Right On Your Heels
Later on, she'd say it was a coincidence and nothing but.
Key West had its fair share of sports bars. Some had two or three pool tables, smaller than regulation-size and populated with a strange mix of off-duty Coast Guard members and Cubans. It was a potent recipe for fights, once either side had a few beers and a few losses under their belts. She didn't like it. For one thing, people assumed she was there to bask in the cloud of testosterone and cologne, and hopefully get hit on. They sent over beers and stared at her ass when she made shots. For another, she felt compelled to do something when they broke into fistfights. Compelled to stop that sound. Meat on meat. Furniture scraping. Voices climbing into the cheaply-made drop ceiling.
No. I don't want to. After all, at least something was jumping off after-hours in Key West.
Eventually, she found her way to Felt. It was different. No plasma televisions, no designer cocktails. Just a long, narrow building with nine-foot tables, shitty acoustics, beer on tap, and real players. The bathrooms were to be avoided. So, too, the mozzarella sticks in a greasy basket. Tonight, a guy sat on a stool on stage belting blues on an old guitar. It looked like he'd broken up with the instrument before. Dropped it out of his truck doing high speeds, then gone back to pick up the pieces.
Rhiannon, trying to be inconspicuous in slim jeans, heeled boots, and a burgundy tank top, failed miserably. She was the only woman who wasn't texting wildly from a chair near her boyfriend's game or pretending to be an awful player just to con lessons. She played solo. Once, while chalking the stick, she noticed an extra door near the area marked 'Employees Only'. "Little bit of gambling under the table," she murmured. She couldn't blame them. It wasn't like Vegas, where everybody gambled out in the open. In Florida, they put the slot machines and craps tables on boats and made mini-cruises out of them, just to get a few miles offshore.
She set the cue down and tried to light her cigarette with a chintzy Bic. Unfortunately, the fluid level was low. "Shit." Knowing there was a spare in her glove compartment, she reluctantly abandoned her game and went outside. Her car was parked at the end of a long line of motorcycles, weather-rusted trucks, and two-door cars. She opened the driver's side door and leaned across the seat.
Joseph was still recovering from the gunshot to his shoulder, but there was no rest for the wicked. Things to be done, people to see and deals to broker. He had somebody important coming into town in a few days. Joseph needed things to be where they needed to be for the informal yet strictly formal inspection. He frequented some of the seedier locations in Key West, but it was all part of the lifestyle and Joseph was more at home in the gutter than out of it.
Currently he was in the back room of a run down and an inch away from being closed down by the health department pool hall, filled with people of like mind and men who would lay down their own lives in the pursuit of a good pool game. Not that dissimilar from his own base of operations.
Finishing up his business, Joseph said his goodbyes and headed through the hall, picking up a call as he exited the building. It was cool out, brisk to the skin left exposed by the sleeves that had been rolled up to Joseph's elbows, but easy to ignore. Especially as Joseph had a pressing call to take, one spoken in Italian. He was unaware of Rhiannon's presence as he carried himself across the parking lot and towards his hired car. "What?" He said sharply, back straightening as if somebody had just sent a shock upp his spine. "No, don't do anything. I need him alive. He's no good to me dead."
Joseph swept his fingers through his hair, ending the call a moment later before simply taking a breath. Fuck, his shoulder was really hurting. He touched it very briefly and then found his composure again, sliding into the hired car. If you wanted things done right you had to do them yourself.
Joseph started the engine and reversed out of the lot, accelerating away.
Rhiannon hadn't seen him leave the pool hall. She was too busy shuffling through registration papers and napkins to find that extra Bic, a neon yellow tube. If she couldn't find it, she'd use the car lighter and just burn one outside. After the mirror incident, she'd given up all pretense of quitting. In terms of nicotine, Rhiannon Lee was a lifer. "Aha." Straightening up, she lit her cigarette off the spare and stuffed it in her pocket. She leaned her elbows on the roof of her car and smoked with her eyes closed for a minute. Through and through, Rhiannon was an introvert and even pool halls got tiresome.
She heard the sharp word. 'What?' Her eyes opened. She saw Joseph and while her senses went on alert, she kept perfectly still with only a curly cue of smoke to give her away. He was too distracted to notice. 'I need him alive. He's no good to me dead.' Her eyebrows went up. Well, well. Another 'bad guy' for Joseph to attend to?
She watched him get into the rental car. Only when he shut the door did Rhiannon pull away from her car roof. Her reflection was in the back window, slightly distorted but present. Rhiannon looked at it. It said nothing to her, but she thought she detected a twitch of the eyebrow. A shift at the corner of her red-painted mouth. Maybe it was the entity again, daring her to do the unthinkable, and maybe it was just Rhiannon Lee in the flesh, giving herself an excuse.
One way or the other, Rhiannon dug the keys out of her pocket and got in her car. She started the ignition, shifted into reverse, and pulled out of her parking space without a second thought. Gravel kicked beneath her tires as she accelerated across the parking lot and took a look down the highway. Red taillights. She turned in the direction Joseph had gone. The cigarette burned between her fingers on the steering wheel. She rolled down her window and let the salty night air blow her hair around. "If you're smart, you'll do a u-turn," she coached herself.
Her foot stayed on the gas pedal.
Joseph was too preoccupied by getting to where he needed to be to notice that he'd picked up a tail, thankfully not in the form of the authority, not like before. Those he had a sixth sense for.
His speed continued to pick up as Joseph covered the distance, taking various turns and shifting gears as he navigated Key West like he'd been born and bred on those very streets. There was something to be said for taking the time to learn a city. It was only as he idled at a traffic light that he took the time to look in his mirrors, taking note of the cars behind him. Nothing seemed out of place and he couldn't see much past the blinding headlights as it was.
He rummaged out a cigarette and lit it as he waited for the lights to change and when they did he was off the line, feet easily navigating the press of clutch and the change of gear. His travels took him out of the heart of the city to the scattered remains of derelict warehouses that had seen better days. These were the areas of the city that the police force never saw or even bothered with, knowing better than to disturb the uneven peace formed amongst the less fortunate of society.
Joseph's car pulled to an easy stop, engine cutting out as the Italian slid out of it and closed the door, exhaling smoke as he did. There was movement at a door when he arrived. Two men came out and were instantly reprimanded in a dialogue more commonly associated with romantic exchanges.
The three men now disappeared back into the warehouse, smoke lingering in Joseph's wake.
When they turned off the main road, Rhiannon cut her headlights and followed at an inconspicuous distance. She wasn't likely to lose him. The island was too small and the moon cast enough ambient light to get her around the debris on the streets. "What are you up to?" she mused as Joseph stopped up ahead. She eased her car into an enclave between buildings, taking the time to back in so she could make an easy escape if necessary. Like if bullets flew her way. One could only dodge so well, preternatural speed or not.
She eased the door shut and dropped her cigarette. Do I have weapons on me? No, she didn't, which was a really fucking bad idea. Upon getting to Key West, she had purchased a firearm at the military surplus store, just because she'd gotten used to having one in Chicago. However, she hadn't brought it out to shoot pool, because why the hell would she need a gun to shoot pool? (Laughable now.) Rhiannon rolled her eyes at herself and got the little utility belt for her calf muscle out of the trunk. It had two blades and a stake, which she could easily hide inside the leg of her jeans.
She crept alongside the two buildings between herself and where Joseph's car was parked. The heeled boots slowed her down. They clicked. As it turned out, feminine fashion didn't go well with stealth, which reminded her why she usually stuck with combat boots. At the side of the warehouse, Rhiannon smelled cigarette smoke. She closed her eyes and listened hard. Voices. A mixture of English and Italian. The words were too faint to pick out.
What are you going to do, stroll in the front door? She looked up and around, then found her way along the side of the building. Up high, there was a ledge and a row of old windows, some ajar and some closed tight. She jumped for the windowsill, then used her boots for traction to heft herself onto it. Crouching like a bird on the narrow ledge, she curled her fingertips around one of the windows and pulled it outward with the tiniest squeak. Then she slowly eased her left arm and leg inside, followed by her head, then the right side. Once there, she waited. Rhiannon wouldn't jump down until she knew she hadn't been heard.
Unaware of the tailing brunette, Joseph and his men continued their movement through the warehouse. "How long was he tailing Paul?"
"Long enough," the bigger man supplied. "It's just lucky he messed up or we might never have known."
Joseph spun on his heel at this moment and shoved that man up against the nearest wall, hand clenched in his collar. "Might never have known?" He snarled, voice thickening in anger. "Would you like to explain how that would be okay? How you not figuring that shit was following Paul would have been okay?"
The big man seemed to recoil and struggled for a response, an answer that wasn't going to piss Joseph off. "It wouldn't?"
Joseph's grip remained steady before it loosened before tightening, giving the man another shove. "Exactly." He murmured something and turned away, continuing his movement through the abandoned warehouse.
The warehouse had long ago been cleared of usable merchandise. The leftovers -- old boxes, crates, tables, and such -- were stacked sporadically. Between them, Rhiannon spotted movement. Male voices bounced off the eaves of the roof and she heard every word. "Temper, temper," she mumbled. She looked down at the floor and saw that it was clear of clutter, so she leaned forward and dropped to the surface in a crouch. The grit shifted under her shoes. That couldn't be helped. But as far as such drops went, it was as soundless as she could be.
Staying low, she made her way from one obstruction to the next, listening to the rhythm of conversation and wondering what Joseph planned to do to this 'tail'. It had been months since Rhiannon made a demon 'uncomfortable' for information, years since she'd done it to a human being, and the memory of that sat heavily on her stomach because they were innocent. The irony that she'd done it for a copy of this man, Joseph, didn't escape her. What was she going to do now... Watch him do it to someone else?
Yes, she guessed she was. Slayers didn't intervene on organized crime. It wasn't their turf, not unless demons got involved. Was she going to let him know she was there? Rhiannon didn't know yet.
Joseph's footsteps echoed off the walls as he continued his movements, sounds finally spreading out as the hallways gave way to a larger room. In this larger room was a chair, stark against the otherwise empty space, and on that chair was a man tied and bound with a gag firmly in place.
He'd already been roughed up, a bloody nose and a bruised jaw.
"Has he said anything?" Joseph asked Paul, the same man that had been the target of a tail.
"Nothing," Paul muttered with a shake of his head.
Joseph tilted his head and allowed himself a moment of observation. Clean nails, freshly shaved, expensive watch and polished shoes. This wasn't your a-typical sleazebag tail, this man was something else altogether.
"He will," Joseph murmured.
Having navigated the outer room with the stacks of junk, Rhiannon eased her back against the wall and followed him down the corridor. It was dark, but she could see a room at the end. An interrogation room, it had to be, because she already smelled stale sweat. Now what could she do? If she approached the door, she'd be heard by his back-up, and it was a long run to the other end of the warehouse. She could outrun a couple of men, but a bullet? Not really.
For the first time, she considered what Joseph would think if he knew she followed him. After her massive freak-out at the club, they had shared a couple of drinks and cigarettes, talked things out. There was a tentative understanding between them. But Joseph kept his secrets close to his chest. This whole following him thing sort-of... blew them wide open. And she knew how he felt about 'tails'. One was tied up ten yards off.
She chewed her lip. Looked at the ceiling. Ahh, you're an impulsive idiot, aren't you, Rhiannon?
Joseph approached the tail and yanked his head back with fingers in his hair, narrowing a dark set of eyes. "Who are you?" His grip tightened to the point of pain, that much was evident in the way his knuckles turned a stark shade of white. "And why were you following my man?"
Teeth gritted, the man hissed. His eyes closed briefly with the pain of his hair being tugged on, though it was child's play compared to what Joseph could do to him. He blew a breath out through his nose and just looked up at Joseph, stubbornly not saying anything. Why should he? Joseph was going to kill him anyway, right? He turned his head a little and spat onto the floor, saliva laced with blood.
Joseph arched an eyebrow. "Not talking?" He lifted his chin until able to glance over the tail's head, silently asking just what had been done.
The answer came as expected, amateurs.
"I get it," Joseph shared quietly. "You don't think there's any point telling me anything, but you're wrong." He yanked on the tail's hair for good measure before stepping back to pace around him like a shark during a feeding session. "You're not like the regular tails we pick up in this city. You look like you actually give a shit about what happens to you and to the people you care about. It's kind of admirable really."
The tail's jaw worked, tension clear in the way that he held his shoulders. He flexed his fingers, feeling the restraints. He wet his lower lip and swallowed again. Fuck. He clenched his teeth again and looked away from Joseph, trying to school his worries and his tells; Joseph was bound to know about his family by now. Stupid of him to have been carrying that picture in his wallet. At least all the cards he had on him had fake names.
All right... think ninja stealth mode. Rhiannon bent down and slowly -- painstakingly quietly -- unzipped her heeled boots and slipped them from her feet. She set them in a shadowed nook of the corridor, then crept ever closer to the doorway of the larger room. While Joseph paced with his back to the door, Rhiannon eased across the threshold and slipped like a shadow along the wall. Her socked feet were virtually soundless as she found cover in the dark corner of the room.
Do I take out a knife, just in case? If anybody draws on me, I can throw it in half the time. Bad idea. Nothing about her should look offensive if they caught the brunette spying. Her eyes stayed on Joseph's men. One of them glanced back at the doorway, but she was long gone from it.
The Slayer knelt and took cover behind a heavy table. From underneath, she saw Joseph's face and the man he questioned. Clean-cut and upper-crust. A police detective? A Fed? God, she hoped not. Joseph, please don't kill a Fed. They'll never stop looking for him.
As Joseph straightened up he was handed a wallet, the tail's wallet. Joseph tilted his head as he flipped it open, arching an eyebrow at the picture inside. "Cute kids," he shared as he slid it out of the pocket and held it up to the light. "How old? The boy can't be any older than four or five and the girl, well she's just completely new to the world, isn't she?"
He approached the tail and glanced over the top of the photograph. "You know there are a lot of ways to get information and not all of them involve direct action."
The tail grimaced and swallowed thickly. Shit. He shifted, testing the strength of his restraints and they were tight. His boss was going to kill him, but she'd protect his family. They were all he had and his boss would take care of them. She wouldn't let anything happen to them.
He tongued the cut on the inside of his lip, the sharp pain pulling him back to the room, keeping him focused. At least Joseph had let go of him, for now. It was just better to stay quiet, right? He couldn't afford to say anything, or give anything away. Now whilst they were trying to catch Joseph. If something happened to him, then they'd have more information on him. It wouldn't look good: the department knew that he was tailing one of Joseph's guys.
Just stay quiet. Say nothing. Everything will be okay.
"Still not talking, huh?" Joseph tutted under his breath and tossed the wallet to one of his guys, keeping a hold of the photograph. "You really need to start because I'm reasonable until a point, but I'm starting to lose patience." He curled his fingers and slammed the full weight of his fist into the tail's face before he did the same with his side, hitting hard enough to crack a rib.
Joseph stepped back and flexed his hand, taking another look at the photograph. "Pretty happy family unit here, wonder how well they'll be taken care of after you're gone." He turned on his heel and slammed another fist into the tail's face, catching the edge of the chair as it nearly toppled over under the weight of Joseph's punch. "Bet you tell your son to be a big boy, take care of mom and sister, right? I'm thinking it's a cute little thing you do before you leave. Am I right?"
The tail grunted when he was punched and he closed his eyes for a long moment, just taking stock of his injuries. Cracked rib at least, his face was killing: he hadn't been punched in a long time.
His head fell back when the chair was knocked and moved. It nearly overbalanced and he thought it might have been better if it had actually fallen. "Don't you dare."
There was the sound again. A fist slamming into flesh. Rhiannon closed her eyes and breathed. Where was her mirror self now? Where was the supposed darkness in her? All she felt was a tightening in her stomach whenever the man was struck, because he was innocent. Just doing his job. A career man, a family man, who got put on a tough case. Joseph's case. This wasn't a criminal low-life getting his ass kicked, whom she could wipe off her conscience without any trouble.
You're not gonna betray Joseph, though, are you? Rhiannon's teeth chewed the inside of her cheek. She couldn't see anything except her closed eyelids, but the sounds were loud and clear. It's not just about an innocent guy getting tortured, or his family. God, please let Joseph be bluffing about that. He's a Fed. A fucking Fed. You know it.
Rhiannon cussed under her breath. She stood up.
"Okay, time out," she yelled. She made a 'T' with her hands.
It was as Rhiannon came out of hiding that not one but three guns turned on her, and a sharp demand from the guy known as Paul. "Who the fuck are you?"
Joseph's shoulders tensed the moment he heard that voice and he found himself cursing under his breath, turning on his heel to find Rhiannon right where she shouldn't be. "Rhiannon," he muttered as he ignored the man in the chair and turned his attention to the brunette interrupting what should have been a smooth interrogation and kill situation. "What are you doing here? You following me?" Or worse, did she intend on righting his wrongs?
"You know this chick?" One of the other men asked.
He was quickly silenced by a dark look from Joseph.
She put her palms up and waggled her fingers. Empty hands, no weapons. Hopefully, the dumbasses under his employ weren't trigger-happen enough to shoot a (visibly) unarmed woman. "Not originally," she said. "I saw you get this call completely by accident. Then I followed you." Rather successfully. Her brain labeled that as an unproductive comment and she clamped down on it.
"Joseph, I swear, I wasn't going to interrupt," Rhiannon said, shaking her head. "I was just curious." She gestured at the man in the chair. "But you can't kill this guy. He's FBI. That's a really fucking bad idea." She trailed off, hoping he understood all the reasons that was dangerous. They'd never get off Joseph's ass if they suspected him of murdering a federal agent. The island would be swarming with his government colleagues within days.
"He followed you." Rhiannon lifted her shoulder. "Fine, so did I." Her eyes wandered to Joseph's 'help'. Take it out on them, she seemed to be implying, which was a bad idea as they still had guns aimed at her chest.
Joseph lifted an eyebrow at her admission that she hadn't intended on following him, but she had the moment she'd noticed the call. "Curious?" He repeated. "Curious about what? Last time we spoke you couldn't wait to tell me how living my life this way was pointless."
The three men still holding the guns glanced at one another before looking at Joseph, all knew better than to say something.
"And how would you suggest I stop him from talking to his boss the moment he's freed?" Joseph asked, approaching the brunette in a few quick steps. "Let's take this someplace a little more private." He turned his head and snapped at the help in short sharp punctuated Italian, words that seemed to motivate them to shuffle closer to the agent and talk amongst themselves.
Joseph gestured for Rhiannon to follow him into a side room.
Rhiannon's cheeks puffed as she exhaled slowly. She watched him walk off. Then, putting her hands on her hips, she followed him past the group into the other room and turned to face Joseph once inside. "Curious because you're fascinating. Curious because, before I came here, my life was on a razor's edge all the time and I'm bored out of my mind. Curious because I wanted to know what you'd do to him, and more importantly, what I'd let you do to him."
Without her shoes, she felt oddly short. She picked at the front of her burgundy tank top and looked beyond his shoulder. "As for that guy, you're creative. You can think of another solution that doesn't involve shaking a hornet's nest."
Joseph was in the process of lighting up a cigarette when Rhiannon joined him, exhaling smoke in a breath. It was as he looked at her that he noticed the lack of shoes and his eyebrow lifted. "Did you forget your shoes or were you afraid they'd make too much noise?"
He flicked ash to one side and took a moment to look at her, try to figure out what to do next or even what to say. He'd never met a woman like her before.
"Thought I smelt boredom on you in that bar," he remarked through a haze of smoke. "So, why did you stop me? You didn't when I hit him." And yes, he could probably think of a hundred solutions to his current predicament, but he doubted there would be anything his men or bosses would approve of.
Rhiannon cocked her head. Her mouth twisted at one corner. "They're in the hall," she said. "They have heels. And you can afford to give me a little credit, y'know. I followed you across the island, climbed in a window, tiptoed up behind you, and settled under a table to watch. You wouldn't have known anything if I hadn't announced myself, which I only did because of his badge. We both know he's got one."
The brunette bit the corner of her lip and tasted lipstick. "Knocking him around's one thing. Killing him is something else. You don't want that kind of heat on you and whatever you're trying to set up in Key West. That's why I stopped you. You needed to think. Besides," she swept towards the door with her arm, "Half the reason you're pissed is because you're surrounded by ineptitude."
"That is quite impressive," Joseph admitted as he paused, inhaling another harmful drag of nicotine, tar and smoke. "Sounds like a whole lot of effort for a simple bout of curiosity."
Thinking, he did a lot of that, most of it for other people, like the men stationed outside of the room they were in. None of them thought, none of them seemed to know what they were doing and it was beyond frustrating.
"You got me on that," he admitted. "Those three men are fucking idiots. Put all their brains together and you'd only come up with one braincell, maybe less than that."
She was right, he couldn't kill an FBI agent, especially now. He already had Agent Kottler breathing down his neck as it was, without the death of a Federal agent under her belt. "I need to know how much he knows, what he saw and what he could use against me. I know who he's working for and she's not a lady I want pissed at me any more than she is at the moment."
He thinks this is a lot of trouble? I'm not even covered in monster goo. "Well." Rhiannon folded her arms beneath her breasts and considered what little she knew of the situation. "You've got the advantage. If... no, when you find out what he knows, you can change your plans, which makes what he knows completely worthless. Then, when you send him on his way, no harm no foul."
Rhiannon bit the tip of her tongue and thought about it. "Don't go with the family angle. Did you see his face? He wasn't scared when you threatened them. He only said 'don't you dare' when he thought he was going to die. So, how do you convince him? Without beating him senseless?"
Joseph listened as Rhiannon spoke and just lifted an eyebrow. "I dunno, that usually works." He flicked ash to one side and shouted something in Italian as there was too much noise from outside of the room and he could tell that they were being stupid. It was enough to make the men stop acting like idiots. "I mean, you seem to know a lot about this interrogation lark so why don't you tell me, hm?" He straightened up and approached her in a few careful steps, stopping an inch shy of her. "And why do you know so much about interrogation? Something you're not telling me?"
With that question asked he offered her the cigarette.
"A lot I'm not telling you, actually." Rhiannon took it and inhaled. "Maybe you should stalk me sometime." She slowly tapped her foot and looked at the closed door. Joseph's men weren't helping, that much was clear. Rhiannon stuck her thumbnail between her teeth and lightly bit down while she came up with a suggestion. "First, I'd get rid of them. They're making your operation look fractured, and you're giving that agent more faces than he needs to see. Plus, there's no telling what they might slip and say. Limit the damage."
She took a second hit off his cigarette and passed it back. "Second, we go out there and act like I couldn't convince you not to kill him, so that's your only choice, and you're not gonna beat around the bush, either. You don't even bother to punch him because you're done talking." Rhiannon bent down and retrieved a switchblade from the utility belt around her calf. She offered it to Joseph. "See if he doesn't get cooperative when you stand behind him and start to slit his throat."
Joseph's eyebrow raised at what Rhiannon had to say, hand lifting to curl around the hilt of the blade. "This is quite the change," he muttered. "And you know what? I think I like this side of you, it's..." His voice trailed off and his lips curled into a slow smile, one that caused his eyes to glitter. "Kind of sexy actually."
He turned the knife over in his hand and felt the weight of it, clearly he'd handled a knife before.
"Alright," he muttered with a nod of his head. "We'll try it your way and if it works? I'll have to buy you another drink." He took a final drag from his cigarette before he flicked it aside before leaving the room, exhaling smoke on the other side.
Yeah, I'm sexy all over the place, with my bare feet, hunting knives for slitting throats, and stalking tendencies. A smile nearly got her. Rhiannon's tongue wet the corner of her mouth. Let's hope he remembers to stop slitting when the guy screams. She rounded her shoulders, crossed her arms tightly around her ribcage and exited behind him. The worried look on her face was about 75% fake. The brunette side-stepped the three 'extras' in Joseph's operation and went around to face the agent. She wanted him to see the look of failure about her.
"God, let's just get this over with," she said.
Joseph's demeanor had changed to suit the situation. It was tense and far more striking in its movements. "I'm done talking."
His three men looked at one another before looking at Joseph. "Go," he muttered shortly. "I won't need you for disposal, I'll handle it myself. It's bad enough you let this fucking fed follow you."
"But-" Whatever Paul was going to say was silenced by a punch to a stomach and a grab of his collar, Joseph thrusting him in the direction of the nearby door. "Go."
With the three idiots dismissed, Joseph turned his dark gaze on the bound man, knife being turned over in his hand as he approached in a few short steps.
The agent in the chair seemed to do his best to inch away from the approaching Joseph, like it would somehow make the chair move. It didn't.
Joseph rounded on the man and put fingers into his hair again, yanking the man's head back to expose the full width of his neck that now strained under the pressure in his hair. The blade hit the very edge of the throat and dug in, tip beginning its slow movement across the skin, drawing blood. It was almost unnerving just how well Joseph was able to do that, like he'd done it before.
The blade was probably about halfway acrosss the agent's throat, the feeling of blood dribbling down the front of his shirt. He shuddered and tried to squirm away, but all it did was make the blade bite deeper into his skin. "Wait- wait- You- you don't have to do this," he said, finally speaking. "Lady was right- kill an FBI agent and they'll be all over this place, you'll never get out, never be free of us." He swallowed, throat working against the blade. Fuck. "Don't- don't do this."
Joseph paused and leaned down. "Or what? You're no good to me alive so why not kill you?" His voice was laced with malice and everything about him was dark and foreboding, blade still pressed into skin.
Rhiannon watched the slow drip of blood and how it soaked into the man's collar. She had never slit a human's throat. It looked so white and vulnerable, like the underbelly of a fish. The man's Adam's Apple poked at his skin. Setting her teeth together, she walked up and thought about the path of the knife and how Joseph, using that sharp a blade, would barely need to exert pressure to get the jugular, and only a little more for the carotid. He hadn't hit paydirt yet; the guy could still talk. Which meant he knew a lot about how thin that skin was.
She looked at Joseph's hands, then his arms, his face. How did he do it? Live in the gray and maintain control of himself? How did he let go of obligations, expectations, and guilt? Easy. He's obligated and expected to do this. As for guilt, who knows.
"Forget it, Joseph, kill him," she said. "He's not talking. Let him die to protect his fucking paycheck."
"Hear that," Joseph muttered. "She doesn't care. Might have done a few moments ago, but not anymore.Guess this is it for you. No more birthdays, no more playing happy families." The knife went one centimetre further. "There's nothing stopping me from..." His voice trailed off.
He exhaled a breath and tightened his grip until the tattoos across his forearms flickered with apparent life, knife digging in a little deeper.
"Shit!" The guy's voice jumped again, swallowing. His throat worked against the blade and the thin sheen of sweat had increased to be almost all-consuming. He closed his eyes for a second and just breathed before he spoke again.
"I didn't- I didn't see much; it- I- I just saw a couple of- Your guy spends a lot of time at this one bar, a strip joint...-" He swallowed again, able to feel the pressure of the blade against his throat. He didn't know what else to say, he honestly hadn't seen much more than that, except a deal going down.
Joseph's hand stilled and his eyebrow lifted. "How much time does he spend at that strip joint exactly?" It was important to know, mainly because Joseph didn't like the idea that his men were bunking off when they were supposed to be working.
"Lots, okay?!"
The knife pressed closer to the skin again before Joseph dropped his voice. "You sure you didn't see anything else?"
Rhiannon eased into place at Joseph's elbow, wanting to get a better view. The knife was bright silver and murky red under the light. She saw a sweat droplet creeping down the federal agent's throat between the short, dark hairs of his new beard. It merged with the blood and ran pink into the hollow of this throat. Somehow, there wasn't any blood on Joseph's hand. He kept it steady. Confident. Rhiannon thought he wouldn't mind if he accidentally killed the man tied to the chair, but he wouldn't make a mistake.
She put a palm to his back, stalling him for a minute. "Which club?" she asked. "So he can check it out for himself? By the way, if you're lying, this is gonna look like a paper cut compared to round two."
Joseph's eyebrow twitched when he felt a hand on his back, briefly turning his attention to Rhiannon before letting it return to his would-be victim.
"It's a place on the seafront, something like... Mermaid, Stranded Mermaids."
"Y'sure about that?" Joseph pressed, knife sliding a few millimetres across.
"Yes!"
"And that's all you saw?"
"Yes, I swear it. That's all I saw."
Joseph pulled the knife away given that he was satisfied with the answer, leaning down to mutter darkly, "You tell anybody about our little conversation and I promise that my face will be the last one you see before you wind up in several pieces."
And with that threat spoken, Joseph landed another square punch that knocked the agent out cold, but it did throw off his shoulder, meaning he hissed in a breath.
Just like that, the guy was unconscious and the deadly atmosphere dissipated. A little bit of gauze, some clean pants, and the fed would be alright. She wasn't so sure about Joseph. Rhiannon cringed. "Jesus, you okay?" She watched him work his shoulder, wondering if he had pulled a muscle. If he knew more about her, maybe he would've let Rhiannon take care of the punching, but he didn't.
She took the knife out of his hands and bent down to wipe it on the fed's pants leg and cut the restraints. Whether the captive left of his own volition or they carried him out and dumped him elsewhere, it'd be easier without a piece of furniture attached.
Squatting down like that, Rhiannon's hair was in her face. She nudged it back and watched Joseph.
Joseph pressed the palm of his hand into the still very raw bullet wound in his shoulder. "Yeah," he bit out. "I'm alright."
He called out a name and murmured instructions in Italian, meaning the Fed was grabbed and dragged away. Better to dump him elsewhere than let him wake up here.
"Here's hoping he can keep his mouth shut."
Ignoring the looks from Joseph's help, which were both confused and resentful, Rhiannon slowly stood up. She slipped her fingers into her hip pockets. "You gonna blame me if he doesn't?" she asked, taking a step back from the chair before she began to walk around it. "Because I interrupted happy killing hour? It wasn't a good idea." She disappeared into the hallway for a moment and came back with her zippered boots in hand. She bent down to slide them onto her feet. None of this was her business, and she was lucky Joseph had taken enough of a shine to her not to put a bullet in her head, or attempt to knock her over the skull and dump her someplace inconvenient. Exactly why he hadn't done it was a mystery.
As she pulled the second zipper into place, it occurred to Rhiannon that she was treating Joseph exactly the way she used to treat Elfleda. Push as far as she dared, try to see what she could get away with. That gave her pause. After staring at the grit on the floor for a few seconds and thinking a silent, 'Huh...,' she got up.
"I'm not sure yet," Joseph answered honestly as he watched Rhiannon putting her shoes back on. "I'm more curious as to why you stopped me, why you care if I fuck up. I mean, I get that I'm the guy you know and love in another dimension, but that still doesn't answer why you're interfering. Seems in this world? You and me, never met until that night, and a lot of things are different. I'm different."
He rummaged in his pockets for another cigarette before pausing to rub at his shoulder again, knowing he'd pulled stitches. "But whatever the case, what's done is done and we'll see what happens next."
"Yeah, things are different," she said. Rhiannon swept a piece of hair away from her eye. "But you still trust me, you still let me stroll in and do what I want, despite not knowing me at all or having any idea what I'm capable of. And I still want to protect you, despite getting a glimpse of what you're capable of. Some people are just drawn together, Joseph. It's magnetism."
She shrugged. "Besides, I wanted to throw myself into something interesting and you're the only game in town." She turned and walked through the corridor and into the storage room of the warehouse, which held all the piles of crates and old furniture.
"Sad state of affairs if I'm the only interesting game in town," Joseph muttered with a shake of his head. He lit up a cigarette and took one last look around himself before he wandered in her direction. "So what are you going to do now? You know if you went looking for something interesting you're bound to find it."
Joseph exhaled smoke. "Me? I'm going back to my hotel room." To check on his stitches.
"I don't know." Rhiannon pulled at her earlobe as she wound through the warehouse. Her heels echoed off the far walls. "I haven't got any plans. Maybe I'll get a drink. Maybe I'll," she lifted her shoulders, "Crack a book and summon a demon, just to have something to kill. Or... maybe I'll go home, throw a dart at a map, and start making plans to be anywhere but here."
What would everyone think of that? She wasn't too sure. But it had occurred to Rhiannon after the sixth month in Florida that just because they landed there, didn't mean they had to stick around and wait for calamity. Maybe calamity would never come.
Instead of heading for the window, she opted for the front door and stepped outside. Light rain had started to fall. A few fat droplets splashed her face and arms.She looked back at him. "By the way, I noticed how you didn't deny the whole 'letting me do what I want' thing." Rhiannon wasn't going to push to get the reason why; she just wanted him to know she noticed. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, keeping the drops from getting into her eyes. One slid off the tip of her nose.
She tipped her head in the direction of her car. "Guess that means I'll see you around."