chapter 8

ABIGEAL

“HEY! SKINNY white girl!”

I ignored the yell (pretty sure there were lots of skinny white girls here) and focused on driving my daggers hard enough into the cement to temporarily support my body wait. The poor things had little chance of surviving this. Their service would be remembered.

“Hey, you! That’s cheating!”

“Man, shut your whiny mouth. We weren’t given any rules now, where we?” A voice to my right responded. I risked a quick glance and found an incredibly fit guy with skin the color of coffee making his way up. He winked at me and continued to climb.

We reached the top at the same time and came face to face with the barbed wire. Sweat trickled down my back as I hung from one hand and untied the jacket around my waist. I threw it over the wire and slid on top. The barbs poked through a little, but not enough to cut deep.

I heard a clang and looked over to see the man had uprooted a whole section of the wire and was now holding it up with one hand as he sat on the fence. He shot me a cheeky grin. “Don’t forget to tuck and roll.” He said and down he went.

Shaking my head, I followed, tucking my legs in at the last moment and rolling once I hit the ground, coming up on my feet. I dusted myself up the best I could then picked up my bag before standing to wait for the ten minutes to be up. Now inside the compound I could see multiple buildings around the space. One of them was clearly marked ‘Sickbay’ and had an ambulance and medicals waiting outside.

People dropped left and right, but by the time the siren sounded again, we were considerably less than what we’d started with. It was shocking how many people thought they could just step over the barbs like there was enough room for that. Disappointing, really.

The man with the tablet reappeared with another guy and started going down the line checking the severity of people’s injuries and sending some off to the ambulance. One lady had taken a hard fall, broken her leg and had to be carried in a stretcher, cursing loudly as she went.

“Someone has decided he doesn’t like you.” Coffee Skin murmured next to me and nodded in my other direction. I looked to the left and saw a man, presumably the one who’d yelled at me, speaking rapidly to the tablet guy and pointing at me.

What exactly was his problem?

The three of them walked over to me and I noticed the complaining guy was covered in scratches. “Excuse me lady, but this man insists you have done something wrong so I thought I should hear your point of view. How exactly did you get up the fence?” Tablet guy asked.

I presented my badly scuffed and chipped daggers. He looked at them for a minute and nodded. “I see. So did you slice this man?”

I raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“Did you push him or do anything to ensure you got in ahead of him?”

“No.”

“The lady was minding her own business. Male Karen over here is just salty because her idea was better than his.” Coffee Skin spoke up.

Tablet guy turned back to the complainant. “Mr. Fitz, I do not appreciate my time being wasted in this manner. She has done nothing wrong and you need to stop trying to get her disqualified. No, I don’t want to hear anything else from you.” He added when Fitz opened his mouth.

Sighing, he turned back to me. “My apologies for that. Since we’re here I should just check you. Turn around please” I complied. “Very minimal scratches. Is that your jacket up on the fence?” I nodded. “We’ll have it brought down for you later. Your name?”

“Abigeal Starr. Double r.” I replied.

He checked his tablet, frowned. “There is no Abigeal Starr on this list.”

I frowned. “Maybe you should check again.”

He double-checked, then looked at me with cold eyes. “There is no such name on this list. You were not extended an invitation, so there can be only one reason why you’re here.”

I did not like the way this was playing on. “What? No, I was invited. He even gave me his card. Hold on.” I unzipped my duffel and stuck my hand inside. Everyone immediately moved away from me, and the man who had been following tablet guy pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. “Take your hand out of the bag, miss.”

Tablet guy spoke into a receiver I hadn’t spotted before. “Notify security. We have an intruder.”

“Aha!” Fitz exclaimed triumphantly “I knew there was something wrong about her.”

I concentrated on the man with the gun. “I was just going to bring out the card, okay?” I removed my hand slowly, holding the card my target had given me between two fingers.

Tablet guy examined it. “Anyone could print a card and write stuff on it. The jig is up. You’re going to tell us who sent you and why.”

I spotted guys in uniform running my way and sighed. Everyone was staring at me at this point. If I wasn’t already going to kill my target, I’d say I would. Had he brought me here to set me up? Had he somehow discovered my plan?

Just as the uniformed guards reached me and pulled out their weapons, the door to a building nearby opened and my target stepped out. “What’s going on here?”

“We have an intruder, Mr. Daniels, but it’s nothing to worry about. I’m handling it.” Tablet guy responded.

“Intruder?” he echoed, then spotted me. He smiled at me and I almost forgave him for this whole scenario. “Miss Starr. Glad you were able to join us.”

“I’d say I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but your men are pointing guns at me.” I returned dryly.

He then put two and two together as he walked closer. “Warren, Miss Starr is not an intruder. The rest of you, put those away.”

“But sir, her name is not on the list.” Warren the tablet guy protested.

“Yeah, that’s my fault. I invited her in person last minute and forgot to update the list. My bad.” my target said with a smile, the kind that made mothers instantly forget what atrocities their sons had committed.

Warren sighed. “I owe you yet another apology, Miss Starr, for this misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, what he said.”

I glanced at my target and, from the wide grin on his face, I knew he did all this on purpose. “It was entertaining, was it not?” he asked.

“As for you, Mr Fitz.” Warren turned back to a sullen Fitz. “You should be disqualified with the amount of injuries you sustained, but I’ll get back to you when we’re done checking the rest.” he walked off with his partner.

The guards and others who had come for a closer look shuffled off too, leaving him and I staring at each other. “How was the fence?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“Yeah. I knew that would be a piece of cake for you. Let’s see how you hold up against the gauntlet.” He replied and walked away.

Then what now?

“Looks like someone’s got connections in high places.” Coffee Skin said.

“It’s not like that.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m Abel, by the way.” he responded.

“Abigeal.”

“Well, Abigeal, I think your connection wants to bang you.” Abel said with a grin, laughing when I flipped him off.