by Natalie Dean
He started looking through his options. “Smoking?”
“Sure.”
“Double bed?”
“Single.”
David gave her a funny look. Why are you changing anything? We’re not going to use it.
“You two look awfully familiar,” the clerk said, looking her up and down. “Are you movie stars or something?”
“I’m a porn star,” David blurted. “So is she.”
Adrianna closed her eyes with an internal groan.
“Oh,” the clerk said. “Oh.”
“You’re one of the only people who has outright admitted to seeing me before.”
The guy cleared his throat. His cheeks were bright red. “Room 101. First floor, down that way. Cash or credit?”
“Cash,” David said. “How much do I owe you?”
He said the amount and David dug up the cash to hand it to him. He made sure to keep his ID away from the guy’s view. David was the kind of man that carried around cash at all times. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Usually about five or six hundred, which Adrianna always thought was a bad idea. Any would-be robber would get away with the motherload.
The clerk’s eyes caught the cash and faltered for just a second. He didn’t say anything, but he seemed amazed.
“Must be an exciting business,” he said, trying to kick-start a conversation about David’s fake career.
“Yeah,” David said as he slid his wallet away. “Really lucrative.”
“What’s your porn name?”
David was hard to read to people that didn’t know him very well. Adrianna could tell he was mildly frustrated, but the guy probably couldn’t. “Oh, I’m John Johnson, and she’s Samantha Foxxx.” He snatched the room key. “Anyway, nice to talk to you.”
They moved into the rest of the hotel.
“Samantha Foxxx? Really?”
He slid the card into his pocket. “I panicked. I didn’t know what else to say. Get to tracking.”
She let her mind sink into the hotel, crawling through the walls and chasing down the aura. She could smell Jacob’s mental stink. It was as sickening as the day she’d first seen him at the mall. She locked onto his aura. Upstairs. He was above them.
They got in the elevator. As the doors slid shut, Adrianna spoke.
“You have a plan, right?”
“Yup. Get in, save Ellie, get out. Boom.”
“That’s not a very good plan.”
“Yeah, well…it needs some work. We’ll figure it out when we get in there.”
The aura became unbearably potent in front of one of the doors – just a mint green hotel room door. Number 208, the numbers scratched off from age.
“This one,” Adrianna whispered, so that whoever was inside couldn’t hear her. She could make out the sounds of a television in the room.
“Is Ellie - “
“She’s in there too.”
Together, the FBI agent and MMA fighter faced the door, the only thing lying between them and Ellie.
Chapter 12
Adrianna searched the room for its inhabitants using her special abilities. As far as she could tell, and she could be wrong, there were only two people inside – Ellie and Jacob. She searched them for any signs that she might be able to use. Ellie was scared…but also a wee bit angry at her captor. Brave girl. And him…even his aura made Adrianna wrinkle her nose.
Ellie’s aura seemed slightly farther away like she was looking out the window or something. His aura seemed closer. He was probably on the bed, watching whatever was on TV at the time.
“I think he’s on the bed,” she whispered. “Ellie’s on the other side of the room.”
“Is he armed?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“I dunno. You’re magic or something,” he hissed back.
“I sense people, not steel.”
“Whatever. You ready?” His eyes were shining like before one of his fights in the ring.
“If you are.”
“You get the door,” he said. “I’ll get the man.”
Fair enough. Adrianna was less prepared to deal with hand-to-hand combat than David was. If Jacob had a gun, that changed matters up. They were both just hoping he was unarmed or at least didn’t have his gun right on him. It wasn’t going to work too well if Adrianna busted the door down, David rushed in, and Jacob put a couple bullets in each of them.
She reared back a foot, appreciated the silence at the moment while she was still bringing it back, and pushed it forward. The agency, once again, came through. The things that they taught her were invaluable. The heel of her foot connected right next to the doorknob, ripping the door clean open with a loud crash.
David darted through the opening, Adrianna right behind him.
Adrianna’s estimations were right on. Ellie was, indeed, looking out the window onto the drained swimming pool. Jacob was leaning back on the bed, a pizza box to his right, remote in his hand. David tore into him before he could even register that they had entered the room.
“Daddy!” Ellie shrieked, running back towards them.
She started towards Adrianna in her little dress that she’d worn to the party…only to have David go flying into the TV in front of her. She retreated, shrieking, as Jacob lunged up from the bed. The veritable giant loomed over the whole family.
He grabbed at Adrianna, who ducked away from him. He wasn’t very fast, but holy smokes…she could tell that if he got ahold of her, she wasn’t going anywhere.
David swore, stumbling up from the remains of the television. “Ellie, run! Get outside!”
Ellie dashed past him, towards the door, but Jacob got between her and the door and slammed it shut.
“How’d you find me?” he growled. His voice, like his hulking frame, was broken.
“What does that matter?” David stepped forward so that he and Adrianna were between Jacob and Ellie. “Just let us take Ellie and then you can do whatever you want.”
Jacob’s nose was bleeding. Apparently, David had gotten a good shot in before Jacob launched him into the TV.
“You’re done. We won. We found her, and the cops are on their way,” Adrianna snapped at him. Not true, but he didn’t know that. “Anything you do from now on will just make it worse.”
“Worse?” he snorted. “Worse? Tell me. How could it get worse? I stand to spend life in prison.”
Adrianna’s thigh started tingling, where she normally kept her gun sheathed. What she would have given to have her 9 millimeter with her right then…the kidnapper was a huge target. He blocked out the entire door. Instead, they were about to go hand-to-hand with him unless he moved away from the door, but she doubted that he was going to do that.
She was right.
Instead, he attacked.
Watching him go on the offensive was a bit like looking at a walrus attack a person on a nature show: slow, powerful, and still quite scary. Adrianna and David managed to get out of the way, but his fist took out a chunk of the wall.
A ferocious battle ensued. Adrianna and David were fast – way faster than he was – but as big as he was, he hardly felt their blows. The most disturbing thing was that he was not going for them – he was going for Ellie.
Ellie was screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing anything she could get her hands on at the advancing giant, backing up slowly. David clocked Jacob in the jaw. Nice shot. Spittle flew out. His teeth smashed together loudly. Jacob stumbled for a moment while David and Adrianna pummeled him. Adrianna had spent hours in combat training, but hitting Jacob was like hitting a punching bag – hard, immovable, and otherwise unaffected.
But even a big man like him could be brought down by one thing.
She brought her foot up right between his legs. He felt it. That’s for sure. But to her surprise and horror, it didn’t keep him down long. She kneed him in the face while he was bent over, cupping his crotch in pain. She felt his nose snap from her knee connecting with his face, but he must have be
en on drugs or something because he seemed to hardly feel it.
He got his sausage fingers around her hair and tossed her like a ragdoll across the bed. She bounced off the mattress and slammed into the wall, but she was up a moment later.
Jacob grabbed the glass shards of the TV and slashed at David like he had a knife. David barely managed to duck away.
Bleeding everywhere, limping, and making a demented low moan, Jacob slashed again at David. David had to duck away, leaving Ellie standing by the window unprotected.
He reared back his hand with the glass blade and slashed at Ellie. David was too far away. He’d tripped over the nightstand. Adrianna jumped in front of the blade as he started to bring it forward. She grabbed his wrist, keeping him from bringing it forward anymore. Or at least that was the plan. She managed to grab him, but she barely managed to slow his strike.
“Get off!” he bellowed.
He put all his strength into it. Adrianna was a strong woman. She’d never met a woman in better shape than her, and she was a lot stronger than most men, but against him, she dropped to one knee in a vain attempt to slow him. Her body got smashed up against Ellie.
And then David tackled Jacob from behind.
Adrianna didn’t even see him, but one second she was struggling against Jacob, and the next second he was coming towards her. His tree trunk legs caught up on her kneeling body. And with a howl of anger, he busted through the window and vanished.
“Ellie!” Adrianna yelled, stumbling to her feet. She was shaking. “E-Ellie! Are you okay?”
Ellie was crying, but she didn’t seem physically harmed. She managed a horrified head bob. She was fine.
Adrianna looked out the busted window.
Far below – two stories to be precise – Jacob was lying, face-down and contorted, on the bottom of the drained swimming pool with a red liquid filling up the bottom of the basin. He wasn’t moving.
“Don’t look.” Adrianna turned Ellie away, back towards the remains of the room and away from the pool. “Don’t look sweetie.”
They didn’t leave. Honestly, Adrianna didn’t even consider leaving the room, and she was pretty sure David didn’t either. They simply cuddled by the window until the police arrived. Adrianna suspected someone had called them, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was that her baby girl was safe.
Her baby girl. Huh. She wasn’t sure when she’d stopped seeing her as just David’s child. But she knew that she loved that little girl and started seeing her as her own flesh and blood.
She and David were swiftly arrested. Neither of them tried to fight or run or do anything. They just quietly obliged. They had no intention of being criminals. They’d saved Ellie. Nothing else mattered.
Nothing else mattered.
She held her wrists out silently as they locked the cold handcuffs around her wrists. She was utterly exhausted.
She looked over at David. His eyes were still wild and angry, but they were starting to dim as the realization set in that the whole escapade was over. Now all that was left was for the hammer to fall as it might.
The officers took her outside, past the hotel clerk who was all huddled up by an ambulance with a blanket around his shoulders. He looked like he might have seen a ghost when he saw her. She looked away. She didn’t want to scare the poor guy.
They took her straight past the police car.
“Hey,” Adrianna said. “I, uh, think you might have missed our stop here.”
“We’re not arresting you right now.”
“You have got to be kidding me. After all we did - “
David gave Adrianna the evil eye. “What are you trying to do? I’m sure the man knows what he’s talking about.”
Then Adrianna saw a black SUV, and she understood. Stone. The officers directed her and David to the door, which popped open.
“Come in,” came a deep voice from inside the darkened vehicle. She could recognize Stone’s voice anywhere.
She hopped into the car with David. The officers promptly shut the door, leaving them in darkened silence. The windows were tinted to the legal limit, and the interior was all pitch black, but eventually Adrianna’s eyes adjusted to see Agent Stone on the other side, arms crossed with a hard expression on his face.
“Heeyyy…” Adrianna managed. “Agent Stone...how can I help you?”
He took a long inhale, held it for a moment, and exhaled dramatically. “What was it I told you two NOT to do?”
Two to do, Adrianna thought. Hehe. Funny little thing to say. Yup. She was not in her right mind. “You told us to stay away from the case.”
“What was that?” He heard her. He just wanted her to repeat it.
“You said to stay away from the case,” she said, louder.
“That’s right. And what did you do?”
“Didn’t stay away from the case.”
“Wrong!” he slammed his fist down on the seat loudly. As tightly wound as Adrianna was, she almost jumped ten feet in the air. “You didn’t just not stay away. You broke into the agency. You shot at someone on a live interstate. You kidnapped a man after breaking into his house!” The vein in his forehead pulsed. He was ticked. “I had an idea you would ignore me. I had no idea you would toss all logic out the window and act like a damn fool!”
She sunk back into the seat. She hadn’t seen Stone angry many times before, and she didn’t like it. “Sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry? You’ve humiliated the FBI!”
Neither David nor Adrianna spoke. What was there to say?
Stone rubbed his face with his hand, gathering himself before speaking. “I took credit,” he said, quietly but with a degree of hardness to it. “According to the FBI, I sent you off after Jackson. As for you…” he turned his attention towards David, who looked about as surprised as Adrianna. “It was harder to get you off the hook. I still don’t know why I did. I should have let you go ahead and take the blame. Would’ve been easier for me.” He took a dramatic pause. Adrianna was pretty sure he was milking it. Although he was her boss, it was rare he ever had any real power over her. He sent her on assignments and let her have free reign because he knew she would always find the fugitive. Having him decide whether she and her fiancée would go to jail was disconcerting, to say the least.
“…and?” she asked, hoping to break the silence.
“But I did,” he said finally. “Had to pull all kinds of strings, but I got you off the hook.”
“Thank you!” David said. “I just don’t understand. How did you- “
Stone gave him the shut-up look. “Don’t matter.”
“So…” Adrianna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “We’re not being arrested? I mean, we ran from the cops- “
He snorted. “I said I took credit. I didn’t say I got you off scot-free. Your two genius’ are spending the next year doing community service for that little stunt. And you…” he looked at Adrianna firmly. “I told you to stay away. You’ve got three years of probation now. Try another funny little stunt, and you’ll land yourself in jail. Understand?”
Adrianna nodded, stunned. She couldn’t believe it. She’d been expecting to go to prison for years at the very least. But somehow, some way, Stone had pulled his strings and gotten them off the hook. Stone, however, wasn’t done.
“You’re also going to need to take an unpaid leave from the agency until we get it all sorted out as well as take a series of classes. Think anger management.”
She didn’t care. Anything was better than the slammer. Especially as a former officer of the law…
Stone leaned back in the chair. “Okay. Adrianna, David, you two can go. I’ll have someone send you the details.” He bared his teeth in a feral smile. It was one of the first times she’d see him grin. “Until then, good work.”
He tapped against the door, and the officers opened them up.
“They’re good to go,” Stone said, and the officers unlocked her and David. Part of Adrianna wondered if there was a scenar
io in which he would have arrested them. If they’d been smug, she had no doubt he would have been fine letting them spend some time in jail. But because they had been respectful and appreciative, they were free.
Stone grabbed Adrianna’s arm as she exited the car, stopping her cold. When she looked back at him, his eyes were dangerously hard. “I like you, Whetmore. I’ve given you a pass. Next time, I will not be so forgiving.”
With that, he released her and closed the door.
Chapter 13
It wasn’t until about two hours later when they were back at the agency and waiting for Stone to tell them it was okay to leave, that Adrianna realized how sore her body was.
In the moment, fighting against Jacob, she hadn’t thought about it, but she had really been tossed around hard in that hotel room. Her hip hurt. Her ribs were aching. Nothing felt broken, but she knew she’d have bruises by the next day.
Ellie, meanwhile, had passed the “Quiet and Terrified” phase and gone into the “Won’t Stop Talking” phase. She chattered on and on about what she had done that was so brave when Jacob had kidnapped her. She said that Jacob was scary and mean, but he had never actually hurt her.
Adrianna didn’t mind the endless talking. She was just relieved to hear Ellie’s sweet little voice again.
“Were you brave?” David asked at one point on the seat in the waiting lounge, grinning down at his daughter.
She looked at her shoes bashfully. “Yeessss….”
He reached out and touched her on the nose. “Boop.”
The first few months she’d hung around David and Ellie, Adrianna had felt depressingly left out. However, over time, David came to care more about Adrianna. And Ellie had grown to start seeing Adrianna as a mother figure. It was all coming together for them to be a family. It felt great to finally be at peace, sitting there in the lounge with her fiancé and dear little Ellie.
Eventually, a woman came out of the office, telling them that Stone had finished up the paperwork and that they were free to go.
They ended up having to call a cab to get home because David’s car had been completely obliterated in their car accident when they’d first caught up with Jacob on the road. Ellie nodded off in the cab. She was exhausted, justifiably so. She’d had a long day.
