Jeremy Robinson - Kronos

Trevor grunted and twitched his mouth to the side. “Keep a close eye on her. Make certain she sees nothing, and keep her from contacting anyone.”

“And if she tries anything?”

“Just keep her occupied. I’m sure you can handle that, hmm?”

Remus nodded.

With that, their conversation ended, and Remus headed for the medical quarters. After snatching a needle and a syringe of epinephrine, or liquid adrenaline, he set out for the brig. While the woman might be exhausted and injured from her encounter with Laurel, after a shot of adrenaline, she’d be wide-awake and fighting like a champ-just the way he liked it. Keep her occupied…hell, I could do that all night.

As Remus descended onto the lower deck and stepped onto the black-rubber-matted floor, he thought he heard a noise behind him. He spun and prepared to strangle the intruder with his beefy hands. But no one was there, and after a minute of waiting and watching the dark stairwell, he continued on.

The idea of breaking a woman who had been so impertinent earlier in the day was arousing him even as he walked through the slate gray, moist-smelling hallway. He reached the brig door and looked through the round glass window. She was still unconscious, still dressed in her skintight wet suit, and still roasting hot. This is going to be fun.

Remus depressed his thumb on a small LCD screen connected to the locking mechanism. After a moment, the door unlocked and swung open. Remus stepped inside, ignoring the still-open door. The room was a fifteen-foot cube- large enough to hold a small band of mutineers-with flat wooden slats attached to three of the four walls. Stark white light flooded the space, shining from eight halogen bulbs recessed into the ceiling. The ultra bright lighting made those unfortunate enough to be in the brig extremely uncomfortable, not only from the light, but also from the heat they generated.

Wiping his forehead, Remus smiled. Time to work up a real sweat.

He crouched next to Andrea, who was still unconscious on the back wall wooden slat. He ran a hand up her leg and over her hip, then lingered for a moment on the deep curve where her hip tapered to her slim belly. His eyes advanced and found her breasts. He imagined they would be much larger once freed from the constricting wet suit. Full of fiendish thoughts, Remus removed the shot of adrenaline from the front pocket on his Hawaiian shirt and, without a moment’s hesitation, plunged the needle into Andrea’s butt, where his hand had just lingered a moment before.

He could have taken her clothes off while she was unconscious. It would have been amusing to see her confusion upon waking naked, but he would enjoy tearing her clothes off her struggling body even more. Still, in the moments before the drug took effect, his hand crept toward her breasts.

As his fingers moved to cup and fondle, a flash of black moved past his eyes, to his hand. Before he could react to the sudden movement, a sharp pain burst in his pinky accompanied by a dull crack. As his broken finger was pulled up, his body reacted instantly and stood instinctively, hoping to lessen the pain. A tightness clenched around his throat. Then a sudden pressure and push from behind. He found himself careening forward and smashing headlong into the white-metal wall. The flash of white turned black.

With a gasp Andrea awoke and launched into a sitting position, her eyes wide, and her chest heaving with each adrenaline-filled breath. The bright white light assaulted her first, then an overwhelming sense of moist constriction. She blinked rapidly as she tried to make sense of the stark white surroundings. Her mind spun furiously as thoughts came and went before she could process them.

Then something moving toward her caught her attention. A slice of black on white. A figure hovering. A man bending down. A face etched with concern.

“Are you all right?” Atticus asked.

Andrea’s vision cleared, and she saw Atticus. His forehead was wrinkled with concern and covered in sweat. The oppressive heat of the room felt like a heavy electric blanket.

“I’m hot,” she said as she sat up straighter. A stab of pain in her ribs caused her to wince. “Think I bruised my ribs.”

As Atticus took her by the hand and began pulling her to her feet, her thoughts slowed enough for her memory to return. She had questions that needed to be answered before she went anywhere with him. She yanked her hand away. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Now’s not the time.”

“Now or never. I’ll take my chances with the Hawaiian.”

Atticus sighed. “I guess…I thought you might talk me out of it.”

That wasn’t the answer she was expecting. How could she talk a man bent on avenging his daughter’s death out of what he believed needed to be done? Her face softened as she realized he was being truthful. “How is that even possible?”

“Remember the wallets?”

History slammed into Andrea’s mind, replaying in flashes. During their first summer together, Atticus had stolen a case of wallets from the local church basement. They were ugly and plastic, colored maroon and blue, featuring a flowered design surely created by a ninety-year-old woman. Atticus took the wallets door to door, selling them for a dollar each, far more than the hideous wallets were worth, but doing a good job of peddling them nonetheless. At the end of the day, he had made fourteen dollars, from selling wallets he had stolen from a church.

The culmination of his plan had been to buy toys with his illicit money, but Andrea had laid into him, pouring on guilt, exposing him to higher morals. In the end, she talked him into giving the money back to the church, but in a way that would not get him in trouble. That night, they attended the nighttime summer church service and sat through an awful concert. When the offering came around, he placed the fourteen dollars in the offering plate. No one missed the wallets and the church had made more money from them than they would have trying to sell them in the church bookstore.

Andrea smiled. “I still have one of those wallets.”

“Me too,” Atticus said. In fact, several still hid around the family cabin. “You always knew how to make me see things from a different perspective. I was afraid you still could.”

“And this time I’m not alone. I have something for you.” She unzipped the front of her wet suit, reached in, and pulled out a small Ziploc bag. It held a single photo; the one from the beach. Atticus took the photo, his hand immediately trembling. “Thank you-oof!”

A blur of bright colors flashed by Andrea’s vision, erasing Atticus from her view.

“I’ll kill you!”

Andrea looked down and found her Hawaiian-clad rescuer pummeling Atticus. He took the first two blows, one to the head and one on his shoulder, but quickly managed to block the next few. Frozen by the sudden violence, she watched as Atticus’s face changed from that of a kind man missing his family to a trained killer’s.

Then it happened. Atticus caught both of Remus’s hands, pulled himself farther down through his straddled legs, brought his own legs up behind the man, and looped them around his throat. With a sudden jerk, Remus gagged and was flung backwards.

As Atticus and Remus regained their feet, Remus produced a five-inch blade and grinned fiendishly. Atticus moved his hand to his waist and found the. 357 holster empty.

“Looking for that?” Remus said, pointing behind him, where the revolver rested on the floor. There was no way Atticus could reach the weapon without receiving a five-inch puncture wound in his back.

Remus moved in, whipping the knife back and forth so haphazardly that Atticus couldn’t block or predict where the next attack would come from. Each slice cut air as Atticus dodged backwards. The backs of his legs bumped into the slat of wood jutting from the wall. He fell back onto the seat just as the knife swept across his eyes, missing by inches.