The Murdered World 29

When Frank woke, his head was spinning so bad that he couldn’t even tell where he was. He figured it out quickly, though. When he stretched his leg out, his bare foot impacted a chain-link cage.

This had to be the kennel.

It was another unpretentious room, with a row of individual dog cages lining one wall and one big cage along the other. He was in the big cage, which he took to be a communal area for dogs that were well-socialized. It was a good-sized space. Eight by eight. People loved their dogs.

He was still naked. Small blessing: he didn’t have a collar on.

He heard a rustle of clothing. Emma, standing up from on top of one of the smaller cages. She had on what had to be one of Angel’s oversized work shirts. It fell to midthigh. Frank couldn’t say if Emma was wearing anything underneath the poncho-like garment. She was even going barefoot. Her toenails were losing their varnish; he wondered if she’d ever paint them again.

“CHRISTY!” Emma called through the open door, out into the corridors, shouting at the top of her lungs. “HE’S UP!”

It was quite a change from the last thing he’d heard her shouting…

“Don’t worry. We’re not going to make you our sex slave,” Emma teased him.

Frank got to his feet. Emma didn’t look away. He didn’t try to either hide or display himself.

Emma gave him a consoling smile. “We put a bathrobe in there, in case you want to put something on. And there’s some of Angel’s clothes here. I’m no seamstress, but Christy could take them in if you need something to wear. She could let them out too… in places. Not that I’m sure she’d like you to know that…”

Frank checked the cage. The bars were solid. Well-built because that was the only way they knew how to build them. He wouldn’t get through them, even if they hadn’t been built to hold a man. The door was more of the same, with a simple latch to keep the dogs inside.

The girls had wrapped a chain around the door and its frame, a simple lock holding the chain shut. Frank took the chain and examined in. Pulling on a link and seeing if it bent. It didn’t. He moved onto the next one, remembering old westerns… how you could tell if a golden coin was real by checking its softness with your teeth.

Christina came in. She held a kitchen knife and she wore a teal top over a black skirt. The sleeves ran to her forearms and the skirt came down to her ankles. It made for quite a contrast with Emma, who was even now playing with the hem of her commandeered shirt, bringing it thoughtlessly up the length of her legs until it was almost at her crotch… maybe covered, maybe not.

“Emma,” Christina said, and Emma rolled her eyes and backed up. She kept a hand fisted in the excess length of her shirt, letting it sway unthinkingly at her side. Christina gave her a look, then ignored her in favor of Frank. “I realize you’re probably upset—”

“Uh-huh,” Frank said, trying another link in the chain. It was solid as could be. He went onto the next.

“This isn’t personal… it’s not a judgment,” Christina rephrased. “We just can’t trust you, you see… we’re not crazy. We’re not going to kill you for no reason. We need some more facts, that’s all. Before we’re comfortable letting you have free run of the place.”

Frank said nothing. He had figured this all out already. It’d been a fifty-fifty shot whether they would try something like this. The coin had landed heads instead of tails—that was all.

He pulled on the next link in the chain. It held, but the rigid metal shook with tension. Frank guessed he was more frustrated than was making out of his body and up into his head.

“Tell him we're not punishing him,” Emma said.

Christina bobbed her head until it became a nod. “This isn't a punishment. We know you can't like it in there, but if there's anything we can do to make you comfortable. We could get you something to read or bring up a projector if you want to watch a movie…”

“And she can cook,” Emma added. “If you want ice cream or more wine… I do appreciate you killing her husband… maybe almost as much as she does… ah, screw it, Christy, let's leave and let him brood. We'll be happy, he'll be… his version of happy… he's already in the cage, we don't have to sell him on it.”

“We need to let him out eventually,” Christina whispered.

“We need to spend six fucking weeks in this pit, that's what we need to do.”

“You want to leave him here,” Christina asked urgently, turning away from Frank to face Emma.

Frank tested another link in the chain.

“I don't want to be down here,” Emma stressed. “When it's time to leave, we can put a saw in his cell. By the time he cuts through the chain…”

“What if you can't cut through a chain with a saw?”

“We'll take the key and we'll freeze it inside a block of ice.”

“He could smash a block of ice.”

“We'll put it in the cell when he's asleep.”

“Look at this fucking Seal Team Six motherfucker! What if he wakes up? He'll be at that ice the moment we turn our backs.”

“So you want to kill him?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You're not saying much else.”

“Frank… Mr. Punisher… what assurance can you give us–“ Christina turned to Frank and saw that he'd found a weak link.

Frank pulled on either end of the chain, putting all his strength on the one link between his fists. His biceps bulged. His abs stood out in stark relief from his belly. And the chain gave, metal twisting and rending until it slipped loose of its neighbors.

Frank wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, pulled in a deep breath, and opened the latch.

Christina and Emma shrank back. Christina held out her kitchen knife. Frank stepped out of his cage, but didn't come any closer.

“Where’d you get the clothes?”

“What?” Christina asked.

“Your clothes. Angel's clothes. Where are they?”

“The closet in Angel’s man cave,” Emma squeaked.

Frank nodded. “Is anyone going to make a run to the gun vault?” he asked casually.

Emma froze.

Christina froze.

“Since it’s only us down here, I see no reason for anyone to arm themselves,” he continued.

“Easy for you to say,” Emma snapped. “You’re not in much danger of losing to us in a fistfight.”

“Either of you fired a gun before?” He didn’t have to look to see them shake their heads. “You’d be more likely to shoot yourselves than to take me out.”

“There are worse things that could happen than us shooting ourselves,” Christina intoned.

“They won’t happen.”

Christina and Emma looked at each other.

“We don’t know you,” Emma said. “We don’t.”

“I’ll tell you one thing about me.” Frank took a few steps to the doorway. “I can’t stay awake forever.”

“What’s that mean?” Emma demanded.

“I mean that if I were to mistreat you, I’d have to worry about you killing me in my sleep. About you getting a gun or a knife and attacking me while I walked by you. About you putting poison in my food. I don’t want to worry about that. If you don’t believe I won’t hurt you, believe I won’t hurt myself. It’ll be six weeks before the radiation dissipates enough for us to even think about leaving. I suggest we agree on détente. I’ll stay out of your way. You stay out of mine.”

Christina didn’t know what Emma would say to that. After the breakdown in her bitchy façade, she seemed to be trying to make up for lost time, asserting her independence and throwing her weight around.

She knew Frank had said they were safe with him—and he’d been at least as good as his word, freeing her sister from that psycho Angel—but she didn’t want to push it.

Frank took off. More interested in getting fresh clothes than retaliating against them.