Chapter Eight
“What’s happening?”
“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Melanie lets her voice be heard. “You lot took my mate hostage, and I’m here to say, What’s crackalacking!”
She drops the water gun and rips off the goggles, corrects her glasses that were under the goggles, and rushes toward me, colliding into me, her arms coming around and squeezing the daylights out of me.
I’m cackling. “Took you long enough.”
Pulling back, she examines me from forehead to sole. “I see you’re still sane. Hmm. How have you managed that around this lot? I mean, look at them”—she jerks her head around the room—“all gathered around with their chins to their chests like a bunch of imbecilic monkeys.”
“Oh, great, there’s two of them,” grumbles Jo. “Kill me now.”
“Hang on,” Kavon speaks up. “Let me get this straight. You blew our door off its hinges, set off firecrackers, and came storming in here like Go-Go Gadget just to say hello to your friend?”
Melanie nods once. “Right. You don’t have a friend who would blow someone’s door off just to give you a hug? If not, then you most definitely need new friends.”
Kavon’s mouth opens and closes, incredulous.
Jo scrubs both hands down her face.
Eduardo’s checking out the abandoned water gun.
Collin’s grinning from ear to ear as if this is the most exciting thing he’s seen all week.
And Jaxon is…staring. At me. There’s no anger, or irritation, or threat. He just…looks. At me. And that look doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his front door being blown off. But…something else.
“Careful with that, Fool Number One,” Melanie cautions Eduardo. “That’s hydrofluoric acid. Not urine. In case you were thirsty and hoping you could drink it.”
Eduardo throws her a dirty look.
Jo—clad in black boxers and a thermal shirt, overnight makeup splotching her face, leather cuffs around both her wrists—steps into Jaxon’s line of sight, effectively freeing me from the captivity of his stare, her arms thrown up in frustration. “You still think it’s a good idea keeping her here? Look at this shit! Another one who’s batshit crazier than she is!”
“Oh. Wow.” This from Melanie as she focuses on Jo, wonder in her voice, as if she’s just noticing her. “A real-life Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
Jo cocks her head like a bird, casting Melanie the filthiest of scowls.
Melanie, however, is fascinated. Unfazed by Jo’s glare, she abandons me and approaches Jo. With two fingers, she reaches out and touches the swirls of ink that creep from beneath the collar of Jo’s thermal right up her neck. “Ace. What inspired these?”
Jo stiffens, brows drawn together, her dark eyes glinting with questions while fixed on Melanie. Abruptly, she slaps Melanie’s hand away. “Keep your hands off me, weirdo.”
“Mel,” Melanie corrects, looking right back at Jo, undaunted.
“What?”
“My name’s Mel. Not weirdo.”
“I don’t care what your stupid name is,” Jo snaps.
With a challenging smirk, Melanie lifts a hand and ruffles Jo’s wild pixie hair, telling her, “Oh, you will.” And then she turns, claps her hands together, and grins at everyone. “So, where’s my room?”
The others exchange puzzled glances, but Jaxon steps forward and speaks for the first time, “Room?”
To be honest, I’m puzzled, too. Melanie should be here to collect me. It’s only now that her earlier words register. She’s here to say hi?
If she’s not here to get me and leave, that means something’s up.
Melanie doesn’t like people enough to want to be in a house with a bunch of strangers. Especially strangers who’re supposedly criminals. Nope. She’s here for a more important reason than my safety. And I’ll just have to play along until there’s an opportunity for her to divulge what that reason is.
She takes a theatrically impatient sigh—God I love her—takes off her glasses, wipes each lens with the hem of her T-shirt, and puts them back on before meeting Jaxon’s gaze. “Listen, Mr. I’m-Too-Pretty-to-Be-a-Man. Timber and I are joined at the hip. But you stole her, yeah? I’m here to rejoin my hip to hers. Meaning, you will be holding us both as hostages until you get whatever it is you think she can give you. Or, you let her go so we can carry on with our lives as if none of this ever happened. Otherwise, next time it will be more than your door that gets blown off. So, what’s it going to be?”
“I’m sorry, but are you for real?” Jo half-shouts. “Where the hell did you come from?”
Melanie turns to her with a megawatt smile. “Well, my great-great-grandmother was rescued from the slums of India and brought to London by a very wealthy English doctor. They had three sons, one daughter. That daughter happened to fall in love with a pharmaceutical billionaire who was also an Indian. They married, had four daughters—one of whom fell in love with a successful black physician, and later conceived two sons, one daughter. That daughter fell in love with a pompous pharmaceutical tycoon. They married, later conceived one ridiculously brilliant, effortlessly genius of a daughter who was able to track down five infamous thieves and blow their door off to say hello to her best friend. That daughter being me.” She pauses and dips her chin. “Does that answer your question?”
While everyone else blinks in stunned speechlessness, I smile broadly.
This is Melanie. Intrepid, defiant, insultingly sarcastic, and filled with hubris. I love the cow out of her. I can always count on her to save me, to be my strength when I’m weak, my voice when I lose mine, and to love me back in her own crazy-weird way.
Her attention returns to Jaxon. “What’s it going to be, Pretty Face?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and dips his head. Before he can respond, a sound like an alarm goes off.
I glance about, trying to place where the sound is coming from. By the time my eyes return to Jaxon, he’s holding a small gadget in one hand, the source of the sound.
Swearing under his breath, he clicks something on the device that kills the noise, then shoves it in his back pocket. He looks to Eduardo. “Sort that door out.” Then to Jo. “Security revamp.” To Kavon. “Keep an eye on these two. I’ll deal with them when I get back.” To Collin, “You’re with me.”
Although still wearing just his pajamas, Collin follows him out.
Jo glowers at everyone, then huffs and stomps off.
Eduardo stares at the blown off door, scratches his chin in thought, and wanders off, mumbling something about a tool kit.
And so we’re left with Kavon, who’s currently looking down at the both of us as if we are three-eyed alien babies.
“Whoa.”
All three of our heads swing to the doorway, now shadowed by a slack-jawed courier standing frozen with a trolley stacked with four large boxes, staring at the commotion of smoke and explosives in the foyer.
Yay. My new clothes are here.