by R. J. Lewis
Now, this wasn’t necessarily true. Nixon didn’t know how deep Flynn’s pockets were. His assumption was only said to spur a reaction out of Flynn, but Flynn kept his face clean.
He knew this game.
Nixon was right.
So. Fucking. Refined.
“I assume you’re here to threaten me,” Flynn then said, sitting back comfortably as he stared back at Nixon.
“Threaten would imply there’s some looming danger if you don’t comply,” Nixon returned, shaking his head. “But you’re not opposed to danger, are you, Flynn?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready for it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“So, what do you want then?”
“I want to talk.”
Flynn narrowed his gaze at Nixon, trying to figure him out. “I think you’re here to discuss Vixen.”
Nixon smirked, feigning surprise. “Now why on earth would I do that?”
“Because you’re angry about what I did today. I took her by her arm and we left that room. I took her outside and watched the sun kiss her skin, and she was…so pleased about it.”
“Was she?” Nixon pressed, playing along.
“Yeah,” Flynn responded, widening his eyes for effect. “She’s like a flower you’re letting wilt. I gave her some sun and she shined.”
Flynn, too, was seeking a reaction, but he wasn’t going to get one. “Isn’t she something else, Flynn?”
“She is.” He didn’t say it in a heated way. It was stated simply, but Nixon caught the way Flynn’s eyes wandered in thought. Then he cleared his throat and drummed the table with his fingers, redirecting his focus on Nixon. “Are we leaving for the job tomorrow, or have things changed?”
“My understanding is you’re one hell of a driver.”
“I am.”
“Hobbs thinks we’re going to be in rocky waters, and that we’ll need you.”
“You will,” Flynn said confidently.
“Then you don’t need to ask whether you’re still in.”
“I’m asking you, Nixon. I don’t care what Hobbs has to say. I want to hear it from you.”
“Hear what from me?”
“That you’ll need me on this job.”
“I can’t do that, Flynn, because I don’t think we need you at all. I think we’ve done just fine before you showed up.”
“You think you’ll get away without casualties?”
Nixon shrugged. “We know what we’re doing when we walk into these jobs. If we die, we die. It’s what we signed up for.”
“You’re used to it getting messy.” It wasn’t said in question. Flynn was just addressing it, seeking a response from Nixon.
“You have to walk in prepared for the worst,” Nixon explained, noticing the way Flynn’s attention to the topic peaked. “You gotta be prepared to spill blood.”
“I hear you’re good at it.”
“I am.”
Flynn’s finger-drumming on the table quickened. “Ever any regrets?”
“None.”
“You stand by every kill?”
“Every one of them.”
Flynn’s jaw tensed. “And what happens when you leave the island? Does Vixen just stay cooped up in here, waiting for you?”
Nixon chuckled, raising his brows. “You’re taking an awful lot of interest in that girl.”
“Curious what you do to the things you own.”
“I own them, the end.”
“The end for them, you mean.”
“Until white knights like you come along and try to play the hero. You’re wasting your effort, Flynn. You’re so busy trying to prove a point, you’ve lost sight of the big picture.”
“What’s the big picture?”
“You got to feed her from the palm of your hand,” Nixon said, a devilish smirk forming. “I got to feed her my cock and watched her cry my name.” When Flynn’s eyes dropped and anger sliced through his features, Nixon continued. “At the end of the day, the truth can’t be ignored. Vixen chooses to fuck me. She chooses to take my cock into her mouth, to swallow my seed like she’s hungry for it. I don’t force her to fuck me. She does it, willingly, every single time. And you…you’re just a fleeting wonder. You’ll make no mark on her, not the one she needs, anyway. And, to be fucking honest, you won’t come out on top, not when you’re standing next to the likes of me. So, do yourself a favour and put the topic of Vixen to rest.”
“She’s beautiful, Nixon,” Flynn simply responded, lips turning down. “You shouldn’t contain a beautiful thing.”
“How about you get yourself a girl and worry about her instead?” Nixon retorted.
“I don’t want a girl,” Flynn replied softly. “She wouldn’t like me. I’m no good for anyone.”
Flynn let his guard down. His face dropped and a fleeting look of sadness crossed him. It took Nixon by surprise.
Perhaps he wasn’t so refined after all.
Perhaps he was just a fucking kid in a man’s body. Look at what he wore, for fuck’s sake. He dressed like a street kid would. He talked with confidence, but maybe that confidence was learned from having to survive the harsh streets he’d grown up in.
Nixon frowned now. “I understand you have good intentions, Flynn. You’re a bit too soft for this sort of life.”
Nixon had been soft at this sort of life too once upon a time.
“This life is all I know,” Flynn responded, nose flaring. “I can’t spend my whole life doing petty crime, man. I’d rather die out here doing a job than die getting caught stealing car parts in the parking lot of a 7/11.”
Nixon sighed slowly, feeling an emotion akin to sympathy for the guy.
The lost look in Flynn’s eyes? He saw it in his own long ago.
The fight to stick up for what was right the way Flynn had in regard to Vixen? Nixon might have done that, too.
“Alright, Flynn,” Nixon finally said. “Let’s end this soap dish talk before the violins start playing. We’re leaving tomorrow, and we have a job to do. That means we leave our problems at the door. Can we do that?”
Flynn took a moment before nodding slowly. “I can do that.”
*
That night, Nixon slid into bed and pulled Vixen against his chest. She stirred awake with a yawn, whispering, “You’ve been gone a while.”
He’d paced for hours, feeling like he was close to figuring out something big, but not knowing what it was. It was maddening.
On top of that, he couldn’t remove Vixen from his head.
He wanted to hurt himself for making her look so worried in the bedroom. For looking so frightened of him.
It gutted him.
He felt sick with thoughts he shouldn’t have been allowing himself to have.
Like perhaps he wasn’t good for her.
Perhaps the more he tried to bring her in, the more she was being driven in the opposite direction.
He couldn’t contain her.
He couldn’t…keep her.
Not like this.
Not in this manner.
“Just thinking,” he said gruffly, burying his nose into her thick dark hair, inhaling the scent of her in.
“I hope you didn’t hurt Flynn,” she then said, a note of disapproval in her tone.
“No, baby,” he replied. “I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. I just had a word with him. We’re on the same page now.”
This caused Vixen to turn her entire body around to face him. Nixon frowned when he saw her stunned expression. Did she think he was just some ape that went around beating people’s faces in?
While the thought was tempting, Nixon had enough self-restraint to hold himself back.
“No violence on my island,” he explained simply. “That’s my rule.”
“But the homeless man and the guard –”
“They were threats, Vix. I had no choice in that. The island is our world. I protect it and in
return it protects us.”
She actually looked elated. “I like to hear that, Nixon.”
“Which part? That I didn’t hurt Flynn, or that I care about our home?”
She smiled softly. “Both.”
Seeing her this way made him content. The last thing he ever wanted to see was a look of disappointment in her big brown eyes.
He’d avoid violence at all costs.
He’d leave the fucking boy alone.
Besides, the kid had issues – big issues.
Nixon replayed his conversation with him at the restaurant. He caught the vulnerable look in Flynn’s eye, caught the moment of self-loathing when he’d said no one would want him.
He caught…
Nixon frowned suddenly, remembering another thing he’d said. It took him back to a time in the past. To a moment…What moment was it though?
He wracked his head trying to remember, and when the fragments of that memory began slide in place, one after the next, he felt…confused.
Because it couldn’t be right.
It was just a coincidence.
But... that wasn’t right, was it?
Nixon shook his head at himself; it didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t possible.
Tyrone…
The crew had just left the hotel, bags packed, heading to the seaplane terminal.
“We need to talk,” Nixon said, coming up behind him.
Tyrone slowed until they were side by side. “What’s up?”
Nixon looked fucking wrecked. The bags under his eyes were raccoon-ish. He looked solemn as he glanced around them, making sure no one was close enough to hear.
“I have a problem,” Nixon said furtively. “A big problem, Tyrone.”
He felt a dip in his chest. “What’s the problem?”
“Something very bad is going to happen. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s going to go down sometime after we leave.”
Tyrone’s footsteps slowed. “How do you know this, Nixon?”
Nixon flexed his jaw, looking wretched. “I realized something last night. The past…it doesn’t die, Tyrone. It catches up to you.”
“What?”
“If something were to happen to me, I need you to make sure Vixen makes it out.”
Tyrone felt like he’d been struck by a wrecking ball. “Nothing will happen to you.”
But Nixon looked manic. “I need to know how loyal the crew is to me.”
“We kept the mountain a secret, Nixon. You know we’re loyal. We’d do anything for one another.”
“Then…I need your help. I need all their help. I need all the help I can get with this.”
Tyrone didn’t blink.
Didn’t take a moment to respond.
Didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
“What do you want us to do?”
24.
Vixen…
Nixon left in the afternoon, carrying a packed bag, looking…disoriented.
That morning I had tried to impress him by wearing his favourite white dress, but he hadn’t noticed.
I stayed behind in the apartment because I never liked to watch him go with the crew, but a half hour after he’d left the room, I heard the two seaplanes in the distance. I looked out the window and saw them soaring in the sky.
Goddammit, I missed him already.
I spent most of the day reading books. What was originally a party room on the ground level of the hotel was now a converted library. Made for me, Nixon had said, but it came to good use for guests at the hotel.
Secluded on an armchair in the corner of the room, I tried to read, tried to get lost in fantasy, but…my thoughts kept drowning out the words. I caught myself numerous times staring off into space. My heart felt heavy in my chest. Maybe it was because I hadn’t properly said goodbye to Nixon. He’d left in a hurry, buried in his own thoughts; his kiss had been chaste, that passion absent.
It was why I was feeling out of sorts, I reasoned. Usually he fucked me and left me spent on the bed right before he packed to leave.
“Though you don’t like to admit it, I know you don’t like to see me go,” he would say, kissing the top of my nose. “I don’t like it, either. I hate it, baby.”
Of course, I never admitted that to him.
I was the one held against her will here.
I couldn’t tell the man that imprisoned me in a hotel that I would miss him when he left.
But I did.
I wished I could make the feelings go away. I wished the dependency I felt for him would stop, but they kept growing instead.
I saw a huge stone manor once, a fleeting sight on the bus. It was covered in moss and green vines. I kept thinking it would have taken a long time for those vines to criss-cross over one another. To devour that house took time; it took patience; it took complete neglect from the outside world.
I was that house in a way. My feelings were criss-crossing over one another, one negative thought crossed over by a positive one. I hated Nixon on one vine, but I needed him on another. And so, I was filled with these feelings that contradicted one another; feelings that overlapped and took over and I couldn’t do a thing about them because I was here, alone, and no one had cared to save me.
I rested the open book against my chest and slid down the armchair. My sleep had been broken because Nixon had stirred all night. I sensed his anguish. I sensed his troubles. I wish he’d expressed them to me, but then again, he’d pleaded for my help and I’d done nothing.
Feeling drowsy, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Eventually, I fell into a light sleep.
It felt like only seconds had lapsed when I was awoken by an ear-piercing sound. I jolted out of the chair, confused. Judging by how cloudy my head was and how stiff my body felt, I’d been asleep a while.
I hurried out of the library, aware now that it was the fire alarm that was blasting. The lobby was crowded with panicked guests filing out of the doors, their concerned voices talking over one another.
This was serious.
Everyone was clearing out. They practically shoved one another in an effort to get through the doors.
I had to leave. I realized. I had to get in line. I swung my gaze around me, searching for Nixon’s men, but I couldn’t see them among the dozens of faces around me. I faced forward, heart in my throat.
Was it a drill? I wondered as I listened to the panicked words exchanged.
No, I quickly learned. There was a fire!
There was more than one fire, in fact.
“You can smell the blaze from here,” one of the guests said, sounding startled.
“What’s going on out there?”
“Hurry and clear out!” someone in the back shouted. “We’re waiting!”
The crowd of people pushed to get through. Shoulders hit mine as bodies forced their way forward, squeezing out of the small doors.
“It’s bad!” someone outside screamed. “Oh, my God!”
My heart caught in my throat.
I wouldn’t know the extent of it for another few moments. I fought to remain upright, fought against the pushy limbs to keep going.
I finally took a step outside into the crisp cold air and spun around.
Immediately, I was seized with terror.
The entire street was up in flames. I looked up at the hotel, lightheaded by the thick plumes of smoke rising to the sky from its rooftop.
Disoriented, I walked along the middle of the road, eyes bouncing from one burning storefront to the next. I heard the sound of despair, heard sobs and screaming, and there were even people trapped in some of the buildings that were being rescued.
The flames soared, roaring and high.
Like giant cloudy columns, they climbed the skies, one after the other.
Everything…Everything Nixon had strived so hard to build was burning.
His island was on fire.
Tears fell from my eyes as I realized the magnitude of his loss.
Poor Nixon. This was going to gut his soul.
People ran. Cars screeched along the roads, headed in the direction of the hills. Sirens sounded, the fire trucks were coming, but the blaze had already done its job.
This was devastating.
Suddenly, as I stood still in the middle of the road, a loud BOOM sounded. The earth felt like it was moving beneath my feet. I nearly lost my step as horrified screams followed.
Oh, my God.
It was pandemonium.
Like ants, panicked people scattered in all directions.
I realized I didn’t know where to go. I felt lost, confused, spinning around like a top because my home was in that hotel and it was gone now.
It knocked me breathless how much that hurt.
How much, in that moment, I needed Nixon.
I wandered through the cloud of smoke, feeling the heat of the storefronts, knowing I needed to get away. This fire was going to keep spreading.
I’d just begun to follow a group of people when I felt an arm wrap around my waist, and something cold was pressed against the back of my head. I gasped in response, stunned into silence.
“Don’t scream,” the voice said. “Don’t fight. I’ll shoot you if you do either.”
Pure terror ran through my bones, weakening them. On shaky legs, he led me down the street in the opposite direction of everyone else. We were going toward the dead end, where the bakery was. We stepped into the fog of smoke; it was so thick, I couldn’t see beyond the length of my arm.
Then, as we approached, still swallowed by the clouds of smoke, I saw a parked car on the side of the road. By the time we got to it, I was feeling unwell. He told me to stand still while he opened the door and pulled something out. His hand was gripping my arm. I was too frightened to try and run – he’d feel the resistance in me, and I could tell he was a big guy. I stood no chance. Shaking, my teeth chattered. I began to plea.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please, don’t. I’m with Nixon.”
“You think that’ll save you?” the man asked.
“He will find me.”
“It’s up to you whether you want him to find you dead or alive.”
Tears trailed down my cheeks. “Why are you doing this?”