Relentless

"Miss me, Justin?" She shifted her laser-intense gaze to me. "Hello, Ashley."

I backed away from both her and Justin. She radiated sex in mind-numbing waves. Not loving sex or fun casual sex. Pure, nasty, visceral, paint-peeling, dogs-howling, can't-look-yourself-in-the-mirror sex. The kind that leaves you sore for days and embarrassed at what you were willing to do for months.

Justin stared at her, paralyzed. I think he made a slight gasping squeak.

She gave a throaty sound, maybe a laugh, maybe a growl. "Since Justin seems to have forgotten his manners, I'll introduce myself. I'm Nicole, but you can call me Nikki. Everybody does. I let Amber handle things this week. But I just couldn't miss this, so I flew in this morning. I'm the 'ex.' Justin and I used to be married. He's not very good at the whole 'faithful' thing. He cheated on me too."

I looked at her and then back at Justin in disbelief. "You cheated on her? Holy shit. I've been trying to figure out what was wrong with me that made you cheat. You cheated on...her." I gestured helplessly. "There is something seriously fucking wrong with you. Jesus, she's ten feet away and you could cut glass with my nipples. And I'm straight."

Nikki raised one eyebrow at me meaningfully. "No woman is a hundred percent straight, Baby. Trust me. Spaghetti is straight too, until you get it hot and wet."

I staggered another half step back and shook my head to clear it of an avalanche of wildly impure thoughts.

She continued. "I've gotten much better since it happened. I found the man of my dreams, dreams I didn't even know I had. I have an amazing family. But it was very, very bad, believe me." She paused as rage and loathing crept into her voice. "Poor, poor, little Nikki. Four months into a very severe case of postpartum depression, nearly suicidal, and the asshole here not only fucks around on me, he makes a public spectacle of it, and absolutely, completely humiliates me."

Justin suddenly zipped the suitcase up and looked at the door.

Nikki shook her head slowly. "Uh, uh, uh. I did promise my man I wouldn't lay a hand on you, but I don't believe Ashley has made any promise to anyone. I'm sure she'd like to hear the rest of this."

I shifted the bat into both hands and stepped between him and the door. "Try it. Please."

"A girl after my own heart." Nikki sent me a slow wink that made me flush.

"We had a deal, Nikki." Justin suddenly found his voice. "Four hundred miles. I stay four hundred miles away and you let it go."

Her smile seemed to almost grow fangs. "We did have a deal. Four hundred miles." She held up a cell phone with a map. "Three hundred ninety-nine. Point eight." She gave me a warm look. "I did have to stand right at the city limit sign."

For a second I thought he was going to rush the door. I wound up with the bat. "Seriously, Justin. I fucking dare you."

Nikki waited for a second, then sighed. "He won't do it. No balls at all." She shook her head and I could feel she really wished he would try. "Anyway, during the course of our...train wreck, I managed to find out that he and his latest girlfriend were embezzling from his cousin's construction firm. So in exchange for my silence, he agreed to go at least four hundred miles away."

Justin puffed up a little. "It's been almost five years. That's the statute of limitations."

Nikki laughed, a soft cruel sound. "I'm sure it is. But it was never really about the law, was it Justin?" She shifted her smoky eyes to me. "His cousin has a very long history of violence, and no forgiveness in his soul at all. But he has lots of blowtorches and ball peen hammers."

I could see fear in Justin's eyes and I decided to push him. "I want my grandmother's money. Asshole."

Even though I had the bat, he was far less afraid of me. "The money is community property; at best you'd have to split it with me."

Nikki nodded. "That is true." She held a bag up. "It was in the freezer. Idiot. Half would be around seventy-five thousand dollars, right?"

I nodded. I hated the idea of him getting any money, but right now I had nothing.

"But what you actually do with your half of the money is up to you, Justin. Personally, I think you could spend it on this." She held up a slip of paper, then handed it to me.

I looked at it, it was just a phone number.

Nikki studied her nails just a bit. "That's your cousin's phone number, Justin. I bet Ashley would sell that to you for, oh, seventy-five thousand dollars."

I felt an off-kilter smile crawl onto my face. "That would give me something to live on until I get a new job."

"Amber checked your contract and the employee handbook. Don't worry about your job. You're only fired if you're convicted of domestic violence, and it is very much in Justin's interest to be very gone long before that could happen."

I grinned. I suspected it looked a lot like Nikki's smile. "And you'll have to stay four hundred miles from me too. Just so I don't accidentally remember the number."

"Oooh, I like that. Symmetry." Nikki blew me a kiss I could almost feel.

Just a few minutes later, Justin was headed out the door, crushed. As he stepped out, Nikki called to him. "Four hundred miles from Ashley at all times, Justin. Oh, heavens, I forgot. Ashley's a flight attendant, isn't she? They change routes all the time, don't they? She could be almost anywhere."

He stopped and looked back at us in horror as he realized what that meant.

I gave him my most innocent wide-eyed look. "Run, Motherfucker. Run."

He spun on his heel and walked faster.

I looked at Nikki. "You obviously have the money to do what you want. Why the games? You didn't need me for any of this."

She looked down at her nails for a second, then met my eyes. "Maybe I didn't. But you needed it, didn't you? I remember what it was like, how helpless and alone I felt. How fucking hopeless everything seemed. I got lucky. I met the right guy at the right moment." She shook her head in momentary wonder. "With his help I really 'found myself,' as silly as that sounds. But until I did..." She stared into darkness for a moment. "I saw your picture on the internet, I remembered what it felt like when he did it to me. I couldn't leave you that way."

Amber was leaning against my Charger as we walked out to watch Justin get in his rental car and drive off.

She looked at Nikki. "That's it? No stabbing? No shooting? No severe beatings? No faces bitten off?"

Nikki rolled her eyes and looked at me in mock exasperation. "One time, just one time. Bite one face off and you're branded for life."

Amber smiled and handed Nikki a black silk jacket. "Let's try and not to cause a riot at the airport this time. That TSA checkpoint may never recover."

Nikki shrugged the jacket on, then put her arm over Amber's shoulders as they walked toward a dark car next to mine. "C'mon, Cream Puff, we have to catch that flight and go convince my husband I've been good. Or least make him not care."

She paused, smiling, then hit a speed dial number on her phone. "We're done..." Someone on the other end talked for a moment and she laughed, a liquid, breathless sound that felt like black velvet sliding down a nude body. "Oh yes. Your baby did bad, bad things." She stopped and closed eyes, shivering, while Amber steadied her for a moment.

Nikki seemed to catch her breath and snapped her dark eyes open. Her voice turned sinful and hungry. "God. Yes. You really do know what I like. You Bastard."

Post Production Notes

Though this works just fine as a standalone, it is really a sequel to "The Harpy." Thanks again to the the editors and beta readers, it's a tough job, but they were amazing as usual. As always thank you to the readers, you've supported us since the very beginning and we can't express our thanks enough. All we can do is post more stories when we have the time.

This one is for all the readers who have asked for "more Nikki." I don't think we've had a month go by since "The Harpy" posted that we didn't get an email asking if there was any way she could return. I didn't really see how there could be.

Sometimes the Universe decides what you will write. This is one of those.

There was a recent news story about a flight attendant who went ballistic after catching her husband in bed with another woman. I saw her mugshot, saw that look in her eyes that said she wasn't done yet. I told a co-worker that I really wanted to post her bail and have a bike messenger deliver a baseball bat and a GoPro to her outside the jail. You know, just to see what happened next.

Then I noticed the name of the flight attendant.

Nicole.

Over the next few days, I got three emails in a row from different people asking for a sequel to The Harpy.

I never use the radio in my truck, but The Missus borrowed it, and when I turned it on the next morning, Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" was blasting. Followed by Chris Isaaks' "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" which I've always thought of as a sort of theme to The Harpy.

I can take a hint.

The Missus pointed out that some stories just have to be written. We've had a few of those -- stories that won't let go until they are down on paper. They fill up the space in your head and refuse to let you work on anything else until you deal with them. "The Song of Farwalker and Deadgirl" haunted me for weeks until I got it out. The Missus couldn't go to sleep one night until we got out of bed and had "An Angry Man" sketched out.

So while I was fairly certain I was never going to write a sequel to "The Harpy," I didn't get a say in it. Nikki decided to return. Rather than piss her off, I got with the program.

Because, well, Nikki can get just a little bit crazy if she doesn't get her way.