Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
“Gotcha!” a voice exclaimed, as she hung by her arms between the two men.
Sapphire Angel looked up through hazy vision as a man stepped forward and drove a fist into her unprotected stomach, lifting her off her feet as she grunted. A moment later, he backhanded her, smacking her head to the side, before another backhand whipped her head in the other direction, and a knee drove into her stomach.
Her knees sagged and her head drooped, as her hair dangled in front of her face. Her attacker lifted her chin before pushing her hair out of her face, staring into her unfocused eyes and letting out a rumbling laugh.
“Get her on the bar and pin her down!” he ordered.
Two men hoisted the stunned woman off her feet and slammed her onto the top of the bar, where she landed with a thud as her head whipped back onto the hard wood. They jerked her arms above her head, pinning her forearms, before the dazed heroine heard the rattling of metal and felt a handcuff snap around each wrist. Clicks sounded as her captors fastened both handcuffs to an ornate metal rail on the top edge of the bar, leaving her cuffed with one arm angled over her head toward the rail.
Two more men rushed into place, one on each side of the bar, and seized her ankles, holding her legs to the surface of the bar. When they finished, they had her stretched out and pinned to the surface of the bar, with one pair of handcuffs securing each wrist, and two men pinning down her legs.
She let out a soft moan and turned her head to the side. Through blurry vision, she made out the form of a squat, muscular man striding toward her. The huge grin on his face was unmistakable, even in her current state.
“Looks like we nabbed ourselves an angel, boys,” he said.
As he came up beside her, he leaned his head over the costumed woman, and grabbed strands of her soft hair and ran it through his fingers. She groaned and tried to focus as she looked up at him.
“We’re here to send a message,” he said, peering into her face. He seized a fistful of her costume just above her breasts and pulled up, arching her back and lifting her a few inches off the bar, the shimmering fabric of her costume stretching taut across her chest.
“We’re going to hurt you bad — worse than you did to our friends here,” he continued. “But something tells me that might not be enough. So I think we need to go a bit further, and make sure you run crying out of this town with your tail between your legs, hoping we’re just a bad memory.”
He released his grip on her costume, and she sagged back onto the bar. His eyes moved up and down her slender form, before he reached his hand down past her knee. He ran a finger up her leg, grazing against her tights, while he ran another finger along her cheek.
“Sal, we’re not —” another man began, but was cut off.
“Shut up, Jeff! We need to teach her a lesson.”
The other man, Jeff, fell silent.
“Very nice,” Sal murmured, turning his attention back to the captive superheroine. His hand continued up her leg and reached her skirt. He grabbed the skirt between his fingers, feeling the smooth fabric. His other hand glided across the vibrant blue fabric clinging to her flat stomach, before it moved up and stopped over her breast. He palmed her breast in his large hand, eliciting a desperate whimper from the superheroine, before he grinned and began kneading it slowly.
“You've got a damn hot body. And I have to say, I like how you get all dolled up in that fancy outfit. But I think it’s time we see what’s underneath it.”
A surge of panic shot through Sapphire Angel as the man reached behind his back and pulled a knife into view. The surge started bringing her to her senses.
The man took the tip of the knife and ran it softly down the front of her costume, as if to show her he was in charge, and could start cutting when he wanted. He didn’t cut into the fabric, though, only lightly touching it. The gentle touch of the knife started at the collar of her costume, went between her breasts, and stopped where the blue of her costume ended and the white skirt began.
Sapphire Angel felt anger swirl within her, further driving away the effects of the blows to her head. The muscles of her arms tensed and she pulled her wrists upward. Metal groaned for a split second, and the man’s head jerked up, confused. Before he could react, the rail of the bar snapped, the cuffs came free from the rail, and she swung her hands forward, smashing both fists into the center of his face. He stumbled and fell backward, rolling to the floor.
She didn’t allow the other men time to process the split-second turn of events, kicking her legs free from the men pinning them, pivoting on the bar, and lashing out with a kick to the man on her left. As he fell away, she continued her pivot, spinning off the bar and landing on her feet.
She glared at the men, a handcuff hanging free from each wrist. The man with the knife was struggling to his feet, but the man she had kicked lay on the floor, unmoving. The other four men stood in pace, looking at one other and not moving to attack, while the bartender ran for the door to the hotel.
“You dirtbags need to learn what happens when you mistreat a lady,” she said, jumping at the knife-wielding man, and landing a jab to his face before he could raise the weapon. As his eyes glazed over, she finished him with another jab, before pirouetting away toward the center of the room.
A few minutes earlier, she might have allowed the four remaining men to leave. Not now. As they stood frozen with indecision, she whirled forward, a blur of punches and kicks. She barely noticed the handcuffs on her wrists as her blows struck home. The men swung at her, but none of their punches struck home as she bobbed and weaved. Her blows connected with faces, stomachs, and limbs, and within seconds the four men lay on the floor groaning.
Except for the moaning and whimpering of the men on the floor, the bar was silent. Sapphire Angel stood, hands on her hips, and surveyed her surroundings. All fifteen men were down, many with injuries that would keep them out of commission for several days, at a minimum. Only Don Lanigan, the bartender and owner, had fled unscathed.
Sapphire Angel moved among the men, searching them and finding police badges on most of them. She gritted her teeth and shook her head. She was about to try to snap the cuffs from her wrists, when she saw the large man crawling toward the rear door, whimpering and holding his broken wrist.
The heroine rolled her eyes and walked to his side, reaching him as he crawled alongside the bar. She put her foot on his back and drove him to the floor. As he grunted, she searched his pockets and found a key to the handcuffs. She used it to remove the cuffs from her wrists, moving one pair to his healthy wrist and cuffing him to the foot rail of the bar.
As she bent near the man, her eyes were level with the surface of the bar, where they had cuffed her moments earlier. The sight reminded her of what these men — or at least one of them — had done to her and planned to do to her. Anger flared in her as she remembered the man's touch, and a small part of her wanted to pummel these men as payback now that she had turned the tables. But she would never let herself succumb to such dark thoughts. And she didn’t know if reinforcements were on the way. She had overcome fifteen trained fighters, but didn’t know how many dirty cops were on the Wynton police force, and didn’t want to push her luck if an even greater number appeared. She needed to wrap things up.
Sapphire Angel knelt next to the man cuffed to the bar, as he continued to sniffle and hold his wrist. Like all the men on the floor, he was beyond the point where she could use her charms to extract information from him. She gazed into his eyes with an intense glare.
“I know you won’t tell me anything, but it’s my turn to tell you something,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is for you, and whoever you work for. Stay out of my way.”
She didn’t wait for a response, but turned and headed for the door.
"It doesn't bother you at all?" Officer Lindsay Jennings asked, holding the phone to her ear. "Sitting on your ass and ignoring this?"
Detective Will Cooper was on the other end of the call and sighed.
"I'm not ignoring this," he replied. "Just following orders. But enough time has passed I can start looking for Harper's friend. He qualifies as missing now."
"You know the whole time requirement is bullshit, right? There's no such rule."
"Like I said," he answered, "I'm just following orders. I'm not a rebel like you. I care about my career."
"Maybe too much," Jennings said. "I know you're a good guy, Will. Which is more than I can say for some of our coworkers. You have to be able to live with yourself. Don't shortchange this one."
Cooper seemed like a good man, and Jennings hoped she could appeal to his sense of decency.
"Does it really matter?" he asked. "The ArangoSoft girl has been missing for over two weeks, and we've found jack shit so far. What makes you think this Stump kid will be any different?"
"Did you ever consider that you haven't found anything because you're not supposed to?"
The line was silent for a moment, before Cooper replied.
"Meaning what? Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"The fact that you even know what I'm suggesting means you've considered it, too. At best, the Stump case is getting ignored because it doesn't serve WarTech's interests. At worst, people in the department might be covering something up. Or even involved."
Cooper was silent again. When he spoke, his voice quivered.
"Lindsay, don't even fucking go there, okay? We're only going to make trouble for ourself and have nothing to show for it. It's not worth it. Just drop it, okay?"
"Just think about it, Will. Think about it. Sorry for calling you at home."
Jennings hung up the phone and looked out the window. Perhaps she was being too hard on Cooper. Or perhaps he was part of this whole mess. But what could she do? Nothing right now. But if Sapphire Angel or Beth Harper asked her for help, she would give it. Even if she had to break some rules.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
Awwwww, YEAH! I’ll admit.....what I was initially thinking was that they were going to restrain Sapphire on the bar, and then when they were seconds away from physically harming her, Conner was going to bust in, take everyone down, and officially join her on the case. But I guess it’s not time for that just yet. Regardless, I absolutely loved the fact that she got out of that all by herself without any outside help; there’s no denying that the anger did temporarily get the better of her, though. Good thing she still didn’t kill anyone, though I’d imagine she came close to doing so. Even then, I wouldn’t blame her entirely; the things they initially did to her weren’t exactly excusable.
And that was also a really good sequence with Jennings and Cooper. Sometimes, you have to be willing to rebel against a group if you know they’re doing wrong, regardless if it’s technically “against the rules”. What’s right isn’t always what’s legal; in fact, I’ve got a future novel planned that centers around that exact lesson. Hopefully Jennings’s words will be enough to turn Cooper around.....if not, we may have to deal with him soon enough. And apparently a second girl, from ArangoSoft, has also been abducted, before Eric Stump. Seems like this isn’t WarTech’s first rodeo......not surprised, though.
So, uhh.....where are we going to go now? Lanigan got away, so we can’t interrogate him for any leads on the laptop. We could always go back to Clark and give him a lashing for luring us into a trap......maybe see if he knows any information or something. Or maybe Jennings and/or Cooper have recovered something worth looking at.
We’ll see on Monday!