Lost Bird

6

6

As James walked across campus toward her advance corporate accounting class, she couldn't help but remember how she had ended up here.

Flashback

After leaving Russia, things got even worse for James. John got paranoid and pretty much obsessed with hiding James. It had taken her a little over three weeks for her to heal to the point of being functioning again after the initial beatings she had received before leaving Russia.

In those three weeks, John left her to herself. No beatings, no yelling, nothing. James had stupidly thought he was starting to get over the need to constantly hurt her.

She should have known better.

When John noticed that she was moving around again, the nightly visits started again. They werent quite as bad as they had been in the past. Almost as if he wasn't trying to slowly kill her anymore. Just remind her that he hated the very idea of her. Lots of cracked ribs, broken fingers from him stomping on them and surprise punches to whatever part of her that was in reach.

No more knives or being put in the box. Unless they were relocating. Again. And move they did. It went from once or twice a year to every few weeks. What John did different this time around was set up numerous permanent compounds, instead of one temporary one at a time. He moved between these randomly.

James never knew where she was anymore. She did start to recognise the compounds after repeat visits. But they were now so isolated she couldn't even figure out which country most of them were in.

One very good thing came from this routine. During one of their first moves, John had asked one of his inner circle, Max, to move the box from his room to the plane. After he had threatened Max with a very painful and long drawn out death if he opened it, he handed the box over and took off to handle a transport issue that had come up with the latest shipment.

Max didn't understand what could be so important about the small and insignificant box/trunk. It was heavier than expected, but he figured it was cash or some kind of important paperwork. He could care less. He wanted out. He had never wanted this for his life. And after his mentor Chris had gone missing he started to actively look for a way to safely get out.

He was only there because Chris had found him abandoned on the streets at the age of eight and had raised him as his own son. Chris had his flaws and he was most definitely a criminal. But he had loved Max fiercely. He had tried to shield Max from the worst of it, but John had made it clear, bring him into the fold or he would get rid of him permanently.

When Max had seriously knuckled down on finding an out, he had debated going to the authorities. But he knew he had no physical evidence.

But now that John had started to pull him in even closer in the inner circle, he knew he could start to collect the evidence that he needed to shut it all down. Max didn't want to hurt anyone. He had taught himself computers and coding. He then got into hacking and helped John's empire that way. It was no excuse for what he did, but he periodically tried to leak info to the authorities about hits on innocents whenever he could. He accepted the fact that there was a black mark on his soul for all the things he had done and probably would do in the future. But he wouldn't give up hope of trying to do good whenever he could.

Max loaded the box into the front passenger seat of his car. His trunk was already filled with his and Johns luggage. He jumped in and took off for the private airfield that housed John's personal jet. As he pulled up to the hangar, some idiot ran out in front of him trying to catch a runaway luggage cart. Max swore loudly and slammed on the breaks. The box flew forward and hit his dash, hard. A muffled cry of pain came from the box and Max could only stare at it in shock. It half sat in the footwell and Max prayed he had imagined that sound.