Puck by Wilder Jasinda

  "Get the chip out?" Puck asked.

  Temple nodded, held up a corked glass tube; inside the tube was a tiny cylinder not much bigger than a grain of rice. "I felt that bump, too, but I thought it was just a pimple or something." She shook the tube, making the device rattle inside. "I can't believe those assholes put a chip in me! If Duke and the boys hadn't already killed most of them, I'd want them dead."

  "Yeah, well, we're working on that," Puck said. "The real culprit is Cain. Those jackasses were just the hired goons."

  "Is that thing deactivated or whatever?" Layla asked.

  Temple nodded. "Dr. Emilia wiped it, somehow."

  "Are you sure you shouldn't toss it, just in case?" Layla said.

  "The circuitry was cooked with an electromagnetic pulse." Ivar put in. "Fried, dead. No chance of it being reactivated."

  "So now we're finally going home?" This was Kyrie.

  "That is the plan, yes," Ivar said.

  "Well, if the tracker is fried, then we should be able to get away without a problem, right?" I asked.

  Ivar nodded. "I never make any assumptions. Anything is possible." He waved a hand in a vague gesture. "They would have traced us here to Prague. If they assume you are trying to return home to the States, there are only so many places where airplanes large enough for a transatlantic flight to take off from. We are not out of the woods yet, as they say."

  I didn't see much more of Prague except nearly identical roads and buildings. But then, you couldn't really experience a city properly unless you had at least three days to get out, get lost, and immerse yourself. Thirty minutes in and out didn't really count as visiting, so I'd still have to leave Prague on my list of places to visit. The airfield we were going to was another two-and-a-half-hour drive outside of Prague, which left a lot of time to think.

  But, me being me, that's exactly what I wouldn't do. If I started thinking, I'd start overthinking, and then I'd upset myself, and then all the emotional reactions I've been suppressing would start springing out and, as Ivar had said, we weren't out of the woods yet, and I couldn't afford to give in to thinking or reacting until I was somewhere truly safe.

  No thinking.

  So I turned to Puck for distraction.

  "Do you have a favorite place?" I asked. "Like, a retreat or a secret getaway?"

  He wasn't fazed by the abruptness of the question. He thought for a moment, and then shot me a wink and a grin. "The back seat of that airplane."

  I huffed. "For real, Puck."

  He patted my leg. "Teasin', babe. My cabin has always been my favorite getaway. Although now that Cain's people know about it, I'm probably gonna sell it." He tapped his kneecap with the muzzle of the submachine gun he still had strapped around his chest. "No point to a secret hideaway if Cain's aware of it."

  "That sucks, huh?"

  He sighed. "Yeah, it kinda does. It's been in my family for going on two hundred years. That was where I went when I needed to get away from everything, you know? Plus, it's really all I have to remember my family by. I mean, I didn't have much to begin with, but now I ain't got shit."

  I frowned at him. "You have no family? None?"

  He shook his head. "Nah. Mom's dead, Dad's dead, never had brothers or sisters, or aunts or uncles. I think Pops had a brother and a sister at one point, but if they're still alive, I don't even know their names. His folks were gone before I was born, and Mom's folks both passed a while back, and I never met 'em anyway, on account of the fact that when Mom married Pops, her folks disowned her. Said Pops was a no-account gambler, a drifter, and a piece of shit. They weren't wrong about him, but that didn't mean they should've disowned her."

  "And your mom was an only child too?" I asked.

  He shrugged again. "Dunno, and there ain't no point to finding out. What good is blood family if they're total strangers? I'm almost fuckin' forty, and I've gotten along fine without 'em so far, so there ain't no point in digging up them bones." His southern drawl was strong, for some reason; he didn't like this topic, I supposed. He glanced at me. "What about you?"

  "Favorite place? Or family?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, you know about my family--same as you, I don't have any." I shrugged. "Only time it really makes a difference is around the holidays. That time of the year gets lonely."

  "Word," Puck said. "If I'm not on an op, then I'm flat-out wasted during the holidays. I have a tradition, I rent a penthouse in Vegas, order up a shitload of booze, and I stay my ass in that penthouse getting shitfaced until the holidays are over."

  "And you probably also hire company, I'm guessing?" I asked, lifting an eyebrow at him.

  He nodded. "Been known to a time or two, yes. Like you said, it gets lonely."

  "But is hired company really any kind of comfort?"

  He bobbed his head to one side. "You'd be surprised. Most of those girls don't have much family themselves, so spending the holidays getting paid to hang out with someone? Not a bad gig."

  "But you're not paying them to just hang out, though," I pointed out.

  He leveled a reproving glare at me. "There you go with the assumptions again, sweetheart." He ejected the magazine from the weapon, thumbed out one of the bullets, and toyed with it rather than looking at me. "When I rent out that penthouse, the singular goal is not to remember those two weeks, from before Christmas to after the New Year. So if I book an escort for those two weeks, it's usually for the purpose of having someone around to make sure I don't choke on my own fuckin' puke, or do something monumentally stupid. Sometimes we do the obvious, yeah, but usually, we'd just hang out, talk, drink, and watch movies. Someone to just be there, more than anything. And, like I said, most of those girls are shy on meaningful family their own selves, so they're grateful to not be sitting around alone. Instead, they have me, which I realize may not be a super amazing value add for them, but it's a damn sight better than bein' lonely on Christmas fuckin' day."

  I blinked, feeling my throat close as I imagined the picture he'd painted: him, in a glitzy Vegas penthouse, drunk, his only company an equally lonely prostitute or escort. Drinking to forget the time, so he would be less aware of the loneliness.

  Layla, sitting on my left side, whereas Puck was on my right, reached around me and slugged Puck on the shoulder. "You're a dumbass, Puck Lawson."

  He frowned and rubbed his arm where she'd punched him. "Probably, but why?"

  "You waste all that time and all that money on hookers and booze and a penthouse when you could just crash with us? And what about Thresh? He doesn't have family either. Nor does Duke, for that matter. Why do you stupid, emotionally handicapped dumbass fucking men insist on being so goddamn macho about everything?"

  "We get together during the holidays a few times," Puck said. "They usually show up at my penthouse for a few days."

  "That's not what I mean. You guys are family. To each other, and to me and Nick." She sounded like she was choked up. "I don't have family, Nick doesn't have family, and who the hell knows about Lear and Anselm. None of us have family. So why the hell don't we act like fucking family when it counts?"

  "Because we're all stupid, stubborn, macho men," Puck answered. "Emotionally handicapped and socially stunted."

  Lola piped up, then. "Yeah, well, you can bet your ass that shit is gonna change for Thresh, now that I'm in the picture."

  "Same for Duke," Temple put in.

  I twisted to glance back at Kyrie, but she didn't say anything, although she looked like she was deep in thought.

  Layla raised her voice. "Hey, Ivar."

  "Ja?" he answered.

  "You got a secure line to the boys?"

  "Jawohl," he clipped out, and dug a phone out of his hip pocket, touched a speed dial entry, and handed it back to her.

  Layla listened to it ring. "Hey, baby, it's me." She snorted. "Yes, me, Layla. Who else you got answering the phone saying 'hey baby?' Yeah, you bet your ass nobody, or I'll cut your fuckin' balls off. No, listen, you're gonna yell at me
for wasting secure phone time on this, but it's important. We are, as of this moment, hosting a company-wide two-week holiday retreat for all the guys and their girlfriends, from Christmas to New Year's. I don't care where, or what it looks like, or how much you spend on it, but that shit is nonnegotiable. Did you know about Puck's Vegas penthouse bullshit? . . . Yes, I'm serious, Nick. No, this can't wait. You say those guys are like your family, well I'm calling your bluff. We start acting like family. Not just protecting each other when shit goes down but investing in them outside of work."

  She listened a few moments, seeming mollified. "Exactly, that's what I'm talking about . . . right . . . Okay. Yeah, I love you, too--Yeah, we're on our way to the airport for the trip stateside."

  Kyrie reached forward. "Can I see that?" Layla handed it back to Kyrie. "Hey Harris, it's Kyrie. Yeah, can I talk to him? . . . Hi, babe. So you heard what Harris was talking about. Yeah, so you're going to coordinate with Harris on that, okay? Buy an island near us or something, or build a set of guest quarters for them, whatever you want, as long as there's private accommodations for all of them down with us for the holidays. You can figure out the details, that's what you're best at. Yep, so far so good. I've seen some things I'd rather have not seen, but no worse than Greece. Okay, love you. Bye."

  I couldn't help but laugh. "You people are crazy."

  Kyrie handed the phone forward. "Why? What's funny?"

  I gestured at her and then Layla. "You two. You tell your husband to 'buy an island or something.' For real?"

  She shrugged, grinning. "He's Valentine Roth--he could buy an island from the profits of a single quarter from one company, and we own a dozen that I know of. So telling him to buy an island is like saying 'baby, I want a Ferrari, go buy me one.'"

  I laughed even harder. "You do realize that the vast majority of humans on this planet can't just go buy a fucking bicycle whenever they want, much less a Ferrari, don't you?"

  She made an oh well face. "True, and yes I'm aware. My point is more that for my husband, buying an island versus buying a Ferrari is pretty much the same thing. Affects him the same amount, which is to say not at all." She hesitated, and then continued. "He also donates more to charity as an individual than anyone else I've heard of, Zuckerberg and Gates included. He's just quiet about it, doesn't publicize it--doesn't allow it to be publicized, if you want to be accurate."

  I held up my hands palms out. "Hey, I didn't mean it to sound like an accusation or something. I just thought it was funny."

  She waved me off. "People get weird about it, when they find out I'm married to Valentine. I don't even think about the money for the most part. I mean, yeah, I live in a ridiculous house in the Caribbean, and we have a few people around as staff, and there are armed guards and patrol boats and things, but . . . you get used to it. I'm a stay-at-home mommy, and I do it all myself. We have a nanny for when we want to get out by ourselves, but . . . I'm the mommy. I raise my daughter myself. The money is more Roth's than mine, although he'd get pissy if he heard me say that. I don't really care about the money, is the point. It's really nice to have, and I'm grateful and thankful, but being rich doesn't solve all the problems people tend to think it does."

  "People are weird about things they don't understand," I said, "and most people don't understand what it's like to have access to unlimited amounts of money any more than they can understand what it's like to be flat broke, or homeless."

  "You were homeless?" she asked.

  I nodded. "From when I was sixteen till I was twenty."

  "You got yourself out of it, clearly," Kyrie said.

  "Sure did," I said. "Got a real job and everything, and I do okay at it, too. But having been homeless, having begged for handouts, I appreciate every damn cent I earn, because there was a time when having even two dollar bills to rub together meant not going hungry another night."

  It was so weird to talk about this stuff so openly; I never talked about my homeless years, and yet these women just seemed to get it. They didn't look at me weird, or pity me, or whatever. They accepted me for who I was. I wasn't ready to share as much as I had with Puck, but I could see myself sitting down with a bottle of wine and spilling with these women. Even more oddly . . . I wanted that. I didn't tend to form close friendships. I was friendly with some of the people at work, but they were coworkers; I never truly trusted them, never spent meaningful time with them outside work. For one thing, the women seemed like they were from a different planet. Like, they were what I might have become had Mom and Dad and Danielle lived--normal, a little spoiled, a little vapid, nice, stable, boring. Yeah, maybe we shared interests in terms of enjoying shopping for nice clothes and getting manicures once or twice a month, and talking about how guys were assholes, but you could do that over lunch or in the bathroom. That wasn't friendship stuff, that was acquaintance stuff. These women, though--Layla, Temple, Kyrie, and Lola--they seemed to understand me. They'd understand the damage I had from the various traumatic experiences of my life, and getting kidnapped off the street in the middle of the day wasn't the worst. If I'd actually gone on to be sold into sexual slavery that might have been a different story. But so far, it wasn't so bad. Scary, nerve-wracking, gross, and I'd probably have nightmares about this stuff at some point, but it wasn't a life-altering traumatic experience.

  Which was fucked up, when you thought about it. But there it was.

  I had no idea what was going to happen when this was finally all over . . . maybe I'd end up back in New York, taking the occasional trip to Moscow or Beijing or St. Petersburg or Shanghai, playing poker with the guys on Friday nights, eating dinner alone, watching cartoons alone . . . but I didn't want that anymore. Seeing the bond Layla and Kyrie had, the easy camaraderie of Lola and Temple . . . it made me jealous. Made me want to be part of their group.

  Layla was eyeing me, watching me. "You look like you're thinking deep thoughts over there, missy."

  I shrugged. "Just wondering what's going to happen when this is finally all over."

  She didn't respond immediately, still searching me. "Well, if you think you're going to just vamoose back to Manhattan or wherever you live and pretend none of this ever happened, you better have another think."

  "Why?" I asked.

  She just frowned at me like I was stupid, or missing something glaringly obvious. "I told you, bitch, you're part of the posse, now. You don't get to crawl back into your little hole and ignore us." She jammed her elbow into my ribs. "You're stuck with us now, ho."

  I eyed her carefully. "You know, if anybody else called me bitch or ho, we'd be throwing down, earrings off and everything."

  Layla laughed, unfazed. "Anybody else, I'd tell 'em to bring it, but something tells me you're as tough as I am. I'll give you a little primer on being my friend: if I don't call you insulting names, I don't like you. And if I'm polite to you, I flat-out hate your ass. So the worse names I call you, the more I like you. Just ask Kyrie."

  I glanced at Kyrie, who gave a shrug and a nod. "Layla has turned vulgarity and insult-driven affection into an art form. She only knows how to show affection in two ways: fucking and insults, and since we're all straight as far as I'm aware, she's only left with insults. She tosses out words like 'bitch' and 'ho' and 'hooker' like she drops F-bombs and references to sucking dick."

  I figured since everyone pretty much already knew Puck and I had gotten down to a little business on the plane, I might as well sally forth with more honesty. "But what if--"

  Layla cut in over me. "Doesn't matter. You've known Puck since this morning. Granted, we've packed a lot into today, and when you're tossed into high-stress situations like this, bonds form pretty quickly. Shit, Harris and I would probably still be dicking around with our feelings for each other had Vitaly not kidnapped me. That situation forced us to hit the afterburner on our feelings, and we never looked back." She gestured with her chin at Puck and me. "That may be the case for you two, and maybe not. Nobody's got a stake in that except you guys. Al
l I'm saying is, I like you, and I really hope you decide to stick around regardless of what does or doesn't happen with you and Puck."

  "Who's Vitaly?" I asked.

  She waved the question away. "Someone who is now dead. He was kind of like Cain--a rich asshole criminal with a vengeful streak a mile wide."

  "And he kidnapped you?"

  She nodded. "Hauled my jiggly ass all the way down to Brazil. But that's a story for another day." She poked me. "Stop avoiding the subject."

  I sighed. "I'm not, I just don't know what to say. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't make friends easily, or at all, really, but . . . I like you guys. I could see us being a posse."

  "Hey, I'm down to be in the badass boss chick posse," Lola said.

  "Me too," Temple added.

  "I'm in, obviously," Kyrie said.

  "Can I be in the posse?" Puck asked.

  Layla reached over and patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry, Puck, girls only."

  "Besides, you already have your big guns and big muscles club with Thresh and Duke," Temple said.

  "Guns and muscles aren't the only big things about them," Lola stage-whispered.

  Which caused a lot of howling in the van, from me included. I caught the tail end of a look between Ivar and Puck, the kind of look guys exchange when women do the whole laughing and shrieking thing guys don't understand, the look that says why are they screaming, and how do we make them shut up? Everyone else caught the look, which only made the rest of us laugh all the harder.

  "I apologize for breaking up the levity," Ivar interrupted, "but we are arriving at the airfield. I do not have security here like I did on our arrival, so if Cain has people here, it will be down to us to deal with them."

  "What he means is look sharp, ladies," Puck said. "It's go time."

  Ivar nodded. "Ja, as he said."

  This was a larger airport, albeit a rural one. There was a gate manned by two armed, uniformed guards; Ivar, sitting in the front passenger seat, showed them some kind of ID or pass, and they waved us through. My heart was in my throat, hammering and crashing wildly as we made our way across the tarmac, zipping behind the tails of airliners angled up to jetways. We left the main terminal area and continued to the area for private aircraft, a wide square, lined with hangars, the fronts open to reveal cavernous interiors occupied by aircraft ranging from single-engine prop planes to massive private jets.