Birthright

by A. P. Jensen

  Chapter Four

  Jordan woke to the sound of a sharp rap on glass. She opened her eyes to see the driver peering at her through the car window. Automatically, she pulled the bill of her hat low before she stepped out of the car. She looked around, exhausted mind slow to process where she was.

  She and the driver stood on a runway lined with white, unmarked jets. There was a high fence enclosing the runway that was so near the Strip, she could see the gleaming gold of the Mandalay Bay hotel in the distance. The highway beyond the fence combined with the rev of the jet engines made it hard to hear anything.

  On the runway, official looking people wearing black slacks, crisp white shirts and official looking badges walked briskly. Jordan was alarmed when she saw several police officers walking amongst the airport workers. Her immediate thought was that Mr. Parker was going to hand her into their custody, but none of the officers glanced her way. That’s when she realized Mr. Parker was nowhere to be found.

  “He’s taking care of a few things,” the driver said, yelling above the roar of the planes.

  Jordan looked sharply at him and then away, ashamed that she was so transparent. She blamed it on weariness and the fear that lingered. The driver’s eyes stayed on her as she wandered away from him. She walked up to an impressive jet and ran a hand over the under belly of the hot, smooth metal. When she turned back, Mr. Parker stood beside the driver. The contrast between the two men was night and day. Mr. Parker looked like a New York businessman while the driver wouldn’t have been out of place on a construction site or truck stop. Jordan relaxed slightly, comforted by Mr. Parker’s appearance and then berated herself for putting any amount of trust in him. She heard from his own mouth that he wanted nothing to do with her. She shouldn’t feel safe in his presence, but right now, she would take comfort in anything as long as she wasn’t heading back to Haven.

  As Jordan made eye contact, Mr. Parker’s mouth compressed and he turned away. He walked up a short set of stairs and ducked into an unmarked plane. The driver followed without a backward glance. Jordan looked around the small, busy airstrip and then at the distant hotels lining the Strip. What next?

  “Ma’am?”

  A flight attendant beckoned from the steps of the plane. For a moment, Jordan debated on making a run for it. And where would she go? Jordan walked across the hot cement and took one last look at the Strip before she entered the plane. On either side of the aisle were four individual white seats facing one another with a white table between them.

  Even as Jordan started down the aisle, the driver asked, “Who is she?”

  Mr. Parker answered, “Her name’s Jordan.”

  She stopped in the aisle, but neither man looked at her. Mr. Parker had a laptop on the table and the driver sat beside him with his head tipped back as if he were ready to take a nap. She turned to take a seat across the aisle.

  “You’re sitting over here,” Mr. Parker said without looking up from his laptop.

  She stood immobile until he looked up. He jerked his head at the seat across from him. A long silence passed before she dropped into the chair. Without another word, Mr. Parker turned his attention back to the laptop.

  “We dropping her off somewhere?” the man in flannel asked as if Jordan wasn’t sitting right across from him.

  Mr. Parker squinted at his screen. “No.”

  The driver straightened and pushed his Oakley’s up, revealing the strangest set of eyes Jordan had ever seen. He had orange eyes the color of autumn leaves and brown hair with bleached tips like a surfer as if he spent too much time in the sun.

  “Excuse me?”

  Mr. Parker tapped a few keys. “What?”

  “You’re taking her home with you?” the driver asked incredulously.

  Mr. Parker scowled. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t have a choice?”

  “I need you to buckle your seat belts,” the flight attendant said.

  As both men complied, Jordan stared straight ahead. She was used to people treating her as if she were invisible. The plane moved onto the runway and gained speed. She closed her eyes as the jet rose into the air and she experienced a takeoff for the first time in her life.

  “I’m Heath.”

  Jordan opened her eyes and saw that Heath had a hand extended towards her. She looked at his hand and then shook her head. Heath raised his brows. Mr. Parker glanced up from the laptop.

  “She can’t make physical contact with men,” Mr. Parker said.

  Heath jerked his hand back and glanced down at Mr. Parker’s gloves. Mr. Parker closed his laptop with a snap and tapped his pointer finger in a strange, uneven rhythm on the hard cover. His eyes fixed on Jordan.

  “These files don’t tell me how your mother died,” Mr. Parker said.

  Heath looked between Jordan and Mr. Parker, trying to decipher the undercurrents.

  “Drug overdose,” Jordan said.

  Mr. Parker’s brows drew together. “Star didn’t do drugs.”

  Jordan didn’t try to contradict him. She knew the facts because she lived through it.

  “Hold up. What the hell is going on here?” Heath snapped.

  Mr. Parker glared at his friend. After a long pause, Heath turned his head and took in every feature of Jordan’s face and cursed. He rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Were you ever going to tell me? I’m guessing Kelly doesn’t know about this either.”

  Mr. Parker ignored him. “How long ago did she die?”

  “Eight years.”

  For the first time, Mr. Parker looked shocked. “Who took you in?”

  “I went into the system.”

  “System?” Heath repeated, bewildered.

  “Foster system,” Jordan said as if he was slow.

  Mr. Parker’s face was expressionless. “Is that how William found you?”

  A part of her wanted to fold her arms and mulishly refuse to answer. She never talked about her years in the foster system. Would Mr. Parker pass her off once he heard what she’d done to survive? After all, who wanted a teen that at the age of twelve had been locked in a padded cell? Jordan examined his composed, handsome face. She always wondered about her father. What girl wouldn’t? As a child, she prayed he would save her- from her mother, foster parents and from Haven. He hadn’t come. Now that she met him, she knew why. Mr. Parker wasn’t that type of guy, one that cared.

  “No,” Jordan said.

  “Then how did you meet William?”

  Jordan’s face was bloodless and pinched with strain and she didn’t speak.

  “It says in your files that at the age of twelve you were classified by the government as mentally unstable and a danger to society. Why?”

  Haunted blue eyes stared into his and she didn’t answer.

  “What did you do?”

  Jordan heard the accusation in his voice and her heart sank. Did he know what it felt like to have no rights over what happened in your life? She wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done - she had no choice. If this was his way of getting rid of her, so be it.

  Jordan lifted her chin. “I crippled two people.”

  Both men were expressionless.

  “Why?” Mr. Parker said.

  “Because no one else would.”

  Mr. Parker let out an impatient sound and leaned forward. “What did they do to you?”

  Jordan blinked. No one asked that question. When she begged to be taken away from her foster parents, no one listened. Everyone assumed she lost her mind. No one considered that there might be a motive behind the attack. After all, foster kids were trouble.

  “It was self-defense,” Jordan said and clenched her hands together to stop them from shaking.

  Mr. Parker realized that was all he was going to get for an explanation. “And then what happened?”

  “They put me in a padded room.”

  “And then?”

  Jordan’s eyes were empty. “Ha
ven.”

  “According to your file, you died a little over two years ago in the psychiatric hospital. I have your death certificate.”

  Both men stared at Jordan who didn’t look surprised by this news.

  “Why would someone fake her death?” Heath asked.

  Mr. Parker ignored Heath. “You didn’t tell me how you met William Stan.”

  In poor defense from their dissecting eyes, she looked out the window.

  “I need to know,” Mr. Parker insisted.

  When Jordan looked back at him, her eyes burned. She put a hand on her chest where the familiar pain throbbed. Suppressed terror rushed to the surface as she remembered the torture she endured in the peach colored room in Haven and the crazed look in William’s eyes as his hand tightened around her throat… You belong to me. You’ll never be free of me. Her heart beat too hard, too fast.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Just answer me.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I don’t owe you anything!”

  She couldn’t breathe. Her hands fumbled with the belt buckle. Mr. Parker got to his feet, but she didn’t wait to see what he would do. She rushed towards the back of the plane and pushed open the door to the minuscule bathroom and made it just as she was sick to her stomach. As the spasms passed, she slouched over the toilet. Tears burned her eyes. Would there be a time when his name didn’t make her clammy and sick? Why wouldn’t everyone just leave her alone?

  “Are you alright?”

  Jordan rose as Heath set a bottle of mouthwash on the counter. She swished the liquid around in her mouth and splashed cold water on her face and felt marginally better. Embarrassment lurked in the back of her mind, but she was too exhausted to care.

  “Let’s go,” he said and motioned her back down the aisle.

  Mr. Parker said nothing as she retook her seat. She stared mutinously at the cloudy world outside of her window. Heath murmured something to Mr. Parker in a low tone.

  “I apologize.”

  Jordan flinched in acknowledgement, but didn’t look away from her view of the very blue sky stretching out before her. How could there be such beauty and evil on the same planet? A gloved hand cupped her chin and turned her head towards Mr. Parker. The gloves were warm and almost comforting.

  “I’m not used to waiting. I can give you time, but I’ll ask again,” he said.

  She jerked away from his hand and looked out the window again.

  “You’re safe now.” He paused and then, “Do you know what William wanted from you?”

  She was quiet for a long time. Heath and Mr. Parker watched her closed expression, desperate for the answers she could provide. Both could see how she struggled to hold herself together. Pushing her would only result in a fight that wouldn’t give them what they needed.

  “He thought I could save his sanity,” she whispered.

  “And?” Heath prompted.

  “I failed.”

  “Go to sleep,” Mr. Parker said.

  She shifted in the plush seat and looked anywhere, but at the men across from her. The jet engine hummed in her ears and she tried to relax. Her body ached and she had a never-ending headache. She leaned against the window and stared blindly out until she drifted into fitful sleep.

  Both men were aware of the moment she went unconscious. Donovan ignored Heath’s accusing stare.

  “First William, now this. The media’s going to have a field day.”

  Donovan ran a hand through his hair. “What a mess.”

  “You think she just Awakened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You got her just in time to have her Declared,” Heath said casually.

  “You think I don’t realize that?”

  “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  Donovan’s shot his friend an irritated glance. “I don’t have a choice, now, do I?”

  “Did you know about her?”

  “You think I’d leave a daughter behind, knowing she might carry my birthright?” Donovan asked in a monotone.

  “I don’t know. Would you?”

  “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  Donovan stood and moved to the back of the jet, away from Jordan. Undaunted, Heath followed.

  “I know you. Penn had to blackmail you to take her. You wouldn’t take this on willingly, but you’re the only one strong enough.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I guess not,” Heath conceded and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you think William knew she was yours?”

  Donovan’s mouth compressed in a thin line. “I’ll never know, will I?”

  “Did anyone else know about Jordan besides her mother?” Heath pressed, unable to leave it alone.

  Donovan’s eyes kindled with banked fury. “Someone knows. They’ll pay.”

  Heath noticed that Donovan’s eyes drifted to his daughter often, almost against his will. Heath relaxed a little. Donovan may be a hard ass, but he protected what was his. Jordan would be safe, for now. Neither said a thing, each lost in their own thoughts. Both knew Jordan’s arrival just changed everything.