Losing his smile, he asks, “In that fantasy world you wish for, what happens with us?”
“As you said, you’d worship me like Kai does Sunny. But I’m not her, and you’re not him. Fucking me stupid won’t change our reality.”
Cobain returns to the window and shakes his head. “Well, once your brain is done figuring out shit, my dick is ready.”
Smiling, I curl up on the bed and check my phone. Mama sent a message earlier about how much she misses me. I reply with my own text, wishing we were together again. The trip to this country might have helped Kai and me find ourselves, but I’m more than ready for it to be over.
COBAIN
Fucking women. They always know how to play me. Neri’s no different. The worst part is she isn’t even running a con.
Logically, Neri wants me to protect her and the others until they’re home. She should be using sex to keep me blinded to my own safety and needs. Instead, she brings up kids and how we won’t last.
Neri isn’t dumb. She knows getting my back up over the future will make me more likely to ditch her, but she doesn’t care.
That’s why I’m in a bad mood even after she stops all her fucking thinking and decides to strip naked. I ought to tell her no. Get her back up. Put her on the defensive.
But the woman’s too damn tempting, and I’m not giving up the chance to fuck her. I’m not dumb either.
But I am irritated. Neri shouldn’t be worrying about kids. She’s only twenty-two. Who needs kids at that age? Or any age? If my mother made a different choice with me, she might have lived longer. Kids slow down even the coldest person.
I never want children. I don’t even know if I want to live in Nicaragua. I’m a man suited to colder temperatures and away from tourist spots. Nothing about that country or life interests me except for Neri.
And this particular woman must remain mine. Sure, that likely won’t happen long term. Yet keeping Neri is why I’m still alive. It’s also why I sat in that muggy indoor pool room and listened to them splash around like idiot children. I do what needs to be done to keep her.
“Your beard,” whispers a freshly satisfied Neri, smiling as she fixes it. “I left it all wet and sticky.”
Shit like that shouldn’t make me smile. Fucking is just fucking. There doesn’t need to be more to it than getting off, but I need Neri to remain close after my dick is satisfied.
How many women have I ever gone down on before? Priscilla claimed I was too sloppy of a lover to trust with her most cherished possession. The woman treated her clit as if it were the crown jewel. I never thought to ask why. Women and conversation rarely interested me, even when I was younger and far more gullible.
“Do you have any other income source besides killing for your father?” I ask while she rests naked on her stomach and swings her feet back and forth.
Neri watches me, wearing a faint smile. My question doesn’t register, or at least, she doesn’t react to it right away.
“I work in tourism,” she finally says and sits up to face me. “Papa owns a boat and takes rich foreigners out to fish and snorkel. The women all flirt with him and Kai. I go with them sometimes, but I’ve been working more in real estate the last year. Knowing English helps when selling properties to Americans.”
“Do you have many friends?” I ask, trying to picture her world that I’ll never fit in.
“No. We’re a family full of secrets. I know many people, but I would only consider a few of them friends.”
“Secrets,” I mutter, thinking of Gator and his broken woman raising two overly confident children in a beach paradise.
“Can I ask questions about your life?” Neri whispers.
“No.”
“Not questions about your time at the safe house. I think I got the gist of that story.”
“No.”
“I’m more interested in what your childhood was like.”
“I was never a child.”
Neri grins and takes my hand. “How did you get these marks on your knuckles?”
“I was born with them.”
“Born full-grown and with these scars?” she murmurs, amused by my stubbornness.
“Exactly.”
“Who was the best lover you ever had?” she asks, begging for trouble.
“A professional girl in Berlin. Mouth like a vacuum cleaner.”
“Is that really safe, though?” she asks, reaching for my cock. “Wouldn’t the suction be dangerous?”
“You’re so naïve.”
“I’m not the man who just told the truth about his best lover. You really don’t know how to manipulate anyone at all, do you, Cobain?”
“Should I have said you?”
“Of course!” she cries dramatically. “The truth has no place between two naked people!”
Chuckling, I consider instigating another fuck. I’m tired, though. I hated the bed in the other room, and I hated the chair at the safe house. I miss my shitty mattress and my home for ten years. A dark feeling comes over me when I imagine my safe house as a charred hole in the ground. I miss my old life, but Neri couldn’t be part of it. Even if the house wasn’t gone, she wouldn’t last long in such a barren land. I had to leave my home because losing her would have been unforgivable.
Maybe that’s why I try to adjust to the thought of doing the family crap Neri wants. I should assume she’ll lose interest once there’s no one chasing us. Yet there’s nothing particularly frivolous about Neri. She doesn’t seem easily swayed, and she offered her virginity to me rather than what must have been plenty of interested men. Sure, Gator probably scared away many of them, but she’s been in the US for weeks. A lot of men wanted what she offered to only me. That has to mean something.
Fuck, now I’m getting sentimental! My mother would hate to see me so weak. She wanted her son to be a terrifying force of nature, not a grown man swooning over a stranger. More than once, my mother told me how she almost loved my father, but she knew he could never love her back.
“Why waste my heart on a liar?” she said and smiled. “Love breaks even the strongest people, but it offers nothing of value in return. Don’t fall for its tricks, son. Keep your heart safe and strong.”
My mother was right about love. Falling for Neri has made me weak, afraid even. I even find myself trying to imagine the life she craves with me. Watching her dress, I attempt to mentally force my ill-tempered presence into her idyllic existence in Nicaragua. None of it fits. I’m not the man she needs, and this realization breaks me a little.
After the kid wakes up, we open the doors between the two rooms. Anika peeks around the corner at me. In her hand is that ugly doll. I don’t know where the duck toy is, and I hope she hasn’t lost it. I’d prefer to get through the entire day without her losing her shit.
Neri appears behind the kid and taps her shoulder with the duck. As they return to the other room, I sit in a chair and study the security cameras.
When I hear Neri and the kid getting louder next door, I consider shutting the door. I don’t need them bothering me or irritating Robin hiding in the bathroom. I swear the dog’s more homesick than I am.
However, since Neri won’t approve of me closing myself off, I leave the door open. My reward for behaving is the squealing kid headed in my direction. She takes one look at me, though, and stops in her tracks. Smile gone. The pout is coming. Then that submit shit will happen.
“Can you say ‘duck’?” I ask in a desperate attempt to prevent a wailing tantrum.
Anika studies me for a few seconds, and I try my fucking hardest to seem friendly, but I doubt my face changes much. Still, it does the trick because she suddenly cries, “Duck!”
Just then, Anika sees Neri creeping behind her with the toy and runs back to the other room.
“I saw that, lover,” Neri coos, and gives me the smile of a woman planning to reward my pathetic attempt.
“It really takes so little to impress you,” I mutter.
Neri smiles wider a
nd then chases after Anika. The two of them play tag for a half hour before falling silent in the next room. I finally force my ass out of the chair to check on the quiet foursome.
Three of them sit in one bed. Anika rests against her mother’s chest while watching something on a tablet. Sunny’s focus is on Kai, who whispers to her in a language she doesn’t understand.
At the hotel’s small table, Neri stares at her phone and frowns. Her mouth opens as if to speak to her brother, but then her gaze finds me. Before she puts on a smile for my benefit, there’s genuine fear in her brown eyes. Her refusal to share why she’s worried reminds me why I shouldn’t get comfortable with Neri or the promises she makes.
KAI
In this hotel room—while I hold a smiling Sunny and my sister plays with Anika—I can forget the trouble waiting for us in the world. Earlier at the pool, I felt like I was on holiday again. Tomorrow, before we leave, I hope to swim more with Anika and Sunny.
Around six, we call in a huge order from a local Mexican restaurant. Milder foods for Sunny and Anika and stronger flavors for Neri, Cobain, and me. Our family dinner is delivered by a young man who tries talking up Neri at the door. At first, I assume he’s flirting.
Cobain—hiding out of sight of the man—signals for me to check the security cameras. Except for the delivery man, the hallway remains empty. In the parking lot, though, two men peer inside the windows of the Suburban.
“Is this all for you?” the man asks Neri.
I storm to the door and grab the bags from his hands. “Do you think flirting with my wife will get you a larger tip, asshole?”
“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asks, still playing his friendly game.
I hand the food to Neri before shoving the man against the wall across from our door.
“Everyone loves money so much that they forget to love life,” I hiss while staring into his startled eyes. “The thought of green blinds them to the color red.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he stammers, trying to break free of my grip.
“Do you have a mother?”
“Of course.”
I tighten my hand across his throat. “Will she be the one to identify your body, or will your father do the deed?”
“Are you threatening me?”
I smile grimly at his amateur tough guy routine. “You should kill us and take the bounty. Then you can buy your mom something nice. Get a car for yourself. Live a better life, just until my people from Mexico show up in this nothing town and wipe out everyone you hold dear. What use is there in living to old age, eh, Craig?”
Stepping back, I let him go. “Will you shoot me now? No, you can’t. My wife will kill you instantly. You’ll need to lie in wait out by our car.”
The Suburban’s alarm begins blaring outside, and I imagine his friends’ reaction to the sudden, loud noise. Sweating now, Craig glances in the direction of the parking lot.
“Yes, you can wait outside for us tonight. You can’t know when we'll leave. Wait in the dark, and hope we don’t circle around behind you and cut your throats.”
“You’re crazy.”
Sighing, I pretend I’m sympathetic to his plight. “I only imagine one scenario where you aren’t dead by the end of this year. Except I don’t think you'll walk away and convince your friends how dying young will only break your mothers’ hearts. No, you’ll die trying to get rich. Am I wrong?”
Craig doesn’t want to die. He’s scared in a way any normal person would be. If he were a professional, he wouldn’t have been so obvious at the door with Neri. His friends would suspect someone might be watching our car. These are amateurs looking for easy money. And I have no intention of making anything easy for them.
“Just take your fucking food,” he mutters.
“But you didn’t get paid,” I call out and shove him to the wall again. Holding his gaze, I jam cash in his hand. “If you’re lucky enough to kill us, just remember that the cartel will know your name. Craig from Tortilla Grill. They’ll have the pictures of your friends from outside and the ones we took of you here. Finding and killing your family will be easy.”
“I just want to leave.”
Releasing him, I offer a smile. “Enjoy your tip, Craig.”
The man hurries away, glancing fearfully back more than once. I return to the room where Neri waits with a gun, and Cobain watches the men outside.
“I bet the little one pissed himself when the alarm went off,” he mutters. “Think they’ll be back?”
“No, but someone at the hotel staff must have tipped them off.”
Neri’s lips form a tight line as she stares at the door. “Or the delivery person from last night or someone who heard my accent when I ordered the food. These small businesses don’t have online ordering.”
“I can order next time,” Sunny says in nearly a whisper.
We all look at her, which is a mistake. She immediately lowers her gaze, worried she said something wrong.
My hand brushes her cheek to calm her, but I know what Cobain and Neri are thinking.
“Should we leave?” my sister asks.
“My gut says no.”
Cobain nods. “If we leave, we’ll just end up in a different tiny nothing town. At least here, we have some sense of the threat. The next hotel might be more crowded, or the cops could be crooked. If the worst we have to worry about in this shithole is a few Aryan wannabe tough guys, I think we ought to stick to the plan.”
Neri holsters her weapon. “What if they mess with the cars?”
I switch to Spanish to say, “They only know about ours, not Cobain’s. Besides, they can’t bomb the SUV if they hope to bring the girls back alive. No matter what the cult says, they want Anika, or they likely won’t pay. Though the locals might attempt to damage the Suburban, Cobain is right about the skill level of the thugs in this town. They won’t know how to do more than disable the tires.”
“He’s right,” Cobain says, switching to Spanish too since Sunny and Anika don’t need to hear about bombs or killings. “Those assholes jumped a foot off the ground when the SUV’s alarm went off. These are not pros. If they hit us, they’ll try to do it outside of town as we’re leaving. They won’t want witnesses. I doubt they’ll try now that Kai scared them with talk of cartels, but if they do, that’s how they’ll try.”
Sunny might not understand Spanish, but she’s aware we’ve changed languages to shield her and Anika.
“Let’s eat before the food gets cold,” I announce in English and gesture for Sunny to join me at the table. “The curtains are closed, and the doors are locked. If these people start trouble, we’ll make quick work of them. Nothing has changed.”
Sunny doesn’t believe me, but she still smiles. Since her tears at the pool, she’s relaxed and enjoying every moment based on her belief that we’ll be dead tomorrow. I’m on board with whatever tactic Sunny needs to use to get her through the day. Once we’re safe in Playa Cielo, she can hope for more.
Until then, I have enough dreams for us both.
SUNNY
Anika amazes me. She’s always been a joyful, curious child. Most kids submitted so much faster and easier than she did. I thought it was my fault that she didn’t lose her light. That my hatred for the Children of the Black Sun infected her, forcing my baby to suffer more before submitting.
But Anika’s just brave and strong. Given a chance to play and talk, she shines more and more. I watch Neri chase her with Duck and marvel at how untroubled my little girl behaves. We are in a strange place again. Everything about her life has been turned upside down. Yet when Kai and Neri encourage her to engage with the world, she can’t deny herself any longer.
Even at dinner, she sits confidently at the table and tries the rice and meat. Then I catch her eyeing Kai’s food. He notices too and says she can have a bite if she uses her words.
Soon, Anika is eating tamales and chatting with him. Of course, most of what she says is gibberish. Sh
e doesn’t know the words to most things. She fills in her sentences with words that make no sense. Kai never shows that he doesn’t understand. Instead, he acts as if he finds her mesmerizing. When she spits out a spicy tomato, he laughs at her expression but doesn’t get angry over her wasting food.
“We’ll still swim tomorrow before we leave,” he tells me later while Anika sits with Neri and watches a movie.
I smile at the thought of Kai shirtless. Based on Jedidiah’s lectures, lust is probably the worst sin. I remember being heavily pregnant with a child forced inside my body as Jedidiah raged at the outside world’s over-sexualization and lack of modesty. I’d still been a little rebellious, if only in my head. Hearing him mock how much the outsiders wanted sex, I recognized his hypocrisy. He claimed the flock only fornicated to create life, but he and the shepherds still raped me after I was pregnant. They were indulging their lust.
Then I gave birth, and the fight left my heart, and my mind silenced all questioning. I chose to forget and submit for Anika.
Now I want to do more than survive. I crave the heat stirring in my gut whenever Kai touches me. My fingers often seek out the heat of his skin. Earlier when I teased his blond waves, Kai gave me a look that proved lust isn’t bad. Nothing he does is ever wrong. The man is perfect.
Neri seems to feel the same way about Cobain. They sneak off to the other room and claim they’re tired. It’s possible they’re sick of “Frozen 2,” but I think they crave sex again.
Once the movie ends, Anika wants to sleep. I cuddle in bed with her and talk about the sisters from the movie. I’m trying to use words more, even if my brain warns I’m talking too much and need to be quiet.
In a room lit only by the tablet playing a video of ocean waves, Kai sits at the table. He checks the security cameras in the SUV. Worrying he won’t sleep all night, I think to go sit with him, but then, another idea comes to me.
Once Anika is deep asleep, I leave our bed and pull back the blankets on the other one. Kai watches my movements but is slow to join me.
Shellshock (Spent Shells, #2) Page 8