by Kendall Duke
“Listen, compadre, I can do whatever I want up here.” I pointed to my head. He narrowed his eyes again. “I’m serious! I have a limited amount of freedom in the real world, given the kind of thing that just happened… But I made my choices, and I’m trying to see the bright side of things. Not that thing, in particular, but… Life. I’m trying to see the bright side of life.”
“You are a very beautiful, very talented eighteen year old multi-millionaire,” he said wryly. “You have as much freedom as you care to enjoy. Your life will be as bright as you allow it to be—if you don’t mind my saying so. Miss.” His eyes never left the road, and his tone had the undercurrent of sarcasm that made me roll my eyes and also a little turned on.
“So says the guy carrying me off to his survivalist compound,” I said, and his smile was there and gone, like always.
I wasn’t really thinking that, though. I was thinking something else entirely: he called me beautiful.
I settled back in my seat and tried to take his advice, letting my mind soak in the passing scenery as we went deeper and deeper into the mountains. We were twisting back and forth on roads shaped like spinning snakes, the hairpin turns sharp enough to make your head spin. Miles flew by in a flurry of green trees and steep drops followed by steady climbs into the blue.
By noon, I was ready to drift off to sleep.
“Not yet,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle as he squeezed my hand. “We’re almost there.”
I looked out of the windshield at the dense forest surrounding us. I couldn’t see a power line or a sign of human life in any direction; somewhere recently we’d turned off of the main highway and gone down a gravel drive, and we were about to head deeper into the woods on a dirt road. When we reached a low sheltered building made of concrete blocks with steel doors, Jacob parked inside and they closed behind us automatically. Motion activated lights snapped on above us as he opened the door and pulled out a couple of bags from the trunk. He slung them over his broad shoulders and came back to get me, reaching out a hand to help me out of the car. I stood up and stretched. We were basically in some kind of bunker.
“Alright, Jacob,” I said, looking at him. “This is certifiably creepy.”
“I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry. I thought you might sleep through this part, and then I thought it might be much worse waking up in the middle of the woods and not knowing how you got there.”
“How were you going to get me there with all of that on your back?”
“I was going to carry you too,” he said matter-of-factly, and I just shook my head at him.
“Is there anything I can carry? That isn’t some kind of illegal firearm, a contract with your cult, or whatever you need for the ritual sacrifices you must do up here—”
“Miss, I promise,” he said, and his hand gently rested on my chin, turning my face up to meet his. “I’m a pretty normal guy. This is just a cabin, of sorts. We’re going to relax for a couple of days, take in the scenery, and then get you home when you’re ready. I swear. It’s nothing weird.”
“This is weird, Jacob,” I said, pointing all around me. “This is objectively weird.”
“This is objectively brilliant,” he said in return, and when I laughed out loud at his blunt expression he fought off another smile before continuing. “I didn’t design a lot of it—the guys did. And there’s no arguing with Rocket’s brilliance, or Jack’s security knowledge, or—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Alright. But if you kill me—”
“Miss,” he said, stopping me with a firm hand on my shoulder. “I’m not ready for jokes like that,” Jacob said softly, his eyes piercing mine. “Might not ever be. I know humor is how you deal with a lot of what’s happened to you, but in this case… Maybe you’re not ready to finish that joke either.”
I swallowed. His hand felt like a tether, bringing me down to earth, forcing me to acknowledge how I really felt, and how badly I needed protection and kindness. “Okay,” I whispered.
“If you want to go back, just say the word,” he told me, his voice earnest. “We didn’t ask you at the time because we thought you’d be too distraught… But maybe we were wrong. I have enough gas—”
“Let’s go, cowboy,” I said, trying to make myself sound brave. He kept his hand on my shoulder, his eyes ticking back and forth as he took in my expression and calculated my sincerity. “I’m serious,” I told him. “Give me one of those bags. Not too heavy, please, because as we both know, I do carbs. Let’s go!” Jacob watched me for almost a full minute with those piercing blue eyes before nodding once and handing me my purse. I hadn’t even noticed that he brought it.
He punched a long series of digits into a wall-mounted digital reader and another steel door made a couple loud clunking noises as the locks disengaged. I looked around; the bunker was basically a large car garage, settled into the greenery around it; you could never tell the size from the front entrance. It would fit… Ten cars? There were two more SUVs parked inside, similar in make and model to Jacob’s, but as far as I knew no one was meeting us here. He saw me looking around and pointed at the door. Once we went through, he turned back and punched in a bunch more codes into another wall-mounted computer screen. A dull hum reached my ears under the sounds of wildlife and the breeze rifling through the leaves in the trees. “What’s that?”
“Turned on the grid,” he said, distracted by the screen in front of him. “Activates the fence.”
“Um, what fence?”
“The electric fence,” he said, pointing past the bunker. Sure enough, under brambles and barbed wire, I could see it stretching away into the forest, disguised by the greenery growing through and over it.
“Is that safe for the animals?”
“Animals have a lot more sense than people,” Jacob said, hitting a couple more buttons, then closing lid on the metal container that protected the screen from the elements. “It’s people who have trouble with fences, not animals.”
“So…” I stared at him. “You weren’t kidding. This really is a compound?”
“It’s a safe place,” he said, turning to look at me. “A place almost no one can find without satellites, or an explicit invitation.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re paranoid, Miss,” he said, as if this explained everything, and hoisted the bags on his back again. I wasn’t expecting the extremely cheerful smile he gave me when he looked at me again. “You ready?”
“I guess so,” I said, and off we went.
It was a beautiful walk. The trail was narrow but flat and well maintained, and I kept up with him as best I could—a feat that required some huffing and puffing, in spite of the fact that I was carrying a pocket book and he was carrying at least four suitcase-sized duffel bags. Jacob led me through the woods, and as he turned to reassure me that we were close to our destination—a walk that took an hour at a fairly vigorous pace—we started moving uphill again. I gathered that we’d been in a valley of sorts before, although I never would’ve called it that, and the last part of the trail wound back and forth to climb a very steep hill. The path was even better maintained here though, and had handrails at several key spots. I clung to them and gathered my breath before chasing after Jacob.
When we reached the top, I was startled by the view. We could see for miles and miles in every direction—the sky was our closest neighbor, and the steep drop-off meant that trees surrounded us in every direction as they disappeared into the haze. We were so high up that a bird flew by at level with my head, just a little ways away. I was so spell-bound by the view that it took me a minute to realize there was no house.
“Um, Jacob, I believe you mentioned a cabin?” As I turned and looked around, taking stock, I noticed that there was… A pool. A really, really nice pool—surrounded by a trellised patio and then the steep drop all around, it had an incredible view and looked just as well-maintained as the trail. It was completely incongruous with the setting in the sense that
it seemed to appear out of nowhere, but perfect because it was so dang gorgeous.
“There,” Jacob said, pointing to what I’d assumed to be a small shed, containing whatever was needed to keep a pool this high up in the air in good shape. Instead, he started moving purposefully toward it.
“Jacob—” I stopped short as he opened another metal shell like the one covering the previous tablets and punched in a long code. I heard several clanking sounds as something mechanical inside of the shed began moving around.
“The pool is the roof,” he said over his shoulder, as if this made sense, and when I spun to look at it again, a final jarring clank drew my eyes back to the shed. The door was open and Jacob was gone, so I stepped inside.
Most of it was an elevator. I stepped into a steel box that would not have seemed out of place in the Hilton, and Jacob hit a few more buttons inside and spoke into his phone, then a small receptor by the door. “Alpha Rex Copacabana,” he said, his eyes sliding to mine as I started to giggle. A warm, broad finger landed on my lips.
“Welcome home, Captain Reynolds,” a woman’s computerized voice said, and I leaned away so I could glare at him with open bafflement and mouth the word ‘weird.’ Jacob ignored me.
“Sequence initiation,” he said in the same clear voice, then narrowed his eyes at me in warning. This time I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing, but I succeeded. The doors slid closed without warning, making me jump, and when I looked back Jacob was the one biting back a laugh. I slapped his arm and was rewarded with that radiant smile—only for a second.
“I apologize Miss—that was also a slip-up. I should’ve warned you about the voice recognition sequence.”
“You should’ve, yes. And every other bizarre thing that’s happening,” I told him, hoping I looked flirty. “You said a cabin in the woods, if I recall. So where’s this cabin?”
“We’ll be there in just a sec,” he said. I was starting to smile again when he remembered to call me Miss. Dang. The elevator doors swung open and we walked into a large open room… Carved entirely from stone.
“Granite,” Jacob explained, seeing the look on my face. “This is a peak of it—there are major deposits all along the East Coast in the Appalachian range. We found this one, which is very big, and collected our funds to make a sort of… Headquarters. Everybody has a suite. Pool’s on the roof, if you will, this is the common area. Lots of good hiking—and a fishing spot, too, about a day’s walk south. Very quiet.” He watched me as I stared at the giant room around me; comfortable sectionals lined a large space with a huge fireplace dug into the wall, and a long table with about a dozen mismatched wooden chairs—all rugged pine—sat in front of an entire wall of paned glass, cut into the mountain side. The view was unbelievable. It was the same as outside, but looking down at the valley below with no trees or anything else visible—as if I were staring out of the dock of an airplane. The kitchen was huge and over to the right, with two refrigerators and a giant cooking area dominated by a massive grill. Light seemed to leak down from far away; the pool was positioned above the kitchen. Everything was carved into the stone—the light fixtures, the shelves, even a small end table by the sectionals. And heading off in either direction to my side, opposite from the cliff face view, were doors. They must lead to the bedrooms. “Do you like it?” When I turned towards him again, it looked like he’d forgotten our designated roles. He looked just like any other ridiculously strong, handsome guy that was showing someone something he cared about for the first time, and was nervous about their reaction.
“This is… Incredible, Jacob.” I spun in a circle once more, taking it in. “Seriously. How is it possible? I mean, how did you build it? How much did it cost?” I looked around again. “Where does the electricity come from?”
“I promise to answer all of those questions while we eat lunch,” he said, smiling again in that sudden way he had. It lit his entire face up, and made him seem more his actual age—which I knew was twenty four, from my very expensive personnel review. Jacob moved over to the kitchen and started unpacking the bags, revealing that not only were they huge, but two of the three were full of cans. Just to really max his work-out, I suppose. I sauntered over and sat on one of the tall stools that lined up at the counter where he went to work.
“Okay,” I said, pointing up. “What? How?”
“But not why, right?” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Because you’re a smart girl, and you understand the value of an in-ground pool. Unlike Chase, who had to have this explained to him, because he is a savage.” I burst out laughing, and Jacob gave me another one of his million kilowatt grins. Then it suddenly dimmed, and he blinked down at the sandwich he was making and launched into a very technical explanation of the solar grid they’d designed and how they’d installed everything and there was a lot of info about jackhammers, too, and structural supports or whatever, but I wasn’t listening to much of it. I’d seen it. He’d forgotten that rigid dynamic again, the one where I was ‘Miss’ and he was my robotic bodyguard. And he’d realized and snapped it all back in place.
“Jacob,” I said softly, interrupting him, and he laid down the bread knife and looked at me. “Are you sure you want me here?”
“Miss?” He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Of course I do, this is the safest—”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said gently. “I meant you. Do you want me here? Because this is your private space, and I really feel like you want to make sure I know you don’t want me in your private space.” I swallowed down the embarrassed, unspeakable wish, the thought that haunted me even as I said these reasonable words: And I wish you did. I want that more than I want just about anything right now.
“I…” He froze for a second; I never thought in a million years I would see Jacob Reynolds stuck without a reply, but here we were. Something flashed behind those icy eyes, something white-hot and uncontrolled, but when he spoke he was his usual self again. “I would like very much for you to enjoy your stay with us, Miss.”
“Okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. He put a sandwich down in front of me.
“But…” I stopped with the sandwich in mid-air, waiting, and an unexpected smile crept across his mouth. It looked… Almost devious. “There are rules, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, taking a small bite. Delicious. I put the sandwich down and politely waited.
“You will take my bed, since the other rooms are all allocated to other team members and have to be ready for them in case there’s… A compelling reason for them to come here.” From his tone I hoped there wouldn’t be; he didn’t sound too pleased by the notion. “You will be getting up each day at 0600 hours. You will eat your meals here—”
“Oh six hundred whatevers?” I stared at him. “I’m a musician. You know that, right? I go to bed at oh six something something at least half the time.”
“There is no cell phone reception, and no television,” he continued, talking right over my words. “We do have access to satellite systems and can get online. But… I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Well, how are we going to relax by watching copious amounts of Netflix then, huh? Tell me that?”
“We aren’t—”
“We are,” I said, and took another bite of my sandwich while he seethed. “We don’t have to go on Buzzfeed and look at what the parasites are saying about my family. We don’t have to do a call-in interview with CNN. But we can watch some dang Hallmark movies if we want.”
“But do we though?” Jacob made a face, scrunching up his nose and raising an eyebrow at me. “Do we really?”
“Yes!” I grinned at him through a mouthful of sandwich, and in spite of himself he laughed out loud. “Yes we do, Alpha Rex Obblygookymook or whatever your name is.”
“The guys did that,” he said, making his own sandwich now and shaking his head as if the memory pained him. “Just to—” Jacob caught himself again. He froze, then gritted his teeth together. “Just to mess with me, Miss. If you would like to
watch Netflix then I will be happy to accommodate you.”
“Thank you, his royal Ookymookness. I appreciate that.”
“But I insist you get up early.”
“You can insist all you want, but if you’re not climbing in there with me and dragging me out, you can insist and that’s all.” I felt the heat rise in my cheeks and put my sandwich down, recovering from the image of him. In bed. With me. “Um… Why, might I ask, do you want me up so early?”
“Because that’s when I get up,” he said, as if this were any normal kind of answer.
“Then maybe you should sleep in,” I said, and took another big bite of my sandwich. He hadn’t even looked up from his sandwich making—he apparently needed three to my one, and I was definitely going to tease him about the amount of carbs involved in this meal later—so my faux pas went unnoticed. “Normal people occasionally sleep in. You could try it.”
“Being normal?” He raised his eyebrow at me again, then bit his lip and looked down.
“Nah, I think that’s probably a stretch,” I said, and this time he did look up with a delighted, incredulous, deliciously exasperated expression on his face. “Normal’s a bit too much to ask from Rex Alpha Domahgoobydoo. Maybe you could be… Occasionally human. Rather than whatever this is supposed to be.” I waved my hand up and down, encompassing him in my wave. He narrowed his eyes.
“Excuse me, Miss?”
“You’re not a robot, Jacob,” I said, finishing my sandwich. “It’s okay to be nice to me, and talk to me like a person instead of some program I found online. I like you,” I said, leaning forward so that my face was under his, forcing him to meet my eyes. “You… You saved me. And you’re fun. And I like you. So it’s alright if you want to drop the robot act.”
“I…” Jacob stared at me. I had no idea what might be going on behind those ice blue eyes. “I’ll consider it. Miss.”
I shrugged and slid off of the stool. So I had a crush on the guy—any sane woman would have a crush on this guy. And he didn’t feel that way about me. I’d write an album (or three) based on this sadly unrequited situation and that’d get it out of my system. I needed some sleep. I needed to put the last twenty four hours away… Well, most of them. I’d been really enjoying the last few. “Jacob, where am I sleeping again?”
