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He was brusquely informed he'd have ten minutes to change out of the BPO issued scrubs and into his clothes, escorted by three anonymous hazmat suits with guns at his back. The one barking instructions led the way, gripping his arm like Wolfgang's father would grip it. The pain was the point. He may have been faceless behind his mask but Wolfgang was certain it was the same goon who'd sucker punched him in the ribs before administering a sedative, payback for getting loose and killing enough of those fuckers that he lost count.
That only took ten minutes too.
Smiling at his own reflection in the mask as his handcuffs were roughly removed, Wolfgang took a step back away from their raised guns so they could shut the door in his face and lock him in. The room was the size of a storage closet. It had a metal sink above a metal toilet and no mirror. Some generic toiletries, nothing he could use as a weapon to cause any more damage to himself or others.
The clothes he’d been wearing when he was abducted were unceremoniously piled on top of his boots and he stood there for a moment, struck by the memory of him and Kala jointly packing for Paris. The levity of it, her playfully returning his gun that she wasn't really holding, him not giving back her red lingerie. Telling her he loved her. Speaking those words for the first time in his life, words that he'd felt since the second he saw her.
Words that condemned her the second Whispers jammed that needle in his neck.
He'd been so close. Just a little too late to escape the cannibal, sicced on him by that bitch Lila. But if he'd finished any earlier, they could've caught him when he was picking up something far more important to him than anything he could pack: Felix. And Whispers wouldn't have hesitated to have him killed.
Would his cluster have thought to call him? He'd barely been awake long enough in…however long it had been to think about Felix. Just torture every waking moment while Whispers was around, followed by vivid recollections of his mother that haunted him in and out of consciousness once Whispers was gone. Memories of hunting down and murdering his father, and hazy plans of doing the same to anyone he could get his hands on at BPO. And then her. Kala, reaching out to him through blockers and sedatives, the sound of her voice leading him back to her.
Yes, Kala would've taken care of it. She worked best in times of crisis. In between bouts of being electrocuted vicariously through him, she would've thought of Felix's safety. She knew how important he was.
Even now the pain was still fresh in Wolfgang's mind, the shame and anger moreso, the helplessness of it like bile in his mouth. And somehow them giving him privacy to get dressed alone like at the end of a doctor's appointment made it that much more violating. Ten minutes.
He sat on the cold floor. Judging by the lingering tenderness in his ribs where he'd been punched, it had been a few days since his brief escape. He had a deep bruise where he tore out the IV, deeper now from Hazmat gripping him there deliberately.
Setting his clothes aside, Wolfgang picked up his boots. Soles that had seen miles of Berlin from the club district to the cemetery where his father was buried, and tracked the blood of his uncle through his family's house. He'd planned to leave them on a curb, to wear the new ones Felix convinced him to buy that had been sitting at the bottom of his wardrobe ever since with the tags still on. His life had been about to change, he was about to meet her, and he couldn't wear those old shoes anymore.
How many sensates had lived to see this room? Had actually walked out of their own accord without Whispers at the helm, turning them into assassins. Collaborators who sold out their own people for leniency, who weren't categorized Feral and Hostile. How many like Lila with a collar around her neck. What Wolfgang wouldn't have given to take control of that leash, to choke the life out of her like she deserved.
He unlaced his left boot and set the leather bootlace on the pile of his clothes. Reaching inside the boot, Wolfgang removed the insole and carefully slid out a long embedded razor blade. He methodically wrapped the lace around the blade so he could safely hold it and placed his boots and clothes in the sink. Then he stood at the door and patiently waited for his time to be up.
The door unlocked and he stepped back, giving Hazmat a chance to take in the scene of him still wearing scrubs and get heated over the insubordination. The guns behind him didn't concern Wolfgang in the slightest. It was just for show. They wouldn't shoot him, and by the time they pulled out their tasers instead it would be over.
Hazmat went for him, that familiar intent to hurt him—to punish him—for the disobedience thick in the air between them. Wolfgang drove the razor blade straight into the softest part of his throat and pulled it across just like Joaquin told Lito it shouldn't be done. Guns were raised but not fired as blood sprayed over him, soaking through the scrubs down to his skin. Hazmat coughed and gurgled his way to the floor, pooling blood around Wolfgang's bare feet.
He let the razor fall to the ground with a clink as it unraveled from the shoelace still gripped between his fingers. Glancing at the guns, he wiped blood off his face with his other hand. "I'm gonna need another ten minutes."
***
Wolfgang could barely hear his thoughts over the whooping of the propeller, but since he was used to techno music so loud it rattled his bones, the only difference here was the lack of a beat. He wondered whether he'd still be forced to wear the bag over his head the entire helicopter ride if he hadn't taken out yet another BPO employee, but given the opportunity he would've gladly chosen the messier option again. There would be time for sightseeing later. Revenge was more important.
His ears popped as they began their descent to the next stage of this shitty excursion and someone finally pulled the bag off. He flinched against the blinding brightness. He was used to that with clubbing too, disoriented by daylight after spending so much time in alternating darkness and strobe lights.
There were cars waiting for them in the hangar, and more hazmat suits with guns they weren't permitted to use. The chickenshit chairman hadn't come to see him off but the secretary was there, saying something Wolfgang didn't catch over the ringing in his ears. Then Kala appeared and threw her arms around him and he didn't care about anything else.
Until Lila showed up and they were both only thinking about one thing, and his shackles were the one thing keeping them from carrying it out.
"What the fuck is she doing here?" Wolfgang initially had some conflicting feelings about killing a woman. Sun automatically took over to punch her in the restaurant so he wouldn't have to use his fists, and head butting her to sit her ass down was certainly justified. But any residual hesitation ended with the first zap of the taser in his apartment when Kala went down too. Kala’s intentions would've been there from about two seconds after Lila introduced herself with her hand on his cock.
"Your cluster wanted to make sure you were undamaged, and we want the same thing," the secretary explained. "Ms Facchini is the only sensate connected to both you and Milton."
Wolfgang really hoped Milton was as undamaged as he’d been. And if he got the chance to further undamage him at the meetup, not even Kala could stop him from taking it.
"Ready to come home, Milton?" Lila asked. She could've spoken to him in her head. It was just as likely she said it aloud to rub it in Wolfgang's face as for the secretary's benefit.
Whispers spent a year harassing Will nonstop once he had access to his mind. Somehow now that Wolfgang was free and off blockers, he didn’t seem interested in coming to whisper hello to him. The feeling was mutual. Wolfgang didn't want to see him again until he could do something about it.
The tasers came out as they were ushered into the car. So did the claws. "You look like shit," Lila said.
"So do you," Kala spat.
"Is she here?" Lila asked with a smirk.
Kala scowled, gripping his hand nearly as tight as Hazmat gripped his arm. “Of course I'm here.”
"Does she know we slept together?"
"That doesn’t make you special," Kala scoffed. “It just makes you a Berliner.”
The secretary raised his eyebrows at Wolfgang, seeming to sense the tension between the two of them was not coming from him.
"I can’t wait until she joins you on the chopping block. I'll toast to her demise."
"With your crappy two thousand year old wine? Your people rotted grapes. Mine wrote the Kama Sutra."
He couldn’t help but smile. This from a woman whose first time having sex ended with her husband in the hospital. A husband who just walked into the room.
“Will says it’s time,” Rajan said. “Is that Wolfgang?”
“I’ll be right there.”
"Okay."
“You told him?” he gaped, watching Rajan leave the room. Still wearing his wedding ring. And she had hers.
“Kinda? It was implied, and he still wants to help. Oh! And we called Felix. I’ll see you soon." She gave him a quick kiss, and Lila another glare. "I love you. Try not to kill anyone else before the exchange."
Clearing his throat, he looked away.
"Already?"
He shrugged. She shook her head and left.
"Is she gone?" Lila asked with a mocking pout.
The longing must've been clear on his face, but fortunately it was easily replaced with murderous rage. They sat staring each other down across the car just as they had in the restaurant. He could've gone for some Italian food. Or any food. He'd even settle for some crappy two thousand year old wine. But that—and the Kama Sutra—could wait. For now, he was just looking forward to finally seeing Paris.