Page 88 of Rebel's Fairytale

“Understood,” she replied.

“Check in tomorrow.” Then, he ended the call.

She was sure the carnival saved her ass. That went a lot smoother than the call the day before. She had heard whispers and rumors of a carnival, but no concrete information until she saw the flyers on the light posts in town earlier that day. Not having much information before, she hadn’t wanted to mention it to him until she could confirm details.

With a sigh of relief, she slid out of her vehicle and started across the parking lot. The owner was behind the front desk as she came in through the door. Instead of the welcoming smile from the first day, the woman was looking at Messer as if she was trying to figure her out.

Good luck with that,Messer thought as she gave the woman a forced smile and headed down the hallway.

It wasn’t the first time the owner looked at her like that. It had only increased in frequency the longer she was there.

Messer couldn’t worry about some woman with nosy habits. It wasn’t as if the hotel owner was a threat. What was she going to do? Tie her up with hotel towels and torture her with toiletry items until Messer broke?

Nah, she wasn’t worried about the hotel owner.

On the second floor, she approached and entered her room. Walking over to her table, she dropped everything on the top and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. Pulling up the encrypted video app, she did as she always did and checked to make sure all the cameras she had set up in her room were still working.

Instead of the screen filling with various boxes of different views of the room, she was greeted with an error screen.

“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath. She’d have to redo all of her security measures. It wasn’t the first time the connection had gotten interrupted with the wireless cameras on a job. It was a flaw to the programming that they hadn’t figured out, yet. It was just frustrating.

After sulking about it for a few seconds, she set her phone down and got to work.

Niles

Niles was still pissed as he sat in a car down the street from the fucker’s house. Since his sister refused to let him borrow her car, he had to steal one. He was aware of a family on his mom’s street who was on vacation for a couple weeks. The car would be ditched long before they realized it was gone.

He was grateful for people who still didn’t have video cameras. It made things easier. He was dealing with enough bullshit.

Niles had been sitting there for a couple hours, and the sun had just gone down, but he had yet to see his kids or Mary. He couldn’t believe that bitch took a cheap shot at his dick. All Niles wanted to do is get his family back together. And sure, he lost his temper when she confronted him, but she should know better than to push him to that point by now. She ruined his entire fucking plan. Now, Niles had to wait for another opportunity, but he could be patient.

Another half hour passed before the front door opened and kids started streaming out of the house, followed by Mary and the fucker. He watched as all four of the kids climbed into her Jeep and buckled themselves in. After the fucker loaded backpacks in the hatch of the Jeep, he followed Mary to the driver’s door and gave her a deep kiss before she climbed in.

Niles was fucking furious. How dare the fucker kiss his wife in front of his kids! He would make the fucker pay for that shit.

As Mary backed out of the driveway, Niles started the stolen car and put it into drive. He waited until she got to the other end of the block, before he pulled away from the curb and followed her.

Ten minutes later, he watched as she pulled into the driveway of a tan ranch-style house with a black metal sculpture of a motorcycle attached to the front.

The kids climbed out of the Jeep and grabbed their backpacks from the back. Mary followed them to the front door, where a red-haired woman, who looked to be maybe ten years older than Mary, was standing.

Mary and the woman talked for a minute. Then, Mary kissed the heads of all the kids and returned to the Jeep as the kids went inside the house with the woman.

As Mary left the ranch style home, Niles considered finding a place to force her off the road and take her, but those thoughts were dashed when one of the damn Howlers came riding up on his bike and appeared to be following Mary.

Damn it!

Ruby

Relaxing on Rebel’s couch, curled up in a throw blanket, Ruby sent texts to Liz and Allie. She was vague about what was going on, but she wanted to let them know she wouldn’t be at her townhouse for a while. They weren’t happy with her answers, and she knew they would demand details at the next download day, but they were appeased for now.

Snuggled up, Ruby watched Rebel moving around his kitchen. He was such a good man, and she wasn’t sure he knew it. He was always trying so hard to do the right thing and strived to be the man he wanted to be, that she was pretty sure he missed the fact that he already was that man.

The adrenaline had begun to wear off, making her hands shake and her tears build again in her eyes. She couldn’t believe what happened. It was almost like it was a dream, a nightmare really.

Things like that happened in books and movies. She didn’t expect it to happen in real life, and especially not to her. Thinking back on it, she couldn’t quite believe she was able to actually stab someone once, let alonetwice.

She hadn’t really thought about it at the time. She just acted. It was self-preservation that kicked in and caused her to do something she normally wouldn’t have even considered.

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