Title: Better Luck
Fandom: The Middleman
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Wendy
Summary: So this is it, huh? This is the way she's going to die? Great.
He pulls the ropes tighter around and she winces as they scrape skin from her arms. He bends down to tie her feet and she kicks him in the face. "God!" He jumps up and grabs her throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. She gasps for breath and her eyes go wide. "What the hell is your problem, Wendy? You're beat. It's over."
He's right. It's over. They both know he's won. She stops moving, stops struggling for air. He lets go of her then finishes tying her feet to the chair. He grabs the back of her chair and drags it squealing across the gymnasium floor. The front legs of the chair hit the ground with a thump. He's in her face again. "If it makes you feel any better, you put up a good fight, Wendy."
Joel smiles. The braces on his crooked teeth glimmer. "For a girl." He reaches over and pulls the rolled up rag out of her mouth. "Any last words?"
"Go to hell, you prepubescent dick face," she spits. He laughs and shoves the gag back in.
"So I guess you don't want to be my prom date?" he smirks. She's gonna punch his stupid head the minute she wriggles free of these ropes. He grabs her face with one of his hands and squishes it. "Relax. You aren't going anywhere. Boy Scouts taught me those knots."
Where was her boss? No one else on the planet would be more disgusted at Boy Scout knowledge being used for evil. Joel walks towards the bleachers and pulls a large duffel bag from underneath one of the benches. "Do you know what this is, Wendy?"
She ignores his little question and answer session and works on wriggling herself free of the Boy Scout knots. Damn it! She's done this a dozen times in hostage simulations during training and she's always gotten free. Where was The Middleman? He should be here by now! Ida should have been able to track her coordinates before Joel yanked the Middlewatch off of her and smashed it to pieces.
He walks back over towards her and sets the bag gingerly on the floor. "This, Wendy, is a centrifuge particle destructor." Joel unzips the bag and pulls out a heavy black weapon. So this it. This is really the way she's going to die. God. How...sad. Pathetic, really, that she's successfully faced down Clotharians with a grudge and super-intelligent zombies and indestructible nanobots and this is how her story ends. Alone in a musty gymnasium during second period. She always knew P.E. class was deadly.
"Its primary function is to reduce the matter size of atoms to negative," he continues. "I know what you're thinking, Wendy. 'What does that mean for my weekend?'" He walked toward her, cradling the weapon. Her brain races. Bossman has got to be on his way. There's no way he'd let her get all de-centrifuged at the hands of this pizza-faced junior high d-bag with a science project gun.
He stands behind the chair she's tied to and leans down beside her, pressing the centrifuge particle destructor into her left shoulder. "It will kill you." His breath is hot against her neck and he snakes a sweaty hand over her shoulder and down her torn shirt. Great, so he can't just kill her; he's got to cop a feel first. She jerks back, rocking the chair backwards into Joel. He pulls his hand away and walks in front of her. Her eyes go wide as he stands over her, the destructor pointed directly at her forehead.
"Better luck next time, Wendy Watson."