Daddy's Girls Chapter 15
Author's Note: My coauthors figured I made you wait long enough, so here's the next chapter! Reviews are still welcome and encouraged!
Miles Mayhem crossed his arms and tapped his foot, waiting impatiently as the cheap Mexican labor Contra World had hired slowly unloaded the boxes of cargo from the semi that had just arrived at their Mexican Headquarters. He still had yet to see any sign of the 'special cargo' his son Jon had told him about. He was just about to yell at the workers to hurry up when he got a glimpse of the specified cargo. The soldiers busied themselves cutting the bonds off their legs before hauling four individuals roughly into the late morning sun. He let his eyes drift over each one of them individually, and he immediately dismissed the long-haired brunette out of hand as of no interest to him. And although the man who had sorely interrupted Jon's meeting seemed slightly familiar to him, it was the other two girls that held Mayhem's interest. He found it entirely too coincidental that the same redheaded girl that VENOM had captured in Italy would again be in his presence, and with Roxanne Trakker no less. He smiled wolfishly as he thought about the tortures he would visit upon Roxy for ruining his plans, but he pushed them aside as he pondered the connection between her and this mysterious redhead. As his eyes settled permanently on the other girl's features, he became increasingly convinced that he was missing something completely obvious.A bright beam of sunlight chose that exact moment to shine down on Annie's head. She had to settle for turning her head sideways to get the light out of her eyes, and in that moment of illumination, Mayhem saw the missing link staring at him from her profile. Damn that bitch Warfield! He didn't appreciate being played for a fool, and that's exactly what Vanessa had done to him…again.
"I want that red head in my office!" Mayhem snapped the order to one of the nearby soldiers as he stalked away to find Vanessa. "Lock the rest of them up until I figure out what to do with them!"
The fact that Miles Mayhem himself had appeared to greet their arrival did nothing to lessen Buddy's sense of dread at how sour this mission had turned out. He first thought that himself or Roxanne would be one of Mayhem's first targets, but alarm bells started ringing in his mind when he saw one of the Contra World soldiers heading straight for Annie. The hot, Mexican sunlight shone like a beacon around those Vanessa-like features, and Buddy's stomach turned to lead. Shit, he knows…
Annie saw the soldier bee-lining straight for her and did her best to clamp down on every muscle in her body that was telling her to run like hell. First of all, there was nowhere to run to, and second of all, they'd just be harder on her if they had to chase her down. She screwed her face into what she hoped was an impenetrable mask and resisted the urge to kick the soldier's feet out from under him as he grabbed her arm and began to haul her away from the rest of the group.
"Annie!" Jess yelled in concern while Roxanne just stared.
"Where are you taking her?!?" Buddy started forward and received the butt end of a rifle in his gut for his trouble. He was so doubled over in pain, he barely heard Annie's quiet reply of, "It's okay, Buddy. I'll be fine."
He looked up and met her green eyes, which told a different story, but he admired her shot at bravery as the soldier dragged her away.
Somehow Annie managed to resist every iota of instinctive self-defense training the Rangers had worked so hard to teach her as she reluctantly let the guard lead her down the hallways of Contra World's headquarters. Her muscles screamed at her to let them beat this guy into the ground, and the only thing preventing them from doing so was the more rational part of her mind telling them that it would pretty much be useless at this point. She instead turned her attention to memorizing the route that they were taking throughout the building, focusing on any distinctive feature that could mark the way to an exit just in case by some unbelievable chance she and the others actually managed to escape.
Their destination seemed to be an office located in the center of the complex, and the soldier stopped just outside the door. Another arm reached out and yanked her out of the guard's grasp just as he was about to shove her inside.
"Well, well, if it ain't the one who got away," Lester Sludge sneered as he pulled her way too close. "You just couldn't resist me, could ya baby? You came back to get reacquainted with ol' Lester…"
The guard had no desire to tangle with Mayhem's crazed nephew, so he simply stood back and watched as Annie struggled in Lester's tight grip and growled, "Let go of me!"
"Aww, now, don't be shy…come here and pucker up…"
He yanked Annie's unbound hair, pulling her chin upward as he forced an unwelcome kiss on her lips. She reacted violently and automatically by biting his lip and shoving her knee into his groin with all the brute force she could muster.
He doubled over in pain mixed with complete surprise. "Bitch!" he hissed as he lunged for her again.
Annie kicked him in the stomach and tripped him, bolting for the open door of Mayhem's office and slamming it shut behind her just as Mayhem appeared in the hallway. He took one look at his bruised up nephew and shook his head in disbelief and undisguised disgust.
"Look at you! You let a little girl beat you up with both hands tied behind her back! You're a disgrace to my family and this entire organization!" To the wayward soldier standing back in the corner, he yelled, "What are you just standing there for? Get him out of my sight! No one is to be here without supervision!"
The guard snapped off a salute as Lester climbed up off the ground and followed him, grumbling the entire way. He stopped short as he saw Vanessa glaring harshly at him with a furious look in her eyes.
"What the hell are you lookin' at?" he snapped at her. His only reply was Vanessa's fist connecting with his right eye, blackening it immediately. "What was that for?!"
"Because I could," she hissed angrily. "Now stay away from that girl, understand me?"
"What's with the protective streak, Vanessa? You act like the girl's your kid or somethin'."
Another fist lashed out, matching the left eye with the right. "If you touch her again, I'll kill you."
Vanessa stalked towards Mayhem's office before Lester could reply.Inside, Annie tried not to crumble in fear as she traded the ignorant member of the Mayhem family for the dangerous one. Annie suffered his touch as Mayhem forced her to sit down in the chair across from his desk and tilted her head from side to side as though he were inspecting a prize racehorse. Then he paced around her chair for a few moments before he crossed back to his desk and folded his arms across his chest.
"What's your name, girl?"
For a moment, Annie thought about not answering him, but decided not to push her luck too far. Her first name wouldn't mean much to him anyway. She forced herself to look him straight in the eye and say firmly and evenly, "Annie."
He chuckled with dark amusement. "No last name, eh?"
Annie surprised herself at how quickly the lie slipped off her tongue. "Cutler."
Mayhem arched a quizzical eyebrow at her and smiled evilly. "You have your mother's lying tongue, but not her propensity for it."
Annie's heart skipped about twenty beats. Oh no, oh God no… She did her best to keep up the brave front as she replied quietly and steadily. "I don't know what you're talking about." As the door to Mayhem's office opened and Vanessa stepped through, Annie coldly finished her sentence with, "My mother abandoned me…she's probably dead by now."
Outwardly, Vanessa gave no sign that Annie's words had affected her in the least as she paced over to stand on the other side of Mayhem's desk. Inwardly, she flinched and cringed at the harshness oozing from her daughter's statement. Their eyes locked momentarily before Vanessa broke the contact. She wouldn't admit to herself that she couldn't handle seeing the hatred in Annie's eyes, so she turned toward Mayhem and awaited his reply.
To Vanessa's surprise, he simply laughed, obviously enjoying the little game of cat and mouse he was playing. He looked over at her and indicated Annie with a wave of his hand. "Then perhaps you'd care to explain this to me, Vanessa."
She didn't bother trying to deny the obvious truth of the matter. Instead, she served her daughter with a taste of her own medicine. "A mistake I made a very long time ago."
Annie's face remained impassive, but Vanessa saw several different reactions flash through her eyes. Fear, shock, hurt, and anger all passed through those green depths before unbridled hate and fury came to the forefront. Vanessa saw the minute change in her daughter's posture that indicated she was ready for a fight, and that if her hands hadn't been tied behind her back, Vanessa could be in for a world of hurt. Vanessa could immediately see that a lot about her daughter had changed in six months, but the girl was at least smart enough not to act on her thoughts. She was also thankfully smart enough not to make any sort of reply as she simply sat there and glowered at her and Mayhem both.
"The only mistake you made," Mayhem continued angrily through Vanessa's internal thought process, "was trying to hide this from me! You know the rules as well as I do…your daughter should have been a member of ContraWorld, just like my son and my nephew."
Oh my God! It was all Annie could do to keep herself upright in her chair as the implication of Mayhem's words sank in. I was supposed to…oh my God, ohmygod, ohmygod… nonononononoono… Her shocked eyes unconsciously flicked Vanessa's way for confirmation, only to find Vanessa standing impassively with her arms crossed. She glanced back and forth between the two of them for several seconds as her mind tried to comprehend the horrific revelation, trying vainly to keep her expression neutral.
Mayhem stared hard at Annie for a few minutes before adding resignedly, "She's apparently already too spoiled to even try to begin any sort of training." An idea seemed to cross his mind at that very moment, because he smiled maliciously at her as he trailed a finger along her cheekbone, "There are other uses, however…she could be perfect for my son."
Annie couldn't hold back her reply as she spat venomously, "I would rather die first!"
Normally Mayhem would have left her a stinging bruise in reply, but this time he only laughed as though Annie had made the funniest wisecrack in the world. "I'm the only one who gives the orders on who's killed around here, and you don't seem to be on the list. In fact, I'm going to make sure no one lays a finger on you, until I decide what to do with you." He gave her cheek one last unnaturally gentle caress as he walked toward the office door, throwing one last order Vanessa's way as he left, "After you and your daughter get reacquainted, make sure she gets an appropriate escort to her new home."
Vanessa could see Annie's poor attempt at trying to cover the shock of Mayhem's revelation. Apparently Daddy didn't tell you everything…maybe now you'll finally understand… For her part, Annie desperately tried not to curl up into a fetal position as the implications of everything Mayhem said hit her between the eyes. I can't believe I was supposed to… and now he wants me to… She was trying so hard not to break down, she didn't feel the slight pressure in the small of her back as Vanessa stepped over to cut the bonds holding her wrists.
Vanessa was just about to cut the brace around Annie's wrists when her leg brushed against Annie's left cowboy boot. She stopped in mid-reach and re-sheathed her knife before she knelt down and tugged both of Annie's boots off of her feet.
This shocked Annie into jerking her head upright and glaring at Vanessa as she barked, "What the hell are you doing?" Lord, she knows something's in there…that knife is my last line of defense!
In reply, Vanessa calmly shook out the left boot, watching the hunting knife fall from its hidden sheath and skitter to the floor. She shook the right one for emphasis to be safe, then picked up the knife as she tossed the boots to the floor. "Get a new set of toys, did we?" Vanessa asked uncharacteristically mildly.
Annie had just enough fight left to snarl back, "Untie me and I'll show you how nice I play."
Vanessa paused, momentarily taken aback by seeing her own dangerously serious expression looking back at her through Annie's face. She then chuckled and pretended to be unaffected as she replied, "I don't think so." She cut Annie's bonds with her own knife before securing it firmly in her own belt and stepping back. "I see you've gotten yourself into another fine mess."
"I didn't get myself into anything!" Annie defended, but her righteous anger deflated quickly when she realized Vanessa held her last chance to get out of here. She then rubbed her chafed wrists and leaned over to pull her boots on, making sure Vanessa could hear her soft reply of, "Forget it…I have no idea why I'm even trying to defend myself to you of all people."
Vanessa once again felt as though Annie had slapped her in the face. She laughed ironically as she shook her head. "You still don't get it, do you? You have absolutely no idea…" After all that, and you still have NO idea what I gave up for you… She turned toward the door of Mayhem's office and added coldly, "I'd lose the self righteous streak if I were you. Right now, I'm the only thing keeping you alive."
Most of the fight had left Annie by now, otherwise she might have done more than simply say, "Please don't do me anymore favors. I'd rather be dead than have to admit I owe my life to you."
"I hate to burst your bubble, Annie, but you already do."
Vanessa opened the office door just as Annie's escort arrived outside of it. Annie's expression showed Vanessa's words had stung her, but she managed to utter one last defiant statement. "Maybe you gave birth to me, Vanessa, but I owe you NOTHING about my life."
Vanessa wasn't about to let her daughter have the last word this time. "After a stint of Mayhem's hospitality, you'll feel differently."
With that, she shoved Annie into the arms of the waiting guards and slammed the office door behind her.
