1
I slid on the latex gloves after he let me in the room so there was no chance I’d leave prints. Once I heard the click of the door closing, I acted. Throwing an elbow back into his chest, I grabbed his hair and yanked his head to my knee.
The resulting snap was rather satisfying and told me I’d done some damage. He went down hard, blood already flowing from his nose.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Collecting on the debt you owe,” I purred, launching my boot into his side.
As he coughed and groaned in pain, I squatted down. I grabbed his hair again and made him focus on me.
“No more women for you.” I smirked when his eyes went wide. “No more women at all. This is for all the sex workers you hired, lied to, and played your sick games with.”
I grabbed his wallet before I made a mess… Then proceeded to make a mess. I took several shots, until he promised he’d never hire a whore again.
I reminded him that I’d said no more women, not just ones he could hire. I wasn’t stupid. A predator’s word wasn’t worth shit. Even if you took away one of their hunting grounds, monsters always found more victims.
No, it was best to make sure the monster couldn’t hunt again.
I smashed the wide heel of my boot into his groin, chuckling when he tried to scream but couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to do it. Several more hits, and he passed out from the pain.
A small mercy. He wouldn’t ever be using his junk again, and probably peeing into a bag for the rest of his miserable life.
Doing a quick search of the room, I found a stack of money and valuables in the safe—which the idiot hadn’t locked. Lots of things changed, but bad guys using cash was a staple of life.
I grabbed it and checked that I hadn’t left marks in the blood or screwed with the splatter before ducking out of the room. I took the stairs and found my bag stuffed in the bathroom stall I’d locked.
I cleaned the few splatters of blood on my boots, changed, and walked back out in under three minutes. Making sure not to look around like I was guilty of something, I went for the employee area and headed for the door. Too many people worked at hotels to keep up with all the faces, a few giving me nods in passing.
I took a deep breath as I exited. Getting trapped in places was always my biggest fear. I knew she was there before I turned and saw her. Pulling out the wallet with another glove, I handed both over to her.
“You got twenty-four hours with the cards.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, taking it from me and trying not to cry. “You done here?”
I always had respect for the ones who fought to stay strong and break in private. Or at least, not near me. Emotions were not something I handled well, and not something strangers should dump on me when I was helping them.
“Nope. Gotta chop off the head of the snake. I’ll find you when it’s done and get you out.”
“Why do this for us? You’re not even one of us,” she asked, as most of them asked me.
I glanced at her, going with the quick answer so we could get gone. “I might not be a sex worker, but I am one of you. I’m a woman on my own who once needed a break when she got in too deep.” I kept talking when she opened her mouth to ask more. “Make tracks from here and be safe.”
“Gotcha.”
By the time she said it, I was already walking away. I caught a bus a few blocks away, grateful it was late and I didn’t have to worry about the headache of being around too many people.
Getting off at my stop, I stowed some of my stuff and went to finish what I’d started before moving on.
It didn’t take long—only about twenty minutes pretending to work the area in his turf. They always came out to reclaim and piss on their turf, normally forcing anyone who unknowingly crossed it to be one of theirs.
I bit back a sigh when I saw he’d brought eight friends. Instead of dancing under my skin like normal, that weird energy in me roared to life at the threat.
“Bitch, you’re going to pay for what you’ve been pulling,” he snarled at me.
“Bitch, you’re going to pay for what you’ve been pulling,” I mocked, smirking at him just to extra piss him off and make him sloppy.
Sure enough, he practically roared and told his guys to grab me. With a swift kick to his head, I sent the first one flying. They realized I wasn’t the normal girl they jumped and rushed me.
I fended them off, but the energy built. I didn’t know what to do to dissipate it. It hadn’t ever been like that before.
I growled, mentally focusing on my hands in the hopes of doing something with it, and slapping them together in an echoing clap. My whole body tingled as energy rushed out of me like lightning pulled from the sky.
All the energy around me seemed to focus into that clap, and flew out to hit the nine guys.
They went flying all around, like they’d touched a bad battery or got kicked in the chest. My jaw dropped as they landed hard, knocked out before they could even bang their heads.
“Oh fuck,” I hissed with feeling, staring at my hands. That was certainly new.
And probably not something easy to hide.
I shook off my shock and need to freak out, quickly moving to grab what I wanted before they came to. I was just about to slip the USB drive on him with all my evidence and a note that he was out of the pimp game when there was a blue flash of light across the street.
For a second, I worried it was the cops, but it was too bright to be a squad car. It got brighter, and I blocked my eyes until it died down.
I blinked to find five guys standing there and a weird fucking something on the building wall behind them. They glanced around, locking on me as I jumped to my feet.
“What happened here? Why did you use your powers?” the closest to me demanded.
“Dude, if you think I have a clue what I just did, you are sorely misreading the situation,” I muttered, focusing on the thing on the wall. It was like a weird mirror. “What the fuck is that?” I pointed to it, proud of myself my hand wasn’t shaking.
“She’s an unknown,” a second guy said.
“Fuck,” the first growled, moving closer to me. He held up his hands when I stepped away. “You cannot stay here.”
“No shit,” I snickered. “I was about to bail when you showed up.”
While he had my focus, two of his guys moved on either side of me. I easily blocked the first when he reached for me. The other sighed and tried to grab me.
Oh, he wanted to be annoyed?
I could give him something to be annoyed over.
As I smashed the heel of my hand into his nose, they rushed me. One wrapped his arms around me and they were like steel fucking bands I couldn’t break. I tried to get an arm loose, but I couldn’t.
“Calm yourself, love,” a deep voice said from next to me—a guy from the back of the group I hadn’t seen until then. “Relax and come with us. You know it’s best. We’ll help you.”
There was something in his voice that made my body go slack, my eyes unable to look away from the deep emerald of his. They blurred, and then there was nothing as I went limp.
2
I woke slowly, like I’d gotten a contact high, passed out harder than normal, and it wasn’t easy to shake off.