River O'riley

... NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON ...

Lucy hadn't held anything back, I'm not sure what changed her mind, or why she decided to talk to me, but her insight is about as valuable as gold..
Every piece of information brings me closer to putting it all together and finding a solution.

She sobs as she recalls to me her first memories of Jun, and how he snatched from a bus stop in the early hours of the morning.. She'd been on her way to a downtown community college where she'd been taking several classes..

She shivers and cringes as she describes to me the house where she was kept for six years along with the rest of Li Jun's private collection of stolen girls.. She tries to explain the layout as best she can and even draws me a picture of the floorplan and configuration of the girls' rooms..

She stumbles in disbelief at her own dumb-luck as she conveys to me the confusion in which she managed to escape.. The fateful day when Jun took her out of the house and into the garage to keep him company, turning his back to take a phone call and opening a window of opportunity for her to run..

She shakes her head in irritation when she tells me about how she went to the police, only to be misunderstood and doubted.. She explains that she didn't trust the Chinese-spaking officers for fear of their associations and the other officers just looked at her funny..

She cries some more, reaching a painful breaking point where talking becomes difficult.. Overwhelmed by the discussion of discovering that her mother had passed away while she was captive and her father, a gangster with an opium addiction was in no condition to help her..

She had been all alone, with nowhere to go..

Once again I find myself relating too much.. Feeling too strongly about the suffering this woman has endured at the hands of the devil now down in the basement..

She tells me how she left the Foxhole because Triads started turning up and causing trouble for her, following and threatening her into returning to Chinatown..
After obeying The Mountain Masters demands, her loyalty had not been rewarded.. Instead Jun had discarded her at the Factory.. Condemning her to a whores life.

As I sit now in a serious silence with Lucy, her dark purple hair tangled and hazel eyes tired, I am lost in thoughts of the girl who brought me to this moment..

Frankie..

And now I am one step closer to seeing her returned to the life she was meant for.. I am closer to losing her.. To letting her go..

Shite..

How am I supposed to let her go?

-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-

A knock at the door has Lucy jumping in fight and me rising tiredly from where I sit to drag my weary bones across the living room.. "Relax Lucy, It's alrite'.. It's just Deyton checkin' in.."

I pull open the front door to find Dey dishevelled on the other side..

"You're not gonna believe what I found, man--"

Deyton steps aside, behind him four more girls, all wearing the same white-rose tattoo on their necks, all with different brightly coloured rainbow hair stand there in the stairwell, shivering, wrapped in blankets and huddled together..

"Holy-- shite.." I move to let them all into the apartment and Lucy rushes to greet the girls, comforting those that are still crying.. She leads them inside and settles them in the living room where they whisper among themselves.. "Yer' sure that's all of 'em?"

Deyton nods.. "The house is more like a kennel, a fucking maze.. But there was nobody there to stop me taking them and they didn't put up a fight.. I cleared every room.."

I clap him on the shoulder in commendation.. "Ye' did good, lad."

"I got what you asked me for too.." He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, retrieving a disc that he holds up.. "You know, you don't gotta watch this.."

I scowl at him.. "Why, are ye' gonna watch it for me?"

If Amberley was sent to test my patience, then Deyton is here to try my commitment to the cause..

Maybe it's because he reminds me of a younger, more fucked up version of myself.. Or maybe it's because he isn't exactly the sharpest prick.. He is definitely a tool alright..

His expression sours.. "Fuck no! That's my sister, bro! It's bad enough she does this shit, do I really gotta know about it?!"

"I'd watch where ye' cast those stones, lad.. We're all sinners here.. It's a hell'uv alot easier to forgive her than it is waitin' for her to change." I'm getting a little sick of trying to talk to the Davis siblings.. The role of mediator to their feud doesn't exactly appeal to me and sorting out their problems for them is something I could do without..

"You didn't know our mamma, River.. But if you did, you'd understand why I can't deal with Amby's shit.. You'll just have to be the bigger man here, and I can live with that.."

I shake my head.. "Goddamnit Davis.. Yer' just the same as her and stubborn as shite.."

"Nah man.. I'm way worse." There is something weirdly detached about Deyton.. I can't be sure if he isn't totally full of shit, if he really doesn't care or if his medication makes him into this blank slate.. "It's a lost cause.."

"Aye, I can see that.." I snatch the disc out of his hand.. "Just watch the girls, dumbass.. Lemme get it over with already.."

Deyton steps farther into my apartment, glancing around at the five girls like he'd rather drag his dick through a razor-wire field than spend any time around them..

Lucy climbs to her feet from beside two of the girls that sit on the floor, hugging each other.. She passes right by me as I head towards the bedroom.. "Excuse me, Sir?"

I stop in the hall to listen to them talk as Dey lingers in the entry where the purple haired beauty corners him.. "Who sir, me?"

"Yes, you." I turn back to see her reaching for him, taking and kissing the back of his hand.. "Thank you."

He takes a step away, bumping into the entry side table, withdrawing his hand from hers with his ears turning red.. "I didn't do anything."

"You found my sisters, sir."

He looks over her shoulder at the other girls.. "You're all related?"

Lucy smiles.. "No."

He rubs the back of his neck.. "Uh.. Kay.."

"They want to thank you too, will you listen?" She motions for him to join them in the living room..

"I don't speak Chinese." He shrugs stupidly, with no tact and senseless insensitivity..

"Mandarin." She smiles sweetly..

Deyton cocks his head to the side.. "What?"

"They speak Mandarin.. So do I.." She explains.. "Please will you hear them?"

He sighs.. "I dunno-- tell them it was River who found them.. Not me."

She shakes her head, not accepting his refusal.. Not because she doesn't understand.. But because she doesn't want to.. "But it was you."

Deyton steps forward.. "Look, I'm not even supposed to be here-- just-- Tell your 'sisters' to forget they ever saw me."

Lucy nods.. "Oh.. If you wish, sir."

"M-my name is Deyton." He mumbles..

"My name is Lijuan, but you can call me Lucy.."

She turns to leave him when to my surprise he says something that an actual human being would say.. "I'm sorry.. For what happened to you, Lucy.. All of you.. That house-- nobody should live like that.."

She stops.. "I lived like that."

He smiles sadly.. "That's why I'm sorry."

"We are all sorry for something.." Lucy reaches up to gingerly stroke the cut on his cheek, the one he picked up somehow back at the Factory.. "Some things are beyond our control."

Deyton nods, easing into her company.. "I guess so.. Is there--uh-- anything I can do?"

She nods.. "You can sit down and stop scaring my sisters.."

He scoffs.. "I'm not sca--" He glances up at me to see I am watching their interaction.. I give him a look, not a warning, more exasperation.. He really is terrible at talking to women.. "Okay yeah. I'll sit.. Thanks."

I nod to him and continue up the hallway, leaving them behind..

....

Sitting on my bed, I slide Amberley's sex tape into the disc slot of my laptop..

My finger lingers over the play button..

There will be no unseeing what am I about to see.. No going back..

Fuck.. She really knows how to torment me.. And not in a good way..

I've never felt so sick..

Why did it have to be Beckett?

She could gave fucked any other Marine in the city, there are hundreds of them.. How did she find her way into bed with the one son of a bitch that now haunts me..

I can practically hear his ghost cackling with laughter as he continues to fuck with me from beyond the grave..

My eyes close and the memories of a blizzard barrage me, savage white and stabbing cold.. I feel the chill in my bones and the frostbite on my flesh..

~~~~~~~~~

Sound is drowned out by the rumbling avalanche and the ground beneath me slides away..

Screams so suffocated by snow and silt echo in the distance and the rocks begin to rain down..

Ropes twist around my torso, my chest and my left arm as I pitch forward to clip onto the anchor before there is nothing but slicing agony..

Pain, like I've never known it, tears me apart.. Ropes cut though my muscle and I am pulled in two different directions.. The howls of a wounded animal escape my mouth, but its drown out by the storm..

"Cut them loose O'riley!" Beckett shouts from somewhere close to by, but I can't see anything for the sleet and wind..

I look down to see my blood spilling out onto the ice, red on white.. The taught ropes disappearing over the edge of the abyss that has opened up below me..

"Cut them loose now!"

I dig for my knife, pulling the leather sheath from the blade with my teeth, but as I streach down to where the ropes link around my waist, I realise the tension is too tight..

The chain beneath is un-tacked from the anchors.. If I cut the ropes.. They all die..

If I don't cut the ropes.. I die..

Its a simple equation.. And an obvious choice..

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of myself.

I can taste death in the air, metallic and sour..

The knife slips from my fingers as Iet go and accept my fate..

~~~~~~~~~

I shake myself from the jarring reverie, opening my eyes to hit play before the computer screen loads a dimly lit video..

Dylan sits shirtless on a sofa in shot, in what looks like a cheap pre-furnished motel room, a pipe in one hand and a lighter in the other.. "You're a nasty little slut, huh?"

"You have no idea big boy!" Amberley giggles, her long legs stalking into frame.. "How nasty do you want it?"

She calls him 'big boy', which I know for a fact is what the Foxxy girls name all the guys whose names they can barely bother to remember..

It figures that just like everything else, this meant nothing to her.. He meant nothing to her.. I don't know that anybody ever does..

At least now I know it isn't just me she so easily failed to hold in any regard..

"Why don't you suck it and see, baby?"
Beckett places the pipe down on the table to unbuckle his belt and tug on his bent dick.. All the while, Amberley dances around him to make her way between his knees, kneeling down in nothing but a skimpy black lace thong..

Shite.. She's got a nice arse..

Fuck.. Why am I looking at that?

Beckett grabs at her head like an overbearing gorilla as he groans.. "Ahhhh fuck yeah, thats it Amber! Suck my--"

Fuck this..

Sick.. The sounds they both make bring rise to my gag reflex and I have to mute the volume to keep it from imprinting in my mind for all eternity.. I'm going to need a drink, or several to forget tonight..

I turn my attention away from the violent blowjob taking place center screen to focus on the seedy environment..

My eyes sweep over the shelves behind them before I squint down at the table in the foreground of the shot.. It's a little blurry and out of focus.. But there is an unmistakable blue folder, buried beneath a crack kit..

A brief folder just like the ones I get from Killian.. And Killerwolf gets those cases from one person in particular..

Iris Santiago. The Spymaster of Specter.

An irritated growl climbs up my chest and through my throat.. "What--in the-- fuck?"