100 Ways to Solve a Murder-Chapter 95: Act V Enlightenment

7 hours 32 minutes after abduction

Location: Hangar

Sam slowly bled to her death, if drowning didn’t beat it to her, she thought.

Arms tied behind her back, lungs craving for oxygen as she struggled to keep calm underwater. She blinked underwater fast, and one of the lenses falls out of her eyes and sinks unnoticed.

Czar pulls her back up, just to savor the desperate look on her face, she gasps for air, just for a brief second she sees a smudge of light on her left eye.

And he pushes her head back, and she begins to count.

She blinks again fast, the other one comes off.

He pulls her head up again like she expected he would and the lights around them blind her for a moment, her eyes taking time to adapt. A sharp pain shoots through her head, it was not the time to have a migraine she thought and she shuts her eyes close trying to focus away from the pain.

Czar rubs his victory in her face, whispering menacingly at her as she struggles for more air, her brain needing oxygen, her lungs burning. Her heart rate beats fast against her chest, compensating for the lack of oxygen in her system by speeding the distribution of blood.

The feel of her underwater reminding her of her attack, when Clark, no, Baxter left her to drown in the tub. It sent chills down her spine, no don’t go back. Don’t panic now.

You can move.

You can fight.

"Did you think I didn’t know about the tracker in your watch?" he said. So, that’s why they took it off her hours previously, she thought. They had inside information. And she reckons a lot of people will ’disappear’.

" Ivan had always been overly paranoid, even under your estranged relationship he stills worry; bugging your belongings. Even asking Anna Jackson to babysit you on his behalf. All to no avail. A lost cause, because even with all the power at his disposal. He can’t protect you from your own insanity." He tells her.

"Baxter?" she asks between gasps, eyes remaining closed. The light was giving her a mighty headache, it must be her brain going on overdrive.

Czar laughs, amused at the memory of the Pathologist.

"Baxter was just a mole, whose weakness is his obsession with you. I never really intended for you to be there. I just wanted to kill your stupid dog cause I know how much you love that old bitch, using the drug your brother created. Neat right?" he explains.

Sam chuckles, she agrees, it was indeed neat. "Yes." She says, her admission surprised Czar.

"Ruining our relationship further." She adds in understanding.

"Yes, the drug would lead you to the maker, who was your brother. Ripping you farther apart. But you had to come in. No matter, it turned out better than I originally planned. You lost everything you loved" he says.

Czar sighed, finding her blindness a shame.

"I just can’t savor the look in your eyes when you die with my face as the last thing you see." He says, pressing the knife against her neck, she could feel his body fill with excitement. He was doing everything possible to not slit her throat right then. He had learned restraint at least, she thought.

He smiles, pulls the knife away and pocketed it, pushing her head back to the drum.

Sam starts to count.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...12...18..34..60..69..73..81..139....170.

She flexes her arms behind her, willing all her strength....172..173..175..178...180! He pulls her head back up as she expected, right on cue.

Her eyes snap open, and all hell breaks loose.

She butts him with the back of her head, so hard that he staggers backward.

Ignoring the pain in her gut, and with all her might she breaks the zip ties around her wrists with just enough force.

She watches as Czar looks at her in shock, his nose bleeding from the single blow she did, and she stares back at him.

The alarmed look on her cousin’s bloodied face was almost worth the shit she went through, almost.

A smile tugged on her lips, as she watched her cousin’s brain slowly process the information. "You should see your bloody face, you little shit!" She spat, emphasizing a few chosen words.

She may just be able to survive the attacks, but unscathed? Doubt it.

"How?" Sam verbalized Czar’s mental question with as much smugness as she could physically manage. She laughed at him, pushing just the buttons she knew, his Ego.

"Did you enjoy the scene I have presented to you? You’ve always been fond of theatrics. How does it feel being the fool on the stage?" Sam said, spitting on the ground inches away from his foot, her spit bloodied from her bleeding gum.

Her comment made him snap, and he attacked. Sam held her ground, letting muscle memory do the deed. She used his own force to throw him to the ground, and he did hit the ground hard. Only to scamper back on his feet, more furious than before. He threw a punch at her, one she blocked with her right arm, kneeing and elbowing him in the process. She may be injured, weak, but her black belt on both Aikido and Judo was not just for show.

She grinned down at him on the ground as he hurried back on his feet.

"Not the brains, not the brawns. So what are you?!" She spat, putting more fuel to his burning rage.

He came at her again, now smarter, aiming at her side wound. Sam’s knees buckled at the impact and a smug look grazed his features.

"I’m going to kill you! I’m going to rip you limb from limb! And I’m going to send you pieces by pieces to your stupid brother!" He vowed, grabbing her hair and pulling it backward, threatening to snap her neck. Sam falls on her knees, Czar’s foot pressed on her back as he pulls her hair back further.

"Maybe I’ll even send Levi Jackson your head! He would love that, wouldn’t he! I might even get a thank you card!" Czar shouts maniacally.

Sam sees the knife on the floor, one that fell off his pocket seconds before.

And she reaches for it, she uses it to stab him on his right thigh.

Czar cusses in pain, pulling his leg away as she stabs him a second time, but he never lets go of her hair. He pulls her to the floor as he collapses on the ground. Sam on top of him, he pulls her hair still, trying to hurt her as much as he could.

She could just stab him, she thought.

Right thru the heart, and all is finished.

No, it’s too easy, Sam thought.

So, instead she stabs his clavicle, embedding the knife right through.

He cries in pain as she twists the blade, while she straddled him in place.

Suddenly a force so mighty causes her to topple over. Her ears ringing, head pounding, in a haze she struggled to process her environment. One moment she was on top of Czar, the next she was on the floor.

A man 6’2" tall holding an iron rod in his right hand stood before her, she had to blink away the blood dripping down her eyes to see better, blood coming from the wound of her head.

Great, concussion possible brain damage, she mentally diagnosed.

Czar crawls further away from her, groaning at the pain.

"Kill her, Kip! Kill her!" He orders ’Kip’ as he nursed his bleeding clavicle.

Kip slowly approaches her, and she slowly pushes herself off the floor ignoring the blood dripping.

Funny she felt dull.

No pain whatsoever.

She reckons it was because of the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Kip grips the iron rod harder, ready to bash her head again. Her lips crack to a toothy grin, accepting death head-on.

She didn’t expect to get out alive, every calculation she and Anna made resulted in her death.

But she didn’t plan on going without a fight. No, she will leave with a bang.

This time, a literal bang.

Sam pulls a white crystal-like stone out of her pajama pocket, the size of a thumb.

She had two of those crystals with her, crystals they ignored finding it harmless during the initial pat-down of her abduction.

She showed it to the two men present, with a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Funny how something this pretty can simply be assumed harmless." She said, throwing the crystal forcefully at the foot of Kip.

The moment the stone made contact against the ground, it caused a massive explosion. Big enough to knock everyone off their feet. Breaking the concrete.

As the smoke started to clear, a groan passes Czar’s lips, his ears ringing and he is covered with dust. He surveys the surroundings and finds Kip’s body laying on the ground motionless. Most likely dead.

He turns just in time to see Sam approaching, half her face stained with her own blood. He tries to crawl away, sseing the empty look in her eyes.

"I have never foreseen my PhD. in Chemistry will be useful in this setup. Fulminated mercury with a tweak of chemistry," Sam states a few meters from him. She looks at Kip, sprawled on the small crater motionless. No signs of life.