Hollow Back Girl

by Olivia R. Burton

Chapter Twenty

  Owen didn’t want to bring Kincade out to the forest, even a different forest than the one in which we’d been spending so much time. While Chloe and I were borderline-okay with bringing her to the Lofriska so they could take their revenge, Owen was not. He didn’t explain why, but it wasn’t about love or lust or any emotion I could discern into a clear reasoning.

  Owen asked me to point out some place quiet, preferably abandoned, where we could talk to her for a bit. The only thing that came to mind was the old high school. Most of it had burned down shortly before I’d gone off to college and my mother was always complaining that they needed to rebuild it and get it running again.

  Kincade glanced over at me from her seat at the uncomfortable metal desk that really should have been much dirtier than it was. Chloe was off to the side, leaning against a wall watching Kincade. We were pretty confident she wouldn’t make a break for it with both her hands cuffed to the desk, but Chloe wasn’t about to leave anything to chance. Owen grabbed my arm, pulled on me slightly.

  “I need to talk to you for a moment.”

  “Sure,” I said, wondering why they hadn’t actually started asking her questions or choosing who got to be the bad cop. I was betting Owen would assume it would be him, but I’ve seen Chloe’s face when I try to weasel out of going to the gym; she was definitely a better fit for the role.

  We stepped outside the classroom into a crusty hallway that looked fine if you only faced one direction. Past Owen, I could see debris under the scorched and open ceiling. He led me down the intact side of the hall, leaned against a wall that was weather worn, but otherwise in decent shape.

  “You remember what we did on our first date?”

  “I certainly do.” I wagged my eyebrows up at him and he smiled, but no lust came.

  “I meant right after the shooting stopped.”

  “Ah,” I grumbled, nodded. “Yeah. You want a repeat performance?”

  “I do, but I do not want Kincade knowing what you can do. It’s bad enough she knows you have any power at all.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I gave a nod, crossed my arms across my breasts. “So how do we do this?”

  “Very similarly. I’ll ask her questions; you let me know if she’s lying. Stay behind her, nod or shake your head. Try not to speak, which I know will be hard for you.”

  I stuck my tongue out, but said nothing, figuring I could be a brat and get a jump on his orders. He reached out, grabbed an invisible zipper at the left of my mouth, dragged it to the right, and then mimed putting a key in his pocket. Fighting the urge to gasp at my throat and pantomime not being able to breathe, I only stepped to the side. He watched me briefly, probably sensing my mischievous thoughts, and then walked back toward the classroom. I entered the room a few steps after him, found him standing in front of Kincade. She was looking up at him, unbothered by his intimidation tactic.

  “Have you two considered just asking nicely?” Kincade rolled her gaze to Chloe, winking and kissing the air. “Or are you going to smack me around a bit, just the way I like it?”

  I moved down the line of crooked desks, eyed a grouping of them that had been pressed together to form one large table; I was pretty sure there were several used condoms on the ground around them. Wrinkling my nose, I looked back to Kincade, then up to Owen. I glanced at Chloe, realizing it was only me who was at all nervous or uncomfortable. No one was speaking but it seemed I was also the only one with any interest in breaking the silence. Finally, I felt a curiosity in Chloe and she gestured vaguely with her right hand at Kincade.

  “You’re wearing my rings.”

  “They fit me better.”

  “For now,” Chloe said. I couldn’t see Kincade’s face from my position, but irritation was beginning to simmer, stemming from a judgmental derision that I didn’t understand.

  “These beauties don’t deserve to be locked up in some closet safe. They were designed for action, and you’re out of game now.”

  “Am I?” Chloe asked, her voice quiet, the barest hint of threat running like lightning through her tone. Eager surprise wriggled within Kincade and she gasped.

  “Are you off your leash, Gavel?”

  Chloe’s lip quirked up and I felt an explosion of humor in her. She didn’t say anything further for a moment, but she did look back to Owen. When he remained silent as well, she gestured vaguely, stepping back. “Go ahead.”

  “Where’s the tree?” Owen asked.

  “I sold it. I told you that.” Kincade sounding annoyed at the question, but it was a show. I nodded at Owen, but he wasn’t watching me and I wasn’t sure he noticed.

  “To whom?”

  “That you don’t get for free.”

  Before I could even nod to let him know she was telling the truth, Owen darted forward, shot his fist out in one quick jab. I felt an eruption of pain, anger, and outrage from Kincade as her right arm jerked against the cuff. Owen wiped the blood from his knuckles down the front of her shirt and then stepped back, waiting Kincade out.

  “Asshole,” Kincade spat, blood all down her face.

  “Just one?” Chloe asked. Owen turned to her, blinked as if he didn’t understand what she meant for a moment. Shaking his head over a laugh, he looked back to Kincade.

  “No, that was for the other day. She kept touching me in the bar and I just remembered I hate that.”

  “You love that,” Kincade said, but her bravado was false, covering that sharp and burning hate I remembered from our first meeting. Something in Owen was plump and happy, pulsing in a way I thought I recognized from the sweaty moments when he and I were alone, but I didn’t want to acknowledge what I was feeling. I focused entirely on Kincade, using her raw rage to distract me.

  Owen kneeled down so he could see her while her nose bled all over the desk.

  “I’m not going to pay you for anything. I have done you too many favors—”

  “You call Detroit a favor?” she asked, spitting blood onto the ground. Amusement lit Chloe up, but she remained calm and still on the outside, as if she didn’t have any opinion on Kincade’s comment. Feeling entirely lost, like a fourth wheel on a tricycle, I crossed my arms over my chest, deciding that Chloe and I really needed to have a conversation at the end of all this.

  Owen didn’t argue or agree, just reached into his pocket and produced a handkerchief. He held it against Kincade’s nose, making her hiss.

  “Baldachin Corporation,” Kincade finally said, her voice thick and muffled by the kerchief. “They have a—ha ha—branch about two hours from here, medical research mainly.”

  I gave a nod, but Owen’s eyes were still on Kincade as he helped stop her bleeding. Chloe caught my nod, leaning down as if she needed to look into Kincade’s eyes to be sure of something.

  “She’s telling the truth,” Chloe said after a bit.

  “Your mistress tell you that?” Kincade asked. Something in me jumped to attention, a memory that wanted to crest the surface of my mind and overwhelm my consciousness. I held it back, feeling as threatened by it as I had by the feeling in Owen just moments before.

  “Good,” Owen said. “You need medical attention, Kincade.”

  “Shit,” Kincade said, quietly, though I didn’t understand why.

  “You’re taking her to the hospital?” I asked.

  “Of a sort,” Chloe said, dipping a hand into her red bag, which she’d left open on a nearby desk. She slid out a syringe that made me think of the last time she and Owen had paired up to be gun-toting badasses. Kincade swore, lifting her head right out of Owen’s grip.

  “Just leave me here, I’ll find my own way.”

  “Emergency bourbon?” Owen asked. Chloe laughed as if the joke made perfect sense, and I felt a small swirl of nostalgia curl in her as she approached Kincade and jabbed the needle into her arm.

  With Kincade tucked securely in a decimated classroom at the abandoned high school, Chloe, Owen and I all drove out toward another sleepy forest town, at the edge of which
was a medical research lab for The Baldachin Corporation. At about the ninety-minute mark, wherein Chloe and Owen had been chatting nonstop about books, movies, and occasionally politics, I threw up my hands.

  “You guys have to stop pretending there’s nothing strange going on here. Tree people are killing people-people, Chloe and Kincade have some sort of weird, kinky history, and we’re about to break into a lab that might have naked zombies wandering around deep inside its bowels. And what if Kincade wakes up and gets out of the room you locked her in? Come on. Let’s all freak out a little.”

  “We didn’t date,” Chloe said twisting in the passenger seat to face me as best she could. “It’s a long story, but I was in a weird relationship when she and I crossed paths.” Chloe waved a hand as if that should explain it all.

  “Go on,” I insisted, frustrated by her skirting of the truth.

  “I did a lot of traveling when I was younger,” she said carefully, as if wanting to make sure that the exact words she used weren’t a lie, but, for the first time in my life, I didn’t trust her. “You know, the specifics don’t matter.” That was definitely a lie.

  “A woman from your past shows up threatening my life and wearing your ring, and it doesn’t matter?” I asked. Owen let out a small snort but didn’t intervene. Chloe flicked her gaze to his profile briefly, but wasn’t bothered by his amusement.

  “Does it really surprise you that someone like Kincade stole from me?” Chloe asked after a long moment. I couldn’t argue with that; it was clear Kincade was a bad apple.

  “No, that doesn’t surprise me, but there’s a lot here you’re not telling me—either of you,” I said, wanting Owen to know he wasn’t getting off scot-free either.

  “Hey, you know my history with her,” Owen said. “Don’t rope me into this.”

  “Traitor,” Chloe mumbled, making Owen laugh again.

  The car went quiet, Chloe still twisted in her seat, watching me quietly. I had so many uncomfortable questions, too many to really articulate.

  “Let’s just focus on the now, okay?” Chloe asked, pleading with me softly. Nervous energy had started brewing in her guts, replicating madly, growing desperately and threatening to flood the car. Unwilling to take on that responsibility—either by making it worse asking for details or in the way I’d taken it on with Robin—I nodded.

  “Fine. But later we need to talk.”

  “Yeah,” she said simply, the nerves dissipating slightly.

  “So, where are we going and why am I going?” I asked, hoping to change the subject and ease her completely.

  “The fit you threw last time we tried not to include you made me think it would save time to bring you along,” Owen said.

  “Hey, I’m supposed to be the one of us with a monopoly on bad decisions. Stop horning in on my schtick.”

  “My apologies. I’ll make sure once we get there you do and say nothing. No matter what.”

  “Hey now,” I said, not liking the thought of that, even though I knew he wasn’t serious.

  “We’re headed to Baldachin, where hopefully we’ll be able to find the tree and bring her back to where she belongs.”

  “In this sensible sedan?” I asked, hoping Owen caught the snark. “Won’t her branches and needles make us all feel a little crowded?”

  “Moon roof,” Owen said simply, as if that was the solution to the world’s problems. I thought about that for a moment, giggled at the image of a Lofriska stuck up through the roof like a drunken bachelorette speeding through Vegas, and nodded.

  “Okay. Well, what about before that? Are we gonna knock and ask politely to get back our tree lady? Or—wait, do they even know what she is? Can we just replace her with a ficus and be on our way?”

  “We didn’t bring a ficus, so it’ll be some mix of the two,” Owen said as he pulled the car to off to the side of the road. “Now, remember that game face? You’re going in with us.”

  “Oh no,” I argued, opposed, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. “I don’t know how to break and enter into anything that isn’t a Kit-Kat. I’m staying here.” Chloe pushed out of the car, coming to open my door and reach a hand out.

  “I’ll protect you,” she said, wiggling her fingers insistently. She wasn’t lying, had every intention of making sure I stayed okay, but I knew from personal experience that I have an abnormal talent for getting into trouble. This seemed the perfect place for me to get shot up by friendly fire or beaten up by another tree. I did not want to get out of the car.

  Sighing, feeling guilty for making her feel bad and for somehow being the reason she was here in the first place, I let her pull me out and followed her around to the trunk, where Owen was digging for supplies.

  Chloe hefted her red bag, dug inside until she found two leather cords with tiny copper circles hanging from each one. I couldn’t see the little disks clearly in the dark but, when Owen shone a tiny flashlight on his wrist so Chloe would tie one on, I caught the edges of something carved into it.

  “Do I get one? What are those?”

  Neither one of them answered me as they strapped on weapons and stiff vests that I could only assume were Kevlar. The fact that I wasn’t getting either made my stomach drop into my butt.

  “Are we sure I’m not waiting in the car this time? I should wait in the car,” I said, edging back toward the passenger door. Chloe let me go as Owen stuck the flashlight between his teeth, tying the second cord onto Chloe’s wrist.

  “We need you to locate the Lofriska,” she said as I opened the door.

  “So where’s my vest and gun?” I asked, standing there, tantalizingly close to what I had decided was safety. Owen snorted, laughed. I couldn’t help but glare.

  “I barely trust you with a stapler,” Chloe said. “I’m not giving you a gun.”

  “Then let me stay here!”

  “We’re not actually going to make you go inside,” Chloe insisted. “The building isn’t very big; we just need you to walk the perimeter, poke around until you find the tree, and give us a rough location. We’ll be with you every step and then you can go hide in the bushes while we go in.”

  “You know what hides in bushes?” I griped, pointing at them. I was scared and it was making me mouthy. “Stray bullets fired at you two, that’s what. You assholes are going to get me killed.”

  “Here,” Owen said, sighing. Before I could argue, he was coming at me with a shadow of something stiff. He yanked it over my head, Velcro’d it around my sides. “Now stop complaining.”

  Before I could do exactly the opposite, he grabbed my chin, tipped my head up, and kissed me. I was momentarily too distracted by the feel of his tongue to consider complaining anymore. When he pulled away, though, I glared up at him, pushed him back a step.

  “Put out or shut up, buddy.”

  “Later,” he whispered, giving my ass a quick squeeze, and then moving back to Chloe’s side. She pulled a few things out of her red bag as I tried to adjust the uncomfortable vest. When snug, it felt secure but caused the bruises along my ribs to complain; when loose, there was no pain, but it made me feel vulnerable. By the time they shut the trunk and started moving, I’d found an unhappy medium, but at least I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to get killed accidentally.

  It didn’t take us more than twenty-five minutes to clear the tree line behind the building. Chloe had to cut through a perimeter fence and we had to do a lot more hiking through the woods than I would have preferred, but I kept my huffing and puffing to a minimum.

  “What if I can’t feel the thing?” I asked, thinking of when Owen and I had initially come across the Lofriska.

  “You seemed to feel her fine when Evergreen showed you her trunk,” Owen pointed out. I couldn’t argue, so I just sort of grunted in agreement, frustrated my one shot at getting out of my given task had missed.

  We stood at the edge of the parking lot, hugging the trees, and Chloe pulled out a small pair of binoculars. Owen produced some little gadget that looked like it b
elonged in an episode of Star Trek, swept it back and forth in front of him. After a moment, they switched. I tried to peer to see what the machine showed them, but they were too quick.

  Chloe turned to me as she tucked the binoculars into a pouch at her hip.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She took off at a light sprint, hit the edge of the building, and stuck close to it as she disappeared around the other side. I looked up at Owen, found him watching me.

  “This isn’t as intimidating as it looks,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This place does have security, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Well, sure, with your Tricorder there, you’re all set.”

  Owen smiled. “Just think, within—oh—” He checked his watch. “Three hours max, we’ll be in my hotel room, naked.”

  “If you don’t turn your phone off before we even get there, I’m throwing it in a lake.”

  “Scout’s honor,” Owen said, a skinny streak of lust curling through him.

  “I bet you were a cute Boy Scout,” I mused, picturing a young blond Owen in a brown uniform, aggressively out-scouting all the other kids. Chloe was jogging back, a bit of worry clouding around her.

  “We have about thirty minutes, so we need to get moving.”

  “Thirty minutes until what?” I asked, and was promptly ignored. Owen nodded, pressing a hand gently to my back to get me moving. We all took off at a jog toward the building, hugging the wall as we got close.

  “Do your thing,” Chloe ordered briskly, making me wonder about all the moving parts of this possibly doomed operation and why it seemed Chloe was in charge of so many of them. Shoving it all away, I took a deep breath, doing my best to control my empathy and not let my nerves take over. Eyes drooping, I searched as much of the building as I could from where we were. Without knowing the layout, it was like reaching a hand into a barrel of black tea and trying to locate one single teabag.

  In what I felt was lucky for us, I sensed very few humans. Most of them seemed pretty chill, if not outright bored. I couldn’t tell what they were doing, but the two ambling slowly through my field of empathy seemed like security guards more comfortable with their jobs that our presence warranted.