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Passenger Princess: Chapter 18
Our next stop is Virginia, where we go to a flower shop to make bouquets. Ava brings the cat, which I end up holding half of the time. As much as it kills me to admit, the cat is sweet, willing to be held almost every moment, and has fallen asleep in my arms more often than I can count.
I never had a pet as a kid, and with my career, I never got one as an adult. I always thought once I retired I’d get a dog like Riggins’ German Shepherd, but this cat is pretty great. Not that I’d ever admit that to Ava, since she’d never let me live it down.
Now I’m walking off the elevator of the hotel in front of Ava, the cat on a fucking leash while she carries it.
The woman bought her tiny fucking cat a bedazzled leash to take her on, and I quote, “silly goofy kitty walks.” I drew the line at holding that fucking leash.
As we walk toward the hall our rooms are in, she continues to ramble on about God only knows what. When we approach the hall, her words become even more of a static noise as I notice something is…off.
“What the—” I mumble as she continues to talk, light spilling into the hallway as we approach her hotel room door. Ava, not realizing I’m suddenly on alert, walks right into my back. Her body presses into mine, and my arm moves behind me to wrap around her until she steadies herself, but not turning, keeping my eyes locked on that door.
“Jaime, what’s—” she starts, but I use my arm on her back to squeeze and put a finger to my lips.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
My arm drops, and I reach for my back pocket, touching the phone there and pulling it out before taking another step closer. Common sense wants to believe it’s just housekeeping, nothing nefarious, but my gut…my gut thinks it’s something more.
Unfortunately, my gut is very rarely wrong, something that’s confirmed when I get close enough to lean forward and peek in the door.
Destroyed.
That’s what her hotel room is.
Quickly, I run through my options, balancing my all-consuming need to keep Ava safe, to keep her by my side, and to keep her from seeing what’s in front of us. She puts on a strong front, playing the tough, doesn’t give a fuck chick, but even though I haven’t been around her that long, I know it’s just that: an act.
The Ava I know is soft and sweet.
Looking down the short hallway, I note there’s only one other room in this hall, and it’s the one I’ve been staying in right across from her. I make a decision, reaching into my pocket for the key and opening the door to my room before tugging her inside and closing it behind me. It seems quiet and untouched, but still, I walk through the room, checking closets and under beds, until I confirm there’s no one in here.
Moving back to Ava, I put a hand on her shoulder, squatting a bit until we’re face-to-face, and I’m looking into her big blue eyes. “Stay here, don’t move,” I say. “Do you understand?
“Jaime, what—”
“Two minutes, stay here.”
“You’re freaking me out, Jaime.”
I lift a hand and press it to her cheek, those big, beautiful eyes of hers widening. “I know. Listen to me. You have your phone, yeah?” She nods. “Good girl. I’m going to go check the room. Any noise, anything seems off, call 911.”
“Jaime—”
“I know you need details to feel comfortable, so I’m going to give them to you. Your hotel room has been ransacked. I’m going to leave you in this room while I make sure there’s no one in your room still. I’m going to check your room while you stay in here with Peach, okay?”
“Jaime—”
“It’s probably nothing,” I lie. “But I don’t play with safety.”
“Safety?” The word is whisper soft, and I wonder if finally, the severity of her reality has finally cut through her mind, the need to have me with her, to listen to the rules I give her, finally sink in.
I step closer to her, crowding her space, ignoring the way it feels so good to be this close every single time, like some kind of invisible string usually stretched tight finally goes lax with her proximity.
“Ava. Please. If you’re only going to listen to me one time, let it be this one. Call 911. Stay in this room with Peach. Once you get someone on the line, tell them where we are, that your room was broken into, and your security is checking. If they hang up before I’m back out, call the hotel next. If anyone—and I mean anyone, Ava: a kid, an old lady, a guy dressed in a fuckin’ clown suit—comes to the door, you scream. You do not open it at all. Do you understand?” Reality seems to wash over her, her mouth opening slightly as she stares at me, and I lower my voice. “Hey, Princess, do you get me? I need to go check the room, but I can’t leave you here unless I know you’re good.”
She blinks once, twice, three times before she nods. “Got it. Call 911, and if anyone comes, scream and sick Peach on them,” she says with a small smile.
I stare at her, her eyes shining while fighting a laugh, and not for the first time, I wonder if she’s insane. This is not how a normal person responds when they realize their hotel room was broken into.
But then again, this is Ava.
I nod at her once more, squeezing her arms. Without thinking about the pros and cons or anything beyond her being in front of me, I press my lips against her hair. Then I step back, graze my fingers over the top of the orange cat’s head in her arm, and move into the hall. I check the door once it clicks behind me, making sure it’s locked, and hear Ava put the chain on.
As I walk through to Ava’s room, I curse under my breath seeing the destruction—her things, thankfully, seem to be intact, though thrown everywhere, but everything else in the small hotel room is turned over, not like they were looking for something but just to make a statement.
They wanted us to know they were here.
I walk around for a few minutes, looking for any kind of clue but finding none, nor do I find some kind of culprit.
“Is there a note or anything?” a voice asks, and I jump, turning to see Ava behind me.
“What the fuck, Ava? I told you to stay in the room and call 911 and the hotel!”
“I did! Then I came in here when it was pretty clear no one was going to pop out and jump you. You needed backup.”
“Is it that impossible for you to listen to one instruction one fucking time?”
“No, but when the instruction is to stand in a mildly sketchy hotel room with clearly terrible security versus in this destroyed but seemingly empty room where my bodyguard is, I choose the one with my bodyguard.”
I glare at her, wanting to argue but knowing I can’t because, unfortunately, there’s some logic in her statement. “You could have at least said something.”
“And miss catching you off guard? Hell no.’
“What if I thought you were the intruder and I attacked you?”
She rolls her eyes like that’s insane and huffs. “As if you would ever make a mistake like that.” She waves a hand over me, saying a lot without saying much, then she looks around, letting out a low whistle as she does.
“Wow. This is kind of crazy, huh?” She moves in a circle, looking around, checking the destruction before starting to walk around, moving a coffee table on its side with the toe of her shoe, and then looking over her things. “Weird, they didn’t touch my shit, right? That’s weird?”
“I mean…” I hesitate to say anything, but I decide we’re long past playing games. “Yes, it’s strange. And there’s no note, not that I could see at least. Don’t touch anything though, okay?”
“I’ve seen enough CSI to know the rules.” She lifts Peach to her face, rubbing her cheek against the sleepy kitten before pressing pink lips to orange fur.
“Why aren’t you freaking out about this?” I ask, suddenly concerned because this isn’t a typical response to finding your room ransacked.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll panic a bit once the adrenaline wears off. But right now, I’m just happy we were lucky enough no one was here, and Peach was with us,” she says, lifting the kitten. “Right now, I’m being delusional and telling myself it’s kind of funny, exciting, and interesting.”
I stare at her and shake my head.
“That’s not normal, you know that, right?”
“I enjoy living a life of delusion, thank you very much.” She pauses like she’s contemplating something. “Maybe that will be my next hyperfixation. I’ll become one of those true crime girlies, listening to podcasts and researching serial killers.”
“Well, maybe we don’t commit to that just yet. Plus, who said this is a serial killer, Ava? How did you even get from a ransacked room to a serial killer?”
“I mean, this is clearly not the work of a stable human being, Jaime.”
“But a serial killer?”
She shrugs then opens her mouth, probably to continue to argue her point, but a knock on the door frame comes, a hotel employee standing in the doorway with an officer behind him, and my attention is refocused.