Up in Smoke (King #8)

Who the hell was this man, and what did he do with the guy who threatened to cut off all my limbs while I watched?

Zelda’s gaze drops to the gun. She holds out her hand. “You know the rules,” she says sternly, and for the first time, I hear the slight trace of a Scottish accent in her voice.

Smoke leaves her hand empty but tucks the gun in his waistband. “Gotta break house rules this one time.” He glares down at me. “Can’t exactly trust this one.”

“She don’t seem so bad to me. We were just having some tea. She giving you trouble?”

“Something like that,” Smoke replies.

Zelda leans on the table and winks at me. “Give him hell, lass.” She pinches my cheek and smiles then turns back to Smoke, pointing at his gun. “A Glock17, Smoke? Thought you were a Beretta man?”

“People change,” he answers, still looking at me.

“You don’t change,” she laughs, swatting at him with a dishtowel.

“What alternate universe did I just fall into?” I ask, looking from Smoke to Zelda in a daze.

They both ignore me.

“Let me get another cup for tea out of the china cabinet in the den. I’ll just be a minute,” Zelda says.

“Make my tea a whiskey,” Smoke says, taking a seat beside me. He lights a cigarette and turns to face me, his long legs spread, his knee knocking into my thigh.

“Did I say china cabinet? I meant liquor cabinet.” Zelda shuffles from the kitchen.

We’re alone. Suddenly, I’m not feeling so brave about my big, albeit temporary, escape.

Plus, Smoke’s…calm.

Too calm.

“What did you DO, hellion?” Smoke taps the closed laptop with his index finger.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I really didn’t do anything. Didn’t get a chance to. Open it. Check for yourself.”

He’s not buying it. He opens the laptop and types in Zelda’s password. Christmas 1993.

“How do you know her password?” I ask.

“Who do you think bought me the computer?” Zelda sings, coming back into the room with a bottle of Jack Daniels on a silver tray with a doily underneath.

She sets in on the table and opens the bottle. “I’d get you a glass, but I know how you are,” she says.

Smoke grabs the bottle by the neck and tilts it to his lips, looking at me as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down with each swallow.

He somehow manages to make drinking whiskey straight from the bottle look graceful. Grace and violence. What an oddly beautiful yet horrendous combination.

Smoke sets the whiskey on the tray and turns his attentions back to the computer.

Something about the way his nostrils flare, how he gets so heated at the littlest thing, makes my blood boil while simultaneously making me afraid. There’s more to this man than kidnapper/killer extraordinaire. If I didn’t hate him so much, I might be curious to find out more about him.

“This is bullshit,” Smoke mutters, slamming the laptop shut. “You’re lying.”

“Language,” Zelda corrects, setting the cheese plate on the table along with a box of cookies. The fancy ones with cupcake papers delicately cradling each different kind.

“What did she do?” Smoke asks Zelda.

Zelda shrugs and pops a cheese cube in her mouth, talking around it. “Nothing much. She told me she was lost and staying with her boyfriend. She needed to use the computer. She didn’t do nothing. I was watching the entire time. She looked at the screen, then told me she changed her mind and shut the thing down. We’re just having ourselves a little visit,” Zelda says. “But if you want me to check the back way I can. Just to make sure she didn’t bypass…standard methods.” She looks to me and smiles, showing off the many fine lines around her mouth.

I was right. Zelda isn’t some old woman who doesn’t know shit about shit.

This is a woman who knows everything.

She knows what I did, and she just lied to Smoke for me.

But why?

“Why didn’t you ask to use the phone?” he asks skeptically.

“Stop houndin’ her, you brute. She didn’t want to get who she saw as an innocent mixed up in your affairs. She’s a smart one. A kind one to boot. A good combination, if you ask me.”

Zelda pushes a lock of curly red hair back up into the handkerchief tied around her head and takes the bottle of whiskey off the table. She chugs down twice as much as Smoke did before setting it back down on the table and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

I smile at her because I can’t help it.

She’s fucking glorious.

Smoke lifts me out of the chair by my arm and tugs me toward the door. “Unfortunately, we can’t stay,” he grates.

“Understood,” Zelda says, without breaking her big smile. She stands and follows us out.

“Just remember, boy,” she wraps her wrinkled hand around Smoke’s bicep. “The best jobs are the ones you don’t ask for. The ones you don’t get paid for. The ones you learn something from.”

Zelda leans in and whispers in my ear. “Stay strong, lass. When he gives you hell, show ‘em your horns.”

“Thank you,” I say to her, returning her smile and putting on my bravest face. I just met her but I don’t want her to worry about me, and something in her eyes tells me she would do just that.

Zelda speaks in riddles. She also likes to feed people. She knows her guns. She lied for me. She’s a friend of Smoke’s.

Despite the last item, I decide I like Zelda.

I like her VERY much.

Smoke drags me over the weeds and brush by my arm. I feel the anger wafting off him. Despite this, I wave and call back to Zelda, “Thank you for the tea!”

When Zelda is back inside the house and out of earshot, Smoke grunts, “That was a stupid fucking move.”

“I know.” This time, I agree with him. It WAS stupid. But I don’t regret it. Not for a second.

“I don’t know what you’re fucking playing at, but you need to stop before you get yourself or someone else killed,” he growls.

“Before I get myself killed?” I raise my voice. “I’m dead in less than a week. You know it. I know it. My father isn’t coming for me. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m dead anyway!”

I turn and run through the field back toward the warden’s house, but I’m no match for Smoke’s long legs.

He connects with my back, tackling me. The air goes whooshing out from my lungs as I fall face first into a mud puddle. Mud fills my nose. My mouth. My eyes. My throat.

I’m pulled up by my hair. I spit and cough brown sludge until it’s no longer standing in the way of breathing. I wipe my eyes with my forearm since my hands are covered in mud.

Smoke stands and yanks me up with him. He bends at the waist, his arm at the back of my knees like he’s going to lift me into his arms.

I punch at his chest. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Desperation and terror along with frustration fill my raspy scream.