Two

two

Jingle hell, jingle hell, jingle all the way...to Hell.

Blood red nail polish. Check.

Sexy ninja-looking tracksuit. Check.

Nerdy headband lamp. Check.

Syringe filled with tranquilizer. Check.

Narrow vent infested with crawling carriers of viral diseases. Bloody check.

Should have packed smelling salts as well.

“I can’t do it! Can’t infiltrate the spider nest,” I whisper shakily into the microphone inside the band around my wrist while staring at the square entrance of the vent. The beam from the headlamp reveals floating dust moats and shimmering cobwebs decorating the metal trap.

I should have brought Wednesday, my hen; she snacks on spiders like a vampire on sweet virgins.

Ollie’s voice comes out from the earpiece. “Lori, slide in that damn hole already!” His husband Rague grunts in agreement. They are waiting for me in the kidnapping van on a hill near the house.

“And enter this bacteria colony? Have you lost the plot?” I whisper-scream.

“Silence, or someone will hear you,” Rague states. I look around the long corridor of the luxurious home. All the house staff is gone at this time of night.

I’m inside the maggot’s huge home—more a palace if you ask me—and the only way to get to his room undetected is through one of the vents. I have the grave suspicion that this whole crawling nightmare is Rami’s way to pull my leg. In which case, I’ll castrate him and the other bros as well out of accuracy—except my fiancés; I love the feel of their heavy balls hitting my arse too much while they’re having their way with me.

“Lori, all the spiders…went to bed.”

“One could suffer from insomnia,” I suggest. Gabe certainly does.

Ollie continues, disregarding my undeniably valid point, “And the rest… It’s just bacteria, teeny tiny bacteria.”

“Superficially! Bacteria appear to be relatively simple forms of life, when in fact, they’re sophisticated and highly adaptable, teeny tiny suckers.”

“This was Rague’s donor, but since you’re so eager to be moronically initiated, he yielded it to you. How many more times do we need to do this?” my bestie reminds me after a long, exasperated sigh.

“Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle!” I groan. Fuuuck! I need to put on my figurative big boy pants and finally accomplish my initiation tonight—if Krampus stays out of my biz for once—or my name is not Lori Gorgeous Boone.

“Remember what this shithead of a donor did,” Rague utters.

I close my eyes, and the file Rami showed me an hour ago appears. The maggot kills people and steals their identities Mr. Ripley style. He’s impersonated five people in the last four years, that we know of. And I can’t let a hairy, multi-eyed, fangy, eight-legged creature stop me from instilling justice down his throat.

I kiss the tiny urn around my neck before sliding it back under my shirt. Here we go, Gran.

I take a few fast breaths, lift the sunset purple bandanna around my neck to cover my mouth, and enter the tight, dirty tunnel of hell.

I’ll be like Spiderman… Shite, no! No spiders. Like Batman, yeah. The Dark Knight is confident and tenacious and cool as a cucumber. I always wondered about his cucumber. I mean how packed can he be under that heavy utility belt?

Bugger, I need to stay focus. This is not the time for pecker wondering .

Rague—blueprint of the house in hand—is directing me toward the maggot’s room through the labyrinth of vents. While Serena is reading all the heat signatures inside the building and will let me know if someone comes my way.

“The donor is in the bathroom, taking a shower,” Serena lets me know.

“You can grab him when he comes out,” Rague adds.

“How are things? Any unwanted encounters?” Ollie mocks me, and I suddenly feel itchy—bloody power of suggestion. Sari explained it to me, he’s been trying to help me overcome my arachnophobia, with no results whatsoever, it seems. The mere mention of visualization of the fangy wankers triggers a subconscious response in my brain, the itchiness. Scratching myself all over is bloody difficult in the narrow metal space even though I’m dainty. I keep bumping against the metal walls.

“I’m sliding in a dusty, coffin-sized container. What do you think, Ollie? Pretty sure Batman never had to go through this shite,” I mutter.

“You’re hardly Batman. More Rodentman.”

“Sod off, Ollie!”

“Focus on your task,” Rague says.

“No shit, KKJ!” But he’s right, I can’t fucking get it wrong this time. I’m roughly sliding through the vent, when I let out a choked gasp at the sight of a belly-up cockroach. Why is he dead? Is there a mortal gas flowing around? Where’s Michael and his coroner’s skills when I need him?

“What now?” Ollie asks, his tone is annoyed, but I can hear a hint of worry in it.

“Just met your ex. Maybe you can revive him with a kiss,” I sarcastically tell him, chucking the idea of picking up the insect corpse and bringing it to Michael.

Rague lets out a growl, idiotic possessive fucker.

It’s December, and I’m sweating like a slag in church. My curls are flattened by the black hood around my head and the headband lamp, and I can only imagine how the toxic pollutants and the grime are attacking my skin. My tight and smooth pores must be yelping in horror.

“Stop. You’re right above the donor’s room.” I freeze at hearing Rague’s words. I glide toward the grate while turning off the headband lamp. The light coming through the bars shows a sumptuous bedroom. Burning wood is crackling inside the fireplace. There’s a round table covered in food, a silver Christmas tree exquisitely trimmed, and a few seasonal decorations.

Does this maggot have Christmas shite in every room of the very house he took from his last victim? The bastard is paying for all this lux with the bloody money he stole.

“Is the maggot still in the shower?” I whisper into the mic.

“Yes. Hurry down and wait for him. Remember your training,” Rague says.

During the last months, the bros have been teaching me the ins and out of the family business. I already knew how to defend myself, but they added more vicious tactics and killing techniques to my expertises, showing me how to use different types of weapons. Even though bats are still my number one choice, I like to add the…unexpected.

I pull a rolling pin out of my Prada fanny pack—the tranquilizer syringe is in a small bag inside it. It takes a few extra seconds since the wooden pin is quite long and keeps getting stuck in the bag’s fabric. When I finally extricate it I place it near my knee against the vent wall.

I’m so excited, my heart could slide out of my ass cheeks if I wasn’t a Kegel exercise enthusiast.

Dear maggot, death is slowly coming to your doorstep. Can you feel it? And I’ll make it so painful and so spectacular, I’ll have to write my name inside my TRB.

I slowly wrap my fingers around the bars of the grate, and with a hard shove, I push. Nothing happens. I push again and again. Stopping myself in case the slight noise warned the maggot of my presence. But I don’t hear anything.

“KKJ, are you sure you loosened the bloody screws?” I whisper-yell into the wrist band.

“Positive,” he succinctly replies.

“Press harder, Lor,” Ollie uselessly suggests. I’m doing it, but the grate doesn’t budge.

I pull down the bandanna from my mouth and take off the headband lamp. Suddenly there’s not enough air around me. It’s so bloody hot. The metal walls are too close to my body, and… Do I feel something crawling on my calf? I gasp as my body turns into a pillar of salt.

In the next second I’m impersonating an angry bull, breath rushes in and out my mouth.

“Lori, are you okay?” Ollie’s voice sounds far away.

“Take the infested hive off me!” I cry, thrashing my arms around.

“Wha…? I need context, Lori.”

“They are climbing me like fucking Mount Everest! I can feel their hairy, groping paws!” I kick my legs and twist my body as wildly as possible in such a narrow space, bumping the walls and making thudding noises.

“Who? What the hell is going on?” Rague hisses in my ear.

I slide further, my elbows dig painfully into the metal bars as I keep wiggling away from whatever is trying to cop a feel of my arse. In slow motion, I see the grate give in and drop down. For a moment, I feel an absence of gravity, only half a second before my body is pulled unforgivingly down, sucked toward the hard wooden surface of the bedroom floor.

As I slide down my bone-breaking fall is abruptly stopped with a sharp jolt—making me hiss in pain—not the grate’s, though. It starts a freaking domino effect. It lands heavily on the festively laid table, the delicious-smelling pasta flies on the floor, splashing and covering it in tomato sauce. The pasta plate bumps the bottle of red wine, which tips over, staining the white and golden tablecloth while dropping in the middle of a two-tier chocolate cake. The little statue of Santa on top jumps down and sinks slowly into the pumpkin soup bowl like the Titanic in North Atlantic waters.

What. The. Sodding. Fuck.

Right about now, the devil on my shoulder is resigning his position, ready to go get shit-faced with the angel placed on the other side.

Why am I being punished? Was I a mass murderer in a past life? A cardio trainer? A politician? Krampus can’t be the only reason.

“Lori, are you okay? What happened?” Ollie’s high-pitched voice almost renders me deaf.

“Shhhh! If there’re going to be any hysterics, they'll come from me,” I hiss.

“Was it a spider?”

“The size of a helicopter!” I didn’t actually see it. Pretty sure it’s not on me anymore. I think. I hope. Fuck! I try to check myself, but it’s not easy in this awkward position, hanging from the ceiling.

Ollie makes an angry sound, surely directed at me.

“Let me just be dramatic for a while, then I'll be right as rain.” As soon as I get myself the fuck down.

Noises from the bathroom make me lift my eyes toward my legs again to see what’s keeping me hanging like a salami. Christmas lights are tangled around my feet, and I can’t reach them.

I’m too short for this shite!

“Lori! Talk to me, or I swear on whatever is holy…”

“Ollie, I’m a tad… tangled at the moment. Bloody hold!” I blow out an irritated breath.

This position is seriously bonkers! I need to add more ab exercises to my daily workout.

I yank the bandanna that keeps falling over my eyes off my neck and try to lose the Christmas lights from around my legs and feet—unsuccessfully. The swinging motion I started is making me nauseated.

I need to cut the cord; it’s twisted too tightly around me and it’s starting to hurt. From the fanny pack I grab my Swiss knife with the drawing of a golden wasp on the side—a gift from Bez—and I start cutting.

“The donor’s coming out.” Ollie’s words reach me a second before the door on my left opens, and a bloke with round glasses, damp hair, and a lean torso wearing only a towel around his waist comes out. He jerks back at the sight of me dangling from the ceiling and the mess around his room. He looks astonished by what he’s seeing.

I’d be too, if I wasn’t irritated as fuck.

The cord around my feet decides that’s the right moment to snap, and I fall like a sack of potatoes, shoulder first, onto the floor.

Sodding fucking Krampus! He’ll be the death of me.

“Who the fuck are you?” the donor hisses my way.

“We’re coming. Hang in there,” I hear Rague’s voice. Oh, no. No more hanging for me!

One of my legs is asleep, while my shoulder is screaming bloody murder.

“Answer me!” the maggot repeats, grabbing the empty bottle of wine from the table. His eyes look cold and cruel. Evil people always have that same emptiness within them. It reflects in their gaze, that deep lack of love.

“Shut up, Mr. Ripley! I’m in pain,” I reply, covered in tomato sauce and wine. I tighten the grip on the Swiss knife as I straighten to a sitting position to check on the cord still around my feet. My shoulder is pulsing in agony.

“Doesn't fucking matter,” the maggot suddenly mutters, heading toward me. I slide my hand into the fanny pack to grab the syringe. I’ll stab him with it and send him to sleep, as soon as he reaches me. But then I hear a rolling sound. I look up just in time to see the wooden pin falling down from the vent and landing right on the maggot’s foot.

“Ahhhh!” He drops the bottle, which breaks as it hits the floor. The glass pieces sink into the sole of his bare foot when he starts hopping around. He whimpers some more and then slips in the mix of tomato sauce and wine on the floor, losing his balance and hitting his head on the corner of the table.

I stare, stunned, at his unmoving body. Is he dead?

“No!” I shout. “Nope. Nuh-uh. This can’t be fucking happening!”

“We are almost at the gate, Lori. Please—” I cut off Ollie’s worried babbling.

“I’m bloody okay. Don’t come!” I huff.

“What happened?”

I yank the stupid cord away from my feet, the colorful, flashing lights seem to say fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

I move cautiously toward the body—the floor is obviously bloody slippery. I tear a glove off to hold his wrist. Please be alive. Please. But of course, there’s no pulse. Blood is painting a big red puddle around his head and one of his legs is twisted the wrong way.

“Fuck you, Krampus! You’re a bloody sadist,” I yell.

“Lori, lower your fucking voice or the domestic workers will hear you,” Rague growls.

“What happened?” Ollie asks again.

“He’s dead. The maggot is dead,” I breathe out inconsolably as I look at the cake on the table. Defeated and in need of high sugar I sink a silver spoon in the first chocolate layer—the part not floating in wine—and then stuff it inside my mouth.

“Fuck!” Rague cusses. “We have two options here.”

“I’m listening,” I say, letting my disappointment out of every dirty pore.

“The first is very easy and fucking classy. We burn the body. Really burn the fucker. No bones, no traces, only ashes.” He sounds unhealthily excited about it.

“I like that,” Ollie states.

Well, if Krampus takes me to hell, at least I'll be with all my friends.

“And the second option?” he then asks his husband.

“Lori, can the donor’s death pass for an accident?”

“Yep!” I mumble around more cake. “Because it was a fucking accident!”

I feel so bloody furious. This is the fifth maggot! The fifth to die in front of my eyes and not by my hands. Maybe I should just wait for this month to pass and then try again in January. I waited before, I can wait again.

Ahhhh! Like hell, I will! I grab the first thing I find—a Christmas tree branch and shake it violently before shoving it away.

“You are using gloves, so you left no fingerprints. Which is good news.”

I look at my bare hand holding the spoon. Eh, I’ll take it with me.

“You need to get out of there. Hold on, I’ll ask Serena to find you a clear way out,” Rague says, as I keep demolishing the cake. I’ll get so many pimples. Bez will laugh as Gabe points them out, one by one, just to mess with me, the handsome twats.

The sudden fragrant smell of burning wood makes me turn around. The Christmas tree is leaning on the lit fireplace, enveloped in flames.

“Shite!” I gasp. “I think I’m forced to choose option one.”

“Forced? Why?” Ollie gives me another high-pitched scream.

“Fire! The tree is on fire.” I cough. The smoke is quickly invading the room, and the window doesn’t fucking open. This must be what Hell feels like.

“Nice going!” Rague sounds more excited than anything, the pyromaniac.

“You wanted ashes? Here they come.”

I grab the blanket from the bed and throw it on top of the tree trying to put out the flames, but the expensive, organic fabric catches fire quite fast. Then the curtains, the rug, the table…the corpse. The fire sprinklers turn on, but it’s too late.

I cover myself with a sheet and head for the door.

“Get the fuck out of there. Serena will lead you!” Ollie yells in my ear.

The AI proceeds to take me out of the house through the back door without being caught by any of the fleeing house staff on the way.

The cold winter weather welcomes me outside, making me shiver. I drop the wet sheet on the ground and run toward Ollie. He’s waiting for me on top of the concrete perimeter wall. He easily pulls me up and drops me on the other side in a pile of snow, then he jumps into Rague’s arms while I straighten myself up, shaking off the snow and the icy cold. My shoulder fucking hurts, and I keep coughing. I’m wet and freezing.

Time flies when you do something you like, right? Right now it’s falling from the sky…plummeting to its death.

We hear the sirens’ noise, and as people spill out and gather around the front of the house, we run toward the hill. Hidden by some trees is the kidnapping van, and once again, it will go back to the base empty as fuck.

Ollie slides the van’s door open and hands me my change of clothes. I undress and put on my fisherman sweater and gray leggings with the green down jacket and scarf. I run my fingers through my damp curls a couple of times and then I let out a long sigh, leaning my body back against the car.

Rague has a maniacal smile on his face, eyes zeroed in on the flames trying to reach the dark sky. The fire is raging, the house looks like a blazing inferno.

“How are you?” Ollie asks.

“I want to crack you open and suck the air out of your lungs.” I cough again, but the fresh, clean air on this hill is doing miracles.

“You look like a bag of dicks!” Ollie doesn’t try to sugarcoat it.

“The tracksuit took the worst of it.” I grab it from the van’s floor.

I try very hard to ignore his humming taunt. Even though a tiny part of me really needs to check my messy appearance in a mirror.

Big part now.

Big and fat.

Sod it! I turn the car’s side mirror to catch my reflection.

“You’re batshit crazy. Even disheveled, I’m spectacular!” I counter.

“Do you feel dizzy or woozy?” Ollie cups my face too dramatically to be real worry.

“Quit fucking with me!” I bat his hand away.

“You are an idiot!” he snaps at me, pointing his finger at my face.

“How dare you!” I clip, swatting his hand. Ollie pinches my arm in retaliation, and I push on his chest. Then we start a sort of smacking battle, twisting and turning our bodies to avoid the light, but stinging hits. I dodge a slap, rolling my aching shoulder back, the jerky movement makes me see stars.

“Stop…whatever this is! I know anger expressed is anger extinguished, but this is embarrassing,” Rague interjects, wrapping a heavy arm around Ollie to lift him up and away from me, while placing his large hand over my head to hold me still while I still try to hit him. Okay, this is embarrassing!

I yank his hand away and huff all my fury. “Don’t recite Gran’s sayings; it's a low blow.”

“You said that same phrase to me months ago, to help me.” I remember I did; Rague is right. “I’m trying to return the favor now.”

Fuck! I hate how good he is. He kills people and can turn into a blood-thirsty monster, but he is such a decent person.

“You always fight dirty,” Ollie barks at me, while frantically wiggling in his husband’s arms.

I try to defuse the situation with a joke. “How dirty are we talking about…?”An abrupt shiver of disgust runs down my body. “Nope, can’t flirt with you. It’s unnatural.”

“Close to incestuous,” he utters with a scrunched-up face. Then his gaze moves to the red stain on the tracksuit I dropped on the ground. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s tomato sauce.”

“Tomato… And what’s around your mouth?”

“Chocolate cake.” I wipe my lips with my fingers. “What?” I ask defensively, when Ollie continues studying me with a judgmental look. “The maggot was dead. The delicious-looking cake was there screaming to be eaten.”

“Okay, out with it!” he orders me, and I know it’ll end in another pinch fight if I don’t tell him.

After recounting what happened, I huff, “It’s Krampus!”

“Stop that nonsense,” Ollie mumbles, trying to stifle his laugh. Rague doesn’t give me the same courtesy, and his growly, rumbly chuckle makes my hair stand with outrage.

“Nonsense?” I repeat in a high-pitched voice this time. “You were there the night we summoned him. You remember the candle blew out.”

“A draft,” Ollie deadpans.

“The door slamming?” I insist.

“A stronger draft.”

“And how do you explain the whisper in your ear?”

“What whisper?” Ollie frowns at me, while a cloud of smoke billows from the maggot’s house as I see firemen running around.

“Ah! You didn’t hear it,” I exclaim.

“Neither did you, Lori. You’re just obsessed with this crazy-as-fuck curse.”

“Do me a favor and from now on, use your inside voice.”

Ollie frowns. “My what?”

“You want me to spell it out? Shut up!”

But of course, he ignores me. “Krampus is Santa’s brother, a fictional character. How can he be causing this mess?” He points at the flames coming from the roof.

“Santa. Move the n at the end of the word and you get Satan. Coincidence? I think not, mate.”

“You’re borderline certifiable. But assuming that you’re right. You’ve been naughty since the day God gave you the gift of talking. Why would Krampus start punishing you after you turned ten?”

“Because we summoned him!” I remind him of this essential piece of information, at which he scoffs. Scoffs! My tragedies are objects of ridicule for my bestie—ex-bestie!

Rague is on the phone when he says, “Rami is listening to the firemen’s radio. They are still trying to put out that flaming beauty. But there are no casualties from the house—except the donor. Everybody is accounted for.”

“That’s a relief!” I breath out, feeling part of the boulder on my shoulders lifting.

“He also said that you’re—and I quote—‘a pending disaster with a never-quitting ass and hairless legs.’” An insult paired with a compliment. After a couple of seconds, Rague adds, “Now Bez is trying to strangle him. Hunter is not there to defend Rami, so I think your fiancé will succeed.”

I raise a fist of encouragement but stop before it reaches my head as my shoulder protests vigorously and achingly. “Fuck!”

Rague passes me his phone.

“Sod off, Reacher. If Bez doesn’t kill you, I will,” I hiss, thinking it’s Rami on the other line.

“How’s my feisty Little Wasp?” Bez’s raspy voice soothes my fury—slightly.

“Enraged and murderous,” I clip.

“Sex on a stick. I’ll pound all that killing fury out of you as soon as you get here,” he rumbles, making my balls shiver with desire. I love when he fucks me in his childhood bedroom, it feels so forbidden and improper. But my aching shoulder is making known its disapproval.

“How about a nice Lori ride?”

“Why?” Gabe’s flat voice has a hint of suspicion in it. I never turn down a pounding from my men, and he knows it.

“I might have hurt my shoulder.” Bez’s angry, rumbly growl makes me add quickly, “Stop that! I’m fine, just need to ice it for a while.”

“Next time, I’ll be there with you,” he says, filling his words with finality.

“No, Gabe. I need to do it by myself.”

“What you need is us… there with you,” Bez snarls. Their protectiveness used to drive me crazy because I thought they didn’t consider me an equal. Now I know it’s just their way of showing me their love. But it still bothers me.

“Rague told us what happened, Lori,” Gabe says.

Fuck! They’ll never let me do this alone now. My eyes find the high flame still engulfing the secluded house.

“Bez and I will help you with the next donor,” he states with his commanding, odious tone. How I find it hot when we are shagging is a mystery to me.

“Listen very, very carefully,” I tell them before abruptly ending the call.

“Did you just hang up on your fiancés?” Ollie smirks at me, seems like he already knows the answer.

“Call got…disconnected,” I mutter. Plus, Gabe always ends calls like this.

“Mm. You have around fifteen minutes,” Rague says cryptically.

“Before you turn into a giant pumpkin again?” I joke.

“Before your fiancés get here and haul you out.”

I make an annoyed sound and roll my eyes to emphasize my irritation, while anticipating the angry sex, or make-up sex, or whatever it is called when you get pinned down and railed like there’s no tomorrow by your men.

“I forgot to bring the popcorn,” Rague declares, as he keeps staring at the fire. “The firemen are taming it.”

Krampus stole another initiation from me. Bez and Gabe are right. I need help.

The thought has just sunk inside my head when a weird feeling wraps around my stomach. It forces me to bend over and puke.

The chocolate cake decided to come back and haunt me as well.