Chapter 19
Ella
I’ve been a part of some fucked-up things before, but this is quickly becoming the most fucked-up thing that has ever fucked.
The British guy seemed chill, but I should have listened to the Levin brothers’ warnings.
They told me he was dangerous, and all I could think about was how polite he was. Lesson learned.
We get onto the highway, and at some point I fall asleep.
All the excitement has left me exhausted.
I wake up when the vehicle starts to slow, and we go over a speed bump outside what looks to me to be one of the world’s most rundown motels.
Dawn is breaking, and the sky has that faintish pink but mostly gray hue that comes with a day where there is probably going to be some light rain clearing to a fine morning.
“We’re going to stay at a roadside motel?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Aiden says mysteriously.
The car is garaged in a small concrete building, a garage that’s been weathered by decades of deprivation, or looks that way, at least.
We get out, go around the back, and underneath a lean-to structure that provides shade and I guess protection from spying eyes, there’s what looks like the doors to an ice cellar. Aiden pulls them open. There’s no ice. There are stairs.
We go down.
The air should be stale and damp down here from all the moisture that trickles into places like these over time, but it’s crisp and clean smelling. It’s being purified and circulated. Interesting.
We go through another set of doors and find ourselves inside a home.
“Oh, my god, it’s a bunker!” I don’t mean to squeal, but this is quite exciting. It seems to have all the creature comforts you can imagine: a television, couches, rugs, a kitchen. It’s all slightly dated, but I’m not complaining about that. Retro is fun.
There are four bedrooms, too.
The pilot is no longer with us. We must have dropped him off along with the doctor, who decided that he didn’t enjoy being shot at for money as much as he used to, which is a very reasonable response.
“I’m glad you like it,” Aiden says. “Because for the next thirty days, this is where we stay.”
“What about Ethel?”
“What about Ethel?”
“What if he goes for her? You said he destroys everything people love. I love her.”
“I don’t think he knows that,” Aiden says reassuringly. “She’s being taken care of, don’t worry. When we all left to find you, we got in a dog sitter. Eric knows we are not at home. He’s not going to go for the dog.”
That does make me feel better. He actually answered the question.
Other people in my life would have told me a dog doesn’t matter.
They would have shamed me for giving a shit.
And they wouldn’t have made sure she was cared for.
I feel those happy tears coming again, and I know I can’t indulge them because nobody here is happy, but this is amazing to me.
“What is it, Ella?”
“We’re going to win,” I say.
“Hmm, what do you mean?”
“There’s no way we don’t. You’re so nice, and you think of everything.”
Aiden looks like he just got winded. “You really think that, don’t you.”
“Yes,” I say.
Aiden
What a sweet thing she is. I was just pondering how I had let my family fall into complete ruin, how we lost Teddy, and how we are all now underground hiding from a psychopathic billionaire, and here Ella is telling me what a wonderful job I am doing, and seeming to mean it.
The vents in the place are integrated into the motel.
It really is a feat of engineering. Places like this are truly hidden.
Plenty of rich people build their escape bunkers either on very private property, where signs of construction are obvious and can be seen in satellite records, or they put them under their homes, or in places where these sorts of things are looked for.
The advantage of this unassuming location is that nobody has ever cared about it.
Construction here, while very much on the record, blends in with all the other commonplace construction.
I believe we are hidden as well as anybody can be hidden.
“Ew, David!” a young woman shouts somewhere above us. It’s hard to tell what she’s so incensed about, but she’s clearly unhappy.
“This computer has the old solitaire on it!” Luke says. “I bet it has… oh, my god, it has Doom.”
The computer is from the early two thousands, which might seem like an ancient piece of technology by today’s standards. It connects to the internet only when plugged in by a thin gray cable, which connects to the motel’s copper line. The guests might use Wi-Fi, but everything here is hard wired.
Luke and Ella sit down at the computer, which is currently not connected to anything. Leo goes to bed. I decide I have to do something with my hands, so I microwave a ration pouch for us all. These freeze-dried meals are actually quite good.
By midday, everyone who wants to eat Bolognese reheated from 2019 has done so, and we are all asleep.
Aside from Leo who has gone to bed, everybody else is in the lounge.
There are three couches arranged in a U shape, blue and softly upholstered.
Luke is asleep on one, Ella is passed out on another, and I decide to take the third.
The tyranny of a solitary bedroom feels too much to bear right now.
We are animals retreating to a burrow, licking our wounds, and preparing for better days to come.
Ella
I have some amends to make with this family, and with one man in particular.
“So you got shot,” I say, sliding into Leo’s room. He’s sitting up in bed, reading a book. His features crease with annoyance at my comment though his eyes lighten when he sees me.
“I’m not in the mood for your brat behavior,” he says, closing the book and giving me his full attention.
“I’m sorry you got shot,” I correct myself.
“Just as well for you I did. If I had found you in the wild myself, it would not have been as pleasant an affair as I am sure your interlude with Aiden was. He has the patience of an eldest sibling. I do not.”
He’s always been somewhat brusque when dealing with me, but I think that wound is annoying him more than usual. I can see in his eyes the fact that he wishes he could get up and grab me, bend me to his will, do terrible things to me.
Leo is not a good person, and he is an even worse man. But in a world full of evils, he at least wants the best for me. At least, in so far as the best is being one of his possessions.
I feel bad for him. It’s not fun being shot.
I sit down on the bed by his feet.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I don’t know. You could keep threatening me if you wanted. You seemed to enjoy it.”
He narrows his eyes at me like he’s trying to work out if I am fucking with him or not. But I’m not.
“I’m just trying to keep you company,” I explain. “I can go, if you want.”
“No,” he says, his voice slightly husky. “Lock the door.”
I do as he says almost without thinking about it. Then I come back to the bed, but before I can sit down, he throws back the covers and crooks a finger at me. He’s wearing boxer shorts and nothing else. He has a bandage over his stomach, but other than that he looks muscular and powerful.
“Take your clothes off,” he orders. “You can leave your underwear on, if you like.”
He is watching me, and I feel myself blush as I receive that order. I feel suddenly shy. It is a lot to take your clothes off for a man and slide into bed beside him.
I lower my eyes and fumble with my shirt, like I’ve forgotten how to undress myself.
He waits patiently. I thought he might get annoyed with me, but he seems content to watch me as I squirm. Then I realize that he’s probably enjoying this part too.
Leo
I forgot how adorable she can be. One moment, a sassy temptress; the next, as shy as the virgin she certainly is not. I enjoy the tension in this room as she struggles with herself.
“Come here,” I eventually say. It is hard to help her undress with one hand, but I do it anyway because I am a gentleman.
I slide her shirt up over her head, she kicks her shorts off, and I pull her into bed.
She snuggles against me, all curvy and sweet, her face pressing into my neck.
I feel her inhale me deeply. I stay still, not wanting to interrupt her tenderness.
So much of our interactions have been governed by chaos and dominance.
“I’m sorry you got shot,” she repeats. “Please don’t do it again.”
“I will try not to. To be fair, that’s really more about what Luke is willing to do. He was doing his best to deal with the situation. Don’t worry. We’re going to be okay. We’re all going to be okay.”
I hold her close, and as I say those words, I feel like they are true. We are going to be okay. In spite of the fact that we are in a bunker, and being hunted by a man I would put money on being obsessed with Aiden, we are going to survive.
I had planned to fuck Ella, but as she snuggles into me, her breathing slows, and after a few minutes, she is fast asleep.
There is a peace in the room, and in my heart, that I have not felt before.
Lying in bed, holding the woman I would die for, feeling my gut and my heart heal in two different, but entirely real ways.
“I love you,” I murmur to her. I don’t know that she can hear me, and I don’t know that I will be able to say it to her while she is awake. I have never said those words to anybody before. I did not think I was capable of feeling love in this way.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I wake up, surprising myself with the realization that I was asleep. I must have dropped off with her beside me. Someone is tapping at the door.
“Can you get that, please?”
Ella pads out of bed in her panties and opens the door, still half asleep. Aiden is at the door. He looks faintly surprised as she opens it, then turns around and comes back to bed, crawling back under the covers with me.
“We were going to talk about what happens next,” he says. “I wanted to get your opinion on some things…”