by Unknown
Ian and his companions exchanged glances and what she could only describe as humorless laughs. “It’s something that’s been missing for longer than you’ve been born.”
Now her tension came back a little. There were a lot of things in the hidden room that had been there since before she was born. Things Marisa couldn’t identify, and probably things she didn’t even know were there.
What if they found them?
“And,” said the bandannaed man, “we’re looking for a man. Have you seen any strange men about? Anyone new to River Vale?”
“No,” Marisa replied honestly, even though her heart was slamming in her chest and her palms were slippery wet. “Not since the scavenger wagon came through about two weeks ago. The man driving it had never been here before. What does the guy look—”
“Let’s go,” Ian interrupted impatiently. “We’ll find him if he’s around.” He gestured with his gun and Marisa jumped a little when its barrel swiped toward her.
Stop being so skittish, or they’re going to know something’s up.
“This way,” she said in a calm voice. “If you told me what you were looking for, it’d be easier for me to help you.”
“If you don’t stop talking,” said the man called Ian in just as pleasant a voice, “I’m going to ensure that you do.”
Okay then. Marisa led the way through the door from which she’d just emerged, and the first thing she saw when she stepped into the hallway down which she’d led a blindfolded Luke was a trail of blood stains on the tile floor.
Oh shit. Oh shit.
Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice…
Maybe they’d think it was dirt or mud. It was brown now, and maybe if she led them fast enough through the library, they wouldn’t notice— But Ian stopped abruptly, about two steps inside, and crouched down next to one of the dried droplets. As Marisa tried to keep her heart from exploding from her chest—why oh why had she listened to Luke?—the bounty hunter licked a finger and swiped it over the stain.
“It’s blood. Relatively new.” He looked up at his companions, then trained his attention on her.
Marisa kept her features completely blank, her expression utterly confused. “And…?”
“Where is he?” Ian rose and stared down at her.
“I—what? Who? What are you talking about? What’s the big deal—I had a bloody nose. I dripped blood on the floor. So sue me.” She didn’t really know what it meant to “sue me,” but it was an old catchphrase that meant “so what?” And she thought she was doing an excellent job of playing innocent. Bilbo Baggins or Tom Sawyer couldn’t have bluffed their way out any more neatly.
Ian rose, his eyes still sharp, but he said nothing. “Show me around. I want to see everything.”
Palms slick, heart rate bumping along unsteadily, Marisa kept her expression calm as she led Ian and his two cohorts down the corridor. If he wanted a tour of the place, she’d give him a damned tour. She hoped she bored the hell out of him.
“This is where we keep all the children’s books. There’s Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss and the Boxcar Children and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Nancy Drew, too, but those are really old and hardly any of those survived the Change—er—and over there are the Magic Tree House books, and the Junie B. Jones—and here are the rest of the picture books. Mother Goose and Disney.”
She allowed her voice to show her love of the books she curated and protected, and her tension began to dissolve as she moved to another section of the library. The scent of paper and binding glue and old, beautiful literature filled her nose, and she couldn’t help but run her fingers delicately over the curving tops of spines—many of which she’d repaired with her own two hands.
“The adult fiction collection is here—we’ve got everything from Tolkien and Dan Brown to Clive Cussler, Robyn Carr, and Jodi Picoult. In alpha order by author, of course. Mysteries are over in that section—all the J. D. Robb, Anne Perry, C. S. Harris, and Barbara Michaels books—and over here are the vampire books. They were such a popular genre back in the early 2000s, starting with the Gardella—”
“That’s enough,” Ian snapped. “I can see them myself.”
Marisa closed her mouth and stood silently as he and his companions looked at every row of books, moving some of them, peering behind them in the gaps between to back-to-back shelves, even shifting one entire case that was positioned in the corner of the room. She knew they’d discover nothing but dust and maybe a spider or two back there, for she kept the place perfectly clean and neat.
“Is this it?” Ian demanded, hands on his hips.
“What do you mean? There are more books this way,” she replied. “The nonfiction section and my liv—”
“Show me. Stop talking and show me.”
So she did. Books on farming and sewing and cooking and veterinary medicine. Volumes of American history, ancient history, and drama and poetry. Natural sciences like zoology, entomology, and biology. Jewelry making. Games and sports. Basic electrical wiring and plumbing and carpentry. All were subjects Marisa’s grandmother and father had deemed over the years not to be incendiary in the minds of the Strangers.
The books about chemistry and pharmacology, engineering, and computer science were hidden away. Marisa couldn’t completely subdue a shiver when she thought about the consequences should those volumes be discovered.
“What’s over there?” Ian said.
“That’s my living quarters,” Marisa answered. “Kitchen, sleeping area—”
“Just you? Living here all alone?” asked the bounty hunter, looking at her with interest. “In this big place?”
Marisa’s heart sank and she felt a little lightheaded. Why did he care? The only reasons she could think of weren’t pleasant ones… “Um…well, my father died two years ago, and I—”
“Answer the question. Does anyone live here with you? Or do you live alone?”
CHAPTER 4
I t had taken Luke by surprise when he heard the voices—Marisa’s and the bounty hunters’—as clearly as if he were standing next to them. Then he realized this hidden safe-room was equipped with a sound system that fed in from the outside.
That made complete sense, for if you were hiding in here—or even if you were just in here, doing whatever—you’d want to know if anyone was outside lurking about. You’d want to know when it was safe to leave, or if you were in danger of being discovered.
But his surprise and delight at being able to hear everything that was going on on the other side of the wall immediately evaporated when he recognized Ian Marck’s voice.
Oh, damn.
And it got worse when Marck noticed blood on the floor—but quick-on-her-feet Marisa instantly came up with a plausible story colored with just the right amount of annoyance and innocence. Nice job.
And Luke couldn’t quite contain a grin, listening to her giving the asshole bounty hunters a very thorough tour of all the books in the library in a prim, yet enthusiastic voice. He could imagine the way her ponytail bounced with alacrity as she pointed out book after book, and the way her full lips would purse when Marck became annoyed. Still, she was buying time, trying to distract, and, most of all, doing her best to appear innocent and unruffled.
That is, until Ian Marck asked her the very same question that had been hovering in the back of Luke’s mind…and for quite possibly an even less innocent reason.
“Answer the question. Do you live here alone?”
There was definitely no good reason for Ian Marck to want to know the answer, and a whole load of not-so-good reasons. And yet Luke found himself straining to hear her response for his own edification.
“Yes,” Marisa said after a moment. “I live here alone.” Her voice sounded a little nervous, and Luke felt a rush of fury, mixed—ridiculously, embarrassingly—with underlying relief. She lived here alone. No husband, no lover, hopefully no boyfriend to unloosen that thick ponytail and pull those glasses away…
“Excellent,” said Ian
Marck—quite possibly thinking along the same damn track as Luke, which caused his anger to ripen into something a lot more like holy-hell shit than mere fury. “Then there will be plenty of room for us to stay here during our little visit. I’m sure you’ll be very hospitable, won’t you?”
Feck.
That was a problem on so many levels that Luke didn’t even know where to start to address it.
No, that wasn’t true. Where to start was how the hell to get Marisa out of there. There was no way she could stay here with those bastards—especially overnight. Definitely not overnight.
By now, Luke was almost ready to walk right out of this safe-room and face Ian Marck head-on. He’d gotten away from the asshole once, he could manage it again. Hopefully.
“Well, you’re welcome to bed down on the floor if that’s what you really want to do,” Marisa was saying. Damn, her voice was still pretty steady. “And as far as hospitality goes, I’ve got to warn you—I have quite the reputation as far as my cooking goes.”
Luke choked back a laugh. She sure as hell did—and unless things had turned around one hundred and eighty degrees since Luke had been here, Ian Marck and his minions weren’t going to be very happy with whatever she served them. Despite the plethora of cookbooks at her fingertips, Marisa was definitely not known for her cooking.
“I’m sure you’ll take care of us just fine.”
This new voice, and its tone, caused Luke to stiffen. It wasn’t Ian Marck but another bounty hunter he recognized named Juniper. The sly edge to his comment made the hair at the back of Luke’s neck lift.
Oh no you don’t, you dickhead.
Ian Marck was one thing—he was as smart and dangerous and soulless as they came. He was driven and angry and cold. He’d snap a man’s neck without a second thought if he felt the need. But one thing Luke had never seen him do was put his hands on a woman with unwarranted violence, or stand back and watch while others did. Or even acknowledge a woman in any sexual manner.
But Juniper was another story altogether. He was the one Marisa had to worry about, even though Marck was the one she ought to be terrified of.
Luke felt marginally better when Ian Marck said, “No distractions, Juniper. So keep a damned lid on it.”
“No distractions, huh? Maybe you’d best remember that when that blue-eyed bitch you’ve been bangin—”
Luke winced when the man’s voice was throttled off in a strangle. That didn’t sound good. But he grinned when there was a dull thud that sounded suspiciously like a body slamming against a wall. Ouch.
“Shut it,” was all Marck said. And there was a more solid thud when Juniper thunked to the ground.
Luke might not like or trust Ian Marck, but at least the man had a code.
LUKE REALIZED there had to be another way out of this safe-room besides the one through which Marisa had brought him.
If you were going to make a hideaway, complete with food supplies, toilet, and a place to bunk down—not to mention security features like the sound system—you were going to have more than one way in or out.
Keeping an ear on what was happening in the rest of the library—it sounded as if Marisa was making the bounty hunters something to eat, poor bastards—Luke began to examine every inch of his semi-prison.
He was momentarily distracted by the lines of computers: the boxes of various sizes and shapes, the screens, the smaller, flat devices that looked like little more than thick, dark mirrors, and the ones that opened and closed like a book. His fingers itched to touch and explore the keyboards and the oblong, handheld things called mice.
But he didn’t dare, simply because he knew nothing about how these machines worked and what they did other than what he’d seen in old movies. He didn’t want to chance setting off some sort of alarm, or causing some other snafu.
One thing was certain: when he finished this mission and returned to Envy, he was going to insist the Waxnickis teach him how to use these things. He wanted to know more than just how to set up a network access point…Which he needed to get working on as soon as he could retrieve his pack and get out the equipment.
Luke spewed out a long breath. Unsure of his welcome, he’d hidden his rucksack before venturing into the settlement. He didn’t want to take the chance of being caught and searched, so he’d tucked it inside an old mailbox just outside River Vale. At some point, he was going to have to get out of here, evade Ian Marck, evade Marisa, retrieve the pack, and climb up on one of the taller buildings—this one might even work—and set the damn thing up.
All without anyone noticing.
Good Lord. If I make it out of here alive, it’ll be more than a miracle.
The sound of pots and pans clattering through the speakers mounted in the corners of the secret room accompanied Luke’s examination of the place. The bounty hunters talked among themselves, seeming to ignore their hostess. At least he knew Marisa was safe, and he could focus on the matter at hand. The fact that he was a little hungry was a mere niggle in his belly, and little more.
Once he put his mind to it and was no longer distracted by the computers, it didn’t take long for Luke to discover the hidden exit. It wasn’t even that hidden, for it was behind a mechanized bookshelf that swung open to reveal a small alcove. He shook his head, amused. Whoever designed this place had to have been a fan of either James Bond or Scooby-Doo.
The alcove was merely a space between the moving bookshelf and the exterior door. Luke didn’t attempt to open the door, for it was still light out—though it was past seven, and the sun would soon be setting—and he had no idea where it opened out to.
He’d have to wait for dark, when, as he learned, most of the entire settlement of River Vale would gather in the town center for the weekly movie. Luke remembered those nights well, for they’d been going on for as long as he could remember.
Working movie projectors, screens, and DVDs were few and far between, and unlike in the times before the Change, there weren’t televisions or disc players readily available. Even if you came upon one, it was unlikely to be working fifty years after the devastating events. The ones that were still in working order a half-century later were carefully maintained.
So the weekly movie night had been a treat for everyone—but especially for teenagers, who cuddled together in the dark at the edges of the audience and did what teenagers did.
Oh yes, Luke remembered those nights very well.
MARISA DIDN’T WANT to leave her home to watch Never Been Kissed, but as it turned out, she didn’t have much choice.
Instead of being able to go check on Luke—who, for all she knew, was dead and lying in a pool of his own blood in the secret room—and get some damned answers from him, she had to leave.
It was either that, or stay here with that creepy bounty hunter Juniper. Despite Ian’s violent reprimand earlier, or perhaps because of it, Juniper had watched her all evening with a definitely lascivious gaze. Marisa had the uncomfortable feeling that the minute she was alone in the building—or if Ian left—her unwanted guest was going to become much too friendly.
And so she seized the opportunity to put a good bit of distance between herself and the bounty hunters, even if it meant leaving them to their own devices in her home. Who knew, maybe they’d want to watch the movie too.
Her plan was to leave the building and sit at the back of the audience during the movie. Then once things got rolling, she’d slip off into the darkness and try to figure out how to sneak back into the library and get to Luke without being noticed. It would be risky, but what else was she going to do? There was another door to the secret room, but it only opened from the inside.
Everyone had already begun to gather in the town center when she approached. Marisa could only believe it had to do with the need for the townspeople to interact with each other, find support from one another, and share their concerns about why the bounty hunters were here and how long they were going to stay. It was always unsettling when the MITs arrived, but usually t
hey didn’t stay longer than a few hours. This extended stay was cause for concern.
“How’s it going, Marisa?” asked Matt Redding. He was a big, solid man with eyes that always softened when he looked at her. “I heard…” He glanced around as if to make sure no one could hear. “Are they really staying at your place? Bastards.” His teeth were gritted. “They already tossed the Turners’ place. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find. But they messed it up good. They’re not—are you all right? They haven’t…done anything, have they?”
“They’ve been the perfect gentlemen,” she said lightly, and glanced over to see how Genny and Harm Turner were doing. The young couple looked shellshocked, but at least they’d suffered nothing worse than a messed-up house. The bounty hunters had been known to burn homes or arrest people and take them away if they even suspected wrongdoing. “I made them dinner and they ate it without complaining.”
“Wow. They must have been hard up,” said Gil Trapper.
Marisa gave a little laugh, glad to relieve her tension—at least a little. How long are they going to be here? “They didn’t have much choice.” She pushed up her glasses.
“Bastards,” Matt said again. Then he edged closer. “You can stay with us if you want, Marisa. It would be safer. I’ll make Kenny give up his bed.”
If it weren’t for Luke, Marisa would have jumped right on that. Instead, she said, “Thanks, Matt—I might just take you up on it.”
It was getting dark and everyone began to take their seats on the grass. Blankets and cushions came out, along with a variety of drinks and snacks—including peanut brittle, popcorn, beer, mead, and lemonade. Clearly, the members of River Vale were trying to act as normally as possible, despite the specter of their unwanted visitors looming over them—literally and figuratively—and the not-so-promising title of the movie. Never Been Kissed. Marisa almost knew what that felt like.
