by S. E. Babin
I nodded. “We’ll see,” I said, and turned to walk out of her suite.
“Snow,” she called. “Just for the record, I know the feelings my Huntsman has for you. If you were as pure as everyone says you are, you’d leave him alone. Every time he gets around you, it only makes my compulsion to kill you stronger.” Her mocking laughter followed me for too long down the hallway.
5
By the time I made it back to my room, Cyndi and Belle were already there and frantic with worry. I waved off their concerns, kicked off my shoes and padded over to the balcony. We still had a couple of hours until the mixer.
They followed me outside and we sat on the dusty outdoor furniture staring at the idyllic scenery outside. I stayed silent for a few moments, pretending I didn’t see their curious stares.
“I saw Naomi today,” I finally said.
Cyndi inhaled a great gulp of air and started coughing. Belle sat there, unsurprised. She nodded. “It was bound to happen,” she said matter-of-fact. “But you’re here in one piece, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”
Depends on her version of not that bad. Being within twenty feet of that woman was enough to ruin my day. “Giles is working for her.” I skimmed over the incident in the elevator, not wanting my friends to know just how much I wanted Max or just how much he seemed to both want my body and to stab me. It was romantic in a horror movie sort of way. Like a bad case of Stockholm syndrome or something. I never did anything easy, that was for sure.
Cyndi brought up the Accords. I shook my head. “She doesn’t care about them, just like I suspected. Naomi is here for revenge.” I looked back inside our room, feeling suddenly like a sardine smashed inside of a can. Easy pickings. I should have brought more guns.
Belle brushed an errant strand of hair from her face and pushed her glasses up in that geeky, endearing habit of hers. “I have an idea,” she said and leaped up from her seat. She rushed back into the room, rummaged for her laptop and brought it back out. She plopped it open on the table, sent a small yellow tendril of will through it and began to type furiously. A few moments later, a wide grin split her face.
I raised one of my eyebrows in curiosity. I had no idea how technomancy worked, but I knew it was pretty cool watching Belle work her mojo on gadgets. She turned the laptop in my direction, showing me a screen full of numbers, lines, and lots of things I couldn’t understand. At my blank look, she rolled her eyes. “I’ll make this simple. Data is everywhere.” She gestured up to the air and back at the room. “People use cell phones, land lines, computers, everything. And, they’re hooked on them.”
I stared, waiting for her to get to the point. “Naomi is inside a hotel room. She has a television in there, Wi-Fi, and a land line.”
I was slowly starting to get it. “So…”
Belle snorted. “So, I hacked into the hotel database to get her room number and then hijacked the signals in there. Anything she does or says in there we’ll know about it.”
“But Naomi doesn’t use technology, does she? She has magic.”
Cyndi nodded. “Right, but it doesn’t really matter. The fact that she’s surrounded by it still allows us to tap into the signals inside her room. Plus, Naomi won’t be wielding tons of magic while she’s here. She’ll do the majority of her business in the mundane way.”
“That means picking up the phone and calling people to do her bidding instead of that weird, freaky red thing she does.” I tapped my fingers on the patio table. “Interesting. Awesome job, Belle.” I gave her a speculative look. “You could probably make my job a lot easier at home, you know?”
Her fingers paused over the keyboard. “Probably,” she drawled slowly, and looked up at me over the rim of her glasses. “You offering me a job?”
Those words were pregnant with meaning. Did I want to offer her a job? “I couldn’t pay you as much as you’re making right now,” I said, wondering what her angle was. “But, maybe. It took you, what, thirty seconds to tap into Naomi’s room?”
She shrugged. “Twenty, give or take five seconds.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.” She huffed. “One should never be so casual about data.”
I sighed. “Fine. If you could work that hocus pocus techno woowoo back at home, I’d be able to blow through my clients much faster.” Especially the cheating spouses. Imagine, Belle tapping in to someone’s cell and intercepting dirty text messages before they made it to the other person. Visions of me rolling naked in a pile of money played through my head.
She thought about it. “Nothing illegal?”
I hedged. “Ummm…all’s fair in love and war?”
She gave me a disgusted look. “I’ll look up the laws when we get home.” I was familiar with most of them from the initial business set-up, but not so much with those concerning the use of technology in an investigation. “If we can do things above board and we can come to satisfactory deal, we’ll talk. Until then,” Belle’s attention left me and went back to her keyboard, “we need to focus on Naomi and the Huntsman.”
“Max,” I corrected and then bit my lip at the gleam in Belle’s eyes.
“Oh it’s ‘Max’ now, is it?” Belle’s lips twitched, but Cyndi burst into a belly laugh.
“This is the most twisted love story, ever.” She hooted. “Has he tried to kill you yet?”
I flushed, and Cyndi leaned forward, interested. “Geez,” she said, “I was only kidding.”
I studied my nails, not wanting to elaborate. Belle cleared her throat and made a get-on-with-it hand gesture. “We’ll sit here and stare at you all day if we have to. Spill the beans about Max.”
They would, too. “He caught me in a weak moment inside the elevator. I neutralized him.” I pinched my lips together.
“Neutralized?” Cyndi asked cautiously. “Can he still have children?”
I snorted. “I have no idea. He was breathing when I left him. It was enough for me.”
“Harsh,” Belle murmured. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met two more bloodthirsty people than you two.”
I stood up from the patio and walked back inside the room. “I need to figure out what I’m going to wear for the mixer,” I called out.
I heard a chair scrape back. “Wait for me!” Cyndi shouted and scrambled in after me. “I want to help you pick out something to wear.” She waited for me to pull my suitcase out of the closet, bend over it and start unzipping it before she gave me a sheepish look and said, “Umm, I might have messed with your luggage.”
My hands stilled and I straightened from my hunched over pose. “You. Did. What?”
Belle chose that time to come back into the room. “Oh, hell,” she murmured. “I told you that was a bad idea, Cyndi.”
Cyndi glared at Belle and then looked at me without fear. “You need help.”
I blinked. “Psychiatric? Yes, we all know that,” I said with exaggerated patience.
She huffed. “No, dummy. Wardrobe help. Makeup help.” She fluttered her hands at me. “Everything with…that.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste.
I squawked with outrage as I looked down at my attire. Comfy jeans, respectable, clean shirt and tennis shoes. “I look fine!” I yelled, starting to lose my temper with our prissy princess.
“You look like a hobo!” Cyndi shouted, tears filling her eyes.
“Why do you care so much about what I look like?” I bent back down, started rummaging through my suitcase, and felt rage pour through my body. Cyndi had literally unpacked everything I’d packed and replaced it with soft, feminine, fucking pastel clothing. I breathed deep, trying to tamp down the urge to murder her. I held up a heinous pink ruffled shirt. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Ask a prince to rescue me and carry me to his castle on his white steed? Jesus.” I threw the shirt across the room. “And these?” It was a pair of skinny jeans. “I like to eat, Cyndi. These look like I could put them on a toddler and they’d still be too tight.” One
by one, I tossed clothing out, desperately searching for the clothes that made me feel comfortable and impervious to criticism.
“Snow.” The voice intruded on my clothing rage, and I tried to ignore it. “Snow.”
“What?” I screeched.
Belle stood over me, her lips thin. “Take it easy.”
“Take it easy? She violated my luggage and replaced everything with Barbie clothing!”
A sniffle. I turned swiftly to Cyndi. “Don’t you dare cry on me,” I said, shaking a poor excuse for a shirt in front of her face. “This is your fault.”
“I was just trying to help you,” came the wail.
My shoulders drooped. “And I ask you again, why do feel like you need to help me?” I let the shirt slip through my fingers.
Tears fell freely down her face, and her pert nose reddened. “Because you’re lonely,” she whispered. “I can feel it every time I look at you.”
Belle gasped. I flinched and stared at Cyndi, the silence in the room drawing out in a tight, taut moment. There were so many things I could say. So many hurtful, awful things I could tell her, and she might even deserve some of them after so heinously rummaging through my private things and interfering. But the problem here wasn’t Cyndi, and it wasn’t my clothing. It was me.
I finally shut my eyes for a brief moment, holding the frustrated, angry tears at bay, and then excused myself. I allowed the door to close quietly behind me, even though I wanted to slam it with the force of a grenade.
So where does a girl go when she’s hurt and upset? I don’t know, but this girl went back to the bar. I sidled up to it, grabbed a stool and gestured the big, friendly guy over. “Vodka, straight. Not the cheap stuff.” I had to give him credit. His eyebrow only rose a fraction of an inch before he rumbled his big body over to all the glorious booze and poured me a healthy shot. I took it back in one gulp, enjoying the slow burn of the booze, and gestured for another one. He obliged, so I knocked that one back too.
I asked him for a coke with a shot of vodka and watched his strong, capable hands while wondering what his story was. He slid it over to me with the ease of someone with years of experience in the same job, offered me a slight smile, and left me there to stew. Maybe for the best. I wouldn’t be very good company right now.
“Did someone take your Sig?” The cool voice intruded into my maudlin thoughts. “Tsk, tsk, it’s a sad day when a pretty girl like you sits at the bar crying over her lost hardware.”
I snorted and twisted in my seat to look at Robin. I picked up my drink and clinked it against his. “Cyndi feels sorry for me,” I said without preamble.
His brow crinkled adorably and he burst into guffaws. “Sorry? For you?”
I let him have his moment. I hadn’t confided in him in years, so he had no idea of the extent of my bone-deep loneliness. “She replaced all of my clothing with frilly garments. Pink. Purple. Pastel. Skinny jeans.” I made a gagging noise.
His laughter abruptly stopped. “Christ.” He turned a panicked look to me. “Did you kill her?”
“Not yet,” I said and took a healthy sip of my vodka and coke. “I haven’t got a damn thing to wear and we have this godforsaken mixer in the next hour.”
Robin gave me an appraising look. “Wear what you have on, darling. You look good enough to eat.” He gave me a lustful wink.
I chuckled. “Save all your pretty talk for someone who’ll listen.”
“You always ruin all my fun,” he said. “Say,” he reached over, took the drink out of my hand and set it on the bar. “Why haven’t you and I hooked up before?”
My mouth dropped open. “For real? Did you just say ‘hooked up’? Have you been hanging out in the ghetto again? No one over the age of eighteen says that.”
Robin looked almost offended. “Whatever you’re supposed to call it. No one uses the word ‘lovers’ here.”
“That’s because it’s lame.” I snorted. “You already know the answer to that question. First…” I held up a finger, noticing with amusement how it blurred. The vodka was taking effect. Good. “You have appalling taste in women. Second, you sleep with anything that looks like it might have working lady plumbing.” Robin blinked and opened his mouth to say something, but I held up a hand. “And third, we’re both kind of hot messes, wouldn’t you agree?”
He slumped and handed my glass back to me. “Guess I can’t argue with that,” he said. “But, we should give it a try, don’t you think?”
I laughed. “No.”
A grin spread over his face. “You’re going to be a real pain in the ass for some poor bastard soon, aren’t you?”
I rubbed my hand over my face and thought about his words. “Hardly. Cyndi thinks I’m lonely. She switched my clothes out to help me be more attractive, I guess.”
Concern flashed in his eyes, and a thoughtful look spread over his face. “And are you? Lonely?”
I shrugged and drained the rest of my drink. “I’ve been on Earth for ten years. No boyfriends to speak of, no other friends besides Belle and Cyndi. Maybe I am.”
Robin slung an arm over my shoulder and grinned. “See, that’s why we should sleep together.”
I laughed and pushed him off. “Idiot,” I said with affection as I ruffled his hair. “There are plenty of simpering females around here. Go find one of them.”
He shook his head and a serious look stole over his face. “I’m afraid there’s only one lady for me right now and, so far, she seems to hate everything about me on principle.”
I made a noncommittal noise, knowing full-well who he was talking about. I was going to try my best to stay out of this one, especially after seeing how pissed off I got at what Cyndi just did. I glanced at the clock above the bar and groaned. “Thirty minutes until the mixer. I don’t think I’m going.”
Robin groaned. “Don’t be such a spoilsport, Snow. Go rummage through the case and find something suitable. Cyndi doesn’t have terrible taste, and you know it.”
He was right. Cyndi had fantastic taste, but if there wasn’t a shirt that didn’t have a trace of pink in it, I was going to have to strongly talk myself out of pepper spraying her just to get some aggression out. “That’s not the point,” I grumbled.
Robin threw down some bills and gestured at me to get up. “It’s taken care of. Now go upstairs, clean yourself up a bit, and come back down so we can make everyone insanely jealous of our ethereal beauty. And, just think of this as a chance to pay Cyndi back…in spades. I’m sure you can come up with something quite creative to get her back for this.”
I grinned and swayed unsteadily. “Thanks, Robin.” I patted him on his scruffy cheek. The corners of his eyes crinkled adorably as he smiled.
“If Belle keeps telling me no, I’m going to show up in your room naked one day in the future.”
I laughed out loud and started picking my way through the bodies in the bar. “Good luck not getting shot,” I called out as I left.
His rumbling laughter followed me out and well down the lobby.
I opened the room to find Belle in the bathroom busy getting ready, and Cyndi collapsed on the bed sobbing into my pillow. Belle reached out and snagged me by the arm before I could walk to Cyndi. She jerked me into the bathroom and pointed her mascara wand at me menacingly. “Don’t make her feel any worse,” she hissed. “She’s been sobbing the entire time you’ve been gone and lamenting about what a horrible friend she is.”
I backed away before she jabbed me with her Brown Delight #2 and peered around the corner at Cyndi. “I’m not going to yell anymore. I’m going to plot to get her back.” In the back of my mind, an evil, evil genius plan was beginning to hatch and I felt the start of a grin tug at my lips.
Belle snorted and started layering another coat of mascara on her already envious lashes. “I’m sure whatever you’re planning will make her feel scads better,” she whispered dryly.
“No, it will make me feel better, though.” I winked at Belle in the mirror and left the bathroom. I wa
s still furious at Cyndi, but I knew her heart was in the right place…somewhat. I bent down to the suitcase still lying in the middle of the floor and started searching in earnest for something to wear. I didn’t want to interrupt Cyndi until she got it all out of her system. Plus, I was never very good around tears and emotions. After digging for a few seconds, I felt my teeth grind together in frustration. Pink, lavender, yellow, fuchsia. No black. Anywhere.
I heard Cyndi shift and saw from my peripheral she was sitting up on the bed. She sniffled a couple of times and slid off the bed to come sit beside me. “I can help you,” she said softly.
My hands stilled. I could give in and not be a hard-ass just this once, couldn’t I? Yes, she’d gone through my private things and replaced them with things she wanted. Yes, she’d removed all my carefully planned outfits for the week. God knows where the rest of my weapons were. I hadn’t gotten to the bottom of my suitcase yet. If they weren’t there I was probably going to have to get another room because I’d want to wring her neck every time I looked at her.
“Your weapons are still there,” she said and moved my hands out of the way. She removed some silky blouses from the case and unzipped a second panel I wasn’t previously aware my suitcase had. “They’re all in here.”
And they were. She’d laid out all of my guns and knives neat and orderly. Ammunition boxes were even placed next to the gun they belonged to. It was disconcerting. I looked up at her, Cyndi’s eyes bright blue and still shimmering with tears. I said the first thing that came to mind. “How’d you know where everything went?”
She gave me a weak smile. “I don’t think anyone can live with a paranoid personality like yours and not pick up a few things.”
“Huh,” I said eloquently. “Nice job.” Even I wouldn’t have organized them so well.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “Do you want some help?”
I looked at the riotous colors taking over my suitcase, then back at the hopeful look on Cyndi’s face, and just gave in. “Do your worst.”
