Fearless

by Logan Fox

  Put her down? What, here? On the stairs? I laugh her off.

  “Back in your box, Meisie.”

  We walk across the bedroom floor with her bashing her little fists down on my chest. Jesus suffering Christ. I practically throw her on the bed and she starts scrambling before she hits the mattress.

  She’s not running away. At least I don’t think.

  When she sits up on the bed and walks on her knees toward me I put her down on her arse again. “Bed, Meisie.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I let out a sigh. “You really want to do this?”

  She does it again. I really am feeling like I’m ten years old again and in the middle of a WWE match, throwing her down like I’m John fucking Cena.

  Is the wee shite actually enjoying this?

  This time when she comes for me I let her get a bit further. She lets out a rush of air as she stands on the bed and goes for my neck, trying to fit her little hands around it.

  “Meisie darlin’, give it up,” I grab her arms and flip her around, this time when I put her down I go with her. Her face gets buried in the messed up bed covers but her hands sneak out from under our bodies and she’s wriggling like hell.

  It’s giving me a fucking hard-on.

  “I hate you!”

  “That’s alright,” I tell her, my voice strained. I can’t even see her head because it’s locked down so tight under my chest, but I can feel she’s still breathing.

  After a while she starts to get tired. Her little jolts and kicks and wiggles begin to weaken.

  But I don’t move. She seems to find it comforting. I think.

  Finally, her breath calms down and she goes still.

  “Meisie?”

  No reply.

  Do not tell me I’ve killed her?

  I climb off her body, and she’s breathing—thank fuck.

  She’s just fallen asleep again.

  I stand there at the edge of the bed, staring at her little shape in the dim red light. Her hair is an absolute mess, her clothes disheveled, but other than that she looks like she’s found some peace.

  I push my hands down under her and move her into bed properly, then I tuck her in.

  What is wrong with her? Where the fuck did that come from?

  She needs help.

  At least I think she does. Then again, maybe not. She said she hated me, maybe that’s the healthiest thing to come out of her mouth since the day I stole her away.

  I need a cigarette. And a cold fucking shower.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MEISIE

  This time, I wake up to a girl screaming blue fucking murder. I sit up bed with a gasp trapped somewhere in my throat, my heart pounding, before I realize it’s the stupid television again.

  I flop back onto the bed and throw a hand over my eyes, groaning theatrically. It feels like someone rubbed rock salt in my eyes.

  And why?

  Because I must have woken up a hundred times last night.

  And why?

  Because I kept thinking—hoping—dreaming, that he was lying next to me.

  Now that we have some time to talk, Meisie, let’s explore your relationship with Cillian.

  Fuck off, lady. I’m warning you.

  You say you desperately want to escape your kidnapper, but is that what you are truly focusing on right now?

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Do you hear me? The whole time I was upstairs supposed to be scoping out the place, all I could focus on was man chest.

  Hard, perfectly chiseled, delicately fuzzed motherfucking man chest. You tell me how I’m supposed to focus on anything but that?

  Trish remains silent on this topic, the dried-up whore.

  Idiot. Idiot!

  You’d swear we were dating the way I acted last night. And did I even manage to disarm him? No? He ended the evening looking like he wanted to smash a wall. Or my face, Or possibly my face into the wall.

  Oh no, Cillian wouldn’t do that. He likes my eyes. He’s not into blood and gore.

  I’m seriously starting to wonder which of us is doing the seducing.

  Definitely won’t be me anymore—that plan failed miserably.

  The girl on the television finally stops screaming. I hope it’s because someone chopped her fucking head off. I frown and sit up again as a small piece of dialogue catches my ear.

  Saw. Someone’s watching Saw.

  I flop down again. Probably just my imagination.

  Have you considered that perhaps you would prefer not to be in control all the time, Meisie? Trish asks sweetly.

  Well fuck me sideways, granny Trish. You’re a regular Einstein.

  I’ve only ever been on the receiving end of unrelenting control. My parents, my friends, Alex, Cillian. I guess I’m just a natural-born submissive. And here I thought I could be in control for once. That I deserved to be my own woman.

  It explains why I keep fucking this up. Why I keep letting him win.

  There’s a lull in the movie, and I hear the air-conditioning kicking in.

  If I banged real hard on the door, would he let me out? Or has he decided after last night it’s easier just to leave me down here to rot?

  On an entirely unrelated note—is it actually possible to die from boredom?

  I lie there for the remainder of the movie, half trying to figure out which scene I’m listening to, half running through a list of all the horror movies I’ve ever seen.

  Well, I am hungry. Maybe I should go bang on the door anyway and see what happens.

  I get up and stretch, then rearrange Cillian’s black dress shirt around my hips before trudging upstairs barefoot.

  I thump my fist against the door and even try a “Hello?” for good luck.

  No reply. Maybe whoever had been watching the movie left already.

  I bang against the door a few more times and then try the handle for good measure. Still locked. Still no response.

  Damn.

  I’m halfway down the stairs when a thought comes to me.

  I stop.

  The phone.

  Someone called Cillian last night. Derek. Cillian ended the call and then sent a text, but he never once put in a pin or used his fingerprint to unlock the phone.

  Does he honestly think he’s untouchable?

  I fucking hope so, because if I can get my hands on that phone…

  I bite my lip as I hop down the last step. Then I run up to the bed and leap onto it with a stifled yell.

  Then I jump on the bed until I break one of the springs.

  I collapse with a sigh and stare up at my dungeon’s ceiling. Heck, if I can get that phone, I might even make a call to my shrink. Tell her just how fucking wrong she’s been about me all along.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CILLIAN

  You’d think this was a birthday celebration and not a business meeting.

  The music is pounding. R&B or something, I don’t know. Sarah’s sitting on the end of Cole’s knee and he’s bouncing her up and down like she’s a baby, only stopping when she leans over and takes another gulp of her drink. We’re in the exact same VIP area I took Meisie to last week, the only difference being I’m alone this time.

  “I can’t believe she doesn’t care,” Cole shouts over the music, his head shaking. “I thought you were cold but fuck me, that woman is ice.”

  We played her at her game and lost. Now we’re playing dirty as sin and we’re still losing.

  I choose not to reply to my brother because there’s nothing left to say. Helen Ford is firmly in my lower circle of hate now, and it has fuck all to do with her stupid political agenda.

  No. The woman reminds me of my own selfish as fuck mother, and I’ve never even met either of them.

  A tap on my shoulder pulls me from my thoughts and I turn around to see Derek standing in the darkness behind me. I’m getting a serious case of déjà vu. I’m about to point him in the direction of Cole when he gives me a look that says don’t.

  I s
tand, but Cole’s already noticed what’s going on.

  “What is it?” he shouts.

  “Go on,” I tell Derek.

  “There’s someone outside who wants a word.” He’s looking at me as he speaks.

  Cole practically throws Sarah off his knee as he stands. “Whoever they are, they can speak to me.”

  Of course they can. He’s the “brains” after all. I have to fight to keep from rolling my eyes.

  Derek clears his throat. “They asked for Cillian.”

  I stare at my brother and try to work out where his head is at. There’s a tick in his jaw, but he quickly covers it up.

  “Probably about a shipment. I’ll be five minutes,” I tell him.

  He looks at Sarah, and then back to me. “Aye,” he says, nodding his head. “I can’t leave her anyway.”

  We both know he’s just saying that to save face, but I go along with it. “Alright mate.”

  With that, I follow Derek through the club and let out a breath when the cool night air hits me. It’s summer, but that means nothing in this country. There’s frost forming on the pavements, making them shimmer in the orange streetlights. Groups of smokers laugh and joke, girls in heels linking arms so if one of them slips there’s only a fifty-fifty chance they fall on their arse.

  I’m looking around, but I don’t see anyone. Anyone important. And then I do.

  Headlights reflect against the buildings lining the narrow street, making the cobblestones glow white as a black Jag XJ approaches. I can already tell that’s for me, I just don’t have a fucking clue who’s driving it. The back seat door swings open, but the lights don’t go on inside.

  I don’t hesitate before crossing the pavement. Stupid? Probably. But honestly, at this point, if it’s some unknown enemy fresh out the jail who wants to take me out into the fields and shoot me, I’d probably thank him.

  The second I’m in the car I realize it’s not.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone in particular, but on my Cluedo list of suspects, she was my Colonel Mustard in the library with a fucking machete.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” says thee First Minister Helen Ford in that clipped tone of hers. “I wanted to see if the man measured up to the stories.”

  I look straight ahead. I can’t actually stomach the sight of her, but I chuckle anyway. ”And how does that feel? Meeting the one person in the country more notorious than you?”

  She smiles grimly. “You’re smaller than I expected.”

  “Aye, but I try to make up for it with my tongue.”

  Her eyes are on me, but I look out of the window. Shops shutting up for the night. People stumbling out of clubs in a cloud of vape smoke. Buses making an arse of pulling into narrow stops. The odd police riot van.

  “So are we going back to my place? Yours? West Virginia? Atlantic City? Train bound for fucking nowhere?”

  I look over at her now, and find her looking out of the window just as I was. She’s wearing jeans and a white cotton long-sleeved t-shirt, and it feels all sorts of fucking wrong. Like seeing your teacher at the shops on a Saturday morning.

  “There’s a lesson in that last song,” she says, as if she’s been deep in thought about it. “What is it… The Gambler? About knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.”

  I laugh but it’s humorless. The woman disgusts me. “You’d know all about what to throw away, wouldn’t you?”

  “And, clearly, you don’t know enough.”

  She looks back out the window, expecting me to bite.

  Fuck, I’m going to bite.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She turns back around to face me. “You can’t be that stupid? Surely not, Kill. I can call you Kill, right? That brother of yours calls you Kill.”

  I stare at her.

  She smirks. “Oh God, you really are that stupid.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  The car slows to stop at a set of lights and she glances out the front window before settling her eyes back on me. “I’m talking about Cole. He’s a liability.”

  I laugh at her, right in her face, and crack my hand down on my knee for added effect. “Jesus. Divide and conquer? Is that what this is? Oldest trick in the book, sweetheart. Do you think you’re the first person to try this?”

  She smiles. “Not at all. Merely the smartest one.”

  I shake my head and go back to looking out the window. “Don’t waste your time. People have been trying to split us up and turn us against each other since before we could walk.”

  “Oh, I know all about that,” she says. “The file I got from Child and Family Services on you two was thicker than the bible.”

  My teeth clench. “But still not thick enough to get us the fuck out of there, am I right?”

  She shrugs. “I wasn’t in charge then. I’d like to think it would be different now.”

  I snort. “I’m sure you would, you being mother of the year and all.”

  “And what, exactly, do you know about parenting?” Her eyebrow quirks.

  “I’d like to think, at the very least, I’d know not to abandon my own child.”

  She laughs as if I’ve just cracked a joke. “What is one child in comparison to a whole country?”

  “It’s not a country. You’re not the fucking queen. It’s a job. An agenda. A temporary bit of power before you retire to write opinion articles for some shitty newspaper.”

  She swallows. “This goes beyond that.”

  “Are we done here? Is there an actual point to this?”

  “We’re done as soon as you understand that the only reason you’re not behind bars right now is because I allow it.”

  I laugh at her. “Then put me away. It’ll be, what? A whole month before someone replaces me? They can pick up right where I left off. I’ll be sure to CC them in the photos of Meisie I send to the papers.”

  She stares at me for a second and then looks away.

  “Better the devil you know, sweetheart.”

  When she taps the driver on the shoulder and mutters something under her breath, I assume we’re done.

  We drive in silence back to the club, and before the driver’s had the chance to put the handbrake on I’m already opening the door.

  She shouts across the car to me as I’m getting out, “You come and see me when you’re ready to cut the dead weight.”

  I’m about to slam the door in her face. I fucking should. But for whatever reason I don’t. My fingers clench around the metal, nails digging into the glass so hard my knuckles surely turn white.

  “Oh… your daughter? Remember her? She’s a fucking mess by the way. I’ll tell her you were asking after her welfare.”

  Helen watches me with an imperious stare, but after a second, it slips. “Tell her… Tell her I’m sorry. For everything. She’ll know what I mean by that.”

  We stare at each other, her face now mostly hidden in shadow and mine likely spitting venom. “I’d tell her that if I thought for one second it was true.”

  Then I do slam the door in her face. That’s fucking plenty from her tonight.

  I’m already storming into the club and trying to think of an excuse for where I’ve been. Cole won’t like this, and his plans get even more batshit when he’s riled up. Nope. Better if he thinks I’ve been dealing with a shipment.

  He’s still sitting where I left him, the whole VIP area filled with people now, bottles of vodka and champagne being passed around like bongs.

  “Office,” I shout to him.

  I don’t wait to see if he follows me. He will. He won’t want to think he’s missing out.

  I’ve barely made it to the desk in the corner of the room before the door swings open, and he comes in with Sarah trailing along behind him. Fuck’s sake.

  “So I’ve been thinking, we need to fuck her up prop—“

  “Stop, Cole,” I tell him. “Just fucking stop.”

  His eyes widen. Sarah’s eyes look like they
’re about to pop out of her head.

  My thoughts are already spinning out of control. I’m about to tell Sarah to fuck off, but I stop myself. For once in her life Sarah might actually be useful.

  “We’re having a wedding,” I tell them. “A massive fucking wedding.”

  They both look at each other. Cole’s about to say something, but I stop him.

  “We‘ll need to book somewhere. Somewhere big. We’ll have them reshuffle their diary. I want the biggest fucking wedding this country has ever seen.”

  I get out from behind the desk and start pacing the same lines Cole’s made in the carpet. “Sarah, invites. Cole will give you a list, but send them to everyone. From the pettiest criminal to the fucking queen of England. Trump as well, see if he’s up north golfing and wants to swing by. The whole fucking European Union. Everyone except Ford, understand?”

  She’s looking at me like I’ve just escaped from the mental asylum, but nodding her head anyway.

  I turn to my brother. “We need to make sure this is leaked to the papers. Leader’s daughter marries the country’s most violent criminal. She’ll have absolutely no way to cover it up.”

  He stares at me for a minute as if trying to find something to argue about. This isn’t what we do. I’m not the one who thinks shit up, I’m the one who does it.

  After a long silence, he finally shrugs his shoulders. “Alright.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MEISIE

  Cillian doesn’t seem super impressed by my blanket fort when he finally comes downstairs later that day.

  Fuck knows why—it’s a masterpiece.

  The moment I began considering suicide via bedsheets just to see what it would feel like, I decided a blanket fort might be a better call.

  For now.

  Yeah, shut up, Trish. You’d have been right all along, blah blah blah.

  I do think I’m going a bit mental, to be honest. Being in danger is one thing…being locked in a dead-boring dungeon twenty-four hours a day is another. Some of those dildos in the closet are starting to look mighty distracting. But when I consider which orifices they might have been stuck in, the urge quickly passes.