How About Seven? ✔

47. Femme Fatale

Roxy twirled her gun, and we watched the weapon spun in her hands. She jerked her head at the dead bodies of Jasper and Re.

"Thanks for cleaning up the mess, by the way. I wasn't sure I could have done it myself."

I watched her strut over to Damian. Leaning down, she pushed a lock of hair gently away from his lifeless eyes. Roxy let out a tut-tut sound of mock pity.

"Poor darling. Well I was planning to break up with you soon, anyway. Guess I don't need to go through that conversation now."

I took a step forward, and without even looking around, Roxy held up an odd-looking device. "Careful, Hayley. All I need to do is push this button - and your wrists will be nothing but shattered bones."

In the echoing space of the damaged bunker, the four of us stood six feet apart. Desperately I wished I could communicate with William. He was the only one of us whose safety was guaranteed now - unless Black and Tan or Blackcroft had gotten to him first. My blood ran cold at that thought, and I tried to convinced myself that he was safe. That he had been talking with us up until Jasper interrupted, and that he was in a locked van, and there was no reason for anybody to suspect he was there.

I looked at Roxy. But then again, I've been wrong before.

As instructed, each of us had put on a pair of silver manacles around our wrists - standard police handcuffs, Roxy had said, "except it's been given a little bit of Black and Tan upgrade".

"You see," Roxy explained cheerfully, "there's a tiny little bomb hidden inside each handcuff. Not enough to kill perhaps, but definitely enough to, oh, blast away an elbow or two. There's also a transmitter linked directly to my receiver" - here she waved the black device - "which sends me an immediate notification if your handcuffs aren't locked properly. So don't try to pull any shenanigans, unless you want to find yourselves very incapacitated."

I looked around. "Where's Brandy?"

Roxy laughed. "That blonde-ass bimbo? What would she be doing here?"

"I know she's part of Black and Tan. I saw the tattoo."

"You mean this old thing?" Roxy half-turned, showing us her right arm's tattoo sleeve. It took me a moment to spot it, but once I did it became so glaringly obvious - a frothing mug of beer, blending in so well with the other typical-Roxy body art of skulls and crossbones. Once again, Roxy let out a laugh, and her purple highlights bounced.

"Sometimes, the best way to hide is right under everyone's noses." Her eyes flickered oddly to Kaylan. "Wouldn't you say so, Mr Hood?"

Kaylan didn't reply. In fact he had been silent since our confrontation earlier, and I couldn't stop the weird churning sensation of dread in my stomach.

"Brandy knows nothing about this side of her family," Roxy said. "She got the tattoo because she saw I had one, and she thought it would make her lovely parents pay more attention to her. You know, yell at her and stuff like that. Sadly, Mr Simmons is too busy having an affair with his office secretary, and Mrs Simmons has her hands full getting drunk every other night to notice."

In my mind, Brandy's voice echoed from the last time we'd spoke. Except it didn't sound as haughty as I remembered it to be.