by Joss Ware
Tatiana’s voice was low and throaty when she spoke. “Well, well…Simon Japp. It is you. And you haven’t changed a bit in fifty years.”
* * *
March 29
Nine months later.
I still can’t believe this. About three weeks ago, Thad Marck blew up at a city council meeting and they got into a big fight.
I guess they were done with him, because the entire council, along with a bunch of other men kicked Thad and the rest of us out of Envy!
Well, they didn’t kick me out, really, but I decided to go with Kevin. He believes in what Marck wants to do—which is to organize the repopulation of the world, and really focus on making it happen efficiently instead of haphazardly.
I think his basic ideas are all right, I just think he went about it a little too harshly. But anyway, I had the choice to go with Kevin or not, and I just didn’t want to lose another man I love. I mean, it’s been so hard.
So I decided to go with them, and Kevin and I have gotten married. Is that wrong?
There were about twelve of us who left that night, and they gave us food and water and didn’t even wait till sunrise to make us leave. I heard people saying that Thad had gotten violent in the meeting that night, that he and Kevin and Robert had knives and bombs??? That someone almost got killed…but I don’t believe it. It’s just not like them.
I think they just wanted him out of Envy because Mayor Rowe didn’t support his ideas. Whatever.
Anyway, we’ve found a place to live. It’s called Falling Creek, and it’s a much nicer place than Envy will ever be.
—from Adventures in Juliedom, the
blog of Julie Davis Beecher Corrigan
* * *
CHAPTER 11
“Hello, Florita,” Simon replied, keeping his voice cool and even.
He felt Sage’s shock and confusion emanating from her rigid body, but dared not take his eyes from the woman in front of him. The moment she and her companions had appeared, he’d recognized her.
He’d gone cold and blank, and a wave of memories rushed over him, bringing him back to the nightmare, the lost, suffocating nightmare of his other life. It had paralyzed him for a moment, swathing him in darkness and loathing, until he pulled himself beyond the night, and his strength and purpose came roaring back.
He was not that same person. He’d been given another chance.
Now, Florita Tatiane—now known by her stage name Tatiana—looked down at him with the same dark eyes filled with fascination and lust that she’d trained on him more than fifty years ago. Almost fifty-seven, if one were counting.
She looked the same as she had on the poster of her final movie and the cover of her last magazine shoot—thanks to Hollywood, more physically perfect than she had been when he knew her as his boss’s mistress. The only difference was the small blue crystal. The collar of her tight white scoop-neck shirt had shifted as she bent toward him (old habits died hard, apparently), giving him a clear view of her impressive cleavage and the glowing, faceted gem embedded in the soft part of her skin, just below her collarbone. The power that kept her preserved at the height of her youth and beauty.
A jewel for which the rest of the world had paid an incredible price. Loathing burned through him as he looked up at the woman he’d known as Florita.
“What a small, small world,” she said.
Interesting. Even through his horror and discomfort, Simon was able to pare through his reactions to recognize both shock and confusion in the layers of her voice. After all, he’d known her very well when he was working with her. Not as well as she would have liked, but well enough.
She was just as surprised at their reunion as he, and she wasn’t certain what to do about it. Simon knew that was to his advantage, and he’d play it more carefully than he’d ever bet on a hand of life-or-death poker.
Starting by keeping his feelings for Sage obscured. Which meant he should get the hell away from her before Tatiana made the connection. If she even sensed the possibility of a rival…
“The world’s become a lot smaller in the last fifty years,” he replied, still cool, still flat. “Thanks to you and your cult friends.” He had no reason to hide his revulsion for her and the other Strangers. Now, more than ever, he was prepared to do what it took to bring these survivors to their knees. His last, most important, job.
Florita’s full lips had tightened at his comment. Her eyes narrowed, then relaxed, and roamed over him, as if checking to see if he was still the specimen she’d tramped after half a century ago. “Indeed it has. I think we have very much to catch up on, Simon,” she said in an unmistakable purr.
Over my fucking dead body.
“Where’s Mancusi?” Simon asked.
Now her eyes widened in honest surprise. “Why, dead, I presume. Unless by some other miracle,” she encompassed his youthful appearance and survival with a single gesture, “he survived.”
That, at least, was a positive.
“Well,” Simon said, standing. He looked down at her, at her glossy black hair and unbelievable body. He expression was flat and forbidding. Don’t fuck with me, Rita. You know better. “Pardon me if I say I’m not terribly interested in catching up. If you’ll excuse me, it’s been a tiring day.” He gave her a brief, polite nod and turned to walk away.
Would she let him? Was she sufficiently off her game to allow it?
But after all, she couldn’t stop him. She might have strength and immortality, and even her cabana boys with their own crystals, but Simon could disintegrate into nothing.
Catch me if you fucking can.
He dared not look at Sage as he left, dared not acknowledge her in any way, for once Florita had her competitor—real or imagined—in her sights, she became worse than a Medusa.
“Simon.”
Her voice came from directly behind him—Florita’s, not, thank God, Sage’s. He paused, knowing he had to play this out, despite the fact that every hair on his body had risen, every cell of his being screamed for him to ignore her, keep going, keep going. Get out, get Sage out, dis-a-fucking-pear!
She’d come around the table and met him at the end, near the wall at the edge of the room, and now her fingers, cool and strong, bit into his arm. Simon turned on her a steady, derisive look, and she dropped her hand. Yet, the expression in her eyes burned with cunning and determination.
“I don’t think so, Simon,” she told him.
He stepped back from her, and saw her two male counterparts leaving the front of the room to move swiftly in their direction. Adrenaline spiked through him, and that familiar cold confidence. Just fucking try it. Making a swift decision, he grabbed Florita’s arm and pulled her through a door next to him.
They were in a back hallway that led to the kitchen, but it was deserted. Everyone, it seemed, had come to see the Strangers.
“Ah, Simon,” she said, leaning into him, hands plastered against his chest, trying to push him against the wall. “I knew you—”
“Don’t try it, Rita,” he said, setting her back from him. “You have no idea what I’m capable of…especially now. I’d hate to embarrass you in front of your admirers.”
She edged back a bit, eyes shifting up and over him as if scanning to look for a crystal or some other verification of his threat, some sign of his power. But he merely looked back at her, knowing that simply his appearance, his unaged body sans the life-force crystal was enough proof that she no longer knew him.
“Come on, Simon,” she said, reaching for him again. She was damned strong, surprising him as she curled her long-nailed fingers into his shoulders. Apparently the crystals gave strength too. “There’s no reason to be coy anymore. Leonide is long gone. And I could use a man like you. In more ways than one.” She brushed herself, her torso and hips, against him. “I could keep you very, very busy.”
Simon, filled with revulsion, was at first unable to move. The last thing he wanted was to get into a tangle with her, struggling and groping against hi
m. He’d been there and knew how the claws would come out, the clothes would come off…she leaned into him, her breasts flattening against his chest.
“Do you know how many men I’ve been with? How many who were lusted after, and wanted by women all over the world? There was George, and Brad and Hugh and countless others—”
“Is this supposed to surprise me, Rita?” he said, keeping his voice steady with effort. Was it more effective to shove her away or to appear completely unmoved? “That you slept your way through Hollywood like you did East Los?”
“Do you know why?” she said, skimming her nails over his chin, leaving behind the slightest bit of a prick as she jabbed his jaw with one slender tip. “Because there was one man I couldn’t have. Because he was too goddamned honorable. Simon.” She lifted her face and managed to capture his mouth for a moment, brushing her full, hot lips against his, bringing another whiff of that unusual scent. He turned his face aside.
“It wasn’t Mancusi that kept me away,” he said, resisting the urge to wipe his mouth.
“I don’t believe you, Simon,” she purred. “I had the proof in the palm of my hand.” As if to punctuate her words, as if he could misunderstand what she meant, she slid her hand over the front of his jeans, cupping over his damned cock like she owned it.
Now he shoved her away, not hard enough for her to stumble, but hard enough. “I warned you, Rita. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“And neither do you, Simon,” she said. “Things have changed more than you can imagine, and so have I. You saw where I was and what I became. How I made myself.”
He laughed humorlessly and made no attempt to hide the disdain in his voice. “I certainly have. And I’ve no interest in it. In anything you have to offer.” Now he turned to walk away, but she grabbed at him one more time with those strong fingers.
Her eyes had turned hot and determined and she stroked along his bare arm a second time. This time, the caress, the promise, was unmistakable. She leaned closer, bringing a rush of some odd scent with her, and added, “You escaped me once, but not this time. Things are much different now.”
Simon extricated his arm, the sensation of an army of tiny creatures crawling over his skin filling him with disgust. “You don’t have a chance, Rita. You didn’t then, you don’t now. Good night, and good-bye.”
He felt the drill of her eyes into the back of his skull as he walked away and back through the door leading into the dining area, threading his path among the tables, the back of his neck prickling as his movements remained easy and arrogant. The rumble of buzzing conversation dipped to a hush when he made his way through the room and felt, more than heard, Florita come through the door after him.
How many times had he turned his back on an adversary, calling their bluff? Colleagues and foes alike had talked about his cold, emotionless reaction.
The one time he’d guessed wrong, Simon’s prickling spine caused him to spin in just enough time to aim his own weapon and pop the guy in the head. Rita, as a matter of fact, had been there to see it.
Because the guy had been her other lover, the one she’d been two-timing Mancusi with. The one she’d set up to kill Simon in retaliation for his rebuff of her.
Now, as he walked away, shoulders broad and back unprotected, Simon felt that same surge of power, strength…and a niggling bit of the black fear that had driven him before. The fear that had allowed him to be so cold, so purposeful and so damned efficient. The fear that Mancusi had nourished in his manipulative way, then leeched from Simon for his own use.
The return of these emotions, this state of mind, scared the fuck out of him. But he kept walking, focused on the dining room exit. Ignoring the return of the pinching nausea.
He had to get Sage out of there next. And then they were getting the hell out of this place.
Simon knew Tatiana?
And from the crackling, snapping of tension between them, he’d known her quite well. Sage hadn’t missed the possessive, hungry look in the woman’s eyes, and the crafty way she leaned in toward him.
But Simon had been emotionless, showing no surprise. Had he somehow known she was the Stranger? Or was he just that good at hiding his feelings?
Sage didn’t speak. When Simon got up abruptly, walking away without a backward glance or even the brush of a comforting hand against her, she did nothing but watch him go. Had he ignored her purposely, or was he so agitated that he’d forgotten her presence?
“Oh my God,” Sharon was saying, reaching across the table and grabbing Sage’s arm. “What’s going on?”
Sage didn’t even look at her, or Dawn, or any of the other people around her who gawked between her and the scene going on across the room. Instead, she stared as Tatiana went after Simon and watched with even more fascination as their conversation continued at the edge of the room. From the body language, Sage recognized Simon’s complete aversion to the woman, and the actress’s just as strong attraction to him.
“She knows your husband?” whispered next to her. “How?”
Sage ignored the voice behind her, still watching Simon. Suddenly, he opened a door next to him, and he and Tatiana disappeared, leaving a billow of whispers that surged almost immediately into a full-blown buzz. Moments later, Simon reappeared and stalked from the room without a backward glance. Tatiana emerged from behind the door as well, and Sage could feel her anger rolling in waves from across the room.
As Tatiana scanned the room with her furious gaze, Sage turned back around in her seat, heart pounding, kind of looking down—just, she realized, as Simon had been doing when the Strangers were up on the stage. He must have recognized Tatiana long before she saw him.
“Sage,” Sharon said, bumping into her with her elbow. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” Sage was forced to reply.
“Where did he go?” asked someone else.
Then the barrage of questions came—who is he? How does he know her? Why is she angry?
Sage could do nothing but shrug, even as the same questions blasted through her mind. Something told her to be unobtrusive and quiet—to keep out of the way of the Strangers and to stay beneath their awareness. Especially Tatiana’s. So she settled back onto her chair and tried to join the low buzz of conversation around her without drawing attention. Camouflaging herself by joining the fray.
Tatiana had returned to the front of the dining area, talking quietly with her two cohorts. Her black hair shifted and shone with every jerky movement, and although the woman was shorter and smaller than either of the two male Strangers, it was obvious that she was in charge. And even more obvious that she was barely controlling her fury.
Simon, Simon…what is going on here?
Then, suddenly, Sage felt a little shove. She started, turning to look behind her, but no one was there but the back of the woman sitting at the next table. But then she felt it again, even more insistent, and then she realized with a flush of annoyance at her stupidity that it was Simon. Invisible Simon. He nudged her again, as if trying to get her to move.
She nodded, muttering “Okay” from between her lips.
But now what? Did he want her to get up and leave? Everyone had fallen into their own conversations, and no one seemed to notice her. But, with a glance at the front, where Tatiana was now speaking intensely with the community leaders, Sage feared that she would be noticed if she stood and left.
The nudge came again, even more urgent and Sage half rose to her feet. Feeling very self-conscious, she whispered to Sharon, “Do you think anyone will care if I leave to pee?” At least she could set up her “cover” for leaving.
Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know if anyone would care if you danced on the table, after that last bit of entertainment. Are you going to go look for him?” Her eyes were wide and sparkling with fascination. Obviously, such gossip-worthy events were few and far between in Falling Creek.
Sage shrugged in answer, and crouched low as she slipped out along th
e long table, sensing that if she stood upright, she’d attract much more notice.
She didn’t know where Simon was, and once she stood, he’d ceased nudging her. So she followed the path he had earlier when he left, which was also the way out of the dining room and in the direction of their bedroom.
Once out of sight, Sage hurried along the hallway and then suddenly he was there.
“Sorry,” he said briefly, and she wasn’t certain whether he was apologizing for shoving her, for the scene with Tatiana, or for rushing her out of the room, but she didn’t care. By now she knew Simon well enough to be aware that he wasn’t mean or rude unless the situation required it. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
“All right.” She started toward their room.
He caught up with her, and gave her a quick look. “You don’t have any questions?”
Sage shrugged. “Now’s not the time for that. You can fill me in later.”
He shook his head, then as they reached the door to their room, he paused, grabbing her arm. “As soon as you get in there, get the computer and email Theo to come, stat, to where he dropped us off.” She nodded and grabbed the door handle, but he stopped her again. “I’m going to apologize in advance for what’s going to happen in there.” He nodded toward the room.
“Simon. I trust you.” Sage reached up and gave him a kiss on the mouth. His tense lips softened beneath hers, and for a moment, she felt that wave of pleasure and heat filter through her…felt the momentary sag of his body flush against her. But then it was over too quickly and they pulled away. She knew they couldn’t stand there and kiss like a couple on the run in a thriller.