THE PLAN

My first short story. A bit of a "twister" story. Let me know what you think.

“Grab her feet. I’ve got her head.”

Rick does as Henry says. Henry is the boss. He’s only a couple of years older than Rick, at 33. His head is bald, his body is in shape, and his skin is a light olive. He only ever wears a suit, minus a tie. As the man in charge, if anyone ever tries to betray him, interfere with his decisions, or tell him what to do, they were done. They’d be fired and forced to return anything he had allowed them to keep. Then a short while after he fired them, he’d find them again. Henry likes to tie up loose ends.

“Alright now, I want you to sit her upright in the chair.” Henry orders Rick, “That’s right, now go get my tape and the rope, and make sure it’s the velvet rope.

Again Rick does as he is told. Rick is 29 and has been working for Henry for over a year. He has sort black hair and pale skin. His small brown eyes are almost always full of hate. He despises being bossed around but has sworn to himself to never quit the business. It is what he knows best.

 He retrieves the black velvet rope and duct tape from near the door of the small cabin they are in. Nothing is in the room save the chair in the center of the room and the curtains on the two windows behind the chair. Rick notices the girl is coming to and smiles with excitement. The fun is about to begin.

He binds her ankles to the chair legs, her wrists comfortably but tightly on the arms of the chair, and presses tape on her soft pink lips. When finished, he takes a step back and looks her over. Her name is Penelope. Penny as everyone calls her. She was fired because she is said to have been the one who stole the $24,000 from a job done a month before she was let go. She has long, soft, and wavy brown hair in a mess down the back of the chair. She is thin; she runs every morning of every other day.

She is beautiful, Rick thinks to himself, so sexy but so helpless.

Out loud, Rick says, “Alright Henry, she’s all ready.”

Henry looks at Penny and then back at Rick. “Excellent.” Henry’s smile grows wider and he says, “Hey look, someone’s waking up.”

Penny’s eyes begin to open slowly. Rick sees that he is who she sees first and he smiles when she looks angrily toward him. Then he sees her look over at Henry and he almost laughs at the new look of fear that appears on her tan face. She starts to scream behind the duct tape. 

“Hon, no one’s gonna hear you.” Rick strokes her hair but realizes he is doing too much. He backs away and questionably looks to Henry. Henry looks amused but Rick still muffles an apology to him, just to be safe.

“You know, you’ve been with me for a while now. I think�"” Henry pauses and looks at Penny. He nods his head and looks back at Rick. “I think it’s time you to go for this yourself. I’ll let you feel a little bit of power. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Rick almost asks if he’s sure, if Henry will really let him take care of Penny.  Then he remembers; you never question Henry’s decisions. Rick nods, mumbles “okay,” and Henry leaves the room.

  ***

“So here we are darling.” Rick says to Penny. She’s looking away so he pulls her head up toward him. He wants control and he knows the key to control is eye contact. Penny looks at him and wishes so badly to be able to smack him. She hates when people act like they are better than what they really are.

“I bet you didn’t expect this huh?” Rick unbuttons the first four buttons of Penny’s dark blue plaid shirt, revealing her black lace bra. She grimaces under the duct tape as Rick places his hands on her chest.

“All over this.” Rick says, “These mediocre A cups.” Now he rips the duct tape off of her lips.

Penny spits at him and says, “I’m a 32 B, you a*s.”

Rick laughs, pulls out a knife, and warns Penny that if she tried anything, he wouldn’t hesitate to slit her throat. Then he kneels down and kisses her. First softly, than hard, sticking his tongue in her mouth and before he pulls away, he bites down hard on her bottom lip, making her bleed.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Rick smiles and Penny spits blood out of her mouth, “Got a little too excited I guess.”

Still on the ground, he kisses the left side of her abdomen.

“What a pretty tummy you have, Penny.” Rick puts the back of the knife against her skin and looks up at her. She’s looking back at him, frowning. “I could just eat you up.” He continues.

“Go to hell.” Penny almost whispers to Rick and looks away. She yelps in surprise pain when Rick cuts a straight line down her abdomen with his knife.

“Only if you’re there to welcome me.”

Now gasping, Penny looks back down at Rick with tears in her eyes. “Please, just stop. Give me a chance. I know you don’t really want to kill me. I’ll go get that dinner with you, okay? I’ll let you do whatever you want to me, JUST LET ME GO!” She finishes in a scream despite herself.

Rick stands up and goes behind the chair. He places one hand on Penny’s shoulder, the other hangs down his side holding the now bloody knife.

“Too late doll.” He laughs, “This is actually funny, isn’t it? You want me to give you a chance¸ when just three weeks ago, that’s what I wanted; for you to give me a chance. Well guess what? Just as you denied me, I’m denying you. You don’t get to live. I do. It should be me in that chair though. I’m the one who snuck the $24,000 into your car’s trunk. That makes me damn lucky, huh? I can go get back that money and I have the privilege of getting to slice you up, too. I wasn’t even expecting Henry to let me do that!”

Rick stops when he notices that Penny has stopped sobbing. He goes back to stand in front of her. She’s smiling.

“What the hell is so funny?” Rick slaps Penny. She spits out more blood to her left and looks back at Rick, still smiling.

Rick jumps when the door slams open. He looks and sees Henry, once again in the room. Completely confused about what is going on, Rick is silent.

“Of course you didn’t expect me to let you take care of Penny. It was all part of my plan to test you. I didn’t believe Penny would take the money from the Reedman job last month; she’s a loyal worker. But you have been fighting with everyone lately! The money was taken a while ago. Yet you and some of the new kids just a few weeks ago were suddenly saying you’d seen Penny take it. I didn’t believe you for a second.”

Rick is completely flustered. He can’t believe that this whole time, Henry has known he was lying. Henry has known Penny was innocent and he had done this to prove it.

“So I can’t...” Rick’s sentence fades away. In his mind however, he is yelling it over and over again: So I can’t kill her.

“As for those new kids, I’m going to be letting them off the hook. They were new and unsure of themselves. They’ll learn. I told them I knew though. Everything is done now Rick, so step the hell away from the girl if you don’t wanna get shot.”

Henry has his pistol out and pointed at Rick. Rick steps away from Penny�"who is sitting in silence�"but closer to Henry.

“Careful now Ri�"” Before Henry can finish, Rick throws his knife at his arm, knocking the gun from Henry’s hand. Rick rushes to Henry and knocks him down. He punches Henry’s chin first, then his left temple, before Henry punches his right cheek and pushes him off. Both men stand and throw some more punches. The last punch is thrown by Rick, who gets Henry again on the left temple. This knocks him down and Rick pulls a gun out from a leg holster. Henry is conscious but lays still.

Now Rick is furious, “I’m done with you,” He nods toward Penny, “And these goddamned teases that you hire! You both are finished. I’m taking over this business now and you can’t do S**T.”

Rick c***s his gun. Before he can shoot Henry though, he is knocked down by Penny, who was able to untie her wrists during the Fist Fight.

She grabs the gun Rick has now dropped. He goes crawling and Penny watches, amused by his fear and urgency. He goes for the pistol he knocked out of Henry’s hand, so she fires a shot at his stomach. He yelps in pain.

“A*****e.” Penny whispers. Rick is still alive so she fires again. This time at his crotch.

Penny smiles, “‘Oh I’m sorry,’ she says, quoting what Rick had said to her earlier, ‘Got a little too excited I guess.’”

Rick screams in pain and she shoots him in the head to shut him up. She goes to Henry next and helps himstand. He hugs her.

When he pulls away, Henry says, “I told you that would work. The little dumbass couldn’t tell this was the plan? Like I’d ever leave a kill to a joke like him.”

Both Penny and Henry laugh. He kisses her, obviously happy that their plot worked out how he had wanted. After a few seconds, Henry’s eyes widen from the surprise of a bullet; Penny has shot him and he falls onto his back looking confused and angry.

Penny smiles. “Look who else is a dumbass. Hate to break it to you honey, but this was the plan.” Penny shoots him once again, this time in the head, and walks out of the cabin. She hops into her car and turns to the passenger seat. There’s a trash bag. She reaches inside of it and fingers its contents. $24,000. Penny smiles to herself as she turns the car on and drives away.

Author's Note

There may be some grammar/spelling/formatting mistakes. Just ignore those, I'll get to them.

Reviews

[Valentine Whellens]

Excellent! Very good twists. Maybe suggest that you use more "show" - perhaps instead of "After a few seconds, Henry’s eyes widen from the surprise of a bullet; Penny has shot him and he falls onto his back looking confused and angry." you could use "Henry's eyes widen as the bullet enters his chest, he didn't expect this from Penny"

Just a thought but your story is very good.

[Who Cares]

This was a ratehr lengthy piece, but it had a lot of good twists. I feel lieky ou could have used more descriptive language through-out the piece. A very drak setting allowed this piece to be elaborated on and helped to carry the piece.

[Who Cares]

good lord sorry for all the spelling errors, typing to fast for my own good. Rather*, like*, you*, dark*

[SlightlyOdd]

this was good entertaining and altogether really very good i like the plot sort of a battle of wits. i really liked this altogether a good story sort of an underworld setting very nice. 87/100

[RaspberryBullets]

Nice! Excellently written, although I do agree that maybe you could use more showing words? Well done. :) xox

[Amila Jay]

An excellent story. Enjoyed the read :))

[MandaBear]

Awesome!!!! I hope you continue i want to know what happens!!! Omg so goood!!

[Luciole]

:) i may

[MandaBear]

yay!

[Cole Hayley]

A very well written story. Everything flowed perfect and i love the frantic twist and turns you sent me on. There was a few grammar/formatting mistakes but I look pass that. Content wise, it was perfect.

[Luciole]

Thank you :) Yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to thoroughly re-read and fix mistakes but I will soon! Glad you liked it and thanks for your input