I was going to hold on to this for a few days just because, but y'all been so patient- I decided to go ahead and publish it. Besides, it brings conclusion to the section of this story that takes place in Jamaica (sadly, Cutter did NOT get his deposit back on that jeep, so he couldn't pay for a room in the Hotel Goldeneye XD)
Enjoy!
"I need your help, Livvy," Cassie was saying into her phone as she paced back and forth in the motel room. "You've always been good at computer stuff hacking and all that... No, it's nothing too risky or illegal, it's just-" The coffee maker in the corner of the kitchenette gurgled as it finished running its cycle, and Cassie picked up the decanter, poured some into a Styrofoam cup, and began adding cream and sugar as she talked. "I'm trying to track down an important treasure, and there's some people after me. Bad people..." She took a sip of her coffee as she was beginning to pace again, and her face twisted in disgust. Quickly, she turned around and added more sugar to it.
Across the room, stoically nursing his own cup of poor-quality joe as he perused the local paper, Ian smirked at her and turned the page.
"I'll be fine, Liv," Cassie said, though in an aside to Foster she whispered, "If this coffee doesn't kill me first!" Throwing back a swig, she continued into the phone, "I just need you to keep an eye on any suspicious activity in air traffic either leaving Kingston or arriving in Madrid. Also, anything in the news about the estate of Raul Escarra, especially if it has to do with the party he's hosting in a few days." Cass spun on her heel and chewed her lip as she listened for a moment. "Yes, Olivia- I promise you I'll be fine. And when I get done with all this, I'll even come visit you and Jess there in New Orleans." She held up crossed fingers as a beat passed, and then her eyes flicked over to Foster for a brief moment. "I'll- I'll ask him. Thanks a million, Livvy. Stay in touch." With that she hung up and stuck the phone in her back pocket.
"Ask me what, now?" Ian questioned casually, without looking up from his paper.
Cass stuck her tongue out, but he didn't see it. "How do you know I was talking about you, nosy?"
"Oh, excuse me..." His tone was sarcastic, but there was a smile on his face as he glanced over at her.
The front door burst open and Cutter came in, a box of pizza in hand."Alright, plane's fueled up and ready to go!" he announced loudly. "We'll leave out at- Oi! What is that awful smell? Christ-" He coughed and dumped the pizza on the table next to Foster, pinched his nose, and looked dubiously at Cassie. "Cassandra- sweetheart- you're trackin' sand all over the room, and you reek like a bloody fishing wharf. What in the blazes are you thinking?"
"Getting us a bit of insurance," Cassie replied. Looking over her shoulder, she realized that she had indeed left a trail of sandy footprints across the stained burgundy carpet, and she added sheepishly, "Sorry about that. It seemed important to get on it right away, and I didn't want to risk anyone hearing me outside. I forgot what a mess I am. I'll just, uh..." She sniffed herself and her cheeks went a little pink. "I'll just go get cleaned up real quick."
Snagging a hot slice of pizza on her way by, Cassie used her elbow to turn the knob on the door and bumped it open with her hip. As she slipped through, she drained the last of her vile coffee and tossed the Styrofoam cup in a wastebasket, and without a word was gone.
Charlie plopped down in the chair across from Ian and grumpily took a bite of pizza. Slowly, Foster lowered the paper enough to give a bemused look at the Englishman over the top edge, and Cutter scowled. "Don't you look at me like that, lover boy. You're a right arsehole to not tell her yourself what a mess she was making."
The night was pleasant- warm, but with a cool breeze that rustled the damp, dirty-blonde strands of Cassie's hair that trailed down her back. It was that time of year that yielded sublime, dreamy nights, of which- back in Louisiana- she could think of countless spent down on their family's dock, staring off at the gently rolling ocean, the soft breath of the night raising pensive goosebumps on her skin. Particularly in the months that followed her trip to Avalon, she had been fond of those times, just sitting, thinking, and wondering.
Their motel was, admittedly, a little shabbier than the Drake family beach house. Alright- a lot shabbier. The cheap metal railing out front of it bit into Cassie's forearms as she leaned on it. The bug light to her left gave an occasional zap as it lured in yet another victim (it was, in fact, in need of emptying, if the pile of dead insects at the bottom was any indicator). What escaped the light was almost bound to be ensnared in one of the many webs that clung to the corners and overhangs, adding to the overall dirtiness of the establishment as revealed in the flickering light of a few bare incandescent bulbs along the eave. The pool of light that spilled out from these onto the narrow stretch of beach between the motel and the water revealed filthy sand plowed up with footprints and tire tracks and littered with food wrappers and beer cans. Yet, in spite of this, the night was perfect- goosebumps and all- and it was silent except for the quiet chirping of insects and the mellow lapping of the waves.
It was quiet enough that she heard the footsteps approaching before she ever saw the person coming towards her from the lobby, and without even turning she knew who it was. Dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans and with a towel tucked under his arm, Ian walked up and stopped a few feet away. "Didn't expect to see you still awake," he said. "What are you doing out here?"
Cassie inhaled. "Oh, just doing a little angsty brooding over my life decisions," she said, her lips quirking into a small, ironic smile as she looked at Foster out of the corner of her eye. "You know- the usual thing you expect someone to be doing when you find them leaning on a railing in the middle of the night, staring off into nothing."
"Ha," he said dryly, and leaned on the rail next to her. "Seriously, though, what's up? Drink too much crappy coffee out of the room?"
"Ahh," Cass frowned and chewed her lip as she pondered. "No, I- I guess I am being kinda serious."
A beat passed as Ian raised an eyebrow and side-eyed her. "Really?"
Cassie shrugged. "Kind of," she said. "It's just that I had never actually... killed anyone... before today." In her peripheral, Cass could see Ian's face scrunching further in confusion.
"Wow," he said slowly. "I mean, bravo- but how did you make it through Avalon without ever having to pull the trigger on someone?"
Finally turning her head to face him directly, Cassie replied, "I pulled the trigger on a lot of Wild Hunt guys- but I'm not really sure they were exactly human. The others, though- Johnson, King, Amelia," she shrugged. "They all just kind of did themselves in."
Foster stared at her as this information set in. "Do you want out of this?" he said suddenly, and quickly. "If you're regretting getting involved, I'll get you home. I can buy you a ticket. Lisbon, New Orleans, wherever you want-"
Cass held up a hand to stop him. "I'm not regretting it, Foss. I did what I did to protect the people I care about. Plus, I may not have personally killed anyone on the trip to Avalon, but I definitely saw people die right in front of me. It's not like it's an entirely foreign thing at this point- for better or worse." She sighed and slid her gaze over to him, her eyes betraying her quiet longing for refuge, for someone to confide in. "It's still kind of a lot to take in, though," she admitted. "Mostly, I just feel like your average girl just enjoying life, then all of a sudden here I am: getting in life-or-death gunfights and chasing artifacts that may have all sorts of weird mystical powers." Humming thoughtfully, she added, "Wild, huh?"
Ian nodded. "Yeah."
In silence, the two leaned on the rail and stared out into the darkness, listening to the crickets chirp and the splash of waves on the rocks only a couple hundred yards away. "What makes you do this, Foster?" Cassie eventually asked. "The treasure hunting, that is," she clarified when he gave her a puzzled look.
Ian hummed and ran his tongue over his lips as he pondered. "The company?" he tried.
Cassie gave a small smile and shook her head.
Heaving a sigh, Foster let his head hang for a moment and then began, "You remember how I said I made some bad decisions? Well, those bad decisions led to me running with some bad people, and in those kind of circles your father's name would come up occasionally-" he glanced at Cassie, as if to make sure that statement wasn't offensive, "-and so I heard a little about the things he got up to. And it inspired me." He paused, and Cassie looked curiously at him. Foster's expression was pensive, his face turned up and bathed in the gentle glow of the waxing gibbous moon. A cool whisper of a breeze crossed over them, and Cassie caught a subtle whiff of his cologne. Abruptly continuing, he said, "More pertinently, there was a girl I thought I was in love with. I met her while I was involved with the gang I was a part of."
Cassie noticed he was pointedly avoiding looking her way, and wondered if he was afraid of her reaction to finding out that there had been someone else in his life.
"Anyway, when I got out of that crowd, I did kind of a complete 180 and got involved with law enforcement..." he sucked in a breath, "...for about five minutes. Went to FLETC, dropped out... At some point, some of my old 'friends' tracked me down." Foster hesitated, his breath hitching in his throat. "They tried to kill me, and in the scuffle, this girl got caught in the crossfire." He squinted at the dark indigo band on the horizon, where the moon reflected off the water, and set his jaw hard. "Treasure hunting suddenly became an obsession for me. I threw myself into my work, determined to be the best there was- to earn myself a place in legend... like- like your dad did." He swallowed and scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. "It made a good distraction," he ended, matter-of-factly.
Cassie stared wide-eyed. "I-" she stammered. "I'm sorry... I had no idea!"
Foster shrugged with practiced nonchalance. "I'm over it now. That was a good six years ago." Silence resumed for a minute or two, then he turned the question on her. "What about you, Cassie? What do you hope to get out of all this?"
Cassie gazed earnestly into his eyes as she considered. Suddenly their little round of small talk outside of this seedy dive in Jamaica felt very intimate, and she surprised herself by not feeling completely awkward about it. "I hope... I hope to make the world a safer place, so I can enjoy life with the people I love," she declared softly, her eyes wide and shining behind her glasses as she smiled at him. "And-" she ducked her head and timidly reached out to touch his hand, "the company's not bad, either. Most of the time."
They shared a quiet chuckle, then Ian gently squeezed her hand. Cassie was struck by how much smaller her hands were than his as they both rose from the railing and faced each other. "Well I'm glad we're on the same page, then," Ian said with a cool smile.
For a moment they just stood there, relishing the moment and the perfect air of the night until Foster eventually dropped her hands and stepped back. "Well, miss Drake," he said, his voice low and smoky. "I'd love to stay out here all night with you- but I think we'd better be up early or Cutter might be tempted to leave us at this dump."
She smiled ruefully. "I guess you're right. We'd better go." As Ian turned to walk to the room he shared with Charlie, Cassie's heart fluttered anxiously in her chest. Swallowing hard, she made a conscious effort to suppress her nerves, and- in an act of courage that felt comparable to jumping on the back of an armored truck or walking into a hall of booby traps- called out, "Hey!"
Ian stopped and faced her again.
Cass bit her lip nervously, then went up on her toes to press a quick, timid kiss to his lips. "Thanks for talking."
For as cool and suave as Foster normally carried himself, the look that flashed over his face as she pulled away was such that- between that and her nerves- Cassie dissolved into a fit of giggles once in the safety of her and Solange's room, and she leaned against the door as she desperately tried to stifle her laughter so as not to wake her sleeping roommate. As she slipped under the blankets and settled in to rest, she felt a warmth in her chest that wasn't just from the tropical summer night. And as Cassie's mind slipped into sleep, she vaguely thought to herself that no matter what happened from here, she was confident they would make it through this- together.
The name of this fictional dive of a motel is taken from "Calico" Jack Rackham, who was one of the many pirates executed in Port Royal.
When I first started this story, I was picturing it being a short(er) adventure, 'bout the length of Devil to Pay. Now here I am, nine chapters and over three-quarters of DtP's final word count, and I haven't even made it out of the first real locale yet. *Sigh* here we go again...