The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “At least you didn’t throw up.”

  “Pff.” He sniffs and exhales hard. “Fuck it. Erik shot McHugh. Magnus did Ferris. We—well, they—buried ‘em in the desert. I was on my back. Bleeding out on the sand.” There’s a weird expression on his face, somewhere between anger and disbelief. “After that, once the dust cleared, well... We decided we should get something out of it.”

  “Get.... The Blakemoor takeover? That’s how you did it? Blackmailed your way to the top?”

  “Yep.” He groans and buries his face in his hands. “We’re like...hell, here we are, bringing corruption to light—and what do we get? Knifed in the gut? Guilty consciences all around? So we went to Nagler. Showed him what we had. By the time we were done, he’d have given us his firstborn, let alone his job.”

  It hardly sounds possible. “Just like that, huh?”

  “Well, I mean, it took a few months. A lot of red tape to go through—a lot of restructuring. But I think he was tired. Tired as I am, right now. Keeping a secret too long... It wears you down.”

  I stare at the floor, taking it all in. He didn’t kill anyone: that’s what I was most afraid of. I can almost understand why he did what he did. I can definitely understand why he’s sick of it. One thing’s still bugging me: “Why does Starkey think you were in on it?”

  “No way to hide it from him, not coming into camp the way I did, guts hanging all over my legs.” He sighs. “He thought we were going public. Agreed to keep quiet till we did. When we took over instead, well....”

  Yeah. I can see where that would look bad.

  Jack tips his head back and scratches at his jaw. He needs a shave. “So, what do you think of me?”

  I swivel my head his way. “Hm?”

  “You said you had something to tell me. Maybe. Depending on what you thought of me, after.”

  Oh. That. I look him up and down, taking him in. He seems drained. Diminished. Like part of him’s still wandering in the past. And I still need time to digest. “It’ll keep a while longer. Let’s take a nap.”

  “But you’ll tell me after? When we wake up?”

  He’s fishing. Looking for reassurance. Wish I had more to give him.

  “Probably.” I drop my head on his shoulder and close my eyes. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ssh.”

  The hum of traffic is making me drowsy. I need to sleep, and so does he. I focus on the sounds of the city, and my racing thoughts wind down.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jack

  I don’t so much wake up as drop back into my body. Feels like falling, complete with the sudden stop at the end. I grunt as the breath’s knocked back into me. My head’s pounding, heavy with sleep: something must’ve roused me. A dream, probably. Who knows what dust I stirred up on my death-march down memory lane?

  I feel off-balance. Cored out, like I coughed up something I didn’t know was part of me. It’s not the worst feeling. Just strange. Not sure I recognize myself.

  Something sneezes in the dark beyond the stairs. That. That’s what woke me. We’ve got company...of the small and scuttling sort.

  I jog Stella’s knee. She opens her eyes, instantly alert. “Hm? Something happen?”

  A mouse slinks along the baseboard, beady eyes glittering. He stops in a sunbeam to clean his whiskers.

  “That’s a mouse,” says Stella.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “I’m about six weeks pregnant.”

  Oh. I turn that over in my head, trying it on for size. A second mouse joins the first. For every one you see, there’s fifty you don’t—or is that cockroaches? Either way.... “We can’t stay here.”

  Stella nods. She’s watching the mice. One of them jumps on the other, and they roll around, squeaking. “Where can we go?”

  Nowhere. We can’t hide from this. She needs to get to safety, and I need to take responsibility. But for now, we need shelter. Food. A place to talk.

  “We’ll find a hotel, for today.”

  I pick myself up off the floor. Stella takes my hand and struggles to her feet. A gasp escapes her as she sags against me, ankle giving way.

  “That bad?”

  “Stiff, mostly.” She tests her weight on it, grits her teeth, and nods. “I’m good.”

  It’s strange, stepping into the late afternoon sun with the fuzz of sleep still clinging. My sense of time’s out of whack: feels like we were in there more than half a day. Time enough for the world to change. A new life. Two bodies in the desert. Magnus hunting loose ends with the determination of a bloodhound. The pieces don’t fit.

  Even so, my instinct is to want this. To protect it. Though... What if she’s put the same pieces together and come to a different conclusion? I have to know. “You want this, right?”

  “What?”

  Fuck. That came out wrong. “I mean, this something you’re happy about, right? The, uh—the baby?” Smooth.

  “I’m keeping it.” A chilly wind gusts from the east. Stella shivers. “Where are we? Still Brooklyn?”

  I wince. The wind’s got nothing on the ice in her tone. But now’s not the time to fix this. We can’t be out in the open. I slouch down to hide my height and steer us into the stream of humanity headed for the subway station. Best place to stay invisible is in a crowd.

  We follow the mob down the block and through a sad excuse for a mall, every third store shuttered and empty. I stifle the impulse to stop and buy Stella a gift—as if she’d want anything from here. She’s in pain, anyway, trying to play off her careful pace as a sort of regal stroll.

  “There’s a hotel across the street, past the exit. Fleur-de-Lys or something.”

  She’s not listening. “Do you want this?”

  “Yes.” I shouldn’t: I’m on the run, most likely prison-bound, but I’ve never wanted anything more. “I thought you might not, given the circumstances. You’ll probably—” I bite my tongue. This isn’t the place to tell her she’ll be doing this alone. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I half expect her to laugh in my face, point out I already have, but she only grips my arm tighter. “We’re both getting out of this.”

  In another life, maybe. I can see it: a house with a yard and a dog and a swing set. Playdates and baseball. Toys everywhere. Coming home to a pair of tiny, chubby arms flung around my legs; cries of “Daddy! Daddy!”

  I blink it all away. It’ll never be real.

  The hotel’s right where I thought it would be, squatting across from the mall. Shabbier than I remembered. It needs a serious coat of paint, and the sign’s missing a few letters: Fur-de-ys.

  It’ll do.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Stella

  Jack’s doing his paranoid thing, shutting the curtains, checking the bathroom, opening the closets. It’s wearing me out. And I’m still not sure what he made of my news. I mean, I hardly expected him to sweep me off my feet and cover me with kisses in a room full of vermin, but something would’ve been nice. A smile. A pat on the hand. He hasn’t looked me in the eye since I told him.

  I shed my coat and perch on the edge of the bed. The mattress is soft and inviting. The pillows aren’t bad, either, plump and new. I stretch and wriggle, burrowing under the coverlet. Feels good to lie down on clean sheets.

  When I open my eyes, Jack’s lying next to me, toying with my hair.

  “Must’ve fallen asleep.”

  Jack glances at the clock. “More of a catnap—ten, fifteen minutes.” There’s the smile I wanted, warm and relaxed. I breathe a little sigh when he strokes my face. “Can you tell me again? What you told me before?”

  “You got me pregnant. Dick.”

  Jack chuckles. “That how you talk to the father of your child?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  He lets out a long breath. I can see the tension going out of his body, shoulders loosening, jaw unclenching. “When we went to sleep this morning, I thought you might wake up and dec
ide I’m a monster after all. Thought you might not tell me....” He presses his forehead to mine. Our noses brush.

  “You don’t seem all that surprised.”

  “Might’ve been hoping....” That smile’s back, tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I mean, you were so tired, after the mugging, barely wanting to eat.... It might’ve crossed my mind. Wasn’t sure I should ask.”

  “I wanted to tell you sooner.” I pull back just enough to brush his hair off his face. He’s getting shaggy. Hasn’t had a haircut in weeks.

  He glances away. “If I....”

  “What?”

  “No. Let’s enjoy this, for now. Pretend there’s no tomorrow. No Magnus, no Erik, no Blakemoor, no...anything. Just this.” He trails his hand down to my belly. “We deserve a moment, right?”

  “Let’s take one, anyway.”

  “Come here.” He pulls me in for a kiss. I respond eagerly, brimming with sudden longing. There’s an ache in my heart, a hunger for closeness and warmth, the intimacy of skin against skin.

  Jack crowds in close till there isn’t a sliver of space between us. Our lips brush when he speaks. I can feel the rumble of his chest, the tide of his breath. “I knew you were mine from the start.” He steals another kiss. “Katrina was pushing that contract on you. You weren’t having it. When you looked into that camera the way you did, I swear to God, I sat up straighter.”

  I remember that. “It was you I was picturing. You I was talking to. Not....” I don’t want to bring Magnus or Erik into this. “Not anyone else.”

  “I’ve wanted this for so long. Someone who’d see me across all those contracts and rules, and want to come over to my side.” He trails his fingers down my neck, over my shoulder. “And you—you wanted that story.”

  “At first....”

  “No, I liked that. That you had passion. Direction in life. You looked into that camera, and I pictured you turning it on me, all that focus, determination, wanting....” His eyes are black with desire. “Even then, I didn’t want to picture the end of the year, handing you over.... No. No.”

  I need to undress him. Feel him against me, inside me. There’s something desperate in his caresses, in the way he’s nearly pinning me to the bed. Like he’s afraid this is it: our last chance.

  I hook my fingers in his collar and casually yank his shirt open. A couple of buttons pop free and bounce away.

  “Hey—that’s my only shirt!”

  “You care?”

  He shucks it off and tosses it on the floor. “Not especially.”

  I’ve already gotten used to sleeping tucked up against that broad chest. This can’t be the end—not now. Not with all the games and the secrets behind us at last, and a future we both want within reach.

  “Stay with me.” Jack cups my chin. I turn my face into his palm, chasing his warmth. He slips his fingers between my lips. I lick and bite thoughtlessly, tasting the salt of his skin. I’ll miss that, too, the way he tastes, the way he smells, the roughness of his hands. The coarse texture of his hair; the heat of his skin. All of it.

  I unhook his belt and cast it aside. He’s making short work of my shirt—a quick tug on the zipper and it’s falling off my shoulders, pushed aside and forgotten.

  “This still hurt?”

  Hurt...what? I look down at where he’s dragging the backs of his fingers down my side, following the fading bruises along my ribs. “Not any more.” It does a bit, especially over the hip and down my leg, but I don’t want him afraid to touch.

  I close my eyes when he kneels to help me off with my pants, half-clenching my fists to keep from flinching. All that running and climbing and flying over rooftops didn’t do my ankle any favors. I’m afraid to look, especially when Jack hisses and wraps his hands around it, massaging carefully. When I open my eyes, he’s regarding me with consternation. “We don’t have to—”

  Oh, fuck that. I grab him by the waistband and pull him on top of me, trapping him in place with my good leg. “Yes, we do.” I thrust my hand lower. He’s ready for me, hard and straining against his pants. I give him a firm squeeze. He groans and rolls his hips. “Want to feel you all over. Inside and out.”

  “Keep talking like that.” He leans down and kisses me on the crest of my hipbone, where the skin’s still mottled green and purple. His lips wander lower, setting a slow spiral of excitement uncoiling inside me.

  “I want you to make my body sing till nothing and no one else will do. Till there’s no touch or sensation that doesn’t remind me of you.” Don’t let me forget you.

  “No one else....” He’s tracing the lines of my body with intent, grasping here, pressing there, as though he wants to burn his touch into my muscle memory. I arch into every point of contact, encouraging him with heated moans and vicious little nips and scratches.

  He can’t take his hands off me—I won’t stand for it—so I wrestle his pants off him. It’s awkward, with one hand tangled in his hair, but I manage to shove them to his knees and kick them the rest of the way. His cock’s hot and heavy in my grip. I stroke him the way he likes it, slow and firm, thumb following the sensitive ridge of the head. Jack bucks into my fist, his own hand stuttering in its slow glide over my shoulder.

  I take him by the back of the neck and pull him even closer. It’s been weeks since I’ve had him like this—not since my injury. A pleasurable shudder takes me as I feel him all over, his warm weight comforting and familiar. He buries his face in my neck, murmuring something I don’t quite catch. And then his hand is on mine, guiding his cock between my thighs. I tilt my hips up and he moves to meet me. Our hands drop away as he plunges inside.

  It hurts a little, the pressure on my crushed hip, the drag of my ankle on the bed, but I can’t find it in me to care. If anything, the edge of pain has me chasing my pleasure all the harder, caught up in the intensity of the moment.

  I throw my head back. Jack’s found the perfect angle, and every stroke is like fireworks inside of me. I’m not seeing the water-stained ceiling, the weathered headboard, the depressing wallpaper. I’m seeing fire racing across the sky, knots of flame exploding into sparks, then nothing at all.

  Jack’s breathing hard against my shoulder, hot little puffs that set my toes curling. One hand has found its way into my hair—it always does—and the other’s splayed possessively over my belly. His thrusts are quick and uneven: I can tell he’s close.

  “I’m yours,” I whisper, and he goes stiff and still, growling deep in his throat as he shoots inside me. I hold him through it, through the helpless shocks and spasms that course through his body.

  “Mine,” he mutters—“mine; mine.”

  When he finally pulls out, he doesn’t roll off right away. He hovers over me, smoothing the disorder of my hair, kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, my lips. I realize I’m holding him in place, one hand on his neck, the other at the base of his spine. Letting go would be too much like...letting go.

  At last, I let my hands fall away, and Jack collapses at my side, half-curled around me. I find his hand and trap it against my chest.

  “I should go tonight.”

  No.

  I clutch his hand tighter. I won’t be cheated out of one more night. One more hour, at least. One more time drifting off in the circle of his arms. “What are you going to do?”

  “Confess to it all.”

  “You can’t.”

  His hand twitches in mine, but he doesn’t take it back. “It’s the only way to keep you safe. Bars and concrete and razor wire between you and them.” He sighs. “You and us.”

  “You can’t.”

  “What I can’t do is let anything happen to you. Either of you.” My heart swells and skips a beat as he moves our hands to the barely-there swell of my belly.

  “So we’ll run. Leave it all behind. There are places they’d never look: Ilulissat, Annaba, Leshan. I can make money anywhere, under any name.”

  “We’d always be looking over our shoulders.” His free hand is picking at the
bedspread. “And... What if I told you they’re doing it again? Creating their own market?”

  “Are they?”

  “I think so.” He turns away. “They’re recruiting again. Big-time. And the growth they’re reporting... It’s too much. Too fast.”

  “Wouldn’t you have noticed something going on? Don’t you work there?”

  Jack shakes his head. “Haven’t had much to do with Blakemoor in years. I’m still on the board, but I can’t remember the last time I showed up to a meeting. Most of my business is real estate these days.” He finally sits up, hunching over on himself. “Guess I stopped paying attention after I walked away.”

  My heart sinks. I’d be a sad excuse for a human being if I begged him to turn his back on lives destroyed for profit. There’s a lump in my throat, one I’ll never be able to swallow. This is how it ends? A noble sacrifice for him; lonely disgrace for me? Stilted conversations in a crowded visiting room, with prison guards breathing down our necks?

  “When you write your story, make me the tragic hero, okay?” His shoulder bumps mine. “The Countess and her ill-fated highwayman....”

  I want to punch him. Not funny.

  “It’ll be all right. You’re strong. Hell, you’ll probably get a Pulitzer out of it.”

  “Stop.” I need time; time to think. Jack’s smart, but not cunning. Too straightforward by far. There has to be something he hasn’t thought of.

  “I’m sorry.”

  My shoulders slump as he drapes an arm over them, enveloping me in his warmth. I can’t lose this. I— “What’s the statute of limitations on blackmail?”

  Jack huffs laughter. “What? Where’d that come from?”

  I sit up, shrugging his arm aside. “What if you didn’t confess to all of it? What if you... Wait—let me think.” I’ve got something—or the pieces of something. Just need to put them together. “You were never actually involved, back then, right? You never bombed anything, or incited anything, or...or whatever was going on?”

  “No.” He’s hunting for his pants—getting ready to leave. I grab his arm and drag him back to the bed.