35 Cold Metal in the Dead of Night
1580 Words
It was the dead of night, with the full moon illuminating the New York harbor when Jasper Locke and Emily Banner arrived at a warehouse in their black van. It was distasteful for Emily to travel by such crude means, but one could not be picky when trying to operate without the suspicion of someone who was effectively her boss. This was not new for Jasper however, as he had taken the black van to most of his covert operations, not necessarily with the authorization of his uncle.
The two stepped out of their van in the cover of the darkness. They both dressed crudely, wearing black hoodies so as not to be identified, if ever.
“Honestly, you couldn’t have had me wear a black dress or something, Locke?”
“We aren’t going to one of your VIP parties, Banner,” he said as he reached back into the van to grab a metal baseball bat. “Besides, things might get a little messy.”
“What do you mean?”
Jasper didn’t answer but instead knocked on the metal gates of the warehouse.
“Who is it?” an unnamed male voice came out from the other side.
“Who do you think, you dimwit?”
“Oh! Uh- Sorry sir!”
With a few clicks, the gate opened to reveal a room with several men surrounding what seemed like a young man with a bag over his head. He was seated on a chair in the center of the room, and looked like he had been roughed up quite a bit already. Emily gasped in horror, as she was shocked. She had already been a part of things like this, but has never been physically present for any of them. So she might as well have been a newbie in this kind of game, in which Jasper was incredibly well-versed.
“God damn it Jasper!” she said as she jumped at the sight.
“What? You’ve never done this kind of thing before?”
“You know I don’t like to get my hands dirty!”
“Oh is that it, princess?”
“I-I just don’t like watching it happen in front of me,” she said as she crossed her arms.
He looked at her, displeased with her reaction. At that point, his view of her had diminished.
“Hmm… If you don’t have the stomach to watch, then doesn’t that mean you still have a heart?” he asked, as he walked toward the young man with the bagged head. “There isn’t any room for heart in this kind of game, Banner. Especially when we are gunning for the most powerful man in America.”
He grabbed the lip of the burlap bag, and forcefully took it off to reveal a young man of Latin descent.
“This isn’t a game to be played by the weak,” he said to her before he turned his attention to the youth. “Ain’t that right, boy?”
He looked as if he had been drugged and dangled his head in an incredibly fatiguing way. Jasper snapped at one of his henchmen who handed him a mug filled with water. In an instant, he splashed the youth’s face with water, to which the latter jumped fully awake.
“Wh-what?! Where am I?! Who are you, people?!”
Jasper gently put the end of his baseball bat to the youth’s lips, to shut him up. Immediately he got the message, as he clammed up as soon as the cold metal touched his skin.
“Hello there, Ivan,” he said as he lowered the bat slowly.
The shock set in for the youth named Ivan, who started to shake at the thought of not living to see tomorrow.
“H-how do you know my name?” he asked, not looking away from the edge of the bat that rested on his lap.
“Oh, we have our resources, Ivan Perez,” he said as he lifted the bat back up to his shoulder.
“So that was what you were playing at,” Emily said, as she tried not to look Ivan in the eyes.
There was something about putting a face to her victims that she did not like. This is why after she pulls a hit on someone, she never watches the news. Now it was happening in front of her eyes. She had no time to think, as Jasper slammed the baseball bat right into the cement floor, letting the sports tool made weapon ring loudly throughout the warehouse. Both Emily and Ivan jumped at the sound before Jasper started to talk again.
“Do you know why you are here, Ivan?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Are you aware of the name, Maximilian Burner?”
The student looked down thoughtfully before realizing that he had heard of the name on the news as the person who saved heiress to the Thompson fortune.
“You mean… the hero?”
Jasper slammed the leg of the metal chair with his baseball bat in irritation.
“I-I’m sorry!”
“Shut up!”
Jasper jammed the end of the baseball bat into Ivan’s stomach, to which he coughed up saliva and bile.
“P-please don’t hurt me,” Ivan begged, starting to tear up.
“Hmph, well you are not wrong with the Maximilian Burner that I am referring to,”
“B-but why’d you kidnap me and not him?” he asked out of turn.
Jasper started to lose his patience and jammed the end of the baseball bat yet again into Ivan’s stomach. In an attempt to catch his breath, Ivan ended up dry heaving before getting any air back into his lungs. The youth trembled in the face of this sadistic captor.
“Why? Because he is not our goal,” Jasper said, as he tapped the bat in his other hand. “But I will not be divulging any kind of important information to you, of all people. No. We’ve captured you because the group of Maximilian Burner is most likely looking for your services, most probably as a consultant of sorts. And I want you... to accept.”
“A-accept?”
“Yes,” Jasper said with a sadistic smile.
Ivan was a smart youth, so he already had some inkling of what the man Jasper Locke wanted. It was definitely tied to Max Burner and Julia Thompson.
“L-look sir, I think you have the wrong person… Please just let me go...”
Jasper took a moment to process the words that Ivan had just said, before jamming the bat into his stomach for the third time.
“S-sir, please… I don’t want any of my classmates to get hurt-”
He was cut off again with another powerful blow to the stomach. The youth hurled much of his dinner onto the floor due to the impact of the weapon to his torso. He looked down to the floor as tears started to fall from his eyes.
“P-please just let me go,” he whimpered in pain.
Emily could not bear to look at the youth, as she proceeded to exit the building.
“Where are you going?” Jasper asked as he turned back to her.
“I’m going home! You will be able to accomplish this task without me!”
She slammed the gate and proceeded to the van that they had arrived in.
“Hmph, weaklings, the lot of them,” Jasper said, before turning his attention back to Ivan. “As for you… You are no weakling, are you? Because as of this moment, you still haven’t broken.”
“Let… L-let me-”
Ivan was cut off with the monstrous grip of Jasper lock crushing his neck. The boy started to choke at the pressure of Ivan’s vice grip, as he squeezed the life out of the youth. Just as Ivan’s eyes started to redden, the man let him go.
“Fine… Let me be frank with you, Ivan. I can do this all night. All. Night,” Jasper said, as he gently placed the side of the bat against Ivan’s face. “And I know that no one is going to be coming to your aid if you go to the police… Especially not that foster family that you live in with. I bet they don’t even care that you aren’t home… huh?”
Ivan looked at the floor again, as he gritted his teeth.
“Where are your parents, Ivan? Hmmm? Where are they?”
A mixture of rage and sadness filled Ivan as he gritted his teeth even tighter.
“I could very easily make you disappear. And no one would even remember you,” Jasper said before bursting into maniacal laughter that shook Ivan to his very core. “So, shall I do it? Will you allow yourself to be wiped from the face of this earth? Or will you continue your penance to your parents, for what you did to them?”
Jasper raised the bat and lifted it just up to Ivan’s face. He proceeded to line up the arc of the bat as if preparing to hit a T-ball, except the ball was not a ball, but Ivan’s head.
“I’ll give you until the count of three,” he said as he continued to trace the arc of the swing through the air.
“One...”
“Two...”
Jasper winded up the bat for the final blow. He started to swing towards Ivan’s face. It felt as if he was moving in slow motion, as the bat seemed to take forever to swing from the back of Jasper’s neck down to Ivan's jawline. Suddenly, the youth spoke up!
“Wait!”
Instantly, the bat stopped, mere millimeters away from the side of Ivan’s cheek.
“Oh… Are you ready to try and negotiate, boy?” Jasper said as he pulled the baseball bat away.
“Y-yes...”
Jasper began to laugh his sick twisted laugh all over again, as his plans on kidnapping Julia again were now starting to take place. As of now, the wheels were now starting to turn.
- Writer
