What The Cat Dragged In Ch. 10

"Please, let me-"

"This don't come cheap you know. So much of my time and effort on a little punk asshole like you is gonna set somebody back some serious cash." His tone was conversational. He grasped Johnny's leg and snapped his knee so far out of joint that he felt the ligaments rip. For a moment there was nothing to shocked silence, then the kid screamed loud enough to practically make the windows rattle.

"Kill me, please. Just kill me!" The tone was desperate, and not wholly unexpected.

"Can't do that Johnny. Wouldn't be fair to whoever you pissed off. Besides, I love my work." His watch beeped and he looked down at the time, a minute later, he felt his cell phone start to vibrate. Every day he checked in with Conlon. Every few days he talked to the frail. Those were the toughest conversations. He still had no fucking idea what to say to her. He let the call to voicemail for the moment. "You got somebody waiting at home for you?"

Johnny just cried and shifted around, trying to ease the pain in his ruined knee.

"Don't want to tell me? Well, I don't guess it matters either way. I do and you're gonna be fucking quiet while I make sure what's mine is still alright." He stood up and used his foot to push Johnny over onto his back. Then, he put his foot on the kid's throat and applied just enough pressure to keep him from making a sound. He dialed. It didn't even ring once before she answered.

"Hello?"

He could hear the anxiety in her voice. "You alright, frail?" Johnny grabbed weakly at Creed's ankle, he ignored it. The kid's hands were so broken up they weren't useful anymore anyway.

"I'm okay; I just wasn't expecting to get your voicemail."

He heard her climbing the stairs. "Yeah, I had my hands full when the phone rang." He grinned down at Johnny. "You doing okay with Conlon?" He heard a door close. She was probably in the bedroom.

"Yes. He took me grocery shopping today. That went fine."

There was something wrong, he could hear it. "Great, you wanna try telling me the truth now?" Johnny's lips were starting to turn blue. He eased the pressure just enough to let the kid get a short breath.

She sighed. "He hasn't done anything wrong, or said anything strange. He was almost as watchful as you are when we were in the store today. I guess I just have a really hard time trusting people. I trust your judgment, though."

That sounded like something she'd repeated to herself over and over. "Anything weird, you call me and keep calling until I fucking pick up. Call you again in a few days."

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "I miss you."

He couldn't keep the little smile off of his face. "Sentimental shit." He ended the call and turned his attention back to Johnny. The kid would last for a few more hours anyway.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed lay awake in an apartment in Columbus, Ohio. He'd showered off Johnny's blood, brains and various other fluids, but he was still too keyed up to sleep. He had one more thing to take care of before he went back to the frail, and that thing was probably the most important one on the agenda.

The kills had brought in money and given him some personal satisfaction, but they didn't do shit toward getting Stan out of the picture. Stan'd be a little more insulated now, but that was nothing he couldn't handle. The brother and unstable mother were a goddamn complication. Mom could go fuck herself for all he cared. He didn't really care about the kid either, but the frail did and she was smart enough to recognize that he wasn't about to live with a mutant-hating brat.

The grandparents were probably the best idea, but letting someone he didn't know or trust get close to his frail wasn't an idea he relished, family or not. He'd been surprised but almost glad when she couldn't find them. At first, he figured she just fucked it up.

Nobody tells you how to search for someone, but she did a damn thorough job for someone who didn't know what the hell they were doing. She'd started in known locations, worked her way out to where they had relatives, then to places they'd vacationed and talked about a lot, then to places people liked to retire to. Perfectly logical, but she found nothing. So did he when he did a basic search. That had struck him a pretty fucking weird. He could find most anybody who wasn't actively trying to hide. It'd taken Link close to three hours to track them down. It went from being weird to fucking suspicious.

Only good thing about it was that he got to check them out first. It was a little after six in the evening and he wasn't gonna fucking sleep until he made the call. He sat up and dialed the number. It rang twice before a man answered.

"Demmer."

"Josef Demmer?" The familiarity struck him again, harder this time.

"You're calling me. Don't you know?" Guarded suspicion. He wouldn't have expected less from a man who took such care hiding.

"This is Victor Creed-"

"Victor Creed?" There was a little chuckle at the other end. "Well ain't that a blast from the past."

The realization hit hard enough to make his fucking teeth rattle. "Joe Demmer."

"The same. This a social call?"