Chapter 1
The Dump
Alaska. Now.
It was not the best way to end the day, sandwiched in the front seat of my car between two thugs with garlic-laced B.O.
And it wasn’t like I needed their help.
Yeah, the guy in the trunk was heavy, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
Dad didn’t care.
For whatever reason, he didn’t want me driving at night, regardless of the midnight sun.
And he wasn’t about to send me out with one goon—that’d be too much like a date.
So both these idiots had to come. And they’d probably insist on heaving our latest client into the pit themselves, not because they were gentlemen.
No.
“The toss” was that one last slap in the face—one final opportunity to strip this guy of whatever dignity he had left.
No doubt they’d shout something inane as they did it too.
Lately, “How do you like me now?” was their favorite sendoff, and though they did force a fairly believable southern drawl, they weren’t even close to country.
More like pro-wrestlers who’d smoked a little too much weed—big, dumb, and ugly.
I hated the drive to the dump, but at least if I did it alone, I could take a moment to reflect.
Maybe even say a prayer, God forbid, for the sorry soul whose own family didn’t care enough about him to pick up his remains.
With these two oafs though, I’d have to remain impassive, lest one of them actually register a thought and tell Dad I was going soft.
They had the combined IQ of a carrot. Just one. But even an idiot can sense weakness, and Dad, or Dr. Death as the hired muscles not-so-secretly referred to him, would never let me do another capture if he knew I had a conscience.
And I was really looking forward to reeling in our next “guest.”
The airstrip would be our next stop, and I’d be on the red-eye to D.C. after a long week of survival training, which, at least for the guest in the trunk, didn’t end so well.
This whole week literally—
“…stinks,” I muttered, careful to keep my elbows close. Naked arms had me flanked, and I didn’t want to get slimed. “Something stinks,” I said louder.
The sweathog on my right grunted.
Even shallow breaths burned my throat, and I didn’t appreciate it.
Nor did I appreciate the sloshing can of dip spit they passed under my nose or the sickening smack of their lips as they let slip pools of brown, but at least it lent some perfume to the air.
Revolting respite.
It’s what I deserved.
As we crawled off the road and into the woods, the car wobbled, and I danced in my seat with it, trying to evade any accidental skin-to-skin contact with the ogres.
It was an unseasonably warm Alaskan July.
With the sun still beating down, even at 10pm it was too hot for sleeves, and I refused to sit in the back seat of my own car, especially after my last trip to the dump.
That was when we were still using regular garbage bags—the kind that leaked, only I didn’t realize it until after I’d dragged it in, and though I’d tried my damnedest, I just couldn’t get the stain out.
Nobody wanted the back seat now. Something about dead-girl juice made even these two giants squeamish.
I’d manage. Another five minutes, and we’d be there. Then we’d be 130 pounds lighter, and I’d put about 3,000 miles between myself and Camp Aurora—for a few days at least.
I was almost smiling at the thought of new scenery when something more pungent than B.O. wafted through the car. I fumbled with the AC vent.
“What is that?” I demanded.
“Smells like shit,” said the one on my right, and I closed my eyes, scrunching my face.
“No,” I moaned.
This car was vintage, a mint-condition classic, my sweet-sixteen gift from Dr. Death. I loved this car, and when I got back, I’d have to burn this car.
The body bag was leaking.
Five minutes in a car with a leaky stinkbag proved two things. First, I could hold my breath for almost twenty seconds before flailing.
Second, in Alaska, there lived something more annoying than death stench, and that something swarmed inside the car as soon as I lunged over the lap of Doofus Number Two, and cracked the window open.
“Hannah, no!” he barked, wrenching my hand from the handle and pushing me off his legs, but it was too late. No fewer than a hundred tiny mosquitos tumbled inside before Dennis got the window closed.
“Baby girl, you know better’n that,” he said, swatting three biters with his massive palm. Immediately, the atmosphere inside the car went from acrid to noxious as both men lifted their arms in defense.
I did know better than that. In fact, I still had a layer of bug spray protecting my skin from Alaska’s nasties. But with an exposed pit on either side of me, I could hardly breathe. All tallied, Dennis was right. I’d made a tactical error, which was not my usual style.
When the car stopped, we scrambled out, and while the other two camp counselors showed our young celebrity to his eternal resting pit, I squeezed my lips shut and concentrated on not inhaling a mosquito.
My DEET was fading, and though the mosquitos weren’t landing on my face just yet, they hovered about an inch away.
There had to be at least a thousand swarming my head, buzzing their high-pitched annoyance in my ears.
I tuned them out and stared at the bulging black bag as it passed.
What a waste.
The world would think their beloved pop star had gone into the Alaskan wild to find himself.
When he never returned, they’d assume he’d found himself all right.
They’d think he’d found himself an abandoned bus in the middle of the tundra, set up camp, and starved to death, another cocky, clueless, ill-prepared, spoiled little rich kid, who’d thought he could handle Alaska.
They’d have one thing right.
He had thought he could handle Alaska. In fact, he wanted to explore, to climb a mountain, to fly a bush plane...just like me, really.
He’d told me so during one of our come-to-your-senses-and-straighten-out chats in his cell. It made me sad, because his fortitude had failed. He liked the idea of living sober, of adventuring, of learning to fly even, but in the end, the only high he truly wanted had nothing to do with altitude.
His fans would miss him. For like ten seconds. I could see the headlines already lining tomorrow’s trashcans: Canadian Heartthrob Turns Idiot – Lost in Last Frontier Wilderness.
They’d probably put it nicer, but he didn’t deserve it. He was an ungrateful, entitled little brat, making bad decisions that put other lives at risk—driving drunk, giving drugs to young girls, coaxing his fans into deadly stunts—the list went on.
At least his family would have some peace. No more lawsuits. No more endless binges or wrecked hotel rooms or constant deflowering of all-too-eager 15-year-olds to land their family name in the tabloids. As far as they were concerned, this was the best possible outcome.
That’s what Dad always said: these kids were programmed for evil. It was only a matter of time before they killed someone. We were heroes here—the “the sword of the future victim.”
Still, I felt like a villain.
I had tried though.
I’d thrown him a lifeline, and he didn’t take it. After two months of rehab, countless cry-sessions—through which I’d literally held his hand—and three near-drownings on the waterboard, he still chose his addiction over sobriety.
Yes, I had tried.
And I’d failed. I’d failed to convince him to straighten up. I’d failed to convince him of the stakes. He didn’t believe he’d die, and he was wrong. He thought one of us would save him, and he was wrong.
I’d failed. Again.
Pretty Boy made three in a row for the pit.
After five years with only an occasional fatality, it was the summer of death at Camp Aurora, and I counted them all as personal failures.
When I started this gig, I never, ever thought we’d actually lose one.
It was the threat of death that straightened them out, but it had always been just that—a threat.
It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not this often.
Pretty Boy, in particular, had gotten under my skin. As annoying as he was, I sort of liked his endless sarcasm, and as the thugs rushed to the edge of the dump, his limp body strung between them, I had to slouch a bit to breathe.
He wasn’t all bad—irritating as hell—but not all bad, and if I’d had just one more day with him, maybe…
The thought forced a lump to my throat, which I promptly swallowed. Biting my lips together, I imagined a different body in that bag.
Pretty Boy was not all bad, not like the one before him. I was almost glad to see her go—an oil-mogul’s princess, who would’ve killed a toddler for a designer purse. I couldn’t straighten her out. It was like working with a lipsticked robot.
I imagined her body in that bag, and I couldn’t wait to be rid of her.
Another lump ached in my throat, and my leg twitched, which was asinine. Lunging at the bag now wouldn’t save her or Pretty Boy or the dumbass before them.
Well by God, the next one was going home with a heartbeat. Evil or not. Call me a prude, but throwing bodies into a dump felt wrong.
Besides, I wanted a car that didn’t smell like a corpse.
The giants tossed my latest failure into the pit after one lazy swing.
I crossed my arms and cocked my head.
“What—no lame comment to add to that pathetic throw?” I said as they headed for the car in abnormal silence.
“Ain’t worth it,” said Dennis, and I rolled my eyes.
How could he not be worth it? Sure, the kid was a punk, but every human deserved some kind of eulogy, even if it was just a ridiculous line from a country song.
I couldn’t wait to get away from these morons and start working my new mark.
He’d be educated and interesting. He was American royalty, after all—the son of a politician, heir to an obscene fortune, and at the seasoned age of twenty-one, he was already a playboy alcoholic, a prescription drug addict, and a rapist. Without doubt, he’d rape again.
Daddy Senator pretty much set that ball in motion when he’d paid his loving son’s first victim off.
Worst case, we had a serial sex offender on our hands.
Best case, he’d do the world a favor and accidentally overdose.
Neither scenario was acceptable to his presidential-candidate father.
That’s why he’d called us. His only son was a first-rate scumbag.
We’d fix that.
Or else it’d be another trip to the dump.
I imagine saving the world from another addict, and I grin, but this time something deep in my core flinches.