I actually felt bad for her. Sneaking up on someone as they lock up for the night after a long day at work, with their back turned to you, headphones on and exhaustion dragging at their eyes, wasn't exactly a fair fight. Not to mention she looked like she'd already had the day from hell; her ponytail had long since given up on containing her frazzled hair, there were stains on both of her knees that I assume were from kneeling for extended periods of time on a dirty floor, and a wrinkle of irritation was chiselled into the bridge of her nose to complement the streak of blue ink swiped across her cheek. And there I came, dressed entirely in black with a syringe full of knock out juice to fuck it up even more for her.
I had my hand clamped over her mouth before she'd even had the chance to put her keys back in her bag, the sound of her muffled squawk of surprise harmonised with the tinny clatter of the loaded keychain hitting the floor. In another instant, I'd jabbed the needle into her deltoid before ensuring a tight grip around her waist, ready to catch her when her body turned limp while also keeping her arms pinned between her sides and myself. For the first minute she squirmed persistently, her fists balled up and thumping uselessly against my stomach, and her sounds of protest swallowed by the palm of my gloved hand. It didn't take much longer for the sedative to take effect, though, and within a few short minutes she was draped unceremoniously over my shoulder before being deposited in the back of the van. There were no witnesses; back entrance in an alley, no cameras, no windows overlooking the scene. We were on the road within a matter of five minutes, with my associate behind the wheel.
"She put up much of a fight?" Trigger asked as he stuck to the back roads and cruised calmly at the speed limit without a care in the world, his grotty grey mask tugged down casually from his mouth and nose as he balanced a cigarette between his lips. If he ever had washed the damn thing, it had to have been years since its last ride in the spin cycle by the state of it.
Smoke filled the cabin of the van until I wound a window down, shooting him a disgusted look.
He looked sideways at me and raised a brow slowly before taking a long drag, sucking the nicotine deep into his cheeks and lungs. Turning to look at me with that soulless smirk he was so good at, he exhaled so the rancid cloud of regurgitated smoke smacked me fully in the face.
"Did she put up a fight?"
"No," I faced the open window, trying to displace the stench in my nostrils with fresh air. My nose curled when I realised my mask would reek of it for the unforeseeable future. "I mean, she tried to, but I wouldn't call what she was doing 'fighting back'. Was more like she tried to wriggle her way out of my arms and kind of wanted to hit me but didn't. Or couldn't. EIther way."
Turning onto the highway once we escaped the maze of suburban streets, Trigger pursed his lips around his cig and kept his eyes forward on the road. He was silent for a long moment as he glanced over his shoulder to peer through the window in the divider, trying to catch sight of our hostage unconscious in the back.
"Would've expected her to give you more of a struggle than that," he finally said, turning his gaze back to the highway ahead of us.
I shrugged. I didn't really see why it mattered. We had her, and my balls hadn't been crushed nor my nose broken in the process. Taking a quick look through the divider myself, I sighed and pulled my mask free from my mouth and nose. She'd be out cold for a few hours at least, and the drive would take at least that long; I could take a break from trying to breathe through the now nicotine infused, heavy cotton for a while without exposing myself to her.
"Wake me when we're ten minutes out."
Trigger grunted, which I took to be an affirmative (and if it wasn't, I really didn't give a shit anyway), and settled in for a casual two hour nap, if I actually managed to sleep at all through the sound of Trig cussing out every other driver on the road for every tiny infringement.
Somehow, I actually did sleep. On and off of course, and only for a little more than an hour, but I'd take whatever I could get at the time. My lifestyle and career of choice weren't exactly the standard nine to five. Probably unsurprisingly, I didn't need to rely on Trig to wake me. The abrupt transition from smooth, perfectly paved asphalt to unforgiving gravel and bruising potholes the size of Lake Michigan was enough to shock me out of my light snooze. A half moon was hidden behind a lacey curtain of thick grey clouds that drifted lazily across the dark velvet of a fall night sky that was as silent and uneventful as the remaining hour of our journey. At least until our destination's silhouette became more noticeable against the black backdrop of vast nothingness surrounding it, and Trigger had to say something, no matter how absurd, to applaude our arrival and remind me that he believed he was in charge.
"I swear if it snows while we're stuck here, you're on shovel duty." An obnoxious ribbon of cigarette smoke drifted towards me as if to punctuate the point.
"Oh fuck off. Just how long do you think we're going to be stuck here? It's not going to snow. But, if there is a freak snowstorm in the middle of September," I tugged my mask back up over my mouth and nose, checking myself in the visor mirror just in case the greasy black face paint smeared over my eyes had rubbed off in my sleep, before snapping the visor back into place and pointing at Trig emphatically, "You can fucking shovel it. I knocked the girl out and lugged her ass to the van, you can deal with the next round of manual labor, got it?"
He chomped down on his cigarette with a grumbled 'fuck you', and jerked his head towards the back of the van. "You can carry her inside. And then I'll shovel the non-existant snow."
He was already out of the van and following the path of weeds that had long ago conquered the concrete paving stones leading to the steel door of the abandoned cell tower facility before I had a chance to argue any more. The chainlink fence surrounding the tower and the simple equipment shelter had long since been torn down by the team efforts of mother nature and vandals over the course of so many years. It now lay mostly buried beneath the dirt; the occasional jagged remnant burst from the ground like a skeletal digit reaching for the sky, desperate to be free of its grave. Discolored graffiti decorated almost every brick of the twenty-five square foot shelter with the flat, boring concrete roof. No one had stepped foot inside it for years. Until a few weeks earlier, at least, when Trig and I had set up base in preparation for this exact moment.
When I opened the rear doors of the van, I was surprised to see our captive was already awake and looking almost indifferent to her situation.
"How long were we driving for?"
She squinted at me as she rubbed at the back of her neck as though to extract a stubborn knot. Her eyes closed and she yawned. She actually fucking yawned. As if she was bored by the conversation already. Or the whole ordeal itself. I had to almost reboot myself to actually answer her.
"Little under three hours. You do know you've been abducted, right? Because you don't seem all that worried about it."
She shrugged. "Does it mean I don't have to go into work tomorrow?" It took me a while to nod, because I thought she was joking. "Well, then why should I be worried? Either way, I get out of work, at least for a day or two. Either you're after a ransom and someone pays up, and I'll probably get some compassionate time off to recover from the trauma, or you kill me, and I never have to work again. Seems like a win win to me."
The mental whiplash from her completely deadpan delivery was still throwing me off my game when she stepped out of the van of her own volition and started making her way towards the shelter.
"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm supposed to...I mean, there's due process here, you know?"
Teetering on her toes as she came to a theatrical halt, she held her hands up in surrender, and gestured for me to proceed. I tried to hide my disgrunted muttering under my breath as I debated whether to throw her over my shoulder again or simply march her inside, but she clearly heard it, and must have found it amusing because even as I eventually did bundle her up to carry her inside, she giggled. Like this was funny to her. Crazy bitch had just been abducted and she was giggling about it.
A canvas camping cot lined one wall and took up the majority of the room in the tiny square shack. Trigger was busy sitting his ass on the cot when I walked in with our hostage draped over my shoulder. He got to his feet and gestured to it with a flourish. Even with his mask now pulled up over his face, there was no mistaking that smug smirk. "Took your fuckin' time. Here, we set up the deluxe suite for you, princess."
Dumping her onto the cot roughly, I knelt down and quickly clamped a metal cuff to her ankle, effectively chaining her to the floor with less than three feet of mobility. My eyes met hers and for just a moment, her nonchalance was subdued by indignance.
"You're chaining me to the bed?"
"To the floor, actually."
Her jaw dropped even further as she gave it an experimental tug. "Just where in the hell are you expecting me to run off to? We're in the bloody middle of nowhere! I could run for a whole day and probably still not find civilization unless, by some miracle, I ran in the right direction." Her eyes surveyed her new living quarters, and realisation seemed to dawn on her. "How am I supposed to go to the bathroom? And how do you plan on feeding me? I don't see a stockpile or anything here. Are you planning on starving me to death? Or are you going to kill me before it can even come to that, because please, if that's the case, just do it now. I'll even draw the bullseye on my forehead for you myself if it helps."
