by Tara Quan
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Operation Owl
Copyright © 2014 by Tara Quan
ISBN: 978-1-61333-712-7
Cover art by Syneca Featherstone
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
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Decadent Publishing Beyond Fairytales
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A Riddle for Love
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You Belong to Me
Her Real Life Hero
Starlight Cowboy
Also by Tara Quan
Delicious Delay
Operation Owl
By
Tara Quan
A Beyond Fairytales Adaptation of Grimm’s The Owl
~Dedication~
To my friend Dr. Valentina.
Please solve the mysteries of the universe quickly.
Chapter One
Once upon a time….
Maya Jain paused at the domed entrance. A sculpture in its own right, the hammered bronze lettering took up an entire wall and marked the beginning of the Nicodemus Fairytales exhibit. Halogen light glinted off curved metal, giving the interlaced alphabet characters a magical gleam. She took a halting step forward before courage failed, the echoing hall empty but for her presence. Even with huge posters in every Metro station, the National Gallery of Art failed to draw a crowd. At the height of summer, few tourists had chosen this air-conditioned D.C. landmark over the sunbathed monuments outside. Renaissance oil paintings often ranked at the bottom of people’s lists when it came to must-see treasures in the nation’s capital.
Logic commanded she turn around. She had no idea what compelled her to stay put but hesitated to tease apart the jumbled emotions. Someone had either played a sick, twisted joke, or she was on the verge of aiding and abetting a known fugitive. She could just imagine herself inside a mirrored interrogation room at the Hoover Building. “But Mr. FBI Agent, sir—Zack Strong’s my best friend from college. I’m sure he didn’t do all those awful things they wrote about in the papers. Please don’t send me to jail.”
Talk about a weak defense.
Quoting the beginning line to every fairy tale, the piece of art taunted her, daring her to step inside. Her younger self would have met Zack anywhere. After all, he starred in her fondest memories of MIT. Two class years ahead of her, he’d tried and failed to teach her how to rollerblade, bought her first illegal alcoholic beverage, and once braved a Boston blizzard to buy microwavable popcorn for their Snow Day turned Farscape marathon. The least she could do now was hear him out.
But she hadn’t seen him in five years, and he’d spent the past three months as the United States’ most sought-after criminal. When the government wished to accuse someone of espionage or treason, they often opted for the more provable charge of “mishandling classified documents.” If she gave credence to reputable sources such as the Washington Herald, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, which most people believed ninety percent of the time, then she had to accept that the recipient of her first kiss somehow became the evil hacker of the twenty-first century.
According to the National Security Agency’s spokesman, her former classmate had circumvented the security protocols at the Barn—the NSA’s warehouse-sized bank of servers in the middle of the desert—and stolen information vital to national security. The most obvious course of action at this moment was to call 911 and turn him in, not accept a bizarre assignation at the National Gallery to hear his case.
One major problem with friendship, however, was its lack of an expiration date.
Gritting her teeth, she marched toward a small oil painting in the corner. She lifted a hand to adjust the nonexistent glasses ghosting the bridge of her nose. LASIK had freed her from the thick, round spectacles that had earned her the nickname Oolu, the Urdu word for owl. But a lifetime of near blindness caused the nervous habit to persist. After hearing her brother use the moniker, Zack had Google-translated the word and had insisted on calling her “Owl” for the next two years, despite repeated and emphatic requests on her end for him to knock it off. He’d even had the gall to reference the pet name in his cryptic video message that morning: “I saw an ad on the Metro. It reminded me of what I used to call you. Let’s take a look at the real thing today after our study session.”
And to her shame, even though they’d shared little more than Facebook birthday wishes over the past five years, decoding his meaning took her less than a minute. So here she stood, scrutinizing the baroque-style painting titled The Owl. It featured a wooden barn enveloped in red and orange flames. A throng of farmers holding torches and pitchforks stood outside, watching the structure blaze against the dark backdrop of a moonless night. Through the top window, she could barely make out the shape of a gray horned owl—its wings turned to cinders by the man-made fire. A cautionary tale about how fear and lies could turn a harmless and beautiful creature into a source of harm, this Nicodemus fable warned her against jumping to conclusions and accepting popular opinion as fact.
She heard approaching footsteps but didn’t turn, amazed she still recognized Zack’s unique gait by ear. His long lanky legs covered great distances in a short time. His heel always hit the floor first, followed by a light tap from his sole as the ball of his foot made contact. Unlike most people, the sound created by his left and right feet was almost identical. Balanced and even-keeled, he ambled with an athletic grace at odds with his chunky frame.
A wall of body heat warmed her back, making her heart race. His chin brushed the hair at the top of her head. Standing a foot taller than her, he would have had to bend down for it to happen. The feather-light caress hadn’t been an accident.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” To her surprise, the sound of his voice soothed her fraying nerves. News headlines and open warrant be damned—she knew in her gut Zack wasn’t a bad guy. Being next to him triggered a sense of safety, not fear.
Because she wanted nothing more than to turn around and hug her best friend, Maya kept her gaze locked on the painting. “The iPhone you couriered over was a nice bribe.”
His chuckle vibrated against her back, and she couldn’t help but notice his chest seemed harder than she remembered. Where there had once existed a cushioning layer of flesh, she found defined muscle. Curiosity tempted her to look at him, but part of her hesitated. If a body could change, so could the man. She needed to cling to the memory of him for a while longer.
“I owed you five years’ worth of birthday presents.”
She bit down hard on her lower lip, for the first time understanding why Snow White had accepted the poisoned red apple. Temptation muddled her thoughts, her desire to believe him innocent overruling caution. The last thing she should be feeling right now was concern for his safety. “D.C. is a dangerous ci
ty for you. Come to think of it, so is the entire country. I thought you’d follow Edward Snowden’s footsteps and move to Russia.”
He shivered. “You know how much I hated those Boston winters. If I ran somewhere, it’d be Venezuela.”
She clenched her jaw so hard it hurt. “Then why are you here talking to me? There are cameras everywhere.”
“I did some recon before I picked this spot. All the security cams are focused on the paintings. All anyone can see right now is the back of my head. It’s pretty nondescript.” His hands closed over her shoulders. The heat from his palms seeped through her silk blouse, making her want to lean back and rest her head against his broad chest. “Why won’t you look at me?”
Steeling herself, she pivoted on her heel and kept her gaze level. The word NERD in orange and white lettering against a black cotton backdrop filled her vision. She laughed. And just like that, her world shifted. Anxiety, concern, and fear dissipated, leaving only the part of her that remembered who they once were. “You’re still ordering T-shirts from Think Geek?”
“I’m told orange complements my eyes, which you haven’t looked at yet.” Not waiting for her response, he caught her chin and tilted her face up. Barely obscured by square, plastic-rimmed glasses, his amber gaze bore into hers with such intensity she blinked in an attempt to break the palpable link. Sporting a light tan, he looked more devastating than she remembered. As individual components, his features were unremarkable—the bridge of his nose too thick, his lips too thin, his eyebrows too bushy, his forehead too high, and his jaw too rounded. But, somehow, one look at his face could make her heart skip a beat, as it had done the day he sought her out at the end of a biostatistics lecture.
She, a freshman mathematics major, had scored highest in the first round of evaluations. He, the junior computer whiz who’d believed the class an easy path toward fulfilling his life sciences requirement, had received the lowest mark. He’d needed a tutor, and she’d been too awestruck to say no. Over the next two years, they’d become close friends.
And then she’d botched it all in a single unrestrained moment.
With a mental slap, she brought herself back to the present. Needing to pretend for a few minutes they were old college buddies playing catch-up, she remarked on the baseball cap covering his curly, brown hair. “Since when did you become a Yankees fan?”
His brows drew together. “Since when did you get this pretty?”
The unexpected compliment brought a blush to her cheeks. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and beamed him her best smile “Since you switched out real glasses for fake hipster ones. LASIK makes everything clearer, and astigmatism lenses apparently add pounds. Everything looks narrower after the surgery.”
He scrolled his shoulders. “Hopefully it doesn’t have the same effect on you. I worked hard to buff up.”
She giggled. The schoolgirl reaction made her want to smack her own face. Of all the times to flirt, this moment couldn’t be worse. With a sigh, she brought up the elephant in the room. “This morning, I opened a package that had a brand new phone I didn’t order in it. When I turned it on, a video message from numero uno on the America’s Most Wanted list played. Why don’t you take a few seconds to remind me why I’m at the National Gallery with you?”
He stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. When their gazes met once more, the shadows in his eyes were gone, his grin a perfect facsimile of the one he’d aimed at her on the day they met. She hadn’t been immune to it then, and her resistance hadn’t improved in the interim. “You’ve always wanted to smash your good desi-girl image. I’m about to offer you the perfect opportunity.”
His innocent expression could melt the Snow Queen’s heart. Nonetheless, she bared her teeth. “I can manage that just fine without your help. And as a second generation immigrant, the ‘from the homeland’ label doesn’t really apply.”
The dimples on his cheeks deepened, making her remember why he’d always been able to convince her to do anything. “What was that acronym again? ABCD? It used to get your brother’s panties in a twist.”
ABCD stood for American-born confused desi, a term used to describe young people whose parents emigrated from the Indian subcontinent who grappled with balancing their ethnic heritage and the cultural norms in the United States. As her brother’s dorm mate, Zack had quickly discovered the term’s utility as a way to annoy the South Asian class fellows who happened to make up a huge chunk of MIT’s student body. Since Maya had never found either aspect of her identity problematic, she’d never understood what the fuss was all about.
Lifting a challenging brow, she pointed at her skirt. It cut off a whole two inches above her knees. “My mother would be scandalized by this hemline.”
He snorted. “And your dad would tell her to take a chill pill. Remember, I’ve eaten half-a-dozen meals with your parents. Your mom’s on the traditional side, but, as her only daughter, you’d get away with murder. Besides, you always say, ‘Ji haan…. Yes…. Sure thing….’ on the phone.” He formed air quotes with his fingers. “And then you do whatever you want to do. Your prudishness is all on you, Owl.”
She playfully punched his chest. “Don’t call me Owl. I don’t even wear glasses anymore.” The absurdity of their banter wasn’t lost on her. Considering his predicament, this conversation couldn’t be more out of place. Yet the words, the smiles, and even the laughter came as naturally as breathing. “How much trouble are you in?”
He bent his head forward, bringing his lips a quarter of an inch closer to the top of her head. His expression could only be described as sheepish. “Can’t you tell I’m stalling? Give me a moment to enjoy this before I start acting like an ass.”
Deciding not to fight a losing battle, she leaned into his hold. “I don’t think you could be that if you tried.”
His grip maintained the short distance separating them. “It was a dick move to ask you to come here.”
“I agree, but why don’t you tell me how I can help you?”
Stress lines bracketed his mouth. “Aren’t you going to ask me some questions first?”
She frowned. “Like what?”
“Whether or not I’m guilty of espionage, for one.”
Though hampered by his hands, she managed a shrug. “It doesn’t matter. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“It depends on your definition.” It took a moment before Zack realized he’d blurted the words out loud. Judging from the way Maya’s dark brows drew together, they’d zeroed in on the exact same memory.
Friends didn’t kiss. Given, they’d shared just the one, and he’d hightailed it out of her life almost immediately after, but the unfortunate lip-lock would always complicate the question of where they stood. And if someone asked him right then to slot their relationship into a neat little box, “friends” wouldn’t be it. Why? For one, he hadn’t thought about anything but kissing her for the past three minutes. Considering every branch of the all-powerful but dumb-as-fuck US government had painted a bright-red bulls-eye on his ass, his inconvenient reaction was a testament to their complicated status.
His brain should be devoted to the task of clearing his name, not figuring out how to shift his weight so his zipper wouldn’t press uncomfortably on a growing part of his body. He shouldn’t be fascinated by the hint of pink tinting Maya’s whisky-colored skin, or the scent of cinnamon and orange floating off her hair. The last thing he should notice were her long, curly lashes—the sooty fringes framing her almost black eyes such that they appeared huge on her oval face. The urge to press his lips against the pulse at the base of her neck, to move his fingers down her smooth, bare arms, to trace the curvy contours of her body, couldn’t have presented itself at a worse moment.
God knew he’d had a hard enough time not noticing how hot she was all those years before, when she wore thick, owlish glasses, baggy jeans, and sweatshirts and had hair so frizzy he’d once asked if she’d been electrocuted. Even then, he hadn’t been able to pus
h her away when she leaned over to kiss him. Instead, he’d captured her head and angled it for full access to those luscious lips, tongue delving into her mouth and making her whimper with need.
That deep-seated, guttural need to possess, to push her onto the narrow mattress and wedge his body between her plush thighs, to slide his hands under her T-shirt to unhook her bra—it had driven him to run as far and as fast as he could. She’d stuck by his side when his disastrous love life had turned him into a moping, ill-tempered, ramen-guzzling hermit, and he hadn’t wanted to repay the favor by taking them on an emotional roller coaster doomed to failure.
After an arduous extraction from an eternity-long cluster fuck of a relationship, the last thing he’d wanted was to fuse lips with one of the few girls he could carry on a conversation with, or so his idiot self thought at the time. Twenty-three, newly graduated, with a dream job waiting for him on the other side of the continent, and single for the first time in what seemed like forever, the thought of turning his only real friend into his girlfriend—who would later blame him for everything that went wrong in her life—had almost given him a panic attack.
Maya’d had two more years of college to go, and having gone through the long-distance thing for half a decade, fucking it up so badly he could write a how-to guide on the hazards of Skype, he’d arrived at the conclusion he was an emotionally neutered, potty-mouthed embodiment of the world’s worst boyfriend. His crap logic led him to believe that if he’d tried to give the whole attempt at happily ever after another go, he’d end up hurting the person he cared about most.
If he could go back in time, he’d slap himself silly. The world had a limited supply of girls with brains who shared his taste for videogames and sci-fi TV shows. Discarding the opportunity to snag one was the very definition of dumb. To add insult to injury, the damn woman had gotten even more irresistible with age. Her hair flowed in layered waves down to her ribcage. That capped-sleeve, silk blouse hugged her breasts, the first button starting low enough he glimpsed a hint of cleavage. The cream-colored material tucked into a black, painted-on pencil skirt, which showcased her toned, evenly tanned legs. With her tiny little feet encased in kitten heels, his once dorky study partner had turned into temptation incarnate.
