Enneagon
Chapter 15: Bargain
[location unspecified]
[10.4.2065]
The blond chick was starting to get on Thornfoot's nerves. That and it was hot and sweaty in this stupid mask, and her attempts to be brave were getting to be exceptionally irritating.
"Good grief Frostcloud, don't you ever shut up?" he snapped finally, after she'd been snarking at them for a good half hour.
"That's still not my name," she hissed.
"And I still don't care." He leaned forward then and put his masked face in hers. She was ramrod-straight but trembling. Thornfoot gave one of her shoulders a hard shove and Frostface went sprawling backward. Thornfoot took the moment to stroke a suggestive hand over the muzzle of his gun, her eyes went wide with terror. "Shut your mouth. You're annoying."
Frostface pulled herself up with a painful-looking heave. Then she sat in silence.
There was a harsh exhale somewhere to his left. Where exactly, was a good question- the infernal mask made it impossible to see in his periphery- and Thornfoot turned to see the other girl glaring furiously at him.
Echosong. He knew her, knew her face and name perfectly without having to put much effort into remembering. He'd seen her face on the daily, every morning for months. It'd been pinned up on a big whiteboard in the house on Earth. They'd stuck it fast with Las Vegas refrigerator magnets.
She was handsome rather than pretty, square-jawed and dark-haired. Her eyes had narrowed into angry little slits, her dark brows scrunched together on her face. She looked as though she wanted was working out the best way to gore him. For a woman much smaller than himself, not to mention one who was restrained, Echosong looked remarkably like an angry lioness.
Thornfoot gave Echosong and Icecloud one last look and decided it was about time to make his exit.
"Be good, children", he said sardonically, shutting the door behind him with a snap. He just barely heard Echosong loudly scoff after him.
…
Brackenpelt was waiting for him in the cockpit, lounging over one of the arms of the pilot's chair and picking at his nails.
"About time, Thornfoot", he remarked, looking up from his fingernails. He'd already bitten them down to the quick, the flesh around the bleeding nailbed was angry and red.
"Cut that nasty habit out. It's unhygienic."
Brackenpelt didn't bother to grace him with a verbal response, instead raising one bloodied middle finger in his direction. Then he sat up, giving his bleeding fingers one last suck, and directed all of his attention onto Thornfoot.
"Well? Have fun with the brats?"
Thornfoot gave him a severe look. "No. They're just as insufferable as they were this morning. But we should note that there is something between Icecloud and Echosong."
Brackenpelt perked up excitedly at this. "Oooooh. Lesbians?"
Thornfoot fought down the urge to tell Brackenpelt he should spend less time on porn websites and more in real life. But he refrained, instead bequeathing his partner with a look of carefully measured disgust. "Why don't you go ask?", he said primly. "If Echosong bites you, I'll laugh."
"And catch rabies? No thanks."
Deciding then and there that the discussion was closed, Thornfoot rumpled his violently ginger hair and sat down in one of the pilot seats. Then he reached for the phone.
"You've called Firestar?"
Brackenpelt put one grubby foot on the dashboard with a put-upon sigh. "Duh."
"Then I'll call Silversong. Shut your mouth and sit tight."
That said, Thornfoot stuffed the receiver under his ear and dialed, leaving the call on speaker. He had dialed the Brioxian Vice President's private cell phone number, and the woman in question answered immediately. It was almost as though she'd been expecting the call.
"Who is this?", she snapped briskly.
"Hello, Silversong."
There was a hostile silence on the other end. Then her voice came back, just as impatient as before. "Echosong, is this your idea of a joke? I don't have time for your childishness. I shall have a discussion with Leafstar about this, clearly she isn't giving you enough to do. Do not call me for anything short of an emergency again, goodnight."
With that, Silversong moved to hang up.
Thornfoot and Brackenpelt shot each other stupified looks. Then, struggling to regain his composure, Thornfoot sputtered into the mouthpiece, "I am not your daughter!"
"Clearly. Very funny."
Thornfoot was losing patience. He almost pitied the girl in the other room, to have this gaboon-viper of a woman as a mother. "Vice President, your daughter is currently at our mercy. And unless you'd like to receive her kidneys in the mail, you'll cut the shit and listen."
Another long, nasty silence.
Then the Vice President seemed to swallow her pride. "Let me speak to her."
"You forgot the magic word!", Brackenpelt cackled madly somewhere to Thornfoot's left. Silversong sniffed haughtily. "Let me speak to my daughter, please."
Finally, this conversation seemed to be going somewhere.
Tucking the receiver firmly back under his ear, Thornfoot led Brackenpelt to the door. He opened it to reveal their four sullen hostages, sitting grouped together and muttering.
Echosong threw a glance over her shoulder and spotted the phone. Without even having to be asked, she rose from the company of her friends, hobbling over despite her bonds.
"Hello, mother", she said wearily. She didn't seem to doubt once who was on the other end of the line. Brackenpelt pursed his lips and gave Thornfoot a narrow-eyed look.
Silversong, as Thornfoot had come to expect, didn't seem to have an ounce of sympathy to spare for her daughter. "Foolish child", Silversong was saying as the rest of the room listened incredulously. "Just what I expected. I can't leave you unsupervised for a minute, can I? You go off on your own for that stupid soccer tournament and you get yourself kidnapped- really? I expect you to remove yourself from the team the moment you get back. It's obviously been nothing but trouble, not to mention a distraction-"
It seemed to be never ending. Icecloud, who had already been established as having a very poor grip on her considerable temper, looked about two seconds away from spitting obscenities into the phone. Bumblestripe and Tigerheart sat in scandalized disbelief, as if neither of them could've thought anybody's parents could be so vile.
Here Echosong was, kidnapped, and she was getting told off by her tiger-mom. If Thornfoot hadn't been listening, he wouldn't have believed it either.
The two kidnappers gave Echosong and her mother another two minutes before both got quite fed up. Thornfoot snatched the receiver away from Echosong and put it back up to his ear. Then he left the room with Brackenpelt at his side, letting the door close with an almighty snap behind him.
"Now that you've convinced yourself that we do, in fact, have your daughter", Thornfoot hissed. "We can begin to to talk business."
Silversong gave a derisive snort. "Well then, let's hear it."
"You, as the Vice President of this oh-so-fine country, have a great deal of power. You, Silversong, have a finger in every pie, so to say. Your connections go far. So far, as a matter of fact, that you may be more powerful than the President himself."
Silversong stayed quiet, and even her silence seemed to simmer with anger. Her fury practically radiated through the phone.
"But none of that concerns me."
"What exactly", she hissed. "Do you want from me?"
"One of your deepest, most influential connections is with the justice system. Specifically the prisons. You could free even the most dangerous inmate with a single signature. You could even expunge his criminal record, if you so wished."
These angry, unpleasant silences were starting to get old, Thornfoot thought as the other end of the line went furiously still once again. This time, he didn't wait for his enraged conversation partner to start talking again.
"You have direct control over the Aesta Maximum Security Correctional Facility. If you ever want to see your daughter alive again, you will free every Dark Forest related inmate. Dovewing, Mapleshade, Tigerstar, all the rest. Or else your daughter will suffer the most painful and gruesome death imagineable. Understand?"
"Fuck you", Silversong snarled. "Fuck you, you disgusting piece of shit."
"Language, Madam Vice President!", Brackenpelt sing-songed gleefully, teetering dangerously off of his chair's armrests.
"I will do no such thing!", Silversong bellowed suddenly. Brackenpelt's mocking jibes seemed to have finally pushed her over the edge. "I do not consort with criminals and terrorists."
There was a stunned silence. Thornfoot and Brackenpelt exchanged looks of disbelief. The Vice President would evidently rather condemn her own daughter to death than scandalize herself polically?
He suddenly pitied Echosong immensely, even if she was bratty and difficult to manage at the best of times.
"Then your daughter will die", Thornfoot informed her, although he was unsure of himself. Sure, he'd killed before, men with guns who'd endangered his goals. But it was an entirely different case to kill a defenseless girl.
"Kill her, then. But rest assured, I'll find you. And I will make you pay for ever attempting to blackmail me." Then Silversong hung up, and Thornfoot and Brackenpelt were left in stunned silence with the realization that nothing had gone as planned.
End Chapter 15
Well well well *eyebrow raise* Silversong's certainly a character
Azra out!