It hadn’t taken us long to get to the warehouse. The guy had said it was on the other side of town, but either Ryan knew some fantastic shortcuts or the town was way smaller than it felt. The warehouse was a little smaller than I expected as well, I’d never actually seen one before, but I expected some mile long steel structure. The building was an amalgamation of scorched brick and broken glass, filled up about half a block, and was surrounded by barbed wire fencing. Ominous wasn’t exactly the first word that came to mind, but it surfaced eventually. The night sky was brightening up in the anticipation of morning and rather than provide some sort of relief that the night was almost over it was foreboding that the night might never actually end.

“So.” I rocked forward on the balls of my feet. “How do we get in?”

“I’m sure there’s a front door somewhere.” Amy shrugged. I knew we were unkillable but subtlety was still an option, whether she regarded it as one or not. “I don’t see why we should be afraid.”

“You do remember what Dante said about this guy right?” We’d even seen the results of what he could do with all of the people that were either completely under his control or so afraid of him they did whatever he wanted. “Incredible powers of persuasion to the point of complete control and I’d hate to see what someone already susceptible to that sort of thing would fare against him ring a bell?”

“Wow, a near perfect recitation.” Amy snorted. “I’d like to think that after years of resisting someone else’ absolute orders that I’ll be fine. You two however might not be so well off. For one, you’re mortal.” She gestured to Ryan with the gun. She’d been holding it right out in the open the entire time it took us to get to the warehouse. It didn’t matter how dark it was, it was still careless. “So I’m pretty sure I’m not even going to let you go in. And you, little miss I won’t even try to fight it because I’ll lose anyways. If I go in there with you the second he opens his mouth he’ll have your knife in my back.” I growled in protest. It was actually my job and I’d elected to invite her along and now she was taking everything over. I didn’t even care that she might have been right. “Let’s face it honey, you’re whipped.”

“I’m going to need to go in. I don’t care if I get shot or stabbed or whatever. I can fend for myself.” Ryan protested.

“Let me add some additional points to my previous list. Point one A, dying in a situation where death could have been prevented is shameful and an overall waste of life. Point one B, I don’t care how strong you think your will is, I certainly don’t know so I’m not trusting your judgement.” Amy wasn’t wrong, but she was being really rude about it.

“What are you going to do then? Hm?” Her attitude was making me get an attitude. “Go in all by yourself, take down everyone that gets in your way, walk right up to Harley and shoot him?”

“The beauty of shooting someone is that you don’t need to go right up to them.” Amy answered matter of factly. “But yeah, that is pretty much my plan at this point. If you have a better one that involves taking less risks then by all means spill that can of beans so we can get this over with.”

“We could both go in, ignore everyone else and bum rush Harley. If we can’t do that in ten minutes then Ryan goes in, using our previous rush as a distraction while he sneaks up on Harley and takes him out.”

“Okay…”Amy already sounded like she disapproved. “Some problems right off the bat. I still don’t trust you to not cave on me when we confront Harley, Ryan is still mortal, and we only have one gun. If we go in and try to take him out as fast as we can, we’d be taking the gun. If we fail and Ryan goes in he wouldn’t have the gun and he’d have to get too close, being mortal close quarters combat is disadvantageous. In summary, if we can’t take him out fast enough, you cave and we both go out. If Ryan has to go in and finish what we start he’ll take too long and either he caves or Harley kills him with the gun we no longer have.”

“Thank you for saying everything wrong with my idea twice.” I sighed. Nothing short of her own plan would please her, I could tell. She had that self-proclaimed genius tone in her voice.

“Who wins every game of chess?” Her voice told me her mind was already made up. Asking for other suggestions had just been a formality. “That’s right, I do, because I can think ten steps ahead of the ten steps ahead you think you are.”

“That’s not how real life works and you know it. Chess is chess. And this,” I gestured to the warehouse. “Is not chess. This is try not to get killed and take out the priority target.”

“I hate to tell you this,” Ryan mumbled. “But that sounds a lot like chess to me.”

“Shut up.” I growled. “You are not helping.”

“That seems to be what everyone is intending here.” He frowned. “Not helping is not an option for me.”

“Well neither of you have the experience or ability I do, and since you intend to take this little mission so seriously, Sam.” She nearly growled my name. “I will too. If that means you get benched for a bit, I don’t see why you’re complaining.”

“I do have one advantage over you,” I tugged the silver chain from around my neck to show her the vial Dante had filled with the spare scraps of souls. “And I’d say it makes a pretty big difference.”

“Just because you’ve got a little more power than I do doesn’t mean you know how to use it or that it’s actually safe to use.” Amy sighed and got this look on her face like she was explaining something to a child. I had grown up hating that look. “Hope told me how those things work before we left. They’re fragile and unpredictable, a lot of people don’t use them because they don’t want to take the chance that the external storage means nothing.”

“You know what.” I exhaled slowly. I really didn’t want to deal with her like this. “Go on ahead and do your thing, take the glory too. I don’t even want it anymore. But if you’re not out in ten minutes we go in after you and get you out of whatever mess it is you got yourself into.”

“Fine, but make that twelve minutes.” She knew she hadn’t won the argument, any suggestion that wasn’t completely hers wasn’t her victory. I hadn’t even noticed that the argument had turned into a competition. “I’m not showing off, so I don’t think I’ll go for a new record. Twelve minutes.” She repeated. Ryan held up his wrist and readied a watch as she stretched quickly.

“And… go.” He pressed down on the sides of the watch and a quiet beep signaled Amy to go. I watched her squeeze through a gap in the fence and run towards a cracked door. I shook my head as she disappeared inside.

“So.” I turned to Ryan. No need to spend the twelve minutes waiting in silence. “You have a digital wristwatch? Cell phone not cool enough?”

“Too much personal information in one place for my taste.” He paused to fiddle with the strap on the watch. “Plus wristwatches are classier.” I shrugged. No argument there, although I thought an actual metal looking analogue watch was classier than a digital one. I didn’t want another argument so I just let that slide.

“Is she always this bossy?” Ryan asked after a minute of silence. “I don’t know if I could work with someone like that.”

“I don’t normally work with her on stuff like this. This is actually the first time so I’m only seeing now how demanding she can be.” I walked over to the fence and sat down against it. Ryan copied me, sitting the exact amount of space away that I would consider completely unthreatening and uninterested. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it doesn’t work. She’s been doing this a lot longer than I have, she knows more about how to do these kinds of jobs, and she’s just smarter than me in general. It just bothers me because this job was something I volunteered for and I invited her to tag along so she wouldn’t be left alone with… well certain things.”

“I caught most of that in the bits where you two seemed to have forgotten that I was here.” Ryan sighed, relaxing further into the fence. “Thing is I have no experience on the subject. I want to offer some form of condolence or advice, but I’ve got nothing. Before tonight I’d never needed to think of things from the perspective of dealing with people like you two, and while I doubt I ever will deal with people like you two again, I’ve begun to consider certain things.”

“What kind of things?” I was concerned that he was thinking of things that I didn’t want to talk about.

“Like, what are your standards on privacy?” He took a breath in and started spilling out ideas like he’d made a list. Which he might have done. “What are the taboos in communication? What is the change in your perception of safety and what warrants a hazard? Do you sleep? Do you eat? Do you use the bathroom? I get that in movies, no one uses the bathroom unless it’s a comedy or the director wants to intentionally make the viewer uncomfortable. But if you don’t eat do you not use the bathroom? Or…” I cut him off.

“I’ll let it slide because you mentioned it earlier, but that sort of thing is still considered a topic you don’t really talk about. I’m not sure about what other people like me might consider an uncomfortable topic, I don’t socialize, but that sort of thing is still something I don’t want to talk about. I’m still pretty much a normal girl. I just don’t die and I work for someone I don’t really like all that much, which isn’t exactly abnormal.”

“Ah.” He sounded awkwardly ashamed. “Sorry for asking. I just sort of had the feeling that being like you were would numb some of your standards. I was careless, sorry. Again.”

“You’re fine. Like I said, you mentioned it while you were listing things so I get that somewhere in your head you guessed that what you were asking might be a little inappropriate.” His questions made me reconsider what I had thought about him. Everything he had done was unusual or felt extremely calculated on his part like he was making a conscious effort to seem normal. “If you don’t mind me asking, is there something going on with you?” It was the least offensive way I could think of to voice the question.

“I think I know what you’re asking about but I’d like to make sure, if you could be more specific about your query so that I don’t end up assuming you’re talking about something you aren't. I promise I won’t get mad or judge you for what you ask.”

“It’s just that I get the feeling you’re kind of faking everything you do. Like, emotionally in particular… you’re very calculated.” I let it out in one breath and then waited ready to get an angry reply but it never came. “I’m not asking if you’re psycho or anything, although I won’t deny it crossed my mind, I’m just wondering why I’m getting that feeling from you.”

“That’s what I thought you meant. I just didn’t want to take the chance that you meant something else.” He took a deep breath. “Honestly I don’t know why I have this problem, but I’ve always felt kind of distant with other people. I don’t really grasp a lot of the emotional stuff, I’m not void of it either, I just have a hard time understanding why people do some of the things they do. I spent a lot of time researching it and I eventually just started acting in a way that seemed appropriate whether it was what I was really feeling or not.”

“So, for instance… when you sat down just now. I get the feeling you did some kind of measure of the distance away from me that you wanted to sit?” I really hoped I wasn’t overstepping my ability to ask about it, he hadn’t really said whether he minded talking about it or not.

“I thought it would be polite to sit closer to you, but I didn’t want to get so close as to give you the wrong impression. I’m not saying you’re not pretty or anything, I’m just not interested.” I could tell he was still covering his bases, and now that he’d admitted it I could tell there were certain things he was only saying to retain a certain level of normality. “So, yes. I picked my spot based on what I thought would work best.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“And you do that sort of thing for everything you do?” It was hard to believe but I couldn’t think of something he’d done so far that didn’t feel calculated or faked.

“Pretty much.” He sighed.

“Wow.” I paused for a second to let that sink in. “So you don’t think I’m actually pretty.” I laughed but he just looked confused. “It’s fine, I know I’m a mess. I had a date with a fiery demon thing recently and I’m not entirely recovered yet. Have you ever considered becoming an actor? I bet you could really convince an audience.”

“I considered it, but I never went farther than that. I’m not really a people person, if you haven’t noticed. At least not a normal people person. You seem nice enough though.”

“Trust me, Amy and I are the last people you want to be friends with if you want to live longer than a week.” He laughed and it almost felt genuine. “What about this girl then, the one you want to rescue so badly? What’s your connection to her?”

“She’s…” Ryan’s watch started beeping, signaling that Amy’s twelve minutes were up and she was probably staked and discarded somewhere in the warehouse. “About to be rescued.”

“Uh,” I hesitated. “I know I probably won’t be able to stop you from going in there, but you’re not really as durable as I am. Do you think you could keep a safe distance or go in a different way while I distract everyone?”

“I guess that’s reasonable.” He’d taken a while before he reasoned it out and agreed. Whatever he would have done had he decided it wasn’t reasonable made me curious. “I would offer to lend you something to defend yourself with but you seem capable enough with what you have. So do you want to go in the same way Amy did or do we have to find two new entrances?”

“I’ll just follow Amy, if I’m lucky I can get her up before I actually run into trouble and she can go back to doing all the work. You should go look for a loading dock or something, if Amy alerted the people inside they probably won’t be back to watching all of the doors just yet.” I got up and dusted off my pants, even though they were pretty much just as clean as when I’d sat down. Ryan followed my lead and we both walked over to the gap in the fence Amy had gone through. “Good luck Ryan, I hope you find your girl.”

“Good luck to you too…” He paused to think. It was hardly a noticeable duration but I noticed it. “Sam.”

“It’s Samantha. Everyone likes to call me Sam to tick me off.” I smirked. I hadn't actually introduced myself to him before that. “I’ll let it slide though. It doesn’t bother me like it used to.” He nodded, I slipped through the door and I was alone.

The interior was not what I had expected. The ground floor was actually the top floor and what I had thought would be the second floor was open space. I was standing on a balcony that overlooked rows of shelves packed with crates and what looked like cages. There was a small room next to the door that looked like a little house, which was probably some sort of office, and ahead of me there was a choice between either a staircase down into the actual warehouse or a series of catwalks that were just slightly above the crates on the top shelves. Light fixtures hung from the high ceiling rested just above the catwalks, making stealth on them impossible. I didn’t want to go down into the maze of shelving either, particularly not in the section with the cages. Whether they held humans or animals, they would react to my presence. Regardless of the route I took I didn’t even know where I was going, so it didn’t matter.

If Amy had gone right in and rushed Harley she would have gone right down into the warehouse. If Harley wasn’t in the small office building, that is. The building was empty though, and the entire warehouse was eerily quiet. Since Amy hadn’t made it out, I would do the opposite of everything she would have done, which meant a slow stealthy path across the catwalks. Casting a shadow on anyone below was my main concern, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There were already a billion shadows and the lighting wasn’t that good, a bunch of the lights were actually out.

While the building was larger than it had looked from the outside, though being able to see some of it was only partially responsible, the inside still wasn’t that large. At least it didn’t feel that big, the amount of space I couldn’t see and the clutter of the shelves were probably to blame. Regardless of the size, I quickly realized was that the catwalks were definitely the best choice because of the vantage point. I could see down into all the aisles and go undetected, for the most part. There were a few times when I thought I’d been noticed but the people below never seemed to notice. It was hard to tell if they were the same kind of drugged and coerced minions like at the house or willing and more attentive participants in Harley’s little gang.

I had never seen Harley before. Dante didn’t have a picture, but he didn’t leave me clueless like he had done with the maze. According to Dante, Harley always wore what he called ‘a stupid pair of John Lennon Sunglasses.’ It seemed like an easy enough way to identify him, but no one in the building was wearing sunglasses. After all it was night, we were inside, and the room was dimly lit. The only people I’d seen wandering around below were either big guys that were probably guarding the place and a few skinny and terrified looking guys moving around crates and boxes by hand or forklift. I had a feeling of where Harley would be, but it was the last place I wanted to look and it literally was.

There were several people wandering around the area with cages. Three were gathered around one cage in particular. Now that I was closer I could see exactly what was in the cages, and I hated that I wasn’t surprised. Each cage held a human being, cramped and confined, some male but mostly girls. Human trafficking was disgusting, it wasn’t really common where I’d grown up but it was always something I had been afraid of for some reason. I managed a single chuckle at what my life had actually turned out to be before my humor died.

“Where did you end up putting her?” One of the men at the cages asked. His voice was muffled by the distance but it was just audible.

“She’s rattling around in a cage on the far end of the section.” Another replied. He seemed unnerved by the situation he was in.

“I thought you shot her?” The first man put his hand up to his face in disappointment and let out a sigh. “I guess if you want something done correctly you shouldn’t delegate it to someone with willpower.”

“Dude, I did shoot her. The girl’s unkillable or something. Did you see all the scars on her?” A collage of expressions were running across his face, like he didn’t know what he was supposed to be feeling or thinking. “I mean we were all looking.”

“You idiot.” The first man slapped the second across the face, and he went reeling backwards. “If you’re implying what I think you are, I’ll have a needle in your arm and you won’t be thinking any original thoughts ever again.” He was in the guy’s face as soon as he recovered and grabbed him by the chin. “And I’d hate to waste a mind I don’t need to. You’ve had some good ideas in the past and I’d really hate to lose you.”

“What do you want then?” The other guy had flipped a switch from normal to super respectful, almost groveling, in seconds. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“What I want, Dean, is a little respect. Is that too hard?” He let go of Dean’s face and wiped his hand off on his jeans. “Now go kill her. I can’t stop her, and I don’t want her interfering with any of our operations.”

“Yes, Harley.” Dean straightened up and walked down the aisle towards the other end of cage section.

“See is it really that hard to follow orders?” Harley snickered to the remaining man. He just stood there slouched and dazed. “That’s your cue to agree and laugh with me Markus.”

“Yes.” Markus’ answer and corresponding laughter were deadpan. At least it was supposed to be laughter but it sounded more like he was choking.

“The correct answer to agree with me is no, idiot.” Harley groaned. “Honestly am I not giving you a big enough dosage or is it already too much?”

“I don’t know.” I could see a twitch of feeling in Markus’ face.

“Good, that means it’s working. Now let’s go.” Harley pulled a pair of sunglasses out from a pocket in his vest and put them on in a movement that was probably meant to look smooth but just came off as stupid. That he was wearing a vest, dress shirt, and jeans with suspenders hanging around his legs spoke volumes about his douchebaggery. I didn’t even need to acknowledge his movement or tone of voice to determine just how much I didn’t like him. “We have things to do.”

If all I had to do was kill him, I could just jump down and if my aim was good enough I could crush him, or at the very least seriously injure him. The only problem was I only had one shot, if he survived I would have to recover too. I would heal much more quickly but he could have someone else on me in seconds. There wasn’t a quicker way down though, and a quick twenty-fiveish foot drop couldn’t be that bad. At least I was trying to tell myself that.

I took a deep breath and slipped over the railing on the catwalk. Harley was still talking below, completely unaware that I was lurking above about to jump down on him. I let out all the air in my lungs and jumped. The fall felt very short and long at the same time and the motion made my stomach turn. I was on target though, at least I was when I jumped. Harley deliberately stepped aside as if he’d known I was waiting above the entire time, leaving me to land on the concrete floor. I did my best to shift my weight and avoid damage but I’d been positioned to inflict damage to what I landed on, and the floor was not something I was going to put a dent on.

“You probably thought you were so sneaky, didn’t you?” Harley laughed while I struggled dazed on the floor. “Just your footsteps on that stupid metal catwalk thing, I could hear you the second you stepped onto it. I didn’t even need to see your shadow, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t.”

“Yeah well, stealth was never really the goal.” I grunted as I jumped up and lunged at him. I could tell the second I moved that one or both of my ankles were messed up. The pain slowed me down and he moved out of the way easily.

“Hey, calm down dollface. Let’s just…” I yanked my knife out from my boot along with the one I’d been stabbed with earlier and made another lunge, hoping the added range would increase my chances of landing a hit. “Freeze.” My joints locked up as a familiar feeling came with his words. “Much better, you’re not as good as that other girl. I assume you two are together, you’re dressed pretty similarly, similar tolerance to pain. You both like knives too.”

“Oh just shut up and do whatever you were going to do.” I grumbled. “Monologuing isn’t a mandatory thing you need to do and it really increases your chances of getting wrecked.”

“Silence!” Harley yelled, his childish anger was pathetic. “If I want to speak, I will speak. I’m in charge here, my word is law, my word is god!” My jaw was clenched shut but I still managed to choke a laugh. “I told you to be silent!” He lifted his leg and planted his foot square in my stomach. I fell over limp and was able to instinctively clench at the injury before freezing up again on the ground. “Markus, get her in an empty cage while I figure out a way to kill her. Death’s little minions are at the very least durable. I might not even want this one dead if I can make her do whatever I want.”

Markus lurched over to me and picked me up gently. For some reason the dumb look on his face reminded me of my brother. Obedient, his expression dead, but somewhere in his eyes I could tell he wanted to help. I stared at him with the same puppydog expression I had used on my brother to get him to do whatever I wanted. It really only worked about eighty percent of the time but it never registered a purely negative result. Markus just kept walking down the aisle though, just as much a slave to Harley as I was to Dante if not more so. My eyes shot over to an empty nearby cage without a lock on it and his eyes followed mine. He stopped, propped me against a metal pole that made up a leg of the shelf as he opened the cage, and froze mid motion to pick me up again.

“What is the matter with you, you stupid oaf!” Harley shouted from the other end of the aisle, only slightly more frustrated than he had been before.

“A few things.” Markus muttered, not loud enough for Harley to hear him. It meant a lot to me though. Markus apparently wasn’t as drugged up as Harley thought he was.

“That cage doesn’t have a lock.” Harley slowly walked over to Markus and landed a hard kick behind his knees. There was no laughter now as Markus collapsed to his knees and slumped over, completely useless. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to fight me, because that would be really bad.”

Unable to talk I just glared at Harley. I knew I wasn’t particularly threatening paralyzed as I was. He seemed disturbed though and quickly averted his eyes. His expression was vacant for a second, as if unsure what to do. It was probably a result of having everyone do things for him, his powers of persuasion had made him lazy. Too lazy to notice that I hadn’t been the only other person to sneak in.

Ryan, once again hooded, had found his way to a clean shot at Harley’s back. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him ready his bat. Harley noticed my expression and turned just as Ryan took a shot at his knee, swinging the bat more like a golf club.

“Freeze!” Harley managed to shout just before the bat connected. The order was quickly overpowered by a scream of pain.

Ryan didn’t stop. However it was that he was overcoming Harley’s abilities didn’t really matter to me, I was just happy to see the creep in pain. Ryan swung again, this time landing it squarely on Harley’s shoulder. The impact made a satisfying cracking noise and Harley fell forwards onto his stomach. I couldn’t see Ryan’s expressions or judge what was probably going through his mind, but I got the feeling it was cold ruthless hatred.

“Stop. Stop you idiot! Listen to me!” Harley had managed to prop himself onto his side with his good arm. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

Ryan loomed over him, silent, almost like he didn’t even hear him. Without a word, or even a grunt, he kicked Harley back onto his chest and landed another uncontested hit to the base of his spine. There was a weak groan and Harley stopped struggling. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He was inflicting non-lethal damage on purpose, playing with him before he finished him off. I stared at Ryan, horrified, as he pulled the chain from his belt and wrapped it around Harley’s neck. I was frozen in a position that forced me to watch as he slowly asphyxiated the man and I couldn’t close my eyes out of fear I would be next. There was nothing stopping Ryan from choking me out too and I almost felt like he might.