The Hostage Bargain Read online

  I stared at him, confused. “What about you?”

  He shook me. “Say it!”

  “I can act silent and traumatized as long as I goddamn want.”

  “Months if I want. They can’t fuck with me if I don’t talk.”

  “They can’t fuck with me if I don’t talk,” I said. “Don’t worry. But what about you?”

  “We’ll find Zeus. Get to the van. Try not to make a hot exit.”

  “I can still be your hostage,” I said. “Wouldn’t that help?”

  “It only helps if they want the hostage to remain alive. These aren’t cops, remember?”

  “They wouldn’t care if I were killed?”

  “They’d prefer it that way. Probably do it themselves,” Thor said. “Witnesses tend to complicate things.”

  “Zeus is still in the workout room?”

  “Yeah,” Thor said. “But he’s not answering. Which means he’s heavy into some reps or he’s got trouble. But the recon guy seemed to believe Zeus was in our suite so…look, we just don’t know. We can’t let him go up to the suite, that’s all. We have to get back in.”

  “You can’t go back in!” I said.

  “We won’t leave without Zeus. It’s not how we do things. We don’t leave each other behind.”

  “No matter what?” I asked.

  “No matter what.”

  Meaning, they’d die before they’d leave each other. Shivers came over me—primal shivers—the kind you get when you glimpse something majestically bigger than yourself, like a rock in the middle of the ocean, and you realize it’s the tip of an underwater mountain. It’s here I think I fell in love with them. Not individually, but the gang itself and their fierce one-for-all-ness.

  Odin was back. “Drop into a room on the east?”

  Thor sighed.

  Odin tried another call again. “Fucking g-answer!” he whisper-yelled at the phone.

  “You can’t go back inside and get him without risk, but what if I did?” I asked. “You need Zeus to get out of the hotel, right?”

  Thor shook his head.

  “You said they don’t know me. They’re watching for you, but not me. For all they know, I’m a hotel guest. I can’t pop down to the workout room?”

  “Pop down how? No,” Thor said.

  “It’s not like I have anything at stake.”

  Odin pulled out his phone and stared at it. “If we hadn’t split up we’d be on the highway.”

  “They’re probably in the room by now aren’t they?” I said. “These guys wanting to kill you. And then they’ll start searching the hotel.” And apparently they didn’t mind about killing hostages. Oh, I didn’t like these guys.

  “They’re not in the room yet,” Odin said mysteriously. Lord knows how he knew. My guys were masters of knowing things—dirty and otherwise.

  I got up and scurried across the roof to the other side, just as Odin had, and looked over. You could see balconies below—the top floor balconies were maybe ten feet down. And far beyond was the pool. Tiny people swam and drank under lights, unaware of the drama above. I wanted to do something to help my guys. In my mind they were my guys now.

  Thor caught up. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “You could lower me, right? To that balcony? People never lock their balcony doors. I saw that on TV. I’d just walk through and take the elevator down. You said nobody knows who I am. This would be easy. For me.”

  “What if somebody’s in the room?” Odin asked, watching my eyes.

  “I’ll look, and if there’re people, I’ll go to the next one.”

  “It’s a long way down to be swinging between balconies,” Thor said.

  “Are you being sexist? The girl can’t do it? I’ve rock climbed. I’ve bungee and ski jumped. I’m already there. Just fucking lower me. Seriously, I can’t walk through the hotel? No. I can. You guys can’t. But I can. With impunity!”

  “Still,” Thor said.

  “A messenger. The girl can’t be a messenger? But it won’t be free, of course. You’ll owe me. I’ll want something in exchange.”

  This got their attention. I’d noticed that they were more apt to take me up on things when I demanded something in return, locked them into a bargain. This was a group that operated, in a strange way, on consensual bargaining.

  “What’s the favor?” Odin asked.

  “It’ll cost you twenty thousand dollars.”

  “We have that.” Odin exchanged glances with Thor. Something passed between them. “Let him freak,” Odin said, even though Thor had said nothing. “Let him.”

  Zeus.

  Thor closed his eyes. So if I started participating like this, it would upset Zeus. But I could do it so easily! This was nothing compared to the ski jump.

  I put my hand on the edge—black tar, still warm from the day. “Who has the van keys? How will you get to the van?”

  “Just get the message to him, we’ll handle the van.” Odin held a phone out. “Star two is Thor. If you get to him and see that he’s in trouble, keep walking to the pool door and prop it open, then call us and describe the trouble.”

  Thor hissed out a breath.

  “She volunteered,” Odin snapped. “She’s a big girl. It’s not a hard task for somebody not afraid of heights. Ice, you just get to the workout room and tip off Zeus.” He told me where it was as he pulled a coiled wire out of his pack, hooked one end to something, and handed me a pair of gloves.

  Thor gave him a look.

  “We’ll share your gloves,” Odin said.

  He turned to me. “Go two floors down, not the top. It’ll be safer. Can you do that?

  “Sure.”

  Thor said. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m thrilled, frankly.” In fact, I was greatly enjoying the feeling of being up on top of the ski jump, about to get exhilarated. I put on the gloves and made sure my strappy shoes were secured around my wrists. “Once I’m inside, should I take the elevator?”

  “Definitely,” Odin said. “Be normal. And if you can’t find him, assume we’re gone, and do whatever you need to do to look out for yourself.”

  I took hold of the wire and climbed over the side. The gloves gave me great traction—I hoped my guys would be okay with just one glove each. Slowly I slid down, gently repelling off the balcony and sliding on down to the next one. I hooked a leg over, then another, and I was there, feeling very Bond girl. I crept over and slid the door a titch—unlocked. The room was dark, which meant it was empty, or the occupants were sleeping, in which case they’d hopefully continue sleeping. I yanked the cord to show I was set, took a breath, and crept in.

  Luck was with me, or else the low hotel occupancy rate—the room was empty. I walked to the door, slipped on my high heels, and went out into the hall, smiling sunnily at a family I passed.

  I had no doubt I looked a bit mussed, but I figured my poise and confidence reversed the effect…until I stepped into the elevator and saw how dirty my clothes had gotten on the roof. I stabbed the LL button and brushed and straightened myself best I could, while studying the map on the wall that showed how to get to the exercise room. The thing took forever to get down. I rushed out, hurried past the pool, down a small hallway, and burst in to the exercise room.

  And froze when I saw the three bodies slumped in the corner.

  Somebody grabbed me from behind and clapped around my mouth.

  A man’s voice. “Shh. It’s me.”

  Zeus.

  He let go and I spun around. “Odin and Thor are up on the roof,” I said, sticking the phone out at him. “Star two for Thor.”

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Getting you a message.”

  “No, no, you can’t. No.” He grabbed the phone from me. “Dammit.”

  You’re welcome, I thought as Zeus stabbed the buttons and proceeded to have a mysterious and angry conversation, all o’clocks and coordinates. His keen green gaze knifed through me. Then he walked to the window and looked o
ut over the indoor pool on the other side of the glass. The pool was closed, lit dimly by lights from elsewhere. Blood covered his left arm. I stared at the bodies. Were these men all dead?

  What was I doing?

  I turned away from them and studied the dozen or so weight-lifting machines. From Zeus’s clipped conversation, I got that he had been just about to steal upstairs to warn Thor and Odin. None of these guys would leave without the others. A phone lay broken on the floor.

  It was here I felt something cold on my neck. I stiffened in fright as a hand grabbed my hair. “You move and you bleed.”

  A haze descended over me.

  So the guys on the floor weren’t all dead.

  Zeus turned, looking annoyed, like we were disturbing him or something. “Later,” he said.

  “Drop the phone.” The man said to Zeus, holding me in front of him, knife to my throat. I tried not to panic, to move, even to swallow as the blade bit in. The whole room seemed too bright.

  Zeus smiled coldly. Instead of dropping the phone, he took a few steps toward me, and casually raised a gun and pressed it to my forehead.

  I gasped.

  “She moves and she bleeds?” he said. “Okay. And so do you.”

  I felt like I was seeing the scene from outside my own body, everything slow, surreal.

  “I mean it,” the man said.

  “You guys still using tungsten shot?” Zeus continued. “My guess is yes, and that this bullet from your friend’s piece will pierce clear through her skull and right into your jugular. Shall we test it?”

  My knees went liquid. The tick of the wall clock became deafening.

  Zeus’s eyes were cold on mine. “How long have we known each other, honey?”

  “Uh…” I couldn’t think. A day? No, less….

  “Go ahead, tell the man the truth.”

  “S-since this morning. Around eleven.”

  Zeus sighed. “Hopefully my partners gave you a satisfying sendoff. I am sorry about this.”

  “What?”

  He winced, as if preparing to shoot me. Expecting spatter, I realized with horror.

  “No!” I cried.

  The man shoved me. The knife was off my throat and he was backing away, moving behind a workout machine, apparently deciding stacks of metal weights were more bulletproof than my skull.

  I put my hand over the place the knife had bit in. Blood. But not much.

  Zeus stalked toward the guy and followed him around and around the largest weights machine. The man kept going in circles until Zeus simply pulled the thing over, crashing it sideways. Then he jumped over it and kicked the guy.

  In the face.

  I’d never seen anything so bluntly violent. It was nothing like a karate kick—no jumps or spins, just Zeus’s foot coming out of nowhere and snapping viciously up into the man’s face. The man convulsed on his feet and then simply crumpled down on top of the machine and rolled onto the floor.

  I covered my open mouth with my hand. Was he dead?

  Zeus whipped a towel over his shoulders to hide his bloody arm.

  “Thank you,” I breathed. I guess.

  “Thank you?” Zeus came toward me now, eyes dark and ferocious. “I would’ve just as easily killed you. I would’ve done it in a heartbeat—don’t you ever doubt it.”

  “What?”

  “I do what I need to do to protect the group, and that doesn’t include you. I know you’re having fun playing house right now, but that’s something you need to understand.”

  “I was delivering a message, not trying to join your group.”

  Zeus shoved the gun and the phone in his sweatpants. “We gotta get out of here.” He stalked out through the pool area. I followed him. We went through a series of doors, and then out into the cool, starry night. I touched my neck. It wasn’t bleeding as much.

  Pop-pop-pops like firecrackers sounded out in the distance.

  “They breached the room,” he said as we hurried across the parking lot to the van. “Get in back.”

  I jumped in and closed the door. He started up the van and drove. Slowly. Meanderingly, even. In this way, he made the van itself a disguise.

  I marveled at the extreme discipline it would take to drive so listlessly instead of frantically racing across the lot. I mean, killers were after them. Thor and Odin, presumably, were waiting somewhere.

  ‘…that doesn’t make you part of the group.’ Zeus had said. His words stung, but they confirmed so much about these guys—particularly the idea that they had survived against dangerous enemies by a fierce, almost wolf pack like loyalty, sacrificing outsiders and even their own safety for each other.

  A wolf pack thing—or a god pack thing. And he’d made it painfully clear that I was the outsider.

  I wished I was inside.

  It was the flowers that saved him from me hating him totally at that moment.

  Zeus rounded the side of the hotel and slowed near a thicket of bushes that hugged the corner of the hotel. Thor and Odin burst out, piled in, and we were off.

  “Denko,” Zeus said to Odin, who was riding up front as usual. “Had to be.”

  Odin nodded. “Denko.”

  Zeus pulled onto the main thoroughfare and drove at the speed limit.

  Thor scooted over. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. A bit of a lie. I was still shaking.

  He inspected my neck, palpating the skin around it. “What happened?”

  Zeus said, “Down in the weights room one of the ops tried to hold Isis. But we convinced him she was nobody. Wouldn’t you say, Isis?”

  “I think it was made clear, yes,” I said.

  “He tried to hold you?” Thor said.

  “So I threatened to shoot them both,” Zeus said, like it was nothing.

  “Through my skull,” I added. “A two-for-one.” I felt proud of myself for speaking of it so casually. I felt Odin’s eyes on me. “It was most delightful,” I added, not even looking at him.

  “It was stupid. Mess with the bull, you get the horns.” Zeus was quoting some movie I couldn’t place at the moment. I wondered if he meant it for the guy he’d kicked in the face, like that guy was stupid to have messed with him, or if he meant that for me.

  “Zeus, you need medical attention,” Thor said to him sternly.

  “Let’s put down some distance first,” Zeus said.

  Thor turned to me then, and he put out his hand, palm up. I rested my hand in his and he closed his fingers around mine, and just held my hand there in the back seat.

  Such a simple gesture, but at that moment, it meant everything, and I felt linked to him. I knew I was an outsider—Zeus had made that clear, but Thor let me in a little, right then and there.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The guys drove through the night, taking turns, stopping once for burgers for Zeus, and once for medical supplies. We switched off seats after that. I was allowed to ride in front, and Thor got in back with Zeus and dug a bullet out his arm—right in the back seat. When I figured out what was happening back there, I was horrified. “Odin!” I said, tipping my head at the back seat. You could see the weariness in Odin’s eyes; he was too tired to be driving.

  “Don’t worry, he’s a doctor.”

  “A doctor?” I said.

  “That’s right,” Odin said. “What’s so weird about that?”

  “You just don’t see that many bank robber-doctors,” I mumbled. Plus, he seemed to be the least responsible of the three of them. The others were all into keeping him in line, it seemed.

  These guys didn’t add up. Thor a doctor. What was Odin? Zeus?

  There was some gutter dog in Zeus, that’s for sure. I didn’t know if I’d ever get over the feeling of his gun at my forehead. Or the way he stalked that guy, then delivered that weirdly vicious kick. I would’ve just as easily killed you. I would’ve done it in a heartbeat—don’t you ever doubt it.

  I’d heard the darkness in Zeus’s words. But not necessarily the truth.
Or was I fooling myself?

  Zeus was a force, like a storm: frightening and magnificent to behold, with a charged power churning inside. Maybe I should’ve been angry at him for being all, would’ve just as easily killed you, but you don’t get mad at a storm for blowing things over.

  Or ripping up flowers.

  I asked about the room service waiter and the man in the workout room. What if they recognized me and put them together with the bank job?

  The guys thought that was funny. “These operatives don’t give a fuck about any bank. It’s under their radar. Banks are not their concern.”

  “Then what is their concern?” I asked. “Who are they? Why are they after you?”

  Zeus said, “One more question like that and you’re on the side of the road, deal or no deal.”

  “We actually have two deals now, I believe,” I said.

  “Two?”

  “That’s right,” I said. Zeus was none too pleased to hear about the price I’d demanded for my messenger services. But the exchanges really did help put me on a peer level with the god pack, as least in a limited way.

  At around two in the morning, we crashed in a roadside motel in Missouri, just outside Kansas City. Thor and I bunked in one room and Odin and Zeus in another, and sex was definitely not in the air—we were all dead on our feet. Thor didn’t even wash up. He just collapsed on our king-sized bed. I brushed my teeth using my finger and Thor’s toothpaste, and then I, too, collapsed, stretched out next to Thor under the cool, clean sheets.

  I woke up in the early hours with Thor snuggled up to me, whispering something. Was he trying to wake me up?

  “Thor?”

  Thor whispered some more, a stream of nonsense. A bad dream, I realized. I couldn’t make out most of the words. I got a lot of no’s and don’ts, and out-of-context phrases like don’t leave Venus. His sleeping face was a mask of pain.

  Don’t leave Venus? Was he having a bad dream about interplanetary travel? Dreaming of a movie?

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re okay.”

  He squirmed and turned onto his back. I waited, but he said no more.

  For all the guns and domination and violence, I had the sense, watching Thor sleep, that he had a little Peter Pan in him. All three of them did, really. They were running, these guys, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d been abandoned, too. Lost, bereft.