[center][b]De Guzmán Residence, Living Room[/b][/center] The ziptied fifth grader scuffed his side along the shag carpet and rolled to his mother’s side. [color=#4F8177]“This one tried to run,”[/color] sneered the man. His voice, quiet and high, bore a biting contempt, as if the child’s attempt at running off was most of all an inconvenience and an insult. In his other arm, he held a similarly restrained toddler. The woman promptly relieved him of that burden. She planted the squirming baby on her hip and began to sway and bounce it gently. The woman loosened the toddler’s restraints slightly with one velvet-gloved hand as she flounced around the coffee table, shushing his muffled wailings as if he were simply having a bad dream. The man stalked behind the couch in unison, as the two steadily circled Claudia and Juan-Luis. Wife and middle child, respectively, of the nuclear household. If only the captives knew how well their captors knew them. They knew their birthdays. What time Juan-Luis’s soccer team met every Tuesday and Thursday for practice, Saturday for away games. Where the boy’s grandparents lived. As the baby’s cries began to soften, the woman spoke once more. [color=#B66466]“We’re missing one, aren’t we?”[/color] she asked. Her voice was gentle, almost timid, perhaps best suited in tone to asking a question about the grocery list after dinner. The man returned to Claudia’s side of the floor in short order. He walked with a certain ease, as if he were a salaryman with an unusually long lunch break. His wrist remained fairly relaxed, even as his latex-clad grip on the gun remained firm. He aimed it at the wife as if it were simply a prop in a stage production rather than a real weapon. As if it were nothing but a tool to set the pace of a scene, as if he were conducting a small choir, or directing passengers aboard a train. [color=#4F8177]“Where’s Valentina?”[/color] he said. As if alerted to the absence of her eldest, Claudia’s head pivoted and her eyes darted, shifting from glances towards her present children to scans of the room. Valentina’s absence, plain as it was to see, soon led Claudia into a new throes of panic, marked by a bout of writhing against her restraints and guttering into her gag. The man stopped in place before Claudia. He gazed down towards her as his arms settled to his sides. As he did so, the woman hopped over the boy and took a seat between Claudia and Juan-Luis. She nudged him to the side with her foot to make room for herself, and pulled the toddler onto her knee. She brought her free hand towards Claudia’s gag. “My husband will be back soon,” Claudia growled. “And the neighbours—someone will notice.” The woman drew her hand through Claudia’s hair, the latter shivering with disgust. One of the pockets of the man’s sweatpants buzzed. The man shook his head. The woman pulled the gag back into the woman’s mouth. [color=#4F8177]“Fuck it. The kid comes back, shoot her,“[/color] the man announced. [color=#4F8177]“Show on the road.”[/color] He reached into one of his sweatpants pockets, produced a flip phone, checked its screen, and put it on speaker. The man pulled his voice down as he answered. He sounded calm, confident, with a certain cadence that might have rendered his speaking almost melodious were it attached to a rich Southern drawl rather than his own caustic chatter. [color=#4F8177]“Hi, is this Bertin?”[/color] he asked. As the woman finished smothering the screaming captives, the lack of response on the other end of the line became overwhelming. The patter of the rain both at the house and there became a dominating presence, until at last, Bertin Guzmán’s shaking voice broke through: “Yes, but…Claire…Claire, what’s going on here? Is this a sick joke, or are you making the worst mistake you’ve ever made in your life? Please. I don’t understand.” [color=#4F8177]“Speak to me, not to her. We’re very impressed, Mr. de Guzmán,”[/color] redirected the man on the other end of the line, [color=#4F8177]“Very impressed indeed. We’ve considered your asking price, and I’ve gotta say, a chance this good won’t come ‘round our way again any time soon, will it? So I think we’re ready to buy.”[/color] “Buy? What is this ‘buy’? Nothing of mine is for sale.” A sudden silence. Then, Bertin exclaimed with renewed vigor, “Claire, whatever it is I did to hurt you, please, we can talk abou—” [color=salmon]“No,”[/color] the ghoul barked. Then, she spoke slowly, carefully, as if anticipating and dreading every word. As if someone else was holding a gun to her head, and had been for long enough that a part of her hoped they’d pull the trigger instead of making her dance. [color=salmon]“Stop. Don’t do that. Talk to him.”[/color] [color=#4F8177]“Yes, Bertin, stop that. A bit of sentimentality is one thing, but to back out now, right as the ink is about to dry—”[/color] “What the hell is he talking about?!” [color=#4F8177]“The property on West Pomona Ave. You’re aware of it; you’re there right now,”[/color] the man replied plainly, the steadiness of his voice betraying nothing amiss about this supposèd transaction. [color=#4F8177]“We’re ready to pay your asking price of ₡90 thousand credits. Upfront and in cash.”[/color] Bertin let out a bitter laugh, and incredulously wheezed, “Ninety thousand? Did you lose two zeroes somewhere?” [color=#4F8177]“Let me assure you we arrived at this number very carefully,”[/color] the man firmly countered, [color=4f8177]”Issuant to the property’s age, its condition, and its locale, among other factors.”[/color] “You mean a ten-unit in the middle of Doherty—safe, clean, so close to Halcyon’s nightlife, to the terminals?!” Bertin bellowed, “Just the building alone is worth a million and a half. That’s before plumbing, heating, electric, furnishing—” [color=#4F8177]“We arrived at this number very carefully,”[/color] the man insisted. Bertin scoffed and sputtered for a moment, then went silent. “So that’s it then,” he growled. His voice shook with outrage at first, then erupted into a vicious fury compressed into a bitter hiss. “You are here to rob me. [i]Both[/i] of you.” His strained, enraged breaths carried across the line. [color=#B66466]“I know it may not seem like it, Mr. de Guzmán, but Klára is trying to save you some trouble. She’s a sweet girl, really,”[/color] the woman chimed in. Her voice was somehow more saccharine. [color=#B66466]“She has your family’s bes—”[/color] The woman could not finish her thought before, with only the briefest curse, Bertin’s rage at last erupted. [color=#2e2c2c]_[/color] [center][b]412 W. Pomona Avenue[/b][/center] Bertin roared as he lunged for Klára. The phone fell to the floor along with the both of them. The gun, too, skittered away into some inaccessible corner. Klára yelped as he put his full body weight on her, pinning her to the sagging floorboards. But there was a power hidden away behind that girlish frame, one the much larger laborer could never have anticipated. She wriggled free, enough to slither up a wall and jump back to her feet. Bertin grasped at her leg, dragging her back down. Her head slammed against the hardwood as he strained and grasped at the gun. Save for the rain, on the other end of the call the house was bone-quiet. “What did I—” Bertin sputtered as he grappled Klára’s arm and pulled himself in reach of her neck—“ever do—to you?!” With a strength that almost took [i]her[/i] off guard, Klára jerked her arm free just as Bertin clamored to pull her back to the ground and get himself up. She scooted back and, hardly even thinking, slammed her knee into his nose. A loud crack punctuated his collapse backwards. He clasped both hands to his face and clumsily scrambled away from her, hissing and spitting as blood throbbed from his mouth. Klára sprung up. The adrenaline and the pain of her direct hit against the hardwood floor buoyed her head. She darted towards him and planted a firm kick right into his ribs. [color=salmon]“Why couldn’t you listen? None of you ever fucking listen. I told you what would happen,”[/color] she half-shouted, half-wailed, each stressed syllable accompanied by a boot to his ribcage, [color=salmon]“I told you! I told you…”[/color] Klára stared down at Bertin, now curled into a fetal position, cowered, guarding his face and his midsection. She panted. Shaking, she planted one more kick before reeling back. [color=#4F8177]“Klára?”[/color] called the man on the phone. [color=#4F8177]“Spare him his hands, darling. We still need his signature.”[/color] [color=#2e2c2c]_[/color] [center][b]De Guzmán Residence, Living Room[/b][/center] As the line quieted, the man sighed. [color=#4F8177]“So, Mr. de Guzmán—if you [i]are[/i] still listening—I understand getting cold feet in a situation like this. Maybe you’re sentimental about the place. Mmm, you and your wife made some fond memories there?…Not my place to ask. But speaking of your wife—”[/color] He pointed the gun towards Claudia’s head, nudged the front sight in a downward motion. [color=#4F8177]“Perhaps she can lend you a little bravery?”[/color] His accomplice got the hint; pulled Claudia’s gag down while nudging her softly with her knee. [color=#4F8177]“How are you, Claudia? Comfortable? Can I get you anything?”[/color] Claudia grimaced. Her jaw tensed as she glared ahead. Suddenly, she spat towards the man. Her saliva splattered on his cheap running shoes as she defiantly bellowed, “Fuck you, pendejo.” The woman planted a firm smack in the back of Claudia’s head. [color=#B66466]“Don’t speak like that in front of your children.”[/color] Claudia winced, growled, and then exclaimed, “Bertin, mi amor, don’t give up! Get away, get help! Call the police, anything, my love, please!” From the other end of the line, Bertin wheezed and gurgled. He groaned softly for a time, evidently mustering what strength he could to speak, by how his breath bubbled through wet nostrils, wet throat. He did, in the end, manage to speak—but not to the man. Not even to Claudia, his darling wife. “I don’t know what this is about—drugs?—or maybe you’re too scared of these people to do what is right.” His voice shook with a horror that had drowned the inferno in him. “It doesn’t matter. You do what you want to me, Claire. Even my tenants. That’s for God to judge. But I promise if you hurt my family...“ A crash and a crunch—another blow to Bertin sounded through the line. [color=salmon]“You should’ve listened,”[/color] Klára said, her anger replaced by resignation. The man with the phone in one hand and the revolver in the other looked down at Claudia. He clicked his tongue. [color=#4F8177]“Fine......Fine.”[/color] He returned the pistol to the gym bag and stalked towards Juan-Luis. He ripped the boy from the ground with one hand, holding him by the arm. It was astonishing the way the zip tie snapped from barely a strum of his fingers. Broke like an overcooked noodle. Juan-Luis caterwauled with renewed vigour as his sockets strained under his entire weight. The man began walking, dragging the boy with him, into the kitchen. [color=#4F8177]“You wanna negotiate? Alright. [i]Let’s negotiate.[/i]”[/color] Claudia began to kick and strain against her bindings. She shouted, “You let him go! Right now or I’ll kill every last one of-” The woman grabbed Claudia’s face and lifted her from under the coffee table by the jaw. [color=#B66466]“You’ll just get one of your own hurt, Mrs. de Guzmán,”[/color] the woman corrected. She stood, popped the baby back on her hip, and dragged Claudia into the kitchen. Claudia writhed. She jerked and threw her body weight around, trying to break free, or even, at least, to get a bite in. The man stood in the centre of the kitchen, holding the wriggling boy in a single latex-gloved hand like a fisherman does with an eel. His gaze panned across the room slowly, brushing over the knife block, food processor, and cleaning chemicals. Until it settled. He walked towards the sink, his catch in tow. [color=#4F8177]“You know, Bertin, I really think we’re starting to get to the heart of our little [i]misunderstanding[/i] here. It’s not that you’re trying to highball us here, no, no. It’s that no one ever stopped to teach you about [i]opportunity costs.[/i]”[/color] He flipped the switch to the garbage disposal unit and as the hopper splelched and shuddered to life, Claudia de Guzmán began to scream. [color=#2e2c2c]_[/color] [center][b]412 W. Pomona Avenue[/b][/center] Bertin pulled the phone in close as he heard it all. He begged them to stop, all of them, begged them to reconsider, to give him a chance to think about it, to do whatever they wanted to him but not his son, not his little boy. But above his mewling rang the man’s scoldings, rang Claudia croaking out an omen, croaking, “[i]Y él hará volver sobre ustedes su iniquidad, y los destruirá en su propia maldad, [b]Los destruirá Jehová nuestro Dios![/b][/i]”—rang the mechanical, infernal racket of the machine. The one he’d installed himself. It was really an incredible machine. It could chew through just about anything. And still hollering over it was that voice without a face, the one Bertin would never forget, grating like a knife scrapes a whetstone, yet high and alto and almost boyish the way it cracked and squealed. [color=#4F8177]“So damned preoccupied with what you stood to gain,”[/color] it jeered, the voice, [color=4f8177]”you never stopped to consider what you stand to lose—ey, Bertin?”[/color] There was a pause in the voice which Bertin did not know was actually the man peering out the kitchen window, to know with certainty that the neighbors on the northern side of the house had not overheard any of this hellishness over the downpour battering the roofs and the clatter of the machinery. That it was also a ruminating as the boy’s fingers recoiled, curled, shrank, practically withered in the man-sized fist as it dragged them in, dragged them close, close enough that the breath from the whirring blades tickled the skin. Closer. So close the steel had just skimmed the first hairs of Juan-Luis’s knuckles. How he cried and cried. [color=4f8177]”Well, Mr. de Guzmán! Call this lesson number one.”[/color]