Page 28 of Cruel Games

I’d had a few boyfriends when I was younger. The last one was in college, when I was a different person. Dating got hard once you dedicated your life to killing men in revenge. So, outside a few one-night stands and drunken bathroom hookups, I hadn’t bothered with the opposite sex in a while. I wasn’t above using my hand when the urge to release some pent-up sexual tension arose, but there wasn’t room in my mind for that sort of shit. Not when every waking moment was carefully calculated to progress my goal, and every sleeping moment was spent reliving that horror show of a night or imagining all the ways I could fail and what would happen to me if I did.

A half-hour later, alone with my thoughts for far too long, I finally locked the doors, set the alarm, and walked out the back exit, tossing my apron in the passenger seat as I slid into the car’s driver’s seat. I swore at my lack of foresight as I realized I forgot to pack pants for today, staring down at my prissy-ass pleated black work skirt.

It’ll have to do.

I tore off my work tee and replaced it with a short cropped hoodie, spray painted with the Neon Dog’s moniker—that stupid bright-ass smiling face, twisted and warped into something hideous and frightening. I slipped into my own mask, a pink neon thing with a wicked grin that I’d attached a gas mask filter to the inside of to compliment their rainbow of colors, and slung my supplies over my shoulder in a satchel.

I had a knife, three knockout gas grenades, zip ties, rope, and three blindfolds.

I was prepared.

After all this time, it was finally going to happen. I was going to put these fuckers in the ground where they belonged. I’d finally get the retribution for my father that I’d been searching for. My whole life’s purpose, finally coming to a head.

And I’d never felt more alive than in that moment as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the affluent part of town, passing carefully through the back alleys of neighborhoods I’d once lived in. I knew the kinds of people who hung around here. Rich, affluential people with cares that rarely extended past their own noses.

I cringed inwardly as I pulled into the alley behind the row of storage buildings where their target was supposed to be tonight. My car was too loud to keep running, so I killed the engine and slipped out of the damn thing, checking the numbers on the storage units as I walked past them one by one, searching for the number I’d heard the guys mention when they made their plan of action last night.

Three thirty-one, three thirty-two, sheesh, how many of these units were there?

I came to a corner and prepared to stroll around the corner, the trusty bat I’d bought when I returned Jackal’s tossed casually over my shoulder when I heard a familiar voice ring out in the alley between unit buildings.

“Alright, man, let’s get this over with. I’m not in the mood to play with my prey tonight.”

Dingo, the one I’d drugged in the club, sounded tired and very much not in the mood for games. He’d be an easy target tonight. I waited to see if I could hear the others and place them in relation to my position, but they either weren’t talking yet or they were busy doing other things.

In the corner of the alley was a dumpster, and from the looks of it, it was close enough to the side of the building for me to climb up and give me a better vantage point. The options were either that or walking right up to them, assuming they wouldn’t react fast enough to stop me.

I couldn’t take unnecessary risks. This had to work tonight, or I’d lose the element of surprise and put them on guard. And breaking back into the Guild to kidnap them from there was a no-go. I could gas them while they slept, but hefting three grown-ass men out of there without getting caught would be damn near impossible.

A minute later, I’d managed to climb up to the roof, and I was now watching from above as the three targets I’d stalked for so long all three took their bats to a man who’d likely earned far worse than that punishment.

Unlike most of their targets, this one wouldn’t be getting a ride behind their bikes for his troubles. The instructions were to leave him in his storage unit for his partners to find. A warning, if you would.

My plan was simple—let the dogs do the work, let them have their kill, and then slide in at the last minute with a gas grenade, knock them out, and toss them in my trunk. Once they were tied up and gassed out, I’d have around an hour to get back to the warehouse and get them trussed up just how I wanted.

I could do this.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I watched the blood fly from the tip of Jackal’s bat, new wounds appearing as hegrinned wickedly and landed blow after blow on the whining, sniveling cretin laying on the concrete in a puddle of his own piss, from the looks of it. I crouched lower so I wouldn’t get spotted when they turned and started dragging his body into the storage unit, then slipped to the edge of the roof, reached a hand inside my satchel, and sighed in relief when my hand closed around the smooth cylinder of a gas grenade.

Showtime.

My hands were shaking just a tad as I clenched the metal canister in one hand, the pull ring in the other, and prepared to tug the little metal stick out and throw the damn thing.

I only had one chance to get it right.

Maybe I shouldn’t do this from above. If I don’t get the angle right, I could miss.

I shimmy-ed down the side of the building again, but this time, I missed the damn dumpster. Thankfully, I had practice falling from heights I shouldn’t fall from, and let my knees absorb the impact like a cat.

The dogs were arguing with each other when I got back within hearing range.

“Something feels off about tonight, man. We had six weeks of getting our kills stolen out from under our fucking noses, and now the copycat is nowhere to be seen?”

Jackal sounded paranoid.Good.I’d have paid good money to see his face right now. But hearing it in his voice was almost as satisfying.

The stoic, silent one sighed in annoyance, mumbling abouthurrying upbefore he returned to being silent again.

Dingo, ever the leader, sounded like he was a dad in charge of two unruly teenagers. “I swear, you two are the biggest bunch of conspiracists I’ve ever met. Why does everything have to be fishy? Just be glad we’re back in business.”

---