'HER'
Alex's body absolutely ached. Worse than the time she'd tried cross-fit. Worse than a Jaegermeister-and-beer-pong hangover. Above her left eye, towards her ear, each heartbeat wedged into her skull. A crossed wire between her eyes and brain sparkled electricity.
"Pet a frickin' kitten," Alex cursed. She stretched her arms. Yep, still there. She blinked the world back into being: awful burgundy shag carpet, fake wood paneling. The wall of framed documents pulled her back to full reality. She jolted upright, panic clenching her chest.
Judge Sebastian Highley sprawled on the shag beside her. A red splotch on his leg oozed strawberry jam. The .22 rifle sat like a bounding board between them.
"Holy shit!" Alex immediately clapped a hand over her sailor's mouth. "I'm alive. Oh god. I'm alive!" The grin disappeared. "…And I've shot Judge Highley."
She could fuss over the specifics later. She lunged to the duct tape on Highley’s desk. With skill suggesting she'd read Fifty Shades more than once, Alex bound the bastard, wrists and ankles. Her would-be captor secured, Alex picked up the gun and clicked on the safety. She gave the rifle a quick shake. Ammo rattled in the magazine. Still live.
Weak sun filtered through the woods outside the office window. In the low light, Alex could just make out the rising and falling of the Judge’s chest. Her heart fluttered, like seeing a disemboweled mouse on the kitchen linoleum, a murder present left by the cat overnight. Alex took a breath and nudged the old man with the barrel of his own gun.
"You," Alex barked. "Wake up."
Judge Highley stirred. Thank God.
"You cunt." He growled, opened his eyes to slits. "You shot my leg!"
"That's…not…nice!" Alex, of gentle disposition, one to avoid swearing at all costs, former Lisa Frank aficionado, owner of cats and lover of all things rainbowed and fluffy, could only take so much. The switch deep inside her, one rarely touched, completed its circuit. She jabbed the rifle into the jelly oozing from the old man's leg. He howled with pain, spit foaming at his lips.
"Be good," Alex turned and searched the room. Her phone lay in the corner between desk and closet. She scooped it into her hand and tapped the home key. She tapped it again. And again. She held the button. Both buttons. Highley's rattling laugh snaked up from the floor like a ghostly fog.
"That's why I married my Ms. Underwood," he said. "Us ancients, us Luddite pre-technological artifacts work and work and work, long after your doo-hickeys give up the ghost. A little battery pack and Underwood still purrs under my touch."
Alex feinted the rifle butt toward Highley. He recoiled, whimpering. The phone was dead. The screen refused to show anything but her own fractured reflection.
Alex stepped around Highley to the desk. In the light, she saw a pair of gloves beside the typewriter, their gray plastic fingertips chewed to nothing. She picked up a glove. "3-D printed? Use these to plant prints?"
Highley said nothing.
"Listen, you might be a meanie, but I'm not. Alex Dalkowski does to others as she would like to be done to her." Rifle tucked under her arm like a riding crop, Alex pocketed the gloves and heaved the typewriter by its cylindrical platen.
"Get up, old man. You, me and this evidence is going for a ride in my…" Alex's stomach went cold. Her shoulders dropped. Her car sat lifeless outside, its steering half-digested by icy potholes. "Poop."
Highley gasped, squirming against his bonds. It looked as if 50,000 volts wrenched his body. "Cradle her bottom, whore!" Highley's lip sucked and trembled. "You must cradle her bottom!"
"Who's bottom?" Alex looked behind her. "Listen, I know this sounds strange, considering you're my prisoner and all, but do you have a car I could borrow?"
The old man spat a slimy red gob. His eyes fixed to the typewriter in Alex's hands, quivering with something like fear.
"Wait." Alex looked down to the typewriter. She took a breath, fixed her gaze to the old man, and pulled up on one of the typewriter strikes. The 'w.'
"No!" Judge Highley twisted onto his stomach. Ass jutting, he wriggled like a worm. "Don't you dare hurt her!"
"Hurt… 'her?'"
"Charlatan!" Highley rolled onto his belly and again spat. "Ours is the love lauded by Donne and Shakespeare!"
"Whoa. Back up the kitten-petting truck." Alex hefted the typewriter against her chest. "Do...do you, like do...sex stuff... with this typewriter?"
The Judge's face flushed apple red. A sick, stomach-turning smile spread over his stubbled cheek. Highley closed his eyes and a low, musical moan passed his lips.
"Oh! Fricking eww!" Trying to fix the meanest scowl onto her face, Alex pulled up a strike on the typewriter and let it snap back into place. "Tell me or I'll bend her strikes one by one. Wheel of Fortune letters first! Is there a taxi service that runs out here?"
Highley—the stubborn git—wrinkled his nose, mouth tight. Alex—made an even more stubborn git by stress—pulled the 'r.' When the rod would extend no further, Alex bent it backwards.
Highley let out a pathetic yelp. "The garage! I don't drive, but there's a vehicle there. They keys are in the ignition. You'll find it...interesting."
"Interesting?" Annoyed to bursting, Alex dug a toe into Highley's side as she passed toward the door. "Come with me or the typewriter gets it. We're going for a little ride."
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