Chapter 11 - Under the Gun

Gage sat against a wall, watching the two women fight below him. The view would have been better from the catwalk, but he did not want to risk exposure. Nicky had done good work over the past few weeks. Deira was much faster than she had been the first day, more confident, stronger. There might be a chance she would live through her vendetta. And then what? He would have to convince her to return to a normal life – or as much of one as she was likely to have – preferably far away from him.

First, he would have to make sure she made it out alive. And not too broken. He waited until they stopped sparring. Nicky said she was going to the bathroom, but he knew she would go out for a smoke. He had a few minutes.

He moved along the wall quietly, keeping an eye on Deira. She had no perimeter awareness. He would have to mention that to Nicky. He made his way down a staircase, one silent step at a time. Deira gripped the vault, stretching out her back, eyes closed. He moved up behind her, grabbed her around the hips and pulled her off the vault, dropping to the ground on top of her.

She struggled. Too late. She was pinned under him. He forced her legs apart.

"Hello, princess," he whispered in her ear. "Did you miss me?"

"Get the fuck off me," she growled.

"Now why would I do that?"

"Get the fuck off me," she said again, "please."

He let her up. She whirled on him, swinging wildly. He caught her arm, pulled her into him, and twisted it behind her back as he wrapped a leg around one of hers and dropped her again, landing on top of her. She winced with pain. Good.

"What the fuck is your problem?" she screamed.

"I don't have a problem. You do. I am perfectly comfortable." His lips were almost touching hers.

He rolled over and threw her off of him. She landed against the legs of the vault. When she got up this time, she was wary. Better.

She kept Gage in her sights, but she was looking for an escape. She circled him. He turned to face her with a lazy insolence.

"Where are you going to go?" he asked.

He didn't really expect an answer. She didn't have one.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her bag. There were weapons in there. But how to get to them? She kept moving, increasing the distance between them. He was letting her, she knew. Three more steps and she thought she could make a play for the bag. If nothing else, she could throw it at him and slow him down enough to get away. She had a better chance of outrunning him than she did in a fight.

She made a dash for her bag. He was faster than she had thought. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, pushing her away from the bag.

"Not fair going for weapons." He was enjoying this.

"Like fair has anything to do with this," she spat, regaining her balance. She turned to run.

He slammed her against the wall, pressing against her as he had that first night in the alley.

"For a guy who doesn't like rape, you have the moves down," she snarled.

"This is what they do, princess, small-minded men with no imagination," he growled back.

She slammed her heel down on his instep, dropped her hips and pushed back, hard, causing him to stumble.

"And large men with no sense of balance," she said as she took off running.

He followed her. She got to the stairs and took them two at a time. He was gaining on her easily. He made a grab for her ankle when she was halfway up the stairs. Time to end this. She evaded the grab, leapt up another two steps, grabbed the railing and swung her body under it and out, rolling as she hit the floor. She came out of the roll on her feet and sprinted for the door. He hadn't seen that move coming. He vaulted over the railing and landed, not nearly as gracefully.

He closed the gap as she neared the exit. She veered away from the door, heading for the corner instead. He was disappointed. She is going to be trapped. This was exactly what he was worried about. She did not think.

She was not slowing down. He did not think she would slam her head into the wall just to be rid of him, but stranger things had happened. She leapt. He slowed down, surprised for the second time. She used the balls of her feet to propel her diagonally up the wall, grabbed a pipe and hauled herself up to the second level. She did not pause to be admired.

He could see her through the metal floor, moving away from him. He smiled and walked slowly towards the stairs that led down to the loading dock. It was her most likely option. If he was wrong, she had won. He was fine with that.

She had not explored the second floor so she kept moving, looking for an exit. She couldn't hear him. Maybe he gave up. She didn't believe it. He was not the kind who gave up. Neither were the men she planned to kill. She should have scouted out the entire building. Shit. She slowed down, keeping eyes and ears open for his next attack while trying to plot an escape route.

There were stairs leading down to the loading bay. She hesitated. He would expect that. She looked up. A series of pipes ran up the wall and across the building. She had no doubt she could run them. The question was whether or not they would hold her weight. She cursed herself again for not checking out the upper levels. If she tried the run and the pipes gave, she stood a good chance of being killed in the fall. She decided to chance it anyway. This was an industrial building, after all. The pipes should hold her.

She grabbed a pipe, hauled herself up and pushed off against the one next to it until she had a balance point. The upper body work was paying off. Repeating the move brought her to the parallel pipes that ran over the open space. She looked down but couldn't see him. Maybe he had gone onto the dock to look for her. The door was propped open; she caught a whiff of Nicky's cigarette smoke. She tested the pipes before standing up on them. They were solid enough. She quickly moved to the other side of the building, not looking down. There were stairs on that side, too. She didn't know where they led, but staying on the pipes wasn't a good idea. There could be one or two sections that were in bad shape.

She slid down a pipe, scraping her hands. She ignored the pain. Landing quietly was important. She moved carefully along the wall, scanning the open area below her as well as the walkway. There was a solid wall on either side of the other staircase. She would be hidden. She crept down the stairs, listening. No sound of him. She didn't relax. He was a quiet bastard.

There was a hallway at the bottom of the stairs. The only light came from a window set high at the end of the hall. The doors on either side were all closed. She assumed they led to storage or office space. There should be some sort of exit. Weren't there codes for that sort of thing? She relaxed a little. Gage was nowhere to be seen. She could find a way out.

She was looking over her shoulder when he wrapped her up, one arm over her neck, the other around her waist.

"Nicely done, princess," he whispered, pulling her through the open door to an office. He gently wrapped his leg around hers and lowered her to the ground, face down. "But I win."

She struggled, but there was really no point to it. He was on top of her, his arm still around her neck. She stopped fighting.

"Fine, you win," she growled.

He suddenly stiffened. She braced herself for whatever lesson came next.

"Wrong," Nicky said. "I win. Now get up off the bitch before I decide to cap both of you with one shot."

Gage released Deira and slowly moved his hands to where they could be seen. Nicky took the gun off the back of his neck and stepped to the side, but did not lower it.

He pushed himself up, then offered Deira his hand.

"Fuck you," she said, rolling over and standing up on her own. She moved to Nicky's side.

"Your hands look like shit," Nicky said. "You should clean up as best you can. Gage and I have to have a little talk."

"Is he going to be breathing at the end of it?" Deira asked.

"Yes."

"Too bad." She glared at him, turned her back, and walked into the warehouse, trying to reassemble her pride.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Nicky still hadn't lowered the gun.

"Helping," Gage said.

"Uh huh. That's not what it looks like you're doing."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you coming in here to play games and tease the girl is not helping me, and it sure as hell isn't helping her. The stupid bitch is already half in love with you, like you're some kind of fucking hero." Nicky shook her head.

"You are wrong."

"And you're blind. You never did get it, did you? You think everyone can see the monster inside you, but they can't," Nicky spat.

"You do," Gage said.

"I knew what you were before we ever met. It was my job to know. Maybe my inner monster would have recognized it anyway."

"Your instincts would be better than mine, then. I never saw it coming from you." He hated admitting that.

"I'd have been dead a long time before that if I let muscle-bound dicks read me like a book." Nicky smiled.

"But this girl, she's easily read," Nicky continued. "She may see the monster, but she thinks that can be fixed, that you're a good person underneath. Maybe she's right, but it would take more digging into your past than I did before she found it, and I was pretty thorough."

You did not know where to look. "Deira knows what I am. She also had heard of me before we met."

"Oh, honey. She was raised on the idea of the romantic criminal. It's everywhere. You rescue her from death, take care of her, offer to help. Hell, you even rose from the dead to do it. What the fuck else is she supposed to think of you but that you're her own personal savior?"

"I am no one's savior." He grimaced.

"I'm not the one you need to convince."

"You think I should have left her to die." Gage leaned against the wall, fairly sure she wouldn't shoot him.

"Probably. Too late for that now. You have to finish this, one way or another." Nicky sighed. "But it isn't too late to stop trying to get her into your bed."

"She has already been there. Nothing happened."

"Nothing? Or just no sex?"

He said nothing. Nicky shook her head and sighed.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. You're getting too close to this. That's the kind of thing that gets you killed."

"Concern, Nicky? I would be touched if I thought it was genuine." He knew it was. "Trust me, seducing the girl is not my intention. I plan to get the job done and send her away."

"Who was it that said that plans have a way of changing, just when you thought you had it all figured out?" She engaged the safety and walked away.

Gage leaned his head against the cool concrete wall. How could she think she was in love with me? It took him a moment to realize he did not know which she he meant. He walked out onto the warehouse floor. Both women were gone.