“I can fix this,” she said.
“Yes, I have no doubt you can fix it, but the details may change. I’m not going to rush into anything with you, so have no fears about my being rash. I’m going to take some time to think this over. In the meantime, you need to do some thinking about what you’ve done. I think you need to make penance. You need to be punished, Ms. Lee. You need to be taught a lesson.”
“Captain, I can’t even begin to tell you how bad I feel about the way this process has been mangled. Just give me the chance to get it fixed.”
“That half-hearted apology doesn’t quite make up for the transgression,” he said.
She knew what he wanted, but she just couldn’t give it to him. It was one thing for him to be ninety-five percent sure of what had happened and another for him to be one hundred percent certain. She had to leave a shred of doubt. She couldn’t prostrate herself. “I’m sure that as we talk this through — ”
“No, we’re finished talking for now. I need to think and you need to reconsider your position and your attitude towards me. I have spoken to my brother and asked him to help you rethink everything. His ways may be a little rough but I expect you to take it like a big girl, and when he’s finished we can look at this again through fresh eyes.”
“That is — ” she began, but he was gone, the phone line dead. She put Robbins’s mobile on table, her mind in a muddle. What the hell is he talking about? she thought. Then she screamed as the back of her neck and her right shoulder exploded. The pain brought her to her feet, but before she could turn her left leg collapsed and she fell forward against the kitchen wall.
He was behind her, a thick leather belt in one hand, a baton in the other. How had he managed to move so quietly? she thought. She twisted to press her back against the wall. She knew it was the belt that had hit her shoulder and the baton that had jabbed into the soft flesh behind her knee. For some reason the details became important. He held the belt by the buckle so that he could hurt her without scarring her flesh. The baton was close to a metre long, longer than any she’d ever seen, and it was made of fibreglass, a high-tech innovation hardly necessary for the purpose it was meant to serve.
“It’s never a good idea to screw around with my brother. He isn’t a turn-the-other-cheek kind of man,” Robbins said.
“No one screwed your brother.”
“That isn’t what he thinks, and that’s all that matters to me. He told me to strap you, and that’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “If you’re cooperative it’ll be over before you know it.”
She shook her head.
He held up the baton. “I know how to use this but I’d rather not. The belt won’t break anything, but this might, so I advise you to lie still for the belt. It’s your choice, though.”
She flexed her leg. It ached, but she could move it.
He was at least two metres away, the distance giving him time to react to anything she might try. The baton was poised and the belt hung by his side, waving back and forth. “You need to think about the big picture,” he said, enjoying the sound of his voice. “I give you a bit of a beating and my brother plays nice with you again. Not such a bad deal, the way I look at it.”
She shook her head again.
The belt lashed out, catching her across the top of her thigh. Ava shifted her feet.
Robbins took a step back, cautious. “Don’t let my size fool you. I can still move quickly,” he said.
She slid slowly to the ground. He stared down at her, his eyes now tightly focused on her for the first time since she’d met him. Ava lowered her head. Her arms fell to her sides. Slowly she pressed the small of her back firmly against the wall, tightened her glutes, and pushed her hands into the floor. “This isn’t necessary,” she whispered.
“My brother thinks it is, and I agree with him. You are a sneaky little cunt, a cunt who got caught,” he said, raising the belt.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I’m losing my patience,” he said, the belt drawn completely back.
She sensed rather than saw the motion, and when he took the necessary step forward to hit her, she uncoiled. The belt went flying past Ava’s face as she left the wall, her right heel driving into his groin. He groaned and staggered but didn’t fall, the baton flailing in her direction.
The kitchen was cramped and Ava was still hemmed in against the wall, vulnerable to even the wildest of swings. She jumped to the right, the baton grazing her left arm. His head was turned and all she could see was his right eye. She thrust. He moved at the last second, too late, and her fingernail pierced it, drawing blood almost instantly. He screamed, his belt hand going to his eye, finally giving her room and time to manoeuvre.
She moved farther right, away from the still-thrashing baton. Her right hand formed a fist, the middle knuckle of her index finger extended like the end of a pile driver, and then she leapt, the knuckle driving into his ear. He rocked on his heels, backing up some more.
Ava couldn’t believe that he hadn’t collapsed, though he was staggering now and looked disoriented. The last blow had moved him completely out of the kitchen and into the living room. She circled wider, to the side where his vision was impaired. He hadn’t dropped either the baton or the belt, but the belt hand was still held to the eye she had damaged, blood trickling through his fingers. She moved in on him from behind and jumped onto his back, her fingers digging into his neck, searching for a carotid artery.
He yelled and shook his upper body. She could not believe how big and strong he was; she was hard-pressed to hang on. Robbins swung the baton over his shoulder, trying to catch her head, but she had it pressed against the side of his neck. Then he swung it around behind his back and found her, the stick catching her repeatedly on the calf. Ava tried to move her leg out of the way but started to slide down his back. She had no choice but to recover her grip, ignore the pain, and hold on even harder. “Where is that fucking artery?” she shouted, her fingers lost in the mounds of flesh that protected his neck.
Robbins turned sideways and started to back up. Ava saw he was going to try to drive her into the wall. Her fingers pressed deeper, harder. She hit the wall and felt it give, but the momentum wasn’t strong enough to dislodge her. He lurched forward. Ava could finally feel his legs starting to buckle. She clenched her fingers with every ounce of strength she could concentrate in them.
When they hit the floor, Robbins’s head bounced with the impact. Ava slid off to the side and did a complete roll, coming to rest on her back about a metre away from him. Her leg was sore where he had beaten her with the baton. Her neck and shoulders ached from the belt strike; she knew there would be a welt. Her fingers felt stiff.
She turned to look at him. She’d never taken on anyone bigger or stronger. He twitched. No, she thought, lie still. He twitched again. His eyes opened, the bloody one nearest her, staring blindly. What does it take? she thought. He raised his head, shook his shoulders, and started to get up.
Ava scrambled to her feet and grabbed the baton, which had been jarred free when he fell.
Robbins was halfway up, his attention moving back and forth between her and the baton. “Don’t make me use it,” she said.
“Cunt,” he said, forcing himself to his feet.
She took out his left leg, the baton smashing into the kneecap with a sickening crack. He fell to the ground as if he’d been shot, letting loose a screech that tore through her head.
Ava’s duct tape was in Seto’s room. When she went in, he was awake and sitting up. His eyes bulged like a raccoon’s caught in a flashlight, sweat pouring down his face. “Lie down and don’t move,” she said.
Robbins was still on the floor when she came back, but he was moving, trying to crawl towards his room. Ava got behind him and, avoiding the kicks from his good leg, grabbed his ankles and taped them together. That at least slowed him down. She thought about taping his wrists but wasn’t sure she was strong enough to hold them together long enough to do it. She also wasn’t sure that, even if she did manage it, he wouldn’t eventually force the tape apart.
She went back to check on Seto. He looked even more panicked. “You can sit up now, and turn around,” she told him.
He struggled to a sitting position, mumbling beneath his tape. She thought she could hear him saying, “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.” She undid his handcuffs and quickly taped his wrists together. Then she pushed him back onto the bed. “Stay there and you’ll be fine.”
