"No! No stop!" Everyone around the fountain turned at my shout, but they were inconsequential shadows. My entire world had collapsed to the phone in my hand and the imagined picture in my mind. Ruby squealed even louder than before. I could practically see Neo advancing on her.
"Jaune, what's going on?" I ignored Taiyang.
"Please," I begged into the phone. It was all I had left.
Torchwick could not have been less empathic. His voice didn't break from his previous tone. "You brought this on yourself Jaune. Remember that."
A sharp crack came through the speakers. The tone of Ruby's squeals changed into deeper cries. Pained cries.
"Jaune, what's happening? We can't hear. Where's Ruby?"
"Please! I'll do anything. Don't hurt her." Tears ran openly down my face.
"Really? Anything?" Another crack, another cry. "Do you have what I asked you to bring?"
"Yes. Yes. It's right here. Please. Please…
"Hmm…" As Torchwick thought, Ruby grunted. The simple sound tore through me. I could feel her agony as if her torment ripped through my own body. "As you asked so nicely, Neo stop."
He could have been talking about anything. A good meal. A funny TV show. Or someone being tortured in the same room. It didn't affect him at all. The cracks and Ruby's grunts and squeals were replaced by soft whimpers and pants. Torchwick must have been holding the phone right next to her mouth. "Do you hear that Jaune? That's your fault. Remember that."
I would never forget. My body trembled as I cried in full view of everyone who was still staring at me. Taiyang was saying something, but I couldn't hear him over Ruby's ever so quiet moans.
"Now," Torchwick continued. "It's a lovely day outside and I'm feeling in a generous mood. So I'm going to give you another chance. Are you going to do as I say this time?"
I tried to speak. No words managed to escape my choked throat, just an unintelligible grunt.
"I'm sorry; you're going to have to speak up. The reception here is terrible."
"Y-Yes." I'd do anything so that I didn't have to hear what I had just transpired again.
"Good." Torchwick laughed. "I'm glad we could finally come to an understanding."
"Jaune, what is going on!" Taiyang's voice came out loud over my earpiece. "Does anyone have eyes on him?"
"Now Jaune." I blocked out Taiyang as Torchwick started speaking again. I hung on his every word and the whimpers just under them. "Here's what you're going to do. You see the Twenty-Third Street station to the south of you?"
"Yes." I could just about see the stairs and the commuters using them.
"You're going to take the subway to Thirty-Third Street. When you reach the road you'll receive another call. Remember, I have people watching. If you make one more mistake, that's it."
"I won't." I didn't care about what I was getting myself into. I didn't even care about myself or my safety anymore. All I could think about was Ruby. Her only chance was for me to do exactly as Torchwick said. Even if it got me killed, I would do it.
"I know that Jaune." I could almost hear the bastard smiling. "Oh, and before we forget, lose anything the police gave you. We wouldn't them interrupting us would we?"
"No." I tore the flesh-coloured patch from my chest.
"I'll speak to you soon Jaune. And remember to run. Otherwise Neo here might get bored." With that chilling threat, the phone went dead.
I had to get to Ruby. I had to save her. I had to comply with Torchwick. My fingers scrambled at the strap of my watch. He'd say everything the police had given me. I jumped up looking around frantically. People stared at me, a semi-circle of eyes. I they were asking me if I needed help I wouldn't have known; they might as well have been speaking Spanish. I pushed through the crowd. I had to get the station.
"Everyone move in. Jaune, whatever you're doing stop. It's not going to help Ruby. We can still sort this out."
I started running as I dug the earbud out. Taiyang didn't understand. He'd underestimated Torchwick just like I had. There wasn't going to be any nice open negotiations if this fell through. He was going to kill Ruby. He'd already tortured her just to make a point. Torchwick wasn't your run of the mill criminal. He was different, unique, and all the more dangerous because of it.
Sirens wailed from the streets all around. The cops were as much a threat to me as whoever Torchwick's eyes were now. The police would get Ruby killed by trying to help her. People came running into the park. They might have been wearing plain clothes, but no one would have mistaken them for joggers. They sprinted towards the bench where I'd been.
The crowds were my friend. I stuck behind them, keeping them in between me and the cops. With my head bowed and my shoulders hunched, their cursory glances didn't see me. I'd got lucky, but it wouldn't last. More cops would be arriving every moment. This is what it must have felt like to be an actual criminal. The net was closing in on me.
As the sirens closed and uniformed officers appeared, the crowd was starting to get nervous. Something big was going down and it couldn't have been good. People glanced around. In post 9/11 New York it was hard not to jump to only one conclusion.
A gun going off was the trigger for pandemonium.
People started screaming and I ducked my head just like everyone else. It couldn't have been the cops, but they drew their own weapons in response. Faced with that sight it only took one person pushing for the herd instinct to kick in. I was swept up in a torrent of elbows and bodies. Children cried. Parents shouted names. The cops pushing their way into the park had no chance against the hundreds fleeing from it. The crowd swarmed onto the street, the squeal of brakes and honking horns only added to the chaos. Those at the front couldn't have kept out of the road even if they'd wanted to.
It was pure luck that carried me past the stairs to the subway, and I thrust myself towards them. Some people were escaping downwards, but too many feared being trapped underground during a terrorist attack.
I took the stairs three at time. No doubt I was as responsible as anyone for spreading the panic. The slap of my sneakers rang through the corridor as I sprinted into the mezzanine. The newly-arrived commuters were blissfully unaware of the chaos above them.
I knew better. With a possible terrorist incident it wouldn't be long before some bright-spark middle-manager decided to shut down the trains before they'd received the whole story. I had to be on one before that happened. It took three tries for the turnstile to accept my MetroCard. It was only the worried looking cops with their hands resting on their pistols that stopped me jumping them. I'd heard that story before.
Running was out of the question as well. I could only walk at a brisk place. I didn't know the station very well, but there weren't many ways I could go wrong. I had a minute before the next train pulled in. I picked up my pace.
The platform shook as a train pulled in. I didn't even wait for people to exit as I pushed my way on. The smell of trapped sweat and neglect washed over me. The subway was never particularly nice, but today it was the least of my concerns. Ruby's pained cries still echoed around my mind. They made me want to throw up. I could never imagine hurting her like that, but I had. Everything that was happening to her came straight back to me.
My knuckles were white as my fingers attempted to crush the metal pole. They only succeeded in giving me pain. It was enough. I deserved it. Thirty-Third Street was only two stops away. It wasn't far, but as the train started off, I knew I'd done exactly what Torchwick had wanted. With the aid of pandemonium above—which he had certainly had a hand in—I'd lost the police. I was entirely on my own from here on out. No more support. No more backup. Just me and my idiot brain that had got everyone into this mess.
The train was painfully slow. Every squeak and rattle as it bounced over the bumps in the tracks grated on my already frayed nerves. I constantly expected news of the terrorist attack to come over the loudspeakers with the message the train would be held in the tunnels. If that happened, I didn't know what I would do. I suppose there were always the emergency exits.
Ruby's life was dependent on every passing second I was stuck in this cage. I couldn't keep myself still. I urged the train on faster with my tapping foot. The first stop came and went without incident, and the moment the doors opened for the second I was out of them, casting around for the stairs to the street.
I still couldn't afford to sprint, but I walked as fast as I dared, dodging around the idlers who only seemed intent on getting in my way. My sneakers had barely made it more than two steps onto the sidewalk before the phone in my hand went off. A chill shot down my spine and all my hairs stood on end. Someone was watching.
"There's no use looking around." The voice was markedly different from Torchwick's. His had sounded jovial no matter what he was saying; this one was deep and business-like. "If you want to see your friend again, take a right and walk to the end of the block."
I did as instructed; any of my questions were met by a wall of silence. I must have looked like half the people on the street walking with a phone on my ear, but I couldn't have been more different. I didn't understand how the sun could be so bright and the temperature so chill.
The man at the end of the phone guided me along several blocks before directing me into a darkened alley. After I'd come this far it wasn't enough to put me off. A sedan idled in the shadows and a man leant against the trunk. He wore a cheap knock-off suit, but the bulge under his jacket looked very real.
"Cell." From his voice I could tell it was a different man. Just how many people did Torchwick have working for him?
"What?"
"Cell." The man held out his hand palm up. "Don't make me repeat myself again." He'd done time in prison if the tattoos on his knuckles were any indication. I'd have liked to say the words were original, but that would have been a stretch too far.
I passed him the phone, but he continued to glare at me. "Yours as well."
Oh, right. That had been sitting in my pocket this entire time. I'd been far too distracted by the one which hadn't left my hand. There was a chance the police had been tracking me this entire time. Taiyang wouldn't just have given up after I'd gone AWOL.
The man pulled the cases off of both and flipped the batteries out. I knew what was coming next, but it was still painful. His heel crashed down on the phone I'd spent months saving for. The burner followed its demise.
"The USB." He was a man of few words. My fingers clutched the hard plastic that had caused me so much trouble. It was my last bit of leverage, the last part that Torchwick wanted, but I needed to save Ruby. As ridiculous as it was to admit it, I could only pray that Torchwick was true to his word. I handed it over.
"Good." The man pocketed it. "Now strip."
"Excuse me?" The question burst from me. Over the noise from the bustling street echoing in the alley, I was sure I had misheard.
The man didn't even deign to answer; instead he simply turned his back and walked towards the driver's seat. My stomach lurched as I realised what I'd done.
"Wait! Wait!" I hopped on one foot as I tried to undo my sneakers. He came to stop. I'd never had that much trouble undoing a knot in my life. "Why?"
"Because I said so. Put your clothes in here." He threw an empty trash bag at the ground. "Now hurry up."
It was another order that I couldn't refuse. That's what happens when all the cards are in someone else's hands. It was either their way or the highway. Still though, stripping in front of a random guy, and in public, wasn't exactly high on my lists of desires.
It wasn't that it was too cold. In fact it was warm enough that you could walk around without a shirt in comfort. Not that I ever would though, that was reserved for people with actual abs. I was too embarrassed about my body, and that was the root of my hesitation. We were in the shadows, but if anyone on the street looked they would be able to see me.
The gangster noticed and popped the trunk, giving me something to hide behind. "You're wasting time."
I was, and he wasn't going anywhere. I saved the slightest bit of my dignity by turning my back on him. It was hard to undress when someone was watching, and even harder when your best friend was being tortured at that very moment. My fingers could hardly find the buttons.
I half-thought this might be an elaborate piece of payback. That the goon would drive off and leave me in the middle of Manhattan in my underwear. If only I was so fortunate. He flicked his eyes towards the single shred of my remaining dignity.
"Come on…" I said half-pleading and half-exasperated. This was taking the piss. I obviously wasn't hiding a gun or something down there. I wasn't that lucky.
"Look, I don't want to be staring at your junk any more than you want me to. We can either get this over with, or I can leave. Your choice."
It was the longest speech I'd heard from him. I was surprised he wasn't out of breath. But he had a point too. I hadn't come this far to give up. I slipped them off. Despite what he'd said, the guy did look. My face burned bright as I covered the family jewels.
My pulse skyrocketed when he put his hand in his jacket, but it only came out with something that looked like one of those metal detectors used by the TSA. He swept it over both my front and back. As the purpose of the item clicked, I was suddenly very glad I hadn't tried to be smart and kept the GPS tracker on. Torchwick really didn't mess around with his security. No wonder he'd been one step ahead of the police.
"Get in." The goon indicated the trunk, shoving a small pile of clothes at me. "You can change on the way."
I almost made the mistake of making him repeat himself again. Of course I wasn't going to be allowed to ride in the cab. These were gangsters after all. This was their version of taxis, and at least there wasn't a bullet in my head… yet. That was a sobering thought as the lid of the trunk slammed like a coffin above me.
I'm not sure if you've ever taken a ride in the trunk of a car. I'll just say it doesn't quite compare to an Uber. The lighting was non-existent, and so was the AC. Every breath scolded my lungs and sweat poured from my skin within moments. The leg room wasn't exactly worth five stars either. My knees were crushed up against my chest, and my neck was twisted at angle.
The commute was the worst part though. We were in Manhattan, and that meant New York traffic. Stops, sudden bursts of acceleration, hard braking, and lots of ninety degree turns threw me around the enclosed space. I didn't know how I was unable to brace myself but at the same time be so cramped. More than once my skull bounced off the lining. The impacts combined with the heat set my head spinning.
Against all of the adversity I did my best to pull on the clothes. I couldn't tell if I was putting them on back to front or inside out, but I doubted anyone would be critiquing my fashion sense when we arrived. Not that I knew where that would be. I'd lost track after the first turn. Just one of the advantages of having your passenger in the trunk. Much less complaining than a blindfold as well.
In the pitch-black there was no way for me to tell how my time had passed. I could have sworn it was hours, but it was probably more like twenty minutes. I remembered reading somewhere that trunks were meant to have an escape handle on the inside. I guessed no one had told the gangsters that. I was entirely trapped.
I only realised we'd stopped for good when the rumble of the engine died away. As the trunk popped the bright lights set my eyes watering and I had to blink up at the silhouette.
"Out." It was my chauffeur. I did my best to oblige. It would have been pleasant to say I clambered out gracefully, but you can't really use clamber and gracefully in the same sentence.
The concrete slabs were cold on my bare feet. They hadn't given me shoes, just a t-shirt and some loose shorts. We were inside somewhere, a garage maybe, or a warehouse. Those seemed like the sort of places the mafia would operate from.
It was only after a moment I realised we weren't alone. Another man stood near the doors we'd just driven through. He was packing as well. I gulped at his hard eyes. What was I thinking of? These were criminals; I was just a dumb kid.
The answer was obvious. Ruby. I'd been thinking of Ruby. I'd gotten her into this mess, and I was going to get her out of it. Somehow… I still had to come up with that part of the plan. My chauffeur shoved me towards a single door deeper into the building.
My guess had been right. We were in a small warehouse, and a mostly abandoned one at that. Who'd have thought? Crates were stacked around the floor, rifles surrounded by straw neatly arranged within. They looked military grade. I was prodded around a pile.
"Ruby!" My cry echoed in the cavernous space. It was closely followed by my rage. I was barely able to think over the red. She hung limply, her wrists bound together by a rope draped over a crane hook near the ceiling, her head lolling on her chest, her eyes half-closed, gagged with a strip of tape. She wasn't even capable of bearing her own weight. The shredded remnants of her pyjamas gave the reason why.
My eyes locked on the one who'd done this to her. Not Torchwick, but the woman, Neo. Her grin stoked the fires of my anger. She was proud of her work, letting the whip trail casually on the floor. My hands longed to wrap around her tiny neck.
"Afternoon Jaune, did you enjoy the trip?" Torchwick swung a cane of all things around his finger, speaking in that insufferably light voice.
"What did you do to her?" My throat was so choked with rage I wasn't even sure if they counted as words.
"No, no, no." Torchwick wagged his free finger. "We didn't do anything. You did this to her. Have you already forgotten? Perhaps you need another reminder."
"Touch her again and I'll kill you."
Not many men would have been able to laugh in the face of such a threat. It wasn't a bold boast. In that moment, I would try my hardest. Torchwick was one of the few though, and his chuckle was genuine, as was the glint in his eye. He turned to his sidekick, both enjoying themselves at my expense.
"Now that is a sight I would really like to see. Perhaps you'd like to try your luck against Neo here." When I didn't start forward immediately, he feigned disappointment. "No? Such a shame."
"Mmmm?" Ruby grunted through her gag. I didn't understand what she was trying to say, but the rasping tone pierced straight through my anger like a bullet. Ruby looked at me blearily through hooded eyes, doing her best to support herself again.
"Ruby, I'm here." Empathic hurt washed over me. I'd never seen her brought so low before. Not even after her mom's death, and it was all my fault.
"Ahh… sleeping beauty awakes." Torchwick threw his hands to the sky. "Fantastic. Now we can get started. No, you stay right there Jaune." He chivvied me away from Ruby.
I was forced to watch as Neo approached Ruby, a smile lighting up her features. She looked like a cat approaching a wounded bird. She ran one finger along a welt across Ruby's shoulder blades. The pained moan from Ruby broke whatever resolve I had to stand still and not throttle Neo.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder. There was absolutely no give in it.
"Thank you Pero." Torchwick addressed my driver. "We wouldn't want anything to get messy would we?"
"No boss."
Torchwick turned to me, this time any joviality was gone from his gaze. "Jaune, the next time you disobey me, you're going to have to watch as I let Neo have some fun." Ruby shivered at the threat. "So are you going to behave?"
"Yes," I growled out through gritted teeth. What could I do anyway? I had to be smart. That was the only way we were going to get out of this. And that included not reacting as Neo continued to prod and caress Ruby's wounds. She looked at me the entire time, daring me to come to Ruby's rescue. I wanted to. So much. But I couldn't.
"Excellent. Did you bring me a present?"
"Yes."
Torchwick clapped his hands together like a kid on Christmas morning. "And you thought this couldn't be a beautiful relationship. Well hand it over then."
"Here is it boss." Pero passed it to Torchwick who threw it to another of his goons. "Go and check it." The man disappeared through one of the side doors. "I hope you haven't tried to trick me Jaune."
"I haven't. It's real. I've held up my end of the bargain. Now let Ruby go."
"So chivalrous. You didn't even mention yourself."
With a lurching stomach I realised I hadn't. It didn't matter anyway. I knew what I'd been getting myself into. If only one of us was allowed to leave, so be it. This was my fault. I was man enough to suffer the consequences.
"But I don't think either of you will be leaving quite yet."
"You gave your word."
"Did I? Think back Jaune, and think really hard before accusing an Italian of breaking his word. That wouldn't sit well with me."
Realisation hit me. Torchwick hadn't. He'd never said that he'd let us go. He'd only said if I obeyed him I would get to see Ruby again. Well there she was right in front of me. Hanging from the roof by her wrists and with tear stains on her cheeks. All this time I'd been relying on his compassion, or humanity, or something else which would persuade him to allow us to leave. But why would he? We'd seen his face, the faces of his men. The smart thing to do would be to kill us and dump our bodies at the docks. I had to be smarter. Somehow.
"I gave you what you wanted."
Torchwick swept his arms wide in a bow. "And I'm grateful that you did, but didn't you wonder why I went through all this trouble? Why I had Pero bring you here? Why I didn't just snatch you from your apartment?"
I hadn't. I'd been too concerned about Ruby, but now he mentioned it, it didn't make much sense. There had been any number of easier ways, and he'd gone for one of the hardest. "You wanted to meet me."
"Obviously." He shook his head. "I had to meet the famed Jaune Arc of Rising Arc Investigations. The private eye who, not content with crying housewives and petty vandalism, decided to poke his head into my business. I had to look the person who stole my property in the eye. Hello Jaune. Nice to meet you."
There was nothing in his gaze. No mercy. No compassion. No empathy. Nothing. With some people you just knew they weren't quite right in the head. You knew it from the moment you saw them. Neo was like that. She was all kinds of fucked up. Torchwick wasn't. At least not when he was putting on a façade. Now though, the look he gave me made my knees tremble.
I'd made a mistake. He hadn't even considered letting us get out alive. We didn't have a chance. I'd voluntarily walked into the wolf's den while wearing a sheep costume. I was dead. I knew that in my heart. He was going to make me pay for having the gall to steal from him. His reputation demanded it, and people like him lived and died by their reputations. Strangely, I wasn't paralysed by the fear of my own mortality. I might have been had I been alone. But I wasn't. Ruby was with me. We didn't have a chance, but I had to try for her.
"You don't want to do this."
Torchwick laughed, full of good humour, and that was enough to set his cronies off. "And why would I not?"
"I don't matter. I can disappear and very few people are going to care." It was sad, but it was true. My family. My friends. No one else. "Ruby's different. If you kill her, you're going paint a giant target on your back. Every cop in the city is going to be after you."
I hated the sound of his laughter. I hated it so much. "I think they already are. It comes with the profession."
"Not like they will be. You know that's true. You'd be a cop killer. You'd never be able to rest again. The FBI would get involved, every agency. They all look out for one another. And cop killers get brought to justice the way their colleagues want. If you kill her, you'll be digging your own grave." I forced my voice lower, colder for the final threat. It was my only play. The only way I could think of getting Ruby out of this.
Some of Torchwick's goons shifted their weight from foot to foot. My statement had struck a little too close to the mark. Even Pero's grip loosened minutely at the distracting thought. Conflicts against other gangs were to be expected; the police were another matter entirely. In the end, there would be only one winner in a direct confrontation. Torchwick had put them on the path towards that.
"Is that true Red?" Roman nodded to Neo.
Ruby still hung limply, unable to fully support her weight. She cringed away as Neo's fingers approached her face. Someone else might just have ripped the tape gagging Ruby away, but that wasn't enough for Neo. She pulled it slowly, looking deep into Ruby's eyes and doing in the most painful way possible. I cringed but forced myself to stay still. Ruby spat a loose ball of tape onto the dusty floor and worked her jaw.
"Well?" Torchwick had allowed Neo all the time in the world to play, but he wouldn't wait for anyone else.
"Yeah," Ruby grunted. Despite the obvious pain, exhaustion, anger, and suffering it contained, I'd never been happier to hear Ruby's voice. It made her seem more real. She hadn't been beaten. Not yet. She was still there. "You'll all be fucked."
"Looks like someone's still got some fight in her. I'm impressed." Torchwick might have been, but Neo wasn't. She pouted at Ruby as if she'd suddenly discovered her favourite toy had stopped working.
"You heard her." I had to try and keep the momentum. Try and keep the discussion on point. "If you kill her the cops will hunt every one of you down." I addressed everyone. If I couldn't appeal to Torchwick, maybe there was a chance some of other people in the room wouldn't be willing to sign their own death sentences. They might not have been, but fear or respect of their boss kept them from speaking out.
"But you see there's my problem." Torchwick stalked closer to me. "Red's already here. We're already 'fucked' as she so eloquently put it. And in my opinion, it's much harder to get a corpse to give evidence. Don't you agree?" He patted me on the cheek.
"No. We won't say anything."
Torchwick laughed again. "I find that hard to believe. Are you not going to say anything Red? Are you not going to name names?"
From the look in Ruby's eyes for an eternal moment I thought she was going to tell him to go fuck himself. No doubt it would have been more than satisfying after everything they'd done to her, maybe even worth the consequences, but it would have screwed the pair of us. Instead Ruby looked down.
"No."
"Oh fantastic. You can both go then."
There was no way anyone could have mistaken his remark for anything other than a sarcastic retort. My stomach clenched. It was sort of strange really. Rather than regretting the impending loss of my own life, I only cared that I'd be costing my best friend in the entire world hers. It wasn't true in very many cases, but Ruby could honestly say she would have been better off if she had never met me.
I met her wet eyes, trying to say I was sorry without speaking. I didn't want to share this moment with anyone else in the room. They didn't deserve it. This was just between the two of us. Ruby nodded, her lip trembling. She understood. Or at least I hoped she did.
"What? No last words for each? Nothing else." Ruby glared at Torchwick. I doubted it was in her to beg. She was too strong, and she knew the truth. Torchwick had made up his mind before I'd even arrived, probably before he'd even snatched her. Everything I'd done had been futile.
But I couldn't meekly accept our fates. I was weaker than she was. "If you kill us you'll never get what you want."
"Really? I have you both here, and you were already kind enough to give me what I'd asked for.
I bared my teeth in a grin. "Did I? Then what's taking your guy so long?" I didn't know where I was going with this, and no doubt it was a futile attempt to appear cocksure and confident, but I'd take even imaginary leverage.
My question might have been baseless but, like the best boasts, it did have a glimmer of fact. Torchwick's guy had been gone for a long time. Much longer than it would have taken to plug the stick into a laptop. I didn't know what had distracted him, maybe he was browsing Reddit, but it gave Torchwick pause. He nodded in Neo's direction.
"Go and check." For the first time, there was the hint of actual concern hidden beneath his light tone. Something hadn't gone to his meticulous plan. As she prowled off, Torchwick turned back to me, trying to rediscover his care-free smile. "So tell me Jaune, what dastardly scheme have you concocted?"
I'd never been particularly good under pressure—not like that—and you would have been hard pressed to find a more pressing situation. Exam halls had nothing on rooms full of mobsters and impending deaths. Ruby was staring at me as well. I didn't need a thesaurus to describe the tiny glint in her eyes. It was hope. She was hoping I hadn't been as much of an idiot as I had been.
"Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to come here without taking precautions?" I threw out. Torchwick obviously thought yes from the look on his face. I tried to ignore that. What I needed here was some grade-A bullshitting. Ren may have been our group's Dungeon Master, but I could still spin a story. "If you kill us, you'll never be able to access the data on that stick. I hope your guy hasn't been stupid enough to ignore the warnings." Yes, keeping it vague was a good idea.
"What warnings?" Torchwick's brow furrowed as his voice darkened. He finally seemed like an actual person rather than the caricature he chose to present.
"Oh… nothing major. Just if you put the wrong password in three times it'll wipe the whole drive. Good luck recovering the data too when it's overwritten a couple of thousand times. I'm sure that'll be no problem for you."
Torchwick shrugged. "You're right. That's not a problem. Especially when every second you don't tell me the password is one where Red is going to wish she was dead."
Ruby whimpered at the threat but, when I caught her eye, I saw something I hadn't expected. She trusted me. She trusted that whatever game I was running was for the best. I could only hope I was worthy of her trust.
I forced out a chuckle. It was a pale imitation of Torchwick's, but it had the desired effect. Perhaps annoying him wasn't the cleverest move, but angry people make mistakes. "I mean, we could do that. But it wouldn't help you. The encryption is geo-tagged." I was pretty sure that was a thing. I think I'd seen it on TV one time. "The drive will only unlock when it's at a specific set of coordinates. Let Ruby go and we can take a little road trip."
"Bullshit." His laughter rang around the room. "You actually had me going there for a moment. Well played. You wouldn't have made a half-bad grifter, but you should have learned where to draw the line."
Shit. But I was in too deep to stop now. "Oh really? Then what's taking Neo so long?"
It was almost exactly the same line I had said earlier. Neo should have been returned and Torchwick knew it. He whirled around to stare at the door, before glancing back to me. I had no clue what was happening, but I rolled with it. I sneered the same way he liked to. I would have liked to say I didn't enjoy it, but I did.
"Luca, Franco, go and see." Torchwick's unease permeated through the air. The two of them approached tentatively, trying to peer through the opening that had swallowed their two colleagues. They exchanged a look before stepping through.
Nothing happened. They disappeared from view down the corridor and we were left standing in middle of the warehouse. Seconds ticked by.
"Fuck this." Torchwick drew a pistol and pushed it up against Ruby's forehead. He looked me in the eye. "Tell me what's going on." The humour had evaporated from his voice leaving it cold and dry like the Antarctic tundra.
He wasn't making an idle threat. I recognised that as surely as a rabbit recognises the headlight of a speeding car. I'd pushed Torchwick too far, but then he had never been planning to let us leave alive anyway. I'd bought us time, but it wasn't enough. We only had one chance. I continued to sneer.
"You don't know?"
Torchwick racked the slide of his gun and in that singular moment I threw my head back into Pero's face. The back of my skull slammed into something hard. It hurt, but I was willing to bet I'd hurt him more. I wrenched myself from his grip and threw myself at Torchwick.
Ruby's foot lashed into his side and, as he recoiled, I hit him with a flying tackle a quarterback would have been proud of. We both crashed onto the concrete floor. He might have been better at fighting than me, he might have had a lifetime of experience climbing his way up the brutal ranks of the mafia, but it didn't matter.
His strength was nothing compared to mine as we tussled for the gun, my hands locked on his wrists, slowly, ever so slowly, turning the gun away from my best friend. Our faces were inches apart, my body on top of his. I had the leverage and I used it.
A hand tried to pull me off him, but there was grunt and the pressure disappeared. However brief the distraction gave Torchwick the opportunity he needed. His lips were drawn back to the gums exposing both rows of perfectly white teeth in a snarl. The gun turned back towards me.
I reared up, lessened the pressure on his wrists, and slammed my forehead against his nose. Bone broke with a satisfying crunch. A rattle of pain escaped him and his fingers spasmed open.
Rolling off him, I snatched the pistol from the floor. Ruby had somehow gotten free of the hook that had suspended her and tussled with two of Torchwick's goons even if her hands were still bound. Judging by the pained expressions all round it looked like she was giving as good as she got.
The three of them were a mess of tangled limbs as I brought the gun to bear. It was colossal in my hands and far heavier than it had any right to be. The barrel shook as I wrapped my finger around the trigger, wildly aiming it at the ceiling.
The pistol almost leapt out of my hands as the bang echoed around the cavernous room and in my ears. The furious tussle was brought to halt in the silence that followed.
"Let her go." The harsh smell of chemicals tore at the inside of my nostrils. Torchwick started laughing. He sounded like the joker. "Shut up!" I shouted as I turned to him, pointing the gun at his bloodied face and longing to pull the trigger. I could do it. I knew that. After everything he had done to Ruby you bet your ass I could do it and sleep soundly afterwards.
"You got balls kiddo, I'll give you that. But you don't have the brains to go with it." He pushed himself to his feet with his cane, blood dripping from his ruined nose. "Look around you. You're fucked."
I was. Torchwick's men had all pulled their own guns and were all pointing them squarely at me. Resolve settled on me. My hands stopped shaking, the barrel stopped trembling. "Put them down or I kill your boss." I barely recognised my own voice. It was so cold and calm. "We're going to walk straight out of here."
Torchwick shook his head. "No you're not Jaune. But go on then. Pull the trigger. See where it gets you." He raised his cane towards my face and the end cap flicked open, revealing a darkened hole.
We stared at each other down the barrels of two guns. He was going to order it. I could sense it on the air. I could sense my final breath in this world. I could only try and ensure that Ruby escaped. If I killed Torchwick, maybe even another one of his men as I bled out, maybe it would be enough. It would have to be. I filled my lungs to the fullest capacity. Even the stagnant air of the warehouse had never been sweeter.
Torchwick and I stared each other down as each frantic heartbeat lasted for an eternity. We stared as we counted our last. And we stared at each other as another gun went off.
We both jumped. The report had been far louder than before. One of Torchwick's goons dropped in a spray of blood. A man emerged from the doorway at the back of the warehouse, pumping a shotgun that had been sawn down to well below legal limits. He wore an oriental black and red suit that matched his hair. My eyes were drawn to his mask though. It wasn't a plain balaclava. It was stylised, obscuring only the top half of his face and covered in red symbols.
Pero raised his gun towards the new threat. Two bangs rang around the warehouse and he dropped. Another man came from a different angle, this one carrying a smoking rifle, blond messy hair showing above a mask that was different from the first. His covered the entirety of his face. I guess I knew who the leader was, especially when more of his crew emerged. More masked figures emerged from all around.
"Drop your weapons." The first intruder spoke, his voice deep and powerful. He looked at me. "All of you." I didn't but he continued to walk forward, his shotgun aimed straight towards Torchwick's centre mass. He didn't seem scared of Torchwick's own cane-pistol, or maybe he was just crazy. Dressed like that I knew what my money was on.
"Don't," Torchwick commanded, keeping his gun on me. His remaining men shifting their aim between targets. They were outnumbered, not that Torchwick cared. "Ox, I don't remember sending you an invite to this party."
Ox? As in the animal? I cast around until my gaze settled upon a figure approaching Torchwick's blind side on silent feet. The person had the right build, and the same raven hair, but it was the gun held in her hands that confirmed my suspicions. It was the same suppressed pistol that Leone had pointed at me just a few nights before. It was The Tigress definitely, and I was surrounded by the White Fang.
"Drop your guns." The Ox repeated, not rising to Torchwick's bait. "I'm not here to play games,"
"If you do they'll kill you," Torchwick said to his men.
"If you don't we will anyway. We don't want you. We just want him, and his little assistant. Ask yourselves, is he really worth dying for?"
It was the question that no boss wanted to hear. At the end of the day, few concepts triumphed over self-preservation, and money wasn't one of them. Torchwick didn't seem like the kind of person to inspire loyalty simply for loyalty's sake.
It only took one clattering gun on concrete before the rest fell like dominoes. "Fucking traitors! I'll remember this," spat Torchwick, moving his gun towards The Ox for the first time.
Mine remained pointed at his face. I could end it. Now. I could get revenge. I could get payback for everything he had done to Ruby. To me. It was the right thing to do. I squeezed the trigger.
The Tigress caught my eye and shook her head. She knew what I was thinking. She knew exactly what I was thinking. The same hatred boiled in her gaze. The same primal need for retribution. Seeing that fire sapped the energy from me. As much as I wanted to in this moment, I wasn't a killer, a murderer. Ruby would want Torchwick to face justice, not an extrajudicial firing squad.
The Tigress nodded as my pistol lowered by a fraction of an inch. She put a finger to her exposed lips.
"Where is the girl?" The Ox asked. He must have meant Neo. What had happened to her? She'd gone through the door The Ox had emerged from.
"Oh, don't worry, she's around. But I'd advise all of you to watch your backs."
"I could say the same to you." The Ox grinned as Torchwick's eyes widened. He spun around, but The Tigress was already on the move. Her left hand clamped down over his, jerking the barrel of his cane away from her comrade. With her right she pressed her own pistol up against Torchwick's forearm and pulled the trigger. The cough of the suppressed weapon was entirely obscured by Torchwick's scream.
He staggered to the side, clutching his bloodied arm. The Tigress retreated holding both weapons. You would never have known from her body language that she'd just shot someone, but you'd never have known that from any of them.
I lowered my pistol. They were just so different from normal people, from me. This was normal to them. I'd thought Leone was dangerous when I'd first saw her—admittedly she had been pointing a gun at me—but I was proven right here.
"Fuck you!" Torchwick's voice had lost any trace of his mocking tone. It was harsh and pained. Specks of white glistened between his fingers.
"Not so eloquent now are you?" The Ox approached him, fingering his shotgun, his jaw set in stone.
The Tigress stepped in front of my view, and took the unbearably heavy gun from my hands. Guiding me to Ruby she sawed through her bonds with a knife. "Jaune, Ruby, are you hurt?"
It was a stupid question. Stupid enough that I wanted to slap her. Of course Ruby was, Leone only had to look at her to know that. This close I could see the angry topography of every welt beaten into her pale skin. It was a horror show.
"No," Ruby answered, rubbing her bloody wrists. I wasn't surprised she'd said that. She was too tough for her own good. The physical pain was probably nothing compared to her mental turmoil. Her eyes darted around, taking the corpses, the blood, the weapons, the kneeling men, and finally Torchwick. Her instincts as a cop cried out for her to take one course of action, the self-preserving human side of her no doubt another.
"Good." The Tigress nodded to herself. "And thank you Jaune," she said in barely louder than a breath. "Monkey, can you show them out?"
"Sure." The man who'd shot Pero nodded. "This way."
Ruby didn't move. She just stared at Torchwick. I put my arm around her shoulders, careful not to brush any of her injuries. "Ruby, we need to go," I spoke ever so softly, little more than a gentle whisper on the breeze.
"But…" she was torn in two, but both parts wanted to remain here. To dole out justice, one way or another.
"No." I was sure about that. Leone had showed me. As much as I had wanted it at the time, I could no more have murdered Torchwick than Ruby could. It would have haunted me to my grave and the act would have destroyed her. She was a good person through and through. I couldn't let a singular moment of weakness ruin that. "Come on." The gentle pressure of my arm was enough to get her moving.
Under The Monkey's watchful gaze, I retraced my steps. I couldn't have felt more different to when I'd entered. Then I'd been so terrified that I could have thrown up. Now I was terrified for a different reason. Ruby was alive, that was beyond my wildest dreams, but the Ruby of yesterday wouldn't have stared at a man as if she wanted to kill him. The ordeal had changed her. It wasn't a surprise at all, and I didn't blame her in the slightest. It was only natural to want vengeance. The blame could only fall upon my shoulders.
I didn't let Ruby stop even as Torchwick started ranting, at The Ox, at The Tigress, at his men, and even at us. His words blended into nothingness. I knew they were as futile as mine had been when I was at his mercy.
The Monkey led us to a small door and held out his hand. "Here's a hundred, enough for a cab. I'm guessing you're going to phone the cops as soon as you can." He held up his hand to cut off my protest. "Do it, she needs to get to a hospital. We'll be long gone by then anyway. I doubt you'll find a working payphone in a mile. I'm sorry you're going to have to walk."
He showed us through the door and glorious sunlight assaulted me. It had never felt so warm. In the dingy warehouse I'd entirely forgotten how incredible sunlight felt. So had Ruby. It made her skin glow as she basked in it.
"Thank you," I said to him. The White Fang might have been criminals, they might have killed, but I knew who I would rather have seen dead when the other option was Ruby. They'd saved her. Saved me. I'd never be able to repay them.
"Oh…" His ears turned red under his hair. "We weren't doing this for you. We had a score to settle with Torchwick. And good work stalling him. We never would have got into position otherwise. It's almost like you knew."
What the hell did that mean? With a final toothy grin, he shut the door in our faces. We had been in a warehouse, and one in a rundown area judging by the smashed windows all around. I didn't know exactly where. We certainly weren't in Manhattan, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that we were alive.
For a moment, I just breathed in the air, revelled in the sunlight, basked as the concrete cooked my bare soles, and savoured the heat of Ruby flowing into my side. The steady rhythm of her breath had never sounded so good. We were alive. Ruby was alive. My best friend was alive. I'd never wanted to hold her as much as I did then, and the reverse was true. Perhaps the smartest thing to do would have been to run, but neither of us had ever been very smart—Ruby was my friend after all.
She pulled me to her, burying her face in my chest, and her own racked by sobs. There was no lack of strength in her arms as she clung to me, but there was in her legs. I had to take her weight as she cried. Whether it was from joy, or frustrated anger, or pain, or any number of possible things I didn't know, but I knew why tears rolled down my cheeks into her hair. Mine were tears of relief, pure and simple.
"Ruby, I'm so sorry."
Her sobs, cut off long enough for her to mutter against my chest. "Don't. Please, just don't."
So I didn't. Instead I just held her as she went back to crying against me. I'd never felt closer to her than in that moment. We'd encountered death and we'd somehow come away triumphant, but more importantly we'd encountered it together. I'd seen Ruby's true self in there, all her courage and strength, and it had never been more beautiful. I was the luckiest person in the world just because I knew her.
I didn't know how long we held our embrace. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but eventually even Ruby's strength gave way. I only just managed to stop her falling. She'd been through too much. I wasn't really that musclebound—I didn't hit the gym nearly enough—but I scooped her up into a bridal carry. For Ruby, I'd find a way to get her to safety. She looked blearily into my eyes and, as I held her in my arms, a smile curled its way onto her lips.
I took a step. A gun boomed in the silence. It made me jump, but I didn't look back. I carried on walking. Ruby was safe. That was all that mattered.