Sinners Retreat (The Slaycation #1)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Ezra

B ennett pulls up to my house thirty minutes early. The man is early for everything. Our flight doesn’t leave for three hours, but he wants to get groped by TSA as quickly as possible.

Despite having different mothers, we look fairly similar. We both share our father’s dark hair, but he has steel-blue eyes and twenty-twenty vision to rival my brown eyes and glasses. He also has numerous tattoos and a few piercings in unmentionable places. I have one tattoo that I’d love to forget.

Gary already sits in the luxury sedan’s passenger seat. I told him I knew his boss and would make sure he had the time off so that he’d agree to join us. In truth, I know his boss about as well as I know American history, which is to say, not at all.

But that doesn’t matter. We didn’t book a return flight for him.

“Gotta hop in the back, pal,” I say to Gary. “I get motion sickness if I’m not up front.”

I’m not worried about hurting his feelings. The Cattle are housed away from the Sinner villas until they’re needed for the activities.

Gary nods and smiles and climbs into the back seat, unaware of the strings we had to pull to have a chance to kill him some place scenic. We’ve given him a gift he doesn’t deserve, really. Instead of dying in an abandoned warehouse, he gets to bleed out on a beach.

Bennett didn’t want to bring him along, but he didn’t have a choice in the matter. I refused to leave this scum on the street while I headed off on holiday. He had to make the arrangements, or I would’ve stayed behind. Thankfully, the event coordinator owed Bennett a favor after last year’s debacle. One of the Cattle managed to get hold of a switchblade, leaving my brother with a permanent scar over his right eyebrow.

“I really appreciate you guys bringing me along,” Gary says from the back. He’s smiling and peering out the window like a kid on his way to Disneyland. Unfortunately for him, the animatronics at this park wield weapons. “I can’t remember the last time I flew on an airplane.”

“The pleasure is all ours, I assure you,” I say.

Gary talks our ears off for the remainder of the drive to the airport. My brother and I aren’t the talkative types, so we mostly just smile and nod. Traffic is fairly light, even close to the city, so the drive isn’t half bad.

When we reach the airport, Bennett maneuvers through the winding parking garage before finding an empty spot. We grip our luggage—which is blessedly light—and make our way into the building.

The airport hums with activity. People of every color, shape, and size tread the shining floors, none of them concerned with anything aside from their own destinations. Some are headed to far-off places while others are returning from distant shores. You can tell which are which by the looks on their faces. The arrivals look much more exhausted than the departees.

When I reach the ticket counter, I’m greeted by a smiling woman, though the grin doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Ah, the good old Plasticine smile.

She takes my tickets, and the false smile doesn’t drop as she says, “I’m sorry, but we’ve overbooked this flight. One of you will have to sit in economy.”

I turn to my brother. Gary sure as shit can’t be out of our sight, so that means one of us will have to give up our spot. That also means one of us will be forced to listen to him yammer on for an entire flight.

“I’ll take the economy ticket,” I say.

Realizing what I’ve done, Bennett sends the toe of his boot into my Achilles tendon. I suffer in silence because it’s only fair. He’ll have an awful flight, so I don’t mind walking with a limp for a few days to make up for it. It’s still better than sitting with Gary for three hours.

With our tickets settled and our luggage sent off with a prayer of return, we trudge toward our gate.

“I’m starving,” Gary whines.

“I’m sure there will be food on the plane,” I say.

“Peanuts ain’t gonna cut it,” Bennett chimes in, and now I’m outnumbered.

With a longing look at our gate, I follow the pair toward a fast-food booth. Bennett and I order burgers, and Gary orders the chicken sandwich.

We gather our bags and head to the gate when we realize the three measly tables in the dining area are full. We’re still very early, so we have our choice of seats. I take one by the large window, and Gary and Bennett settle in the central area. They tear into their food like beasts, but I’m not as eager to swallow the grease trap within the silver wrapper.

A pretty stewardess ambles by, probably on her way home after a flight. Bennett watches her with male amusement, eyeing her trim waist and large breasts. Gary doesn’t spare her a second glance. I’m not surprised. At twenty-something, she’s a bit too old for his perversions.

God, I can’t wait to kill him.

It’s been months since my last slaying, and my fingers itch to use the new meat hooks I purchased six weeks ago. I only target the rapists and pedophiles, so I’m forced to share some of my potential victim pool with my brother and the Heartbreak Killer. The lack of victims is a good problem to have, I suppose, but it does nothing for my bloodlust.

Time passes, and more people begin to fill out the empty seats. I study each person, wondering if they could be the illustrious HBK. Any of them could be.

Well, maybe not the little old lady clutching a sleeve of cookies to her chest. She lacks the upper body strength to crank open a chest cavity.

Speaking of cookies, a pang in my gut reminds me of the very mediocre burger waiting for me. I peel back the wrapper, inhale the sad aroma, and take the first disappointing bite.

I’m broken from my mindless chewing when two women choose to sit close enough that I can hear their whispered argument. Listening would be rude, but I never said I had good manners.

“I don’t want to sit in the middle,” the blonde says. “Can’t I have the window seat? It’s my first flight, and you fly all the time.”

The raven-haired woman scoffs. “You mean you drove all the way from Oregon to New York?”

“Well, yeah. You saw my boxes. I didn’t trust movers with my stuff.”

I snag glances as they continue arguing. While the blonde is conventionally pretty—striking blue eyes, slender waist, large breasts, mile-long legs—the dark-haired woman is what my male fantasies are made of.

She fills out her tank top and shorts, and I don’t mind the bit of midsection which hangs over the waistband. I practically drool over it as I imagine what that velvet flesh would feel like as I take it into my mouth and suck. Since I wasn’t paying attention when they walked over, I haven’t seen her ass, but I can imagine it based on her thick thighs. And it’s perfection.

She wears a pair of sunglasses to ward off the morning sun blaring through the massive window, but if her eyes are as dark as her hair, I’m in trouble. Having never minded being in trouble, I stuff the burger wrapper into the bag and turn to the women to offer a solution to their problem.

“I have a window seat, but I don’t mind sitting in the middle seat if you’d like to switch,” I say to the blonde.

The dark-haired dream screws up her mouth, but the blonde holds her hand toward me.

“Hi, I’m Cat, and this is?—”

“Kindra.” The dark-haired woman swats her friend’s hand back to her lap. “And I have no interest in sitting beside a stranger for the flight.”

“Well, tough shit, Kindra,” Cat says, “because either you switch with me or you switch with him.”

Kindra’s grip tightens on the travel bag in her lap, but she says nothing.

I turn toward her. “I’m Ezra. Thirty-six. I’m a private investigator on my way to a convention. I’m traveling with my brother, Bennett, and an old chum, Gary. They plan to sightsee while I’m networking. I’ve lived in America for twelve years, but I’m originally from Gravesend in county Kent, right beside the Thames.” I extend my hand with a genuine smile. “There, now we aren’t strangers.”

Begrudgingly, she takes my hand, shakes it, and pulls her clammy fingers back to her lap. She turns to her friend. “You owe me so fucking big for this,” she whispers.

Afraid I’ll piss her off, I stifle a chuckle. She doesn’t exactly seem the jovial type who can handle any amount of good-spirited joshing. Americans can be sensitive that way.

The blonde is undeterred by her friend’s sour mood, and she turns to me with a bright smile. “I really appreciate this. Maybe I can pay for a drink or two when we land in Miami?”

“I don’t drink,” Kindra says. “And on this trip, neither do you.”

Like a scolded child, Cat closes her mouth and sits back in her seat. Her balls are only so big, it seems.

“Who said it has to be spirits?” I say. “We could all enjoy a cold glass of something non-alcoholic when we land. I’m presuming like all human beings, you at least drink water?”

Before Kindra can shut me down again, a voice comes over the intercoms to announce that our plane will begin boarding soon. I paid for priority, so that means the blonde will need to get in line, leaving me all alone with the grumpy brunette. I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d tried.

Cat and I swap boarding passes, and she flitters off to claim her coveted window seat in economy. I didn’t fare so terribly in the swap, as their seats are in business class, and despite Kindra’s dark-cloud demeanor, she’ll be nicer to look at than any view from the window.

With her friend spirited away to the plane’s interior, Kindra fidgets in her seat. The poor thing can’t seem to get comfortable. Her fingers repeatedly move to her temples, where she rubs and rubs until I get the impression that she has one hell of a headache.

I reach into my pocket and produce a small travel bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, purchased when I thought I would need to endure an entire flight beside Chatty Kathy. Now it seems they’ll still prove useful.

“Here,” I say. “You need them more than I do.”

I expect her to argue or flat out refuse my help, but she surprises me when she snatches the bottle from my palm, unfastens the top, and dry-swallows three of the white pills.

“Thanks,” she says as she returns the bottle to my hand.

“It’s the least I could do after ruining your flight. I apologize. I thought I was being helpful.”

Her shoulders loosen, and she sighs. “No, I’m sorry for coming across as a mega-bitch. I’m under a lot of stress with work right now, and nothing seems to be going my way.”

I can think of one good way to relieve her tension, but she has all of her spines pointed outward, and I’m not in the mood to fuck a cactus today. She’d almost be worth it, though.

“What do you do for work?” I ask, but then it’s our turn to board. I don’t think she heard my question over the crackling intercom voice.

This is going to be a long flight.