Unwritten: The Brooklyn Pieper Story (continued)

Disclaimer: all characters in this short story are fictional/creations of my own imagination. Sights and locations are based on real cities/towns/National Parks located in the Western United States.

Sandpaper. Dust. Grit. Brooklyn’s mouth was coated in it, the grime forming a thick layer of grained salt on her tongue and teeth. It mixed with iron in her saliva, created the worst cocktail Brooklyn ever tasted. The mush prickle of bile played at the base of Brooklyn’s mouth, as though waiting for permission to spill into her mouth. Brooklyn forbade it and forced the bile down with a shaky swallow.

The taste lingered in her mouth well past its due date, but Brooklyn pressed on with a physical check. The last thing she remembered was the weightlessness as her gun slipped to the floor. Based on the hot pain radiating through Brooklyn’s left side, she followed shortly thereafter.

Nothing felt out of place or overly damaged though. Brooklyn’s tongue followed the groves of her teeth, noting all were in their proper place. Her vision was hazy when she opened her eyes, but with each blink, the fog slowly lifted. Blobs of color gave way to undefined shapes, a scene slowly unfurling. A grey room, a basement perhaps, with a single lightbulb stuck in the ceiling. Not the welcoming site Brooklyn was hoping for.

At least she was upright, sitting in some form of chair, and restrained. Brooklyn’s deltoids strained as she tried to force her arms and shoulders forward, but they were pinched back by restraints, sticky. Tape held her arms in place, the weight of her chest forcing her upper body toward the floor. She was dangling, her back muscles and core too weak to hold her flush against the chair, but her legs were free. The problem was they felt heavier than led.

“I’d stay still if I were you.” A shiver pulsed through Brooklyn’s spine, her body physically chilled by the malicious voice. Memories taunted her mind and involuntary tears pricked at her eyes. It belonged to a man who haunted Brooklyn’s dreams, the man she silently battled every day in her mind.

Nathaniel McGinty.

He looked every bit like the man Brooklyn arrested. Withered face complete with deep wrinkle lines framing his brow and eyes. Storm grey eyes swirled with emotions, mostly anger and hate. The slice of a scar through bushy, white eyebrows. Matching hair atop his head spotted with the red-orange vibrance of his youth.

Rage burned in Brooklyn’s heart. Prison destroyed people. It chewed the hardest of criminals raw and spat them back out like unwanted brussel sprouts, mangled and maimed. Already empty and hollow, fear and defeat hung in their eyes, the same expression many of their victims held right before death.

None of that existed in Nathaniel McGinty. The only sign of hardship white auburn scruff growing on his jawline, and Brooklyn guessed that was intentional. Shaving wouldn’t be a priority for someone on the run. McGinty kept the scruff for a reason, probably to play mind games with Brooklyn. It nearly worked because with the scruff and stormy grey eyes, McGinty looked like the monster version of his son.

“I’ve spent months planning our reunion Brooklyn Pieper.” McGinty’s Irish accent was thick and raw, hardened by his short stint in a jail cell. It echoed off the room's walls, too loud for Brooklyn’s ears. It felt like she was engulfed in water, swimming on dry land, McGinty’s voice both loud and muffled as she continued to struggle through a near catatonic state. “I thought we might start with a proper Irish greeting.”

Fear gripped Brooklyn, hard and unrelenting as McGinty approached her chair. She remembered his version of an Irish greeting all too well, and it was something she didn’t need to relive. Brooklyn tried to thrash her head in every direction, but the drugs turned her into an unmovable wall.

“Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn.” A throaty chuckle filled the air as two rough hands grasped Brooklyn’s face. Day old cigarette and whiskey filled her senses, the scents clearly lingering on McGinty’s breath. “Is that anyway to greet your father-in-law?”

Bile threatened again as McGinty’s rough, dry lips first grazed Brooklyn’s left cheek bone then her right. Saliva wasn’t the only thing left behind, though. At first, it was subtle, but the sting from her tears ignited the sliver thin cuts on her cheeks left behind by McGinty’s rings.

“I wish it did not have to be this way Brooklyn.” McGinty wandered away from Brooklyn’s chair and out of sight. His voice continued to ring through the room but it did not contain an ounce of regret. “I wish you did not have to die.”

Plastic skittered against the concrete floor, the sharp pitch overwhelming Brooklyn’s senses. She wanted to groan, to release her inner turmoil, but refused to give McGinty that satisfaction. Brooklyn profiled this man. She caught him. She survived his onslaught, and she was not about to let him see her suffer.

“First, I will brand you, just as I did your father before his death.” McGinty returned to the light, holding an iron rod in one hand and a gun in the other. “It will go nicely with your other tattoos.”

There it was. The confession Brooklyn wanted. The confirmation she desperately needed. Declan’s novel wasn’t enough, but she heard it from the devil himself. Samuel Pieper infiltrated McGinty’s drug smuggling operation, which explained his uncharacteristic tattoo, and McGinty was responsible for his death.

“What about my mother? Did you brand her too?”

McGinty tensed as he set the iron and gun down on a nearby table, joining the other tools of the torturer's trade.

“I liked your father,” McGinty examined a blade in his hand, the blade glinting in the light of the single bulb. He set it down and procured a longer one, with grooves designed to look like an alligator’s snout. “I was devastated by his betrayal. An FBI agent. I could not believe it.”

McGinty made his selection, the original blade, and again disappeared into the shadows. Brooklyn’s hair stood on edge as she listened for footsteps and inhaled, hoping to catch McGinty’s unusual, natural cologne. It never happened. Her nose was blind to the smell, and her ears overstimulated by any and all sounds.

But Brooklyn’s intuition was on point. The hairs on her neck awoke and prickled, and she knew the Irishman was near. Lurking. Waiting.

First, she felt the pressure of a hand on her throat. From the back, McGinty attacked her, his entire hand spanning the width of her neck, his thumb and ring finger pressing on her muscles and arteries, cutting off circulation.

Brooklyn fought for breath but refused to show her struggle. Her eyes betrayed her, though, at the sudden sight of the blade in her face. Saying it looked like the head of an alligator was a kind comparison. It was a cruel instrument wielded by a cruel man. Its snout arched upward in a cruel crook, the pronged edge accented by ridges of freshly sharpened teeth. The silver blade glittered in blue light from a nearby window, the surface clean enough to show Brooklyn her own reflection. The face of a gaunt woman stared at Brooklyn through the silver, fear in her usual stoic emerald eyes.

“Your father was my friend.” The blade bobbed up and down, its cool teeth occasionally making contact with Brooklyn's skin. Not deep enough to cut or penetrate, but enough to send tremors through her body. “His betrayal hurt, but no more than the others.”

The blade stilled with McGinty’s words. Brooklyn followed suite, refusing to suck in another whiskey doused breath. The smell was making her head spin, and she needed to focus. Concentrate on the words. Try to find a weakness in McGinty’s armor.

“But your mother was a snake.” The distinct sound of tearing fabric filled the air as the knife cut through Brooklyn’s shirt. Guided by McGinty’s hand, it followed the path of her quarter zip, exposing her chest to the air. “A temptress who did not deserve the death she was rewarded.”

The pressure on Brooklyn’s neck was released, as her entire torso fell forward in the chair, her tied arms preventing a full collapse. Her lungs gasped for fresh air, but sharp pain radiated from her chest as she coughed what little air she stole in McGinty’s grasp.

“Your father paid for his sins.” McGinty grasped Brooklyn by the chin and hoisted her head so she looked him dead in the eye. “You, Brooklyn Pieper, will pay for your mother’s.”

Without warning, the brunt of McGinty’s blade crashed with the left side of Brooklyn’s face. The radiating pain in her chest immediately dulled, replaced by a searing heat in her jaw and the uncontrollable momentum of her body hurtling toward the concrete floor. Brooklyn willed her arms to move, triggering every mental memory she could think of, but they were stuck in their restrains. Even if her arms were freed, Brooklyn doubted she could bend them to her will, the drug still king of her body.

The floor inched closer, and Brooklyn knew what came next. The left side of her cranium would be crushed on impact, her brain rendered useless as skull bones penetrated its mushy core. She would be dead in all ways that mattered, though her body would continue to take in oxygen as long as McGinty allowed.

But he caught her. Right before Brooklyn made contact with the floor, McGinty clutched the back of her chair and swung it upward, using strength a man of his age should not possess.

“Did you think I would let you die Brooklyn?” McGinty settled the chair and walked back toward his torture table. The searing red-white four leaf clover stood out at the end of the charcoal grey rod, ready to curve itself into Brooklyn’s chest, so she forever belonged to the man she detested. “That would be too easy. You would win, and that cannot happen.”

“But you won’t win,” Brooklyn spat the words, saliva mixing with blood and fury. They were the first she uttered since her capture, her voice rough and hoarse. “You’ll never beat me.”

An Oscar-worthy laugh filled the air, “And how’s that lassy? I’m the one holding the iron.”

On cue, McGinty swung the iron rod towards Brooklyn’s face, and on instinct, she ducked out of harm's way, her shoulders and chest following the natural movement of her head. Power coursed through Brooklyn’s muscles, igniting her overcharged, yet sleepy nerves. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly as life returned to her drugged limbs. She was regaining control.

“Do what you want Nathaniel,” Brooklyn persona shifted as she regained her voice and formulated a plan. There was only one way for her to win this. Her mania needed to be on the same level as McGinty’s hysteria, so Brooklyn’s logical, analytical mind gave way to her inner demons. The ones haunting her for weeks, maybe months and years. “Torture me. Kill me. I don’t care. You can’t hurt me anymore than you already have.”

It was true, and Brooklyn knew it. McGinty already took away everyone she loved. Everything she held dear was destroyed because of her relentless pursuit of this man, and there truly was nothing more he could take from her.

“My friend says Jackson Offendorf is on his way,” McGinty taunted, his face inches from Brooklyn’s. “He knows where you are. Where I’m keeping you, but it will be too late. When he comes to find your nearly dead body, I will shoot him, brand him, and you will be powerless to stop it.”

“And you still won’t win,” Brooklyn started before McGinty could plunge the iron into her chest. “Because I know something you don’t.”

“And what is that?” McGinty's intrigued eyes betrayed his sarcastic tone. He was unraveling. Bit by bit, piece by piece, because of Brooklyn’s taunt. The storm in his eyes darkened and swirled, a funnel of madness closing around the beady black iris. His entire being was wrapped up in this moment. He needed to enact his revenge against Dianna Michelle, and it needed to be on Brooklyn Peiper. It seethed out of his pours like sweat, and Brooklyn planned to play it like a fiddle.

“Your son is alive.”

McGinty’s hearty, Irish laugh again echoed against the grey walls. “I already know that love. I spoke with him this morning.”

“You illegitimate son.” Brooklyn looked McGinty dead in the eye, locking his eyes in place with her own. “Declan O'Reilly. He is alive. He survived.”

The words landed. Brooklyn saw them take root in McGinty’s ears and manifest as shock and wildfire anger. Lightning flashed in his storm filled eyes. Veins popped near his forehead and arms. His grip tightened around the iron, now significantly cooled to a dim orange color.

“He can’t be.” When McGinty spoke, his voice was a grovelled whisper drenched in disbelief. “That’s not possible.”

“But it is.” Tears pushed the grime on Brooklyn’s face, but a sinister smile still spread wide and long. It felt foreing and wrong, yet Brooklyn still gave in to the mania of her mind. “The doctors saved him, and now he’s hidden. Somewhere you will never find him.”

“You liar!”

McGinty swung the iron with all his might, but Brooklyn didn’t need to duck out of the way. The swing was too errant, McGinty’s anger directing it away from his intended target. Brooklyn wanted to laugh and squeal in delight. Her plan was working, and adrenaline now coursed through her body. Her toes twitched in her boots, wiggling up and down, side to side like a newborn baby.

“You will tell me where he is,” McGinty spun and lunged at Brooklyn. Anger and madness filled every crease in his skin, transforming him into a wild old man. “Or I will make the end of your life very painful.”

“My life is already painful,” The truth of Brooklyn’s words twisted through her like a mangled tree trunk. “No thanks to you.”

McGinty cocked his head, and Brooklyn saw it. The final transformation. The same one she saw six months earlier when his final bit of humanity evaporated, leaving behind the cold killing machine. The end was near. Brooklyn knew it. She just had to stall a little longer.

Stalling, though, was suddenly harder than she could imagine. One moment, Brooklyn was sitting in her position, taking stalk of every wakening fiber in her body, and the next, she was suspended, her feet dangling in the air as McGinty held her up by the strands of her shredded t-shirt.

“Where is he?” McGinty snarled, pulling Brooklyn’s face close enough to smell the cigarette whiskey on his breath again. “Where is Declan?”

Repulsed by his breath and appearance, Brooklyn turned her head away, “I don’t know.”

“Liar.” Again, Brooklyn flew through the air, her butt landing hand against the wooden chair. “You’re a liar!”

There was too much for Brooklyn to notice. Distracted by the pain, she didn’t see McGinty’s blade flying toward her body. Her focus was on the sharp throb in her tailbone and the cry rising through her lungs. Brooklyn tried to bury it, conceal her pain, and she almost succeeded until the zing of the alligator blade left a deep open wound at the intersection of her right shoulder.

“You bastard,” Brooklyn cried out in anguish but tried to keep her body as still as possible. A fire raged through her shoulder as her skin prickled to the pain. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

“Oh I will,” McGinty promised with a seared look. “But you will beg for it like the sickly bitch you are.”

“At least look me in the eye when you do it.” Brooklyn lifted her head, again meeting McGinty’s crazed gaze. “Unlike my dad. You couldn’t even kill him.” There it was. The taunt that left McGinty teetering on the edge. The machine broke down, and the automatic killer, the head of the Irish mob, was gone. McGinty was once again human, his emotions full bore on his sleeve.

“You know nothing.”

“You said he was a friend. Was that it?” Brooklyn pushed the buttons, knowing she finally found the right topic. This may have been an act of revenge for the sin her mother supposedly committed, but Brooklyn’s dad, Sam, was McGinty’s real pressure point. “Is that why you sent the assassin after him? Because you couldn’t do it yourself?” McGinty’s hand struck Brooklyn across the face, hard and blunt like the earlier knife strike, but she managed to hold steady. Brooklyn held herself upright, only allowed natural, safe movements to avoid further injury.

“You’re nothing more than a coward.” Sour blood gathered on Brooklyn’s tongue, so she sent it flying to her captor’s feet. “A man who can’t kill his real enemies. Who sends someone else to do his bidding. I bet you can’t even kill me. Sitting here. Helpless.”

The trigger was pulled. The waiting was over. McGinty lost control and composure, to the point where he was no longer conscious of his actions. His arms moved as though controlled by an angry demon residing deep inside McGinty’s subconscious. The dulled iron whirled towards Brooklyn’s face, the inflamed metal headed straight for her forehead, but Brooklyn stayed still, waiting for the opportunity moment, building her adrenaline.

Then she struck. When McGinty was most vulnerable, Brooklyn kicked her immobile left leg, shocked by its weighted swing up towards the ceiling. With a clang, it struck the stem of the brand, its hot face making contact with her bare shin before clattering to the floor.

Stunned, McGinty stared at his empty hand, giving Brooklyn another opening. With her remaining strength, she swung her right leg around, her boot making direct contact with McGinty’s other shoulder, forcing him off balance and knocking the alligator knife from his hand. It also moved Brooklyn’s body to the other side of the chair, her right arm ripped free from the tape as she tumbled toward the ground. Her knees took the brunt of her fall, but there wasn’t time to focus on the scratches and scrapes.

“You’ll pay for that bitch.”

A guttural scream filled the air as McGinty charged Brooklyn, swinging the iron in his wake. Panic seized Brooklyn’s mind. Though her right arm was free, her left was stuck to the chair, contained by a tightly wound, thin sliver of duct tape. The silver tapped rolled into something of a bracelet, one with no give and no space for Brooklyn to slice away. She was trapped, strapped to the chair unless she could make her hand smaller.

Inspiration hit as Declan’s voice filled Brooklyn’s head. He once told her a story about one of his detainees who broke out of her handcuffs by dislocating her thumb. Not very sophisticated work, but she managed to evade the Marshalls for twenty-four hours before checking herself into a hospital in a neighboring state. She didn’t even use a fake name.

Brooklyn laughed so hard she cried when Declan told the story. The desperation, the stupidity of criminals was now her only hope of survival. With a deep breath, Brooklyn latched her thumb under one of the chairs horizontal ornamentations and pulled.

It worked, but at a price. Electrifying, horrific hurt collided with Brooklyn’s stubborn attitude as her thumb bolted from its socket, leaving a gaping hole of pain in its wake. It manifested in a long series of screamed swear words, many Brooklyn made up on the spot.

Brooklyn’s left arm was free, though, her distorted thumb and some leftover residue the only carnage of her turmoil. Her battle wasn’t over, though. Nathaniel McGinty was barreling down on her, the freshly red hot iron extending his wingspan a good three feet.

Brooklyn scrambled, but her legs were nothing more than limp noodles. Newborn fawns had nothing on her clumsiness. Normally strong and agile, Brooklyn’s flailing legs sent her tumbling toward the ground, just out of McGinty’s iron clad reach.

McGinty flew past Brooklyn, unable to change direction, and she took stalk in the situation. Flight wasn’t an option. Her legs were jelly at best, but she couldn’t lay there like a sitting duck. McGinty needed a moving target, and Brooklyn needed to give herself a fighting chance at survival.

She needed her gun or a weapon of some kind.

Brooklyn scanned the room. McGinty’s torture table was a few feet away. If Brooklyn could reach it, multiple weapons would be at her disposal and there would be some cover if McGinty started shooting. He would. At some point, he would tire of the chase and start shooting, not necessarily to kill but maim and injure. The table would provide temporary cover, enough for Brooklyn to formulate a plan. She just had to get there first.

“Survive, Brooklyn.” Sam’s mantra flowed out of Brooklyn’s mouth, spurring her bones and muscles into action. Her legs might not work properly, but babies didn’t walk the moment they were born. They crawled, and that’s what Brooklyn decided to do.

Concrete ridges nicked away at her palms, adding to the layers of red coating her hands. Blood poured from the open wound in Brooklyn’s right shoulder, and dizziness threatened to overtake her after only a few steps. The sight of blue tinged skin under the red blood was nauseating, but Brooklyn pressed on with her uncoordinated march. Hands led knees in an unconventional rhythm. Hand-hand, knee-knee, until the blurred outline of the table was within reach.

A strong hand latched onto Brooklyn’s right ankle, pulling her roughly backward onto her stomach. The gravel scrapped into her bare stomach, leaving the skin raw and red, but it didn’t deter Brooklyn. She reached for the chair, her former prison, grabbed it by the legs and heaved. It felt heavier than a standard chair, its wood sturdy and well designed, but the weight served a purpose.

The chair didn’t travel far. Its trajectory was low and slow, but it crashed into Nathaniel McGinty’s leg with a thud. Wood cracked and splintered, Brooklyn’s right leg was in free fall and McGinty fumed in anger, his cry a mixture of surprise, pain and frustration.

Brooklyn rolled and two different fights ensued. There was the physical battle with McGinty, the two of them locked in a battle of grit and will more than strategy. Brooklyn could barely swing at the air, but she used her brain to outsmart McGinty. She conjured weapons out of wood, stabbing McGinty with the broken end of a chair leg, swiping at his ankles with her less injured left leg and blocking his parries with what was one the back of her four-legged prison.

There was another battle raging, though, one Brooklyn was desperate to win: the battle with her own body. With each passing second, she felt herself shut down, the pain and trauma too much to handle. The room ebbed and flowed until it disappeared from view all together. Standing up, Brooklyn fell into temporary unconsciousness, but her mind continued to battle. It fought to regain control of the situation, as did Brooklyn. McGinty had too many advantages, and Brooklyn needed to find one of her own before her body betrayed her.

Then came the shot.

The world moved in slow motion. Brooklyn heard the thunderous boom of a bullet leaving the gun chamber. She felt pain blossom in her thigh and her leg collapse, the rest of her body following suite, but none of it registered. Her mind was stuck. Her scratch disks overfilled, and not even the shock of her violent collision with the ground brought her out of the funk. It only made everything worse.

Somehow, Brooklyn managed to prop herself up on her right elbow, but she couldn’t hold the pose for long. The early stages of shock were starting to settle. Her rapid pulse threatened to rip its way out of her neck, while her ragged, staggered breaths weren’t the result of her fight. It was from the bullet in her leg, her cranked left thumb, destroyed shoulder and broken ankle, all of which made escape impossible.

Yet despite that, Brooklyn held the resolve of ten-thousand men as she stared down the barrel of her own gun.

“Shame it had to end this way.”

There was no pity in Nathaniel McGinty’s voice. Only the pleasure of victory. Glee at the sight of Brooklyn’s visible anguish. Amusement at the thought of her drawn out and arduous death.

“Do your worst McGinty.” Brooklyn spoke through gritted teeth, her jaw clenched in agony. She refused to give McGinty any satisfaction, so Brooklyn stared him down, praying her eyes gave away no fear. Only determination to haunt him for the rest of his days.

“With pleasure.”

The shot never came. Brooklyn waited. She counted each breath, thinking it would be the last, but death never took her. Her vision blurred, but Brooklyn fought to see. She memorized the snide grin on McGinty’s face, the way his nose scrunched in concentration and how his eyes darted every which way and that, avoiding direct contact with Brooklyn’s.

They landed on a spot just above Brooklyn’s forehead and McGinty’s expression changed. Hate melted into recognition, then confusion. In the delay, Brooklyn’s arm finally gave out. Her chest and head lolled to the floor as McGinty spoke a simple word.

“You?”

In response, a crimson flower bloomed from McGinty’s chest, staining the left breast pocket of his prison issued white t-shirt. The storm succumbed, giving way to the clear platinum grey eyes of a man who lived a long, tumultuous life. Wrinkled lines emerged in an old man’s face, and his chest stopped moving. It fell for the final time, and McGinty’s body crumbled to the floor like nothing more than an old stack of potatoes.

The body landed two feet from Brooklyn, its head awkwardly pushed to the right. Finally, Brooklyn made eye contact with McGinty, his dull, dead eyes immortalized with fear.