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inagalaxyfarfaraway) wrote2009-12-01 07:32 pm
inagalaxyfarfaraway) wrote2009-12-01 07:32 pm
Entry tags:
Obligatory post of original fiction
Under recommendation from the lovely [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], the first chapter of my NaNo that's been gathering dust since last year. She was bored and if nothing else it'd give her something to do.
Two-sentence summary: Anthony Collins, a now renowned but lazy writer, gets more than he asks for when two detectives, Maxine and Ryan, arrest him for possession. The three of them get caught up in a supernatural being's lust for revenge that claims more than they were willing to give.
Do note, it's not really been edited since the point of NaNo was to just get stuff on paper and I'm just too lazy to do so right now. Any issues with the writing can be taken up with me.
Chapter 1
Anthony Collins leaned over his desk , tapping his pen wildly as he attempted to stir up some semblance of an idea in his head. His creativity had an uncanny way of just springing to life when he moved. Sometimes this required pacing or jogging but even after doing both today, his creative well was beyond empty. He could not find a single source of inspiration in the world around him. The way the sun poured over his laptop as he sat cross-legged in his chair, the way his soda bubbled away quietly next to his pet plant Bert, and even the dim sounds of his favorite ska group pounding away in his stereo refused to provide him with any sort of inspiration, his mind blank as ever.
Rubbing his eyes, the black-haired man groaned, frustration creeping into his body as he tried to force words onto the blank page that taunted him from the screen of his laptop. He watched it with a wary eye as he took a sip of his soda, before shaking his hands out to try and get something to come from them. However, the effort proved in vain when his imagination continued to fail him; nothing came to him, especially not in the dramatic epiphany that had caused him to write his first novel only a few years ago. The plot came to him in a dream and struck him like lightening. Needless to say, he had chugged out a novel in less than thirty days and shown it to anyone and everyone who would humor him.
That novel had been his greatest achievement and Anthony had emptied himself into it. Critics praised him for it but now were expecting a second masterpiece, a second strike of lightening. For the past few months, his editor had badgered him again and again to continue writing, to produce a glorious work of literature that made his prior pale in comparison. Anthony grimaced as he realized that all he really wanted was to produce something of a similar caliber, not greater. Murmuring to himself, Anthony cursed his career path; it drained him in ways that he could not even believe before.
The longer that he sat at that desk though, the longer he simply wasted time and that was something that he certainly could not afford to waste at this point; his deadline loomed closer and closer. What had once seemed far away now drew distinctly close and his cheeks burned with the thought of disappointing his editor. While he was not a people pleaser in any sense of the phrase, Anthony dreaded failure like a claustrophobe and elevators. Most of the time, this fear deterred him from turning in less than spectacular work but in other occasions paralyzed him to the point he could barely breathe, much less write a full-length novel in time to reach his deadline.
Scratching the three-day shadow on his chin, the writer pushed away from the desk and his chair rolled across the hardwood floor towards the window, hoping that something happening out in the wide world could provide him with some material to work with. He pulled at the window sill, drawing his chair closer to the outside world. People mulled around, going about their daily business, unaware of the voyeur watching them from the third-story window of an apartment building. A middle-aged woman pulled a girl across the crosswalk with an urgent fervor, a thin man with a newspaper tucked under his arm looked nervous as he stole into the coffee shop on the corner, and, what Anthony found particularly interesting, two individuals dressed in business casual walked efficiently towards his building.
As he watched the pair move, Anthony recalled a conversation he had with his next door neighbor about how the cops were sniffing the place out, as if they suspected foul play somewhere in the building. But, from what he saw on the news, it could not be murder. Their district had a certain reputation for illicit activities, but kept the details under wraps so as to prevent this sort of thing in order to protect its population. Everyone who was anyone in their corner of the city was involved somehow in the sale or production of illicit drugs, whether using or not. The writer himself preferred something small and easy to hide, especially LSD. No needles, just pure unadulterated tripping madness in one little drop.
Whenever he hit a particularly serious writer’s block, Anthony took to the chemical inspiration to fuel his creativity, but his last trip had been rather disconcerting, so the writer was trying to not fall back onto the drug to break his creative dry spell, especially now that everyone in the district was being checked out. He needed those demons though, needed the bad trips to write, no matter what form of insomnia or panic attacks they caused. He knew he was safe in his apartment, especially with the triple lock on the door and the loaded .45 in his nightstand.
Growing bored by the pair he watched, Anthony got to his feet, bare against the chill of the floor that creaked beneath his feet. He shuffled to the kitchenette, his jeans dragging on the floor as he moved, and pulled the fridge door open lazily, popping a couple vertebrae in his back in the process. A couple half-drank beers and a cold pizza displayed the writer’s meager supply, almost taunting him as he searched for anything else and found nothing. Moving to the freezer, he smoothed out his sweater before scouring his freezer for a bag of coffee; that he had in great reserve. He snatched a bag and tossed it nonchalantly onto the counter as he grabbed a coffee filter from the box on top of his microwave and fitted it into the coffee maker.
The act of making coffee in itself was a ritual. He shook the bag and took a whiff of the powerful and enticing smell of the contents as he went through his list of things to do for the day: feed the cat, write the novel, wash the dishes, write the novel, check the mail, write the novel, phone his mother in Pennsylvania, write the novel, and last, but certainly not the least, write the novel. Most of his day went towards working on his second work, but usually ended up just sitting at his desk and engaging the computer in a staring contest (which the machine won every time). Some days, he went to the electronic piano that sat in his bedroom and played with the demos while his cat Katie slept on the bed behind him, completely oblivious to the stresses of her owner.
However, today he seemed to lack even more motivation than usual as he eyed out his amount of coffee, shaking the dark chocolate-colored clumps into the machine that fueled what little energy he had. Piano sounded taxing and the only he could think about was the novel he had yet to begin on, but found too difficult to begin. The first chapter always seemed to be the hardest to work through. Every time he laid one down, he felt he had to change it and eventually working it to the point of hating it. Most ideas for his novel hit his trash can by the end of a couple days of work. This one would be different, Anthony tried to assure himself as he watched the coffee maker splutter into the glass pot.
Quickly growing bored with watching the amount of brown liquid increase in the pot, the writer felt a distinct urge to go to his safe and indulge himself in his inspiration. It would break the monotony of the day and provide him with an idea for his novel, killing two birds with one stone. He attempted to resist, gripping the edge of the counter in an effort to keep himself in the kitchen, but the idea of potentially jump-starting the writing process proved to great to be conquered by a sheer force of will and he found himself hurrying towards his bedroom. Ignoring Katie where she sprawled out across the bed, her belly exposed to the ceiling as if asking anyone who walked by to rub it, Anthony pulled the closet doors open and drew apart his wardrobe to access the safe hidden behind. He spun the combination into the lock and as the tumblers rolled into place, he yanked the thick door open.
Inside the safe lie important documents, such as his passport and housing contract, his wedding ring, an autographed picture of the cast from his favorite primetime television show Home-schooled Chameleons, and collection of what he liked to call his inspirational stamps. Pulling one of these stamps from the old cigarette case he kept them in, he mentally prepared himself for the inevitable trip. He relocked the safe and moved over to his bed, situating himself on the bed next to Katie, who cracked an eye to glare at her owner before rolling over to go back to sleep. In one last effort to resist, he took a deep, calming breath before placing the stamp on his tongue and leaning back onto the bed.
When he opened his eyes, Anthony found nothing different about the room around him and saw no evidence of the trip he expected. He rolled over to glance at Katie and she was still sprawled over the comforter in same manner as a few minutes ago, no odd glow around her and no devils threatening to take her away. The writer gave a huff as he sat up, eyeing the room around him. Nothing was out of place or different, not even the coloring had changed. Frustrated that he may have been cheated, he pulled the stamp out of his mouth and stomped into the bathroom connected to the bedroom, flushing the offending piece of paper down the toilet. However, while he was in the process of doing this, the sound of his door being broken down alerted him to the fact that someone was now in his apartment with him.
The sound of heels on hardwood made his spine tingle as he snuck back into his bedroom, seeing if he could get a glance at the intruders. When he could not, he grabbed Katie and moved back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. From where he stood in the bathroom with his beloved house pet, he could hear the sounds of two unique persons moving around in his apartment.
“Clear!” a soprano voice announced from his living room before an echo by male voice much closer, most likely at his bedroom door.
Anthony felt his heart drop into his stomach as he realized that the two intruders were cops and judging by how they entered, they did not come to chat about the weather. He kissed the top of Katie’s head before placing her on the floor of the bathroom and turning to the window. Prying the glass open, the writer stuck his head out slowly, the cold wind blowing his dark hair into his eyes. However, he noticed there was no second vehicle out in the alley between his building and the Laundromat next door. He glanced to his left at the rickety fire escape beneath the window of his bedroom. In his mind, he knew the gap too far for him to jump but the way his heart raced in his chest told him otherwise. He could not get caught.
“Clear!” Anthony swore the call came from his bedroom.
Deciding in favor of jumping, the writer stepped onto the windowsill of his bathroom window. His stomach churned as he looked down at the three stories he was about to drop. However, before he could bring himself to jump, the white-washed door to his bathroom burst inward and a blonde woman surged through the opening, her pistol trained on him the instant she set eyes on his desperate figure. Surprise washed across her face as her eyes widened and she dashed forward, grabbing Anthony by the back of his sweater. She pulled him to the ground with such a force that the writer had to ponder just where she got her strength from.
“Ryan, in here,” the woman called, tucking her gun away into her hip holster as Anthony realized that he was underneath her, his face pressed into the tile of the bathroom floor as she handcuffed his hands behind his back. “Mr. Collins, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”
Anthony attempted to respond but with his jaw still squashed into the floor, all he could say was a muffled, “Yes’m.”
“Sir, I asked, do you understand?” she questioned again as she slid the ziptie around his wrists tighter before leaning off of him a little.
“Jesus Christ!” a panicked shout came from the bedroom.
“Ryan?”
“Max, this cat is crazy!”
Rolling her eyes, the blonde slid off of Anthony before getting to her feet and hoisting him with a strength that surprised him again; her petite figure gave no evidence of her seeming amazon powers. As he thought of this, the writer was suddenly struck by an idea. He could write his next novel about an amazon woman who conquers a studly philosopher but then falls in love with him and releases him from her superior power in a display of mercy. However, he frowned when he realized that he would not be getting out of his predicament anytime soon, unless perhaps he persuaded her with his guiles.
“Your name’s Max?” the writer asked, putting on his most charming smile.
“Yeah, short for Maxine,” she replied curtly, not impressed by any long shot. “And that’s Detective Soukup to you.”
“Detective Soukup, I have to admit,” Anthony continued, grunting a little as she pushed him back through the bathroom door into the bedroom. “You have the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Lovely,” the detective groaned as she drove him into the bedroom where a very tall, but very muscular man held a gun trained on Katie, who looked less than pleased with her situation, her hair fluffed up as she hissed at the other man. “Ryan, it’s just a cat. Put the gun down.”
“This cat is freaking psycho,” the man explained, his square jaw set clenched tight as if any word he said could be used by the perturbed cat hissing at him from the bed.
“She doesn’t like visitors,” Anthony confessed, grinning a little at the other man’s plight. “Especially when they kick down my doors and put me in handcuffs for no reason.”
“You are under arrest for possession of illicit drugs,” Max rattled off as she continued to push the writer through the bedroom. “as well as tax evasion, resisting arrest, and assault of a uniformed officer.”
“I’m not guilty of any of those things,” Anthony protested, digging his feet into the carpet of the bedroom floor, “so get the hell off me.”
“Ryan, leave the cat alone and get other here and help me with this guy,” Max hollered at the much larger man, who still seemed disturbed by the distress of Katie. “I swear, some days you make me wonder.”
Ryan stood for a little longer with his weapon trained on the calico cat before sliding it into his shoulder holster underneath his suit jacket. When he turned to gaze at the blonde, he frowned a little at her grimace, his rich russet brow furrowing as he looked between the flirtatious writer and the woman who had a firm grip on his bicep. Anthony sincerely decided that if anyone would cave to pressure, it would be this wimp of a man that, despite his outward physical strength, seemed something of a coward.
“You seem to have him just fine, Max,” the well-built man replied, as he glanced back at Katie, who continued to hiss and spit at him. “This cat, on the other hand, could be—“
“Detective LeBraun, if you mention that cat one more time I’m going to have to hurt you,” Maxine threatened, her cobalt blue eyes narrowing a little.
“You wouldn’t,” Ryan continued smugly before a glare turned his decision.
“She would,” Anthony interrupted, reminding them of his presence and taking the opportunity to test just how tight his captor’s hand on his arm was.
“Don’t even try it,” the blonde gripped his bicep even tighter, to the extent that the writer knew he would have a nasty bruise later that evening. “Ryan, seriously, get over here and help me out.”
Something about the way they interacted, though, tipped Anthony off. Ryan dressed in a respectable suit and tie, looking like his wardrobe most likely cost more than what the writer earned from his first novel, but something about the way that the male detective carried himself gave Anthony a certain joy. He could see from even just knowing the much more muscular man for a few minutes that he had insecurities out the wazoo while Maxine appeared just the opposite. Despite her being a woman, she held herself with confidence and generally exuded pride and self-esteem, which Anthony had never witnessed from a woman before. If anything, the fact that she felt comfortable wearing a skirt and heels while making an arrest spoke more than her posture.
However, his musings were cut short by Maxine pushing him from the bedroom and into the living room, her grip fierce upon his arm as they quickly moved across the hardwood floor. Ryan lagged behind a little to quickly grab a cup of coffee from the brewed pot that had just finished spluttering as they passed the kitchenette and approached the door, frustrating the writer more as he felt apprehension rising in his gut. He had to find a way to stall them or he would never get out of this. As he felt the sweat from his feet stick to the wood beneath them, he figured out his plan.
“I need shoes,” the writer protested, resisting the urge to smile as Ryan looked from the cup of coffee he had been pouring and ended up drenching his hand in boiling liquid.
When the aforementioned detective bellowed a rather colorful curse, his partner glared both at the writer and him. She shook Anthony’s wrists once in warning before he interrupted them again.
“No, I really need shoes,” he claimed again, recalling his father’s stubborn nature to help him. “I’m not leaving this apartment without my shoes.”
Maxine paused and seemed to wrestle with his declaration. The writer assumed that he would be permitted his shoes, but understood that there remained a certain danger should he be allowed to retrieve them. Anthony knew there were enough crazy people in the world to give the good population a bad name. Not everyone would get just his or her shoes, some could and would get a gun or other weapon too. However, the fact that Maxine considered the idea gave him a slight hope that bubbled into his chest. If he could get to the closet then he could overdose and that by itself seemed a welcome prospect, especially since he would face a rock-solid case against him.
“Sir, where are your shoes?” Maxine ground out, looking over to Ryan, who seemed busy rinsing his hand in cold water. “Ryan, get Mr. Collins’s shoes.”
“I just burned my hand,” the other man groaned, displaying the dark red and blistered appendage to her. “Have some mercy.”
“Ryan, get his shoes.”
“I can get them,” Anthony attempted before a firm shake of his wrists firmly told him to shut up, but he would take at least some pleasure in making this as complicated as possible. “They’re in the bottom of my closet in my bedroom underneath a couple pairs of jeans. I’ll need my socks too.”
“You’re kidding,” Ryan glared, his dark brown eyes sharp with annoyance and, when the writer put on his most earnest face, scoffed. “This is more complicated than it needs to be. Max, you owe me.”
“Of course I do,” his partner replied sarcastically, turning to push Anthony into the wall of the living area. “I’ll hold down the fort here.”
“I’ll hold down the fort here” Ryan snarked under his breath as he left the living area, frustration apparent in his voice.
It was all Anthony could do to not grin in spite of the detective’s plight.
Two-sentence summary: Anthony Collins, a now renowned but lazy writer, gets more than he asks for when two detectives, Maxine and Ryan, arrest him for possession. The three of them get caught up in a supernatural being's lust for revenge that claims more than they were willing to give.
Do note, it's not really been edited since the point of NaNo was to just get stuff on paper and I'm just too lazy to do so right now. Any issues with the writing can be taken up with me.
Chapter 1
Anthony Collins leaned over his desk , tapping his pen wildly as he attempted to stir up some semblance of an idea in his head. His creativity had an uncanny way of just springing to life when he moved. Sometimes this required pacing or jogging but even after doing both today, his creative well was beyond empty. He could not find a single source of inspiration in the world around him. The way the sun poured over his laptop as he sat cross-legged in his chair, the way his soda bubbled away quietly next to his pet plant Bert, and even the dim sounds of his favorite ska group pounding away in his stereo refused to provide him with any sort of inspiration, his mind blank as ever.
Rubbing his eyes, the black-haired man groaned, frustration creeping into his body as he tried to force words onto the blank page that taunted him from the screen of his laptop. He watched it with a wary eye as he took a sip of his soda, before shaking his hands out to try and get something to come from them. However, the effort proved in vain when his imagination continued to fail him; nothing came to him, especially not in the dramatic epiphany that had caused him to write his first novel only a few years ago. The plot came to him in a dream and struck him like lightening. Needless to say, he had chugged out a novel in less than thirty days and shown it to anyone and everyone who would humor him.
That novel had been his greatest achievement and Anthony had emptied himself into it. Critics praised him for it but now were expecting a second masterpiece, a second strike of lightening. For the past few months, his editor had badgered him again and again to continue writing, to produce a glorious work of literature that made his prior pale in comparison. Anthony grimaced as he realized that all he really wanted was to produce something of a similar caliber, not greater. Murmuring to himself, Anthony cursed his career path; it drained him in ways that he could not even believe before.
The longer that he sat at that desk though, the longer he simply wasted time and that was something that he certainly could not afford to waste at this point; his deadline loomed closer and closer. What had once seemed far away now drew distinctly close and his cheeks burned with the thought of disappointing his editor. While he was not a people pleaser in any sense of the phrase, Anthony dreaded failure like a claustrophobe and elevators. Most of the time, this fear deterred him from turning in less than spectacular work but in other occasions paralyzed him to the point he could barely breathe, much less write a full-length novel in time to reach his deadline.
Scratching the three-day shadow on his chin, the writer pushed away from the desk and his chair rolled across the hardwood floor towards the window, hoping that something happening out in the wide world could provide him with some material to work with. He pulled at the window sill, drawing his chair closer to the outside world. People mulled around, going about their daily business, unaware of the voyeur watching them from the third-story window of an apartment building. A middle-aged woman pulled a girl across the crosswalk with an urgent fervor, a thin man with a newspaper tucked under his arm looked nervous as he stole into the coffee shop on the corner, and, what Anthony found particularly interesting, two individuals dressed in business casual walked efficiently towards his building.
As he watched the pair move, Anthony recalled a conversation he had with his next door neighbor about how the cops were sniffing the place out, as if they suspected foul play somewhere in the building. But, from what he saw on the news, it could not be murder. Their district had a certain reputation for illicit activities, but kept the details under wraps so as to prevent this sort of thing in order to protect its population. Everyone who was anyone in their corner of the city was involved somehow in the sale or production of illicit drugs, whether using or not. The writer himself preferred something small and easy to hide, especially LSD. No needles, just pure unadulterated tripping madness in one little drop.
Whenever he hit a particularly serious writer’s block, Anthony took to the chemical inspiration to fuel his creativity, but his last trip had been rather disconcerting, so the writer was trying to not fall back onto the drug to break his creative dry spell, especially now that everyone in the district was being checked out. He needed those demons though, needed the bad trips to write, no matter what form of insomnia or panic attacks they caused. He knew he was safe in his apartment, especially with the triple lock on the door and the loaded .45 in his nightstand.
Growing bored by the pair he watched, Anthony got to his feet, bare against the chill of the floor that creaked beneath his feet. He shuffled to the kitchenette, his jeans dragging on the floor as he moved, and pulled the fridge door open lazily, popping a couple vertebrae in his back in the process. A couple half-drank beers and a cold pizza displayed the writer’s meager supply, almost taunting him as he searched for anything else and found nothing. Moving to the freezer, he smoothed out his sweater before scouring his freezer for a bag of coffee; that he had in great reserve. He snatched a bag and tossed it nonchalantly onto the counter as he grabbed a coffee filter from the box on top of his microwave and fitted it into the coffee maker.
The act of making coffee in itself was a ritual. He shook the bag and took a whiff of the powerful and enticing smell of the contents as he went through his list of things to do for the day: feed the cat, write the novel, wash the dishes, write the novel, check the mail, write the novel, phone his mother in Pennsylvania, write the novel, and last, but certainly not the least, write the novel. Most of his day went towards working on his second work, but usually ended up just sitting at his desk and engaging the computer in a staring contest (which the machine won every time). Some days, he went to the electronic piano that sat in his bedroom and played with the demos while his cat Katie slept on the bed behind him, completely oblivious to the stresses of her owner.
However, today he seemed to lack even more motivation than usual as he eyed out his amount of coffee, shaking the dark chocolate-colored clumps into the machine that fueled what little energy he had. Piano sounded taxing and the only he could think about was the novel he had yet to begin on, but found too difficult to begin. The first chapter always seemed to be the hardest to work through. Every time he laid one down, he felt he had to change it and eventually working it to the point of hating it. Most ideas for his novel hit his trash can by the end of a couple days of work. This one would be different, Anthony tried to assure himself as he watched the coffee maker splutter into the glass pot.
Quickly growing bored with watching the amount of brown liquid increase in the pot, the writer felt a distinct urge to go to his safe and indulge himself in his inspiration. It would break the monotony of the day and provide him with an idea for his novel, killing two birds with one stone. He attempted to resist, gripping the edge of the counter in an effort to keep himself in the kitchen, but the idea of potentially jump-starting the writing process proved to great to be conquered by a sheer force of will and he found himself hurrying towards his bedroom. Ignoring Katie where she sprawled out across the bed, her belly exposed to the ceiling as if asking anyone who walked by to rub it, Anthony pulled the closet doors open and drew apart his wardrobe to access the safe hidden behind. He spun the combination into the lock and as the tumblers rolled into place, he yanked the thick door open.
Inside the safe lie important documents, such as his passport and housing contract, his wedding ring, an autographed picture of the cast from his favorite primetime television show Home-schooled Chameleons, and collection of what he liked to call his inspirational stamps. Pulling one of these stamps from the old cigarette case he kept them in, he mentally prepared himself for the inevitable trip. He relocked the safe and moved over to his bed, situating himself on the bed next to Katie, who cracked an eye to glare at her owner before rolling over to go back to sleep. In one last effort to resist, he took a deep, calming breath before placing the stamp on his tongue and leaning back onto the bed.
When he opened his eyes, Anthony found nothing different about the room around him and saw no evidence of the trip he expected. He rolled over to glance at Katie and she was still sprawled over the comforter in same manner as a few minutes ago, no odd glow around her and no devils threatening to take her away. The writer gave a huff as he sat up, eyeing the room around him. Nothing was out of place or different, not even the coloring had changed. Frustrated that he may have been cheated, he pulled the stamp out of his mouth and stomped into the bathroom connected to the bedroom, flushing the offending piece of paper down the toilet. However, while he was in the process of doing this, the sound of his door being broken down alerted him to the fact that someone was now in his apartment with him.
The sound of heels on hardwood made his spine tingle as he snuck back into his bedroom, seeing if he could get a glance at the intruders. When he could not, he grabbed Katie and moved back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. From where he stood in the bathroom with his beloved house pet, he could hear the sounds of two unique persons moving around in his apartment.
“Clear!” a soprano voice announced from his living room before an echo by male voice much closer, most likely at his bedroom door.
Anthony felt his heart drop into his stomach as he realized that the two intruders were cops and judging by how they entered, they did not come to chat about the weather. He kissed the top of Katie’s head before placing her on the floor of the bathroom and turning to the window. Prying the glass open, the writer stuck his head out slowly, the cold wind blowing his dark hair into his eyes. However, he noticed there was no second vehicle out in the alley between his building and the Laundromat next door. He glanced to his left at the rickety fire escape beneath the window of his bedroom. In his mind, he knew the gap too far for him to jump but the way his heart raced in his chest told him otherwise. He could not get caught.
“Clear!” Anthony swore the call came from his bedroom.
Deciding in favor of jumping, the writer stepped onto the windowsill of his bathroom window. His stomach churned as he looked down at the three stories he was about to drop. However, before he could bring himself to jump, the white-washed door to his bathroom burst inward and a blonde woman surged through the opening, her pistol trained on him the instant she set eyes on his desperate figure. Surprise washed across her face as her eyes widened and she dashed forward, grabbing Anthony by the back of his sweater. She pulled him to the ground with such a force that the writer had to ponder just where she got her strength from.
“Ryan, in here,” the woman called, tucking her gun away into her hip holster as Anthony realized that he was underneath her, his face pressed into the tile of the bathroom floor as she handcuffed his hands behind his back. “Mr. Collins, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”
Anthony attempted to respond but with his jaw still squashed into the floor, all he could say was a muffled, “Yes’m.”
“Sir, I asked, do you understand?” she questioned again as she slid the ziptie around his wrists tighter before leaning off of him a little.
“Jesus Christ!” a panicked shout came from the bedroom.
“Ryan?”
“Max, this cat is crazy!”
Rolling her eyes, the blonde slid off of Anthony before getting to her feet and hoisting him with a strength that surprised him again; her petite figure gave no evidence of her seeming amazon powers. As he thought of this, the writer was suddenly struck by an idea. He could write his next novel about an amazon woman who conquers a studly philosopher but then falls in love with him and releases him from her superior power in a display of mercy. However, he frowned when he realized that he would not be getting out of his predicament anytime soon, unless perhaps he persuaded her with his guiles.
“Your name’s Max?” the writer asked, putting on his most charming smile.
“Yeah, short for Maxine,” she replied curtly, not impressed by any long shot. “And that’s Detective Soukup to you.”
“Detective Soukup, I have to admit,” Anthony continued, grunting a little as she pushed him back through the bathroom door into the bedroom. “You have the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Lovely,” the detective groaned as she drove him into the bedroom where a very tall, but very muscular man held a gun trained on Katie, who looked less than pleased with her situation, her hair fluffed up as she hissed at the other man. “Ryan, it’s just a cat. Put the gun down.”
“This cat is freaking psycho,” the man explained, his square jaw set clenched tight as if any word he said could be used by the perturbed cat hissing at him from the bed.
“She doesn’t like visitors,” Anthony confessed, grinning a little at the other man’s plight. “Especially when they kick down my doors and put me in handcuffs for no reason.”
“You are under arrest for possession of illicit drugs,” Max rattled off as she continued to push the writer through the bedroom. “as well as tax evasion, resisting arrest, and assault of a uniformed officer.”
“I’m not guilty of any of those things,” Anthony protested, digging his feet into the carpet of the bedroom floor, “so get the hell off me.”
“Ryan, leave the cat alone and get other here and help me with this guy,” Max hollered at the much larger man, who still seemed disturbed by the distress of Katie. “I swear, some days you make me wonder.”
Ryan stood for a little longer with his weapon trained on the calico cat before sliding it into his shoulder holster underneath his suit jacket. When he turned to gaze at the blonde, he frowned a little at her grimace, his rich russet brow furrowing as he looked between the flirtatious writer and the woman who had a firm grip on his bicep. Anthony sincerely decided that if anyone would cave to pressure, it would be this wimp of a man that, despite his outward physical strength, seemed something of a coward.
“You seem to have him just fine, Max,” the well-built man replied, as he glanced back at Katie, who continued to hiss and spit at him. “This cat, on the other hand, could be—“
“Detective LeBraun, if you mention that cat one more time I’m going to have to hurt you,” Maxine threatened, her cobalt blue eyes narrowing a little.
“You wouldn’t,” Ryan continued smugly before a glare turned his decision.
“She would,” Anthony interrupted, reminding them of his presence and taking the opportunity to test just how tight his captor’s hand on his arm was.
“Don’t even try it,” the blonde gripped his bicep even tighter, to the extent that the writer knew he would have a nasty bruise later that evening. “Ryan, seriously, get over here and help me out.”
Something about the way they interacted, though, tipped Anthony off. Ryan dressed in a respectable suit and tie, looking like his wardrobe most likely cost more than what the writer earned from his first novel, but something about the way that the male detective carried himself gave Anthony a certain joy. He could see from even just knowing the much more muscular man for a few minutes that he had insecurities out the wazoo while Maxine appeared just the opposite. Despite her being a woman, she held herself with confidence and generally exuded pride and self-esteem, which Anthony had never witnessed from a woman before. If anything, the fact that she felt comfortable wearing a skirt and heels while making an arrest spoke more than her posture.
However, his musings were cut short by Maxine pushing him from the bedroom and into the living room, her grip fierce upon his arm as they quickly moved across the hardwood floor. Ryan lagged behind a little to quickly grab a cup of coffee from the brewed pot that had just finished spluttering as they passed the kitchenette and approached the door, frustrating the writer more as he felt apprehension rising in his gut. He had to find a way to stall them or he would never get out of this. As he felt the sweat from his feet stick to the wood beneath them, he figured out his plan.
“I need shoes,” the writer protested, resisting the urge to smile as Ryan looked from the cup of coffee he had been pouring and ended up drenching his hand in boiling liquid.
When the aforementioned detective bellowed a rather colorful curse, his partner glared both at the writer and him. She shook Anthony’s wrists once in warning before he interrupted them again.
“No, I really need shoes,” he claimed again, recalling his father’s stubborn nature to help him. “I’m not leaving this apartment without my shoes.”
Maxine paused and seemed to wrestle with his declaration. The writer assumed that he would be permitted his shoes, but understood that there remained a certain danger should he be allowed to retrieve them. Anthony knew there were enough crazy people in the world to give the good population a bad name. Not everyone would get just his or her shoes, some could and would get a gun or other weapon too. However, the fact that Maxine considered the idea gave him a slight hope that bubbled into his chest. If he could get to the closet then he could overdose and that by itself seemed a welcome prospect, especially since he would face a rock-solid case against him.
“Sir, where are your shoes?” Maxine ground out, looking over to Ryan, who seemed busy rinsing his hand in cold water. “Ryan, get Mr. Collins’s shoes.”
“I just burned my hand,” the other man groaned, displaying the dark red and blistered appendage to her. “Have some mercy.”
“Ryan, get his shoes.”
“I can get them,” Anthony attempted before a firm shake of his wrists firmly told him to shut up, but he would take at least some pleasure in making this as complicated as possible. “They’re in the bottom of my closet in my bedroom underneath a couple pairs of jeans. I’ll need my socks too.”
“You’re kidding,” Ryan glared, his dark brown eyes sharp with annoyance and, when the writer put on his most earnest face, scoffed. “This is more complicated than it needs to be. Max, you owe me.”
“Of course I do,” his partner replied sarcastically, turning to push Anthony into the wall of the living area. “I’ll hold down the fort here.”
“I’ll hold down the fort here” Ryan snarked under his breath as he left the living area, frustration apparent in his voice.
It was all Anthony could do to not grin in spite of the detective’s plight.
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