Perfect Kill. Helen Fields

to participate. You can stop looking at me like I’m something you trod in, you snotty bitch. I’m a fuckin’ businessman, that’s what I am.’

      A thousand pounds, Elenuta thought, to be able to chase and capture a woman to rape, beat and abuse on camera, in front of an audience. In the end though, not so different than what happened to all of them every day. Just less of a spectacle.

      Three of the screen sections disappeared as one enlarged to follow the progress of the big man more closely. The drone was overhead both him and one of the women, face to face, each panting, him grinning, her glancing backwards at the stretch of broken glass on the floor behind her that was perhaps four metres long. Too long to jump but there was no way she was going to be able to climb the partition. The only other option was to fight the man, and hope she could deal enough of a blow to give her time to escape the way she’d come.

      He motioned to her with his fingers, palms up. Come on then, was the message. Just you try it. The woman whipped round, dipping down as she went, grabbing a piece of broken glass in her left hand. She was no fool. He had several stone on her, and even though they were the same height, fighting him off was going to be tough unarmed. With the glass though, she stood a chance.

      He took a step back, taking his time, before pulling a pair of leather gloves from his pocket. It wouldn’t stop the glass entirely, Elenuta thought, but it gave him more protection. Certainly he wasn’t about to back down now. He’d paid a thousand pounds and he wanted it repaid in flesh.

      The woman stepped forward, keeping just out of grabbing distance, but presenting the man with an opportunity to try. He lunged for her and she leapt backwards and to one side, pulling the man’s arm and propelling him towards the glass-covered section of floor then letting him go. He fell under his own momentum, helped by his front-loaded gravity. Only letting himself crash to his knees first saved him from being peppered with broken glass from head to toe. Still, he howled in pain. The woman was already gone, leaping back down the corridor in which she’d been caught, glass fragment held out front. The man got up slowly, his knees and lower legs bloodied, staggering slightly before righting himself fully. Wrenching a shard of glass from one leg, he shouted into the empty area. Elenuta’s nails were her own shards of glass in her palms. If the man caught up with that same woman again, he would make her pay over and over, once for the pain and again for the humiliation. He hurled the slice of glass at the drone hovering about his head, and spun round to follow her. Slowly this time, though. He wouldn’t be sprinting again for a while. Elenuta allowed herself a smile.