Page 21 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“Can we please get on with this fucking investigation?” I asked, and damn, that “please” really hurt.
Emmy shrugged. “Sure, let’s go chat with the rest of the witnesses. Before we go, what are the odds of Dusk and Marc getting back together? Is anyone running a pool?”
This time, I did raise a hand to slap her, but it connected with empty air. People in DC called Emmy the ice queen, but she flitted out of the way like a dancing flame while I burned up inside.
CHAPTER 7
Marc
“Could you pass me a piece of mango?” Serena asked. “I’m too tired to move.”
Marc picked up a slice with his fingers—they had no cutlery—and held it to her lips, wiping away a dribble of juice with a thumb and licking it. Serena was one of only a handful of women he’d grown to care for since he left Abundance. Sometimes, he wished she weren’t engaged to Owen, but other times, he was glad they were just friends because he’d never love any woman the way he loved Phae. The two women were very different. With Serena, what you saw was what you got, while Phae was a Pandora’s box of surprises.
What felt like a lifetime ago but in reality was probably less than an hour, their captors had moved them to a different room and finally switched out the rope binding their hands and ankles. Now they were handcuffed. The metal bracelet circled Marc’s left wrist and attached to a length of chain, and the chain in turn was fastened securely to a wooden post in the wall. Serena’s position was a mirror image. Had Havana chosen sides deliberately, knowing Marc was left-handed and Serena favoured her right? Marc wasn’t sure the collective had planned that thoroughly. When he’d complained about the single mattress in the middle of the room, Havana had actually apologised and said they’d have brought two if they’d realised Marc and Serena’s on-screen hookups didn’t extend to real life. Why did so many people believe everything they saw on TV?
Marc tried giving the chain a tug, and although the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling swayed, the post held firm.
“I wouldn’t,” Serena warned. “I think that post’s holding the roof up.”
“Wouldn’t that be ironic? If they’re not planning to murder us, but we die of head injuries?”
“Can we not talk about death?”
“You want another piece of mango?”
“Not really.”
But Marc offered a sliver anyway, and she ate it. Was it breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? He’d lost all sense of time. Every minute felt like a year. They’d spent most of a day travelling, he thought, and then recorded take after take of their hostage video. Havana seemed to fancy himself as a director as he fussed over the lighting and instructed Serena to “look upset, more upset, no, not like that, we don’t want people thinking we’re monsters.”
Earlier, the blonde had brought a plate of rice, fried tofu, and banana slices—basic, but not as basic as the slop buckets in two corners of the room. Marc had experienced worse on camping trips with Booker, but Serena was mortified about the situation, and if these assholes had rigged up hidden cameras, he’d sue their asses off in court, from the afterlife if necessary.
“So, what else do you want to talk about?” he asked. There was no point in shouting for help. Havana had told them to scream as much as they liked—there was nobody around to hear.
“Your email password?”
Damn, he’d walked right into that one.
“I think I’d prefer the fractured skull.”
“C’mon… Phae always comes first?”
“Her idea of a joke. I was out hunting with her older brother one day, miles from home and creature comforts like a phone signal. Every once in a while, we’d pick up a bar or two, not enough to make an actual call, but emails arrived occasionally and we could sometimes send texts. I kept getting recovery codes—you know, those security messages that mean some jerk is trying to hack your email?”
“My email got hacked once. Whoever did it sent a message to everyone in my contacts list asking to borrow ten bucks for food. Three people sent the money, another half dozen replied to ask ‘what the heck?’, Mum ordered me groceries, Grandpa Ken called to suggest I get a proper job, and Uncle William complained about me using ‘bucks’ instead of ‘pounds’ and told me America was a colony of Great Britain and not the other way around.”
“Nobody managed to access my email—I sent Phae a text, and she switched my password for a longer one.”
“And you never changed it? That’s a bit…”
“Obsessive?”
“I was going to say ‘weird,’ but…”
“Fine, I’m still hung up on her.”
“You really haven’t seen her in a decade?”
“She’s been avoiding me.” Marc lay back on the mattress, one hand tucked behind his head in lieu of a pillow.
