Tool

Rica stood in her bedroom holding her gunmetal grey AR-15 rifle, Jack Rabbit. Rica didn't remember him being this grey color as Jack Rabbit was always black. When Rica looked up at her bedroom door it wasn’t there anymore. She was at the rifle range with her Reyna. Rica asked her about her rifle.

“Mom, I don’t have to use Jack Rabbit, I can use a battle rifle..I can shoot Jezriel.”

Reyna turned and looked at Rica while Rica pointed her rifle down range at a target. Reyna replied, “Not the right tool for the job.”

Rica fired her rifle at the target and missed every shot. But she knew the truth and told her rifle, “I love you Jack Rabbit, but here I need...”

Reyna completed Rica’s sentence. “You need the king!”

Rica was surprised to hear this, “The king? You think so? Mom, is Strongbow ok?”

Reyna walked close to Rica and kneeled down, “Rica..wake up!” When Rica heard this, she woke up.

In the Dark..“Someone..is pulling..” Rica's eyes opened and a big ugly man had her on his lap, and he was trying to take her pants off. That is, until she jammed her thumb in his eye. “Yaaaah!” The man yelled to the heavens and dropped her to the ground with a thud.

Rica, groggy with two wounds to her head, stumbled up and looked around. She was in a large dark room with four boilers of some type, no windows. She had no time, the man shouted at Rica and charged her, “You little bitch, Raaah!” and tried to kick her like a dog. Rica barely dodged his kick as she was still out of it.

Relying on instinct she ran past the ugly man toward the one door she saw and pulled on the handle, “Come on!” and it opened. Rica flung herself through the barely opened door but the ugly man grabbed her from behind and punched her, “Ahh!” Rica tried to wiggle away and block his hammer fists punch, but his grip was too strong. So she got fancy.

“Ghost Technique!” she yelled, dropped and spun out of the ugly man’s grip and swung a kick at the side of his knee. Direct hit, only the ugly man barely flinched. Rica’s move had no power and didn’t work. He grabbed her again and pulled her back in the room. She dropped and spun again, but too slow. The ugly man kneed Rica in her gut, knocking the wind out of the loli rifle girl.

The ugly man lifted Rica on her feet, he wanted to hurt her some more, but she was ready, “Come on!” she barked at him, until the door opened.

“No man! No!” Another big ugly man stormed in the room and punched the one fighting Rica while shouting at him. This new ugly man was in charge and had more muscle than his fat partner. While they were occupied Rica tried to run past them, but she was too late and too slow. The two men combined a barrage of punches and kicks at Rica and pushed her into what looked like a low closet where she fell on her butt. The ugly men slammed the door behind her.

Rica felt around. The floor was smooth, this wasn’t a closet. It was a cage, then the man in charge spoke.

“Hey, hey ninja girl, you got too much energy, I’ll fix that!”

Rica looked up and saw a serving slit in the cage door, the ugly man in charge talked through the slit and harassed Rica.

“You gotta take it easy and I’m gonna sap that energy and I’m a sell you good. Yeah, you’re a pretty one, but you dangerous! Hunh, I saw what you did to Kocak. That’s bad man. He was my money, so you gonna pay. I’m gonna sell you!”

Rica didn’t listen, she only thought of escape, but she still talked back “You try to touch me I’ll kill you! Do you think I’m kidding? Ask your partner about his eye.”

The man in charge looked at his fat ugly partner who nursed his right eye and asked him, “How’s your eye?” The fat partner showed his eye, it was bloodshot and he couldn’t see out of it, “I’m gonna kill her!” he moaned while holding his eye.

The man in charge laughed at his fat partner, “Ha ha ha, that’s good that happened to you. Being stupid should be painful ha ha ha! But I’m gonna cook this girl, you hear me little girl?”

He looked cold at Rica through the slit.

“I’m going to cook you before I sell you. And when I do you’ll soften up and stop wiggling so much.” Rica looked at him with hate. He taunted her.

“Hey hey, look what I got?” he pulled a gun and pointed at her through the slit door. The gun was Cop Gun.

“Haaaa, this is my gun now, I’ll show you!”

Pow!

The man fired a shot that barely missed Rica who pulled her body into a corner, her heart racing. The man continued pointing the gun at her.

“Damn! You are fast..ahh...you won’t be so fast in the morning..you’re gonna cook. Then we see how fast you move...heh..”

He stared at her for a long time, looking at her from head to toe. The man made Rica sick, but she stared back, she would not lose to him. The man knew Rica was dangerous, he thought he should kill her, but that would be a waste.

“Heh, you’ll be a sweet girl soon..watch..sweat first and you’ll see!”

The man walked away from the door. Rica felt the walls, they were smooth metal. Six feet tall and six feet all around. This wasn't a cage it was a box. Rica could stand but didn’t have much room to move. The only light in the cage came from the door slit. She bent down and looked out the slit.

Rica saw the men talking and operating the four boilers. She knew she was in a building basement. A boiler room, hidden from the world. After a few loud noises the boilers sprang to life. And the man in charge looked over at Rica looking through the slit and spoke.

“Hey, we’ll talk soon!”

As he and the fat ugly man stepped out of the boiler room the fat man turned around and threw a wrench at Rica’s cage door, causing a deafening bang sound that caused Rica to reel back and cover her ears.

The two men laughed at her and slammed the boiler room door behind them. Leaving Rica in the dark, alone.

The light from the boiler fires was bright outside her cage door, but not inside. And within minutes the temperature of the room shot to over one hundred and twenty degrees..and Rica felt it in every part of her body.

“Huh..so that’s what he meant by cook me...tch!”  Rica sat still and breathed slowly. She couldn’t let the heat take her.

Day One

“FUUUUUCK!!” Tara screamed in her uptown stash house. She was surrounded by twenty of her goons and Kitty. Tara had words for everyone.

“Listen to me all of you, we handled that good, but not good enough! Hector got hit, Ian damned near got shot up and worse yet Gustavo is missing and so is Rica! And I’m telling you now, you motherfuckers don’t need to be doin nothin else but finding them! Do you hear me?!”

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All twenty loyal men yelled back at their boss, “Right Boss!” and then charged into the night. Tara, Kitty, Bling and Ian stayed behind to figure out what happened to Rica. Kitty spoke first.

“I’m telling you, those guys worked in some union before they met Kocak. They were kiddie porn pushers before they hit the big leagues, and the union is how they know each other.”

Ian concluded, “You mean like carpenter’s union or somethin? I mean I know some people but I wouldn’t know no kiddie porn dealers, at least I don’t think I do.”

Tara answered, “This is what you do, find out what union guy got fired somewhere over kiddie porn recently. If they were Teamsters you know a story like that got legs, somebody will know something.”

Ian snapped his finger, he had something, “That Indian city attorney that handles union contracts. He would know.” Kitty chimed in, “Sonny Persad, I know where he lives, let’s go talk to him.”

As Kitty and Ian got up to leave, Tara stopped Kitty and told her, as a big sister, “We’ll find Rica!” Kitty nodded in agreement, “I know we will, and whoever took her is gonna be in a world of hurt” she said as her and Ian slammed the door behind them.

Tara and Bling watched the door for a moment, both of them thinking about Rica, and how if they would have just got downstairs fast enough. Frustrated, Bling spoke to Tara.

“Boss, let’s go crack skulls yo, motherfuckers know where Gustavo is.”

Tara agreed one hundred percent.

“Fuck yeah they do, let’s go!”

Then Boss Tara and her hatchet man, hit the street. 

A Few Hours

Rica dozed off and woke up frequently. It was difficult to breath in the heat and she was soaked in warm sweat. She had no idea what time it was but she knew it was morning. And then screaming. A child’s scream, it came closer to the boiler room. Rica looked through the cage door slit.

The boiler room door flung open and Rica watched the ugly man in charge toss a screaming child to the floor. A little middle eastern girl, maybe four years old screaming uncontrollably. The girl got up and tried to run past the ugly man who pushed her back with his leg like a soccer ball and laughed and repeated the action, playing with the screaming little girl. He looked over to Rica’s cage.

“Hey, hey, you babysit this girl, she’s got too much energy, but she’ll be like you soon”

As the little girl cried he locked the boiler room door and walked over to Rica’s cage to talk to her through the slit. Rica backed up as he spoke.

“Oh, boy, you look real hot, and I mean it both ways ha ha ha!”

He looked at the crying child who wasn’t as loud as when she walked in the room, and he wiped the sweat from his brow and spoke again.

“You see that? It won’t take her long to shut up, this heat in here woo! Too hot to be screaming like that or fightin like you….you thirsty? I know you are, here!”

The man pulled out a bottled water and poured it through the slit in the door on to the cage floor. Rica stared at him, not blinking. He stared back...not blinking. Then he told her.

“Yeah...you and her gonna be worth a lot...hmm..but you so fiery..man..those people will think I sold them a bill of goods ha ha ha. Fuck all of them though, they’ll make more money off of you than they’ll lose heh heh!”

The little girl crying lost her spirit and whimpered. The man taunted Rica again.

“You hear her? That’ll be you...just takes a little time...keep cooking. I’ll see you again.” The man got up and Rica spoke to him.

“Monster.”

“Huh? Did you say something?

“You’re a monster.” She repeated

“Me? A monster? Ha ha ha ha, hey look here little girl, I saw you put a gun in a man’s mouth and pull the trigger, so what does that make you, heh heh?”

The man laughed at Rica and she answered him.

“I’m a monster killer..”

The man heard her and laughed harder and louder and over the whimpers of the little girl on the floor behind him.

“Ha Ha Ha, you so funny, like I said, it just takes time..and you drink that water I spilled in there. Might save you heh heh...monster killer ha ha ha!”

The man walked past the little girl on the ground and out the boiler room, slamming the door shut behind him. Rica quickly started drinking the water off of the cage floor and door. “Monster!” she mumbled. Rica knew that the man was not going to feed her, but he had to keep her hydrated or she would die. The man wanted to sell Rica broken, but not dead.  

The crying little girl got up and tried to open the boiler room door. Rica called out to her but only in whispers. Rica’s strength drained in the heat.

“Hey, Hey!” Rica tapped on her cage door to get the girl’s attention. The little girl turned around and looked at the cage door confused. Rica called her again, “Hey, little girl, come here!” The little girl turned to Rica’s cage and said something

“Merhaba?”

Rica didn’t understand the word, the little girl must not speak English. The little girl said it again.

“Merhaba?”

Rica responded, “Yes, Mer-haba, come here!”

The little girl realized Rica was another girl and walked over to the cage door and looked in. For Rica speaking with someone, anyone, raised Rica’s energy level. Rica communicated.

“Hi! I’m Rica” she tapped her own chest and said her name again, “Rica!”

The little girl understood, and tapped her own chest and said.

“Nisa! Nisa!” She smiled.

Rica got it, she made progress, and now she had to ask the impossible.

“Nisa, good, Nisa look there!” Rica pointed at the wrench on the floor in a corner.

“Nisa, get that, please, Nisa!”

The little girl walked to the wrench and picked it up. Rica’s energy level returned.

“Good girl, Nisa! Now bring it to me”

Nisa walked the tool to the cage. Rica's hope raised, she didn't have a plan, but now she had a wrench.