Creeping Beautiful, Book 1

by J. A. Huss

  She nods. Doesn’t reply.

  “And we’re gonna figure this out, OK?”

  She nods again. Then her hand comes up and wipes her eye. She digs her palm into it. Rubs it. I know she’s crying. Indie isn’t the kind of girl who cries so I pretend it’s not happening.

  I’m good at pretending too. We’re all experts in pretending now.

  I take a good long time to wash her hair. I like doing it as much as she likes me to do it. And it’s been years since we’ve had a moment like this. But eventually I have to admit I’m done. “Close your eyes,” I tell her, then reach for the cup sitting next to the sink.

  Usually I’d use a small bowl for this part but I don’t want to leave her like this. I don’t think she’d get up and walk out, but why take chances, so I use the cup.

  She tips her head back and holds one hand over her eyes as I pour water down the back of her head. Over, and over, and over. Until there are no more suds.

  Indie tsks her tongue. “You don’t have conditioner, do you?”

  “No. But I’ll pick some up tomorrow, if you want.”

  “My hair will be a rat’s nest.”

  I smile at that. Because that’s what Adam used to say when she didn’t want to brush her hair. Fuckin’ rat’s nest, Indie. Go brush it out!

  But it hurt to brush it out because it was a rat’s nest, so she always balked. She was a wild, feral little girl. Most evenings she’d come home for dinner covered in leaves. Twigs hanging from her hair. Mud on her cheeks and scratches all over her arms and legs. Usually a frog or two in her pockets. She kept a frog in her jewelry box for three days once. Before Adam found it and made her take it back to the swamp.

  I called her Swamp Thing because that’s where we lived. Adam’s old… whatever you call it. Not really a plantation because our land was surrounded on two sides by the twisting bend of the marshy Old Pearl River and there was no hope of growing anything profitable out there. Nothing but acres and acres of cypress trees, and duckweed, and spider lilies. But our house was an old mansion that reminded you, every moment of the day, that you were in Louisiana.

  Sometimes I just called her Thing, for short. And when she got older it was Miss Thang or Little Thang. With a little extra Southern drawl at the end because she liked the idea of being from the South, even though she wasn’t.

  “I’ll comb it out for you.” I say this both in the past and in the here and now. “You want me to do that now? Or after you get out?”

  “Now.” Her chin is still propped up on her knees and I have a feeling her eyes are open now. Literally. Not metaphorically.

  She always picks ‘now’. Never wants to get out of the tub until I make her.

  I wish we had gotten her earlier. Before she was ten. I’d like to have known her from the beginning. I like her all the ways she is, but I still find myself wishing for those first ten years of her life that I missed.

  A lot happened in those ten years and I just… wish I was there. Not that I could’ve changed anything. I don’t wield that kind of power. But at least I would know things. At least I’d know what really happened to her before Adam took her away from all that.

  Our relationship is weird. I get that. Donovan has told me so many times in so many ways that nothing about us is normal and there’s no way to make it right. And I never needed him to tell me that. I knew it. We all knew what we were doing with her—to her—it was always wrong. So I really do get it. And once Donovan finds out she’s here with me he’ll be knocking on my door so fast my head will spin.

  But I just don’t fucking care anymore.

  You can’t help who you love and I love this girl more than life itself. I will do anything to make her happy. Anything. Even go along with this new plan she’s cooking up for Adam.

  Because I hate that I helped shape her into this broken little thang and there’s a part of me that wants to take it all back.

  But here’s the real truth.

  And I’m not sure I’d admit it to anyone but myself, but…

  There’s an even bigger part of me that wants to do it all again.

  CHAPTER TWO - ADAM

  FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

  Les Fleurs Island isn’t a place to vacation. There are no long stretches of white-sand beach. There are no thatched-roof huts along the shoreline. There are no six-star accommodations.

  All of that is located thirty miles south east on L’Île de Beauté.

  No. Les Fleurs is a six-hundred-acre tip of an oceanic mountain covered in jungle and ferns. It has only one purpose.

  Well, two, I guess. If you count the zoo.

  It holds a collection of exotic animals. Big cats, small cats, snakes, giant tortoises, wild goats, gators… that’s about all I’ve seen so far but I hear on the north side there’s a small herd of zebra and mustangs, two elephants, and a few giraffes.

  I’ve also heard there’s a bunkhouse for the employees, but I’ve never personally seen it.

  There is quite a nice marina though. And, of course, the reception area where I am now. It’s really more of a pavilion draped in long gauzy curtains that billow and blow in the ocean wind. The roof is metal, the floor is concrete, and there are about a hundred folding metal chairs facing the auctioneer’s block.

  Definitely not six-star accommodations, but we won’t be here long, so no point in dressing it up too much.

  Along the perimeter there are two bar stations and about twenty waiters carry trays of champagne flutes back and forth. There are no women here. Just men. All ages. Some young, like me, some old enough to be my great-grandfather—if I had one of those—and every age in between.

  We are all here for the auction. Only twenty-seven girls are up for sale tonight but most of the men under this pavilion aren’t here to buy. Just watch.

  The whole thing is an act. A show. A production. An annual event.

  These girls won’t be paraded onto a stage and made to turn in circles like a nice piece of horseflesh. Oh, they will be well groomed, and pretty, and mostly clean. They will start that way, at least. They will wear white, like virgins. Though it’s highly unlikely they’re still virgins.

  But they will be scared. They will be surrounded by animals that want to eat them. They will probably be crying. Some might even be hysterical.

  They will beg.

  To be set free, or to be bought, or sometimes to be killed.

  And we, the men who hold their futures in their hands, we will be taken into the jungle, inside the zoo where the animals roam freely in large enclosures, and we will meet each girl through the bars of a cage.

  Because they are pets.

  We are here to buy pets.

  What the other men will do with their girls when they leave, I have no idea. I don’t want an idea. I only know what I’ll do with mine.

  “Adam Boucher?”

  I turn at the sound of my full name and find Gerald Couture already heading towards me with two outstretched hands. He’s a tall, thin man wearing a perfectly tailored light gray suit and a broad smile that shows off straight, white teeth. His hair is silver, styled, and even though he’s got to be almost eighty years old, he doesn’t look a day over fifty.

  I extend a hand, almost on autopilot, and he takes it in both of his, giving it a squeeze. “I thought that was you.” He nods, then says it again. “I thought that was you. Well.” He pauses again to smile at me and take a breath. “I wasn’t expecting you this year. Also, I never had the chance to say… I’m just very sorry about your father.” He frowns to prove his sympathy.

  “And your son,” I say back. “It was… a terrible tragedy.”

  Gerald presses his lips into a forced smile. Nods. Probably pictures the estate in Santa Barbara where everything went wrong. Where my father and his—what to call that guy? His friend? Co-worker? Employee? Protégé? Let’s just call him Gerald’s son for now—walked into a mansion for a wedding and never walked back out.

  I wonder if Gerald knows the truth?

&nb
sp; Probably not. He wouldn’t be smiling at me if he did.

  “I wasn’t going to come, but…” I shrug. “Trust fund matured a couple years ago. I have a lot of money at the moment and not much purpose in life. So…” I wave my free hand at the room like this explains everything. “I’m gonna do this for a while, I guess.”

  “Excellent.” Gerald is still smiling. “Excellent.” He pumps my captive hand up and down in both of his. “Your father would be proud. He always saw this as your future.”

  Did he? Did he really? Because… why then? Why did he buy Core McKay for me when I was eleven if he always saw this as my future?

  That’s what I want to say, but don’t. Even though I’m fairly certain Gerald would probably have an answer for me, and that answer might even be the truth.

  But I can’t think about the past right now. I need to keep my eyes set firmly on the future.

  “Yeah.” I pull my hand out of Gerald’s grip and swipe two flat fingers across my brow. It’s fucking hot tonight. Still almost ninety degrees and even though I’m only wearing dark slacks and a white button-down—not entirely buttoned—and even with the ocean breeze, all I can think about is getting back on the boat and taking off these clothes. Maybe going for a swim before I head back to Nassau and catch the jet back to Louisiana. “Sure,” I blatantly add. “I’m sure he did.”

  “Well.” Gerald takes in a deep breath. “What is the budget tonight? And what are your plans with her? Perhaps I can give you some tips?”

  I exhale, having second thoughts about this now that it’s all becoming very real. “There’s no budget. Just… whatever it takes. And I’m looking for a partner.”

  Gerald raises one eyebrow. “Which kind?”

  “You know. Military shit.”

  He nods. Then frowns. “I see. Hmm. Well, I’m not sure that was your father’s plan.”

  “No. It wasn’t. But he’s gone now so all the fucks I gave about his plans went with him.”

  Gerald purses his lips. Doesn’t smile. He and my father were tight. A team once, much like the one I’m putting together now. He trusted my father enough to let his son join my father’s team after Gerald retired. And in this business, that’s no small thing. “It’s not as easy as you think, Adam. I know that the idea of taking one home as a breeder doesn’t sit well with a lot of men your age. But trust me. It’s easier.”

  I wonder how that word ‘breeder’ can just roll off his tongue like that. And also, what in the name God gave Gerald the impression that I ever thought anything was easy in this life? But I nod. “Maybe. But I’m twenty-three years old, I have more money than God, and I’m fuckin’ bored. So… the hell with it. I’m not ready to settle down.”

  “It’s not what you think. The jobs. They’re not what you think. Trust me on this. I’ve been there and I was a lot like you when I came here and bought my first girl. It was exciting and we were good at it. But six months later the only people still alive were your father and me. I was devastated.”

  He frowns and looks somber about his devastation.

  “I’m sure you were. But you did it again, and again, and again. You bought more girls, you got more teams, and life went on, didn’t it?”

  “We paid a price.”

  I shrug. “That’s what money’s for.”

  “It wasn’t the money, son. It was…” But he stops. “Your father wasn’t happy until he settled. Until he bought the last girl—”

  “My mother, you mean?”

  “—and had you. That’s when his life really began.”

  Such bullshit. He knows it, I know it, but neither of us says it.

  “Well, I’m not there yet. If I live to see thirty, maybe I’ll take another look at my choices.”

  Gerald forces a smile. “OK.” Then he looks around and back at me. “But let me help you choose tonight. I know all of the girls very well. This is an exceptional crop. I’ll tell you what. I’ll take you around in my private truck. Your father would want you to have the best one. I’ll make sure you get the best one.”

  “Sure. Sounds good.”

  “Great.” Gerald beams. “Let me go talk to some of the others and then we’ll take off early so we’re not rushed.”

  I nod and he walks off to talk up all the other buyers here tonight. I grab a champagne flute off a tray going past at eye height and down it in one gulp.

  I said I’d never do this. I told my father over and over again, hundreds of times, that I’d never do this. And he would yell. God, he would yell at me. “Don’t you realize,” he would say. “Don’t you understand how hard I worked to get you out of that program?”

  I did. I mean, I think I did. Can one ever really understand the sacrifices a parent makes for a child? But I know I turned out different than the others who were training with me. I knew that much, at least. Just stand me up next to Nick Tate and compare us side by side. Even if you have no idea who we are and what we were meant to do, you can tell the difference between us. Immediately.

  I’m no Nick Tate.

  And I do appreciate all the ways my father worked hard, and made deals, and manipulated people to make sure that distinction was recognizable.

  But here I am anyway. Going right back in.

  My life might not end up the way he planned, but it all evens out in the wash. What’s the difference, really? Between a man who takes a child home for breeding and one who takes her home for killing?

  A sick feeling in my stomach makes me regret the alcohol, and I set the flute down on another passing tray, then wander across the pavilion to the far edge that overlooks the water.

  The Company superyacht is docked offshore. Lit up brightly for the party that comes later, after all the sales are final.

  I will have to go over there to sign all the paperwork. But I won’t stay long. My own yacht is just a little further out. Dark now. No crew, just me. But I like it like that. I like being alone.

  So why am I buying a girl? Why am I putting together this team?

  I don’t really know.

  The only thing I do know is that I have a lot of fuckin’ money. I have no family to speak of. And I’m bored.

  I would kill myself and get it over with, but it feels… wasteful. I should at least make an attempt at living. I have all the makings of a perfect life. I should try.

  There’s no way I’ll make it to thirty. There’s no way I’ll settle down into the life my father wanted for me and raise good Company kids.

  But that’s not entirely true, is it?

  That is still very much a possibility, so I need to do everything in my power to make sure it never happens. I need to live fast, and hard, and die young. I need to spend as much money as I can, complete as many missions as possible, and then… go out with a bang.

  That’s my plan.

  Go out with a bang.

  Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get hit right in the chest.

  Thirty minutes later Gerald and I are passing through the first gate in his personal safari truck, a vintage Land Cruiser with thick, steel bars surrounding us just in case any of the big cats get hungry. The driver is an older man wearing the standard black and white uniform suit. His tie is so snug up against his neck it makes me want to suck in all the air he must surely be lacking from such a cinch.

  Gerald and I sit in the back seat, which has been elevated so we can get a good look around. There’s a bucket of ice between us, two bottles of champagne sticking out, and a special drink holder for champagne flutes.

  While Gerald did start out just like I am now, he gave up the dangerous life for this cushy job running Les Fleurs a long time ago. So I imagine that he’s taken hundreds of people around in this truck on nights like this over the years.

  Does he enjoy this job? I can’t imagine getting any kind of joy out of his job. But he’s smiling. Not complaining. I guess there are worse jobs. Wild animals aside, this island is one of the safer work stations within the Company.

  But I know what they really do he
re. I know who Gerald’s family is. My father left a lot of documents behind for me. Or, maybe not for me. Just… to me. If there’s any kind of meaningful distinction between those two objectives, I’m fairly certain it was the latter.

  “Twenty-seven?” I ask. “That’s how many are for sale tonight?”

  “Yes. Twenty-seven perfect Company specimens. All of them have been bred for the cages.” I’m looking at him when he says this. It’s dark out here. Very fuckin’ dark out here. But there’s enough light from the dashboard up front to see him frown.

  “What?”

  “Twenty-six, actually. The last one… well. She’s…” He shakes his head.

  “She’s what?”

  “Very young, for one. And very wild. But her house mother is done. She wants her sold now. Or killed. Or probably both.” Gerald chuckles. “But don’t worry. I will not waste your time with her.” He points up ahead. “Here we go. This is number one. Fifteen years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, very nice-looking girl, if this old man can say such things. She’s been trained in music and art. A beautiful specimen for breeding. Her bloodlines are impeccable. Her father… well, as you know, the genetics are well-guarded secrets. So I can’t divulge specifics. But believe me when I tell you, she is the best of the best tonight.”

  Up ahead there is a spotlight shining down on a large steel cage. We pull up to it, stop, and the driver turns off the Land Cruiser. A tiger is on top of the cage, precariously prowling the length of the flat bars that make up the roof, tail swishing as it turns, stops, and then a low, throaty growl fills the nighttime silence. Makes the air even heavier with heat and danger. When he inhales it sounds a little like wheezing. Almost… soothing. But the exhale is something altogether different.

  A threat.

  “This is Anastasia.” Gerald makes a twirling hand motion in the air between us like he’s adding a flourish to the end of her pretentious name.

  Anastasia is crying. Hard. Sobbing, really. There are metal cuffs around her wrists and her arms have been hoisted up above her head by a chain that attaches to the roof of the cage.