Chapter 18: Book 1: Chapter 8 (Part 3 of 3)

<You know what this calls for, don’t you?>

“Yeah, a quest. Give me a moment to lock the door will you,” I said.

I remembered to hold onto the door before unhooking it, but let it slam shut behind me. I was super pissed with myself and the traitorous fucks who tried to screw me over.

With the door closed, Quixbix pinged us with a new quest.

Revenge is a dish best served cold (W)

You have been wronged by Constance Lafleur, Vincent Smith, and their cronies even after you graciously let them live. You must see them dead, dead, dead. Revenge is always cold when served at the end of an Ice Blade, muhahaha.

Success: Confirm the deaths of or kill all six of them before you leave Flint.

Rewards: 150 XP for Constance Lafleur. 50 XP for each of the others. +10 notoriety.

Failure: Leave Flint’s area of influence before they are dead. You will only be awarded XP for those you confirm are dead and the notoriety will only be awarded if all six are killed.

<I’ve been able to give you a bit of leeway on this one as you are on the clock after all, and you may not have time to run around hunting them down> Quixbix reassured me.

Maybe I ought to have been conflicted about a quest requiring me to hunt down other human beings. Had it been one to kill some random people I’m reasonably sure I would have told Quixbix to go hang. Not this lot.

The humorously worded quest had nailed it on the head. I had graciously allowed them to live and stay within the safety of the BuyMart for the night. What’s more as I was leaving this morning, I would probably have let them stay.

Instead of gratitude or just slinking off into the night like a pack of scolded dogs, they had crossed me and endangered us in the process.

“Another quest?” Shana said absently as she read through the details. “Oh, are we going to pursue this one, Torin?”

I understood the reasoning behind Shana’s doubt. Yesterday, I would have shared it. Yesterday, their snide behaviour wouldn’t have put us in danger. Yesterday was the past. Today, they would pay for their transgressions, provided it didn’t inconvenience me much. I still had a dungeon to conquer and claim.

“If we can, we will. First things first, let’s freshen up and eat. I want to be on the move once the sun is up.”

An hour later we had hand washed in the employee bathrooms and eaten a healthy breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt. All of which would rot or go off soon without refrigeration or being stored in an inventory.

When breakfast was done, I went on a quick reconnaissance mission in search of glowsticks. They had cleaned out the stock on the shop floor, but they forgot or didn’t check in the stock warehouse where I found a half dozen boxes and snatched them up before returning to the group.

The sun was up when I reached the manager’s lounge, and we would be leaving soon.

“I can’t believe they took all the best TV’s,” Keith whined.

The other three had made themselves useful while Shana and I cleaned ourselves up and checked out the aisles to see what else Constance group may have made off with.

Well, Mia and Malky had made themselves useful, Keith, not so much.

“Keith, there is no power. Those TV sets are nothing more than oversized paperweights,” Mia scolded him.

“Mia’s right,” I added. “That they took the electrical equipment but left the food and water just exposes how dead stupid they are.”

Keith and Mia didn’t twig to the pun, but Shana snorted and almost spat out the milk she was drinking. Mia smiled at my supportive comments while Keith continued to whine, and I tuned him out.

Mia really was very pretty, now that I thought about it, and utterly wasted on a deadbeat like Keith. She would be much better off with me and Shana, if Keith were to have a tragic accident, she wouldn’t hesitate to come with us. I doubt we’d even have to try to convince her.

I slapped myself and shook my head. Where the fuck had that dark train of thought come from. The rest of the group reacted to the crack of the slap on my cheek and stared at me in surprise.

“Still early, trying to shake out the cobwebs,” I lied.

They seemed satisfied with my response and Keith’s incessant complaining resumed. Understanding I was on the verge of strangling the man I stood up and stalked back into Gareth’s office.

“Torin, what are you doing?” Shana asked.

“There is something I want to check out before we leave. Can you be ready to go in five?” I replied.

“Yeah, sure.”

This wasn’t a lie. There was something I’d thought of that I should check out. Gareth, the store manager wasn’t just by the book, he was also a bit of a technophobe and had yet to embrace the digital age. And before we’d settled down for the night, I’d wondered about what kind of paperwork he had in his grey filing cabinets which filled the right-hand corner of his office.

The cabinets were locked, which wasn’t a surprise and was also promising. Why lock it up if it wasn’t important or confidential? I couldn’t be bothered searching his desk for the keys which may or may not be there and just created a stiletto style ice dagger. After putting the tip of the blade in the lock I was able to twist and brute force each of them open.

The top two drawers were disappointments and contained a collection of reports or the minutes of state-wide performance meetings. The third drawer, though, was the honey pot.

Employee records.

I yanked the drawer out of the cabinet and deposited it on the desk. There were the sounds of surprise and confusion coming from the other room from my screeching rough treatment of the office furniture.

Rifling through the folders I found the files for Constance et al and pulled them out. Viewing the contents there was a load of junk I didn’t care about, employee evaluations and the like. I was interested in only one thing. On the last page in each file was the personal information which included their home addresses.

I knew where most of the addresses listed were and they were back in the centre of Flint. The one house I didn’t know the location of was on Saratoga Drive and also happened to be the one I was most interested in, Constance’s.

Pushing the rest of the stuff on the floor I summoned the maps I had picked up from Mike’s bikes. Luckily, amongst the state maps was a road map of the Flint area. I spread it out on the desk and studied it intently. It took me a few minutes, but I finally located Saratoga Drive and jabbed my finger on the spot.

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“Got you, ya’ bitch,” I growled.

Luck was well and truly on my side this morning. Constance’s house wasn’t in the centre of town like the others. Saratoga branched off from Elms which was a mile or so further west down the M-21, the direction we were heading in anyway.

I decided we wouldn’t bother backtracking for the others. I was reasonably confident we would find several of them at Constance’s place anyway.

Vincent always used to appear to be the one leading, but Constance had ever been the instigator. Factoring in that I had thoroughly cowed Vincent and that it was Constance who had left the taunting message, it was likely she had assumed control of the group. She would have insisted they accompany her home; I was positive of that. Whether she proved to be an utterly heartless bitch and sent them on their way after was another question entirely.

She was certainly capable of it, but it all depended on whether she figured out that if she sent them away, she might not be able to get them back under her thumb later. Either way, Constance was who I wanted to punish, and the rest of them would just be gravy.

I folded the maps up and stored them away. The sun was fully over the horizon and it was time we got on the move.

I re-joined the others in the manager’s lounge.

“Shana it’s time to move,” I said and didn’t wait before crossing the room and opened the door that led out to the store.

Shana rose gracefully, collected two backpacks we had filled with water and fresh food and followed me. I held the door open for her and she passed through.

“I dunno’ why you wanna’ leave, man. We got everything we need, right here,” Keith griped.

He was really beginning to irritate me. A dark impulse urged me to shut his flapping useless trap permanently. Whatever was left of my personal Jiminy Cricket dissuaded me otherwise. The little chap was battered and bruised, but not entirely out of the fight.

“I’ve got shit to do,” I said instead, and then turned to Malky. “Watch out for yourself big guy. You need to level up if you want to survive this. I don’t think the security field this place has will hold up for long,” I warned him.

Malky smiled. “Torin, you are as big as me now, you know. Thank you for your help. I will look after them and do what needs to be done.”

“I am at that, I suppose. Hasta la vista,” I said with a wave, and closed the door.

Shana and I hustled across the store, back to the locker area and were about to leave when Mia ran into the room.

“Oh, good, I caught you,” she said.

I stopped and turned around and looked at the petite Hispanic woman. She was a little out of breath, so must have run across the store after us. She got a good look at the mess in the break area and grimaced. The redcaps had dissolved as Quixbix promised but the rest of the chaos was on full display.

“Torin, Shana, I just wanted to thank you for everything you did for us last night. And to apologise for Keith, he doesn’t mean to be an ass, but I think he’s ashamed that he didn’t help or at least volunteer to go with you and he’s being a dick about it,” Mia said.

“You have nothing to apologise for and it was lovely to meet you,” Shana told her sweetly.

The two moved in and hugged one another. After they broke Mia hesitated and bit her lip slightly before moving over and offered me the same opportunity, which I seized without question. My arms wrapped around the small woman and without thinking my hands came to rest on her firm ass and gave each cheek a gentle squeeze. She squeaked in surprise but didn’t pull away.

As we separated my hands slipped from her ass but clung on to her waist and kept her close to me. In a low and beguiling voice, I spoke to her directly.

“Mia, we are heading west towards Lake Michigan and likely north after that. I’m thinking of setting up my base of operations on one of the islands there. If anything should happen or you get tired of Keith, come and find me. We can always find a place for you with us.”

Mia’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and she blushed all over as she comprehended the implication behind my words.

“Base of operations, huh, sounds fancy,” she managed to say after a moment.

“I have plans, big plans. But we must be off, or they will never come to fruition. Don’t forget my offer Mia,” I said by way of parting.

I looked back as I closed the exit door gently. Mia was standing there, biting her lower lip, her eyes spoke volumes for her ardour-filled state of mind. I almost opened the door, went back in, and claimed her.

That would have inevitably meant a confrontation with Keith and his probable death. Although killing the irritating stoner wouldn’t have bothered me overmuch anymore, I was reluctant to hurt Malky. Malky and Keith were friends, and he would step in to help him. As I didn’t want to kill Malky, I left the choice in Mia’s hands, but I didn’t think she was ready to abandon Keith just yet.

Maybe she would follow me when Keith got himself killed or aggravated her enough to ditch him. Time would tell.

We got our mountain bikes from our inventories and mounted them. Before we pushed off Shana spoke.

“You seem different this morning, Torin,” she said cautiously. “More direct and authoritative. You showed it in flashes yesterday, when under duress, but it seems more pronounced now.”

I took one foot off the pedals to balance myself with before answering her.

“Honestly, I understand where you’re coming from, I’ve noticed a difference too. Yesterday, the changes I was feeling worried me. Less so now, after what happened. Playing nice with Constance and Vincent put us in peril and that’s not a mistake I intend to make again. From now on, I’m putting us and our needs first and if that means ruthlessly knocking people out of the way to be first, then so be it. Is that going to be a problem?” I asked her.

It felt good to get that out in the open. The one small deceit in my little speech was that I was still a little concerned about where this change was coming from and how much control I had over it. I didn’t want to become an uncaring psychopath, after all.

“No, not at all. I…um…ah…I like it,” she said shyly, and couldn’t hold my gaze.

A deep blush bloomed in her cheeks, this was something I wanted to explore further, as was the incident when we awoke this morning, but we had a lot to do today.

Tonight, though, was another matter entirely.

Then in a firmer, more confident tone, Shana said. “This simply reaffirms I made the right choice in tying myself to you. I’m ready.”

“Good. I found the address details for those fuckers in the manager’s office. Constance’s house is a ten-minute bike ride away. It’s high time we gave her a rude awakening,” I announced, and started riding around the side of the building, up towards the car park with Shana following in my wake.

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