11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Shaun
Even after I got stuff that's easy and quick to eat, and that actually tastes good, Wyatt is still shoving a peanut butter sandwich at Larken. I've been trying to wrap my head around why she won't eat or drink anything and I think I'm onto something. She has been without a decent amount of food for a while now. I wasn't trying to look when we were all in the bathroom earlier, but her hip bones are protruding in a bad way; and when I put her down into the chest early this morning it gave me a really clear idea of how thin she actually is.
“You're going to have to at least drink something,” Wyatt pushes. “I can let you go another day or so without eating, but you absolutely have to drink.”
She just stares him down like she has been.
“Look,” I say, drawing her attention to me. I lift my glass of soda to my lips and take a sip. “Watch.” I take another sip, making it as noisy as I can. Then I slide the glass in front of her and take her cup of water. “Take a drink.”
“The sugar will make her sick,” Wyatt gripes.
“The dehydration will make her sicker.”
He gives me the standard huff and sigh and I ignore him.
“Just take a drink, Larken. I know you’re thirsty.”
She swallows, watching me lick the moisture from my lips.
“One drink,” I urge.
She looks down at the soda then back at me. Finally she wraps her fingers around the glass and brings it to her mouth. I nod at her. Then she closes her eyes and takes a small sip. She waits, unmoving, for a solid minute before downing the rest of it and looking back at me.
“Good. Now watch.” I pick up her cup of water and take a sip of it, going slow so she can watch the entire process. Then I slide the cup across the table.
No hesitation. She grabs it and drains it.
“Do you want more?”
She starts to nod, but her face scrunches up and we all listen to the sound her stomach makes echo off the walls. She blushes as her nod turns into a shake.
“You're alright.” I reach across and tap the rim of her cup. “That was just a lot all at once. Do you want to try something to eat?”
She shakes her head, but she's staring at the peanut butter sandwich Wyatt made pretty hard.
Wyatt picks up the sandwich and tears it in half. He takes a small bite out of the middle of each half and chews it slowly before swallowing. He even opens his mouth so she can see for herself that he ate it. “See?” he asks. “It's not like we're going to poison you.”
Neither of us miss the way she pales and flinches at that suggestion.
“Go ahead,” I tip my chin in the direction of the sandwich. “You eat that and he's got a nice tin of sardines for you to chase it with.”
She shoots him a disgusted and horrified look. “Sardines?”
“They came with the house,” he shrugs.
Her gaze settles back on the peanut butter sandwich.
“How long has it been since you ate something?” Wyatt asks.
Larken shrugs. “A few days.”
“Go ahead,” I say. “Just half, though. You really will get sick if you go too hard too fast.”
She takes a deep breath and picks up one of the halves. I've never seen anyone psych themselves up to eat a peanut butter sandwich. Not once. Then she takes a bite and her eyes roll shut in pleasure as she chews. I've never seen anyone experience orgasm-level bliss from eating a peanut butter sandwich, either. Today has been full of firsts, though.
“Go slow,” Wyatt reminds her when she takes a big bite.
She nods and chews carefully while she watches me get up to refill her cup with water and grab one of the apples I got from the store and a knife on my way back to the table. I got these apples on purpose. I knew from the look of her that it's probably been longer than a few days and I grew up going a few days between meals, so I got apples. Apples don't usually make an empty stomach sick. They never made me sick anyway, and the school nurse always gave me apple slices or apple sauce and crackers if I actually went to her.
I put three slices on Larken's plate after I peel the apple. She snatches one and shoves it in her mouth with the sandwich she's still chewing.
“Go slow,” Wyatt reminds her again, flicking me a tight look.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the job is about to go fuck itself. I don't know much about him and I don't know anything about her other than the few obvious things I've observed, but I'm becoming less and less inclined to send her skipping back home. I don't think Wyatt will take much convincing, either. The only problem we'll come across at that point is what to do with her then.
We can't keep her. That's a ridiculous thought to even consider. Wyatt and I aren't exactly partners, or friends for that matter. Even if we were partners or friends, you don't take jobs home with you regardless of the situation. But we can't exactly cut her loose, either.
This isn't supposed to be a job that gets news coverage. It's a fake abduction designed to get her cooperation with whatever bullshit the husband wants to accomplish. What happens if we let her go? If the husband is willing to go to these lengths just to ensure her cooperation, what lengths will he go to when he doesn't get her back? Worse yet, what happens if he finds her after we let her go? And most importantly, why am I agonizing over this? This isn't like me. Sure, I think this is a bullshit situation, but realistically we should put her out on a sidewalk in the next state and then go dormant for a few months while we pretend we never set eyes on her.
That's very obviously not what's about to happen, though. I can feel it in my bones. I've been watching Wyatt watch her since we pulled her out of that trunk. There's no mistaking that kind of concern. The kind that turns into worry. I don't think we were ever going to send her back to the husband and I think we need to start making decisions about what we actually are going to do with her.
“What?” Larken asks with her mouth still full of apple peanut butter mush.
I rub my hands together and glance at Wyatt before answering. “Just thinking about what's about to happen.”
She swallows thickly and loudly. “What do you mean?”
I shrug. “Not sure yet.”
Wyatt secures Larken to the chair in the living room again after she finishes eating. I don't know why he bothered. She's not going anywhere. Kidnapped people are usually jumpy and nervous, but she is neither of those things. I think the best combination of words to describe her since we've had her is stubborn and aloof. Possibly unbothered. Her attitude is grating on Wyatt in a big way and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. If anybody needs some ruffling it's him.
She fell asleep within minutes of settling into the chair. Wyatt covered her up with an ancient knitted blanket and I laughed at him. I laughed even harder at the glare he tried to level me with. Such a hard ass, that one. I mean, outside of this particular situation he probably is. I can imagine him running a mean operation with a whole team of other hard asses and getting all kinds of nefarious things done. But it's been a little over twenty-four hours since we actively began this operation and he's over there making sure the job doesn't get cold while she sleeps. I wonder if he has any idea what it looks like from this end? No. He's not going to see it until it's punching him in the face.
I catch his eye and nod toward the front door. I want to revisit the conversation about the husband. If Wyatt has any more information about the husband or the situation that he's been holding back, I want it before this job does what I think it's going to do and turns into a hobby.
“What's up?” Wyatt asks once the door is closed behind him.
“You sure you don't know anything else about the husband? Or anything about why we're doing this? Or what they have going on?”
He crosses his arms. “Just what I've told you. Why?”
“You covered her up.”
“What?”
I sigh dramatically. He cannot possibly be this oblivious. “You covered her up.”
“So?”
I tilt my head to the side, letting my eyebrows arch as high as they'll go. “Is this still a job?”
He snorts and turns to lean against the banister. “Of course it is.”
“Riiight.” I stretch out the word between us. “So you usually make sure your jobs are nice and cozy? Take them on group field trips to the bathroom? Make sure they don't eat too fast? Feed them at all?”
He doesn't answer any of those questions.
“Tell me about the husband again.”
He sighs. “Basic douche bag with money. Too old for her. Arrogant. Probably a narcissist. Definite scumbag.”
“Why would she marry him? Money?”
“I doubt it. I didn't do a lot of digging on him, but I dug enough to see that he's not old money. Not to be an asshole, but I fully expected her to be the type that went after the old rich guy for will money.”
“No kids?” I feel sure that she'd be way more upset if she had kids to take care of.
“No. He didn't mention kids and I didn't see anything about any from previous relationships.”
I'm with Wyatt. Not to be an asshole either, but I also assumed she'd married this guy for his money. We're quiet for a few minutes, both of us working through the mystery of why Larken is asleep in that chair right now instead of in a parlor somewhere playing canasta or whatever fucking rich people do with their time.
Huh.
“Is it her money?”
Wyatt's head whips in my direction. “Like he's after her money?”
For someone to have their uptight shit together to the extent that he probably does, he's awfully slow on the mark. “Yeah. Like, maybe she's old money and he tricked her into marrying him so he could take her money and bleed her family dry.”
Wyatt blinks at me then his mouth draws into a line. “He seems like the type.”
“So we're not the bad guys.”
“What?”
“We're the rescue party.”
He presses two fingertips above one of his eyebrows and stares at me. “We aren't getting paid to rescue anybody.”
“Riiiight,” I draw the word out again. “But are we actually going to get paid? What was the agreement for that?”
“I'm supposed to contact him in a day or two to discuss a timeline. He'll pay us at the drop off.”
Uh-huh. “Riiiiiight.” Wyatt’s eye may or may not twitch a little when I drag out the word again. “Well, I'm not so sure the job we were hired to do is the job that needs to be done.” I drop that little chunk of opinion into the air and leave him on the porch to stew over it.
There's a game on when I turn on the TV, it might be a replay. Doesn't matter. I just want it on for the noise. I don't care about football. Larken is still snuggled up in her little cocoon, sleeping away. It's no wonder. She didn't sleep at all last night. That's why I put her in the damn chest. I needed to sleep but Wyatt needed it more than I did and I didn't want to wake him up. Leaving her tied to that chair while both of us slept wasn't an option. I thought about attaching her to me somehow, but that also sounded fucking horrible so I didn't do that, either. The only logical option was the chest.
It was clean. There were no bugs. No cobwebs. It even smelled good, like cedar. I don't know why she was so worked up. It wasn't like it was a tight fit. She was fine. She just didn't like it. I did see her knuckles, though. They were a little messy, but nothing huge. If we were actually going to do the job we were hired to do, she'd still be locked in there. The fact that she's not is hilariously alarming.
Wyatt comes in quietly and sits next to me on the couch. He leans back and laces his fingers together over his chest and watches Larken breathe for a minute before he sighs and looks at me. “I don't like the husband.”
I haven't met him and I don't like him. “Riiiiiight.” Wyatt’s eye is definitely twitching, which means I’ll just have to keep adding extra i’s to the word.
“I don't know enough about her to know whether I like her or not.”
I suck on the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. He'll eventually get there. “Riiiiiight.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Saying right like that.”
I laugh at him and laugh even harder at the deep breath he has to take before continuing. “I want the money.”
I twist until I'm facing him fully. My jaw hasn't exactly dropped, but that isn't at all what I expected him to say next.
He huffs and rests his head against the back of the couch to stare up at the ceiling. “You can't tell me you don't want the money.”
I do want the money. I might even need it. But even I have a code of morals. Limits to my wrongdoing. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised or disappointed that the money is what he's most concerned about, especially after the little chat we just had on the porch. “So... what? You want to put her back into the chest?” What's the point of making sure the damn sandwich didn't make her sick if you're just going to do the job? This guy is something else.
He sighs dramatically.
I sigh even more dramatically. Loudly. Obnoxiously. Then I do it again.
“Stop it.”
“You stop it. You need to decide what you're doing before it's not a choice anymore.”
“Both of you stop it,” Larken grumbles from her cocoon. “And don't put me back in that chest. I'm perfectly fine in this chair.”
Wyatt sighs again and I laugh.
“Shh!” Larken hisses, and I laugh even harder until she cracks open one eye to glare at me.
“Sorry,” I whisper, swallowing the laughter still threatening to spew out of me. All humor leaves my body when the corner of her mouth lifts into the tiniest smile.
Yeah, no. Wyatt can still work this job and chase that money. I'm not giving her back.