Puck by Wilder Jasinda
One such airplane waited off to one side, a set of moveable steps positioned at the doorway. It was truly mammoth, very nearly the size of the hangar itself.
Backlit by the setting sun, this jet was sleek and sexy and glossy black, with a crimson RTI stenciled in aggressive letters on the tail fin. The van halted near the steps, and Puck, Ivar, and the two guards--who'd sat silently and unnoticed this whole time--clambered out and positioned themselves to cover all directions. Ivar waved us out, and Layla went first, followed by Temple, Lola, Kyrie, and then me.
Kyrie grinned as we approached the staircase. "Oooh, Valentine sent the nice jet. Good boy."
I eyed the aircraft, which looked like it cost the equivalent of a third world country's GDP. "This is your husband's jet?"
She nodded. "He designed this one, actually. He recently started a hyper-luxury transport manufacturing company, so making fancy jets and boats and stuff is his new hobby."
"He designed this?"
"He helped. He's not an engineer or anything, just a really smart businessman with good taste and better judgment. This is the prototype of an aircraft his new company is going to be selling. They have military grade jet engines, which means this thing goes insanely fast, and it also has things like antimissile defenses, and it's designed to be low-radar reactive or something. For the richest of the rich who want to fly incognito, he says."
I was mind boggled. "And how much is this going to cost?"
Kyrie blew a raspberry. "Shit, girl, I have no idea. Close to triple-digit millions, easily. This isn't the kind of thing your average A-lister, like Temple's mom, for example, would buy. This is the kind of thing the king of Saudi Arabia would own, or those Koch assholes. That kind of rich."
We boarded and found seats near each other, both of us on the aisle. As we sat down, the flight attendant offered us warm hand towels followed by a selection of beverages and small snacks.
I glanced out the window and saw Puck shake hands with Ivar, taking a moment to clap each other on the arms and murmur macho bromance bullshit to each other, and then Puck jogged up the steps and into the plane while Ivar waited on the tarmac, watching.
Puck grabbed the window seat beside me, and as he settled himself, I turned back to Kylie. "You say transport like there's something besides jets and boats."
She nodded. "Yachts, jets, armored limos made out of stretched Bentleys and Rolls Royces and Maybachs, mobile command centers pulled by semitrucks--those are super cool, actually. You can choose whether you want it to be a mobile office command center thing, or a home. Think those monster RVs rich old folks retire with, but it's got a full-size tractor-trailer. The trucks are those new Volvos that are fully electric and can go faster than most race cars. They're really awesome, actually."
She tapped a bubblegum-pink fingernail on the armrest. "What else has he come up with? Helicopters, of course. And when I say yacht, by the way, I'm talking something the size of a battleship, literally. So big it comes with its own smaller speedboat the size of a normal yacht, with a helicopter-landing pad and like twenty staterooms. And usually, the helicopter and powerboat are included. Oh, he's also working on a submarine."
I blinked at her. "A what?"
"You heard me." She grinned. "A submarine. But instead of being all tiny and cramped and full of ICBMs, it's a luxury retreat. Huge staterooms, a movie theater, a swimming pool, cameras installed outside and giant screens on the inside walls so it feels like you're seeing what's out there. I've been on the prototype actually, and I think I'm going to have him keep one for us. It's really incredible. You can be down near the bottom of the ocean where only whales and stuff go, and it's totally silent, and you can see jellyfish and weird sea creatures and . . . it's just so cool."
"And there's more than, like, two people who can afford these things?" I asked.
She nodded. "You'd be surprised. There are quite a few people out there who are quietly wealthy. Never in the news or anything, but they're out there, and they have stupid amounts of money. And in the current social and political atmosphere, Valentine is wagering on a lot of them wanting to have a hyper-luxury home that can go wherever they want, away from all the craziness."
"I guess I can see that. If you can afford your own submarine, why would you live on land?"
"Exactly! Especially when it has a retractable sundeck on top of the conning tower and a glassed-in viewing bubble at the front end."
"That sounds amazing."
She nodded. "It is. I'm super proud of him." She gestured around the interior of the jet. "I mean, this is pretty incredible, isn't it?"
I wasn't sure "incredible" covered it. The outside of the jet was completely opaque, without windows at all, yet when you got inside, you discovered that the entire interior, from floor to ceiling, stretching all the way up and around, was one giant screen displaying what was outside in an unbroken, 4K display. The picture was so clear I felt like I could reach out and touch the wing, or smell the jet fumes. The seats were . . . god, how did I describe them? Like the most comfortable bed you'd ever been in, the kind of bed that had a memory foam topper and a fluffy down comforter, and you were enveloped in a cloud? The seats were like that too; they just . . . hugged you in softness. Creamy tan leather, with thick, plush crimson carpeting underfoot. This was the kind of jet on which you popped Dom Perignon and ate caviar and checked the time on a diamond-encrusted Rolex, and had a Rolls Royce waiting for you on the other end of the flight.
I felt distinctly out of place.
I didn't usually let my past dictate my present; I didn't hold my past against me. But when surrounded by such finery and luxury, I had a hard time forgetting that I was once the girl who dug through dumpsters for returnable cans so I could afford a single hit of smack.
Puck had been sitting quietly with his eyes closed but he let out a sigh, tracing the stitching in the leather. "I never quite get used to this kind of thing," he said.
"You must have been reading my mind," I murmured to him. "I was thinking the same thing."
He took my hand. "I always feel like I'm gonna get the seat dirty, you know? Like, even if I'm all showered and wearing nice clothes, I still don't feel like I belong. In my head, deep down, I'm still that kid from Arkansas who grew up in pool halls and poker tournaments, hanging out with strippers and cashing in stolen chips so I could I buy candy. My dad let me run wild, you know? When we weren't on the road playing poker, I was out in the woods, fending for myself, usually barefoot in a pair of shorts. Literally, I grew up half-naked most of the time, and the rest of the time I was surrounded by hookers, strippers, cardsharps, and bikers. Shit like this"--he gestured around us--"it makes me nervous. I'll never fit in, is how I feel."
I couldn't and didn't try to resist the need to rest my head on his shoulder. "Exactly how I feel. I'm sitting here thinking, I was the girl who would dumpster-dive for returnables so I could buy smack, or sit outside subway turnstiles begging for change so I could buy a burger. I'm always going to be that girl, no matter how far away I try to get from her, no matter where I live or what I do to escape her."
"That's not us anymore, though," Puck said. "May have been who we were, but it's not who we are now. We belong wherever we decide we want to go."
I clung to his arm. "It's hard to forget, though."
"That's the damn truth."
Silence. I wasn't even aware of having taken off, but the screens displayed a darkening sky full of stars above with intermittent shreds of grayish-white clouds, city lights glowing in golden webs below.
"What happens next, Puck?" I whispered.
He squeezed my thigh. "I take you to the nearest hotel and fuck your brains out."
"Puck," I sighed. "I'm being serious."
He lifted an eyebrow at me. "So am I." He held the expression for a moment, and then winked at me, cracking into a grin. "But for real though, I don't know what's next."
9: Kiss With A Capital K
It felt like it was over. Had that feeli
The plane landed at some private airfield owned by Roth--in upstate New York, if I had to guess, and we were met by Harris's A1S Strike Team Beta. That was to say, a dozen hard-eyed kids fresh off combat deployment, decked out in black paramilitary BDUs and body armor, each wielding an MP5SD and a personal sidearm. I knew for a fact there was at least one sniper out there, somewhere, and probably someone with a SAW--Harris didn't fuck around. The B-team was arrayed in a box formation, rifles at the ready.
Harris, Duke, Thresh, and Roth all stood together in a cluster inside the box, each looked more pissed off than the last. A line of shiny black Mercedes-Maybach G650s stood idling nose to tail, five of them, which represented something like $2.75 million--chump change for Roth, a not so small fortune for the rest of us, even though we five core A1S got paid stupid amounts of money for what we did--corporate exec money, low seven digits a year. I could afford one G650, but it would set me back a nice chunk. Five? I mean, no. But Roth, as I overheard Kyrie say, could buy entire islands from a cell phone. This wasn't him rolling out the red carpet, this was just Roth providing his idea of decent transportation.
LOL, as the kids said these days.
I could tell Colbie was unnerved and impressed though. I meant, it was an impressive sight. The B-team kids were chosen as much for looks, physique, and intimidation value as their combat record and resume, meaning, they were all six-feet-plus and built like gods, with ridiculously chiseled features and chins you could use as anvils. Harris used the B-team when he wanted to send a visual message--do NOT fuck with me. They weren't eye-candy, though, they were all seasoned warriors who could and would pull the trigger. But in this case, it was meant to communicate that he took this seriously.
Although, I knew the real work of sorting out the situation was done by the two notably absent members of A1S, Anselm and Lear. With any luck, Lear would track Cain down, and Anselm would put a .50 Cal slug through his fucking skull, and that would be that.
The women, led by Layla, exited the plane in a jog, and reunited with their men in a welter of joyful shrieks and happy crying and wet kissing.
Colbie and I were the last ones to descend the steps, and she leaned close and nudged me. "Hey," she whispered, "who are all the men?"
"The guys in formation with the machine guns are the B-team, and I don't know any of their names. Harris has probably assigned them stupid codenames like Honcho and Ripper and Comanche and shit. Don't know, don't care. They're here to make sure nothing goes FUBAR at the last second. The dudes in the center are my boys. I'm sure you've heard the names by now." We were face to face with the crew, so I turned it into introductions, pointing at each in turn. "Duke Silver, the ginger pretty boy; Thresh is the one who looks like the love child of Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Harris, the boss; and last but not least, Valentine Roth, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist--wait, that's Tony Stark. Roth is just a billionaire philanthropist, seeing as he gave up his playboy ways to marry Kyrie and, last I checked, he's not a certified genius."
Roth actually laughed. "Has anyone ever told you your mouth is going to get you in trouble?"
"All the time," I said, "but that's what makes me so much fun."
Roth grabbed me by the shoulder and squeezed hard. "I have to say, listening to Harris and trusting you and Ivar to bring my wife home was the hardest thing I've ever done. If it had been up to me, I'd have sent in a mercenary army."
I nodded and clapped his arm. "You couldn't have gotten anything together fast enough to make a difference. I was the best bet, and Ivar . . . well, he was indispensable. We literally wouldn't be here without him." I frowned. "Speaking of Ivar, I owe him a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle."
Colbie stood quietly by and seemed a little awestruck, to be honest. And I got it. Duke was blindingly pretty on top of being a burly brute of a man, and Thresh was bigger than fucking Godzilla and almost as good looking as Duke, and Harris wasn't far behind either of them in terms of build or looks, and Valentine Roth was almost as famous for being hot as he was rich and mysterious, and I said that as a totally straight male who loved tits and ass and pussy with an almost rabid intensity. So yeah, to the uninitiated, I could see how all those big, ripped, good-looking dudes in one place might be a little hard to handle at first.
"I think if you guys did a shirtless calendar, all the ovaries in the country might combust at once," Colbie said.
Which got a lot of laughter, from the other women especially.
"Hey, dickbag, who's the hot new girl?" Duke asked.
I realized I'd only done half the introductions. "Oh, right. Guys, this is Colbie Danvers. She was one of the women abducted by Cain's shitheads."
"And here she is," Harris said, "all cuddled up next to you."
Colbie was tucked against my side, my arm around her protectively, but then when Harris cracked his joke, she straightened away from me.
"That a problem, boss?" I said, tugging her back against me.
He just shook his head and laughed. "No, it's just funny."
Colbie didn't fight me as I pulled her back into a casual side-hug, but was tense and stiff. "Why is it funny?" she asked.
Harris--flanked by Thresh and Duke--gestured with his thumbs to either side. "I'm just noticing a pattern. Thresh goes down to Florida, and this whole fucking snafu breaks open. Bam, next thing you know, I'm rescuing him from the fucking Everglades with a sexy doctor hanging off him. Then Duke goes AWOL, and he turns up with a hot-ass celebrity. And now Puck vanishes only to reappear with you. Are you a doctor or a celebrity or some shit too?"
She laughed. "No, none of the above."
"By none of the above, she means she's a Harvard Business grad and fluent in three languages," I said.
Thresh made a rumbling sound, which was his cave-troll version of laughter. "Harvard educated, multilingual, and drop-dead gorgeous. I think you'll fit right in, Colbie Danvers." He reached out and shook her hand. "Welcome to the Alpha One family."
Judging by the way she ducked her head and grinned, she was probably blushing, which I noticed she did a lot and easily, despite her tough-girl persona. It was cute. "Thanks, I guess."
"Don't give her too much shit about the welcome to the club business," Layla said. "She's still not sure about Puck."
"Hell, I've known the man going on ten years, and I'm still not sure about Puck," Harris said.
"None of you fuckers are being helpful," I snapped. "Lay off."
Colbie patted my chest. "Relax, Puck. I told you, I can take a joke."
Duke snickered. "Ohh shit, we've got a live one." He pointed at Colbie. "Better clean out your porn stash, Puck, you're gonna want to hang on to this chick."
"I don't think they make dumpsters big enough for Puck's porn collection," Thresh said.
"Ha fucking ha, dickheads." I tried to pass it off as another joke. "Very funny."
"You have a storage unit full of it, Puck," Duke said. "Who's being funny?"
Colbie to the rescue, apparently. "Well, at least I'll have somewhere to store my own collection, then."
Neither Duke nor Thresh knew how to respond.
"We were . . . um, totally kidding," Thresh said, going for last second diplomacy.
"That's weird of you. I wasn't." Colbie remained straight-faced.
"You have a porn collection? I wouldn't have guessed." Layla peered at Colbie from underneath Harris's arm. "We'll have to watch porn and drink some cab sav together sometime."
Colbie shrugged. "Hey, I'm full of surprises."
"No shit," I murmured. Then louder, to the group: "Can we get the fuck out of here already? I'm hungry and I haven't slept in more than two days."
"Mount up, folks," Harris said, his voice cracking through the quiet. "We're headed to a place Roth has about an hour from here. We'll have a quick debrief and then everyone can get some R&R."
The B-team boys spread out, reforming the
Once Colbie and I were buckled into the backseat of our Mercedes, I glanced over at her, and she was drifting off. I was fading myself, and hard. My eyes were burning, and my head was full of cotton. When I said I'd been awake for more than two days that was a conservative estimate. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept, and things had been the opposite of boring in the meantime.
The last thing I remembered was holding Colbie's hand and leaving the airfield, the caravan of vehicles winding through a quiet, hilly, rural area, a few stands of trees here and there, white fences enclosing rolling pastures, and not a single vehicle anywhere to be seen. And then warm peacefulness as I drifted off.
I woke up about an hour later as we ascended a hill, and a sprawling three-story estate mansion appeared in the distance. We passed through a gate, which I noticed was heavily fortified, monitored, and manned by four A1S boys--a fifteen-foot-high stone block wall extended away from the gate in both directions, cordoning off what had to be a good twenty acres of rolling grass hills, leading to the mansion itself. The house was eye-wateringly huge, yet tasteful and beautiful. It looked like something you'd see in a period-piece movie about seventeenth-century French nobility, all intricate columns and gabled dormers, manicured lawns and topiary shrubbery lining the fine gravel circular driveway.
"What the hell is this place?" I asked out loud, meaning it rhetorically.
"It belongs to Mr. Roth, I believe, sir," the driver said.
"Of course it does. How many houses does the bastard have?" I wondered.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know, sir."
"I wasn't asking you, kid. Just wondering out loud."
I stared as the line of vehicles halted in the circle drive, the center of which was an elaborate marble fountain carved to look astonishingly like a Greek goddess version of Kyrie. Roth was out of his car and striding toward the door, greeting a tuxedo-clad older guy.