Unfortunate Incident
She didn't know how she had gotten into this situation. Everything had gone wrong. Her father – her sweet, somewhat clueless father – had tried so hard. But he hadn't been able to stop Kent from taking her onto the plane. Amy had been left on the pavement, after Kent had knocked her over in his race to get on.
Now she set on the luxurious jet, with the image of her father's pain filled face shouting her name, starring at two criminals that set across from her. Both of them had been starring at her since the take off. There was no one to stop them from killing her.
There was also the fact the Maya didn't like airplanes. She had never felt safe in one. A horrible thought struck her, what if they simply threw her out of the plane, while it was still in the air. The thought was so terrifying that she started to hyperventilate.
"Are you going to kill me?" She asked between lung full's of air.
Kent gave her a nasty smile, his eyes taking on a dangerous glint.
"So you're Blart's little brat." He deferred.
"Did he ever tell you that I set him on fire?" He continued.
Maya clenched her fists. The fear vanished, only to be replaced by anger. She gave Kent her best stink eye.
"Look, the little Blart is glaring at me Sims." Kent gave a dark chuckle, not glancing away from her.
Sims was looking a little nervous now. Maya couldn't believe that at one time she had thought that he was cute. She remembered bringing lunch to her dad, something to make him feel a little better. She had let herself in with the key her dad gave her, only to stop short when she saw her dad talking to a new guy in uniform. She had instantly been in awe of the contrast of his blue eyes and dark hair. So different from her own plane brown eyes and untamable locks. She had backed away, afraid to be seen by him. But now Sims had lost all his appeal.
"So, are you as big of a loser as your dead was… is?" Kent had relaxed against the plush, white leather seat. His legs parted in front of him and bended at the knees. He looked so calm, yet so mean. His rugged features making her nervous and shy just as all handsome men did. He reminded her of Johnny – a boy who didn't miss a day in taunting her. But Johnny liked to do it private. He liked to corner her in empty classrooms and poke at her and call her fat. And sometimes he'd try to touch her, but Maya had gotten really good in avoiding him, and slipping away from him. The way Kent was looking at her, it reminded her of Johnny, just before he'd try to touch her breast, or push his hips into hers.
The fear came crashing back.
"Please let me go. You can drop me off anywhere, I'm really resourceful. I'll find my way back." She pleaded, looking at Sims. Because she knew that he'd be more likely to listen to her.
Sims was looking even more nervous now. He couldn't seem to hold her gaze and he kept shifting his attention to Kent.
"How old are you?" Maya's eyes slid back to Kent, who was still starring at her intently.
"Fifteen." She answered.
"Really? Because you look like your twelve. Except for your tits." He responded flippantly, starring at her chest. Maya sank further into her seat and crossed her arms in front of her.
"Kent." Sims said forcefully.
Maya thought he was trying to sound strong and in commend, but she could clearly see that Kent was the one that was calling all the shots.
"Go make me a drink." Kent gestured to the bar, Sims dutifully walked over. "How about you, you want something to drink?" He asked with a smirk.
"No thank you." She whispered back faintly. She looked away from him, starring at the plush carpeted floor beneath her feet. Her old, tattered sneakers looked so out of place. She thought that if she wasn't looking at him, then he'd cease to be there.
"Come over here." Kent commanded after a while. Sims was still at the bar, mixing a drink. He paused in his steering a second after he heard Kent, but then he resumed.
Maya shrank further into her seat, wanting it to swallow her. Her chest rose up and down with her labored breathing. She shook her head frantically, but didn't say anything. Couldn't say anything.
"This isn't up for negation." Kent deep, gravelly voice made her shiver all over.
Sims had turned around. He walked over at took a seat next to Kent. He offered Kent a tumbler that was filled with just a little bit of amber. Maya thought that was straight whiskey, but she couldn't be sure since she didn't spend much time around alcohol. Sims was drinking a bright green drink – it was his only drink that he had spent so much time on.
She looked imploringly at Sims. She rose. She started heading towards the bathroom. "I don't feel so good. I'm just gonna go to the bathroom really quick." She struggled to get the words out, but her voice trembled just as the rest of her body did.
Kent gave her a steely look. He started to rise.
"Maya. Just do what he says." Sims instructed.
Maya froze and Kent plopped back down on his seat.
"Maya? What a pretty name. Much better than Blart." Kent observed, smirking at her.
"I don't like to wait, Maya." He continued.
Maya walked towards him, hating her diminutive height. Kent was sitting down and his head almost reached her shoulder. When stopped two feet away from him.
"Closer." Kent commended.
Maya took another step. She paused. Kent reached out and took a hold of her arm and pulled her to him. She fell into his lap. Her face ended up squashed against his hard chest. Maya could faintly make out the masculine scent of some sort of aftershave. She pushed herself away, but the moment she righted herself into a sitting position, Kent pulled her so that she was directly against him. This was so completely different from her father's soft hugs of love and protection.
"See, that wasn't so hard." Kent smiled.
Maya's face was just inches away from his. She was sure that if she were to raise her head just a little, her eyes would be level with his nose. But she didn't, instead she watched Sims take a drink. He was looking at her in a worried sort of way. Like he wanted to help her, but didn't know how.
Maya could feel Kent's hand curved around her hip. His thigh hard underneath her. He had positioned her so that she set on one of his legs, looking straight at Sims. Maya turned away from both of them.
What would she do now?
"I'm sure you'll love the Cayman Islands, Maya. Beautiful blue skies, bluer water, topless woman… that last part was more for me than you." Kent said against her ear, his breath making her tingle.
"Please. I promise that I won't tell anyone anything." She whispered. She turned to look at Kent's dark eyes, hoping to find compassion, but she only saw that same hungry look he had before.
"Oh poor baby." Kent caressed her cheek lightly. His fingers gently brushed away a tear that escaped her eye.
"Please." Maya again begged, her voice going hoarse with her emotions.
The plane started to descend. Kent tightened his arm around Maya and pulled her a little closer.
"Why the hell are we landing? We've been in the air less than an hour." Sims asked. He was confused, and a little angry. Kent wasn't playing by the book. They had everything figured out. There weren't supposed to be any hostages, but Kent had grabbed Maya for some reason. They weren't supposed to land anywhere but a small Cayman Island. Everything was going down the shithole.
Sims spared Maya a glance. The poor kid looked terrified. She was sweet, just like her dad. But unlike him, she seemed to also have a certain dry wit about her that Sims had enjoyed.
"Relax. We're just picking someone up." Kent replied.
Maya held her breath the whole descent, which wasn't very long. It only took a minute or two to land. She looked out of one of the windows and saw that there was only one small strip of concrete and no other planes. The landing area was surrounded by forest, and she spotted a few mountains in the distance. There was a black car outside. Kent got up, taking her with him. He pushed her back into the seat and walked over to the door.
Maya got a stupid thought at that moment. What if she pushed past Kent and just ran. The thought was quickly squashed once she saw the gun that was resting inside Kent's holster. Kent opened the door and smiled widely. He started talking in rapid Italian. He was gesturing forward. Maya saw two large men enter first. Their forms bulkier than Kent's. There were dressed in business suits.
She heard anther deep voice behind them saying something to Kent. Kent seemed to find whatever was being said to him funny, because he started to laugh. A tall, lean figure that Maya assumed had been talking to Kent finally entered. Maya couldn't see his face, but she assumed that he was around 6'2'', just as Kent was. He was lean, but she could see muscles under the white button down shirt he was wearing. The moment the stranger entered Kent enveloped him in a tight hug, and gave the person a rough, manly kiss on the cheek.
The person laughed, and Maya found that laugh familiar. The person turned around. It was Johnny – the boy who loved to torment her in school.
She didn't know how to react. She stared at the gray eyes of Johnny, confused. What was Johnny doing here? What was he doing kissing Kent? But then Maya remembered hearing something in school about Johnny's father being in SWAT. She looked closely at Johnny's dark features. Yes, there was a definite resemblance between them.
Johnny seemed to shake himself out of his stupor and gave Maya one of his cruel little smiles. He was carrying a small, leather bag. He walked forward, not taking his eyes of off her. Maya looked away, scared by the look Johnny was giving her.
"What the hell Kent?" Sims almost screamed looking at the three newcomers. Everybody turned to look at his angry form.
"Sims, I'd like you to meet my son, Giovanni. And two of my friends Marco and Vincent." Kent said with a smirk.
"Dad, what about her?" Johnny had taken the seat next to her – the one Sims had abandoned in his outrage. She turned to look at him wearily. Johnny gave her a smile. It could have been thought of as charming on his handsome face, but Maya could only remember that face inches away from her own, saying terrible things to her, while his hands touched parts of her that she never wanted touched.
She gave him her best scowl. Johnny's smile brightened, his straight white teeth gleaming against his olive tinged skin.
"Insurance." Kent said simply.
"We didn't agree to this Kent." Sims argued.
"You're right, we didn't." Kent seemed to think something over. He raised his eyes to Sims, and before anyone could blink, he had taken out his gun and shot Sims between the eyes. Maya let out a scream.
"Maya, be quiet or you'll find yourself with a bullet in your brain just like Sims here." Kent said slowly. Maya quieted instantly. Maya heard a chuckle beside her and turned to see Johnny still looking at her with a smile.
"First time you saw someone get shot?" He asked nonchalantly. Maya closed her eyes, and began to pray like she never done before.
Please, please let me go home. I promise to say ten Hail Mary's every hour until I die. Please God, please please please please please.
She continued to keep her eyes closed even as she heard them move Sims's body from the plane. She kept her eyes closed as heard the sound of the engine turning on. She kept her eyes closed as they became air born. But she finally snapped her eyes open when she felt someone stroking her arm.
"You doing alright?" Johnny asked.
Maya stared at his gray eyes in apparent bafflement.
"I think I'm gonna be sick." She croaked out.
"Alright, up we go." He lifted her from her seat and led her to the lavatory. Kent was no longer paying attention to her. He was sitting at one of the tables that the jet offered, and leaning over some papers that were scattered across the table. Every once in a while he'd lift his head and say something to one of the two man in Italian and go back to the papers.
"I didn't know you spoke Italian." Maya said quietly, more to herself than him.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me Maya." He replied.
When they got to the lavatory, Johnny opened the door and pushed her gently in. Maya stumbled inside. This bathroom was larger than the average airplane bathroom. She looked into the mirror. Her hair had escaped the ponytail Maya had originally put it in. Her curls fell wildly around her face. Her lips were moist from all the nervous licking she had been doing – a habit she had been trying to break since childhood. Her face was pale and her hands refused to stop shaking. Maya turned on the cold water and splashed some of it on her face. She turned it off and looked at herself.
What am I going to do? She thought desperately to herself. She stayed in that position for twenty minutes, not registering that time was passing.
There was a bang at the door.
"Maya, you've been in there long enough, open the door." Johnny's muffled voice came from behind the door.
Maya braced her shoulders. Gave herself a stern look in the mirror. She would survive this. She would see her father again. She turned around and opened the door.
Johnny was leaning casually against the opposite wall, his arms crossed in front of him. He saw that she had washed away the tear stains, and he was sorry for it. He thought that they suited her.
"Thank you." Maya walked back to her seat. He followed closely behind. He was amazed that she still managed to be polite, even in these circumstances.
She was always polite. She never tried to stand out in school, but to Johnny she had always stood out. Since he was thirteen and girls all of a sudden took on a new light, she had been at the forefront. Her wild curls reminded him of his nonna's curls. His mother had had straight blonde hair and gray eyes, but Johnny always like girls who looked like his Italian ancestors.
Maya set down and licked her lips. Johnny had always liked this particular habit of hers. She glanced at him shyly, and then looked away again. He knew that she didn't like him, not that he could blame her. He took her back to her seat, which he had reclined enough so she could lay down comfortably. He had also placed a pillow on it for her. She looked confusedly at him, but he simply nodded at the seat. She followed his silent command and lay down on her side facing the window.
She felt a lightweight blanket cover her. She clutched at the pillow. She would never be able to sleep, she told herself. But the stress of the whole day came crashing down and she found herself deep in slumber.
He was watching her sleep. He never thought he'd get an opportunity like this. She didn't stir at all, even when he lightly ran his finer down her soft, rounded cheek. She was a quiet sleeper, who seemed undisturbed by the outside world.
His father was crouching by his seat. He turned his head to look at him.
"The money has been transferred completely. Everything is taken care of." Kent told his son in Italian.
"Good."
"What should I do with her?" Kent asked nodding over to Maya.
"What do you want to do with her?" Johnny countered.
Kent looked at the boy in front of him. He couldn't believe how grown up he had gotten. He was already as tall as him. He supposed he should stop thinking of him as a boy now, at sixteen he was showing a maturity that Kent had never had.
"We could kill her." Kent suggested, not really meaning it. There was something about Maya – her sweetness, her resemblance to a child – it all added up in making her death impossible.
"No." Johnny answered. Kent looked at his son. He hadn't even hesitated. Johnny wasn't one to be queasy about death. He had grown up collected and almost cold when faced with death. But there was force behind that 'no,' a force Kent couldn't ignore.
"Leave her in some European country and have her find her way back. She said she could." Kent offered.
Johnny quieted, getting lost in thought. He looked at the sleeping girl next to him, and then he looked at his father who was still crouched by his seat.
"Let's bring her with us." Johnny finally said.
"Giovanni." Kent stopped. Why not? She didn't seem like much work.
"Alright." Kent conceded.
"Thank you, Papa." Kent rose and placed a kiss on his forehead.
"You're taking care of the girl, though. I don't want her getting in trouble. You understand me, son?"
"Always."
Kent gave him a final smile and walked back to his papers.
AN:
John is the Anglo version of Giovanni. That's why Maya knows him Johnny and not Giovanni.
Unfortunate Incident