Still, it didn’t make the hurt any less painful.
Fuckin’ Cutter … of all people! Jesus!
The PDC kept buzzing incessantly. The motherfucker just wasn’t gonna take no for an answer, was he? Tiger grabbed it off the instrument console and tapped the screen. Ok! Well, he sure ain’t gonna like what I gotta say!
“You’re not out spending your thirty pieces of silver, you backstabbin’ bastard?” he snarled, without even looking to see who answered.
“I’m sorry,” Forrest Frost’s voice jolted him, and he looked up into the sneering face of the merc’s hologram. “You got the wrong bad guy.”
Tiger felt his anger swell inside him like a high-pressure pipe about to burst. Just like that, all his suspicions had been confirmed.
“Well, if it isn’t ol’ quick draw,” Tiger couldn’t resist taunting Frost. “You wanna rematch?”
“Believe me. I would love one!” Frost’s eyes couldn’t hide the flash of hate he felt at the mention of Tiger besting him a few nights before. Frost had always considered himself a pistol virtuoso, but this spacer … he’d drawn like lightning; faster than anyone Frost had ever seen before. If the man hadn’t been shooting a non-lethal ammo charge, Frost wouldn’t even be here. He still couldn’t believe it. It had to have been a lucky draw. Frost’s pistol must’ve hung up in the holster. There had to have been an explanation for him being outgunned by a common space trucker.
“Name the time and place.” Tiger was no longer taunting now. He was dead serious. Deadly serious. It is evident in his tone when he spoke again, “This time, you won’t just get the shock of your life, mancatcher.”
“Well, as much as I’m tempted,” Frost sighed. “It seems business is always getting in the way of pleasure. I have someone with me who wants to say hello …” He panned the camera down to where he’d forced Lulah to her knees on the ground beside him. His fist was still knotted in her hair at the back of her head. “Say hello, Miss Carter.”
The blood drained from Tiger’s face as he saw the pitiful spectacle of Lulah. He felt his hands begin to shake.
When Lulah refused to answer, Frost twisted his fist, cruelly tightening the wrap of hair around it. Lulah winced in pain as he used her hair to pull her head up and back. “I said … say hello …” another wrap, and this one elicited a painful cry, “Miss Carter!”
“That’s enough!” Tiger heard Cutter’s voice out of view. It only served to enrage him further.
“Odell, you sonofabitch!” Tiger screamed; his face now red as a blood vessel popped out on his forehead. “I’ll be coming for you too. You ain’t gotta ‘nuff men to keep me from gettin’ to you, you bastard!”
“Let’s cut the theatrics, Thomas,” Frost was talking again. “You’ve had a good run, but in the end, reality sets in, and this here’s reality. I want that vixen. And if I don’t get her, li’l Miss Tallulah here’s gonna wish she’d never laid eyes on me.”
“I don’t have her! You saw to that earlier today when you blew up Lulah’s neighborhood!”
Frost shrugged. “Be that as it may … there’s a good chance you’re gonna find her. I have no doubt you’re looking for her. Cuz that’s just the kinda guy you are. You couldn’t walk away from this if you wanted to. You’re one of those goodie-goodie, rescue-the-fucking-princess types. God, how I hate those!”
“And you’re the type that I’m gonna take pleasure in killin’ one day!” Tiger knew it was going to come to that. He’d eschewed killing ever since that fucking war. It’d haunted him for years, but now he saw he was going to be left with no choice. It was going to come down to either him or Frost. Sometimes, a man didn’t have any other choice.
Something in Tiger’s words had unsettled Frost, causing him to pause. Many men had threatened his life before. But this time … this time, there was something different about it, a foreshadowing of sorts. His daddy had a name for it. He called it ‘someone walking across your grave.’
“Ok, so here’s the deal.” Frost tried to shake that uneasiness, but it just wouldn’t go away. “Until I get the vixen, Miss Carter here’s gonna remain a special guest of mine.” He pulled Lulah savagely to her feet by her hair. By now, tears filled her eyes from the humiliation and pain. “And the longer, I have to wait, the more special she’s gonna become …” He reached out and brutally pinched her nipple through her t-shirt, making sure Tiger saw the pain contort her face. “You follow me, spacer?”
“I swear,” Tiger’s voice was hoarse with emotion now, “to J.C. and the boys. I’m gonna cut your balls off and shove ‘em down your throat! So help me, Johnny!”
“You just better hope I get that vixen soon.” Frost was enjoying watching Tiger’s rage grow. It was a small bit of payback “Who knows … Lulah here … she might even start enjoying my company.”
Shaniqua had been monitoring Tiger’s vitals. “Easy, sugah,” she whispered. “Don’t let that mufucka play yore ass!”
She was right, and Tiger knew it. He’d heard enough. There was nothing more to be said. With a frustrated swipe across the hologram, he killed the connection.
***
“Well, I think he got the message.” Frost was more than happy with himself. He looked to Lulah and smiled. “And you did beautifully, darling. Played the pitiful hostage part perfectly. And I must add, that’s a very nice nip you got there!”
Lulah could stand it no longer and spit in his face. By now, she didn’t care what they did to her. She was never going to see her kids again. She wasn’t coming out of this alive. As far as she was concerned, maybe she could provoke them into going ahead and putting her out of her misery.
But Frost simply wiped the spittle from his cheek with his sleeve and motioned
