A dance with devils lies.., p.6
A Dance With Devils: Lies And Truths Trilogy Book 1, page 6
I keep scrambling backwards, hoping sight comes back soon, but the sudden vision of suited legs walking slowly in my eye-line confuses everything. Long steps. Hard soled steps. Who the hell is that? Another pilot? I’m not doing it. No planes. No confined spaces.
My legs keep kicking, like they’re desperate to get traction and propel me away from all this. Nothing works, though. No grip, just them sliding about and this man getting closer and closer. It’s so unhurried, like slow motion propelling something at me quietly, almost solemnly. A funeral, that’s what it reminds me of in my haze. Mine possibly. Tears and sobs, all of them blurred behind watery eyes as I get lowered into the ground.
The eventual clear sight of him standing over me fills me with equal measures of surprise, dread, and unwelcome interest. It’s him – Malachi. So tall. Huge in my line of sight. Like the jet in the hanger. It’s all wrong, though. A suit. Immaculate suit. Black. Black shirt under it. Shiny leather shoes. Where are the clothes, the hood, the boots? And then those deep black eyes under long lashes blink at me finishing off the look, as if he was born to tempt every woman on the planet.
Hot as fuck.
No.
Freaky.
And possibly working for them.
My legs clamp closed, hands grasping my robe to try covering whatever is fucking left of myself given the scrambling around I’ve been doing on this floor. It’s too late in reality. He’s probably just seen everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m revealing it willingly in any way.
He cocks a brow, one hand in his pocket and the other swinging that chain and ball around that he had. No words, though. Just silence and his presence three feet out from me. And then the sound of boots run in from behind me somewhere, all of them coming to an abrupt halt when they see what’s in front of them. I struggle again, pushing myself onto my front to get up, and swing my eyes between him and the three behind me. Any chance I just had is blown. No way through any of them, and something makes me think I’d have more chance with tackling the three than Malachi alone.
“Running wasn’t part of our bargain, Ally cat,” he suddenly says, a gravel to his tone, as he continues swinging his ball. “Not yet, at least.”
What does that mean?
He wanders closer, close enough that the heat of him near pins me to the wall I’m trying to climb inside, and snatches his ball out of the air it’s swinging through. “I like chasing, though.”
One final glance over me, his eyes raking over everything on display rather than concentrating on my face this time, and he walks off in the direction I came from. It’s a slow gait away from me. Nothing hurried, or even particularly purposeful in it. Calm. Relaxed. Which is completely fucking opposed to the rate my heart’s traveling at. Either way, I’m still not getting in a plane anytime soon, and my legs propelling me off this wall and away down the hall again should let everyone know that.
Five strides and I’m around another corner, hands ready to push the double doors coming at me wide so I can escape. They don’t budge, and the rest of me collides with them so hard that a shriek comes out of my mouth at the pain.
Hands pick me up instantly, several of them hauling my arms and legs across the floor back towards the plane I am not getting in. I buck and ruck up in their grip, using every part of my strength to get out of their damn hold. Nothing works. I’m like a rag doll between them, easily twisted and turned to get me further back down the hallway.
The familiar sight of the plane looms large, as I’m carried and clamped harder through the doorway. It makes me squirm, legs finally kicking enough that one of them drops me and I can gain traction. My elbows rip backwards, pummelling the one guy left holding me in one last rally of energy, and I spin to launch back away.
A hand unexpectedly catches my neck. It’s so harsh, I nearly choke on the feel of it. I’m twisted, the pressure of a thumb forcing me at the plane again, and it isn’t until it loosens slightly that I realise it’s him holding me – Malachi.
“The games haven’t begun yet, Ally cat,” he murmurs, as I’m pushed closer to the plane. “I’d save some energy if I was you. Relax while you can.”
Scent assaults me because of his proximity, as we get closer to the steps. A heady scent. Masculine. It doesn’t stop the fact that my feet are still trying to back-peddle under me, shoulders trying to avoid the pressure on my neck. It’s too sharp on me, though. Too direct and severe for me to escape. I can feel his nails close to my jugular, the cold glint of a ring touching my skin, his thumb heavy under my hair, as he moves me any way he chooses.
“Listen,” he says, pushing something to my ear. “Relax.”
“Ally?” The sound of Whit’s voice coming over the line makes me still a little.
“Whit? What the fuck is going on?”
“Calm down. Go with him. You could use the break.” A break?
A goddamned break?
I snatch at the phone by my ear, trying to wrench my neck from Malachi’s hold in the process. It doesn’t work, and the plane just keeps getting closer and closer. “Is this something to do with you, Whit? With the past? I don’t understand. Do I have to go?”
“No, but you’ll be safe if you do. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Just go, Ally. I’ve got the boys covered.”
The phone goes dead.
“We’ll have a drink first. Gin, wasn’t it?” Malachi says, as my bare feet hit the metal steps. “Keep moving. Don’t make me hurt you yet.” Yet?
What the hell does that mean?
I try turning, try getting in his face, but I’m pushed so hard I end up tripping over my own legs until the grip on my neck hauls me upright again.
“Don’t,” scrambles out of my mouth. “I can’t … you don’t understand …”
Nothing changes. Firm grip. Sharp hold, ready to take me anywhere he damn well pleases. Everything inside me rages and bellows out of my mouth, fear of this damn plane inducing all kinds of words to come out. I can barely breathe as we get to the door, and it’s nothing to do with his hand on me. It’s the box. The tin box with wings that might fall off and drop us all to the ground. I can’t … can’t breathe. Can’t talk anymore or breathe or fucking think about anything but tin and the sky and things that don’t make any sense to me.
It’s not right. Nothing is right here.
And now I’m fucking dizzy and we’re all going to die and there was no point hiding at all.
Chapter 8
Malachi
H ours must have passed by now and she’s still asleep.
Panic induced presumably.
She dropped to the floor in my severe hold, collapsed as if the world around her no longer mattered. It was an interesting development for someone who seemed so sure of herself before – a weakness I can use more readily when we get there. But the look of her down there on the floor, of her body twisted and dirty, surprised me past normal standards. I watched, looked her over, and then found myself feeling something inside me that I haven’t felt for a long time.
Attention.
It was enough for me to carry her rather than leave her there on the floor or wake her, and then it was enough for me to lay her on the bed and drape her in silk rather than take the opportunity to devour skin that is not mine yet. She’s pretty, though. Not your average attractive. A mesmeric type of pretty somehow, as if the world around her has roughed her up through the years. Muscular limbs from working and walking her bar. Short nails, French manicured but kept neat. And now, because of this sleep she’s in, and because of the peace she’s been given for a while to recuperate, all the hard lines have gone from her face.
It’s leaving her with what I can only assume was virginal innocence once long ago rather than the crease in her brow that would constantly perplex some onlookers. She’s all soft and pliable, her body wrapped up in fine, silk sheets to keep her covered until she’s awake and I can play again. It’s a shame considering the tattoos I want to know more about, but, regardless of this capture, I seem to be attempting heroic again until we get there.
Everything’s so still up here in the air. Silent, but for the drone of the engines mumbling along in the background. A sigh leaves me at the thought. We’ll have to go through the masses, endure the chaotic visions of hedonism in full swing when we get there. I’m not enjoying the thought. I assumed I would. That’s why I’m here after all, why I’ve brought her with me, so I can indulge myself with something and switch off thinking time. And yet this silence, and her sleeping presence, and the constancy of my low mood, seems to be making me melancholy again.
A double shot of vodka slides down my throat straight from the bottle, hand idling around the glass ready to drink some more, and I leave the dark confines of the bedroom to walk back for the main cabin. The jacket slides from my shoulders, and I sit and gaze out of the window into the rising sun to question my life like I always do up here. I still can’t find any point in it other than the place we’re heading to – home. Faith would say New York was our home, regardless of the boredom we both fall into there. It isn’t. I become a Jones there rather than Malachi. Business meetings. Papers to sign. Wealth to distribute, or manipulate. Parties to frequent where others bow and scrape to the power my level provides.
None of it’s real.
My castle is my home.
Wind and cold. Pills and drink. Old windows and heavy doors that rattle in the night. Metal plates strapping things down and more things I can fix – people I can fix. No one ever asked me what I wanted when I was growing up. Neither Father nor Mother. It was just assumed that because I was a Jones, because the family retained such a name for so long, that my life was already mapped out in front of me. The money most certainly was. The money is still never ending. But the reason? The point of life? No one told me, nor did they offer me a way out of the continuous whine of every day.
And then he fucked her to show his power over his son.
I sneer and take another drink, remembering how I felt when he told me. He destroyed what she was to me that day. He took the one thing that I owned outright, that I found on my own, and sullied it. And so all Faith and I are to each other now, all we will ever be to each other is two wedding bands, continuous playoffs, and something close to friendship on occasion. Most of the time I hate her because she was either stupid enough or clever enough to let him on her. And the rest of the time I either admire her adversity or despise her weakness.
Either way, my Faith left me a long time ago.
And so here I am.
The ruling class. A Prince of power.
Alone.
I should go and see Gray more than I have in this last year in New York. Talk. Tell him the truth and get this out of me so I can attempt the sort of normality only those with our wealth understand. It isn’t normal. We’re not. We’re above others, living in a different plane of life, but there has to be a point to it, a reason for even being here in the first place. Maybe my castle has been it for too long now. Or maybe the games are becoming tedious.
Another swill of vodka drains through me and I close my eyes to wait for something interesting to cross my thoughts, something to counter the annoyance of past mistakes and this stasis I linger in. Nothing does, only the thought of my little Alice tucked up tight in my bed as if that’s the only way she could manage this flight.
Run, Alice, run.
My smile broadens a little. I hope she does. I hope she flies like the wind through my corridors and halls, giving me something to chase down. She’ll live it, smell it, breathe it all down and try fighting again if that’s what she chooses. Perhaps with a knife in her hand. I like them fighting as much as I like them running. It’s a shame it stops once I get inside them. It always stops then. They fall in love, or lust. They beg and whine, plead. And then they stop wanting to run away anymore and ask if they can stay. They can’t. No one stays forever. Only her. The one I don’t want anymore.
Maybe I should kill her. End the games.
My father was easy enough to get rid of.
The sound of the cabin door finally moving makes me open my eyes slowly. She’s standing there with the silk sheet still wrapped around her mud stained body, her eyes wide as she looks around the interior of the jet. Messy long hair draping her face. The look of panic rising over her features again.
“Where are we?” she asks meekly, clinging to a wall.
Assuming that’s reasonably rhetorical given the air outside the window, I don’t answer.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
She moves, fingers still gripping onto each surface she passes until she reaches the bar area and grabs at the first bottle she comes across. “Good,” she mumbles, unscrewing the bottle and drinking long gulps. “You shouldn’t have taken me. But good if I’m going home. Whit said …” Another gulp, this time with both hands holding the bottle. “Have a break, but home is good. Thank you.” Another drink. And another until the small bottle is three parts drunk.
“My home, Ally cat.”
The bottle gets thrown across the cabin in my direction and her feet are off and flying towards the bedroom again, the door slammed just as quick. I snort and watch the liquor glug across the carpet, part wondering how long it will take her to realise there’s no lock on the door if that was her plan. Not long at all it seems because she’s walking back out less than ten minutes later.
“This is fucking kidnapping!” she shouts, storming passed me towards the pilot. I watch her go, intrigued with her attitude change. “It’s not right. And up here certainly isn’t. Do you see wings on my fucking body?”
Unsure who she’s asking that to, I stare out the window again and listen to the noise that begins erupting in the front until she returns and grabs another bottle. Silence again as I look at her. She’s shaking, shivering. Barely noticeable but for the wisps of dark hair that keep shuddering against the low lights bouncing around in here.
“Here isn’t frightening, Ally cat. Where you’re going is. Calm down.” Her mouth opens, hands gripping the bottle as if she might just throw it again. “I wouldn’t try it. I’m in no mood for games yet. Sit. Relax. Talk your way through it if you like.”
“To you? I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I’m the only one here to talk to.”
Silence again as she thinks about that. Perhaps she sees me as the villain now I’ve taken her. She’s right to. I am in some ways. But that’s how reality is for me. It’s full of immoral men doing ruthless things to people. Husbands beat their wives without permission. Rape and pillage continues through the ages regardless of the now civilised world we’re flying across. The masses below profess their disgust at the thought, trying to contain their feelings for immorality by ignoring primal urges. I don’t need to do that. Never have. I have lawyers, and those lawyers have more lawyers.
And I am Malachi Jones.
“You’re married.” she suddenly says.
My brow arches, eyes dropping to the wedding band I’ve yet to take off. Force of habit when I get into a suit. Not something I usually wear when I’m going where we’re going. The suit or the ring. But having fucked and played with some filth in a back alley, I felt the need to clean up, show the appearance of presentable for my heroic endeavours.
“Scarcely.”
The answer, or my depressed tone around the words, seem to make her move towards me slowly, her hands still clinging to any solid surface she passes. She sits opposite me and wraps the sheet tighter, careful to tuck it all around her legs and feet.
“Do you think that’s going to keep me away from you?” I mutter, snorting at the thought.
She straps her belt into place, tugging it violently. “Marriage should.”
“I meant the sheet. My marriage makes little difference to anything.”
She frowns and stretches to peer through the window, tipping the bottle she’s brought with her to her lips. “I don’t like being exposed. Put that together with flying and I’m a fucking wreck. This is not my happy place.”
She drinks again, shrugging herself into the seat and turning away from the window. I give her the time to process, think and relax. It’s not like we’re there yet. Another hour or so at least, if time is ever a consideration to me at all. It isn’t really. Schedules don’t mean anything. Clocks barely tick to lead the way. Time is just of my own making, nothing but a continuous stretch forward into monotony unless I change its route onwards.
A sigh eventually falls from her, her shoulders rolling in the same moment. “What is all this Malachi? Who are you, what do you want?”
“Only our bargain fulfilled. Your part is yet to be honoured.”
“You fixed my electrics in about seven minutes. That should equal seven minutes of skin.”
“And yet you agreed to a week.”
“I don’t think I agreed to anything. I said I’d think about what your statement meant.”
It doesn’t matter if she agreed or not. The woman in the alley didn’t agree to the kind of treatment I gave her either, but she didn’t complain after it. She mewled and kissed me, tried to pretend she was living another life where her lover made her squirm and orgasm – several times – under duress. And then she asked me if I had an apartment close by, somewhere we could continue. I did. I had an entire building nearby. And the townhouse.
We didn’t go to either.
I would have done if she'd been this one in front of me now.
“Seven minutes isn’t enough time for anything significant,” I muse.
“It should be. If you’re good enough.”
