The two average-looking men in regular clothes slapped cards hard down on the rickety table set up in the dismal room. Lydia Edberg flipped through the three-week-old Star magazine as she sat lotus-style on the unmade bed. She had glanced at them when one would make a sound of victory. Eventually she stopped looking.
Lydia sighed and sat back against the headboard on the bed. “I’m bored.”
“Yeah?” said a dark-haired man not looking up the table, “How do you think we feel?”
“When will Allen be back?”
“After he’s done testifying.” The dark-haired man slapped down another card.
“Shit,” hissed his partner, also dark-haired, but his was cut a lot more severely, as if he had been in the military. She had seen his bright blue eyes and knew that he was a cold, cold man.
Lydia looked at the clock. “It’s almost lunch. Can’t we go out and get lunch?”
“They’ll bring it.” The dark-haired man glanced up at her, his brown eyes flat. “Why don’t you find somethin’ on the TV?”
She sighed, picked up the remote, and flipped through channels. She was caught for moment by a last-minute report by someone about her husband Allen Edberg. He was caught skimming money off the Russian mafia for himself. In exchange for no prosecution for that, he ratted on the Popov Syndicate in Striga Island and beyond. Because of that, she was here. Her two children were elsewhere safe, she supposed. She didn’t want to leave her husband. He had all the money.
“That’s Bobo,” said one of the guys, pointing to the screen. They laughed together. “He’s gonna find it funny seein’ his torso on TV.”
“It’s unmistakable.”
There was a knock at the door. The two men looked at Lydia. This was her signal to get into another room. She climbed off the bed, slightly perturbed, and went into the bathroom. She shut the door and locked it.
She heard one man move across the floor. This is stupid, she thought. Why do they think someone’s going to go after —
Then she heard a thump, and gunshots. She screamed in spite of herself, and backed away from the door. She couldn’t go far because the toilet was there. After the few shots and thumps, she heard someone move across the room. They were speaking in another language that she didn’t know. She looked around, a trapped rat. Behind her was a frosted window. She turned and tried to lift it by the lip, but it wouldn’t budge. The more she lifted, the louder her grunts were, and it wasn’t long until someone tried the door.
Someone shouted something like “Otkriti” and someone was shooting the door handle. She screamed again, and wedged herself into the far corner where the pipes were.
They kicked the door in. A man in a dark suit stomped in, and swiveled his entire body around to look for her. He lit on her, and he grinned black teeth at her. She screamed again, he lunged for her. He grabbed a hold of her wrist tightly and yanked her toward him, yelling something over his shoulder. She was pulled forward, whimpering and now crying. A huge bear of a man came forward to her. He stopped, caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “A simple Jewess.” Then he smacked her. She cried out, more from the shock of it than the pain. “He’ll learn.” Then the man snapped something to others. She was bound with a piece of plastic around her wrists and shoved forward.
They opened the door and thrust her forward – and she found herself in a man’s arms. There was a moment of stillness, silence, before she heard the sound of guns being drawn. She found herself thrown to the side, and something came up, something very cold. A wall of ice.
She looked to see a man in blue and white boots, and a red and white shirt, just calmly standing there holding his left arm out, his fingers splayed in front of him. Mere centimeters from his fingers was an ice shield in front of them. The right hand slowly raised, and then there was a huge gust of wind. The three men in the apartment were knocked off their feet. The ice shield came down, and the man looked at her. “Are you all right?” Lydia only nodded. “Stay right there.”
There was another gust of wind into the apartment. The man spoke in the same language as the others. They couldn’t speak. Lydia tried to look around the corner to see what was there, but couldn’t. Then she heard a stronger wind, and glass shattering, men screaming, their screams fading. The man turned to Lydia. “Come, let us go.”
“Where?”
Then the man guided her to the door. “To my warehouse. Where you will be my prisoner until your husband is finished his duty.”
Comment: Writing Prompt 870 (1000 Writing Prompts): You have witnessed a crime and now you are being protected by the police to make sure nobody comes after you.
Music: None
Words: 825