And don’t Forget the Lego’s
A drop of cold sweat trickled down Nick’s temple and slid over the duct tape that covered his face from ear to ear. His shoulders were aching fiercely from the strain of having his hands zip tied so tightly behind his back. The thick, plastic cords bit painfully into his wrists and every time he moved they seemed to tighten.
His heart pounded on the verge of panic and he couldn’t get a deep enough breath, or breathe normally at all for that matter.
He sat against the wall in a room that was empty and blank save for the designs and pictures around the top and bottom of the walls of little, dancing puppies, duckies and kittens. The darkness was slashed by orange light from the street lamps outside that cut sharply through the blinds and illuminated his captors.
Watching the two figures before him, Nick found himself, for the first time in this life, scared enough to pray.
“Don’t kill him,” the man said, shaking his scruffy, blond head. He scrubbed a hand over his rough face and looked at the woman. Nick had though the guy was calling her Ass at first, until he heard the subtle Z. Az. He called her Az.
Where the man was build like an ox on steroids and had a face like an anvil, Az was sleek and slim with a fox-like face and large, dark eyes. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail that made her look almost girlish. Almost.
Of the two, she was the scary one. Thank god she didn’t seem to be the one in charge.
“…O-kay. How long should this not killing him take?” she asked coldly. “My nephews birthday is next week. If I spend all my time not killing some pink-haired teenage clown I won’t have time to get the present I promised him.” Her voice tone never changed as she spoke. It was dead-pan and the lack of emotion made shopping for a kids birthday present sound almost profane.
“Jesus Az. I didn’t say I wanted him tortured. I want him trained.”
Az blinked. “Trained in what, Lin?”
Nick felt a little tension ease out of his shoulders now that murdering him was being taken off the table.
“In the trade, Az. What do you think.”
“Nick raised an eyebrow and said, “Mmwfmp?” At the same time that Az said, “What!”
“I’m not going to have a teenagers death on my hands – ”
“You won’t, Lin. I will. And I don’t have a problem with it.”
“Mm-mm…” Nick protested, shaking his head.
“Shut up!” Lin and Az snapped at the same time.
Nick was no chicken. Sometimes – like now – he definitely thought he was stupid. But chicken? Never. He was the only sixteen-year-old straight guy at school who dared to dye his hair pink and wear leopard print pants. He’d broken into the pricnipals office and rearranged his desk drawers. He’d snuck out his bedroom window to hook up with his buddies in the middle of the night…
And now he cowered beneath the glowers of a couple psychopaths in a house that was supposed to be empty.
He’s just been curious. He’d heard noises in the house as he was passing it and he’d gone in hoping to get some juicy dirt on someone. What he got, was a huge cannon of a gun in his face and a bunch of bruises.
Nick didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Az would have killed him if Lin hadn’t stopped her. He’d just snuck in through the back door and no sooner did he take two steps into the kitchen, the shadows came alive and attacked him, taking him down to the tiled floor so fast that his brain hadn’t even caught up in the time to tell his mouth to scream.
He’d never held a real gun, never touched one. He’d never even been near a real one for that matter. But when he felt the cold metal of the gun pressed against his neck, he knew exactly what it was. He’d frozen.
His mouth had gone dry beneath the duct tape at least ten minutes ago and he gulped nervously as Lin and Az turned their attention back to each other.
Run! His spazzing nervous system screamed. His nervous system seemed to be suffering a bout of stupidity at the moment. He’d already tried to escape once and that woman had moved so fast that Nick hadn’t even realized she’d so much as twitched before he found himself face down on the carpet with a cold knife at his throat.
Lin had told him that if he tried to run again he wouldn’t stop Az from gutting him. So nick sat and ignored his nerves as best he could and pointedly did not look at the door or window.
Nick wasn’t a big guy. He often got beat on by the big guys at school though. He did his best to fight back but he didn’t actually know how to fight so usually he ran. Even when faced with a bunch of homophobes who though they needed to hurt him for having pink hair, Nick didn’t feel helpless. He was smart and witty – which sometimes got him in trouble, actually. He could talk himself out of almost anything and whatever he couldn’t talk himself out of, he could run from.
But right now, there was no running. He was helpless. Like a child in the corner with his knees tucked up to his chest.
These psychos radiated violence like a propane heater on high and despite Nicks laugh-in-the-face-of-danger attitude, he was simply terrified. Especially of the woman. She seemed like the kind of person who could blow up an orphanage full of toddlers and go out for cupcakes afterwards without so much as a backwards glance.
Who were they? Government assassins? Hit men for some kind of crime organization?
“Forget it, Lin. I’m not training some snot-nosed kid just because your conscience got in the way of logic and protocol.”
“You will train him, Az. And if you question my – ”
Britney Spears’ Hit me Baby One More Time suddenly cut through the air and Lin yanked his phone from a pocket with a curse and barked “What!” in to it as soon as he had it up to his ear.
The big man swore silently and stalked from the room, only to pop right back in a second later to point a finger at Nick and Mouth, “Don’t kill him.”
In a pair of tight, black pants and knee-high boots and a tight, black turtleneck that left nothing to the imagination, she should have been a teenage boys total wet dream. Even the tactical harness that had been outfitted with knives instead of guns should have been sexy. It always was in the video games. But faced with the reality, she was just intimidating, and not in the good way.
There was no sexy warmth in her dark eyes, no sensual allure in the sway of her hips as she walked. No. She moved with the stealthy grace of a cobra and those girlishly big, brown eyes were about as warm as Antarctica.
And she was watching him. Again…
Nick dropped his eyes and found a fascinating spot on the floor to scrutinize as she sauntered over. As soon as those boots of hers came into his field of vision, he actually felt himself start to tremble and he didn’t give a crap if it docked his man-points down to zero.
She had guns and knives and she knew how to use them.
Beside him, she leaned against the wall and slid down it to sit. Nick found himself shying away and though he wasn’t looking at her, he knew she was staring at him. He could feel her creepy eyes crawling over his flesh like bugs and the longer she watched him, the more his muscles twitched in desperation to flee. Not that he could even if he wanted to. They’d zip-tied his ankles.
“It’s confirmed – ” Lin’s voice went off like a bomb and Nick would have leapt out of his skin if it hadn’t been held together with duct tape and zip-ties.
“Oh good!” Az said with feigned excitement as she pulled a huge cannon of a gun from god-knows-where and started screwing on a silencer. “Will you grab the plastic out of the other room?”
“Az…we’re not killing the kid. The Wiggs agree, it’s time for you to take an apprentice and it’s confirmed that we have a green light on you-know-what.”
“Hell no! I’ve seen Star Wars I know how the whole Master/apprentice thing works – ”
“That’s only if you’re a Sith…”
Az fixed Lin with a droll stare.
“Okay, good point. But it doesn’t change a thing. From now on, the kid is yours. Train him and don’t complain about it. And you,” Lin pointed at Nick. “You will do everything she says. If you defy her, she kills you. If you betray her, she kills you. If you ever speak of either of us or anything that you heard or saw here tonight, we both kill you and whoever you told…”
As Lin went on with all the things psycho-bitch was allowed to kill him for, Nick was wondering what all this meant. What was he going to be trained for? Who the hell were these people? Why did he suddenly feel like his entire future had just been decided for him in one swift, violent tug of the rub beneath his feet?
His parents wanted him to be a doctor, of course. What parent didn’t want their kid to be a doctor? In first grade, he’d thought of all kinds of things he wanted to be when he grew up; firefighter, astronaut, pilot…but seriously, the only things he was good at was skateboarding, playing video games, drawing cartoons – and not even very well – getting beat up and getting into things he shouldn’t.
Truth was, since junior high, he hadn’t even thought of life after high school. He was too focused on getting through it without being expelled or dropping out like most of his friends already had. But now, sitting in an abandoned house, wrapped in duct tape and cowering in the shadows of two gun and knife-toting psychos, his future was being decided for him and he didn’t have a single say in it. His choices were being obliterated before his very eyes.
“Nod if you understand, kid.” Lin said, finishing his caveat.
Nick quickly nodded his head, pink hair flopping into his eyes.
“Good. I’m going to leave you two to get to know each other. Az, tomorrow, you know when and where.”
Az lackadaisically waived him away with the gun and with that, Lin disappeared through the door.
Nick gave a sigh that was not quite relief as he slowly turned his head to look at Az. She was watching him unenthusiastically, still holding that huge gun with its long silencer.
Several minutes passed with the alacrity of a tired snail before she finally rolled her eyes and reached for his face. When he flinched back, she grabbed him roughly by the ear and held him in place.
“There’s no room for pussies in this business, kid. So suck it up. I’m going to take the tape off now. If you sream I’ll cut out your tongue. Speech is nice but not exactly a requirement of employment.”
Nick only blinked numbly in response. Then she ripped the duct tape from his face.
The sudden pain almost made him cry out but he managed to keep his trap shut, even as his eyes watered.
“Tell me your name.” She commanded. And it was a command.
Licking his sore lips, Nick glared at her, but told her his name.
“Nick what? And is Nick short for Nicholas?”
“Yes. Nickolas Lastine.”
“Do you have a middle name?”
“Jareth.”
“Okay, Goblin King, do you have a drivers license?”
What? “No. Not yet.”
“Why, did you fail drivers Ed?”
“No! I’m still in class!” he retorted defiantly.
“Fine. What are you good at?”
“Um, skateboarding. And breaking and entering – ”
“Bull shit. You’re terrible at breaking and entering. We heard you before you were even in the house. I guess we’ll have to work on that,” she said more to herself.
“I can draw cartoons.”
“That would be useful if we were ordered to kill Zim. You will start taking art classes in school. I want you drawing portraits in six months. Have you ever fired a gun?”
Nick blinked and stammered. He’d been thinking she might not be too bad if she knew who Zim was but the gun question reminded him that she was a killer and he was completely at her mercy.
“Not unless you count Call of Duty,” he sheepishly admitted.
“It’s a lot different in real life – ”
“Are you a…an assassin?” Nick almost couldn’t bring himself to speak the last word and as such it rushed out of him in a single breath that sounded awed and frightened.
Az folded her arms across her knees and tilted her head.
“Yes, Goblin. I’m an assassin. And now, so are you,” she stated, her voice actually seemed to soften a touch.
“I…” Nicks mouth worked and for a few moments he couldn’t speak. His chest tightened and his vision began to blur with unbidden tears.
“I don’t want to kill people,” He finally breathed in a desperate rush.
She licked her full lips and said, “Well,” lifting the gun before his eyes. “There’s one sure way out of this.”
Nicks heart crashed in his chest and he swore the air pressure in the room changed. Except his ears didn’t pop and he was thankful he was sitting down. He felt his chin quivering.
She lowered the gun. “Have you ever played Splinter Cell?”
He nodded numbly.
“What we do is a lot like that, except if you shoot someone in the ass and hide for five minutes they don’t convince themselves that it was a trick of the shadows…
“We’re not government run, though they do throw us the occasional odd job. In fact, if you make it through your first year, I’ll tell you who you now work for.”
She said it as though it were some great incentive and all he could think of was how often he’d seen Sam Fisher die on his television screen while he held the controller.
“Still, you have a hard choice to make and I expect it made now. Either you learn to kill, and survive, or you choose not to kill and I make this real painless.”
Nick gulped and his throat stuck together.
“H – how long did you have?” His voice was shaking.
Az rolled a shoulder. “Bout four or five seconds.”
“It took you only four seconds to choose to take lives for a living?” Nick asked incredulously.
“If you’re trying to make some kind of comparison, I have to advise against it. I’m a highly functioning sociopath. According to my file,” she added as an afterthought.
There was another long period of silence as Nick searched every corner of his being and listened to his desperate conscience and hoped she would suddenly say, “Just kidding!” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill people…
But in the end, he said, “I don’t want to die.” His voice sounded small and pathetic and in his mind, three men who he’d always looked up to for doing what was right and fighting for what they believed in, turned their backs on him.
Abraham Lincoln in his tall top hat walked away, shaking his head, followed by Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Well then,” Az said, pulling a huge, black knife with the letters SOG on the blade from her harness and slicing the sip tie that pound his ankles. With one hand, she took hold of the front of his tee shirt and jerked him forward and for just a second, he felt the cold steel of the knife on his arm before the zip tie that had been cutting off circulation to his hands disappeared with a snap.
She let him go and he rubbed his wrists, wincing at the painful trench the zip tie had cut into his flesh.
“We start your training now, get up and get my pack from the other room.”
Nick stumbled to his feet and started for the door. He only got about two feet away before he found himself in an arm-bar and felt a sting in his neck.
His tongue immediately became a useless piece of meat in his mouth and his muscles turned to jelly. She gently lowered him to the floor and looked into his face.
Lines of orange light shining through the blinds cut across her lithe figure and reflected off the needle in her hand. A single drip shimmered on its razor tip.
“Lesson number one, Goblin. Never turn your back on anyone.”
His vision was fading around the edges but before he blacked out, she simply melted into the shadows and disappeared like a wraith.
*
“Nick! Wake up! Mom’s makin pancakes!” The shrill voice went through his head like a razor blade. Normally, he would have thrown something at the little mouth it came from, but Carlie scampered away before Nick could even manage to open his eyes.
His lips were parched and a foul taste lingered in his mouth.
The fog in his head suddenly evaporated as he remembered last night and he sat up, grabbing at his neck, which had a horrible crick.
Had it been a dream? Thank go –
No.
His wrists were bruised and a little cut up from the zip ties and his shoulders ached from almost being yanked from their sockets when that crazy bitch had first discovered him snooping.
Pushing his blankets off and standing turned out to be a bad idea. As soon as he was on his feet, the room gave a spin, his head gave a pound and he was on his ass. At least he’d landed back on the bed.
He took a moment to take note of himself and his room. He was still in his jeans and tee shirt, but his Chucks were by the door, set beside each other with a care he never gave them. Nothing in his room looked out of place. It was the same mess it always was.
Then he noticed the folded paper on his bed stand.
It was the same paper his dad used in his printer in his office. The word Goblin was written on it in beautiful, flowing cursive.
He gingerly picked up the note with a shaking hand and opened it as though he expected to find something deadly inside. What he found was more of the beautiful handwriting:
Clean your room and make your bed you freakin slob. If I don’t see
an immediate improvement, I’ll poison you.
Again.
Sincerely, Az
The note dropped from his fingers and he looked around his room again. His mother used to get on him all the time for being so messy. It was a good thing she didn’t know how motivational poison could be.
It was still early and he was afraid to wait so as soon as he could stand, he made his bed and started picking up the cloths and games and skateboard parts from the floor.
Good thing he chose not to wait until after school too.
Beneath a discarded pair of pants, was an envelope with the word Goblin scrawled across it in the same beautiful cursive. Again his hands shook as he opened it.
His eyes bugged out.
Inside was a wad of cash and another note.
This, little Goblin, is your first mission. If this is not completed today, I’ll know that
you didn’t clean your room like I told you to do and you should expect to start
vomiting blood any time now as the previous note was laced with contact poison.
This note, is the antidote
Gulp
Take the money. After school go and buy me some Legos. I need Hogwarts Castle
and the Black Pearl. Have them wrapped in some kind of kid-friendly paper.
After that, I’ll find you.
P.S. Keep the change.
Shaking his head, Nick stuffed the note back into the envelope and crammed it into his backpack.
“Nick! Come and eat. Breakfast’s getting cold.” It was his mother this time, yelling up the stairs.
Nick changed his cloths, careful to put on a long sleeved shirt to cover the damage done to his wrists and put his dirty clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor where they usually ended up.
He walked into the kitchen to find his mother picking a plate up off the table from in front of Carli, his seven year old sister.
Nothing looked real. His mother smiled brightly and Carlie waived a little hand. In this bright and happy place, he felt like a stain. And he hadn’t even killed anyone.
…Yet.
His stomach did a couple back flips and he knew he wouldn’t be able to eat any of his mother’s delicious pancakes. But he sat down anyways.
Across the table, Carlie smiled the kind of smile that only that only a child could manage.
Innocent, ignorant…free.
“We-come to the fist day of da west... of your life!” She said happily as though she were repeating something she’d heard recently.
Nick smiled and nodded, just before upending his chair in his flight from the table.
He barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up.
Concentrating on what he needed to do instead of what he was going to eventually do, he ignored his mother knocking on the door, worriedly asking if he was okay.
At least there was no blood in his vomit.
“Lego’s.” He told himself as he moved to the sink and turned on the faucet. “Need to get some Lego’s”
