Closed RP A Kidnapping in Pittsburgh

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Phoenix

Phoenix

Member

The teeth closed in around her collarbone and she screamed as it crushed beneath them. Her shaking hands were holding his head in her hands, tears falling from her golden eyes and into his black curls. Just like he had done to her bicep, just like he had done to her shoulder, he pulled the flesh from her body, tearing it away. She breathed out in a shudder as he raised his face to hers. He pressed his forehead to hers as he chewed, her blood dripping down his lips and onto her chest.

His hands eased her sweater further down her arms to her elbows, and his hand stroked her other shoulder gently. She tried not to cry harder as his blue eyes met hers and she saw the joy in them. She’d never seen him look so purely happy before. Not at any point in their time together had he ever been so content as he was eating pieces of her. And Sam couldn’t stop him. She wouldn’t, even as he swallowed the piece of her he had ripped away. She wouldn’t, even as his hands stroked her unmarred skin. She just tightened her fingers in his curls and rested her face against his as she cried.

“Don’t cry, Sam. I’m just showing you how much I love you. Isn’t this what you wanted, sweetheart?”

There was a dull throbbing in her head. It was unrelated to the pain in her arms, to the bite marks that marred her skin. Wait. Her arms? He had only taken bites out of one of them. She looked back up at him and saw that he was foggy, loose, and quickly fading. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Todd wasn’t in front of Sam. Instead, she found herself looking at the wall of what appeared to be a warehouse.

She groaned and looked around. Empty warehouse, almost completely cleaned out of everything. Some pieces of furniture and a few scattered crates remained, and Sam was tied to a fucking chair. She looked at her arms and saw where they were constricted by the zip ties– in the same spots Todd had taken bites out of her in her dream. Thank god that had just been a nightmare. She would think about that later. Right then, she had a bigger problem.

She was, after all, tied to a fucking chair. She could just remember walking in the door to her apartment and changing from her work sweats and into a more casual turtleneck and jeans– which she was still wearing, thank god– and then… nothing. A rag to her face, maybe? Shit, had she been chloroformed?

With frustration apparent in her voice, Sam called out, “Is anyone there? Maybe someone who tied me to a fucking chair?”​
 
Details.

Noticing details has always served Flora well. Being detail-oriented had been just as important in her old job as in her new line. Instead, her work was now much more dangerous than being an engineer at a nuclear reactor. People were more unpredictable than uranium; and much more explosive. She could already tell the redhead was a firecracker with a short fuse.

Flora had spent almost two weeks trying to track down Cryptid. It was a wonder SLATE had hired out the job, the man was nearly impossible to track. The people he was close to, however, were almost too easy to find. Then Flora simply watched and waited. She was patient. After another week of investigation, she put her plan into action. It was later in the day and was waiting near the woman's apartment. Disassembling her atomic structure was almost second nature by now, and breaking into the apartment and kidnapping Pheonix had been too easy. Flora had sighed and left a note for Cryptid.

Flora looked up from her spot in the warehouse as her captive stirred, still zip-tied to the chair. Without revealing her face, which was concealed by a black gaiter, she walked around the chair where Sam could see her and took a seat on a nearby pallet. Sam would see a small, slender, female figure dressed in black, with a wicked knife strapped to her belt.

"Relax," Flora ordered, but not unkindly. Her voice was more tired than anything. "I'm not going to hurt you, and regardless, it should be over soon..."
 

Sam paused for half a beat before she gave the small woman a sharp smile. Her head tilted to the side in a quick jerky motion, almost like a bird. Her freshly cut bangs fell in her face, obscuring her scrunched-up brows. With a quick once over, Sam turned her attention away from the woman and onto the warehouse. She craned her head as far as she could while she spoke, trying to find the exits and to see if anyone else was there.

“Oh, good, I was worried this might take a while. You see, I have a lot of plans, and being tied to a chair really puts a damper on them. You wanna tell me who hired you to snatch me up like a small child walking home from school?”

There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the building, so she turned her attention back to the figure dressed in all black. She flashed a charming smile, her award-winning smile that normally got her whatever she wanted from others, and tugged against her restraints. No give. Just snug enough to be a bitch to squeeze through, not tight enough to cut into her skin. That was bad. Sam might have been strong, but she wasn’t strong enough to rip out of these, especially not given she wasn’t able to eat after work. Already the effects of that were catching up to her.

She kept the grin on her face. Well, if she couldn’t squeeze her way out, and she was going to be stuck here for however long it took Todd to notice she was missing, then she might as well have fun with it. Todd would come for her, once he realized she hadn’t just run an errand. They were supposed to be patrolling that night together. And right now, with the fact that they were pretending they didn’t both know–

Her heart stopped for a moment. What if Todd thought that Sam was running away? What if he thought she was leaving him? God, would he think that? Was that possible? He thought she was going to kill him– would he actually think that Sam would run away, though? She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about what Todd would assume. There was no way he would think that she had just left. He knew her better than that. Todd knew her better than– than–

He thought she was going to kill him, though. There was no telling what he might think. So instead of focusing on that, she turned her focus back on the woman in front of her. She could warp the plastic of the zip ties. It would take some time, but she could do it. Subtlety was going to be the key here. If she alerted the other woman as to her actions, she could get knocked out again. She started to raise the temperature across her body.​
 
It was hard to tell if Sam was putting on a facade to keep her fears at bay, or was genuinely having fun with this. Either way, Flora wasn't one to be easily charmed by a smile and batting of lashes.

"Don't be stupid, we both know you're no child" Flora said coldly, pausing a moment before deciding to respond to the woman, hating the way the word "child" tasted in her mouth. "Perhaps you should be a bit more cautious when you go out beating up criminals or whatever- and certainly more cautious about the company you keep."

Pheonix had to be smart enough to know she wouldn't talk about who had hired her for this job. She was just choosing to be annoying on purpose. Flora made a mental note to bring a gag next time. She wasn't used to working with the living and was quite out of her usual element. Usually by now she'd be gone, leaving nothing behind but a body.

Flora could feel a headache coming on, and hoped this would be over soon. Cryptid had to show...
 

“Oh, so it’s not me you’re after. Well, that gives me a very short list of who you’re actually after.” There was a sharpness to her voice that hadn’t been there before. She cranked the heat up another notch and kept pulling on the zip ties. She just needed enough to pull them apart far enough to slip out. That should be easy, even if they were the heavy-duty ones. Plastic like this wasn’t meant to be exposed to heat like hers. She could melt it, given time and space. She kept talking, trying to distract the woman as the temperature around her slowly rose.

“Wouldn’t be Wolf. He’s not well-known enough, and he’s not a well-known enough associate of mine. Wouldn’t be the World, though that would be hilarious if it were. Prick deserves people trying to capture him. Wouldn’t be that zombie guy, I only saw him twice. If it were the Wolfhound, you would have gone after him directly. He’s as subtle as I am.”

She shifted her arms, trying to roll them apart. The ties weren’t giving yet, but they were bending with her now instead of staying stiff and rigid. That was a good start. Then, she paused, going still. She closed her eyes and cursed under her breath. She had to get out now, because–

“That leaves Cryptid. Of course, you’d have some kind of contract on Cryptid. And I’m certainly good bait, given I’m his partner. It’s too bad that he’s exactly the kind of guy to go rushing in to save me. Otherwise, you and I could have spent the whole night playing games. Wouldn’t that have been fun? After all, you’re such a talker, I’m sure we could have the best conversations.”

Sam smiled, tilting her head to the side so her perfect curls, perfect despite being dragged halfway across town in what she was sure was the back of a van, shifted to the side and tumbled down over her shoulder. A subtle motion to get them out of the way so melted plastic wouldn’t get on them. She shifted her arms again, and they flexed more with her, but they still didn’t give. She’d have to turn the heat up further. She let her temperature raise to almost one hundred and ten, concentrating the heat in her arms.​
 
“Do you ever shut up?” Flora snapped irritated. As much as she despised her usual work, she decided she wasn’t cut out for dealing with living bodies.

Despise wasn’t the right word. Of course Flora didn’t enjoy killing, and she wasn’t cruel about it either. She took life, but she didn’t take it lightly. But there was also a quiet pride she took in her skill, like anyone with a natural talent might have.

Flora tugged at her collar. The usually chilly warehouse was growing quite warm…Of course. Every Phoenix was born of fire.

Underneath her gaiter, concealed from view, Flora frowned deeply. Sam clearly didn’t appreciate the work she put into kidnapping her, or aware of the precautions and prep she had done to the warehouse beforehand.

Flora was in plain view of Sam when she spoke next, “Careful, Ms. Walsh-“

And then she vanished.

Her body reformed behind Sam’s chair, out of sight. For that she was glad, considering the sharp pain in her spine, causing her to drop to a knee. Flora took a deep breath and seized the nearby bucket, fueled by annoyance and necessity in equal measure, dumping the ice cold contents over Sam’s head.

“- Next time I’ll have to resort to lethal measures.”
 

The moment the woman disappeared, Sam tensed up. She’d had a smart-ass reply for the woman, but now, she was scanning the warehouse as thoroughly as she could. That was, until the icy water hit her head. She gasped in a sharp breath, her concentration broken. The water cooled the ties back off, making them rigid once more. She blew water off her face, feeling it slide over her curls before soaking into the bottoms of them. Her clothes were drenched through.

With a groan, she pulled against her restraints, trying to break them. But they were too thick, and held strong now that the cold water had shrunk them back down. Sam stomped her feet in frustration and glared up from under her lashes and out the corner of her eyes at the woman. There was a mean smile on her face now as water dripped down it. She let her warmth out a bit, not enough to fuck with the ties, but enough to speed up her drying.

“You know, if you wanted me wet, a little dirty talk was all that you needed.” Though she said the words, they carried no weight. She didn’t mean it at all and was simply speaking out of habit. Things she normally would have said before Todd. She shook her head, flinging water every which way.​
 
“Watch your mouth!” Flora corrected reflexively, taking herself by surprise.

She sounded exactly as sharp as she had when Cecil had said “shit” for the first time, resulting in a lengthy conversation with Boris about why he couldn’t swear in front their toddler anymore. The pain of the memory cut through the weary aches she had become accustomed to.

Flora stiffened after a moment, uncomfortable with Sam’s statement. The idea to cut out the woman’s tongue was becoming more enticing. She absentmindedly scratched at her left bicep where her PICC line was, and tried to gather her thoughts.

“I’m struggling to see what Cryptid found appealing in you,” Flora muttered, exhaling heavily. She glanced at the watch on her wrist, debating how long she could wait before being forced to take medication.

Flora teleported again, if only to put distance between herself and her captive, settling on the rafters of the warehouse where she could still hear and see everything, and she pulled down her gaiter to breathe better.
 

Sam’s eyes tracked her kidnapper as she disappeared into the rafters. Her eyes telescoped, her pupils blowing wide as she looked up at the woman. Then, she made the mistake of pulling down the mask covering the majority of her face. Her skin was pale, and she was gaunt in a way even her wendigo wasn’t. But now, she had her face. The red-haired woman smiled and tilted her now dripping-wet head to the side.

“My sense of humor, of course.” She blew a wet curl off her face and grinned wide. “But you. You sound like my mom now. Is that what you’re into? Should I call you Mommy?”​
 
The kidnapper had left a note:

Cryptid,

Meet me at the warehouse on Lincoln and Furlough when you get this. Come alone, don’t be stupid.

I’d hate for your canary to stop singing.​

Signed with the scent of cheap strawberry shampoo, and something vaguely chemical.

The whole situation told Todd three things. First, the woman – based on the strawberries – knew Phoenix’s real identity. She’d somehow traced Cryptid to Phoenix, Phoenix to Sam, and Sam home to the apartment. Second, the woman didn’t know everything about Cryptid. She’d gone without being seen, but beyond that, she hadn’t done anything to mask her scent. Unless that was the point.

But, third, she’d never kidnapped anyone before.

Back in his time as a PI, he’d done some work on a kidnapping case. The where and when didn’t matter now, but it was expert-level organized crime shit. He knew that a formal kidnapping involved a demand, something in the note. “Come alone” wasn’t “come unarmed” or “bring money”. “Come alone” meant that this was a baited trap, but it didn’t tell him anything about what she wanted. He could just show up as Todd, and she’d have to figure out what to do from there.

Obviously, he didn’t just show up as Todd. As funny as that might seem, he couldn’t risk anyone besides Sam knowing his identity – even if it didn’t matter, if it wouldn’t matter, for much longer. He sighed a little, under his breath. Some instinctive part of him knew that if he just let this play out, he’d live longer. It was that simple. But he was here, crouched on the roof of the warehouse beside this one, looking for his canary.

His canary, his wildfire. He’d gotten over the initial anger pretty quick – she’d taken Sam by surprise with chloroform, by the lingering smell of it, so Sam probably wasn’t hurt. But she was still in trouble, and he had no idea why.

Well. Only one way to find out.

Rather than go in through the front door like a normal person, he’d spotted a second-story window that was left open. A few days ago, he wouldn’t’ve trusted himself to clear the jump – not while he still had a limp.

Now he backed up, and then jumped so his feet landed on the tin roof of the warehouse where someone was keeping his Phoenix. He closed his eyes and listened to the voices underfoot, how they echoed into the metal, and found himself smiling when he came to the edge of the roof. There was so much to work with in there – maybe not pragmatically to get Sammy out of there, but definitely to get the kidnapper’s attention.

He swung down, swung back, and put both boots through the window hole, already talking before he hit the ground in an expert parkour roll.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, we talkin’ about my father now? Really? Couldn’t at least wait for me to get here?”

Neither of them would really get the joke he was trying to make, which was fine by him. He rolled to his feet, straightened out his coat, and put his hands in his pockets as he turned to the woman who wasn’t Sammy, a forty-five degree tilt to his head.

“Real fucking vague note you left back there. I kinda need you to elaborate, if you don’t mind – I think you might’ve left something out.”
 

Sam was about to retort about her mother, a rare moment of real anger cropping up inside her, when the voice of her dear wendigo rang out in the air. He rolled and ended up on his feet, and she felt something inside her loosen. She hadn’t even felt the vibrations of him approaching, but there he was. There were the not-quite-curly waves he wore as Cryptid. There were his broader-than-you’d-expect shoulders. There were the black clothes and the white devil mask. He was there.

Todd came for her.

The moment he was there, a truly mischievous grin crossed her face, and she looked up at the woman in the rafters. She made a show of snuggling back in the chair, her eyes and posture easing in his presence. She had been tense, before, the other woman might now see. But with Todd there– with Cryptid there– Sam was more relaxed than she had been in days. She got his joke, and would have laughed at it had she not been hell-bent on making this woman uncomfortable. So instead, she kept the ball rolling.

“Sorry, Mommy, it looks like Daddy is home, and he doesn’t like it when anyone else plays with me. I’d say I’ll see you next time, but I don’t think there will be one. After all, I’m quite the daddy’s girl.”​
 
Flora cringed from the rafters as Cryptid made his appearance, dropping to the floor from the open window roof like a dumbass.

About fucking time.

“The door was unlocked.”

Flora teleported quickly to the small industrial staircase on the other wall, and slid her mask up over her nose before the man could see her face. She couldn’t afford him seeing her grimace in pain. This needed to resolve quickly.

In an another second Flora reappeared behind Sam, and lightly slapped her captive upside the head, “Stop that.”

“You assume I want something from you- I don’t.” Flora said plainly, addressing Cryptid for the first time. “But you’re a difficult man to find, and someone wanted to get your attention. And now they have it. I’m finished here.”

Flora unsheathed her hunting knife and quickly cut through the zip ties keeping Sam in place, before teleporting back up to her perch.
 
Cryptid smiled. It was so hard not to play off of Sam like this – he didn’t even try.

“Careful, Mama, baby’s into that too.”

His eyes followed her from point to point in the dark. Teleportation. That was new, and, frankly, unfair. He wanted to be more frustrated, but honestly, he just wanted to grab Sam and go home. But the fact that Flora had just walked into Sam’s apartment and grabbed her made him tense.

He realized he wasn’t as angry as he could have been. As he normally would’ve been. Was that the half-hunt he and Ethan had just had? The fact he’d eaten recently? Or was it Sam – was it that feeling in his gut that knew, just knew, that if she was strong enough to kill him, she could handle anything.

Or was it the part of him that didn’t want to die?

He shook that off as the kidnapper ported over to the stairs again. An audience, now, waiting for the main event. He tilted his head, then glanced at Sam sidelong. Whatever was about to happen, it was probably better it didn’t happen with her here.

“I’ll admit I do like playing hard to get.” He rocked back on his heels, tilted his head just a little toward the door, listening, rushing to think. As badly as he wanted to rush to Sam’s side, he knew he needed to figure out who exactly was coming.

Could Ethan have done this? Probably not; he wanted Sam to want a relationship with him. But as big as Cryptid’s pool of rogues was, none of them quite fit this MO. Lament would’ve just done it himself – or tried. Kitsune Inc? He’d had that one run-in with them… maybe. But why this warehouse? Why here?

He didn’t let the silence hang. Too much silence, and someone might realize he was listening. The black eyes under his mask flicked back up to the woman in black. “So, Mommy, do you always stick around to watch the show, or did you forget to ask for pay up front?”
 

After the hand bounced off the back of her head, Sam opened her mouth to give a snide remark. She halted as Cryptid responded for her, a quick warning about her interests. She smiled and stayed as still as possible as the woman in black cut her free. After her arms were free, she pulled them forward and rubbed them where the zip ties had cut into her skin. Pushing herself to her feet, she joined in on the heckling.

“I don’t know, Daddy, I think Mommy might just like to watch. She seems the type. You want to give her a show? I’m sure whoever set this up wouldn’t mind waiting. After all, I’m still wet and it would be so sad to let that go to waste.”

She rubbed her wrists as she stood, a flirty grin on her face as she looked at Cryptid. Despite the soaking wet sweater and jeans, she wasn’t shivering. The steam rising off her was starting to swirl in the cold air as it picked up. She turned the heat up enough for it to spread from her to Cryptid, who she knew without asking was cold. He was always cold.

Sam would be lying if she didn’t say she found this incredibly attractive behavior. Whenever he got like this, he was always fun, but something about it really was doing it for her that night. She looked him over, not even trying to be subtle, and took a few steps away from the chair. She didn’t go directly to him, but rather circled toward where the woman sat on the rafters. She coiled heat and tension into her legs and her eyes flicked up to the woman above before meeting Cryptid's.​
 
Just go and fuck already

It’d save Flora the mental energy of dealing with them. Not only were they annoying, they had the same gross flirtation her and Boris had had in their early days. It cut like a dull knife.

She remained professional. “I’m waiting for my contact to arrive. I’d hate to waste my reputation among employers and leave early simply because you two are acting like teenagers on prom night.”

Flora watched as Sam circled like a bird of prey underneath the rafters. She made the mistake of adjusting herself, and white hot pain ripped up her spine, causing her to momentarily back out and ungracefully fall from the rafters.

She pulled herself together at the last second and teleported to the crates before she hit the floor, breathing hard.

I need more time…
 
There. The predator in him pinpointed the moment of weakness. Normally he’d be the one to make the jump for her – but Sam had them covered at that angle, now that the kidnapper couldn’t take her by surprise. Cryptid nodded to Sam a little, then backed away a half a step and turned slightly so that he could see the door.

“Y’know,” he said, dropping the flirty act, “I think it says a lot about your work ethic that your best plan was to lure me – in full costume and fully armed – to where your contract’s supposed to show. It makes you more of a liability than a trustworthy asset, in my opinion.”

He started to pace, still turned halfway to the door, ears peeled. He was rushing through scenarios of who might step through those doors, who wanted him badly enough that they’d risk losing an assassin to Phoenix and then again risk facing him. One of Leo’s friends, maybe? Kenton’s? They didn’t seem like the friends kind of guys, but it was possible someone powerful felt threatened. This still felt extreme–

Well, no. Not really. He reminded himself Kenton had hired a shady and secretive security organization for protection, and that Leo had tried to leverage Slate against him. Crime lords around here took their thrones really seriously, and despite his growing personal issues, he couldn’t rule them out. Not when the only other real option was just Lament, and Lament didn’t know about Phoenix. Hopefully.

Brushing that aside, he started tuning in to his higher senses, letting the predator unfurl into his body language at the same time. Nose and ears would tell him who was on the other side of the loosely sealed warehouse door before they even walked in. He wasn’t going to let himself be surprised again, not when it was Sam on the line.
 

Sam jumped for the woman at the exact moment she phased out of existence. She landed, hands to the ground, and felt it as the woman stumbled into a crate nearby. Well, this was going to be tricky. But Sam was sure she could handle it. She made her way toward where the vibrations of the woman’s uneven heartbeat were coming from, letting heat coil in her legs to give her a solid push forward. Unless the woman was a coward, then when she rounded the corner, she would have her cornered.
​


She raked her knife across the outside of the building as she moved. She knew that he would hear her coming, likely even smell her. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was there. Her gamble on the assassin had paid off. She hadn’t been terribly convinced that capturing his supposed partner would work, but apparently, it had.

She got to the doors of the warehouse and paused there. He couldn’t hurt her. She knew that. No matter what he did, she would heal it in an instant. She could keep going indefinitely. And she would keep going indefinitely. She was doing this for Malachite. They all were. And thanks to Todd’s information, she knew somewhat what to expect. She reached down into her left boot and pulled free her second knife. She twirled them in her hands, getting used to their weight, and then she sighed heavily.

She really hated killing. It went against everything she believed in, that Malachite had helped her believe in again. It went against her religion. It went against her morals.

But morals and religion hadn’t mattered to this motherfucker when he had stolen Malachite from them. She took in a deep breath and pushed the doors open.

Rhodonite entered the warehouse and her eyes immediately locked on her target. She gave a small smile, full of anger and despair, and she charged without so much as a word.​
 
Flora took a heavy breath, and straightened up, letting the pain pass before trying to move again. She could hear the doors open and she assumed Slate had arrived. The warehouse was going to become a shit show real soon.

Flora decided it was time to leave, but the redhead- Samantha, had cornered her, as angry and fiery as her alias. And Flora didn’t have another bucket of water.

“Now, Ms. Walsh…I suggest you make your exit before things get messy between our associates.”

Floras hand inched toward her knife, just in case.
 
The intruder wanted him to know they were coming. The long scratch of metal on stone. He tried to keep an eye on Sam, but something itched at the back of his mind as the night air carried the scent of clean linen and faint florals to him. Something that didn’t register until the door opened.

“Rhodonite?”

He hardly had time to get the name out before she was on him. He had the advantage of speed on her, and suddenly he had to trust Sam with her own safety, because he had to put all his focus on evasion and occasional deflection with the bars of the bagh nakh. He kept his body in between his assailant and Sammy as best he could, but there was only so much maneuvering that would do both. As the knives whipped around him like a storm wind, he decided the best way to keep that wind on him was to run his stupid mouth.

Maybe that’d get him the answer of what the fuck Rhody thought she was doing.

“Obsidian’s really ready to throw away another family member, hm? Losing Jasper wasn’t enough for him?”

He was hoping she’d kick into second gear at that comment. He had no idea what she did, but she didn’t seem to be any stronger or faster than a human assailant. A little more reckless, maybe, just a little like himself – but he was sturdy and fast, with a healing factor. Whatever else she was packing, it wasn’t going to be pleasant for him, he was sure.
 
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