Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

by Unknown

  “I’ll be in the van,” Dunn repeated. “After I get my phone and a weapon.”

  “Knock yourself out, Mr. Crazy Man,” Martell muttered as he went to the car and got in next to Francine.

  She was her usual bubbly self. She greeted him with, “So you’re my new boyfriend.”

  “Ooh-kay.”

  She gave him an eye roll that was so massive it damn near created a sonic boom. “Not literally. But as far as Berto’s concerned, you and I are soulmates.”

  That was a game that Martell understood. “Okay. Are we … touchy-feely, PDA-creating soulmates, or …?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said. “Cop all the feels you want. The idea is to make him uncomfortable. And he’ll definitely be uncomfortable that we’re together. He’s a racist prick.”

  “Ah,” Martell said. Now he really understood. “Is he gonna, like, try to kill me?”

  “If he does,” Francine told him, “that’ll be a clue that his intentions are corrupt.”

  “That’s … good to know?”

  “Don’t worry, even if he tries, I’m not going to let him kill you,” she informed him. “We’re meeting him at the Pelican Deck. I told him to come unarmed, and to leave his wallet and phone at home while he’s at it.”

  “You spoke to him?” Martell asked. “Already? On the phone?”

  “Yup.”

  “That must’ve been strange,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  Francine looked past Martell, and he turned to see Ian approaching the car. He rolled down the window so that Ian could speak to them.

  “You were right,” the man said, and Martell realized he was talking to him. “I’m going to stay back—let Deb and Yashi take the van. Unless you need me there.” Now he was talking to Francine.

  Something subtle had changed in her eyes or on her face—she was very hard to read, but Martell picked that up. For a microsecond, she’d looked like a little girl—lost, alone, and trying to be brave. And he wanted to tell Ian, Whoa, no, sorry, I was not right. Francine needs you. You totally have to come with, bro.

  But she’d already said, “I’ll be fine.”

  Ian believed her. “If I’m asleep, wake me when you get back,” he ordered.

  She nodded, and he went back into the house.

  And there Martell and Francine sat, in silence, for several long, weird moments, waiting for Yashi and Deb to get ready to roll.

  “So I used to be a cop,” Martell finally said. “Plainclothes detective. I went to night school, got my JD, passed the bar. Favorite color is blue. Favorite food is Cajun anything. Blacken it and I’m in heaven. Things a soulmate would know about me.”

  Francine looked at him with those flat blue eyes, made colorless in the dim light from the dashboard of his car. “Berto’s biological father, Davio, legally adopted me and my older sister, Pauline, when he married our mother,” she told him, starting the car as the garage door finally went up. “I don’t know for a fact that he abused Pauline, but I’m pretty certain he did. She went away to boarding school, on account of her acting out”—she made air quotes—“when I was six. Before she left, she installed a deadbolt on my door and made me promise to lock it every night, without fail. Which I did. What I do know for certain is that Davio hated her, and he hated me, and he really hated Shel after he found out that he was gay. He tried to kill Aaron right after they got out of the Marines. He sent a hit man after him, and Aaron killed the son of a bitch in self-defense, and we all went into hiding, where we stayed until Pauline resurfaced about a year ago. She was pregnant—obviously—and addicted to heroin, and in order to save her baby, we had to take her to a hospital, which meant Davio would be able to find us. At which point, Ian stepped in to save the day by making that deal with Manny—until you fucked it all up by pulling him out of Northport. Things a soulmate would know about me.”

  She backed out of the garage and into the street, where she pulled away from the house. Behind them, the remaining surveillance van followed, several car lengths behind.

  Martell cleared his throat. “No, um, favorite color? Favorite song …?”

  Francine glanced at him. “My favorite everything is Rory. My favorite everything else is Shelly and Aaron. FYI, don’t call me honey or baby,” she warned him. “I hate terms of endearment. If you use one, Berto will know he’s being conned. Oh, and since the plan is to bring him back to the safe house, you and I are going to share a room tonight and have really noisy sex.”

  Martell looked at her.

  She gave him another sound-barrier-breaking eye roll. “Faux sex. Come on.”

  “Right,” he said, inwardly thinking a solid mix of too bad and thank God. “You know, to be honest, that just seems kinda mean. Rubbing his face in it.”

  “Yup,” she said.

  They rode in silence for several miles, and Martell thought the conversation was over, but then she spoke.

  “I thought he was my soulmate. Berto. He knew about Pauline. He knew the kind of man his father was. He knew and … Now I just want him to see me being happy.”

  “Fair enough,” Martell said. To suggest that Berto would probably know it was all a bunch of make-believe crap seemed about as productive as pointing out that no man alive would look at Francine and think, Look at the happy young woman, tra la. She was a lot of things, but happy wasn’t one of them. She was grimly determined, chronically intense, fierce and strong and unstoppable and driven in her quest to protect her family.

  But she’d said as much herself—her favorite everything was her nephew, her brother, and his semi-annoying husband. Without the danger and the intrigue and the countless risks and peril she went through to protect them, without the constantly simmering anger that she wore like a badge, she’d have nothing. She’d be nothing.

  Except perhaps deeply empty and clinically depressed.

  * * *

  Shelly looked up from his book as Aaron came into the master bedroom, but Aaron made it more than clear he was only there to say good night to Rory.

  He didn’t even say hello, he just walked past Shel, through the splendorous master bath to the huge walk-in closet on the other side, where they’d set up the crib that Yashi had provided. The room-sized closet was lined with wire shelves and hanger bars, but it also had a window and an air-conditioning vent, so since they had exactly four extra T-shirts and five pairs of socks and briefs between them, they’d designated it as the nursery.

  Shelly leaned forward to watch as Aaron looked down at their peaceful son.

  “It took a while to get him to sleep,” Shel said quietly, so as not to wake the little boy. “Without you here. He wanted you to read to him. He was pretty annoyed with me.” He forced himself to smile as Aaron came back out through the bathroom, leaving the door only open a few inches. “I told him that he and you could start a club.”

  Aaron went over to his go-bag and rummaged through, pulling out his iPod and his noise-canceling headphones. The headphones being, of course, the internationally known symbol for Don’t talk to me.

  But then Aaron took it one step further by not coming over to the other side of the bed—instead he headed for the door.

  And wasn’t that the supreme opposite of helpful and productive? Still, Shel managed to keep his voice even. “Please don’t go,” he said.

  Aaron stopped. But he didn’t turn around. “Francine and Martell are going to bring Berto back here. I thought I’d do one of the mindfulness meditations before they arrive.”

  That was probably a very good idea. “You can do it in here.”

  “No I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can,” Sheldon countered as he felt his patience slipping. “God, Air—”

  Aaron finally faced him. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t just let this go. I’m not just annoyed. I’m angry and hurt and … You need to give me at least a little fucking time.”

  “What if we don’t have it?” Shel asked. “Time. What if you go out there—and let’s set aside all discuss
ion about your sudden, childish need to take unnecessary risks—”

  Aaron physically recoiled. “Oh, that’s nice. Let’s not talk about it, let’s set it aside—instead you can just call me names.”

  Shel put his book down more forcefully than he needed to. “I’m trying my best here, but I’m angry, too! You walked out of here before, like you were ready to never come back. And guess what, Aaron? You might not’ve come back! My father has a freaking army out there, looking to kill you. At least have the courtesy, the decency to say good-bye to me the next time you unnecessarily risk your life, in case it is the last time I see you alive!”

  For one awful second, Aaron looked like he was ready to tell Sheldon that he didn’t give a crap if he never saw him again, that he already had said everything he’d ever wanted and needed to say—that it was all right there in that giant load of empty and broken silence he’d handed Shel before he’d stomped out of the house.

  But then the fight seemed to go out of him, and he sat down in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room as if his legs couldn’t hold him up any longer. He shook his head, and didn’t lift his eyes from the ornately tiled floor as he said, “You should’ve told me that you knew Ian was in prison.”

  “I’m so sorry that I didn’t. That I couldn’t.”

  Aaron looked up at that, and Shel knew he’d caught the difference—Aaron understood that Shelly hadn’t said, You’re right, I should have, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t.

  “I can’t lie to you again,” Shel told this man whom he loved more than life itself. “I just can’t. I did what I had to do. I did what was right, yes, even knowing it would hurt you. And I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t do the exact same thing, if I had to do it over again—with the limited choices that I had.”

  “And so I’m, what? Childish for not understanding? Childish because I disagree with your priorities—which are good to know. Thanks. Up to this point, I was under the misguided impression that Rory and I were first in your life.”

  “You are first in my life,” Shel said.

  “Why, because you say so? Saying doesn’t make it true.” Aaron suddenly stood up. “I gotta not do this right now.”

  “I love you,” Shel told him. “And Rory. I love you both so much. I would do anything for you.” His voice broke despite his efforts to keep it steady. “Please always remember that.”

  But Aaron didn’t look at him again. “Right,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Over the past few nights, Phoebe had been sleeping in the room with the two sets of bunkbeds, trying to take up the least amount of space as possible. But now she grabbed her Yashi-procured clothes and pharmacy bag of toiletries, and claimed occupancy of the little room that had what she thought of as a grandma bed.

  It was a standard double, and it was covered with a white cotton spread that in turn was covered with thousands of little white pom-poms, evenly spaced about an inch from one another, in a grandmother-pleasing design.

  The bedside tables and dressers all had doilies, and there was a rocking chair in the corner, which helped with the whole elderly-interior-decorator effect.

  The room didn’t have an attached bath, so Phoebe used the common one on the second floor to brush her teeth and wash her face. She changed into the clothes that she’d been using to wear to bed—a pair of flannel pants and an extra-large T-shirt over which she wore her sweatshirt, necessary since the air-conditioning was perpetually set at arctic tundra.

  Her white sweatshirt was clean but trashed—permanently stained with Ian’s blood. It somehow seemed appropriate to wear it, though. She stood there for several long moments, just looking at herself in the bathroom mirror with that big rusty stain in the center of her chest.

  When Phoebe finally moved, she took a stack of tissues from the box on the sink counter because she suspected, even as exhausted as she was, that she was not going to fall asleep right away. And while she hated it when she broke down and cried over truly stupid things, she hated it even more when she broke down and cried but was unable to blow her nose afterward.

  Phoebe carried the tissues and her clothes back into her new room, her fatigue making her move as if she were wading through molasses. The switch for the overhead light did nothing when she flipped it—tomorrow she would add lightbulbs to Yashi’s current kitchen list—and since there was no other lamp in the room, she simply closed the door.

  The blinds were not room-darkening, and a light outside shone in and made a striped pattern on the ceiling. It was just bright enough to be able to see to put her glasses on the bedside doily, to pull back the covers, to crawl into the bed and—

  “Oh my God!”

  Someone big and hulking was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, and as she shouted, he jumped to his feet and launched himself on top of her.

  It was Ian.

  “What the—oof!” Phoebe gasped as he pushed her down onto the bed, covering her with the full weight of his body.

  “Stay down, keep your head down!” he said, his voice low and urgent, and she knew in a flash that he’d fallen asleep in that uncomfortable chair, and that she’d startled him awake—or maybe not quite awake—with her shout of surprise.

  “It’s okay, we’re okay, we’re safe, Eee, we’re safe,” she told him, her mouth near his ear. Her right arm was pinned, but her left was free, and she put it around him. He was pressed so tightly against her, she could feel his heart hammering in his chest. She stroked the back of his head, her fingers in his hair.

  Ian pulled back then, just slightly, just enough to look down into her eyes. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed as awareness dawned. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Phoebe was already shaking her head. “No. I think you were trying to protect me and—”

  Ian kissed her.

  He just lowered his head and took full possession of her mouth in a move as surprising and breathtaking as his across-the-room leap had been.

  More so.

  He was already nestled between her legs, and he pushed himself against her, and in that moment of time-stopping total surprise, Phoebe felt herself responding. Her body arching up, her mouth opening wider, her fingers tightening in his ridiculously, deliciously soft hair …

  Ah, God, she wanted this, wanted him so badly, except—

  “Asshole!” She yanked her mouth free. “Asshole!” She squirmed, trying to get out from underneath him, smacking him with her free hand to push him away. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Ow!” Ian managed to catch and pin her hand even as he rolled off of her and over to the other side of the bed.

  She jerked herself free from his grasp as she sat up, grabbed her glasses and put them on so she could properly glare at him. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, flopping onto his back. “I just wanted … Jesus, I don’t know.”

  “Rubbing your randy man-parts against me and putting your tongue in my mouth is the opposite of sending me to another fucking state, as you so eloquently put it. Unless you were talking nirvana and not Georgia, and I’m certain that’s not what you meant!”

  He turned his head to look at her. “Randy man-parts?”

  “I drive you crazy,” Phoebe reminded him, but as the words left her mouth, she realized there was more than one definition of crazy. And everything he’d said, and how he’d said it—how completely and uncharacteristically angry he’d been at her—flashed through her head, along with the very clear memory of the way he’d looked at her and kissed her at the Dutchman’s house.

  The way he’d kissed her all those times, starting back on her balcony …

  “Oh my God,” Phoebe said. “I drive you crazy.”

  Ian was looking up at her in that dim light and his eyes held a mix of wry amusement, chagrin, and …

  Heat.

  “You do,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I let that slip. And now I’m so fucked, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah,
well, I kinda am, too,” Phoebe whispered back, and then she slowly leaned over and kissed him.

  She knew he saw it coming, his gaze slipping from her eyes to her mouth and back as she got closer, but he didn’t move. He didn’t run away. He didn’t stop her.

  He just closed his eyes, and she did, too, as she brushed her lips against his—his mouth was so soft. She both felt and heard him sigh—a sound that she echoed, even as she gently deepened their kiss.

  His nose bumped her glasses and she reached up and took them off, folding them up and stashing them under the far pillow as she kissed him again and again, as she threw her leg across him, to straddle him.

  It was a bold move on her part, but she wasn’t thinking about that—she wasn’t thinking at all. She just wanted better access to his delicious mouth. It wasn’t until she was atop him that she realized she was essentially humping him—his randy man-parts fit against her equally randy woman-parts like a human jigsaw puzzle, but one where the pieces were frustratingly shrink-wrapped. He reached up, his hands on her butt to pull her even closer, as he licked the inside of her mouth with his tongue.

  Her hair was coming loose from her ponytail holder—in her upset, she hadn’t bothered pulling it into her nightly braid—and she stopped kissing him and sat back, just for a moment, just to gather and collect the wayward strands, to keep it out of their way. And to unzip and shrug out of her sweatshirt.

  Ian was watching her, and his gaze kept slipping down to her mouth as if he couldn’t wait for her to kiss him again. “I came in to apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t have lost it like that—not in front of France and Aaron. That was … not okay.”

  “Were you really planning to send me away?” she asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said. The truth in his eyes and on his face was raw. Honest. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  “This?” she asked, leaning forward to kiss him.