It’s that kind of strange solidarity that comes from being surrounded by the sick and dying.
You care about people like they’re your own, just because you can’t stand seeing anyone else hurt after suffering in purgatory’s waiting room.
“Hey, roomie,” the guy says. He’s sunken, wasted, but practically glowing with the new life of hope. “Thought you weren’t gonna make it for a while. What’s your name? They’ve got you down as John Doe.”
John Doe.
Anonymous. Picked up with no wallet, no form of ID.
Galentron probably took them to make my death look like a random mugging. They must have left my body, thinking I’d bleed out, and then get called in for pickup.
What they don’t realize is, they also gave me an opportunity.
This is my chance to disappear, to sort shit out.
So I wrinkle my brow, shaking my head as I feign confusion and say, “I...I don’t know. Go ahead and laugh but...I can’t remember my name.”
That’s my story.
Oliver Major has to stop existing for a while.
I’m sorry, Fuchsia.
I’ll be back for you.
I’ll be back for our little girl.
But for right now, I can’t even share the same country.
Canada’s sounding pretty good for a while.
Just as soon as I get out of here and find a way to disappear.
8
Like Taking Candy from a Baby (Fuchsia)
Remember when I said I’d tell you how I came to be here, staring down the barrel of this obnoxious gold-plated gun with a smile on my lips?
Ta-da. Here I am.
And as Leland Durham lays his finger on the trigger and starts to apply that ounce of pressure, I smile wider, clicking my little ball of pink candy against my teeth just because I know it annoys him and it always has.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say. “You don’t want to end up like your friends.”
The two Nighthawks in uniform he’d had guarding him in his cabin?
On the floor, out cold.
You’d be surprised how high a lady can still kick in a pencil skirt.
I’d used the close quarters to my advantage. They’re big men, made to be that way, and they don’t maneuver well in tight spaces.
I do.
And it wasn’t hard to get an elbow to a solar plexus, a heel to a thick forehead, then use Goon Number One’s body as a sledgehammer with a well-timed push. Goon Number Two went crashing against the wall, his head bouncing off it like a tetherball attached to a rope.
Right now, I should have an entire army of Nighthawks descending on me, but there’s someone outside raising hell. A lucky break.
I can hear the shouts, the roaring, the confusion.
I just caught a glimpse of the man, he was moving by too fast.
A stocky build.
An eyepatch, a leather jacket, and muscle underneath it gleaming in the rain.
That’s all I had time for before the door to this jet opened.
Whoever my mysterious benefactor is, he saved my bacon and my lovely heels from having to lay out another dozen of those hulking pricks while Leland Durham scrambled for his rich man’s gun.
Not that it stopped him.
And not that it’s keeping him from staring down the barrel of his ever-so-classy gold Colt right at me.
Guess he’d been waiting.
He had to know someone would try something.
But I still don’t think he was expecting I’d be the one showing up at his door.
He glances past me with contempt, glancing at the bodies of the men on the floor, then frowns, tilting his head, listening to the dim hints of ruckus from outside.
“I’m sorry,” I say mildly. “Were you waiting for the rest? They’re a bit occupied.”
Durham lets out a soft, raspy sigh.
Like this is just the kind of minor inconvenience that has him complaining to the hotel concierge. Totally not a highly trained assassin and mega-pissed off woman staring him down fearlessly over his own gun.
He has to know I’ve been in this situation before.
He has to know a gun pointed at me has never once stopped me.
And it won’t do him a lick of good today.
I’ve already got six different action plans worked out, and I’ll be out of the line of fire before he even finishes pulling the trigger.
For now, he shakes his head, clucking his tongue.
The man hasn’t changed much over the years. The bad ones never do. A little more grey, a little more portly, a few more lines around his mouth and eyes, but it’s funny how living guilt-free off other people’s sweat and blood keeps you from aging.
You know what they say.
Money’s the cure for all that ails.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Fuchsia,” he snaps, his voice as cold and refined as ever.
Conciliatory.
Bastard prick. He’s actually doing it.
Turning on that smart-assed, superficial charm I’ve always hated since day one.
How much do you want to bet he’s a Scorpio?
“Don’t be daft. You’ve got just as much to lose as I do if the police show up and we’re both apprehended.” He pushes the gun out a little farther, an inch closer.
I raise an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’ll let them arrest you alive?”
He snorts, his nostrils flaring. “You’ve lost your mind. Heroics never interested you. Tell me why you’re really here?”
“Reasons,” I snap, fluttering a step closer, completely oblivious to his little popgun. “Don’t make me recite them or we’ll be here all day. I’d much rather get right into it, wouldn’t you? Be reasonable, now.”
That last line was chosen carefully. It takes me back to a deep, dark place I know he has to remember, even if it’s tucked back in the recesses of his rotten weasel brain.
“I’m exceedingly reasonable, Miss Delaney.” He stressed that word, reasonable. He knows. But he’s still talking, enjoying the sound and taste of his own voice. “You and I, we have history.”
“Yeah. History,” I bite off, already tensing my legs, ready to move. “One you wrote to suit your own greed.”
For just a split second, it all comes rushing back.
Fifteen Years Ago
I don’t do grief.
At least, that’s what I tell myself as I stand numbly across from Leland Durham in his plush office and listen to him roll off platitudes about how I’ll always have a family at Galentron.
How he knew Oliver and I had gotten close, that things were serious between us, and he understands how devastated I must be, especially when I’m pregnant with Oliver’s child.
I want to fucking throat-punch this man.
Especially every time he dares to bring up our baby.
A child I never told another living soul about, much less anyone at Galentron.
So either Oliver spilled it to Durham, which I totally doubt...or it’s worse than I ever thought.
It’s so bad my blood runs colder than liquid nitrogen.
They’re watching me more closely than I realized.
Monitoring my every move. I should’ve known the God-like tracking would continue long after officially “graduating” Nightjars. Growing up, I couldn’t move my pinky without an entire Galentron psychiatric team knowing.