by Sky Winters
"Are we still going to be keeping her in the dark?" asked Thorne. "Keeping both of us in the dark?"
"Need-to-know, Mr. Lewis," said Mr. Abruzzi. "Need-to-know. That lovely little specimen will have all the answers she desires once she arrives in New York. All you need to know, on the other hand, is that you'll be paid handsomely for this assignment, just as we agreed."
"Fine with me," said Thorne. "Just so long as you're not keeping anything from me. I had to fight off a fucking merc last night while I was picking this one up, after all."
"Yes," said Mr. Abruzzi. "That is a troubling development. But rest assured, we'll be giving the issue the attention that it deserves. Until then, we expect you to complete the assignment as requested. That is all."
With that, the screen turned black.
"What the fuck was that?" demanded Thorne, turning an angry glare toward Adelaide.
"I couldn't take it anymore," she said. "I couldn't stand them talking about me like that."
"Get fucking used to it," he said. "A family as powerful as they are talks to people like us however the hell they want. You're lucky they didn't seem to give a damn about you speaking out of turn like that."
"And you're just fine with all of this? Getting ordered around like some kind of attack dog?"
"It's what I'm good at," said Thorne. "What can I say?"
Adelaide harrumphed and crossed her arms under her breasts.
"I don't get how you can act like that," she said. "Just doing what other people pay you to do, not asking any questions."
"As long as the money's good, I don't give a good goddamn," said Thorne, getting up from where he'd been sitting on the edge of the desk.
Adelaide wondered just what kinds of other jobs a mercenary like Thorne had performed. The effect of knowing that she was in the same room as a professional killer was strange to her. On the one hand, she was frightened. But on the other, she was a little thrilled.
"We've got the day to kill, so try to relax," said Thorne, preparing to leave.
"'Relax'?" asked Adelaide. "How the hell am I supposed to relax in a situation like this?”
Thorne shrugged.
"There's a pool out back; go sunbathe or something. Plenty of girl clothes in that bedroom you were in."
Adelaide wanted to scream. She couldn't believe Thorne was treating this like they were housesitting.
"And maybe if you're good, I'll make dinner," said Thorne with a sly smile.
And then he was gone.
Adelaide was left alone with her frustration. She was a prisoner scheduled to be sent to live with some strange family in New York the next day, and now she had nothing to do but roam around some massive house in the middle of nowhere. She wanted her phone, she wanted to talk to her friends, to tell them to come get her so she could put all this insanity behind her. But it was impossible.
She checked out the property, trying to find some avenue of escape. The more she looked, however, the more she realized that Thorne was right – there was no getting out of here. The windows and doors were all locked, the glass was made of some material too thick to break through, and even if she were able to leave, the gates surrounding the property were too tall to scale. Then there was the matter of being smack-dab in the middle of some forgotten bayou.
Might as well make the best of this, thought Adelaide.
Returning to the bedroom where she'd woken up, she went through the dressers and, sure enough, found some women's clothing. Taking a one-piece bathing suit, she grabbed a towel from the bathroom and headed outside to the pool. The door leading to the backyard was one of the few unlocked, and she was certain that Thorne was keeping a close eye on it through the house's security system.
Laying out her towel, she found a spot by the pool and stretched out on top of it. Time trickled by, and laying there in the warm sun, Adelaide managed to relax, if only a little bit.
The gruff voice of Thorne from behind her snapped her out of her reverie.
"We got steak, and more steak," he said.
Adelaide opened her eyes and saw that Thorne was standing over her, his huge, built body blocking out the last traces of the day's sun like some sort of monumental statue.
"You're serious about dinner?" asked Adelaide?
"Why wouldn't I be?" asked Thorne. "You haven't had a damn thing to eat all day."
"Guess I haven't really been in the mood for it, what with the ‘being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery' thing."
Thorne snorted.
"'Sex slavery'?" he asked. "Don't flatter yourself."
Then his mouth formed into a little smirk. Adelaide couldn't help but slap his leg as hard as she could.
"Calm down, kiddo," said Thorne. "Anyway, you need to eat something. Finish up out here, go take a shower, and be ready to eat."
Then he was gone.
Adelaide tried to imagine forcing down the anxiety boiling in her long enough to have something to eat. It was about the least appealing thing she could imagine, but she knew Thorne was right that she needed to get something in her. She laid poolside until the sun dipped a little further toward the horizon and a mild chill slipped into the air. Then, she headed back inside and took a quick shower, doing her best to relax and let the tension melt out of her body.
Once she was done, it was around early evening. Throwing on some clothes from the dresser and stepping out of her room, she smelled the scent of cooking meat on the air. Though she was still tight with nerves, she couldn't help but feel her mouth water a little bit at this. Adelaide stepped down the grand staircase, the smell growing with each stair she descended. The soft sounds of jazz filled the air from some faraway stereo system.
Entering the kitchen, she laid eyes on Thorne standing at the stove, his sleeves rolled up around his forearms as he flipped a couple of steaks on a massive stainless-steel pan.
"There she is," he said, dumping the two enormous pieces of sizzling meat onto a pair of plates, followed by some vegetables that had been cooking on another burner. "Hope you're ready for some grub."
"I suppose I am," said Adelaide, the whole scene striking her as a little strange.
"What?" said Thorne, apparently noticing how he was looking at her.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "Just didn't expect to come down here and see you making food while listening to jazz."
"Huh?" he said. "Oh, it helps me concentrate. Why – you surprised?"
"Maybe a little," she said, leaning forward on the counter. "You just don't strike me as the type. What with the tattoos and everything."
And the muscles, she thought to herself, but wisely choosing to keep that observation secret.
"And what did you expect a guy like me would do for dinner?" he said, placing the vegetables on the plates next to the meat.
"I don't know," said Adelaide. "You kind of strike me as more of a ‘fast food burrito with a beer with some heavy metal playing' type."
"Who's to say that isn't my jam?" he asked. "Maybe I'm trying to impress you."
Adelaide didn't need it explained to her that he was being about as smart-assey as it got.
"Anyway, it's ready," he said. "I got some of that fancy-ass wine they got in the cellar. Go grab a seat."
Adelaide went into the dining room where a couple of places had been set on the long, black table. She took a seat and reached for the bottle of wine on the table, noticing that the bottle looked ancient, as though it were as old as the house itself.
"I almost don't want to open this," she said as Thorne entered the dining room with the two plates in hand. "It looks like it should be in a museum or something."
"You can do whatever you want with that bottle," he said, setting the plates down. "I'm more interested in what's inside."
"Can't say I disagree with that," said Adelaide, handing the bottle over to Thorne.
Seconds later, he had it opened and was pouring two glasses of ruby-colored wine for the both of them. Then, he plopped into the chair across from her.
"What, you waiting to say grace? Dig in."
With that, Thorne set into the meat in front of him, ripping it apart effortlessly and shoving forkful after forkful into his mouth. Adelaide watched him eat for a time, noting that he was eating it like a ferocity that was almost animalistic. She poked at the meat on her plate, grease and thin blood seeping out of it. Though she still felt a little ill at ease, by now, she was too hungry to care. Adelaide first took a long sip of wine before cutting into the meat, feeling better as soon as the first sip and forkful was in her belly.
The more she ate, however, the more she felt something brew up inside of her. Her eyes flicked over to Thorne, who was happily chowing down on his meal, apparently not affected by a care in the world. She realized that she felt angry.
"What?" said Thorne, looking up at Adelaide as he wiped the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I still can't believe this bullshit," she said, the words shooting out of her like little daggers. "Sitting here eating a nice meal, trying to forget that I'm getting shipped off to New York tomorrow to be sold like property."
"Technically, you're not getting sold," said Thorne, the hint of a shit-eating grin on his face. "If you're property, it's more like you're getting stolen."
"Fuck you," said Adelaide, throwing down her napkin on the table. "I know you're a heartless psycho and that this is just a job for you, but you've ripped me away from my life and now you're sitting there eating a steak like it's nothing."
"Bouncing around from major to major, job to job, your only friends being a couple of party girls who can't hold their booze – some life I was taking you away from."
"But I had a home, I had…things!" shouted Adelaide. "And now I'm going to be…what? What's going to happen to me once you drop me off? You don't know because you don't care. You're just in this to get paid, and you don't give a good goddamn about what happens to me or whatever other girl you do this to. You're…you're a sex trafficker for hire! That's all you are!"
Despite the venom dripping from Adelaide's words, Thorne didn't seem to be bothered by anything she had to say. Instead, he poured himself another glass of wine, raising the drink to his lips, and downed half of it with a single swig.
"This is actually my first time doing this," he said. "The ‘kidnapping a girl' thing. Mostly, I do escort work, bodyguard jobs – stuff like that. Assassinations, if I'm lucky."
"Assass-" said Adelaide, not believing what she was hearing, but stopping herself before she could ask. "Well, I guess now you can add human trafficking to your oh-so-impressive resume."
Thorne said nothing, and Adelaide got the impression he was waiting for her to tire out.
"What kind of person are you, anyway?" she asked. "You just take whatever job you get offered, no questions asked? Isn't there honor among thieves or something?"
"'Honor among thieves' means we don't screw each other over people in the same biz. But yeah, I take whatever job's offered to me, so long as the necessary backwork's been done and the client's ready to pay. Why should I care what jobs I have to do, just as long as the money's good?"
Adelaide realized that the odds of her getting through to Thorne were very, very slim. He continued to eat and drink, and Adelaide slumped into her chair, defeated. Her eyes flicked up to him as he dined, and she couldn't help but think about how goddamn good-looking he was. It was like insult to injury that the man putting her through this nightmare made her hornier than she'd ever remembered being. It struck her as some kind of a sick, cosmic joke.
Once Thorne was done, he polished off the rest of his wine and tossed his napkin onto his plate.
"Pretty damn good cook, if you ask me," he said.
Adelaide opened her mouth to speak, but before a word could come out, a noise ripped through the dining room. It was a terrible noise, like metal was being smashed and ground – almost like a building was collapsing.
"What the fuck?" said Thorne, shooting up from his chair and running to the back of the house toward the sound.
Adelaide's heart pounded in her chest. More noises boomed from behind the house, these sounding like massive footsteps from…something. She rushed to Thorne's side by the back windows of the house.
She couldn't believe what she laid eyes on.
At the far end of the backyard was a pair of enormous beasts that looked to Adelaide like dinosaurs. They were huge, easily at least twenty feet tall, with gray, scaled skin and fearsome faces. They'd smashed through the towering fence surrounding the property and were making their way toward the house, growing closer with each passing second.
Once the pair of beasts stopped at the edge of the swimming pool, stretching out a pair of mighty wings from their backs and letting out deafening roars, Adelaide realized just what these things were.
They were dragons.
CHAPTER 5
"Fuck!" shouted Thorne, his hands on the large windows looking out onto the back property, his eyes locked onto the pair of gray dragons. "How the fuck did they find us here?"
"What?" demanded Adelaide. "What are you talking about? Are those things dragons?"
"Yes, they're fucking dragons!" shouted Thorne over the sound of the beasts letting out another pair of roars.
Thorne's eyes latched back onto the creatures.
Grays, he thought, noting the ash-colored scales that covered both of the dragons, which meant that they were newer dragons, unaffiliated with any clan and not seasoned enough to have earned a color. Standard dragons; nothing I shouldn't be able to handle. But there's two of them; that might make things tricky.
Before he could act, the dragons shifted. Where the massive grays once stood was now a pair of menacing-looking thugs in slick suits. Thorne could tell right away that these were ronin dragons – not with a clan, nor with a mercenary company - just a few low-lifes looking to get paid.
"Thorne Lewis!" called out one in a deep voice. "You know why we're here. Send the girl out and we'll allow you to leave with your life."
Thorne boiled with rage.
"Someone knows we're here," he hissed, turning to Adelaide.
"I can see that," she said, her fear-widened eyes on the dragons.
"No," said Thorne. "Someone who hired these fuckers knows we’re here. They know who we are, and what we're doing."
Adelaide said nothing, and it was clear that she didn't know what to make of all of this.
So much the fucking better, thought Thorne. She doesn't need to know any of this crap.
"You'll let me leave with my life," said Thorne. "But are you gonna replace that fence?"
The two thugs turned to each other and shared a look.
"Come out now," one of them said. "Otherwise, we'll have to smash through this lovely home and pick the girl out of the rubble."
Thorne's mind raced. He realized that this was a do-or-die type of situation. Even if he wanted to give up Adelaide, there was no chance these thugs would let him live.
Maybe if I can get them talking, he thought, I get some information out of them. Maybe give Adelaide a chance to get to a hiding place.
"You," said Thorne, his voice low and gruff. "Stay here until I talk to those assholes. And when I do, you make a break for it out the front door. Passcode for the gate out front is five-seven-seven. Just run as fast as you fucking can, and don't look back."
Adelaide said nothing, her face frozen in an expression of fear.
"Nod or something!" demanded Thorne. "I need to know you understand me!"
Adelaide finally nodded slowly.
"Good," he said. "Run into the bayou. I'll come find you. Just keep running."
Adelaide nodded again, but Thorne could tell she was almost too shocked by what was going on to really comprehend his words. He had hoped he wouldn't have to be the one to tell her about dragons, but at that moment, he realized how silly this thought had been. All he could hope for at this moment was that she was able to understand his simple directions of "run."
"Don't
forget what I said," hissed Thorne, standing up and heading toward the back doors.
"Here I am," said Thorne, stepping out onto the backyard, his arms outstretched.
As he got closer, he could see that the thugs were a pair of twins, both with slim bodies, dirty blonde shoulder-length hair, and bony, menacing faces. He sized them up as he approached. Thorne knew that two on one would be tough, but he was a silver, and silvers were nothing to screw with.
"We don't want you," said one of the thugs. "We want the girl. Where is she?"
"Yes," said the other. "Give her to us now."
"Now," said Thorne, "why would I want to do a thing like that?"
The twins exchanged a look.
"Because, otherwise, you die."
"And how can I know for sure that you're not gonna just kill me anyway?" he said, hoping that Adelaide had already started running, knowing that each second he kept these two occupied was a little more distance she could cover. “I mean, grays aren't exactly known for their scrupulous ways."
"Because we're getting paid for this, just like you," said the twin on the right. "We're here to collect her; our client said nothing about you."
"Right," said the other twin. "As far as we're concerned, you can fuck off back to your mansion."
A client, thought Thorne. Who the fuck would this be?
"Who the hell are you working for?" said Thorne. "Who the hell wants this girl so goddamn bad?"
"Someone who wants to make sure that the Abruzzi don't have her. At any cost."
"Clearly not at any cost," said Thorne, "if they're hiring garbage-tier mercs like you."
The twins exchanged another look, this one more heated than the one before.
"You fucking silvers," said the twin on the right, "think you're the only mercs that matter, the only ones who can get the job done."
"You're arrogant," said the other twin. "And that arrogance will be your undoing."
"Now," said the right-most twin. "Are you going to give us the girl, or are we going to have to roast you alive?"
