Between HeVan and Hell (25 page)

As they walked over to the section of
the park that held all the game concessions, Grace noticed more
than one curious or envious look in her direction. She was walking
alongside Jalen with their arms around each other. Before they
left, she’d emphasized the importance of maintaining their cover
everywhere except the condo. She was already planning a trip back
for when they could just be themselves. Justyn tended to walk on
her other side and Jett wandered all over the place, in front of
them, behind them, always popping up when you least expected. He
was like a little boy, the way he’d rush ahead to see something and
then come back to tell his brothers. At the same time, she knew he
was also making regular reconnaissance.

When they reached all the game booths,
she decided to add an extra layer of challenge for them.

“Let’s walk around and look at all the
choices. Then you can each try and win two large stuffed animals,”
said Grace.

“That would make six. Why so many?”
asked Justyn.

“I figured we could give them to Addie
as gifts for the babies.”

“What will the babies do with large
stuffed animals?” asked Jett.

“The babies won’t do anything with
them right away. They will be a decoration in their nursery. When
they get older, they’ll climb on them and think of them as their
friends. I told a lot of my secrets and wishes to my favorite
stuffed animal when I was a little girl. I really wanted a Sgt.
McGruff stuffed animal, but they don’t make them. So my dad found a
stuffed animal—I think it was actually supposed to be a dachshund
and then got a miniature trench coat for it. I still have him; I’ll
show you when we get back to the condo,” she said.

As she suggested, each of the men went
around and looked at the different games. Justyn chose throwing a
ball at some bottles on a round table. Jalen chose throwing rings
over the tops of milk bottles and Jett chose tossing the ping-pong
balls into water-filled bowls. They were all determined to win
stuffed animals and felt their hand-eye coordination was up to the
task. They soon learned what many others already knew. It was
harder than it seemed. She walked back and forth between them and
noted that they did have good precision and hit more than they
missed.

It only took Justyn a few minutes to
win, as he had such a strong arm. He hit the milk bottles with
tremendous force. When he saw the prize, though, he understood the
nuances to the game. Handing the smaller prize to Grace, he worked
out the angles in his head then continued on and quickly won a
large tiger. He easily won again. The operator was giving him a
tight smile as he asked him which one he’d like next. Justyn turned
to Grace and asked her what he should get.

“Get the big red dog. There's a series
of famous children’s books that feature a big, red dog,” said
Grace.

After he got the dog, they walked over
to Jett and Jalen. The operator was happy to see him go and very
soon got over the loss of the stuffed animals as he knew that
others would see them and come to try their skill. Jett had dozens
of smaller gifts and one large, stuffed giraffe. Just as they
walked up, they heard him shout with glee. He pointed to a large
stuffed bear. Jett kept a small, plastic, water pistol; Grace
didn’t want to know what he planned to do with it. He was deciding
what to do with the pile of smaller gifts when Jalen came up behind
them holding onto two large stuffed animals, a zebra and a
cow.

A little girl standing nearby, holding
her mother’s hand, said, “You have a lot of them,” she
said.

“Sorry,” said her mother, “she’s a
little jealous.”

“That’s okay,” said Jalen, looking
down at the child. “Grace said,” pointing to Grace, “that because
there will be six babies, we needed six animals.”

“Oh, my, Congratulations!” said the
woman, before she picked up the girl.

“Here,” said Jett and he handed the
girl the smaller prizes he’d won.

“What do you say?” asked the
mother.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile and
then ducked her head.

Jett crouched down. “You are very
welcome, little one.”

Grace saw that while the woman’s
clothes were faded and worn, her daughter's were bright and crisp,
though both were clean and ironed. Obviously this woman loved her
daughter very much.

“Are you giving your little girl a
treat before school starts up? She looks the right age for
kindergarten,” asked Grace.

“We’re both having a treat. We’re
living at Greenhouse and someone donated tickets to Great America
to the residents,” the lady said.

Grace immediately made a decision.
“Well, if you want, I’m sure my guys would love to win any stuffed
animal for your little girl and if you spot any of your fellow
residents, call them over and we’ll win some for them,
too.”

She could see that the woman was
wavering between the treat for her daughter and her own pride, so
she quickly added, “It’s actually my sister that’s pregnant. We’re
here today to celebrate our engagement.”

She held up her ring and then added,
“Go on, he’s totally loaded and loves kids.”

It didn’t take long for the woman to
say yes. Justyn got down on one knee and offered to be a chair for
the little girl they learned was named Serafina. Serafina quickly
saw the benefits of sitting on the shoulders of a man seven feet
tall.

Her mother, Raquel, and Grace stood
watch over the booty with several other mothers that came over as
the children all crowded around her men. An hour later, most of the
concessioners were crying in their coffee and a dozen kids were
lugging around stuffed animals bigger than they were.

After the little families were walking
away, Grace allowed herself to think about Raquel’s assumption of
her pregnancy. She knew she couldn’t be. She’d been taking birth
control shots for years. She was covered for another month at
least.

She wondered why the thought of
getting pregnant didn’t bother her. Usually her career came first
before everything else. She had wanted to be the first female
Superintendent of Police in Chicago for most of her
life.

I’m changing. Being with
Jalen, Justyn, and Jett is changing me, she thought. Oh, my God,
I’m in love with them! I’m not ready for this, and they’ve never
said anything to me about being in love. As far as I know, this is
just some alien chemical reaction; what am I going to do
now?

“Okay, guys. Let’s go home. We have
hours of work to do this evening, remember?” she said, suddenly
afraid the way her life was going.

All three of them gave her a sharp
look because of the tone in her voice, but she was already striding
away. They quickly caught up.

As they were walking back to the
Escalade, Jalen asked her about the women and children. He’d
noticed that there were no men in the group and that many of the
children were a bit frightened of them.

She quickly explained that Greenhouse
was a shelter in Chicago for abused women and children who were
escaping from bad situations and needed a helping hand getting back
on their feet. She didn’t mind when she saw the angry glint in all
their eyes and she reached over and gave Justyn’s hand a squeeze
when she saw tears in his. She damned Vasily Kadyrov to hell when
she realized she couldn’t lean up and kiss Justyn’s tears away
without blowing her cover.

They had been having so much fun that
they hadn’t really spent too much time listening to the downloaded
data. There was something sinister and horrible about listening to
evil while gazing upon wholesomeness. As soon as they returned to
the condo, Grace insisted on getting to work immediately. They
could tell something was bothering her and decided it wasn’t the
right time to ask. They didn’t finish their review until after nine
that night.

“Jett, can you put all the relevant
information onto flash drives that are compatible with Earth
technology?” she asked. “I think we have enough here to get the
additional warrants we need to seize computers and search their
homes. But on two occasions, they mention the month-end meeting
being held at the end of the week. I think that would net even
better results. Will the nanos still be transmitting
then?”

“Since it was Monday night when we
implanted them, we should be okay. I expect Saturday will be the
last day and we would have to retrieve the information before
eleven p.m. Based on the readings I’ve been getting, the nanos will
be deactivated just after midnight,” said Jett.

“Do we have to download every night? I
worry about them getting suspicious. Is it possible to do one big
download on Friday night?” asked Grace.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I pointed
this out to the Captain. His concern was that if they planned a
criminal activity in the meantime, earlier downloads of the data
might be able to prevent it,” said Jett.

“I’m going to call him. Nothing we’ve
gotten so far has indicated that something is happening. I think if
we lay low for a couple of days, they will be less suspicious and
go back to business as usual. We want them comfortable when they
have their meeting on Friday,” she said.

Suiting actions to words, Grace got
the special phone she used for contacting the Captain and told him
her ideas and what they’d heard so far. He agreed with her and said
that that would make it easier to preserve chain of custody on the
evidence, as well. Right now, Jett was carrying the data in his
possession at all times.

They would pass over what they had and
then lay low until the early hours of Saturday, when they would do
the final download. That would give them the weekend to review the
data and they could apply for any necessary warrants on
Monday.

“No more downloads until after the
Friday meeting. What do you guys want to do for the rest of the
week?” she asked. When she saw the gleam in their eyes, she added,
“Besides that.”

“Addie’s home is nice, but I miss the
wild places. Do you have wilderness areas near here?” asked Justyn,
as he rubbed his back on the corner of the doorway into the
kitchen. She’d noticed all three of them were scratching and
rubbing their backs more and more lately.

“We can go camping, if you want. I
know some great places up in Wisconsin,” she said. “It’s a little
far to go just for overnight. Today’s Wednesday and we have to be
back for the final data retrieval Friday night.”

They talked it over and decided to
leave late that night. Justyn would go out and purchase supplies
for their trip at the grocery store; he was glad it was open all
night. Grace could sleep in the car while the guys took turns
driving; the GPS would make sure they didn’t get lost. It meant
they would only get about five hours of sleep each, but they didn’t
mind. Once the idea was broached, they all realized how much they
missed being away from the crowds. They would arrive at the base
parking lot at dawn and then hike in, set camp between Two and
Three in the afternoon, whenever they spotted a likely place and
then hike out the next day. They’d be back in the City in plenty of
time.

They were a couple of hours late in
their departure plans. The satiated looks they all wore when they
finally left the city behind them showed that they didn’t care all
that much.

The dawn on Friday morning was
glorious. Since they were all in such good physical condition, they
had decided to hike deeper into the wilderness. Not wanting to
sleep on the hard ground, Grace didn’t allow herself to be
convinced until the men told her they had included an air mattress
and pump along with a tent, and were willing to carry the extra
load.

After they’d each taken a turn laying
on it, they reluctantly admitted it was an improvement over the
ground. They were so large, though, that only one of them could
really fit on the mattress with her. She told them to play
rock-paper-scissors to decide who would get to sleep with her and
wondered why they burst into laughter. She laughed along when they
told her.

She had also noticed the men’s backs
were even more sensitive now. She could bring them to orgasm with a
back massage. She gave them each a back massage around the campfire
and then they got really inventive in the tent later.

She was standing outside the tent in a
T-shirt belonging to Jalen and a pair of flip-flops. She could tell
it was his by the smell. Each of the men had his own subtle scent.
She looked around their camp and wondered where they had gone. The
sky was lightening and quite soon it would begin to change from the
darker hues to the paler ones. She heard the trees rustling and
turning to the sound, watched as all three of them emerged from the
opposite side of the clearing.

Wings! Oh, Gosh! Addie was
right!
she thought.

“Grace, the time has come for us to
fly. This is something we must do now. Will you watch our flight,
Graciela Perez?” asked Jalen formally.

Something told Grace that watching
them fly was important. They were slowly moving their wings back
and forth in a rolling flutter. A flush moved through her body and
she was suddenly very aroused.