Severance Package

what.

Nichole wrapped her left hand around Molly’s throat and used her right to grab the material of her skirt. She pushed hard, slamming Molly’s head against the doorframe. Nichole pulled her back, then pushed forward even harder, aiming higher up the wall. Molly’s head ricocheted off drywall again. Then Nichole hurled her across the room, smashing her compact little frame against the opposite wall. Some drywall shattered on impact. Dust exploded from the surface. The floors seemed to jolt beneath her feet.

On the return throw, Nichole put Molly through the window overlooking the office, shattering glass and wrapping Molly’s body in the aluminum slats of the venetian blinds.

The Russian farm girl rolled ten feet through glass and bent aluminum before coming to a dead halt.

Eat it, Molly Kaye Finnerty, Nichole thought. Her arms were already sore. It had been a while since she’d gone to the gym.

On the floor, Molly didn’t move.

Oh hell.

She didn’t do it again, did she? Accidentally kill someone?

This would not be good.

Nichole thought about her cousin Jason, who was four years older, and liked to inflict all manner of playground tortures on any younger cousin he could catch at family gatherings. That is, until the day Nichole—all of eight years old—grabbed Jason’s wrist, twisted his arm behind his twelve-year-old back, locked the elbow, then pushed. She pushed up hard, hard as she was worth, dislocating Jason’s shoulder.

Nichole’s father said, “Sweetie, you’ve gotta learn to control that temper of yours. You’re stronger than you think.”

I hear you, Dad.

But any concern was short-lived. The moment Nichole stepped through the shattered window, glass crunching beneath the soles of her black flats, Molly came to life.

She sprang up, like an unbreakable industrial coil had been fused into her spine.

She stood erect, like nothing was wrong, even though she sported cuts over her arms and face, with some glass still poking out from the flesh. But Molly acted as if the shattered glass, broken drywall, and bent aluminum didn’t exist. Hands at her sides. Hair still parted in place. Lips still deep red, glistening with moisture.

She smiled at Nichole. Raised her eyebrows, as if to say, What else you got, big girl?

McCoy let loose a “Hooo-hah!”

Which annoyed Keene. He’d seen, hated that Al Pacino movie.

“Big deal. She’s standing up.”

“Uh-uh,” said McCoy. “My baby is Cool Hand Luke.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Nichole instantly decided that her dad had been exaggerating that day, that her cousin was nothing more than a little pansy.

Because Nichole thought she’d given that Russian farm girl a serious pounding, and yet there she was. Standing. Grinning. Taunting.

But that didn’t stop her from charging forward, grabbing Molly by her throat and crotch, and starting the punishment all over again.

The floor plan of this unused section of Murphy, Knox was relatively simple. Closed-door offices lined three sides, with a series of supply closets along the fourth. In the middle of the floor were drywall sections that divided the space into cubicles and, toward the middle, a space for two photocopiers and four printers. Five years out of date. Unplugged. Unsupported.

What interested Nichole were the closed office spaces. Each with their own window, reaching from two feet from ground level up to the ceiling. Privacy granted with aluminum venetian blinds mounted on the inside.

Nichole smashed Molly’s body through the closest available window.

The crash was spectacular; the force behind the throw was so great that Molly took glass and aluminum blind with her as she rolled across the carpet and bounced off the opposite wall.

Nichole stepped through the broken window.

“How you feeling today, Molly,” she said. “Everything okay?”

Nichole heard the sound of spitting. Russian farm girl was finally feeling it. Good. She needed answers, and Nichole was already tiring of throwing her through plate glass windows.

“Just relax down there. We’re going to do some talking. Whatever language you prefer. We could even do Farsi.”

Molly planted both hands on the carpet, then pushed down against the floor and snapped up into a perfect standing position. Facing Nichole.

Smiling.

No hesitation this time. Nichole wrapped both hands around Molly’s neck and slammed her back against the wall.

“You want to talk, puta?” Molly said, curling her lips into another hideous smile.

Nichole would admit it. She lost her mind for a moment.

She screamed and hurled Molly through the window again. Molly tripped over the bottom frame of the window and rolled across the hall and into a cubicle. Within a second, she had popped up again. But this time Nichole was ready. She hopped through the jagged window frame, planted her feet, pivoted, and leveled a roundhouse kick at Molly’s face that—if Nichole’s training sessions were any indication—would fracture her skull upon impact. Nichole was through screwing around. She needed to hurt Molly.

But Nichole’s foot never had the chance to connect.

Because Molly launched up in the air, flipping backwards over the wall of the cubicle like a dolphin at a waterpark.

Nichole’s foot slammed into drywall instead.

McCoy was practically orgasmic. “Oh! Did you see that? Oh!”

Keene had a difficult time containing his surprise. That was an incredibly impressive move. And he had watched a lackluster video feed. Imagine what it must have looked like in real life.

The audio, however, was crystal clear. Murphy had equipped the office with omnidirectional mikes in pretty much every corner. The man clearly wanted to hear if his operatives tried to stifle a fart. So Keene heard the thud of the kick slamming into drywall, and it was like a wrecking ball accidentally dropped on a slab of sidewalk.

“I’m so in love,” McCoy said.

“Want me to pull it out of your pants for you, give it a few tugs?”

“Would you?”

“Pervert.”

“Tired old queen. Okay, quiet now. This is getting interesting.”

McCoy tapped a few keys. The view on two of the monitors—McCoy’s laptop and a freestanding monitor in front of Keene—flipped to a new vantage point. Within an office, looking out a window missing a blind.

Girlfriend’s back was to the camera.

Nichole leaped over the drywall. No fancy flips. She just swung her legs over, eyes forward at all times. Molly was waiting for her. Still smiling. In the six months that Molly Lewis had been employed at Murphy, Knox, Nichole couldn’t remember a single time she’d seen Molly smile. Perched behind her big cluttered oak desk, she’d appeared to be perpetually overworked, nervous, or constipated.

A smile on Molly now was unsettling. Kind of like seeing a comatose patient spontaneously curl her lips into a