Leona did a double take as she was driving last night on her way back from
date night. She and Mateo were meant to have dinner downtown, but they got
in a fight on the ride out there, and ended up just skipping it. He got out
of the car to walk alone, so she decided to drive around a little bit to
clear her head. It’s not everyday that he has the upper hand in an argument,
so she wasn’t exactly excited to get back home and face her friends. She
wasn’t too far away when she spotted one of them walking along the path in
the park across from their building. “Hey!” she called out to him. He looked
around for the source of the voice, and smiled when he found it. Before they
could exchange one more word with each other, a dark van pulled up between
them, and stopped for a few seconds. When it drove away, Ramses was gone.
She held for a second to go over the possibilities. He could have been taken
against his will, sure. It wouldn’t be the first time for any of them. She
didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he clearly saw her on the other side
of the road. He wouldn’t have smiled if he didn’t realize in time that it
was her. Given that, he would have made an effort to say something to her if
he was intending to get into that van. He wouldn’t have just shrugged off
the awkward timing, and went about his secret business. No, even though she
didn’t know why he would be taken, it was the only logical
hypothesis. So she moved over to the right lane, put on her hazard lights,
and impatiently waited for the traffic to clear. Then she made an illegal
u-turn, and begin to pursue the van.
She called his phone, just in case there was a perfectly reasonable
explanation for all of this. After three rings, the driver of the van tossed
something relatively small out the window. She was pretty sure she knew what
it was, but she stopped anyway, and quickly opened her door to pick the
phone off the road, and bring it in. Hopefully they didn’t just see her do
that, because they might become suspicious. Fortunately, the car behind her
still had a ways to go before catching up, so nobody honked their horn. Now
it was pretty obvious that something nefarious was going on here, and she
needed help. She tried to call Marie, and then Angela, but neither of them
answered their phone. She called Mateo, even though he was surely still on
foot, but his phone rang inside the car. Damn, he left it here when he
hopped out in a huff. She was going to have to fix this on her own.
Twenty-five minutes later, they were into the rural outskirts of the
metropolitan area, and the van was showing no signs of slowing. That was
when the route started to become all kinds of crazy. They turned down one
road, and then down another, and then another, until they were all the way
back to where they started from. They winded around, and occasionally spent
a little too long at a stop sign. Oh no, they must have realized that she
was following them, and were just testing her. She tried to call her friends
again, but this time couldn’t even get through to voicemail. She couldn’t
find a signal at all. What were these people doing? And what were they going
to do to Ramses once they confirmed that Leona was behind them. It was dark,
though, and despite the fact that they were out in the country, there were
still quite a few other cars around. She just hung back a little farther,
and prayed that they couldn’t prove any suspicions.
They played this game for hours, and now it’s after midnight. There’s still
no cell service, and Heath’s car is running out of gas. The van probably is
too, but she has no choice but to keep trying. All she can do is continue to
follow, three cars back, and hope that they stop soon. They don’t, though.
In fact, they turn off on a single lane road; that’s one lane, full stop. It
would look mighty suspicious if she happened to be going that way too. But
it doesn’t matter, because Ramses needs rescuing, and she’s the rescuer.
They keep going until they reach this isolated little farmhouse.
Leona switches off her lights, and turns into the driveway, because if they
haven’t noticed her by now, they probably never will. They go all the way up
to the porch, but she stops near the road to watch. She sees them drag a
Ramses-sized burlap sack, up the steps, and into the house. If he’s dead,
she’s going to kill them. One of them leans against the van and lights up a
cigarette while the others are starting to do whatever it is they plan on
doing. That’s when she gets out of her car, and approaches without caution.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here! Who are you?” he cries.
“This your van?” she asks, nodding to it like a gangsta.
“What of it?”
“How did you not detect my pursuit?”
“Hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”
She pops him in the nose with her forearm, spilling blood out like a beer
can at a college party. As he’s crying like a baby, and trying to shove the
blood back into his body, she slams the back of his head against the
passenger window, cracking it slightly. Lastly, she situates the inside of
her ankle against his, and pulls the back of his neck away from the car. He
trips on her leg, and crashes to the ground. She stomps on his back before
casually walking up the steps, where she finds the other two men trying to
get Ramses into a chair. They stop and stare at her of course, not sure what
the hell is going on.
“Hey, wait, I know you. You’re just a floor worker.”
“No,” Leona contends. “I’m the lead floor worker.” She fights them both.
They have knives, which is adorable, and they’re rolling on the floor in a
matter of seconds. Those three years she spent training with the Crucia
Heavy really paid off. These electronic repair idiots are no match for her,
but it’s better to be overqualified than underqualified.
Once it’s all over, Ramses finally comes to. He takes a moment to assess the
situation. “Thanks for coming after me.”
Leona starts to untie him. “What do these guys what?”
He chuckles. “Honor. You see, I quit, which apparently didn’t mean that the
number two worker was promoted to supervisor, or as a thought,
repromoted. They had to be tested again, and evidently, Bruno over
there cheated the first time, so they fired him. And the other guy,
Stockboy, just sort of does whatever Bruno says.
“We were driving for, like, four hours, but we’re probably less than an hour
away,” she tells him, questioning the rationale.
“Yeah, they were worried about being followed or traced, so they thought
going around in circles would prevent that. I guess they figured that would
be good enough, and they wouldn’t have to actually look out for someone like
you. True morons, if you ask me.”
“I would have asked,” Leona begins, “if I didn’t surmise that myself.” She
tenses up when the front door opens, but relaxes when she sees that it’s the
rest of the team. They’re in no hurry either, presumably after seeing the
driver writhing on the ground.
“Okay,” Heath says, “next time you go into the Great Dead Zone, drop a
message. We barely found you.”
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