Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (53 page)

“Take a nap,” she whispered, kissing his
cheek and pulling the covers up to his shoulder blades. He was
already snoring softly again.

The hallway was empty and for that she was
grateful. Dinner had been left for them and it smelled delicious,
but she ignored her growling stomach and continued down the hall.
Her brother’s room was next to hers and she knocked, waiting for
him to answer, but not really expecting it. Instead, she used the
universal passkey she’d stolen from Double to open the door and
slip inside.

He wasn’t there. The lamp was on and his bed
was made and unslept in. Housekeeping came in to clean up, and even
the clothes he must have discarded on the floor had been folded and
left on a chair. There was no sign of him, or where he might have
gone, but she had a pretty good idea.

Gretel made her way down to the lower deck,
passing some of the crew. They just nodded politely, but a few of
them gave her knowing little smiles that made her want to sink into
the floor. So the whole boat obviously knew where she’d been the
past few days. Great.

When she got to the lab door and saw the
light on, she knew he would be in there. She knocked softly,
glancing up and down the hall, still not sure she was even supposed
to be down there.

“Hans?” she called, knocking again, a little
louder. “It’s me! Open up!”

His face appeared in the window, just his
eyes, wide and alarmed. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” She rolled her eyes.
“Come on, open up!”

“I can’t,” he choked, more of his face
filling the little window. “Gretel, she’s locked me in.”

“What?” She stared into his scared eyes,
incredulous. “Who?”

“Our grandmother,” he spat. She’d never seen
him look so angry. “She’s had me working on something for her
company, and I’ve figured it out. Well, really, you figured it out
for me. It was the yeast, Gretel. Yeast! I never would have guessed
it. But it worked!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I should have listened to you about her,”
he lamented, leaning his forehead against the door. “She’s awful.
She’s evil. I think she’s going to kill us.”

“Are you…insane?” She blinked at him. “Have
you been sniffing something wonky in there? Now open the door!”

“I CAN’T!” He jiggled the handle and she
looked down, remembering her passkey, but this door was different.
There was no place to slide a card. This door opened with a real
key. “She’s locked me in, from the outside. There’s no way out of
here.”

“What’s going on?” It finally occurred to
her that he might actually be making some sort of sense, that what
he was saying might, in some way, be true.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

She shook her head, glancing up and down the
hallway, seeing no one. Not that it mattered. There were security
cameras on either end, and if someone wanted to find her, they
could.

“You have to get me out of here,” he
whispered.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “Gretel, listen.
The thing I’m working on—it’s an alternative energy source made out
of sugar cane and it’s worth a great deal of money. If I don’t give
it to her, she’s going to kill me. But if I do give it to her, I’m
afraid she’s going to kill us both. You have to find a key and get
me out of here.”

“Okay.” She nodded, backing away from the
door. “I will. Tonight. I promise.”

“Hurry!”

* * * *

He should have listened to his sister. The
door had remained locked, and no food or water had been brought to
him for twenty-four hours. His grandmother had come by only once,
shadowed by the formidable Double, his big arms crossed, a new
addition at his hip—a .44 magnum. Hans knew he was in real trouble
when he’d seen that.

“Just give me what I want, Hans, and this
will all be over,” his grandmother soothed.

Yeah I bet,
he thought, glancing at
the gun. She had no intention of letting him go. She never had. The
only thing she’d wanted was a solution to her problem. Even if he
gave her what she wanted, he and his sister would be at the bottom
of the Great Barrier Reef feeding the sharks and the fish.

“How can you do this to your own
grandchildren?” Hans asked, hoping to distract her, looking for a
way he might be able to grab Double’s gun, maybe make a break for
it.

The old woman scoffed, waving his words
away. “Your mother was a whore and her daughter is no better. Your
stepmother was certainly eager to get rid of you both, and I can
see why.”

Hans stared at her, trying to comprehend the
words.

“She sold you to me, you know.” The old
woman laughed—more of a cackle really. The sound of it gave Hans
chills. “Wanted to be rid of you entirely. Scuba accidents happen a
lot out here, especially with such inexperienced divers.”

Hans thought of Gretel, alone with his
grandmother’s other bodyguard, the one who had promised to teach
her to dive—who said she’d be safe with him. Andrew was part of
this, just as Double was, standing there with his big arms and his
big gun, he knew it. Gretel wasn’t safe, and he had to find a way
to protect her.

“I’m going to get what I want,” his
grandmother insisted, her blue eyes turning to steel. “You might as
well give it to me now.”

“Then you’ll just kill me,” he said, stating
the obvious.

“Oh Hans, are you so naïve?” The old woman
looked back at her bodyguard and smiled. “Let’s let’s just say I’m
not above using your sister as leverage. Double likes her. Really
likes
her.”

“No!” Hans felt his whole body go cold and
numb at the thought.

“Now, do you have something for me?”

He shook his head slowly, choking out the
word again, “No!”

“Persuade him.” The old woman stepped back
and the big man stepped forward. Hans felt the first few
blows—definitely the teeth-jarring one to his jaw, and two more to
his kidneys after he’d dropped to the floor, but thankfully things
pretty much faded to black after that and then, at least, there was
no more pain.

* * * *

“Hans.” Gretel whispered her brother’s name,
tears falling onto his bloody face. “Oh god, are you alive? Are you
awake?”

He came to slowly, opening only one eye. The
other was swollen completely shut.

“What did they do to you?” She mopped at the
blood with the edge of her shirt but stopped when he winced and
waved her away.

“How did you get in here?” he asked,
although it sounded more like, “How dijoo gihn her?” from the
mashed-up mess of his mouth.

“A key.” She took his hand. “Drew is going
to help us get out of here.”

“He’s in on it,” Hans insisted, shaking his
head. “Has to be.”

“No.” Gretel helped him stand, steadying him
as he began to totter. “He has a plan. All the cameras are off
right now. He gave me the key to come get you. He’s waiting at the
side of the yacht in a raft.”

“He’s going to take us out into the middle
of the ocean and kill us,” Hans hissed, bloody spittle flying from
his lips, and Gretel took a moment to translate his run-together
words.

“Trust me,” Gretel insisted, poking her head
out into the hallway, listening for voices. Her knees felt weak and
she was shaking with fear. “Just trust me, okay?”

“He doesn’t care about you.” Hans turned his
one good eye toward her. “She used him as your babysitter.”

“Hans, stop it.” She said the words to
soothe both him and herself. She didn’t like how much the words
sounded like sense. “Drew is a good man. He’s on our side, not
hers. Please, just trust me.”

“How can you be so sure?” he asked.

“Because he told me so.”

Hans gave a choked laugh. “I guess a boat in
the middle of the ocean is better than a locked room.” He grabbed a
Petri dish off the table, shoving it into his pocket.

“Shh,” Gretel reminded him as they crept
down the corridor, Hans stumbling beside her, holding his hand out
to the wall for support.

She had memorized the way, back beyond the
laundry room and through the darkened kitchen, up a back set of
stairs to the main deck and then over the railing. There was a rope
ladder waiting for them, Drew sitting at the bottom in a raft. If
all went according to plan, they would be in it and rowing to shore
in less than five minutes, before anyone even noticed that all the
security cameras had gone oddly dark.

The kitchen was eerily quiet as they crept
through, the glow of an oven clock illuminating their way. Gretel’s
heart was racing and she thought of Drew, what he was risking by
doing this for her brother, for both of them. Hans might not trust
him, but he didn’t know Drew like she did. She knew he wouldn’t do
anything to hurt her—that all he wanted to do was protect her. When
he’d been faced with the knowledge that the woman who employed him
for the past six years had taken her own grandchildren captive and
had every intention of killing them, he had believed her without a
second thought.

And isn’t that kind of odd, Gretel?
Asked a little voice in her head. Why would he have believed her
over a woman he’d known for six years? He’d hardly asked her any
questions. Instead, he’d gone straight into action, formulating a
plan to get them all out of there.

Hans grabbed her arm, pulling her body in
close and clamping a hand over her mouth to keep her from
screaming—and she was about to. Standing at the big,
industrial-sized refrigerator was the hulking frame of their
grandmother’s bodyguard. It was three in the morning, but Double
was fully dressed—and fully armed, Gretel noted in the bluish glow
of the refrigerator light—as if he had been up and ready for
action.

Now he was brandishing a long pepperoni like
a sword, biting bits off the end as he hunted through, looking for
something more satisfying. The two of them stood there, frozen in
place, the bodyguard between them and the door to freedom. Hans
began to slide slowly toward the floor, taking Gretel with him,
until they were both kneeling behind the long metal countertop.
Underneath, the cooks had various pots and pans stowed away, but
she could still see Double’s shadow cast across the floor in the
light of the refrigerator.

A crackling sound startled them both but
they managed to stay quiet as the bodyguard answered his phone in
walkie-talkie mode.

“Double here.”

“Security just informed me the cameras are
down.” The static burst of their grandmother’s voice made Gretel’s
breath catch. “It’s probably just a power problem, but I need you
to check on my grandson.”

“Will do,” the big man agreed, closing the
refrigerator. Hans gripped her hand, squeezing hard, shaking his
head and holding a finger to his lips. Gretel tried not to move or
even breathe as the bodyguard made his way up the center aisle,
passing them on the other side of the counter, heading toward the
door behind them.

“We don’t have long,” Hans warned, the
adrenaline clearly moving him now as he pulled Gretel toward the
other end of the kitchen. The door opened up to a back stairway and
Gretel took the stairs first, Hans nudging her from behind,
whispering, “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” The night air was cool against
her face as she came up onto the deck, looking for the little red
flag Drew had promised would be there on the edge of the railing,
marking the site of the ladder.

“Where is it?” she whispered, not finding it
even with the evening deck lights lit over her head.

Hans came up behind her, glancing over his
shoulder, both of them listening for the sound of Double coming
after them.

“Isn’t he supposed to be here?” Hans grabbed
the rail, leaning over to look below. Gretel did the same, seeing
Drew secured in a raft next to the yacht, being towed in its
wake—but there was no ladder.

“Where’s the ladder?” Gretel tried to keep
her voice low, calling down to him.

“Sorry—ladder was a no-go,” Andrew
apologized, waving them down. “You’re gonna have to jump.”

Gretel looked between the two men, judging
the distance. It was a good twelve feet to the water—but it was
dark, and she couldn’t see what was
in
the water. Because
they weren’t just going to have to jump, they were going to have to
swim to the raft, attached to the yacht, and get it in before Drew
cut the line.

“Don’t be scared,” Hans whispered, checking
the Petri dish in his pocket, making sure the lid was on and secure
before shoving it back in. “It’ll be okay.”

“So you trust him now?” Gretel retorted,
looking over the side again where Drew was urging them to hurry and
jump.

“He’s our only possible way out of this.”
Hans pulled a knife out of his other pocket. It was just a little
steak knife, something he clearly picked up in the kitchen. “And if
he tries anything, at least I’ve got this.”

“Oh my god, I should have left you locked in
that stupid little room.” Gretel rolled her eyes, turning away from
her brother and diving head first over the side. The water, even at
night, was bath water warm, but still a surprise to the system. She
came up gasping and swam toward the raft as Hans dove into the
water beside her.

“Are you okay?” Drew grabbed her arm,
hauling her into the little boat. “I’m sorry about the ladder. It
wasn’t where I put it. I had to find another raft too.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Gretel hugged him close
as Hans found the side of the boat, hauling himself up the side.
“We’re all here and safe.”

Drew let her go to help Hans into the boat,
giving a low whistle at the sight of him.

“They worked you over good, didn’t
they?”

“Drew, hurry,” Gretel urged, looking up
toward the railing. “They know the cameras are out and they’re
going to find out Hans isn’t in his room.”

“Too late,” Hans wheezed, his gaze focused
high above. Gretel followed his line of sight and saw Double
running along the railing, heard him yelling something about
“escape!”