“This time, my guardian’s going to kill you,” Angelica spat as Mr. Scarred Face walked toward her, his face too oily you could fry your breakfast on it. “He won’t like it when he finds out,” she warned, taking a step back.

“Your guardian is not near,” Mr. Scarred Face said with the same menacing voice he had the last time.

“There are a lot of people here,” she told him, her eyes silently calculating the distance to the door. “If you as much as take me outside, you’ll be dead.”

“Who said we’re taking you outside?” he said, an evil look lighting up his eyes. “You should have killed us when you got the chance, sweetheart.”

“I’ll kill you now if you give me that,” she uttered the words with rage. “I swear I’m going to kill you!”

“Let me have her, boss,” Mr. Black Guy said, stepping forward.

“Oh, yeah, let him,” Angelica said with a chuckle. “How are your balls, big guy?”

Rage rose up Mr. Black Guy’s face, his nostrils flaring. “Let me have her!” he cried once again.

“Calm down,” Mr. Scarred Face said, his lips twitching. “You’re still as loud as the last time,” he told her, stepping forward.

“I can be louder if you touch me,” she warned, her hand going at the back pocket of her jeans. She punched the only button she could think of and she prayed Henry would get it. He was on her fast dial and time was all she had to have before he came to the rescue.

Mr. Scarred Face grabbed her hand too strongly that she cringed. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just about to text a friend that I met some kidnappers inside a freaking bathroom,” she snapped at him, leaning her head away from him. “God, you stink, you know that? You’re in a tropical country and you should have taken a bath.”

She received a really powerful slap for that. “Shut up!” he hissed down at her.

“One,” she said, spitting out blood. “You’ll receive a really good gut-wrenching punch from my guardian with every slap you give me,” she stated furiously. “And he’s not a very forgiving man, you know.”

Mr. Scarred Face pulled her roughly against him, his stinking smell running up her nostrils that Angelica cringed further away. Mr. Black guy moved from the door with purposeful strides and in his hand he held a gun with a silencer attached to it. Angelica felt the fear striking in now.

What’s keeping Henry?

*****

The two other guys standing by the door outside the bathroom was what was keeping him from going in after Angelica. They were not able to spot him yet, thank the people around the area for that.

He couldn’t use force and that would be stupid. Calling security would take a lot of time, so there was only one option left. He didn’t have any idea what was happening inside, but he knew Angelica was in trouble. He placed his phone back inside his pocket and ran to the nearest solution he could think of.

The fire alarm.

People were busy with their own thing and no one saw him break the glass and pulled the lever. The sound echoed everywhere and there was a momentary pause as people tried to recognize the alarm, and when they did, panic rose up everywhere. Everyone ran toward the exit and he fought his way back to the bathroom. The two men standing by were at a loss, their faces obviously alarmed as well. He took his chance and grabbed the bald guy first by the hand. He used their surprise to his advantage by kicking the other man in the gut that sent him flying toward the mob. He sliced his hand against the nape of the bald guy and threw him to where the first guy was in the midst of the panicking crowd.

Rushing to the door, he kicked it open. The black guy turned around with his gun and for a few seconds, he was frozen. When he snapped out of it, he started to point the gun at Henry, but Henry was already running with a roundhouse kick on the way.

“Henry!” Angelica shouted from the corner.

“Hold on,” he grunted as he finished the black guy with another kick.

“Kill him! I promised them you’ll kill them!”

“What?!” he asked in disbelief as he placed his foot down the black guy’s face, kicking the gun away with the other.

“Shut up!” The man holding Angelica shouted, his hand now holding a dagger against her neck.

“You’re not pointing at the jugular, you moron!” Angelica snapped at him, struggling to get free.

When Henry was sure that the black guy was way under, he straightened. “Your mouth is not helping, Angelica,” he warned her.

“Stay where you are and don’t move! Or I’ll kill her,” the man said, pressing the dagger deeper against Angelica’s neck.

“You’ll solve my problem by doing that,” Henry told him, shrugging his shoulders.

“What? Bell, I’m going to haunt you if you let him!” Angelica scowled.

“Shut up, bitch!”

Henry’s nerves snapped after hearing the man call her that. His eyes travelled to Angelica. He knew she was scared and she was trying to hide it by her stupid mouth and that was not really helping at all.

“Why don’t you be a man and fight me instead?” he challenged. “Come on, you’ll get her if you kill me. Killing her before me will only get you in trouble,” he said.

And of course, the stupid man took his challenge. He threw Angelica against the counter, and she grunted in pain.

“Stay back!” he ordered her when she started for the man, anger in her eyes.

The man walked toward him with cautious steps, blade in hand. Henry took a step until they were making a circle, their bodies positioned for battle at hand. Henry knew he could take the moron down in one shot, but the blade was getting in the way.

“I told you he’s going to come after me, you moron!” he heard Angelica utter with a bragging voice.

“Angelica, shut up,” Henry said coldly, his eyes focused on the man that could get lucky and get them killed. “I’m concentrating here,” he told her.

“Okay, okay, but you better get him. I hate to really wind up dead, you know,” she said with a shaky voice.

“Then shut the hell up,” he roared.

*****

Angelica wanted it to be over. She saw enough movies where the other guys would recover and then attack the protagonist together and she didn’t want that to happen.

Henry and Mr. Scarred Face were wasting a lot of time by circling around the bathroom like wolves and she was desperate to get out safely with Henry.

As Mr. Scarred face neared her, his back hunched, his head forward and his eyes focused on Henry, she saw her opening and waited. When Henry was now facing her from across the room and Mr. Scarred Face’s back was facing her, she ran…and jumped on his back, placing her hand on his face, and scratched all her might.

She was almost thrown off Mr. Scarred Face when he struggled and arched his back in pain.

“Dalton, get off!” Henry shouted, but she barely heard him because she was focused on digging her heels into Mr. Scarred Face’s right lateral thigh.

“Ahhhh! Bitch!” her enemy screamed out loud, and then, he lurched forward, bent on his knee when Henry finally recovered from his shock and jabbed his fist into the guy’s gut. “Ahhh!”

“Angelica, get off him!” Henry scowled at her as the man dropped face down on the floor. She was still riding his back, pulling at his ears this time.

When she did not make any move to get up, Henry took her by the shoulders and pulled her on her feet and dragged her away. She landed two more kicks against the man’s back before Henry finally succeeded. “Who sent you?!” she demanded at the man. “Henry, let me go!”

“I said, stop it! You’re not helping,” he held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Stop,” he ordered.

Her breathing was still ragged and heavy, but she nodded. “Okay, okay, I’m calm…”

And as soon as Henry let go, she strode around him, dropped on the floor beside the still agonizing Mr. Scarred Face. “Angelica!” Henry hissed behind her, but he didn’t do anything else.

She grabbed the man’s left ear to turn his now flushed, grimacing face toward her. “Who sent you?”

“Bitch! You tore my eyes out!” His eyes were closed in pain, but there was no blood. Good, she thought with relief. She didn’t actually mean it when she said she’d kill him.

“Who sent you?” she repeated, growling.

*****

Henry just stood there doing nothing, his hands on his hips. He chose to let Angelica do whatever the hell she wanted. For now, she was safe and that was all that mattered to him. What she was doing was actually a logical thing, but they were running out of time as well.

There were matters he had to do for now. He took his phone and dialed a number. Grissom could help deal with these guys. And as he talked with his superior, he watched his lovely ward torture the man on the floor by pulling at his ear and shouting, demanding the same question. He fought a smile. She was really something.

Grissom was not happy about the events, but he said he’d handle it from there. What he only needed to do was to make sure that the men wouldn’t escape before the Philippine authorities came. His superior hanged up to call and pull some strings, and he turned to face Angelica.

“Police will be coming any time. They will be transferred back to New York once everything is in order and proper interrogation can be done, so you better fix yourself,” he said above her.

Angelica just knelt there on the floor, not moving for a few seconds before dropping the man’s head and stood up. The man just groaned, obviously going down the road of unconsciousness. “I really hate these guys. They won’t even talk.”

“They will,” he promised her, looking her up and down with awe. “You better fix yourself.”

He saw her take a deep breath and nodded. She turned on her heels and her eyes rounded when she saw herself in the mirror. “I look like a mess!”

Actually, she looked like she was just out of bed. Her red hair was everywhere and her dress was askew everywhere. Henry reached down to straighten her skirt.

“Oh my God, my shoes!” she groaned when she flipped her legs behind her and saw that one heel was dangling off the sole. She turned to the guy on the floor and he stopped her as she said, “Now I’m going to kill him!”

“Hey,” he turned her around to face him again. Henry grinned, reached out to tuck some tresses behind her ear and said, “We’ll get you a new one. You can’t kill someone because he ruined the shoe you used to try to kill him.”

“You better get me a new one,” she looked at him stingily. “I saved your life.”

Henry gaped at her. “You what—no, you did not,” he exclaimed, “all you did was make more trouble by jumping on that guy,” he pointed with his finger. “I was just about to have him when you attacked.”

Angelica rolled her eyes, “Whatever,” she sighed and they both turned their heads toward the door when it suddenly burst open, revealing Chanty’s shocked form.

“What the hell happened here?” she cried out, and her eyes rounded when she saw the black guy near the door, and then the one Angelica trampled down the floor lying unconscious. Angelica’s friend’s eyes darted back at them and she repeated, “What the hell happened here?!”