Chapter Twelve

Four days later and I had everything prepared. Three of the sturdiest dining room chairs in the cooler, all the supplies in a corner, and no less than seven approach and escape routes planned. With plans like this, anything that lets you fall into a routine makes you predictable, and predictable gets you dead. That is not an option this early in the game. I also had several different outfits with slightly different personas. The more ragged personas had obvious drug ticks, from scratching at the inside of my elbows to constantly wiping at my nose and sniffling. A few I was slightly better dressed, but still didn’t try and project any air of authority. While in the right situation that could make sure nobody paid attention to you, I didn’t want any of the possible headaches that would arise from an accidental confrontation. I spent another day hidden in a rather foul smelling alley just to watch a crack house, hoping to identify the messenger that would collect all the money and deliver the drugs. A few hours in and I knew his nearby route, and was able to follow it back for several blocks and find a likely ambush.

These guys were so sure of themselves that they didn’t even try and hide their schedules. Every two hours the messenger would ride his bike up to the house, walk inside for a few minutes, come back out and carry on. Same route every time. Unfortunately for him, that repetition worked to my advantage. I was camped out at the mouth of an alley where he would have to pass after hitting a rather large puddle. As soon as I heard the sound of tires hitting the puddle, I gave a count of one Mississippi, then stepped out of the alley swinging my rather heavy backpack just below my shoulder height. The sudden movement caused him to swerve, but it was far too late. The pack hit him at the crook of the elbow, jerking the wheel opposite of the way he was anticipating it to go. The drag from the tire slowed the bike enough to throw him over the handlebars to the ground, where I immediately cut off his exclamation of “What the He” with a backhand to the jaw. Disoriented and in pain, I quickly slammed him into unconsciousness with my power and dragged him out of sight. Jogging back, I removed his bike as well and that was the end of that.

Pulling him upright, I still had to get him three blocks, and it was light enough out that trying to be subtle would be noticed. Rather than sticking out that way, I decided to go the outlandish route. Letting him come to a state of semi consciousness, I put his arm across my shoulder and started “walking” him home. If I saw a group of people starting to pay attention, I would let him slip a bit and cry out, “GODDAMNIT CHUCK, IT’S TOO DAMN EARLY TO BE THIS DRUNK!” My impromptu plan worked like a charm. While everyone chuckled and laughed at the “drunk” in my arms, nobody really cared. I was just a good friend taking home a guy a little too deep in his cups.

As soon as I walked down the alley that ran behind my base, I stopped the act, flipped him onto my shoulder, and got him into the walk in as soon as I could. Restraint time. I would much rather over restrain than under, so he got several loops holding his biceps to the back of the chair, several loops holding his forearms to the armrests, several at mid-calf to the legs of the chair, and a few across his thighs holding him to the seat of the chair, repeating it all with Para cord. Even if he managed to knock the chair over, there was no way he was getting out. As he was starting to come around, I put a blindfold of heavy cloth over his eyes, and one strip between his jaws to muffle any screams. All told it took about a half hour to get him tied down. While he finished coming to, I used my power to conjure ice blocks over the cooling fans, creating a seal that would prevent any noises from making it outside. Coming back, I gave him a few taps to the cheek to get his attention.

Jerking his head upright, he tried for several minutes to move any of his limbs. He stilled quite quickly at the sound of my voice, “Struggling is useless, you are strapped down really securely.”

“Imiom, moo oo mow mo I mork mor?”

“Oh, sorry about that, I actually expected a lot more screaming. Let me loosen that so we can have a talk, we do have some time to kill before the fun starts.”

As soon as I loosened his gag, he calmly repeated what he attempted earlier. “Idiot, do you know who I work for?”

“You know, it’s rather funny you should ask that, since who you work for is exactly what I want to know. See, I know you work for the Malias family. What I really want to know is who is in charge of the drugs?”

“If you know I work for the Malias family, you know that I would never betray them. They make regular examples of people who, shall we say, upset them.”

“Well, I hoped you didn’t want it to go this way, but I see I have no choice. Soon you will see that I am a lot worse of a person than any of the Malias, and you will be begging me to believe you. First we have a few people to invite to our little soiree, so time for the gag to go back on. I’ll be back soon.”

Securing his gag, I headed back outside to see if I could land my second catch of the night. I headed back to the crack house, only took a position on the second floor of a dilapidated building half a block away and settled in to wait. Half an hour after the messenger should have been by to pick up the cash, activity started picking up. I could see people peeking out of blinds in the second story, and several guys started walking around the block. As they started roaming further and further away, I headed back to where I had stashed the bike. Seeing one of the thugs come closer, I needed to play this one just right. “Hey man, you lookin’ fer that guy that keeps going by here every coupl’a hours?”

Squinting at me, the guy flashed a tire iron at me and asked, “Yeah, tell me what you know and I won’t break your knees.”

“Look man, I ain’t seen nothin’, but I think that’s his bike there in the garbage. I seen the bike in there a while, but don’t go lookin’ in on stuff that ain’t my business, ya know?”

Coming closer, I decided to go full out and start scratching the inside of my elbows, as if I was just waiting for my next fix and it was a while overdue. “Figured if it wasn’t y’all that disappeared him, y’all might reward a feller for pointin ya in the right direction. So how ‘bout it, can a feller get a reward? I could really use a reward.” Pacing back and forth, I maintained a good three feet of distance between me and the goon. Obviously dismissing me as just another junkie looking for a fix, he relaxed his arm, but still kept a firm grip on the crowbar. Turning down the alley, he never saw my lunge that forced his head into the side of the building. As dazed as he was from getting his head slammed into a brick wall, pushing him the rest of the way into unconsciousness was no real challenge. Slinging him up into a fireman’s carry was a lot more difficult since he outweighed me by about 50 pounds. Keeping to the shadows, I slowly made my way back to home base. Opening the walk in, I wasn’t too surprised to see the messenger on his side still strapped to the chair. He wasn’t making much headway against the restraints either. I decided to let him enjoy the fruits of his labors while I secured the goon.

“Uuuunnnnnggggg”

“Well, looks like your friend is finally coming around.” I said to the messenger after setting him back upright. “Don’t you guys worry, I have you both tied up securely. I know who you work for, so save your threats of retaliation. We will need at least one more person for our little party to really begin, so I want you two to play nice. Oh, and should you be entertaining any ideas for escaping together, I have thought of all the scenarios. You are at my mercy.”

Not giving them anything else to go on, I decided on one last fail safe. Putting the chairs back to back and connecting them in several places with wire I stepped back to admire my handiwork. Not only could neither man reach the restraints with his hands, the chairs were secured together in such a way so that they couldn’t slide over and release each other. The most they could do would be to slide one way or another, or fall to the side. Stepping outside, I closed the walk in door and used a screwdriver to secure the door latch. Now they couldn’t even get out of the metal box without help from outside.

Once again I headed back to the crack house, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like someone had kicked a hornet’s nest. Three guys filled the front porch, and they all had biceps as big around as my thighs. The glare they were directing at anyone who got close to the house had people crossing the street just to avoid it. From my perch two stories up, I could see over the fence at the side of the house and into the back yard. Knee high grass hid a junkyard of twisted and rusted metal. Plenty of cover, if someone were to be able to sneak in. It was entirely too early to try anything like that though, I needed to kill a few hours.

Deciding my time would be best spent keeping an eye on my two prisoners, I was rather glad I went back to my base. When I opened the door, both chairs were on their sides, and the wire was in pieces on the floor! Stepping in I quickly launched a kick to the face of the goon, and slid all the wires down into the floor drain.

“Well, now here we have a major problem. Here I go through all the trouble to make sure you two are comfortable during your stay here, and how do you repay me? An ill-conceived escape attempt. I guess now we will have to do some improvised surgery.”

“Surgery? What the fuck are you talking about fool?”

“Ah, the goon does know how to speak. Wonderful. Well, since you are an earthbrand of some considerable skill, I’m going to have to use this here knife to go in and make sure you can’t do that anymore. I guess now we will have to do some improvised surgery.”

“Surgery? What the fuck are you talking about fool?”

“Ah, the goon does know how to speak. Wonderful. Well, since you are an earthbrand of some considerable skill, I’m going to have to use this here knife to go in and make sure you can’t do that anymore.”

“You think I’m just going to sit still while you do that? I knew you were stupid to attack the Malias, but you must be dumber than I thought. Everyone knows you can’t stop someone’s powers.”

“If I had a nickel for every time what everyone knows turned out to be wrong, I would be a very rich man. Now, sit still while I work. You really wouldn’t want me to nick your brain stem while I’m cutting.”

“W w w w wh what are you talking about? What’s a brain stem?”

“Well, I guess a little knowledge wouldn’t hurt you, and might actually convince you to sit absolutely still. The brain stem is the portion of your brain that controls heartrate and breathing, and if I accidently cut portions you could become paralyzed. Or Die.”

Of course, that little threat had the intended effect, and I could practically feel the tension in him as I prepared to perform impromptu brain surgery. This was all speculation on my part, but from my early training and the pain it caused, I theorized that the portion of the brain that controlled these powers was in the cerebellum. While that vastly narrowed down the target area, it still left a rather large area that could have terrible repercussions if I was wrong. I did remember how vision was almost required for the firebrand’s powers, so I was going to focus on the area near the occipital lobe. Tilting my patient’s head forward, I held him steady with my left hand while forming an ice scalpel in my right. Going straight in to the target area would sever the spinal column and kill him, so I moved an inch and a half to the right, and forced my blade in until the tip was just past the bottom of the skull, keeping perpendicular to the line of his spine. This would be the tricky part. I had to slowly grow my blade while following the curvature of the skull, which required me to grow it at an angle that was pointing slightly back towards my body. The quickest way to reach the target would be to deviate slightly to the left as well, but would add an additional complication so I chose to parallel the spine then move laterally. While it would be longer, it would also be safer. Finally reaching the gap between the two lobes of the brain, I once again changed direction and extended the line of my blade, flattening it out as it moved so that it covered the entire top portion of the cerebellum. All this preparation went on despite the whimpering of the goon. I guess he didn’t like pain and the feeling of helplessness. Prolonging this wouldn’t help anything, so I took a deep breath to center myself in preparation, then forced dozens of centimeter long ice needles to extend from the plate I had performed and perforate the cerebellum.

Removing such an unwieldy blade would not only shred the remnants of the brain that I had painstakingly avoided, I simply flash melted the ice into water and let it drain out his wound tract. I also hijacked his blood supply and forced his platelets to seal off the dozens of minor bleeds, ensuring the patients survival.

Exhaling, I asked, “Well, how do you feel? Still among the living?”

Before he could answer, the goon’s body was wracked with shudders as the stress broke his mental barriers and reduced him to a sobbing mess. Confident that he would live, I bound him and the messenger once again in wire and dragged them back into the middle of the room.

“Good enough for government work. Now, at least one of you was helpful despite the escape attempt, so I’m not going to punish you too terribly. Unfortunately, in case this didn’t work I’m going to have to take steps to prevent Mr. Goon here from reaching the exterior walls. I think two inches of ice will work long enough to prevent escape, but it will get uncomfortably cold in here. Luckily it won’t be me that will run the risk of frostbite. If all goes well, I should be back in time to save your fingers and toes. Hopefully.” Done with my explanation, I formed ice around the walls and ceiling, leaving the floor and door uncovered. Stepping out, I closed the door and locked it with the screwdriver, then formed another thick block of ice outside to seal them in. Even though they didn’t have any air flow, the cooler was large enough that they should have several hours of air. Now I just had to decide how to get one more participant.

Knowing that I couldn’t even begin to carry any of the guards at the front of the house back to the cooler, I would have to take one of the people inside. I had no idea how many people would be inside, which greatly complicated any plans I might make. I did know I would have to take out the three guards out front, because the absolute worst thing that could happen would be to get pinned between two groups of hostiles. I pulled out a hoodie and covered my head, and strode down the street. Two houses away, I lofted three spheres of water the size of basketballs and had them travel over the roofs. While the guys on the porch would be distracted by me, the real threat would drop in from above. Continuing down the street, I stopped in front of the walkway that lead up to the porch, turned and stared at the guards. Noting my aggressive posture immediately, the three walked down from the porch in a triangle formation, two in front and one in back. That would be perfect.

“Hey boy, you really don’t want to be around here right now. Go find your fix somewhere else.” One of the lead guys said threateningly. Unfortunately for him, my attack was already underway as I sent the first of the water balls down around the head of the goon in back and froze the outer inch of it. With no way to get air out, he had no way to warn his compatriots and the ice was cloudy enough that between the lack of sight and his ensuing panic, he couldn’t target me with his powers. Not waiting for his body to drop, I gave a massive tug on the sphere of ice and water, pulling him forward and into the backs of his unsuspecting friends. As they were knocked off balance, they also got personalized ice domes over their heads. I took too quick steps to the right just in case someone got a lucky attack off in my direction, but my caution wasn’t necessary. Stepping over the bodies, I headed to the front door.

Now, if I were a paranoid drug dealer that had a load of drugs and money go missing, I wouldn’t be trusting anything coming through a door. So I conjured a massive block of ice in front of it. I didn’t need to worry about the windows, as they were already boarded up. Heading around back, I found a rather dilapidated screen door was the only thing securing the back of the house. I guess the inhabitants were counting on their reputation, the metal minefield, and the guards out front preventing anyone from approaching from the back. Opening up the door quickly, I conjured a rather large spike of ice sticking up from the ground to hold the door open, and keeping my escape route secure. Getting on my hands and knees, I stuck my head in to find the kitchen empty of people. I did hear voices coming from the next room, so I slowly moved towards the noise, testing each footstep to avoid any creaky boards underneath the cracked linoleum floor.

Unfortunately, the obviously occupied room had the door open. Squatting next to the doorway, I relaxed and tried to identify how many voices.

“Damnit, we gotta find that kid. You know we are gonna get blamed for this shit, doesn’t matter that he never made it here in the first fuckin place. They ain’t gonna care, we gonna take the blame and so are the poor fools who saw him last.”

“For the last time, calm down Darren. You noticed something was wrong, and did the smart thing by passing it up the chain. You didn’t sugar coat it, you didn’t try to hide anything.”

“It ain’t gonna matter man, they gonna see me as responsible and kill me as a traitor. You know how they kill traitors, I don’t wanna go like that.”

“They aren’t going to kill”

“THE HELL THEY WON’T! They’ll see it as I lost money AND drugs, they gonna slow roast me man. Use their fuckin waterbrand to keep me alive for weeks as they singe off body parts. Ain’t nobody allowed to fuck with the Malias.”

Hmmm, this was rather interesting. It appeared at least two occupants were in the other room; the rather terrified drug dealer was directly across the room from the sound of his voice. The much calmer woman would be to my right if I entered through the door, but nobody in this situation would be calm unless they were higher up the food chain. If she were, there would be at least one bodyguard with her at all times, assume two because it is much better to overestimate your opponent’s strengths than underestimate them. The guards would be silent, but probably not overly alert to outside threats. Their primary concern would be the increasingly agitated dealer in the room, as panicked people afraid for their lives tend to not think rationally. If I were them, one would be near the woman to act as a human shield should an attack arise, while the other would be across the room and out of the line of fire. While I was pondering the locations of possible opponents, I had momentarily lost track of the conversation. Listening in again, I tried to pick up as much information as possible.

“going to kill you, so just relax. I’m more concerned that your man Donovan has also gone missing. Two missing people in one day has them . . . concerned. Especially with some outside organization hitting our street dealers.”

“It don’t matter what you say, I’m a dead man. Even if it ain’t the twins that off me, Burt will have my head for losing one of his.”

“Oh please, Burt is huge on personal responsibility. If we find Donovan and he let his guard down, it’s his ass not yours.” As the unnamed woman stopped talking, I heard the rustle of a guard repositioning himself coming from the left of the room, just inside the doorway. So nice of him to put himself within arm’s reach of the door, I would thank him by taking him out first. Taking out the others would be much more difficult, I would have to get fairly close to take one of them hostage. Conjuring a four-inch blade of ice in my left hand, I made my move.

Maintaining a crouch, I lunged into the room and immediately thrust my blade into the stomach of the guard by the door. As he bent over in pain, I lit up every pain receptor in his body and continued moving forward, straightening from my crouch in favor of speed. Reaching out with my right hand, I unleashed a continuous blast of water with the force of a fire hose at the woman seated on a stained couch. Her bodyguard was on point, and took the brunt of the blast. By the time I had made it across the room, the drug dealer had barely started rising from the couch. Slamming my knee into his gut, a second conjured knife found its way into his throat. Turning to face the remaining bodyguard, a steel backhand took me in the chest and sent me flying across the room. After making a nice dent in the wall and valiantly falling to my knees in pain, I was caught in a literal iron grip as the bodyguard grabbed both biceps and hauled me to my feet facing him. Except, instead of a bodyguard I was facing an impenetrable steel suit. No wonder he was willing to step in front of danger to his client, he could turn into a freaking knight.

Chuckling at the astonished look no doubt plastered on my face, he said, “He he he, never seen an earthbrand do this before kid? The boss wanted to send the best to handle this little fiasco. Now, are you going to be a good captive, or am I going to have to break some bones to convince you to play nice?”

Coughing through the pain in my chest, I desperately wracked my brain for a solution to my predicament. His armor left no gaps for me to exploit, at least none facing me. If he was smart, he was completely isolated with a rather large supply of air in there. Not good. I needed to get through that armor, but most of my techniques wouldn’t work.

Shaking me back and forth a bit, apparently he was getting rather impatient with me. “Stop, stop!” I managed to croak out. If only I had something to cut through his armor. Wait a minute, THAT’S IT! If the steel is thin enough, an extremely high pressure spray of water can actually cut it, but it has to be incredibly close. Closing my eyes in concentration, I brought my right arm up and extended my index finger. Aiming for his heart, I held it half an inch away from the side of his chest. Using the largest stream of my power, I started conjuring water at my fingertip. The rest of the power save one of the smallest streams I used to contain the slowly expanding sphere of water. As the pressure reached the limit of what I could maintain, I used the last stream of power to punch a pencil sized hole in the containment field, shooting a lance of high pressure water through the steel plate covering the bodyguard’s side and straight into his chest cavity.

“Ungh” was all he managed to grunt out before I felt his arms slacken and he started pitching forward. Shoving with my remaining strength, I managed to ensure the human tank didn’t pin me beneath him. Panting with my hands on my knees, I had forgotten about the remaining person until an invisible line of fire erupted across my forearms, slicing neatly through the arms of my hoodie. Glancing up, it was suddenly impossible to get a breath and the woman had a vicious sneer on her face. Fighting through the panic, I ran forward and slammed my fist into her face followed quickly by an uppercut to the solar plexus. As she doubled over retching, I took a few deep, glorious breaths. Before she could recover I smashed a double fisted hammer blow onto one of her kidneys. As she fell to the floor, I once again knocked her out.

Hoisting her onto a shoulder, it was past time to get out of there. Hurrying through the house, I exited out the back and made my way down the street. I really wished it was closer to full dark, but I didn’t have much choice.

“Hey, stop right there!”

Turning to see who was yelling, I saw a group of five guys heading my way. I turned and started sprinting, not trusting the three block lead I had. Darting left into an alley, I stopped and fought through the impending headache from over using my power and conjured my distraction. Sitting about a foot back from the edge of the building, I hoped it was close enough that turning the corner at full speed wouldn’t leave enough reaction time to avoid the block of ice sitting at shin height. To add some extra discouragement, I added several spikes protruding towards the mouth of the alley. Staggering from the effort, I headed out at the best possible speed away from my pursuers. Trying to avoid common pursuit mistakes, I took the first left turn that I could. Zig zagging down alleys, the sounds of pursuit died off. I was incredibly happy to see the abandoned restaurant, and to finally make it inside to safety.

Taking a moment to recover, I slid the ice block securing the door across the melted puddle on the ground. I guess it wasn’t as much of a deterrent as I thought it would be. I opened the door to find the two guys right where I left them, although they were shivering terribly. Leaving the door open, I secured my third and final prisoner of the night.

“S s s s s so n nn n nicccccce of y y yu yu you ta ta ta ta ta show ow ow ow uppppp.” The messenger stuttered out. I guess they must have been a little colder than I though. Before I did anything to fix the temperature, I had to neutralize the threat from the woman. As a powerful windbrand, she could manage to kill me even if she was tied up. As quick as I could, I rushed through the same procedure I had done on the goon from earlier. Sadly, that last surgery cost me the last of my power for a while, and I knew I would need an hour to recharge even the smallest amount. Flopping down into a chair, completely spent.

After a few minutes of relaxation, which wasn’t nearly long enough in my opinion, a banshee shriek startled me. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME YOU SONOFABITCH!? HOW ARE YOU STOPPING ME FROM CHOKING THE LIFE OUT OF YOU RIGHT NOW!?”

Looking directly into her deranged eyes, I calmly replied, “Could you keep it down? I overexerted myself back there and have a killer headache.”

“TELL ME WHAT YOU DID!”

“If you keep calm, and tone it down a little I will.” Pausing to make sure she was going to keep it down, I continued, “It’s really rather simple. I cut the part of the brain that controls your power. You are no longer a windbrand.”

Terror slowly consumed her face as all the implications sank in. I didn’t really care; I was reveling in the blessed silence. Five minutes of glorious silence passed before she started talking again.

Almost demurely, she asked, “So what happens now? You obviously have a goal in mind, what do your superiors want with us?”

What is she blabbering about, superiors? Keeping a poker face, I thought through the implications. Did they really think that I was part of an organization trying to horn in on their territory? I could see that, but could I work with it somehow? Probably not. “Well, right now I’m just looking for information. How I have to get that information would be up to you guys.”

As I figured, the messenger would probably be the easiest to break. “What are you looking for? I don’t know much, I’m just a runner man.”

“Well, I want to know who is at the top of the organization. Leo already met an unfortunate end, and I know about Ryu and Draco. So, who is in charge of the muscle? Distribution? Alcohol?”

“Tell him anything and we will torture your entire family in front of you, and save you for last.” The woman interjected with a snarl. That sure of a reaction, I would be willing to bet she was one of the ones up at the upper tiers of the organization. I could work with that.

“Listen sweetheart, I’ll get to you in a moment and we can play ‘who thinks up the better torture’ then. For now, I want to hear what this guy has to say.” Turning back to the messenger, I made a carry on motion with my hand.

“Roger. Roger Goodfell is in charge of protection man.”

“See, that wasn’t too hard now was it? We got a name, but I need a description too. What he looks like, where to find him. As much as you can.”

“I don’t know where he hangs, I stay as far away from him as I can. He’s tall, six foot maybe? Shaves his head bald, and the coldest eyes you ever seen. This is a sparker you don’t wanna cross.”

“You little shit-stain of a traitor! The more you tell this walking corpse, the more you and your family will SUFFER! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I WILL” *CRACK!*

Not wanting to deal with the interruption and lose the momentum we had built, I fired off a quick backhand into the lady’s cheek, drawing a line of blood from splitting her lip. Taking a leftover strip of cloth, I forced it into her mouth, tying it tight across the back of her head. While it wouldn’t stop her from making noise, at least she would be muffled. Turning back to the messenger, “Well, now that should at least stop the threats. Shall we continue?” Sadly, as I said it I noticed he had gone quite pale and was shaking and sweating. Damnit, she finally got him. Now I would have to make myself more threatening than her. Snapping my fingers in front of his eyes, I quietly started talking. “Look, I know you think she is scary, and I frankly agree with you. However, what you don’t know is that I will get the information I want. How long it takes me depends on how much pain you want to go through before you give it up. Now, I know you are thinking, ‘No matter what, I can take what he can dish out’ but you are wrong. See, everyone breaks. Everyone.” The longer I talked, the more the trembling increased. Good, maybe he would start talking again. “To prove how little you guys mean to me, I’m going to have to make an example of Donovan here. Goons like him never really know much, and you already told me about his boss.”

Before I could lose my nerve, I lunged forward with the screwdriver I had surreptitiously picked up and slammed it into Donovan’s chest. Eyes bulging from the unexpected attack, Donovan slowly slumped forward as he bled out.

“OH SHIT MAN YOU KILLED HIM! WHAT THE HELL?!” Letting the messenger freak out a bit, I looked over to my other guest to see her appraising me with cold eyes. She had to know that nobody was getting out of here alive, but with her gagged she couldn’t say anything to my information source. Squatting in front of him again, I lightly slapped his cheek to get his attention. “I didn’t really want to kill him, but you clammed up and I needed an example. So why don’t we get back to where we were. You were talking about Mr. Goodfell.” Shaking uncontrollably, I could tell he was on the edge of going into shock. Squatting in front of him, I lightly slapped his face to get his attention. “Easy now, don’t go passing out on me or anything. That’s it, deep calming breaths. Slow in, hold it for a second, and slow back out. Perfect, that’s perfect. Now, I know you aren’t used to seeing the dark side of your business up and close, and I’m really sorry I had to do that in front of you. Of course, it was necessary so that you could see just how far I’m willing to go to get the information I need. I even planned out a few tortures, but just realized I don’t need to stoop that low. Ya see, torture comes down to inflicting the most amount of pain with the minimum amount of bodily damage. I could easily keep you alive through broken bones and light bleeding, things like that but I don’t have to. Earlier tonight I figured out that I can cause a body’s pain sensors to react without causing any damage. Do you realize what that means?” At his head shaking slowly in the negative I continued, “That means I can make it feel like you are being tortured without actually hurting you. We could theoretically go for days or maybe even weeks; it all depends on how your mind holds together. So here’s your choice, and it is really a simple one. Endure weeks of torture, telling me what I want to know and possibly come out drooling like a fool for the rest of your life, or just tell me what I need now and we can skip all the torture.”

“You’ll let me go? You won’t kill me? All I have to do is tell you what you want? I… I can do that. I’m sorry Miss Andrews, but if I get out of here alive then there’s a chance I can run away from the Malias. I can’t do that if I’m dead.”

“Miss Andrews? Is that our foul mouthed friend over here?”

“Yeah, that’s her. I don’t know how you got the head of distribution already, but that’s her. If you need it moved, she’s the one who gets it done. Mr. Goodfell is the guy in charge of protection, and aside from the Malias brothers themselves, that is the head of the organization. They haven’t even replaced Leo yet.”

Looking over, I saw the resignation in Miss Andrews eyes. Taking the bloody screwdriver out of Donovan’s chest, I got down so that I was eye level with her. “I’m sorry that I have to do this, but your organization really is the epitome of evil. I’ve made it my mission to take them down. Like a mythical beast, if you really want to end something like this you have to cut off all the heads. I’ll give you a moment to make your peace with whatever deity you pray to.” I saw a tear building up in the corner of her left eye, and before it could fall I slammed the screwdriver home into her chest. Walking around behind the chairs, I stopped behind the messenger. “Thank you for the information, give me a second and I’ll get these restraints off.” As his body relaxed, I slipped an ice dagger I had formed into the base of his skull, killing him instantly. “Unfortunately, I can’t risk you getting caught and telling people what I look like. I’m glad I didn’t have to torture you.” Conjuring some water to wash my hands clean with, I walked out of the freezer and never looked back.