21. Amber Hart
Documents have been filed, lawyers have been hired to scurry around talking to judges and other lawyers in their secret code language they think Amber can't understand, pausing now and then to "clue her in" when they're on her side. Even the judge, a man just starting to grey on the sides and at his temples called Reynolds, has been spoken to about the... unique circumstances at play. To his credit, he barely looked at Amber's tits twice during the conversation, which given how she was laying on the charm is rather remarkable.
Amber's barely made it a block away from the courthouse when a van she was paying no attention to - just another car on the road - swerves over and three muscled individuals leap out, shove a black bag over her head and throw her into the vehicle. The whole operation is efficient, professionally so, and none of them says a single word as the vehicle rumbles to life under her. She's not even sure if they're men or women.
A black bag over the head and getting kneed in the stomach every time she tries to talk would be enough to keep them safe from a human, but Amber isn't. She's a shaken and disoriented by the whole ordeal, but... she could still get out of this. Probably. But the armed abductors aren't the problem - it's whoever sent them. They're the one she needs to deal with. And so, rather than struggle, bring her powers to bear, attempt to break their wills and regain control of the situation, she lays quietly. Fuming. Plotting.
They arrive at a place smelling of salt and water, a whiff of gasoline and a faint hint of sweat underlying it. A marina. It comes as no surprise, then, when Amber is manhandled out of the vehicle and escorted onto a swaying deck, forcefully sat in a chair and the hood whipped off, that Hernan Salazar's ugly mug is the one scowling at her across a desk.
"Hello Hernan," she greets him with a false-cheerful tone. If she had a heart it'd be pounding and her body stinking of stress, but she doesn't. The animal cues of 'prey' are distressingly absent, giving no encouragement to her abductors. What reaches the surface is only what she chooses to let show. She was scared at first, but the fact that they didn't shoot her three times and dump her in the river with the bag still over her head is their mistake, and she's pretty sure it's the only one she needs them to make for her to not only survive, but win. She rubs her wrists and scowls at the people who handled her so roughly, before returning her attention to the one who matters.
The three people who grabbed Amber, two men and one woman, are hard-eyed and dressed in normal street clothes, with distinctive outerwear that can be quickly discarded, like caps and jackets. No all-black amateur hour 'we're off to commit crimes!' in this wardrobe. Salazar looks at Amber with barely-restrained rage. "You know... it takes a bold bitch to come into a man's home, lie to his fucking face, and then just walk off like nothin' was going to happen." His voice is dangerously soft and contemplative, a far cry from the mercurial party animal she met last time.
"I told you the complete truth. The owner of QM is running scared, and I am buying one of their properties on the cheap." Amber cracks her neck and rolls her shoulders, still getting used to a bit more freedom of movement after the cramped car ride. "I have also convinced the Dominiguezes that killing you isn't in their best interests." Best get him into negotiation mode, if possible. Angry people do stupid things.
"Don't try to lawyer me!" Salazar snaps. "That technically true shit might work for Obi-Wan, but it's not gonna fly here. You're working for those crazy motherfuckers and their cult. I brought you here to give me a reason you shouldn't be enjoying the fine ocean-view real estate at the bottom of the Hudson, since you're so interested in that shit." And there it is... there's still some trace of the befuddlement Amber clouded Hernan's mind with. Normally she would have been trying to figure out how long to wait before swimming back to the surface of the river and how best to pick bullets out of dead flesh. But there's a vestige of desire still trapped in that vicious brain of his.
"I want nothing to do with them!" Amber puts some of the honest revulsion she felt at that horrible ceremony into her words. "I want out, but I don't have a goddamn choice. Killing me won't stop those crazy fuckers from starting a war with you," she plays the pity card shamelessly, switching tactics the moment she finds a bit of leverage, "and it won't stop their insane Dona from ripping your heart out and eating it." She shudders at the thought, having witnessed just such a thing yesterday. "Or, you know, my heart either."
"Their who? Is that what she calls herself?" He's intrigued despite himself, Amber can tell. And that little red shackle in his mind whispers to hear Amber out, that she can't be that bad. She can watch it happening in his eyes. Amber isn't safe... not yet. But she's safer. "And what's this shit about hearts and eating them?"
"I, uh... they've got this crazy little church. I dunno if they actually eat people, but there were knives and blood splattered everywhere," she makes up half of it, but the intent is true even if the facts aren't precisely.
Salazar stands suddenly, shoving the table out of the way and advancing way into Amber's personal space. He grabs her hair and a folding knife appears in his hand. "You're keeping quiet. If you don't talk, and stop leaving out anything, you're gonna wish this knife was the worst thing I've got for you. Comprende?"
"They killed a guy! In front of me, and made me watch! Called him a sinner and tore his heart out. There was blood everywhere," she whimpers, on some level glad to have an excuse to talk about what she saw. "Like a Catholic service, but with real blood. She ate it."
There's a moment of silence where even the hardened and likely very violent criminals Amber finds herself sharing space with don't quite know what to do with that. Murder is one thing, but ritual religious sacrifice? That's a little different. "Alright. They're scary motherfuckers. And they got a little more God than I thought in the mix of their insane shit." Salazar finally nods. "And where do you come in? Sweet thing like you, doubt you'd last long with that crowd." He chuckles at his own lewd implication, back in control and at ease. His fingers still don't leave Amber's hair, tangled and just shy of applying what would be painful pressure to a living scalp.
"They, uh," she swallows, as if she were swallowing a lump in her throat, rather than getting ready to lie through her teeth. "they saw I was buying from QM, and thought it might be my fault. They were pretty convincing asking me to figure out who was responsible," she looks at the knife nervously, swallowing again. "Velo's a friend, so I found you, and..." she shrugs helplessly, and flinches, looking at him nervously to see if the explanation satisfies.
Salazar pulls Amber hair, angling her head back through painful force and for just a moment she feels a flash of fear, that he might be - but no, he was just examining her face, like a man buying a horse checking its teeth. "Alright. Here's what's gonna happen." He finally lets go of Amber's hair. "You get to serve two masters. Like in the Bible, y'know? Those freaks'll love it." He chuckles at his own joke, and one of the thugs who grabbed Amber actually does as well. An unprecedented event, in Amber's opinion. "Here's the deal, chica. You're gonna pretend like everything's okay, yeah? Then you're gonna lose that limp-dick fuck who runs QM right before it comes up."
She looks around nervously, evaluating her options. On the one hand, she wants to just show this particular limp-dick druglord who's in charge. Settle for nothing less, the Dona reminded her. If there were fewer people around... On the other, she could keep playing her role, let him keep thinking he's in charge. Or maybe... "I gave his sworn statement to the lawyers," she answers nervously. "They already have it."
"That's no problem. Papers disappear all the time, I'll handle it. Your job is just to make sure he doesn't come up again. No more statements, no testifying, that's it." He looks down at Amber, and there's something sick and dangerous in those eyes. She'd know it even without her will pressing against his mind. "Or..."
Amber has had enough of these threats. "Maybe... maybe I should go get it now? Before they make copies." He'll send someone with her. Probably one of these men here. Maybe even himself. That would be perfect. Him and one other.
Salazar snorts. "Sure, chica, so you can go and tell this Dona Dominguez everything and save your pretty ass. We'll go together and destroy it, so I can keep my eye on you. And Raffi will come with us, to keep an eye on me keeping an eye on you." Classic blackmail, really. Use your hold to get a better hold.
She shrinks back in the chair as if her plan has been discovered, glancing over at, one of the men who grabbed her. He's hispanic, with shoulder-length hair and a clean, close-cropped beard. And while he's putting on a stoic, emotionless mask… Amber can see that he's not at ease. Not at all. This whole thing has him wanting to crawl out of his skin and be somewhere else. Once, when Salazar grabbed her hair, Amber thinks she might have seen the slightest wince from him.
"O-okay," she agrees. Not that she has much choice.
Salazar slaps the table and stands abruptly. "Well, no time to waste! Let's hit it." He grins widely, his coke-high mania back in full force. God, how did these people work for this man? How did they talk to him?
Amber flinches at the table slap, and jumps to her feet, as ready to be out of this room as seemingly everyone else present. She glances at the door, clearly not wanting to be the first one through it lest it seem like she's running away. Inside her, a predator lurks. It's much happier that she has a plan now, and is merely stringing her victims along.
The firm Amber hired has offices in a tower block, very sleek and modern. Salazar and Raffi, pretending to accompany her as "guests" take the elevator with her up to the 12th floor. Amber's pretty sure it was Salazar who grabbed her ass during the ride up. The office is, of course, locked, but Salazar solves that problem rather easily, picking the lock with what look like custom-made tools for the job. He's good at it too, though Amber supposes he had to be good at something to get where he is.
The reception area is dark, most of the big windows reserved for lawyers' offices or conference rooms. Every firm like this has a document vault, required by law to be fireproof and otherwise hard to penetrate - Amber was shown it before she hired them. Salazar looks at her. "Alright. Which way?"
Alone, and in private. Salazar may think that he's free to do what he wants with her here... but he was free to do that on the car ride over, or on his boat. No, here, he's alone with her. She's been edging around his will since she laid eyes on him, feeling out the borders of his mind. So now, as she pushes in, it's no surprise that little resistance remains. "Wait here silently a moment."
He obeys. She turns to the other man. "Raffi." Her voice is different now - no more fear. A touch deeper. The voice of someone who expects to be obeyed.
Salazar waits right where he is, silently. Raffi looks to him, clearly confused, and then back to Amber. "What... just happened?"
"You wait her quietly too," she orders, taking advantage of his confusion and uncertainty. More resistance from him than Salazar - not surprising that he's a stronger person. He's certainly a better one. Surrounded by her pair of stunned victims, she takes a long moment to firm up her control over each of them, staring into their eyes. "Out," she says as after she's done so. "Follow me." The men's restroom ought not to have any cameras for what she's about to do.
The restroom is cold and sterile, steel and white tile and faux-granite countertops. It's obviously without cameras, and thankfully spotlessly clean. Raffi and Salazar shuffle in silently behind Amber.
"Hello, gentlemen," she uses the term loosely. "You have made very big mistake. One of you is going to get off lightly, and the other is not." They won't remember her words, but she feels it's important to do this properly. And, finally, she has a chance to let some anger seep into her voice. "Let me explain to you what happened when we arrived here. The Dominiguezes were waiting, and ambushed you. They beat the crap out of you," she points to Salazar. Then to Raffi, "They hit you over the head and you passed out. They dragged me away by the hair, screaming, too bad, so sad. That is what you will remember happening here in this building."
They nod, in unison, slightly unfocused eyes watching Amber.
"Now, let's add some physical evidence. Come here," she gestures Salazar over with one finger. "Give me your neck." She gives him an evil smile and opens her mouth, fangs growing large.
In some animal, thrashing part of Salazar's brain, Amber can feel his fear. It wriggles in her mental grasp like some slimy thing, the kind of unnamed, disgusting creature you'd see under a rock in dark, moist, loamy soil. But for all he struggles, for all the adrenaline fear pumps into his blood - and oh yes, how he stinks of that fear - it doesn't matter. Not. One. Bit. He bares his neck obediently.
Salazar's fear, his complete brokenness under her will - it fills Amber with anticipation like wildfire. She has won. He is broken, he belongs to her by right of conquest, and that this squirming little worm of a man ever dared to stand against her all is an insult. The men of your age are so weak, Amber Hart, the voice echoes in her mind as she sinks her fangs in. She is going to. Teach. Him. A lesson. In what strength is - what she has, and he never will.
She partakes of his life, drinking in deep of his blood. Deeper than she ever has before - she's never felt the fire coursing through her veins, felt his heart flutter and his body tremble is suppressed panic and kept going. For all the evil he dreamt of doing to her, and all the evil he'll dream of in the morning to fresh victims, she takes from him.
And... finally... it's enough. He feels almost cold under her touch, almost dead. Her fingers have left bruises on his forearms, on his neck. Nails have left scratches on his face. And it's enough. She withdraws her fangs, dribbling a bit of blood down his neck and tearing the cut wider than it needs to be so it looks less like fangs than some other trauma. "You are an evil man, and I hate you," she glares at him. "But I'm not going to kill you."
Salazar can't respond very well, his tongue slow and his jaw weak. His mind is just as slow and weak under Amber's oppressive grip, though the burst of animal panic managed to shake off the command she bound him with. His body is just too drained, too depleted, to do much more than try to weakly grab Amber's arm, fingers brushing against her before falling.
Raffi watches with fear behind his eyes, but Amber's command keeping him equally still and suppressed. She turns to him. "Drag your boss out of here. Hit your head on a wall for a bruise, then you're free." And with that, she walks out.