All Jacked Up
Jack had just had the last tiny bit of shit from Alan Blunt. Enough was enough. And she had tried warning him the nice way. She had tried filing with the appropriate authorities. She had dropped enough hints on Alex's teachers to start an investigation. Nothing. Nothing had been done. As her dad used to say, sometimes the illegal way is the best.
Jack had carefully prepared for this. Alan Blunt had a wife. Said wife would be out of the house for the whole week. She had unexpectedly won a trip to a neighboring town for herself and her three girlfriends. This was, of course, completely manufactured by Jack.
Jack had money. She simply had nowhere to spend it without raising red flags. It was her share of her family's ill-gotten gains. Alex wasn't the only one who knew how to set up sketchy accounts in Switzerland.
Jack had carefully chosen her time to break into Alan Blunt's house. The house was rarely guarded unless the nation was under heavy alert. Her connections were mostly in America. That didn't mean there weren't contacts here. Plus, she may as well claim at least a few of the Alan Blunt bounties. That was a lot of money to leave on the table.
She strode up to the door and pulled out a key. It was no ordinary key. Jack knew a locksmith or eight that had been to prison. A few of them certainly had grudges against MI6. They had all been more than happy to provide her with a skeleton key. One of them had even winked and called it the key to the city.
Jack smiled as the door swung open. There was a silent alarm. Unfortunately for Blunt, his wife almost always forgot to set it when she left on vacation. She had forgotten today.
Jack closed the door and locked it behind her. Blunt would likely not suspect a thing. He knew his wife tended to forget to set the damn thing.
Jack stepped into the living room and looked up at the chimney. It was likely Blunt's wife that had wanted one. Chimneys seemed like they could be a security risk. The chimney was open.
Jack decided that lighting it would likely be too risky. There was a perfectly good stove that would serve her purpose. She walked towards the kitchen and began to set up her tools. Most everything she needed could be found in a kitchen.
There were reasons that she hated being in the kitchen. It had a lot of memories. Memories that Jack didn't always care for. They would come in handy today, though. She hummed the tune to some sort of Macbeth musical her high school had taken her to. Being evil was kind of fun sometimes. But this was for Alex.
Jack had been standing still for about fifteen minutes by the time the door opened. In her hand was a riot baton. She would have normally used a fire poker from the fireplace, but Blunt might have noticed it missing. The last thing she wanted to do was give him any warning. He let out a sigh.
"Goddamn it. She could at least try remembering the alarm once."
Jack simply waited at the end of the entrance hall. She was not in any particular rush. Blunt set the alarm before walking down the hallway.
Jack silently raised her arm. She brought the baton across his temple right as he walked into the living room. Well, that was one of Alex's concussions repaid. Blunt was out cold. Jack methodically stripped him. She dragged him across the room and opened her super glue. Time to glue him to a chair.
Jack squeezed a generous amount onto the chair before heaving Blunt onto it. There was a satisfying squish of glue as he was stuck to the chair. Jack let out a sigh. Well, Alex had been knocked out three times. She could start with that. Blunt began to stir. He opened his eyes.
Jack slammed the baton into his other temple. Blunt went back to being slumped. Now, what else had been done to her baby brother during missions? Jack eyed the lighter she'd found in the kitchen. Welp, time for some burns while they waited.
Jack finished duplicating every physical blow Alex had suffered just as Blunt began stirring a third time. Jack felt a savage grin appear as she slammed him into unconsciousness a third time. And that made three. She sat back and waited. Maybe it was dinner time? Yeah, she could eat.
Jack stared at her target as she ate her food. It was scrambled eggs and toast. She still hated being in the kitchen after all. Blunt blinked at her. Jack vaguely wondered if she had given him a bit too much brain damage.
"Your real name isn't Jack, is it?"
Jack finished her eggs off. He was astute. Alex had noted that he had eyes that pierced you. "Heavens no. It was my nickname. My eyebrows used to be different colors naturally so they called me Calico Jack. After the pirate. Because I used to pirate movies."
Blunt seemed to be trying to move. Or smile at her. His face seemed to be twitching. Ah, that would be the diluted Jellyfish toxin that she had added to the glue. "And because your allegiances were spotty?"
Jack stared. Had he just…cracked a fucking joke?! "Ah, fuck you. You knew bringing a kid into this was shit."
Blunt's muscles continued twitching. He would be dead fairly soon. Jack wasn't about to risk him escaping and separating her and Alex before the adoption paperwork and job could come through. She wasn't above using the bounty money on him as her "life savings" either.
"It was necessary."
Jack looked him in the eyes. Blunt's flesh was moving of its own accord. Jack suspected it would tear from the glue in the final waves of the poisoning convulsions. "It was monstrous. And now you know how Alex felt. Nobody is coming for you. Nobody is going to help you. Nobody will suspect a thing."
Blunt convulsed and Jack deftly dodged the first wave of foaming from his mouth. Only a few more minutes until he was dead. Blunt seemed to be trying to talk, but no sounds came from his mouth. Jack began slowly cleaning all traces of her from the house. It was almost time to leave. And then she would be out the door and gone by the time help came from the silent alarm. It was going to be a long night.
Fin
Based on a prompt by Zyzyax (see story summary). This is the 297th work in the Winds of Change 2022 Alex Rider Prompt event, where a new prompt (plus a short 1-3K work) is posted every day. For more details, see the AO3 collection. We have an index of all the prompts used in this event so far and going forwards - join the discord to get access to the online index (and to take part in our events, chat about everything and anything, and meet a load of awesome people!