Grin (17 page)

Shooting the handle, the lock shattered and clunked to the floor. She kicked the doors open and stepped through, screaming as she did. The bloody, battered woman emerged in a vast office, one minimal in décor, the centerpiece being a huge oak desk backed against a wall seemingly made of glass. She realised it was one huge window, which provided an exquisite view of London. The room smelled clean, with a hint of bourbon in the air.

The leather chair behind the desk swivelled around to reveal a man with slick black hair and a scar on his forehead. A smile spread across his face, the flesh pockmarked with deep acne scars and decorated with a dishevelled beard. His hands interlaced before him, his elbows positioning them in front of his face. The leer was one of utter confidence and power.

Dani coughed. "Ross Rhodes?"

The man nodded. "You must be Dani? I heard so much about you."

"I'm here to kill you," Dani spat, her body wavering with exhaustion and blood loss.

"I'm impressed you got this far. But, you didn’t think it was going to be this easy, did you?"

Dani's eyes exploded with bright light as a blow from her left knocked her to the tiled floor. She collapsed easily and slid a few feet, her balance compromised and her brain rattling in her skull. Her weapons bag slid across the ground behind her. Landing on her face, she groaned, blood and saliva drooling from her lips. Her head pounded, her heartbeat throbbed throughout every inch of her body. She probed her teeth with her tongue and felt a tooth snap from the root.

Turning over, she saw a hulking brute of a man step from the shadows and crack his knuckles. Her glazed eyes failed her, recognition not imminent, until the man spoke. He smiled at the fallen woman. "So, we meet again."

Dani's eyes widened. In all the commotion, in her determination to find Rhodes, she'd misplaced Bradley. Cursing herself internally, she pushed herself to her feet. Bradley sidestepped, keeping the woman at a safe distance. "So, you found me, found us?"

Dani wiped her lips with a forearm and nodded. "I have my ways."

Bradley smiled. "A promise is a promise, I suppose."

Dani staggered backwards. "It's over. For both of you."

Bradley glanced at Rhodes, who simply chuckled. He poured himself a measure of bourbon and flicked his hands in their direction. "Kill the bitch; she's wasted enough of my time."

Bradley turned towards Dani, laughing. "I see you didn’t lose your smile."

"You didn’t lose your sense of humour…wait, no, you never had one."

Bradley chuckled again. "You have a lot of fight in you, kid. It's going to be a shame to waste you."

Dani put her left arm out and leaned on the wall, white fire and pain and suffering whipping up her spine, her aching, battered body tingling and throbbing, on the verge of shutdown. Her mind was a muddle of partial images. Bradley in his balaclava, cutting her face, killing her brother – the images forced themselves back into her mind's eye. The images built and ignited a rage deep within, turned into a focused mentality. Her brother's voice, distorted and deep, then fast and high-pitched, inspired her, spurred her on.

She didn’t have long.

But, with Bradley, she wanted him done quickly.

Bradley stepped forward, a boot clonking on the pristine tiles. "You ready to die, Danielle?"

Dani slumped to her knees, her blood-soaked chin low. Bradley laughed, mocking the teenager with a pointed finger. "She can't even stand up. I've been waiting a year to do this, it's going to be so easy. Rhodes, promise me I can fuck the body when I'm done?"

"You kill her and you can do whatever you fucking want with her," his boss replied, sipping his bourbon. "Why do I hire these people?" He added.

Reaching down into her black bag, Dani lifted the SPAS 12 shotgun and cocked it, the heart-wrenching
snick snack
filling the room with dread, putting everyone on notice.

Including Bradley, who turned with a wide glare, disbelief in his frightened eyes.

"I've been waiting a year too, but it's over. Right now. This is for Teddy and my mother, you cunt."

Dani fired.

A shotgun fires metallic buckshot, a shell containing multiple spherical objects that spread as it fires, widening the blast radius and causing massive, severe blunt trauma. Bradley stood four feet from Dani as she lifted the weapon and pulled the trigger, his stance bringing him closer to the seemingly defenceless teenager.

His face ignited with the blast, his eyebrows catching fire and the skin shearing away, shredded into a blood pulp. The concentrated buckshot stove in his massive forehead and mushed his eyes before pulverising the bone at the top of his skull. His scalp, hair still attached, exploded from his head, and twirled across the office, smacking the tiles with a soggy splat. Sticky globs of brain and sinew hung from the neck stump, with many more splattering against the floor. Bradley's bloody corpse toppled forward and landed an inch from Dani, the blood spraying from his body sluicing onto her face.

She didn’t care.

Dani stood up and reloaded.
Snick snack
.

Rhodes, who was watching the events unfold, dropped his tumbler, the glass smashing on the desk and spilling amber liquid down his front. Dani stumbled across the office, with all the resemblance of the undead in a cheap horror movie, and aimed the shotgun at the gangland boss. Rhodes, who wasn't armed, pushed the chair back and retreated, heading for a locker behind him. His left hand fumbled for a bundle of keys in his trouser pocket.

"Now, now. Don’t be hasty, let's talk this through."

Dani chuckled, a half-hearted noise that escaped her lips. Blood trickled down her face, the left scar had reopened, the flesh hung loose in two torn flaps. She watched Rhodes retreat and followed him slowly, in no hurry. "There will be no talking. You killed my family. My father worked for you in good faith and you rewarded him by murdering him, murdering my mother and my kid brother."

"Nothing personal, Danielle. It was just business."

"My father called me Danielle, you don’t fucking get to call me that. Because of you, I lost everything, my life was destroyed." She bashed the stock of the shotgun against her face, opening the scar more. She felt warm blood adding to her already crimson face. "I dreamt of this moment for over a year, every night and every fucking second of the day. I wondered what I would say given the chance, if I would say anything, if I would even get this far. My mind worked on this plan non-stop, during sleep, during showers, during weapons training. It was constant, my way of life."

Rhodes found his keys and turned, pushing the handle of the locker down. It stayed firm, locked. Rhodes cursed and searched through the keys, trying to find the right one. "I suppose I should be honoured you decided to come here personally."

Dani continued her approach. "Now I'm here, I see you're nothing but a common criminal, a man who pays for death and results, a man who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him. A coward hiding behind a small, personal army because he doesn't have the balls to do anything himself."

"Fuck you, bitch. I ain't no coward."

"No? In my eyes, you're avoiding a fight with a teenager. That makes you a fucking pussy. Well, the moment I saw my brother's head split apart like a melon, I swore this day would come. And I'll be damned if anyone is going to stop me."

Dani tossed the shotgun aside. She drew her Beretta and aimed at Rhodes. "This is for Teddy and my mother…and my father."

Dani fired. The bullet
whupped
across the office and pulverised Rhode's leg. His kneecap imploded, spraying blood, bone and shredded fabric to the floor. Rhodes screamed and collapsed backwards, the keys falling from his grasp and tinkling on the tiled floor. They slid under his desk.

Dani walked closer and stood over Rhodes, her Beretta aimed at his face. The gangland boss cowered, his hands before his face, his leg a gory mess, muscle and blood prolapsed onto the ground beneath him. A pool of blood began to form around him.

Dani stared, her eyes wet with anger. Tears rolled down her cheeks, cutting a clean swathe through the drying blood. Her hand gripped the gun so tight that it shook violently, her knuckles white. Images of her family flicked through her brain like a swift slideshow. She blinked, the action spilling warm tears to her chest. They plinked and exploded as they made contact.

Rhodes sneered. "Fucking coward, you don’t have the balls."

Dani hesitated.

"If you kill me, someone else will take over. I have dozens of men who will happily step into my shoes. Then, you're fucked. They will want revenge. They will fucking find you, you
cunt
. You thought that Chelsea grin was horrible…wait until they get a hold of you and violate you over and over. Some of them don’t possess Bradley's restraint. You're dead, you're fucking dead."

"Dani?"

The mention of her name stopped Dani in her tracks. Keeping the Beretta aimed at Rhodes, she began to turn.

"Dani?"

She glanced towards the door. DCI Scott stepped through the entrance, dressed in a bulletproof vest and brandishing a MPK5 machine gun, the standard issue firearm of the Armed Response Police, who followed a few steps behind. He had the weapon pointed at her in a defensive stance. "Dani, I need you to back away from Mr Rhodes."

Dani said nothing, didn’t respond.

Rhodes began to chuckle. "Fuck you, copper, Mr Rhodes was my father and he was a cunt. I want to make a complaint about this woman, she broke into my building and killed my men and was about to kill me before you came in."

Scott, his eye peering down the barrel of his weapon, glanced at Dani. His heart sunk, his mind spiralling. Dani took a small step backwards; her soggy eyes pinned on him.

He breathed out slowly
. What happened to her?

The left side of her head was matted, the blood a dark brown on her neck and shoulder, pinning her hair down. Her face was a mottle of bruises and scrapes, blood and abrasions, the scar on the left side of her face was open, the skin flapping. Her left arm hung limp, the fingers curled inwards, the flesh stained black with soot. A nasty bullet groove in the bicep still oozed red fluid and as she moved, the arm remained inert by her side. Her eyes were petrified, sanity all but lost within. The Beretta in her right hand wavered, the barrel still pointing at Rhodes.

"Dani, I need you to put the gun down." In his peripheral vision, DI Howes began to enter the room, followed by several armed response officers armed with MP5K machine guns. Scott held his hand out, beckoning them to stay put and out of sight, as not to worry the girl before him, one who was a shadow of her former self. Even as she watched him intently, he wondered if she was the same person, her gaze reminded him of a lion eyeing a gazelle.

"Do it, Danielle! Go on, you failed. You're a
fucking
failure, just like your cunt father and your whore mother."

Dani trembled, looking from one man to another, torn between two decisions. The gun didn’t lower. Scott shook his head, "Dani, if you use that weapon, we will have to take you down. Please don’t make me do that."

"Yeah, Dani. Don’t let the filth take you down. That's the most humiliating thing anyone can suffer. Mind you, I want to see it. It'll be a keepsake, the failure of an entire family. Do it,
do it
!"

Dani tossed the weapon aside. It thudded against the wall and came to a rest. She placed her right hand in the air, not even lifting her left hand. Scott nodded. "You don’t need to put your hands up, but I need you to step away."

Dani backed off, slowly, haphazardly. She stumbled and leaned on the desk, her body on the verge of shutdown. She grimaced, blood spooling from her mouth. "Ross Rhodes…"

"I didn’t do anything, officer. Never trust the word of a psychotic bitch, they're all crazy."

"Shut up, Rhodes," Scott spat, his eyes still on Dani.

"Rhodes…he killed my pare…killed my family."

Scott nodded. "Okay."

"I want my solicitor," Rhodes spat.

Dani stumbled forward, her eyes closing. As blackness swallowed her, she saw Scott lurch forward to catch her.

Then, all was dark.

Looking at the fallen woman, DCI Scott was caught in two minds. Brandishing a set of handcuffs from his belt, he moved towards Dani and paused. There was no doubt the violent carnage in the building was orchestrated by her, and a result of her bloody quest for revenge. The evidence all pointed to Dani, from the unfound fingerprints and DNA, to CCTV footage and Rhodes himself.

Still in shock and awe –
how could this quiet, mundane teenager commit such a violent act
– Scott remained indecisive. DI Howes entered the room on his command, the armed response officers surrounding her, monitoring Rhodes.

"Get off me, put me down," Rhodes said. Howes stepped in close. "Mr Rhodes, you have the right to remain silent…"

"Save me the lecture, sugar tits. I've heard it all before."

"I have to read you your rights, sir."

"Fuck my rights." Rhodes spat in Howes’ face, the sputum smacking her below the eye. She yelped, backing off. Rhodes smiled. "There's more where that came from, if you get my drift?" Rhodes began gyrating towards her. "Loads more!"

Scott looked over to Howes, who wiped the spit from her face. "Shut him up, DI, please." Howes smiled, turned and kicked Rhodes in the groin, dropping the man to his knees, his arms hoisted by two officers. Silent and gasping from the pain, he become manageable.

"Get that piece of shit out of here," Scott commanded, staring down at Dani. "Read his rights to him in the fucking van."

The officers moved Rhodes from the room, taking the gangland boss into custody. Howes walked over, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Sorry, sir. I got carried away."

"No problem. Cunt had it coming."

Howes nodded, looking down at Dani. "Poor thing. He did this…I mean, Rhodes did that to her?"

"He was involved. I don’t have the exact details yet."

"Fuck me," she uttered. "Evil knows no bounds. What you going to do with her?"

"Take her in. She can't be allowed to get away with this."

"She did us a huge favour. You can bring the underworld to its knees with Rhodes in custody, if you can make the crimes stick."

"I can. Murder, extortion, prostitution. We'll have to clean out the police too, remove all the bent coppers. Regardless, I don’t think a visit from London's finest was on Rhodes’ agenda today. I bet you find allsorts in that laptop and those drawers," he said, pointing to the desk. "We really caught him with his pants down."

Howes nodded. "I'll get forensics in, give it a proper examination."

"Yes, and get them to clear the bodies. I don’t want anyone up here until it's done." Howes nodded and walked out of the room, leaving Scott alone with Dani.

He kneeled down, his gloved hand caressing her cheek. "What did they do to you?"

"Nothing I can't handle."

"Wha –"

Dani's right hand gripped Scott's forearm and pulled it close to her chest. She looped her legs around the arm, pulling the limb between her thighs, bending it at the elbow, and crossed her calves beneath his chin. Scott began to gasp as Dani choked the DCI out. His arm pinned, he attempted to swat at Dani with his free arm, but couldn’t find any give with her legs pinning his shoulders in place.

"I'm sorry, DCI Scott, but I can't let you take me in."

"Dani…Dan…urgh…"

"It's nothing personal, but my work isn't done."

Scott began to fade. Dani watched the door, alert for any approaching police officers. Scott flopped, his arm limp at his side. Dani held on for a little longer and placed the unconscious DCI to the ground. She bent down, brushed a strand of bloody hair from her face, and kissed him on the forehead, leaving a red mark. "I'm sorry, Jack. Please forgive me."

Dani stood up and limped behind the desk, her left arm still dangling by her side. Finding the laptop, she disconnected the cables from its sockets and walked to the black bag, scooping up the shotgun as she went. She placed both items in the bag and zipped it shut.

Dani slung the bag over her right shoulder, wincing as it clattered against her back, and ambled towards the exit. Peering around the door, she spotted an empty hallway. The flames had subsided, the broken furniture and corpses placed like grotesque statues. The smell of charred wood and flesh was strong in the air.

Dani slowly walked forward, her destination being the black double doors by the shattered window. The doors were still closed. As she neared the bend, she listened intently. She heard nothing, sensed no one.

Reaching the doors, her hair fluttering on the chilly wind from the window, she opened them and slipped inside, closing them behind her. She emerged in a huge, picturesque boardroom with a grand table in its centre, flanked by twenty chairs. In the middle of the table was a triangle speaker, the wood shining from a fresh coat of varnish. Dani ignored it and walked past, finding another door at the end. Opening it, silence greeted her. The air was stale and warm, unfiltered, a strong scent of pungent plastic made Dani wrinkle her nose. No one had been in the room for some time.

The space was a receptionist office, unused, indicated by the plastic wrappings on the furniture. Placing the bag on the table, Dani removed a bottle of water and some plasters. Then, she took a swig and swallowed carefully, sighing in pleasure. She poured some of the liquid onto her injured arm, washing the bullet wound, hissing through bared teeth. The dried blood began to wash and flake away.

Happy, she poured the remainder of the bottle over her head and face. Dropping the bottle to the floor, she slipped a towel from the bag and wiped her arm gently. Cleaner, she scrubbed her face slowly, removing the blood. She then stuck four plasters along the opened scar in her face, hooking the fleshy flaps together carefully. Removing a third, smaller towel, she wrapped it around her arm and tied it tightly, pushing on the wound. She then removed a second black hoodie from the bag and carefully slid it over her left arm, wincing as she did. She slipped her right arm in, zipped it up and pulled the hood over her head. To finish the outfit, she wrapped a snood around her face tightly, tucking it in, covering the scars and ensuring the ruptured wound stayed closed. As a temporary fix, it would do.

Turning around, she glanced in a mirror.

No longer a bloody mess. Just a regular Joe from the gym.

Dani placed everything back in the bag, closed it and turned, walking to the freight elevator in the corner. Pushing the button, she waited for the doors to open, slipped in and disappeared.

*****

"Scott,
Scott!
"

DCI Scott sat up, coughing. His throat felt tender, his mind cloudy and floating. He tried to sit up and fell sideways. DI Howes lifted him by an arm, supporting his weight with her frame. Scott shook his head, pushing the cobwebs from his mind.

"Where's Dani?" Howes asked.

"Fucked if I know. She...she…"

"What's this?" Howes wiped the blood from his forehead and mashed it between her fingertips. "Did she kiss you? It looks like lipstick."

"No, that's blood."

"No shit," Howes uttered, pulling a radio from her belt. "All officers, be on the lookout for a teenage girl, about five-nine, brown hair, pretty messy. Approach with caution and apprehend. Defining features are two large scars on her face, a Chelsea grin. She is armed and dangerous." Howes shut the radio off. Scott laughed, sitting down on the desk.

"You're pretty chipper for someone who just got assaulted," the DI said.

"She's probably long gone by now."

"We'll see."

"That's just it," Scott uttered, wiping his face. "I don't think we'll see her ever again."

*****

There's so much wrong with this dark world, so much depravity in society.

We expect innocent people to live in a world that sees them attacked, assaulted, robbed, taking advantage of – all on a daily basis. Culprits are criminals, strangers, family members, and government corporations, all inspired and motivated by the one thing that corrupts us all.

Greed.

Old men mugged in the street for their measly pension. Women raped and violated because certain individuals get a sadistic kick out of such an activity. A cripple is evicted from his home because he can't keep up payments on his house, payments inflated annually by the very bank who offered him the loan, knowing full well his finances were ultimately restricted.

People beaten in the street.

Humans gunned down for no reason.

Women forced into prostitution.

Teenagers mutilated and left for dead.

I know a little about that last one. I lived through it after all.

I see the scum on the streets and it makes me sick to my stomach. I had my revenge because I was fortunate to do so. Others aren't so lucky, those who are unfortunate enough to fall foul of crime, those who are victims of everyday bad luck and disgusting human behavior.

Those people need someone. Someone who can have their back, someone who can fend for them in the way that is right, someone who can seek out those who did them wrong and exact some justice.

Those people need someone.

Those people deserve someone.

Those people have someone.

My name is Danielle.

I am Grin.