PROTECTED. Marcus Calvert

      “How many did you slip her?”

      “I put one in her wine glass at the party, which should’ve been enough to drop someone twice her size. When that didn’t work, I talked her into a moonlit walk and gave her a shot when she wasn’t looking.”

      “Real smooth,” Lara commented with a hint of jealousy. “Can’t wait to hear how you did that.”

      Curtis gave her a reassuring grin.

      “What if she’s a closet junkie?” Eddie asked. “She might O.D. on us.”

      “She would’ve done it by now,” Curtis countered. “And I brought a kit along, just for that. If push comes to shove – “

      Damea slowly began to stir.

      “She shouldn’t have woken up for another five hours,” Curtis frowned as he glanced at his watch.

      “Show time,” Lara nodded to Eddie, who handed her the 12-gauge.

      Eddie knelt by Damea as he reached under her hood and pulled a white cloth gag off her mouth. The diva woke up with a dazed moan. Clumsily, she tried to stand, only to realize that her hands and feet were bound. Then she tried to pull her hood off. Eddie grinned and gently pulled her hands away from it.

      “Wha- What’s going on?” Damea asked.

      “Ms. Gency,” Eddie quietly said, “I’m afraid you’ve been kidnapped.”

      Our hostage’s response was to laugh. Even quarter-stoned, her voice was beautiful.

      “Oh c’mon, guys!” Damea giggled. “April Fool’s was last week!”

      With his right hand, Eddie pulled out a small pocketknife and flicked out its serrated blade. Then he yanked off her hood. Mesmerizing green eyes blinked under the harsh dining room lighting. Amusement turned to fear as she noticed Eddie’s razor-sharp blade hovering inches from her left eye. He held the blade there with the stillness of a surgeon and gave Damea his patented “don’t-make-me-carve-you-up” glare. She cringed.

      “Sorry to borrow you, Ms. Gency,” he said, full of menace. “But you have something we want.”

      “W-What?” Damea gasped as she looked up at each of us. “What do you want?!”

      “The password to your offshore account,” Eddie continued. “The one with 40 million Euros in it.”

      The notion made her laugh again. Eddie was half-entranced by her beauty and part angry that she wasn’t coughing up an account number.

      “So this is a real kidnapping?” Damea asked.

      “Yes,” Eddie said with growing impatience.

      “I’m not on some hidden-camera show or something?”

      “Does this blade feel fake to you?” Eddie asked as he gently pressed the tip of the knife against her throat.

      The ropes on her wrists and ankles snapped like string as the diva made her move. Her hands wrapped around Eddie’s thick right wrist and twisted it with ease. He screamed as bones broke and the knife fell out of his ruined hand. Then Damea Gency casually pushed Eddie off her so hard that his feet left the floor! Eddie was still screaming like a child during his short, painful trip to the ceiling. Then his back hit hard enough to leave a crack as he fell, hit the carpet face-first, and stopped moving.

      Damea jumped to her feet with an eager smile. Lara started to level the shotgun at the “helpless” starlet. But our hostage was way too fast. Before Lara could pull the trigger, the diva chopped the weapon in half with a stiff, left-handed strike. Lara stepped back in shock as she dropped both halves of the 12-gauge. Curtis blindsided Damea with an overhand left to the temple. I’d seen him do it to a dozen cons over the years and it worked every time.

      She should’ve gone down.

      Instead, her dainty right heel kick connected with Curtis’ chest. He went flying with enough force to leave a dent in a wall on the other side of the room. Curtis groaned feebly before he passed out.

      “Don’t just stand there!” Lara yelled my way. “Do something!”

      Damea sneered and quietly dared me to “do something.” Before I ended up in prison for armed robbery, I would’ve gone with my pretty moronic instincts and tried to rush her. But after six years inside, living amongst hardened felons, I learned to simply ask myself one simple question: “What would Curtis do?” I eyed Lara and the pissed-off super-starlet.

      Had he not just gotten knocked the fuck out, Curtis would’ve protected Lara and tried to salvage the situation. But he wouldn’t try to use the stick. He’d use the carrot. I kept Damea’s attention as I slowly walked over to Lara’s computer terminal and sat down. Then I looked up at the hacker/money launderer.

      “Does this thing have Word?” I asked.

      “What?” Both women simultaneously asked.

      I shrugged as I grabbed the mouse and clicked through menu options.

      “I was just thinking that this whole thing would make one hell of a movie.”

      Damea looked through me and ran a thoughtful/seductive right index finger under her chin. The pause allowed me time to remember the movies she’d been in: all action flicks where she staged some pretty good fight scenes. My guess was that she wasn’t pulling camera tricks in her films. She was doing the real thing, but at a fraction of her true abilities. While I wondered how she chopped a shotgun in half, I knew better than to ask. I’ve seen enough nosy people die in the joint to respect the secrets of scary people – like Damea Gency.

      “Check on the guys,” I nodded toward Eddie. “He doesn’t look too good.”

      “Bah! He’ll live,” Damea grunted dismissively. “Let’s talk details. No one’s given me a good script in months.”

      “It’s simple,” I flinched as she walked around me and leaned over my right shoulder. I did my best to ignore her sweet perfume. “Keep us out of jail and pay us decent movie rights. We also never tell anyone that we got our butts kicked by a 110-pound diva in a party dress. Best of all, you get a summertime blockbuster. Something about a rising star who gets kidnapped and then taken to a rural farm in Nevada.”

      “We’re in Nevada?” Damea frowned.

      I nodded apologetically as Lara checked Eddie over.

      For a brief moment, I wondered if the Wrenlips would go along with this crazy plan. They’d have to choose between the satisfaction of pressing charges and making a pair of fat checks from a film studio. Hopefully, the elderly couple was living on a fixed income and would make the smart decision. Damea glanced over the computer’s options, hit a few keys, and up came Word.

      “And let me guess,” Damea grinned, “I play myself?”

      “No,” I grinned back. “You play Lara over there. You two are about the same height. If you want, you can be the heroine.”

      As Damea paused to consider my words, Lara headed over to Curtis, who was still out-cold.

      “It could be an interesting horror flick, too,” Lara added. “What if you and your fellow kidnappers snatched a diva who’s … well … not human and very hungry?”

      “I’ve never done horror before,” Damea muttered as she gave the cracked dining room ceiling a long, thoughtful glance. “So the hunters become the hunted, eh?”

      “Beats the hell out of the truth, doesn’t it?” I nervously grinned, trying really hard not to stare at her perfect rack.