Thin Skinned

by Margo Bond Collins

  He was right. I had no real options at the moment. But I didn’t want to lose the strength my half-snake shape gave me, so I didn’t shift or sit. Instead, I simply stared out the window, down to the ground at the estate we circled.

  La casa was more than just a house. It was an Italian-style villa, dropped into the middle of the jungle. As we circled around it, descending, I realized there were no roads in or out of the compound we were landing in. Just the house, outbuildings, and a comparatively short runway. It was like the Texas neighborhood we’d taken off from writ large—or at least picked up and transplanted directly into the jungle. Rich, isolated, and accessible by plane.

  I hadn’t realized Phil was watching me until I heard his malicious laugh. “Just figured out you can’t get out of here, didn’t you?”

  I didn’t answer, instead choosing to examine what I could see of the facility as we descended. The closer we got to touching down, the more interested I became in where we were landing.

  Phil didn’t seem bothered by my lack of response. “Doesn’t matter how much you look. There’s nowhere to go down there but out to the jungle. You’re as trapped in La Casa as you are on the plane.”

  I didn’t point out to him that I actually had a form that would be perfectly comfortable in the jungle. My problem with it, of course, was that I wanted to get home to my friends and family. My parents would be beside themselves if I disappeared and never returned.

  There was more to it, too. If I spent too much time in my serpentine form, I began to lose my human self. I didn’t think it would take very long to forget language altogether. I wasn’t sure that wasn’t what had happened when I was young—I didn’t speak when I first shifted around my parents. And for all I know, I had shifted into my snake form and taken off into the desert from where I’d been with my birth family. I would not have turned back into my human form if it wasn’t safe to do so. There was no telling how long I had been out there when Daddy found me.

  I looked down at the jungle again. We had been flying for hours. Not a long distance for flight, but on the ground? It would take me an eternity to make my way back home.

  God. No wonder Phil hadn’t looked at all concerned at any point, even when I swallowed his damn diamonds. He knew where we were headed, and that there was no way for me to get out of here without help.

  I was still trapped.

  Chapter 12

  Unlike all the people in their full human forms, I didn’t even take a seat as we landed. Instead, I again coiled my tail around the seats and held on.

  All the way down, I fantasized about the possibility of simply using my tail to rip the money out of Abuela. But I couldn’t imagine it doing it—not really. The thought of tearing open the chest of the woman who wore a pendant of someone just like me made my own chest ache in sympathy.

  As we taxied to a stop, my stomach clenched around the diamonds. Or maybe that was a hard knot of fear in my belly.

  I didn’t want to die in the jungle. I wasn’t entirely certain how I’d gone so quickly from having the upper hand to being in this standoff that had just fizzled out.

  I mean, I knew how it had happened, as in the events that had taken place. But still, I really was confused—more about my own actions than anything. Why had I done this? The longer I spent in even half-human form, the more my human logic took over.

  If I survived this trip, I was going to have to work on that.

  When I glanced over at Lori and Hale, Lori was twitching like crazy. Hale didn’t have it much better, covered in flop sweat. I didn’t know whether it would be kinder to give them a hit or let them go ahead and go through withdrawal.

  “What you looking at, snake bitch?” Hale demanded.

  No. I took it back. He could go through withdrawal for all I cared. Lori had leaned in close to him and was muttering something under her breath. Hail shoved her away hard enough she almost lost her grip on the baby, who woke from a light doze and started wailing.

  “Shut the kid up,” Phil snarled. “El Lobo doesn’t need kids screeching around him.”

  El Lobo? The name suddenly hit me. Oh, no. Doesn’t that mean crazy?

  I paused, blinking. No. It’s not crazy. It’s something else.

  We thumped down to a bumpy landing and rolled to a stop. The men in the plane started shifting around, getting ready to leave. Lori picked up the bag she carried. I hoped it at least had diapers in it.

  I rested on my coils, glaring at all of them.

  This had been an absolutely insane day. And I was about to get off the plane and go meet someone named Mr. Crazy.

  Except that’s not what his name meant. I wracked my brains...

  Wolf! That’s what his name meant in Spanish—The Wolf.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Phil had been willing to talk to me most of the way out here, even if it was to taunt me. I turned to him. “El Lobo? I asked. “The Wolf?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I failed miserably, I was sure.

  Phil’s delighted laugh set my teeth on edge, but I was willing to put up with it to get information. Information like, would it be better for me to take off into the jungle immediately and skip out on meeting this Wolf altogether? Or should I stick it out and see what happened next?

  What was my best option for getting out of the consequences of this stupid decision I’d made—and then actually making it home alive?

  Phil pulled a bag down from an overhead bin, bent over the seat, and came up with a wicked-looking pistol in his hand. And of course, it was pointed right at me.

  Behind me, Ron sighed.

  I really should have taken all the guns away. All the guns and all the cell phones, and I maybe should have gone ahead and killed Phil, too, while I was at it. All those thoughts and more ran through my mind as I stared down a barrel for the second time in less than half an hour.

  “I’m guessing you’re thinking about slithering off into the jungle and hiding out there like the monster you are.”

  It was disturbing how well he could predict my thoughts. Am I that obvious?

  “I’m not saying that I’m wouldn’t be willing to let you do just that. But El Lobo likes rarities.” He waved his gun up and down to indicate my entire form. “And you are definitely a rarity.”

  Really, his willingness to sell me off to his Wolf friend proved how adaptable the human mind really is. It had only been an hour, tops, since I’d burst out of Abuela’s casket. And although Phil clearly recognized that I was an oddity among humans—to say the least—he was also beginning to accept me as a normal part of his world.

  Not so normal that he didn’t wave me forward with a gun, of course.

  “And don’t pull any of that striking-like-a-snake business, either—I’ve seen your moves and I can pull the trigger before you’re done striking at me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. “If it would make you feel safer, I could shift to my human legs.” He sneered, and it occurred to me I shouldn’t taunt the man with the gun. “It’ll make it easier for me to walk with you,” I added.

  “I want El Lobo to see you exactly as you are in this shape.”

  I could’ve changed without his permission, but I was worried that he might take offense and shoot me anyway. And I was far too busy berating myself for ever thinking I could get the upper hand with these guys to deal with causing myself any more pain.

  The three Spanish-speaking men who’d been on the plane opened the door and walked in front of us as we exited down the steps past a ground crew that consisted of apparently two guys. Phil and Ron exited behind Lori, Hale, and me. The pilot and copilot came last.

  We were headed toward the buildings. The tan earth that had once held jungle and now was just strip for airplanes puffed up dust into our faces as we walked. It was hotter here than in Texas, something about the plants holding in the humidity. I wanted to curl up in it, soak it in, relax in the warmth.

  That desire was making it hard to pay attention to the rest of what wa
s going on. That inability to resist my animal instincts when I was in my animal form had helped land me in this mess in the first place. I fought against those instincts harder now.

  As we drew closer to the buildings, I caught a glimpse of another group headed toward us. They raised their hands and spoke a few words. The men in front of our group did the same. The exchange had the feel of a password, though it was not one I recognized, of course.

  Then everyone stopped and waited.

  Lori and Hale, off to one side of me and trying to keep their distance, shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “What is taking so long?” Lori asked. “I need a hit.”

  “Just hang on,” Hale hissed. “Phil promised me they’d take care of us. He’ll get us hooked up.”

  I glanced back at Phil, who smirked at me. I didn’t think he was going to keep that promise, whatever it might have been.

  I figured out waiting for when the men in front snapped to a sort of attention. They didn’t exactly salute, but their body language went from tired and irritated by a difficult trip to almost subservient. But also almost military.

  Over the heads of the men in front of me, I caught a glimpse of dark hair.

  That must be El Lobo. The Wolf.

  Phil moved up and around me, fanning out to one side far enough so El Lobo could see him. “We’ve got something you’ll want to see,” he announced without preamble.

  “Oh, yes?” came a deep voice with a Spanish accent and a hint of a rumble in the chest of the speaker.

  It was a voice that dripped sex, even in only those two words.

  One of El Lobo’s men said something in Spanish, and the voice changed, snapping out sharply, “Show me.”

  As everyone around me drew away so El Lobo could see me, I suddenly felt more exposed than I had been even before I got Ron to give me a shirt.

  Phil stepped forward just as I finally saw El Lobo himself, and said, “El Lobo de la Selva, I present to you your very own Santa Muerte.”

  Chapter 13

  But El Lobo already had his gaze fixed on me. After Phil’s introduction, I expected the drug lord—because that’s what he had to be, right?—to order me taken off and caged immediately, creepy isolated-island-style experiments to commence forthwith.

  Instead, his eyes narrowed as he took in my half-serpent form and the shirt I wore, and he turned to Phil to say, in that beautifully accented voice of his, “You fucking idiot.”

  Phil’s expression, so pleased mere seconds before, went completely blank as El Lobo unleashed a torrent of Spanish on him.

  Whatever he was saying to Phil had to be rough, too, because the longer it went on, the paler Phil grew behind his beard.

  With a final, particularly expressive swirl of his arm into the air ending with one hand pointing back toward the plane, El Lobo said something about abuela. Phil nodded meekly and turned to return to the aircraft without another word. Ron followed him, his face having grown equally pale.

  What the hell had the Wolf said to them?

  I stiffened up a bit when El Lobo turned to me next, stalking up to stand next to me. But instead of a berating, he gave me his hand. “My lady,” he said, “are you well?”

  I blinked, trying to think of something equally polite to say. Instead, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Am I well? You know, the only way I could have enjoyed that any more than I already did would have been if I’d understood a word of it. Other than abuela.”

  He laughed aloud, then nodded and tucked my arm into his, turning to walk toward the house. The entire entourage followed along silently behind us—even Baby Paige, who had fallen into an exhausted sleep in her mother’s arms. “Ah, yes,” El Lobo said. “Abuela. Regrettably, an elderly relative of mine passed away and had to be brought home on the plane.”

  With her chest stuffed full of cash? I doubt it.

  But I managed to keep my mouth shut for once.

  Phil hadn’t had a chance to tell El Lobo about the diamonds I’d swallowed. But I was sure he would. In the meantime, I had no idea why this drug lord was being so nice to me. So...courtly.

  I finally spent a moment looking at him carefully. His voice wasn’t the only part of this man that oozed sex appeal.

  He was stunning—maybe in his late thirties or even early forties. It was hard to tell because his dark hair had a single shock of white running through it from the right side of his forehead back. I couldn’t tell if it was age, artifice, or simply nature.

  His eyes were an ice blue like nothing I’d ever seen on a human before. His cheekbones were high, his jaw chiseled, his lips just the right mix of full and defined.

  He could be a model.

  He was prettier than any man I’d ever seen in real life. And yet he called me “my lady.”

  Was he afraid of my snake form? I didn’t think so. He hadn’t been surprised by it, at any rate. Whatever was going on here was moving way too fast and had undercurrents I didn’t understand.

  But maybe I could get some information. “Your men, the ones on the plane?” I gestured behind us. “They called me Santa Muerte. I think that’s where Phil got the idea. Do you know why the called me that?”

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “A local legend.”

  “Legend?”

  He laughed lightly. “Not without some basis in truth, apparently.”

  “Phil called you El Lobo de la ... something.”

  “Yes—de la Selva. It means of the jungle. It is a joke, of sorts. My name is Antonio Lobo, and La Selva is the name I give my home, though my men simply call it La Casa.” He waved his arm around us to indicate the entire compound before turning his laser-focus attention back to me. “Please, call me Antonio.”

  “I’m Lindi,” I managed to reply. This man’s attention could distract me from any number of important things.

  We arrived at the enormous villa, entering through a side door, and Antonio led me through an opulent room to a dressing room with a surprising number of styles and sizes of women’s clothing.

  Or, looking at Antonio, perhaps not so surprising at all.

  “Please,” he said, “feel free to change—your form, your clothing, whatever you desire.” He paused, searching for the right words, maybe. “You are in no danger here. I fully intend to have you returned home, should you wish to go.” He blinked, seeming to second-guess his own comments. “You are also welcome to remain as my guest as long as you like.”

  Okay. So maybe he wasn’t as unflustered by me as he appeared.

  I didn’t want to leave him waiting too long, but the dressing room had a bathroom attached as well, and I had been in a casket with a dead woman earlier in the day.

  I quickly shifted into my human shape, then took the fastest shower I’ve ever had in my life—too bad, too, because it was a beautiful space, a giant square room with several showerheads all pointed toward the middle. I could have stayed in there for days.

  Instead, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in my size—both much higher quality than anything I’d ever owned before. He even had a pair of cowboy boots that fit me.

  The whole thing hadn’t taken more than twenty minutes. When I stepped out of the room, Antonio was waiting patiently, leaning against the wall.

  He led me to another part of the house, a giant space somewhere between a living area and a patio, with two walls open to the jungle outside, where he deposited me in a chair in an enormous wicker chair with soft cushions.

  The rest of the entourage—still minus Phil and Ron—was waiting there. Antonio gave a few instructions to his men, who led Hale and Lori away.

  “Please,” I said, watching them go, “don’t let anything happen to that baby. I’m ... well, I’m kind of responsible for her.”

  Antonio tilted his head. “Are you? Is she why you are here?”

  And with that, I found myself telling him the whole story.

  My entire life story, actually, since he kept asking questions designed deftly to draw information
from me. He would have made a good counselor.

  “So you know of no others like you?” he asked. I shook my head. My parents would have conniptions if they knew I was giving a total stranger all this information. But it was like I was in another world altogether. And something about Antonio Lobo made me want to trust him, even though I knew better.

  He’s a drug lord, Lindi, my inner voice scolded.

  And I’m at his mercy. Better to be honest and hope he keeps his word, another part of me shot back.

  When I got to the part about the diamonds, he flinched.

  “Those are yours, aren’t they?” I asked.

  “Yes. But do not fret.” He leaned forward and patted my hand, and part of me wanted to coil around him and soak up all his warmth.

  Just then, two other men came into the room. For an instant, I assumed they were Antonio’s brothers. But then I realized that their features were completely different from his. Still, there was a similarity among them. They moved with a kind of feral grace, fluid and predatory all at once. Like the wolf Antonio’s name proclaimed him to be.

  They whispered to him for a moment, then withdrew from the room when he responded in kind.

  Antonio frowned and turned to me. “The child’s parents have requested to be supplied with drugs. Do you wish this?”

  Did I wish it? No. Of course not.

  “No,” I said automatically. But then... “I don’t want them to be in pain, either.”

  Antonio tapped his lower lip with his forefinger. “Tell me, Lindi”—I liked how he said my name, the i-sounds especially Spanish and elongated—“if it were up to you, how would you untangle this dilemma?”

  “Which one? The baby? The Beaumonts? The near-gunfight on the airplane?”

  He threw his head back to laugh aloud. “All of it, my beautiful Lindi, mi serpiente.”

  Ah, hell. I was developing a crush on a Central American drug lord with a secret jungle compound.

  This is not a smart move, Lindi.

  But he was still my only way out of here. And I had totally lucked out that he was interested in making sure I got what I wanted.