by J. A. Huss
“Why would I tell you that?” she snorts. “I must look like an idiot to you. You must think I’m a joke. And that’s fine, you know. Because I like to be underestimated. If those guys out at my grandparent’s ranch had assessed me properly, well, I’d be dead right now, wouldn’t I? So be my guest, Tet. Give it your best shot. But I’ve grown up around every scumbag killer you can imagine. I know how to pick out the good ones. And it only took my nine-year-old self thirty seconds back at the Boise gun show to figure out you were never even in the running. You… are a very bad guy.”
My fists are clenching the entire time she’s talking and by the time she’s finished, my palms are aching to hit something. It’s not what she said that pisses me off. It’s what she didn’t say. But I’m the professional here, so I keep my cool. “Yeah, got it. You still worship the ground Ford walks on. He’s the hero and I’m the villain.”
“You and Merc are both the bad guys. I saw it in Merc too. Before he got my dad killed he was just another asshole. But after the accident I had a lot of time to think it over. He’s not really an asshole.” She pauses. Choosing her words or reconsidering or who the fuck knows what this little monster is doing.
I get impatient. “What is he then?”
“Evil,” she replies with a cold edge to her voice. “He’s evil, just like you. You’re using Harper to get to Nick.”
“Another good guess from the Smurf. But sorry, not the case, kid. I’m not even remotely interested in Nick at the moment. I’m not saying it will stay that way forever, but that’s not my objective. And while I am using Harper for lots of things—sex for one. Comfort. Passion. Friendship. Conversation. Take your pick, because I am using her for all those things right now—I’m not using her to get to Nick because I don’t need to. And I’d just like to make it clear that I won’t be doing anything that could hurt her. So if you’re suddenly feeling loyal to the Lionfish, you can rest your weary mind. I’m on her side.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says immediately.
“I can respect that,” I tell her back. “I can. I’m no one to you. You think I’m scum. You think Merc is scum. And maybe we are. But there’s another level of low beneath me, Sasha. There’s people out there who eat the scum like me alive. Bottom-feeders. And you’re on the verge of scum yourself, so I’d like you to put down the gun, sit on that step right there, and listen to my offer. We can decide what to do about the impasse once you hear it. But you can’t act out of ignorance. Your father taught you that much, I’m sure.”
Her mouth tightens at the corners when I mention her father. It’s pretty clear she does not put him in the company of scum. But whatever. He was an illegal arms dealer working for a shadow global governance. In my mind, he was every bit as scummed up as the rest of us. She steps down, then lowers herself into a seated position as she lowers the gun.
“Good girl.”
“Don’t, Tet. I grew up being patronized.”
I throw her a nod. “Fair enough. You do not know who I work for. It’s not Merc. He’s not involved in any of this, OK? He’s off doing recon on a project you will probably be interested in. Paybacks, Sasha, always come due in our world. And someone got your dad killed, but it wasn’t Merc. We know who did it though.”
“You do not.”
“Shut up and listen,” I scold her like the child she is. “Because I’m not fucking around right now.” I stare her down until she looks away and then I continue. “He knows who did it. And maybe the reason he’s gonna get his revenge has nothing to do with you, but does it matter why he sets things right? Does it matter why he gets his payback? Do you care if the person who ruined your life is dead for your reasons or his?”
She takes a deep breath as she thinks it through. “He’s gonna kill the person who set them up?”
“What do you think happens to people who get caught in Merc’s net, Smurfette?” She visibly shivers. And that pretty much says it all. I’d be shitting my pants if Merc was coming to kill me, that’s for sure. He might not be a trained Company man, but that fucker has no scruples. He never blinks. “So here’s the deal, OK? You’re gonna keep quiet about what you just heard and I’m gonna ask Merc for proof that the job was done.” She starts to object, but I raise my hand and stop her words before they start. “And I promise you, everything I’m doing is good for us.”
“Who’s us?” she snorts.
“The three of us, kid. You, me, and Harper. We’re sorta stuck together. So I’m making you a professional promise right now. All right? Whatever I do from here on out, it will be in our group interest.”
“What if it’s in the best interest of the group that I die?”
Jesus, she has trust issues. I stand and walk towards the stairs. She never moves. I take each step slowly until I reach the top, and then I sit down and put my arm around her shoulder. She flinches, but that’s expected. “Sasha, if you trust me right now, I promise I will get you the proof you need from Merc and I will take care of you until you decide I’m an asshole and you can’t stand to look at me for another second and walk away.”
Her shoulders slump a little and I can almost feel the sadness inside her. “I think you’re lying.”
“So tell me no deal.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t.” She turns her face up to me and she’s got tears streaming down her cheeks. “I think I need you, James.”
“I think I need you too, Sasha. So give trust a chance.”
She wipes her tears and hands me her gun. I handle the pistol, checking the weight, then the chamber—fully loaded. “You been carrying this the whole time?” I ask, trying to lighten up the mood.
“Yeah, that’s my gun. My dad gave it to me last year for my birthday.” She sniffs again. “He even put in a new barrel and got me a suppressor for it.”
“You ever shoot anything with it?”
She nods. “One of the guys who tried to kill me on the ranch. I picked three of them off with a rifle, but this last guy thought he got away.” She turns her head up at me and smiles through her tears. “I hid in his truck cab. Then shot him through the window.”
“Sounds pretty dicey.” I try to imagine that scene and make myself stop.
“It was.” She sniffs again but it’s not the wet mid-cry sniff like it was a few minutes ago. It’s an I’m-over-it sniff.
“So you’re pretty serious about this job stuff, Sasha? Because I really need your word that you will not talk.” I hold out her gun and she stares at it for a few seconds before taking it back. “I could use a backup, kid. I don’t like to get people involved in my jobs unless I have to, but I can’t have you doubting me. Or”—I put a finger under her chin and make her look me in the eyes—“making Harper doubt me. It’s gonna be hard enough to get this shit done without complications. I need you on my side, Sasha. And if you’re on my side, I’m on your side. Got it?”
She nods and swats my finger off her chin. “Got it.”
“Got what?” a wet-from-the-shower, fresh, delicious-looking Harper says from down below. She’s dressed in clean shorts and new tank top, black this time, and she’s got some cute sneakers on her feet. “What’d I miss?”
I stand up and walk down the stairs. “Not much. Just making sure Sasha knows we’re all in this together.” I look back up at the kid and wink. “Right, Smurf?”
“That’s right,” Sasha says as she gets to her feet and comes down to join us. She looks at Harp and produces a smile. And if it’s fake, I’m convinced. “He said we’re partners now. So you know, when we find that buried treasure we’re after, I get a cut. Right, James?”
“Buried treasure. Right, kid. You’re in.”
And then Sasha takes Harper’s hand and leads her towards the kitchen as she talks about food. Her crying jag is over, her sadness tucked away, her smile in place, and her attitude adjusted.
The relief I feel at procuring her cooperation is real.
Sasha Cherlin is not a kid you want to fuck over without a plan.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Harper
“I don’t think there’s any food in here, Sasha.”
“I bought us food at the visitor center, remember?”
“Ohhhh… I forgot. What’d you get? I’m so hungry!”
She goes over to her backpack and pulls out a plastic bag and then begins emptying the contents on the kitchen counter. Chips, those disgusting orange crackers, a half-eaten bag of gummy things, a chocolate bar that looks like it melted then congealed, and four sausage sticks.
Even though I have not eaten in two days, my stomach flips over just thinking about that food. “James!” I call out.
“Yeah,” he answers back a few seconds later. What’s he doing in there? I walk towards the living room and find him pulling on a shirt. “What’s up?” he asks.
“I’m hungry and Sasha only bought junk food.”
“Hey,” Sasha complains. “It was a vending machine, what do you expect?”
“Can we go get something real?” I smile sweetly at James because his eyebrows are all knitted together, creating some serious worry lines across his forehead. “Just some tacos or something? Please, I’m so hungry.”
His worry lines soften and he smiles at me. “Yeah, OK, we gotta eat, right?” He looks over at Sasha now. “Are we all in agreement that we’ll spend the night here?”
“This place is practically my home,” Sasha says with her new attitude. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay here while you guys go get food.”
“Negative, Soldier Smurf,” James says. “Get your shoes on, we’re sticking together from now on.”
Sasha laughs at her nickname and then runs off to grab her things, while James puts his hands on my waist. “You look… fuckable.”
“Mmm.” I place my palm on his perfectly muscled chest. He draws in a breath as I let my fingertip trace the outline of his nipple and when I look up his mouth is already there. His lips are soft right now. He gives me a small open-mouth kiss, and pulls away, then comes back to nip my lip the way he does. My hands automatically wrap around his neck. I am eager for more. Whenever he’s near, I feel a want inside me. I want to touch him, lick his beautiful body, wrap my legs around him, and never let him go. “Don’t leave me,” I whisper impulsively as he continues to gift me with his small, tender kisses.
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“That’s not true and you know it. We have to part sometime. What does our future look like? You will have jobs to do. Like Nick. You’ll leave me standing here on the deck of the boat, waving. And my heart will crash and burn every time, thinking I will never see you again.”
“Harper—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off gently. “Don’t say that’s not how it will be, because we both know it will. I want to do things with you, James. More than just sex. I want to have dinner with you, and go on vacation with you, and celebrate things with you. Like birthdays and Christmases. It’s a child’s dream to never be away from the ones she loves. I understand that. But I’m getting so used to you, James.” I look up at him and he’s frowning. “I’m getting so used to you, it scares me. Because I know this is only our beginning. All the struggles are out there yet. In front of us. Things we have to get through to have some kind of future. And I can’t do it, James. I’m not that strong of a person. I need pills if I have to stay behind and wait to hear if you’re still alive.”
“No,” he says, tipping my chin up to make me look him in the eyes. “No more pills, Harper. Promise me. They’re a crutch and they make you weak and vulnerable. Your father gave you those pills to control you, don’t you understand?”
I disentangle myself from his embrace and turn my head. “If you’ve never been overcome with panic, then you have no idea what’s it like. I feel like I’m dying, James. Like my heart will come flying through my chest and life will be over. And if I don’t take the pills, then my mind starts in. Imagining my own death. Imagining the end. Giving to the inevitability of it. If I don’t have the pills I give up.” I look back at him and swallow. “You take that giving-up feeling away. You make me feel safe… you’re like my cure. But without you…” I just shake my head.
His hands find my waist once again and he pulls me close and the heat of his body combined with the heat of his stare makes me want to melt into him, make myself part of him, and never let him go. “I can’t promise you we’ll never be apart. It wouldn’t be honest. But I can promise you one thing. If I leave you, I will come back.”
“How long will it take you to come back?” I ask, desperate for something to hold on to. “Give me a number of days. So I can count them.”
He laughs at me and I laugh with him. “Harper.”
“I know it’s stupid, but just give me a number. Five days?”
“Five?” He laughs again, but it’s a hearty laugh. A genuine laugh. Like that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “Five days.” He breathes the words out. “It’s not very long. I can’t get much of anything done in five days, Harp. How about fourteen?”
“Fourteen!” Now it’s my turn to laugh. Only I’m appalled. “Nick was only ever gone for ten days at the most before we turned eighteen. And I about died of heartbreak that time. And now he’s been gone for three hundred and thirty-four days!”
“Shhhh,” he says to me. “Stop now. Ten days I can promise. OK?”
“I don’t know,” I waffle on the ten days. Ten days feels like forever too…
“Ten days. You can count them.”
“And you won’t be late?” I plead up to him. “You won’t forget?”
“I won’t,” he says as he kisses me once more. His fingertips thread though my hair and he pulls back just enough to whisper in my mouth. “I promise to never be late.”
I sigh with relief. But it’s just a small relief. It’s stupid to ask for this promise because there are so many ways for him to break it. I’m just setting myself up for disappointment and heartbreak.
“OK,” Sasha yells from the living room. “I’m ready.”
James kisses me one more time and then leads me back to the living room.
“I’m so hungry, I want seafood,” I tell him.
“This is the desert. You might have to settle for fish tacos.”
“Oh.” I let the disappointment slip out, but then I recover so my sucky attitude doesn’t ruin our night. “OK, fish tacos are fine.” You’d think I’d have taken advantage of all the fresh seafood while I was living at the beach, but I didn’t frequent any of the nicer dining places. I only ate takeout. I’ve never had a fish taco. We usually ate on the ship when we were in port. But if we did go to a restaurant, it wasn’t the beach huts where one usually finds fish tacos in the tropics. But if that’s all I can get here, I’ll take it.
We pile in to the sweltering Hummer. Sasha complains loudly about the hot leather seats and scoots over to sit on the ‘hump’, which in a Hummer is as big as a table. There should be a nice long bench set in this thing so a person could use it as a bed. But no. Two regular-sized buckets and the table thing in the middle.
“Sasha, sit your ass in a seat,” James barks at her. “And put your seatbelt on.”
She does what he says, but not quietly.
I peek back at her and smile. We feel sort of like a family. James is talking about restaurants as we pull out of the long driveway, then wait for a lone car to pass before turning towards the late afternoon sun and heading into the actual city of Palm Springs. Sasha talks about things kids think about. Things I might have thought about last year, like the shimmer you see on the road off in the distance when it’s hot out or the different types of cactus. Back when I was a kid. Back before I gave up my family for this life of waiting.
I know James is lying about the ten days thing. But he knows, no matter what my head says about it, my heart will believe him once.
And I just have to hold out hope that once is all it will take for him to come back for me.
Chapter Twenty-Three - James
“What’s this place?” Sasha asks as I pull into the Palm Destiny Resort valet.
“What’s it look like?” I ask back. I gauge how much time until sunset and come up with an hour and a half, maybe. Merc could live a little closer to town if you ask me, but whatever. So far Harp and I have not had a proper sunset. But this restaurant is on the top floor and has a view of the pool, palm trees, and the mountains—so it faces west. The perfect sunset is within our grasp. Even if I do have to share it with Smurfette.
“A hotel,” Sasha says dryly. “Why are we at a hotel if we’re going out to eat?”
I look over at Harper as we wait for the valet to finish up with the car in front of us. She said she wants to have dinner with me and celebrate shit. Like families do, that’s the way I took it. And while the Smurf in the back is not part of my plans for the future, she’s a partner for now. So she’s family too. “The lionfish wants seafood, so seafood she shall have.”
“This looks like a place you need reservations, James. I bet we can’t get a table.”
“Reservations. Pfft. Please, Harper. A little bit of faith.” The valets appear, opening doors for the girls, and I get out and shake the hand of the guy on my side. I slip him some cash. “Park it outside where you can see it, please.”
And then I walk around the dirty piece-of-shit Hummer and take Harper’s hand. We’re not dressed up, and the top-floor restaurant typically requires top-floor attire, but they won’t be turning me away. I lead the girls inside and then take them over to a seating area filled with plush couches and chairs. “Watch TV for a sec, will ya? I’ll be right back.” I peck Harp on the cheek and go looking for my contact. I bypass the front desk, the concierge, and all staff wearing anything that resembles the kind of uniform required when you work with customers, and instead head straight for the door that says, Housekeeping, Employees Only.