He was bored. More than bored. Sure it had been fun at first, watching his foil snip the threads of his web ahead of him as he slowly spun an even more elaborate design behind him, but now, it was getting tiresome. He needed something to take the edge of the ordinary work of his extraordinary existence. It was time to find a new distraction. A new pet.
It had taken him no time at all to plot how to ruin the world's only consulting detective and he had actually been a little pleased to see that while the plan should have worked, did technically work, it was also a failure. A failure that let him chase and scheme and follow his unworthy obsession across Europe. Well figuratively, James Moriarty couldn't be seen in Europe just yet. Too many chances for someone to be an idiot and point out that he was in fact, not dead. So he settled for America. Horrifying as that was.
Chicago to be exact. Lovely city. Bustling and crowded but also oddly slower paced and quiet, and such a glorious history of criminal wonders. The city positively oozed corruption and sin. Keep "Sin City" and "The City That Never Sleeps". If he couldn't be in London, in his home, he was more than happy to bask in the glorious underbelly of the Windy City.
But after two years. He was getting bored. Too bored. Dangerously bored. That kind of boredom could make even the cleverest of men stupid. He needed… something.
It only took him moments to spot her, he'd seen her a couple of times already and had registered that she was intriguing, but ordinary. He could tell she had been intrigued too. Her intense and oddly fascinating eyes grabbing chaste looks at him every time they happened to be at this same coffee shop at the same time. He came for the scones and relative silence. He was beginning to think she came for him.
Who should he be this time? Sweet and kind Jim? Shy and damaged Rich? Someone new? Dark and intense and thrilling? Safe and ordinary? So many delightful options. Part of him just wanted to be himself to watch her tense, watch as her eyes went wide and he make the blood in her veins run cold. Not yet though, that would come soon enough.
ooOOoo
She glanced over her laptop, taking a pause from the images she was constricting on her screen, to look at the man across the room, feeling eyes on her and prickling a little. He was always there it seemed. Every time she came down to the coffee shop to work rather than sit in her apartment and stare at the screen for hours as if it were her only lifeline. When she moved to the city to work as a freelance designer, she thought there would be a touch of glamour and mystery to being a single girl in a big city. The after effects of one too many romantic comedies she figured. Alas, that was not her life. Her life, was staring at a screen for hour a day when she had work, and staring at her phone for hours a day when she did not. It was… boring. But he wasn't.
She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was about him. The first time she saw him she barely registered his existence. He was decently looking, if not a bit too proper in crisp jeans and a button up, but that was a dime a dozen in this neighborhood. Here men were either crisply dressed business men starting the long trudge into dignified careers or questionably ironic hipsters who needed a shave and a slap. He fell into the former she assumed. A man who would drone on about his education and his life plan and where he saw himself in the next five years. Oh god, never mind, back to work. She didn't need a boring distraction in her life. Her life was enough of a boring distraction on its own.
It wasn't until the third time she saw him there that she really started to notice him. Why was he always there? Same crispness, odd darkness about him, same unnerving looks that she would glance up and see over her laptop. He was good looking. In an odd way. Maybe he wasn't what she had assumed. Maybe she was just being jaded and judgmental. Maybe she should stop staring since he is walking over.
ooOOoo
He opted for a scaled back version of himself. Why not test the water and see how this little one reacted to the thrum of underlying menace. This should be fun.
"Excuse me?" He purred, letting the odd lilt of his voice hit her with just two words. From the couple of one off trysts he had had while in this city, he knew girls just loved a man with an "accent".
She suddenly seemed engrossed in her laptop, afraid to look up at him. "Yes?"
"You were starting."
Her head finally popped up at the accusation. She had in fact, not been staring, she was returning the unsettling look he has been giving her since she walked in. Part of her wanted to just tear him in two, shatter the weird veneer of confidence that he strode over with and show him that she was not a random girl to pick up at a coffee shop. She would have, she should have, but something in the eyes she lock on when her head popped up instantly told her that would end badly. Dangerously badly. So instead she muttered and lied. "Sorry, thought you were someone else."
He practically oozed into the seat next to her, adding to the menacing tension. "Don't lie." He leaned in, speaking barely above a whisper. Almost instantly her mouth went dry and she snapped back to her screen, taking a quick sip before muttering.
"I felt you looking at me again and I looked up. Sorry."
A devilishly sweet yet shark like grin slid across his face. "Good, you noticed. I'm James." Extending a hand in between her and the screen she was now pretending to be incredibly fascinated by, "And you are?"
She sighed softly, and shook his hand, nervous, but finding the fortitude to be honest, "I'm Kate, and not to be rude, but I kinda need to get this done and don't want to be hit on."
He let out a wry chuckle. "Wasn't hitting on you. Just being friendly, I'll just leave you to it then… Good day, Kate."
He didn't have to look back to know she was watching him now as he strode across the room to grab his coat and leave, he had all the information he needed from that short conversation. She was going to be a fun distraction. Now he just had to put his plan into action.
ooOOoo
He settled into his chair, gliding his finger across the screen of his laptop as he did. A few quick keystrokes and he had what he needed, "Kate" as she introduced herself was actually Mary Katherine Johnston, a freelance graphic artist and designer, unattached from everything he could glean from his research and a transplant to the city from a small town in the middle of nowhere that missed her about as much as she missed it. He clapped softly to himself. She was almost too perfect. Just the type of girl that disappeared all the time with no one noticing. Perfect.
Two phone calls later and her fate was sealed. She was going to be his new pet.
ooOOoo
Kate dropped her bag in the chair just inside the door of her apartment and rolled her neck. The job was done and sent and now, with no other work on her books, she rolled her neck and headed to the fridge for a bottle of water with happy thoughts of Netflix dancing in her head. She had only taken one step into the kitchen when the hand grabbed her, wrenching her wrist up behind her back and smashing her to the wall, pressing her there under his weight and popping her shoulder out of the socket before she could even scream. The blinding heat in her shoulder and wrist were the last thing she felt before stars danced in her eyes and everything went dark.
ooOOoo
Everything hurt. That was the only thing that registered as Kate slowly tried to open her eyes. Everything. Hurt. She panicked and sat up quickly, immediately regretting it. The room spun around her and she felt a wave of nausea before falling backward again. Into someone's arms.
"Careful now, Darling, Don't need a concussion from smashing your head into the wall on top of all this." She felt herself being slowly lowered to a pillow. She also, recognized the voice.
"James?" She croaked, suddenly aware that she could barely speak and her throat burned with glass and fire.
"Shhh, quiet Darling, Daddy's turn to talk." He placed a finger on her lips gently as she opened her eyes again, feeling the panic resurge and trying again to get up, fruitlessly, as he pressed her shoulder to the bed and she let out a strangled scream as the pain shot through her. "You're in no condition to start running Darling. Sorry about that, my boys got a little rougher than I had intended." He traced his finger along her cheek. "Don't worry, that misjudgment won't go unpunished, but for now, we need to get you taken care of." He stepped away and she shifted again, trying to follow his movement and just being, yet again, greeted by a fresh flame of pain. What had happened? Her questions were answered by a lovely young woman at her side, gently probing and making her wince, Kate squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip. The woman's voice and hands shook as she checked Kate over.
"Sh-she has a dislocated shoulder, a sprained wrist, a-at least two broken ribs—" Kate winced at the touch to her side. "S-Sorry!" The woman tensed and moved with and even lighter touch, Kate opened her eyes to see that James was standing directly behind the woman, crowding her and staring down with a look that would stop a lion in its tracks.
"What else?" He asked in a hiss, his jaw tight.
"Sh- Th- there is—" The woman swallowed a dry lump. "There are signs that she was choked, probably with a forearm across the throat, which explains why she sounds so hoarse, an-and o-other tr-trauma, the bruising on her legs woul-would sugges—Oh God" The woman tensed and fell silent, Kate could see his hands were in her hair now, yanking her back to look into his eyes. His electric, dark, menacing eyes.
"What. Did. They. Do?" He snarled into her face. This was not what he wanted, he wanted her picked up, and a little battered to make it easier to make her compliant, but generally in one piece to him to break apart. This, was not what he wanted at all.
The woman started crying as he wrenched her back, Kate again felt the surge or fear and panic through the pain, trying to process the words floating around her, her brain scrambled. Bruising on her legs would suggest… Oh God. Realization dawn on her face at the same time as James' and tears leaked from her eyes.
James tore from the room like a hurricane, shouting back to the woman. "Tend to her, NOW!"
A tender hand stroked Kate's hair back gently. "I'm so sorry, th-this is going to hurt." The woman's hands moved to Kate's arm and in a blinding pop, Kate was out again.
ooOOoo
Kate snapped awake to the sound of James, leaning in and whispering, "Are you awake Darling? I need you to wake up now. You need to see this."
"Good, you're awake. Let's sit you up now." He slid an arm under her shoulders and eased her up. She expected a fresh wave of pain to flow through her but instead, she felt, well, quite wonderful, actually. He positioned her gently against the headboard and she could now see why she didn't feel all the damage, the IV in her arm was dripping a delightful blend of drugs steadily into her system. Moving away from the IV, she saw what he was sitting her up for, at the foot of the bed, two men were on their knees, looking at the floor, with two others behind them. Each had a gun pointed squarely at the back of the other men's heads. James shifted carefully and gracefully off the bed and moved behind the men.
"You see my darling Kate, I would be lying if said I hadn't meant for them to hurt you. I needed them to hurt you, but not like this." He took the gun from the nearest man's hand and without flinching shot the man on his knees in the back of the head, watching Kate as the man fell forward. Kate gasped and started to shake, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. James was at her side almost instantly, slamming the gun to the chest of the man he has taken it from and gliding onto the bed next to her to pull her to him, stroking her hair gently. "Shh, Shh, It's okay Darling, he hurt you. He hurt my Kate. Don't be scared. He pulled her closer and nodded to the other man. With a sharp pop and thud, the other was dispatched. Kate screamed into him. "Shhh Shhh It's okay," He put his hands on either side of her face and locked his eyes on hers. Cold possession locked on fear and panic. "No one touches what is mine."