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.