at the ground many stories below. He dangled the phone out into the night and let it drop, the shattering sound heard seconds later.
“Showtime.”