Red Lady

-3-

Eden

“I can’t believe you invaded my privacy like that.”

“This is the third time you’ve brought this up in the past twenty minutes, get over it. And it’s not really your private business seeing as you leave your laptop at my house every night. Plus, you bought guns when I told you I didn’t need any.”

Avian and I were now walking down the streets of New York City, side by side in our party gear. I was wearing my flaming red hair under a hat, as to not get noticed instantly since the cops were looking for me. I also wore a plain white tank top with a long black coat over that, concealing the shoulder holster. The pants I was wearing were deep black and fit snuggly against my body.

Looking over at Avian, I smiled at his little get up. He had comfy black jeans on, with a dark burgundy shirt that matched his deep red hair that was tied back at the nape of his neck. His green eyes hid behind his glasses, which he pushed up with his index finger. You would never know that he controlled a mob back home by just looking at him.

“It’s a precaution. How do you know those guns aren’t for me for my protection?”

“Avian, you barely know how to work a gun.”

“I can learn!”

I rolled my eyes at him and continued walking. Once the building we were searching for came up, we stopped and I looked at it incredulously. “No way he’s in here.”

“I’m sure. My friend has told me he’s been coming here every day for the past two weeks.”

“This isn’t a place you envision a 45 year old man coming to…” I trailed off, looking at the packed full club in front of me.

White Light was a new club in town, having been built six months ago, and still a hit today. There was a line backed up for at least a block, and I whistled lowly.

“And you expect us to get in there… how?”

Avian rolled his eyes. “Really Eden, you’ve been away from the family business way too long. I have connections.”

Instead of going to the back of the line, like most normal people would have, he strolled right up to the bouncer, who towered over him about three feet. Avian cleared his throat to get the man’s attention and he looked down at the smaller man.

“What do you want?” he roughly voiced.

“Like anyone else, to get into this fine club. Unlike the rest of these poor people, though, I’m getting in now.”

The man’s face didn’t change what so ever. “I don’t think so little man. You wait in line just like everyone else.”

“I don’t think you know who I am,” Avian said calmly, although his eyes narrowed, “My name is Avian Hayes. If you don’t let me in this second, well… I can’t be sure that you’ll live to see the next morning.”

Just the mention of Avian’s full name seemed to freak the man out, but the threat really did make him open the door behind him. When he spoke next to us, I heard a slight Irish accent in his voice. “P-please enjoy yourselves.”

I heard the people at the front of the line yelling and causing a commotion about how they had been waiting hours and still hadn’t gotten in yet, and felt their pain. I think I would be pissed too, but they were just looking for a good time. I had someone to find.

Avian ushered me over to a, surprisingly, empty table in the back of the club that had a great view of almost the entire room. We sat together, looking at all the bodies that were meshed together as they danced and drank. I scrunched my nose in disgust at the smell coming off everyone.

“How can everyone stand so close to one another when they smell like a French man who hasn’t bathed in weeks?”

My cousin chuckled and shook his head. “That’s a nice way of putting it Eden. You know, you’ll have to be joining those ‘smelly French people’ soon.”

I gave him a look that said ‘are you crazy?’ that caused him to laugh again. “Why do you say that?”

“Because that seems to be the only way you can get close to your target,” Avian answered, pointing into the middle of the dance floor where, to my misfortune, the man I was looking for stood dancing. The sickest part about him being here, besides the fact that he was ancient and shouldn’t have been let inside in the first place, was that he was surrounded by gorgeous women.

I groaned loudly, a sound which was drowned out by the booming music, and pushed myself up. It took everything I had not to just leave the club right this second. The thing that stopped me was that this might be the only chance I had to take this guy out.

“How am I supposed to do this Avian? He’s surrounded by babes who have half their body hanging out. There’s no way he’ll notice me.”

Avian stood up himself and was standing right in front of me. He ripped off my hat so that my braided hair fell down my back.

“Mr. O’Neil is an Irishman, and is attracted to someone that reminds him of home.”

He then yanked out my hair tie at the bottom, ripping out of few strands and causing me to glare, and watched as my wavy red hair unwound itself and spread out like a fan.

“With your Irish looks, and not to mention the fact that you are beautiful, there’s no way he can resist you.”

I sighed and nodded to my cousin. It felt weird, having my hair out like this. In the field, my long hair was a liability. Someone could grab a hold of it and have me at their mercy. There were two choices, cut it or keep it up at all times. They had made me cut it at the school, but once I left, I let my hair grow long in some sort of defiance. I had chosen to wear it up.

“Wish me luck,” I said with what I hoped looked like a sexy grin and swayed away towards Mr. O’Neil.

Although I was a trained assassin, the best in Ireland to be in fact, it was harder than I thought to get to my target. People were pressed together in a way I could only call sensual and made it difficult to break through. It also didn’t help that I wasn’t only attracting to the older man, but other men gazed at me with hunger in their eyes.

Finally evading the horn dogs and getting through the large crowd, I was now in the group of girls that were dancing dangerously close to O’Neil. With all their bodies in the way, it was hard for him to spot me. It didn’t take him long to notice the flash of bright hair. His eye connected with mine and I saw them lit up. Ugh, gross.

He pushed his way towards me and I saw the other girls glaring at me. I think it had taken them a lot of time to get their way in with him. Would you look at that? I quickly cut through hours of waiting twice in this day.

“What’s your name beautiful?” He pretty much had to shout to get the message to me, but I got it loud and clear.

“Tasha,” I said instantly, like it really was my name.

“You can call me Wesley.”

I smiled wide at him, pretending it was such an honor to be able to call him by his first name.

“You can call me anything you want Wesley,” I said, keeping my voice low and husky.

The lust in his eyes grew and I knew it wouldn’t take long to get him to go somewhere more private. We danced for a few minutes more, our bodies grinding into one another. God, this was one of the worst things I’d ever had to do in my life. I’d place killing over this any day.

“Come with me outside,” Wesley whispered into my ear. I seemed excited and followed him as he led me towards a back entrance.

Looking around, I saw Avian at the same table and we locked eyes. He nodded his head and started to follow.

We quickly made it outside and I was surprised when O’Neil pressed me against the cold brick wall, instantly going for my lips. Although it made me want to puke, I kissed him back, acting like I enjoyed it. Things got a little heated and his hands started to wander places that they really should not have been. In the middle of this, I heard the door we had come from quietly open and close. With the pervert in the way, I only could hope it was Avian.

Wesley O’Neil’s hands traveled into my jacket and he hit something he did not expect. My gun holster.

“What?” he asked, breaking away from me. I glared at him and kneed him in the stomach. He fell to the ground moaning and Avian was there to pin his arms behind him so he couldn’t move anywhere.

“What’s the meaning of this?” O’Neil breathed out, narrowing his eyes towards me, “If you’re looking for money, I don’t have any with me at the moment.”

“I’m not here for your money O’Neil. It’s surprising you don’t remember who I am, seeing as I was one of the best at the school.”

“School? I have-.” It only took him seconds to realize what I was talking about and his eyes grew wide.

“What is your name?” he barked, eyes a little scared.

“Eden. Do you remember it now?” I hissed.

“Oh, yes. How could I not remember you? The top of your class, the best of the best. I should have known something was wrong after Benjamin had been killed. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“That it was. I’m going after all of you, and there’s nothing any of you can do about it.”

“But why?” he asked, fear creeping into his voice.

“Because you turned me into what I am today, into this monster who’s torn families apart. You’re all going to pay for this. Have fun in hell O’Neil.”

Because I didn’t want to attract attention with the sound of a gunshot, I took his head in my hands and twisted it. The sound of his neck breaking hit my ears, but had no affect on me. Avian, on the other hand, winced at the scene. He let the body drop and shivered.

“This really isn’t my thing Eden…”

“I know. I’m sorry I brought you into this, but you know I needed your help.”

“Just, let me stay behind the computer next time.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned down next to O’Neil’s body. There was a piece of sharp glass and I took it into my hand. I dug it into the skin of the dead man’s cheek. One side had the letter R while the other had L. The Red Lady had struck yet again.

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Dominic

It hadn’t been a very long stay at home before I got the call from my boss. There had been another murder, and again, the Red Lady was behind it. I told Su I would be home as soon as I could and left.

Lots of people were gathered around the crime scene, again. What drew people to a hate crime like this? What was there for them to truly see? I guess nothing, just something to gossip about to their friends whenever they had a chance.

There was no problem with me getting behind the yellow caution tape this time and I was soon next to Myers. He was looking at the body from head to toe. The first thing I noticed about the dead man was the letters on his cheeks. R and L.

“He’s got a broken neck,” Myers said, pulling my attention away from the man’s nonfatal injuries.

“If that’s his fatal wound, he would have to have been close to her, and not struggling at that. He has the body weight to overpower her. But it doesn’t even seem like her struggled,” I said, looking around the dirty alley way.

“That’s true, so now I’m guessing that she either had a gun to scare him into staying… or she had deadly help.”

“Boss… the Red Lady is in itself a scary thought, but someone helping her kill…?”

Myers nodded his head, thinking the same thought, and stood up, looking around like I had once been doing.

“Why is she killing these men?”

“We’ll just have to confirm this man’s identity and check his background. Maybe there’s something in common with them both.”

“Boss, how many people do you think she has left to kill?” I quietly asked, not really wanting the answer.

“I’m not sure Ramirez, this could be the last one, or this could just be the beginning. But we need to catch her before she has a chance to even plot.”

------

Eden

“Eden, if you don’t stop that, you’re not going to have enough mouth wash left for tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t care! That was- ugh,” I said after I had spit the blue liquid into the sink.

Although he understood why I was doing this, he was smirking at me. “That was like kissing dirt. So nasty.”

He finally ignored me and went back to typing rapidly on his computer, looking for our next closest target. After drying off my mouth, I walked to sit next to him. He had the records of every single person that I was looking for, and I skimmed their faces. I remembered each of them, growing angry at the memories from the school.

“Looks like you’re in luck; three of them have already died from old age.”

“That’s a fate too good for them. Out of the seven who are still alive, who’s the closest?”

His eyes searched over the screen and it didn’t take him long to find the person and enlarge his file. “Albert Montgomery, location: Washington D.C.”

I scoffed, “That’s a good place for a criminal to hide. How could the government even let him close enough to America’s capital?”

Avian shrugged his response. “Maybe they thought that since he’s been ‘good’ on their watch, he won’t cause so much trouble.”

I walked away from the computer and stood in front of the window. “Avian… this is going to be a lot harder. We’re going to be in D.C, the security of the crummiest apartment is going to be FBI warranted compared to this.” The way that my voice sounded, he picked up that there was a deeper meaning in my words.

“And your point?”

I turned to him, a very rare serious look coming to my face. “Danger towards me is going to be heightened; just being close to me might get you killed. I’m giving you this chance to choose to stay here and be safe.”

Avian’s green eyes bored into mine and there was silence for a couple moments. “I’m going with you.”

Part of me was upset that he had chosen to come along with me. There was serious danger coming towards us, and there was even a large possibility that neither one of us was going to make it out of this killing spree alive. The more people I killed, the bigger of a threat I became. But he didn’t care what happened to him; he just wanted to help me.

The other part of me was happy that he was going. I had been alone for such a long time; I just needed someone to be there for me. Avian was that person, the man who knew the person under the monster. I needed his help, needed his support, and he was going to be there for me.

“Plus, who else is going to help you work out all the nerdy details?” he joked. I rolled my eyes at his jest before smiling at him.

“Then when’s our Plane to D.C dear cousin?”

“Whenever you want to go, I’ll call back home and tell them to send a plane.”

“Man, it’s so cool to have connections!”