Deserter: Chapter ten-Business

“Where you goin’?”

  Rain turned around and saw Ven standing against the wall. “Business. I’ll be back.”

  Ven shoved herself away from the wall and took a few steps closer to Rain. Her silver eyes glowed slightly in the dark and she eyed Rain curiously. “You’re goin’ after Nick and Gina.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Thy own ass onto thine own,” was all Rain said, then she turned around and ran off into the city.

  They pissed off the wrong chick, Ven thought to herself as she stepped back inside Rhea’s Ring.

  Brand looked up at her from his spot on the bed when she entered their room. He clicked the HV onto mute and sat up. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” he asked.

  Ven nodded. “No great loss. If they’d known who we were, they’d be after *us*, too. She’s doing cons everywhere a favor.”

  Brand just shrugged and went back to his program. Ven wondered how she’d do them, but didn’t dwell on it. As Rain had said, thy own ass onto thine own.

  ~~~

  Riddick smelled Rain coming from about half a mile away. Her emotions were cloaked and he knew she must have tracked them to the Ring Stop.

  He heard the front door of the hotel open and the bells tied to its handle jingled merrily.

  Rain’s voice floated up to him. “Looking for Nick and Gina. Did they tell you about how we got here?” she asked the evening desk clerk.

  “Uh, yes. You all crashed, didn’t you?” the elderly man asked.

  “Yeah. We got separated in the woods and they have something of mine. I *really* need to get it from them. Will you help me out?” Rain used her charm and flashed images to the man. He’d pick up warm thoughts from her and it would help persuade him to tell her which room the couple were in.

  The old man was silent for a minute, thinking, then he smiled warmly. “They’re in room 104, young lady. I hope you get what you’re looking for.”

  Rain flashed him a bright grin and jogged up the stairs. To the left was rooms 100 through 103, and 104 through 106 to the right. She could sense Riddick in 106, but he didn’t come out, even though she knew he knew she was there.

  She rounded the corner and pulled her blade, then knocked on the door lightly.

  Nick cracked it open. “May I hel...” he trailed off when he saw who it was, but before he could slam the door shut, Rain rammed her shoulder against it hard, throwing Nick backwards.

  The door hung off one hinge and Rain heard the old man’s voice calling from downstairs. “What’s going on up there!?”

  Rain ignored him and kicked the damaged door shut with her foot. Nick was backing towards his wife, arms out to the sides to keep her behind him.

  Rain shook her head slowly. “You shouldn’t have said anything about coming after me,” she said, almost sorrowfully.

  "Murderer!” Gina spat from behind the relative safety of her husband.

  Rain lifted a brow. “I was only protecting myself. I’ve never killed anyone that didn’t cross me,” she argued, not really caring what they thought of her. Then she shrugged. “Not that it matters. You’ve both crossed me, and I can’t have threats behind me. If I let you live, you might catch me later. I’m not willing to take that chance.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Nick gulped, trying to sound tough.

  He was a big blonde guy. Blue eyes, tan skin. An athlete. His wife was small and petite. Blunt cut black hair framed an oval face, and liquid brown eyes pleaded with Rain to let her live.

  “I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be,” Rain continued, stepping forward.

  Nick’s head swiveled on his shoulders, searching vainly for an escape rout. When none presented itself, he reached behind him and grabbed his wife’s arm. “Gina! Run!” He tossed his wife forward towards the door and launched himself at Rain, reaching for her throat with his massive hands.

  Rain let out a howl of rage and jumped straight up over Nick’s crouched attack, coming down on his back. There was a sickening snap just before she launched herself off of Nick’s back and tackled Gina.

  Gina let out whoosh of air, her breath knocked out of her and pushed herself to a sitting position. Rain had rolled away gracefully and was crouched near her, muscles coiled, blade drawn.

  She twisted it unconsciously between her fingers, admiring the way the light reflected off of its metallic surface. She could feel Riddick’s senses on the alert, feeling out what was happening in the room.

  ‘They are going to die,’ she told him, her voice low and menacing.

  ‘I know. Are you going to play with the girl?’ he asked.

  A mental shrug. ‘I think so. Nick is paralyzed. I think I broke his back.’

  ‘You did. You’re going to make him watch, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  She wasn’t surprised that he knew Nick’s back was busted. His senses would tell him that much. She’d believed the same in any case.

  ‘Yes, and I think I’ll let him live, too. Or at least prolong his death.’ And then she was silent.

  Riddick wasn’t sure how he felt about Rain, now. She was toying with her victims, the same way she’d toyed with Walker back in the woods.

  Gina’s violent screams reached his ears, and he knew she was being shown, or told some nasty things.

  In the room, Rain was circling her prey. That’s how she always thought about the people she killed. Prey. She hunted them, and then she killed them.

  Gina was crouched over the prone body of Nick, who was trying to comfort her, reassure her, despite his own predicament.

  “It’s gonna be okay, honey,” he whispered, eyeing Rain. “The others have got to hear us, they’ll come.”

  But they won’t, Rain thought. A little sensory clouding and they can’t hear anything. They’re all asleep, now, anyways.

  But Nick and Gina didn’t know that. They didn’t know what Rain’s abilities were and what they allowed her to do.

  Sick of their show, Rain fisted a hand in Gina’s thick hair and yanked her away from Nick. “I was going to make this as painless as possible,” she stated, forcing the woman to look her in the eye. “But then he had to do the stupid thing and act brave. Now he’s going to watch you die, and I think I’m going to let him bleed to death.”

  “Monster,” Gina hissed at her. She clutched at Rain’s forearm with both hands, trying to disentangle her hair from Rain’s hand. It wasn’t working.

  Rain leaned so close their faces were almost touching. “Yes. I am a monster, and I bite hard.”

  She tossed Gina to the bed and then jumped on her, straddling her ribs. She looked over her shoulder at Nick, and pushed away from Gina. “I almost forgot. You can’t see laying on the floor like that, can you, Nicky?”

  Nick heard Rain’s taunting voice and knew true fear.

  “You stay there, Gina. Let’s not make this any more painful than it has to be.” That said, Rain clasped Nick under the arms and hoisted him onto the couch, thankful he’d fallen close to it. When he was sitting up, looking directly at the bed, she sat astride his lap and leaned close.

  “You can’t feel that, can you?” she taunted as she rubbed herself against him. “Hm, that’s to bad. Not a bad lookin’ guy, nice body. We could have had some fun without wifey over there if the two of you hadn’t fucked up so monumentally.” She ran her hands over his broad chest. “Really a shame.” A detached look suddenly overcame her face and she sliced his stomach open with her blade.

  Nick tried to look down at what she’d done, but he couldn’t feel anything below his shoulders. “What did you do?” he choked out.

  Rain pushed away from him with a toss of her head, throwing her mass of riotous black curls behind her back. “I slit you, and now you’ll bleed to death, unable to feel it, while you watch me kill your wife.”

  Her voice was completely detached, as if she was someone else instead of a killer, torturing her victims. She was toying with them like a cat with a mouse.

  Gina had lain still and whimpering on the bed, watching Rain with her husband. “Oh, God, Nick. You’re bleeding a lot.”

  “Its okay,” he breathed, feeling himself grow weak. He could see a circle of blood growing on the couch out of the corner of his eye now.

  “The bleeding will slow in a minute,” Rain said, watching him. “It’s not deep enough to actually kill you, but with the blood loss and your back, you will die.”

  Then she was straddling Gina again, and she pressed the knife to Gina’s smooth, white cheek. “Remember Walker’s face? After I grabbed him? That was nothing,” she breathed into Gina’s ear. She began flooding the woman’s mind with the scariest, most terrifying monsters she could remember seeing, remember hearing about. Gina cried out and writhed beneath her, but Rain’s superior strength made her efforts futile.

  Rain pressed the blade hard against Gina’s cheek and sliced downwards, covering her mouth with her other hand. Gina screamed against her palm and she could hear Nick pleading with her to leave his wife alone.

  With a sneer, Rain added another cut to Gina’s pretty face, making a cross. She made short work of Gina’s other cheek, then she tore open the woman’s shirt.

  She began by making medical precision cuts on her chest, continuing to muffle Gina’s cries with her hand. Riddick continued to stay away and she couldn’t read what he thought of her. She knew he toyed with people, she’d felt that in him the minute she’d spotted him outside her tube. She wondered if he was as bad as her though, and doubted it.

  When she was satisfied that Nick had seen enough of his wife dying, and that Gina had had enough pain, she ended the woman’s suffering with a lightening quick movement, that wasn’t necessary for the kill, but would leave a nice mess.

  She shoved the knife into Gina’s throat, sideways. Then she slid it across from underneath and ripped upwards. Blood sprayed across her arms and chest, and she wiped the blade clean on the bed’s quilt. She was almost sorry to see something that nice be ruined by blood spilt.

  Nick was crying silently on the couch, starting to tip sideways. She eyed him with disgust and then went into the bathroom. She washed the blood from her skin and dried off before returning to stand silently in front of him.

  He was whimpering slightly, his eyes locked on his now dead wife. The site of him made Rain sick. The way he just stared at her mournfully. Love was overrated. Anything that could make you feel pain for anothers death wasn’t worth it.

  Nick shot her a pleading look and her face twisted with revulsion. “You make me sick,” she finally told him. Then she leaned forward, took his head in both hands, and snapped his neck. Leaving him there alive until the fog wore off the others was even to cruel for her.

There was a sickening snap, then she dropped his head, and he tipped over completely, laying in a crumpled pile on the couch. His eyes stared lifelessly at his wife, and Rain stared at him for a while before turning to the door.

  Riddick stood framed in the door jam, his eyes shielded by the usual dark goggles. “You didn’t enjoy that,” he said quietly.

  Rain stared at him for a moment then shook her head. “I don’t kill because I like it,” she said. “Aspects of it are...” she trailed off, searching for a word. “I do it out of necessity,” she finally finished. “If the prey thinks I like it, they are less willing to fight back, and I can get my job done.

  “No one but the Company will come after me after word of this gets out. Something like this leaves an example for other mercs and bounty hunters. They’ll think twice before coming after me, now,” she said, waving a hand towards Nick and Gina’s prone bodies.

  Riddick lifted his dark brows. “But mercs will come. Now you’ll just be worth more.”

  “Stupid ones will come,” she conceded. “And the really good ones, who think they’ve got what it takes. But there will be less now.”

  He nodded, knowing she was right. Less people would be willing to risk their lives to catch her, no matter how much she was worth.

  As she walked past him and turned down the stairs to the lobby and the street, words from his past floated from her lips to haunt him.

  “Didn’t know who they were fuckin’ with.” And then she was gone, the bells of the door jingling and the man at the desk shooting her back a dirty look.

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