The Karma Project

Chapter 2 - Force and Acceleration

Zoe

The three men that have been hunting after me have finally caught up. I expected them to catch me in the act a lot sooner, especially since I've given up my discreetness. I realized after a while that the cops were no longer looking for me, and I assume Max had something to do with that.

"Who are you?" Max scoffs.

Before I even consider answering him, I catch a man coming in from the window trying to be sneaky but doesn't realize I saw him the moment he perched on the fire escape.

"Come any closer, and I'll pull your insides out through your mouth." I bark over my shoulder.

They stop and I take a few steps in the opposite direction so my back is in a corner while the three of the men stand at the door and the fourth stands at the window. I may not have an easy escape anymore, but at least nobody can attack from behind.

"Answer the question." Max snaps.

"Awe Maxi Pad, I'm a little offended you don't know who I am." I fake a pout as I twirl my switchblade between my fingers. He has dark brown hair and hazel eyes that are bright enough to still see in the poorly lit room. He's as tall as the broad one to his right, almost matching the height of the door frame behind him.

One of the men standing next to him lets out a chuckle, but tries to hide it when Max's face hardens.

"Nice to meet you all." I nod my head at the man to Max's left. He's holding a bat behind his neck and securing it with both of his hands. He's tall, and muscular but leaner than the rest of them. I can see his eyes taking in the entire room but at the same time keeping them locked in on me. He's like a hawk, and he refuses to miss a single detail. He has light brown hair that is tousled and hanging past his forehead and bright blue eyes that resemble a cenote. Tattoos stretch across his arms and peek through the collar of his shirt, his skin riddled with black ink. "Brandon Karma."

Brandon's raised eyebrows tell me I'm correct so I continue, and look at the man standing to the right of Max. He's built like a minotaur, broad and obviously strong. His stance gives him away and is clearly a man with some sort of military background or law enforcement at the least. He's ready for any slight movement that could trigger an attack. His jet black hair is cut short, and his eyes are even darker than his hair if it's possible.

"Dean Karma." I smirk, and once again his facial expression proves me right.

"And finally, that leaves you." I look at the man standing by the window. He's also tall, but only taller than me by a few inches. He's lean but more muscular than Brandon. He has dark brown hair that is pulled back into a low bun and green eyes that are piercing into me. Something about his stare reminds me of a feral animal, darting over my body and my surroundings. But his smile is sinister and stretched across his face as he lowers his head so he can peer up at me through his thick eyebrows. "Teddy fucking Karma."

Max gives a slow clap, breaking my gaze away from Teddy.

"Very good, now what's your name?" He quizzes.

I throw my head back in a humorless laugh, "I guess daddy dearest never did talk about me."

Confusion spreads across all of their faces, but I don't elaborate.

"Since you took it upon yourself to interrupt, I'll let you clean this up. But I better get going." I shug and begin to pack my tools.

I sling my duffle bag over my shoulder, "If you'll excuse me." I go to head out the door, but the men stiffen and slide closer together to further block my exit.

"You're not going anywhere." Dean growls.

I take a step back and look over each of them again, taking in all the weapons they have in their possession. I give myself a moment to calculate the risks. I can take all of them, except Dean... If he wasn't so fucking big I might have been able to just barrel through them and out the door. But I know now that this isn't going to be an easy exit.

I drop my duffel bag back to the ground that's followed by a loud thud.

I let out a labored sigh, "I guess we're doing this. But I do enjoy making men cry."

With that, Brandon is the first to approach, "We'll see who will be the one crying." His cockiness is his weakness, his guard slipped when he looked my body up and down. I took the opportunity to disarm him by taking his bat and quickly swinging it between his legs making him buckle almost instantly. Once he is on his knees, I take the handle end of the bat and roughly jab him in the space between his eyes.

He sank onto his back and continued to hold his groin with one hand, and his head with the other, "Turns out it was you after all." I sneer.

This is when Teddy makes his move.
Teddy jumped onto me, making me crash to the ground, straddling my hips and he brought his lips to my ear, "Is the pretty bird gonna sing me a pretty song?" He licks the shell of my ear.

With a grunt I manage to jolt my hips forward, causing him to fall underneath my grasp and I straddle him. I take the bat I had stolen from Brandon and I press it to Teddy's neck. His Adam's apple bobbing underneath it. I rear my fist and crash it to his jaw that is followed by a satisfying crunch.

"Mm, harder." He flashes me a bloody smile and licks his lips.

Right before I feed him my fist again a hand catches it, and freezes it mid blow. Before I can look up at who is stopping my attack, something heavy thuds itself on the back of my skull and I immediately topple over.

I try to fight the darkness as it starts to swirl by vision but it's all too much.

The room around me starts to spin and four figures loom over me just before the entire world goes black.

The fuckers knocked me out.

I told you, I am at the mercy of bad, bad karma.