by A. P. Jensen
When the rollercoaster stopped, Raven couldn’t feel her legs. She stumbled onto the platform with Rich’s help and walked over to Cain. She burrowed into his coat and buried her cold face against his neck and felt him jump.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Rich said, clapping her on the back.
“I’m going to kill you,” she muttered and he whooped with laughter.
Rich bought her a coffee and warmed her up before he led them back out onto the Strip to face the cold. It was getting dark now and the snow was falling so heavily Raven felt completely disoriented. The signature Strip lights were covered in snow and the sidewalks were nearly empty. Rich lit up another cigar and insisted she walk beside him. The snow muffled their footsteps and the walk was taken mostly in silence as they admired their foreign surroundings.
“I think my grandson’s sweet on you,” Rich said in a low voice.
Raven didn’t respond. She didn’t know where he was going with this but he was too crafty not to have an ulterior motive.
“He’s a good guy and he’s loyal to his family and the Council.”
“I know that.”
“You could make a good life for yourself in Texas.”
Rich turned her into an alley and they took several steps in when Raven’s survival instinct pricked. She glanced behind them and saw that Cain was gone. Alarm bells went off in her head and she felt Rich pull his arm away from her. She turned to him as he blocked her way out of the alley and tossed her a knife. She caught it by the hilt and stared at him. The genial old man she spent the day with was gone. The man that looked at her through the smoke from his cigar was now the leader of the Council- calculating and remote. What the hell was going on?
She heard footsteps behind her and whirled. Someone dressed in sleek black turned into the alley from the opposite end and jogged towards Raven. In the dim glow from the lights in the alley, Raven saw that the figure had a blade in each hand. Raven looked back at Rich, the man she was beginning to like and trust? For a moment, she debated shoving her way past him but she heard the footsteps pick up and knew her time was up. Their eyes met one last time before she turned to face her assailant. Was this Rich’s way of getting rid of her?
Raven turned as the figure in black lunged forward, knives extended. Raven jumped out of the way and backed into the wall. The figure slashed out with the blade and Raven gasped when the knife sliced into her side. The knife retracted and whipped out again and Raven’s upper thigh burned. Rage beat back the fear and confusion. Even as she stepped away from the wall, she saw the figure move in for another stab and it was clear they had no intention of stopping until she was a limp heap on the ground. This person wasn’t lashing out blindly- it was brutally methodical. Raven would bleed to death in this alley and Rich wasn’t going to do a damn thing but puff on his cigar and watch the show.
Raven blocked the figure’s left hand but forgot about the right and felt the blade stab her left arm, which went numb. She felt her clothes sticking to her as blood rushed freely from her wounds. As she had when she escaped from the warehouse, Raven let her instincts take over. Her hand slashed up and made a hit on the figure’s right shoulder and one of the assailants knives clattered to the ground. Raven kicked the blade beneath a dumpster before she scrambled over to a trashcan and whirled with the metal lid clutched in her hand. She smashed the lid at the figure’s head as hard as she could. The impact sounded like she was ringing a gong and it ripped through the muffled silence. The figure in black staggered and Raven whirled, using momentum for power. She hit three more times, each time slamming her assailant in the head or injured arm. When the second knife fell to the ground, Raven kicked it away and clutched the lid like a shield while making sure she kept a hold on the knife in her numb hand. Her breath came out in white puffs in front of her and the slush on the ground was pink from their blood.
Rich pushed off the wall and Raven backed away to face them both. She waited for Rich to pull out a gun and shoot her, but he walked to the figure that was sprawled on the ground. Rich leaned down and pulled off a black ski mask. Blonde hair stained with blood spilled around a beautiful, bruised face. Rich tapped the pale cheek of Cain’s mother, Pris.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The metal trash can lid fell to the ground with a clang as her whole body went numb. Raven couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Her mouth opened and closed and she was filled with so much panic, disgust and rage that the urge to keep herself still took every ounce of her control. Pris moaned and Rich looked over at Raven.
“Cain didn’t exaggerate about your fighting skill.”
“Why’d you do it?” Raven whispered.
“I needed to see your skills for myself. Whenever you’re ready to come to Texas, you’ll be most welcome.”
Raven jabbed the bloody knife at him and her body shook with shock and pain. “You think I want to join with people like you?”
“This lesson was brutal but necessary.”
“Necessary for you to see if I was worthy of joining the Council, right?” Raven spat.
Rich didn’t answer. Raven limped towards him and he didn’t make a move as she snatched his wrist in her trembling hand. The blade sliced out and the bracelet of hair on his wrist loosened. She made sure not even one stray hair escaped her grasp before she turned away from the leader of the Council. She heard Rich talking on a cell phone as she walked out of the alley, dragging her wounded leg. She tossed her knife in a dumpster and felt shell-shocked and dazed. She saw her blood staining the new fallen snow but the darkness concealed that from those that walked around her. Rage kept her body moving through the cold until she reached the Bellagio. She tried to control her limp so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself. Her long black coat concealed her state and she reached the hotel room without incident. When she entered, she slammed the door.
“Cain!”
No answer. She limped into the bedroom, but he wasn’t there. Her breath came in ragged gasps as her wounds throbbed. She staggered into the bathroom, shrugged out of her coat, and took in the slash in her side. Tears of pain and anger slipped down her face as she pulled off her shirt and cut her jeans so she could see her thigh. She grabbed a white hand towel and held it over the deep cut in her thigh. She heard the hotel room door slam and Cain called her name. She was too busy trying to stop the blood gushing out of her to answer. Cain walked into the bathroom and fell to the floor beside her. His hands fluttered over her before he grabbed another towel and held it on the wound in her side. It soaked through immediately.
“Christ!” Cain swore.
They both heard the door open again and she looked around the bathroom for a weapon a moment before Manny poked his head into the bathroom. He clucked his tongue and pulled a vial out of his bag and crouched beside Raven. Without a word, Manny’s hand whipped out and gripped her cheeks so her mouth opened and tossed some pills down her throat. Raven choked and spluttered but he didn’t release her until she swallowed. Manny and Cain spoke to one another but she couldn’t understand anything over the pain. She wanted to scream and lash out at Cain, but she was too busy making sure she didn’t bleed to death.
“She’ll be healed in no time,” Manny reassured Cain and pulled the bloody towel away from her side and grinned. “Rich told me Pris had a go at her.”
The pain eased significantly as the pills began to do their job. When she could think straight, Raven turned a killing look on Cain and shoved him away. She pointed a bloody hand in his face.
“You can tell Rich I will never join the Council!” she shouted.
Cain was pale and clearly shaken. “Raven-.”
“Did you know they were going to do this?” She gestured at her body covered in knife wounds.
Cain’s hands, covered in her blood, clenched into fists. “No.”
“Where the fuck were you?”
She knew she was getting hysterical but she couldn’t help it. The fear that she was in a battle to the death didn’t abate. She spent
the day with Rich; actually enjoyed the bastard and he put her through Knife Attacks 101 with a trained assassin. She shuddered and put hands covered in his mother’s blood over her face and felt like bursting into tears.
“My dad pulled me away and I didn’t know what was happening till it was over,” Cain said tightly.
“If this is what I have to do to be worthy of you or your family, you can forget it!”
Manny looked back and forth between them avidly and Cain eased forward, but she shoved him back again. Just looking at him made her feel sick. Betrayal was a sour taste in her mouth.
“Get out of here!”
Cain’s face flickered with emotions. “I don’t agree with what Rich did-.”
“But you always agree with the Council! You never question their methods, right?” Raven jabbed.
Cain struggled with guilt and temper. “I never thought he’d do something like this.”
“Well, he did! He watched your mom stab me and let me almost beat your mom to death with a trash can lid!” Tears slipped down her cheeks and she wiped them away angrily.
“She’s fine, by the way,” Manny interjected clinically.
Raven wasn’t sure she was happy with that information. Manny prodded her leg and she hissed and stared as her leg wound stopped bleeding. Her skin was knitting itself back together right before her eyes. She looked at her side and saw only a tiny hole.
Manny shrugged. “Those pills are for emergencies and Rich approved it. In an hour the wounds will be gone.”
Raven wondered how Rich managed to tell Manny about her injuries when she took her hair back, but she a dim memory of hearing Rich talking on the phone before she turned the corner of the alley.
Manny got to his feet and washed his hands. He blew them a kiss and left the hotel room. When Cain tried to help her to her feet, she slapped his hands away and got up on her own, wincing. She pointed to the door.
“I want you out.”
Cain’s face was hard as stone. “We need to talk about this.”
“Talk about what? How Rich wanted to test me or maybe how you mysteriously disappeared when your mom wanted to play with knives?”
“I swear I didn’t know!”
His hand reached out and she jerked away.
“I don’t want you to touch me.” Her voice shook. “Please leave.”
For a minute he didn’t move but something in her eyes made him stalk to the door and slam it behind him. Raven stripped off her ruined clothes and turned on the shower as hot as it could go. She stepped into the shower and felt stings from her wounds, but she couldn’t forget the terror or the pain as steel sliced through her skin. How much more could she take before she broke? She tipped her head up to the spray, as salty tears were lost in the downpour of water.
When she walked into the bedroom to get fresh clothes, she was relieved to find it empty. She could barely wrap her mind around what happened, much less deal with Cain. She didn’t want to see Rich or Pris ever again. She shouldn’t take it personally, right, but how should she take a knife attack? The part of her that trusted Cain wanted to believe that he really hadn’t been in on this scheme but the cynical part of her, the one that had always been alone, sneered. How could he not have known something was up? These were his bosses… and family. He had to know what they were capable of, right?
Raven paced in front of the windows and saw the Paris hotel glinting through the snow. She saw a layer of white over the pool where the water show usually played and raised her head and stared at the golden Eiffel Tower for a few minutes before she stuffed her feet into sneakers and dressed in street clothes. She grabbed another jacket from the suitcase, zipped it up to her chin and came out of the bedroom, ready for a fight. The living room was empty and she didn’t know what to think about his absence. He’d never left her alone before. It doesn’t matter, she told herself and walked out of the hotel room, half expecting to see Cain in the hallway but he was gone. More ticked off than she had been a minute ago, she rode the elevator down to the lobby and walked out into the cold night where she could breathe.
Tourists braved the cold to take pictures of this rare sight. Raven crossed the street to the Paris and did something she always told herself she would do someday. Today was that day. Right now. She paid the fee to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and glared at a couple that whispered sweet nothings to each other as they rode the glass elevator. The doors opened onto a round platform encased in a steel birdcage. She walked around the whole cage, taking in the three hundred and sixty degree view of Las Vegas before she came back to the view of the snowy Strip. It was freezing and her body tingled with cold, but she didn’t care. At least she was alive.
“Isn’t this great?”
Raven looked at the guy beside her dressed in leather. Besides the couple, they were the only people crazy enough to be up here in the cold.
“I’ve never seen the Strip like this! It must be a sign the New Year’s going to be awesome, don’t you think?”
His enthusiasm after the shit she’d been through lifted her spirits a bit. She took a closer look at him. His skin was a dark brown and his black hair brushed his shoulders. His eyes were a glittering green that sucked her in and made her feel as if the world was filled with adventure rather than boogiemen. He was in his early twenties and he had a reckless edge that she knew drew women to him like flies.
“You have a resolution for the New Year?” he asked.
“Resolution?” Raven repeated slowly and blew out a gust of white. “To stay out of trouble, I guess.”
He shook his hair back and lifted his hands as if he could control the swirling white around them. “Life is too short to make resolutions like that! I live for trouble. What would life be like without a little excitement?”
“I’ve had enough excitement to last me a lifetime.”
He bounced his eyebrows. “If you stick with me, I can get you in a boatload of trouble so fast you won’t even know what happened to you.”
At that moment she wished she were normal. She never had the pleasure of rebelling against her parents or life in general. There were those movies where the girl partied all night, met a mysterious stranger, went home with him and participated in such debauchery she wasn’t allowed to see that man ever again. When she woke up in the morning and went on with her life, it would be a fond memory she could recall when she was forty and driving her kids to soccer practice. Raven looked into his devilish eyes and knew he was her ticket to a wild night, but she thought of Cain and the reality of her world.
She smiled wanly at him. “I’m sure you could.”
He shrugged and accepted the rejection easily. “You want to see a trick?”
“Sure.”
He glanced at his watch and then at the Strip. “Five, four, three, two, one.”
The lights valiantly trying to be seen through the snow vanished. Everything around her disappeared except for the snow, which swirled eerily through the night. The couple on the other side of the birdcage screamed and Raven’s hands contracted on the railing and she had the sensation of tumbling forward though her feet were solidly planted.
“Good luck with your resolution,” the stranger said.
She couldn’t see him but she lurched towards his voice, intending to throttle him to death because she knew he was somehow responsible for the power outage. She was stuck on a damn doughnut at the top of the Eiffel Tower and her cold hands curled into claws as they reached for him and slipped on his leather jacket. He turned quickly, pulled her against him and clamped his arms around her with her back to him. She underestimated his strength for such a lean guy. She was about to stomp on his foot when he pitched to the left. She thought he was going to slam her against the metal bird cage but all of a sudden there was no cage, there wasn’t anything but air and they were falling… Raven screamed and heard the maniac behind her laughing. The lights on the Strip flickered to life again as they plummeted to their death head first. She flailed wildly and t
he arms wrapped around her tightened to the point of pain. The crowd below was a mass of confusion and no one looked up as they sped towards unforgiving earth. Happy Holidays began to play as the water show in front of the Bellagio came to life.
She closed her eyes and waited for impact. The man abruptly turned them upright and her head spun dizzily. The mind numbing speed slowed and then her feet touched on cement. Raven’s legs crumpled beneath her and she felt those arms haul her through the crowd to a bench in front of the water show. He sat her down and crouched down in front of her. Tears leaked from her eyes as she focused on his grinning face. His hair was windblown, eyes bright with excitement and his cheeks rosy. He winked, rose to his feet and walked away without a word.
Raven stared after him and ran feverish hands over herself to make sure she was in one piece. Her legs smacked together as they shook uncontrollably. She tilted her head back and looked at the Eiffel Tower and then at eye level where people ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. Raven tried to control the urge to vomit, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. A hand gripped her arm in a bruising grip and she looked up at Cain’s furious face. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or pissed. Either way, she grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and shook him, babbling incoherently.
“He’s like you. New year’s resolutions. Trick. Lights out. Fell. Almost died. Asshole.”
Cain wasn’t in the mood to listen to her. He yanked her to her feet and dragged her through the rioting crowd. She tried to talk, but it was impossible with the screaming crowd. He nearly wrenched her arm out of its socket as he made his way through the crowd and refused to let go of her. She would’ve been upset but she was too happy to be alive. When they stepped into the Bellagio, she was stunned when she saw people running with poker chips, police brawling with guests and people running out of the hotel with flowers from the atrium. She goggled at the mayhem in this refined hotel and then she saw him, sitting calmly by the poinsettias in the atrium- the asshole free bird responsible for nearly giving her a heart attack. What made her rage hit new heights was the fact that he was still smiling. She was so furious that she managed to break out of Cain’s hold and plunge through the crowd. She took several hard hits from frantic people, but she didn’t look away from her target. She was nearly there when Cain wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet. She bellowed angrily, drawing the attention of the guy in leather.
