Swing Shift: Book 2 Page 26

  “Of course, Congresswoman,” Gus said.

  “Please, don’t ever say that again,” said the woman with a laugh. “Just call me Mrs. Newbin. That works just fine.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Newbin,” Gus said. “That isn’t a problem.”

  Feeling awkward at the silence, and wanting to cover it up but also get moving, Gus smiled at the congresswoman.

  “I understand you’re here for some photos?” he asked. “I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have at the same time.”

  “Oh, that’d be wonderful,” said Mrs. Newbin. “I really don’t know much about how it all happened. Could you explain it to me?”

  “Ah, it’s honestly rather simple, ma’am,” Gus said. No one was moving to leave, and he realized that despite wanting to move things along, he wasn’t going to get his wish. Until they were ready to move or told to move, they would stay right here.

  “We were working a joint operation with the army, through Colonel Ries,” Gus said, starting into the story.

  ***

  Sighing, Gus closed the hotel room door behind him.

  No one was there.

  As far as he could tell, everyone was still out working. Apparently some of the “busywork” that’d been assigned had turned out to actually be useful.

  Which meant Trish, Vanessa, and Melody were all still working.

  Indali and Janelle were in a different room by themselves.

  Walking into the hotel room, he had a moment of self-reflection. In that microcosm of a second, he felt like he used to.

  Coming home to no one, nothing, and no purpose.

  And he knew that it was mostly due to the fact that he’d spent the day around people he didn’t want to.

  By himself.

  Even Mark hadn’t been able to make it in the end, trapped doing some paperwork somewhere. Even though he’d flown out to be there for the photoshoot.

  In the end, though, it’d been a rather good photo-op for the congresswoman and Fin.

  Gus had done his best to stay out of everyone’s way and not be there.

  The further he could remove himself, the better off he was.

  Okay. Let’s do something. Find someone to talk to.

  Taking a moment, he checked in on Indali through his connection to her mind.

  She was working through a textbook right now on PID procedures. Most of her free time was always spent studying.

  Let’s not bother her. We could always call mom instead. She’ll pick up.

  Sitting here by myself is probably the worst possible thing to do.

  As he pulled out his phone, Gus pulled his coat off as well.

  He walked over to the couch, sat down, and adjusted Indali’s holster. After unlocking his phone, he tapped in his mother’s number and hit dial.

  Holding the phone up to his ear, he heard it ring.

  There was a firm knock on his door.

  Gus ignored it, as anyone he gave a crap about had a keycard to get in. That meant whoever was at the door wasn’t someone he really wanted to talk to.

  “Hey, Gus,” his mom said after the line picked up.

  “Hey, how are ya Mom?” Gus asked, pushing his shoes off with one another.

  “Pretty good. Not a whole lot going on,” she said. It sounded like she was cutting something. “Just making dinner for your father. You know how he is around this time of day. ‘I’m not hungry, I’m not hungry,’ then ten minutes after six, ‘I’m sorry dear, I’m rather famished.’”

  Gus grinned. He could hear the love in his mom’s voice for his father.

  “You know, honestly… I don’t know what I’m going to do once he’s gone,” his mother said with a heavy sigh. “Not something I counted on. Then again… I never thought I’d fall in love.”

  There was a much firmer knock on his door this time.

  “Gus?” called Janelle through the door.

  “…always been there. You know?” his mom asked.

  “Uh… this’ll sound weird, but I need to go,” Gus said. “There’s someone at my door that I can’t really ignore.”

  “Oh, is this one of your new girlfriends?” his mom asked. “Melody and I were talking this morning and we started talking about her contracts. I think it was… Hailey, Chloe and… I forget the last two. One sounded rather foreign.”

  “Mom, I love you, but I need to go,” Gus said, his lips pressing together.

  “Oh, so it is. Alright,” his mom said with a laugh. “I’m so proud of you, by the way. Call me when you have time.”

  Hanging up the line, he stuffed the phone into his pant pocket and went to the door.

  Taking a quick glance through the peep hole, he found Janelle standing there.

  He opened the door and sighed.

  “What can I do for you?” Gus asked, leaning up against the door frame.

  “I thought we could talk,” Janelle said. “Or… should talk. At least I think so.”

  “Fine,” Gus said. A lot had happened between them, and he wasn’t surprised in the least that she wanted to talk. “Come on in. We’ll have a chat.”

  Out of nowhere, Gus decided to read her mind as well. It’d help him guide the conversation. Without even having to try very hard, he picked up the thread of power he’d left inside her.

  Instantly, he had a truckload of her thoughts rushing toward him.

  In his hasty decision, he hadn’t taken his father’s route; he’d simply done what he’d always done.

  Up front in Janelle’s mind were a few warring thoughts.

  One was to kill Gus. Simply spin, raise the pistol in her hand, and shoot him in the head before he could react. Even though he was probably already reading her mind, he wouldn’t be fast enough.

  Which was true.

  The second thought was to seduce him and have a wild Elven sexual ritual of binding. Give away her virginity to him and settle down with him permanently. If she hit him so hard and fast with Elven attention, he couldn’t say no and would agree to her demands. He wouldn’t care that she’d ever thought about killing him.

  The last but leading thought, over everything else, was to kill herself. That all she would have to do was lift the pistol in her hand, put it to her temple, and pull the trigger.

  Then everything would be over.

  Chapter 24 - The Ledge

  Turning slowly, Gus found pretty much exactly what he was afraid of.

  Janelle with her service pistol.

  It was resting against her temple, and her finger was against the trigger.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and then her finger started to curl.

  “For what?” Gus asked.

  Pausing, the Elf didn’t seem to know how to respond.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Sorry for what?” Gus asked. He put his hands behind his back and stood there unmoving otherwise.

  “I…” Janelle’s voice trailed off. Gus watched as her brain jumped tracks and rapidly spiraled through thoughts. Chiefly, the fact that he wasn’t reading her mind.

  If he was reading her mind, he’d know why she was apologizing.

  That she’d relayed everything about him back to her parents. That they’d in turn gone to their parents, who’d gone to their parents.

  At the end of a long line of Royal Elven telephone, word had gotten back to someone who was akin to the pope, queen, prime minster, or president of the Elves. And then word had came back down to Janelle.

  Kill the Hunter.

  Except she couldn’t. They’d shared too much, and she knew him now.

  He was of course the Hunter. A living embodiment of everything an Elf should fear.

  But he was also just Gus. The PID officer turned Fed agent who had broken into prison just to get her out. For no other reason than to help her.

  “I’m supposed to kill you,” Janelle said.

  “Pretty sure you haven’t done that,” Gus said, walking into the hotel room. He stayed clear of Janelle; he didn’t want her to p
anic and do something stupid.

  He moved to the desk and sat down in the chair, letting out a groan.

  Para he might be, but his feet still hurt at the end of the day from standing around forever.

  “Want me to order room service? I could really go in for something carbonated right now,” Gus said, looking at Janelle.

  Slowly, the gun came down from her temple. The barrel pointed to the ground.

  “I… no, I ate a little earlier,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Ptff. You suck at this.” Gus grinned up at her. “Why would you eat dinner if you just planned to turn your head into a cannoli?”

  Janelle opened her mouth, and her tongue came up to touch her front teeth. Then she shook her head, a strained laugh escaping her.

  It sounded like something that had come up from somewhere deep and strange. Buried deep down inside her.

  “What?” she asked finally, the laugh falling away.

  “A drink maybe? Dessert? Somethin’?” Gus asked.

  “I… sure. Whatever lemon-lime type of thing they have,” Janelle said, her pistol still in her hand.

  “Great. You’ll, uh… need to put that away though.” Gus pointed a finger at her weapon. “You’ll scare the bellhop, busboy, whatever they call them.”

  Janelle nodded her head, looking down at the ground. She walked several steps forward and pulled out the drawer of the desk Gus was sitting at. After setting the pistol inside, she closed the drawer and moved back over to the bed, where she sat down.

  “Great,” Gus said. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He sent a quick text to Melody to not come back to the room or let anyone else come back.

  That he’d explain later.

  Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, he picked up the room phone.

  “Tell them to come get me?” Janelle asked.

  “Opposite, actually,” Gus said, tapping in the number for room service. “Told them I had an Elf in my room I was trying to seduce and I needed them to keep out.”

  Janelle laughed at that, a real laugh, and sighed.

  “No, really, I did,” Gus said, looking over at Janelle. “I told them not to come in.”

  Her mind locked up suddenly, realizing he wasn’t kidding.

  “Front desk,” said someone on the other end of the phone.

  “Yeah, could you send up two sodas? Whatever lemon-lime thing you got,” Gus said.

  “Certainly. Will that be all?” asked the woman on the phone.

  “Yep, thanks,” Gus said and then hung up. “There we go. No idea how long that’ll be, but… off and running. So, in the meantime. Wanna talk about it?”

  “I mean… you’re really not…?” Janelle reached up with her left hand and pointed to her head.

  “I can if you want. Makes things quicker,” Gus said. “But there’s something to be said about talking it out.”

  Janelle nodded, and her hand fell back to her side.

  “I was told to kill the Hunter,” Janelle said. “That sums up the problem.”

  “Pretty sure you’re not the Hunter. So… no idea why you’d put the gun to your own head,” Gus said.

  Snorting at that, Janelle shrugged.

  “Seemed easier than shooting you,” Janelle muttered. “Sure, you’re the Hunter. But you’re so much more than that. To me, at least.”

  Gus nodded. He’d heard the same from her thoughts. And from her current thoughts.

  Without wanting it, he was treated to her own point of view of their escape. Which included a lot of her clinging to him, infatuated with the idea of being naked and pressed up against him.

  It was mildly disturbing to have to experience such a thought directed at him through someone else.

  “To sum it up then, you—”

  There was a soft knock at the door.

  Before Gus could react, Janelle bounced off the bed and went straight for the door.

  Opening it without saying a word, she stood in the doorway.

  From her thoughts, he got the impression she was half expecting to find Fed agents waiting for her.

  “Two cans of soda,” said a young man.

  “Oh, thanks,” Janelle said.

  The door closed several seconds after that, and Janelle came back with a can of soda in each hand.

  “I… you really didn’t tell anyone to come get me?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Gus said. Then he reached out and took the drink from her left hand when she came near. “So, to sum it up, you were told to kill me, and you found it easier to kill yourself rather than disobey. Leaving me with the delightful problem of cleaning up a lovely Elven corpse.”

  “I guess,” Janelle said. “Figured you could add my ears to your collection.”

  “Oh. They’re lovely ears. But they’d probably go bad before I’d get the chance to preserve them properly,” Gus said. “That and getting them through airport security would be tough. Was easier when it was military. Clearance was already granted.”

  “Wait… You really do…?” Janelle asked, sitting down on the bed.

  “Course I do,” Gus said with a laugh as he opened his soda. “Just as many Elven commandos keep eyes. Are you telling me you don’t have any trophies?”

  Janelle popped the tab on her drink and studiously didn’t reply.

  “Uh huh,” Gus said. “Thought so. So… what’ll happen to you for not following orders?”

  “Probably… probably be disinherited. Lose my rights and titles,” Janelle said.

  “In other words, you really are a noble?” Gus asked.

  “Mmhmm. I’m really far removed from the throne, but I’m actually in the line of succession,” she said. “A very far-flung princess, of sorts.”

  “Does any of that matter to you?” Gus asked. “Would it mean anything to you to lose it?”

  Gus took a sip from his drink while he waited for a response.

  “No,” Janelle admitted. “No, I wouldn’t care about any of that.”

  “Would they try to kill you?” Gus asked.

  “Maybe. Not on US soil though,” she said. “Too much to risk with me being on loan to the Fed.”

  “Anything else they could do? Go after a house? Family members? Money?” Gus asked.

  “No… my parents only had me. And they’ve mostly already disowned me because I refused to let them make an arranged marriage for me.

  “I’ve more or less earned my way through my life,” Janelle said. “My enlistment, my commission from that, my money, my life. It’s all mine. The only thing I’ve gotten that I probably didn’t completely deserve was my promotion to colonel.”

  “Great. You’re coming back to Saint Anthony with us anyways,” Gus said. “You’ll just buy a house there and serve out your position. If they try to move you, I’ll get Fin to hire you into the Fed, and that’ll be that. I get the impression she’d do me some favors if only to keep me happy and in line.”

  Janelle looked down at the carpet, her head moving minutely back and forth in a “no” gesture.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re the Hunter. You reduced two different warrior clans to less than thirty remaining of their people. You annihilated them. They had to turn over their lands to allied clans, retreat into the hearts of their land, and try to rebuild.

  “You did that. By yourself. And here you are trying to keep me alive and moving. A Royal Elf.”

  “Maybe I feel guilty for what I did on some level,” Gus said, repeating what almost every therapist had told him. “Maybe I don’t, and I just like you specifically as a person. Maybe I’m just trying to get into your pants.”

  Janelle’s face turned a faint shade of red at that.

  Gus would say whatever he had to say to keep Janelle from going out the same way Olsen had. He hadn’t been able to save Olsen, but maybe he could keep Janelle from the same fate.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. Then continued to do so as a multitude of messages seemed to flood him.
>
  “Probably Melody.” Gus looked at Janelle in absolute defeat. “She… she’s very special.”

  Gus grinned. He couldn’t help but feel a strange warmth for the woman every time he thought about her.

  “You love her,” Janelle said, taking a drink from her soda.

  “That I do. Her and Trish and Ness. One big, messy… thing,” Gus said.

  Finally, his phone stopped vibrating. Which meant he was free to pull it out and start reading.

  The first message consisted of the pointing hand straight at the okay emoji.

  And nothing but that. Over and over and over and over.

  Yeah, got it. Bang the Elf.

  Thanks, Mel. Real communicator.

  Moving to the second message, he read it.

  Great!

  Bed her! Bed her hard! Make her scream in Elvish that you’re her daddy! Break her while breaking the bed!

  Then I can contract her tomorrow. Kinda changes up my plan a bit.

  I think she’ll be a lovely Violet. Indali is going to be Orange, after all. I’ve already talked her halfway there. She’s been especially receptive since you started taking her to the shooting range.

  Oh, this is coming together so well. You’re an amazing harem finder, my Indigo. I’m going to rock your world later and lick all the Elf off you.

  I bet Janelle’s beautiful naked, by the way. I imagine she’d look great being ridden like a bicycle with you be—

  Gus closed his eyes and swiped to the next message. He knew what the rest of that message would involve.

  Opening his eyes, he checked the next one.

  Then you could get behind her and I’d sit on her fa—

  “And that’s enough of that,” Gus said, closing his phone and putting it in his pocket.

  Her damn Red contract must need to be fulfilled again. Which means a rather nasty, messy, loud orgy for the four of us.

  “She not very happy?” Janelle asked. “About me and all this?”

  “On the contrary, she told me to make you scream and call me Daddy in Elvish, then make you contract as her Violet. Congratulations, a Rainbow Contractor is likely to start hunting you,” Gus said. “She’ll promise it’s non-sexual and non-romantic at first, but let’s be honest, being bound for all time tends to lend itself to a certain disposition.”