Cry Havoc

Chapter 2

2

The little blue Honda Fit settled into a parking spot that was much too big for it. The engine went quiet, and the driver's-side door popped open.

Jack emerged from the car into a muggy evening where the sun beat down and left orange sparkles on the black lenses of his glasses. A hot wind hit him and ruffled his hair. It was going to be a warm night, he could tell.

His mother's apartment complex was a simple tower of white bricks in the middle of downtown Winnipeg, a twelve-story building that reached for red-rimmed clouds that stretched across the blue sky. There were other skyscrapers all around him and noisy cars zipping past on the road. He had almost forgotten what that was like. Leyrian streets were deathly silent by comparison.

Giving his old car a pat on its roof – it was his mother's now; Jack had given it to her when he moved to Leyria – he shut the door and the left parking lot. The Honda beeped as he activated the alarm.

When he went around the corner, he found Anna waiting for him on the building's front step, and she was so damn cute in a pair of jean shorts and a blue flannel sweater. Her strawberry-blonde hair was left loose for once, and it fell just past the nape of her neck.

Jack reached up with one hand and pulled down his sunglasses so that he could peek over the rims. “Whatcha doin' out here?” he asked. “I thought we were gonna have leftover spaghetti with Mom.”

Anna stood by the door with her arms crossed, smiling sheepishly at the pavement under her shoes. “That was the plan,” she agreed. “But I wanted to surprise you; so, I did a little research…”

She looked up at him with those lovely blue eyes, and any thought of asking what she meant by research went flying out of his head. “I thought maybe we could have a date night?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Anna stood on her toes, brushing his lips with hers, and then, before he could ask for more details, her arms encircled his neck. “You'll see,” she whispered. “Plus I think your mom might appreciate a little privacy after a week of hosting us.”

“Probably,” Jack agreed. “So…”

“Don't worry; I know the way.”

“You're not gonna tell me, are you?”

“Nope.”

Five minutes later, they were on the road and headed toward the outskirts of the city. Anna gave directions, but Jack had to get behind the wheel. His girlfriend had never learned to drive. Leyrians rarely used cars. Most of their cities had efficient public-transit systems that could get you anywhere you wanted to go in about fifteen minutes.

Still, he was impressed by how well Anna knew her way around his hometown. She had a great sense of direction – Jack was still amazed at how quickly she had learned the layout of Ottawa on her first visit to Earth – but even though they were staying with his mother, they had spent very little time here in Winnipeg. She must have looked up their destination on a map, which meant a fair amount of planning had gone into this date.

It wasn't long before they were driving through a neighbourhood near the one that he had grown up in. The pieces all snapped together in Jack's head. Suddenly, he knew exactly where they were going. “No…” he said.

“Yup.”

After parking the car, they followed a crowd of people under a massive sign that read, “Welcome to the Apple Blossom Festival!” The carnival was located in an open field near the eastern bank of the Red River.

It was basically a tiny city of colourful tents laid out in neat, square patterns to form a grid of makeshift streets in the grass. You could find pretty much anything you wanted here: apple pies, homemade jewellery, teddy bears sewn by hand by an old woman who had been bringing her stuffed critters to the festival for almost twenty years. The sounds of the midway drowned out almost everything else. In the distance, a Ferris wheel turned lazily with glowing lights on every spoke.

Grinning so hard his jaw hurt, Jack tilted his head back and took in the sight. “It's just like I remember it,” he mumbled. “I gotta give you props for this one, An. You came up with the perfect date night.”

Anna was holding his hand as they made their way through the crowd. She glanced over her shoulder with a sly little smile of her own. “Well, I can't take all the credit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mom told me that when you were young, you always wanted to take a girl to the fair, but you never had anyone to go with.”

Closing his eyes, Jack nodded. “That's true,” he said. “But I'm surprised Mom knew that. I don't recall telling her.”

Anna spun around to stand in front of him, and then, before he could utter one word of protest, she was tickling him. He flinched and giggled, trying to get away, but his girlfriend was relentless. “It's hard to keep secrets from the people who love you,” she said.

Jack was laughing so hard he had tears on his cheeks. “Okay! Okay!” He retreated, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand. “Your point is taken. Henceforth, I will submit to your Orwellian invasion of privacy.”

“So…”

“So?”

Standing on her toes, Anna kissed his cheek. “Would you like to be my date to the fair?” she whispered. “We could have some apple pie, listen to the live music, maybe ride the Ferris wheel.”

“I would love to.”

Their journey took them down a wide lane between two rows of colourful tents. A blue one on his left was occupied by a woman in her fifties who still wore sunglasses even though the last traces of twilight were fading from the sky. One glance and Jack understood why. She was selling designer sunglasses.

On his right, several kids from the local high school sold corn on the cob from a bright yellow tent. Maybe half a dozen people were clustered around a table that was loaded up with t-shirts.

Anna slipped her arm around his waist and snuggled up with her head on his chest. “This place…” she murmured. “I can totally see teenage you daydreaming about bringing a girl here.”

Eventually, they found themselves in the midway, surrounded by all sorts of crazy rides. There were the giant strawberries that went round and round in a circle. There was the Scrambler; Jack thought that one was aptly named because it looked and moved like the spinning head of a blender. One was shaped like a huge octopus with cars at the end of every tentacle. Kids screamed, and the scent of popcorn filled the air.

They were fenced in on all sides by carnival games, each one sheltered from the elements under a metal roof that was decked out in blinking lights. The men and women who operated those games all cried out, beckoning people to try their luck.

A young woman with dark skin and long hair that she wore in corn-rows was running a game of Skee Ball. She caught Jack's eye and favoured him with a salesman's smile. “Win it for your girlfriend?” she said, pointing to the big stuffed panda that hung over her head.

Jack stepped up to her with his hands clasped behind his back, craning his neck to examine the prizes. “Tempting,” he said, eyebrows rising. “What do you say, Anna? Want me to win you a teddy bear?”

In the blink of an eye, Anna placed herself in front of him. That impish grin of hers told him that he had just made this a contest. “I don't know,” she replied. “Do you want me to win you a teddy bear?”

“Sure.”

The young woman looked at him with a quizzical expression.

He shrugged and lowered his eyes, a mild flush warming his cheeks. “I like teddy bears,” he explained. “So, how 'bout I try to win you one, and you try to win me one?”

“Deal,” Anna agreed.

The rules were pretty simple. To win a teddy bear, you had to earn at least twelve hundred points in three throws. Which meant that you had to get the ball in one of the two rings in the upper corners – both worth five hundred points – at least twice.

Jack pressed his lips together as he studied the lane, sizing it all up with spatial awareness. He felt an eagerness from Summer. The math played out instinctively in his mind. Well…It wasn't really math; there were no symbols or numbers. It was what math would be if it could be expressed with emotion. A certainty that he had to throw the ball exactly this hard. He had done this many times before, but usually, it involved shooting a gun with precision.

Lifting the ball in his hand, Jack examined it. Not just with his eyes or his fingers but with his mind. There were tiny nicks along its surface. It would roll unevenly. He had to account for that.

He tossed the ball.

It landed squarely in the lane, rolled along at dizzying speed and hopped from the end of the ramp…right into the ring in the upper-left corner. The young woman turned her head, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Beginner's luck,” Jack assured her.

Of course, that explanation was far less convincing when he performed the exact same feat a second time. For his final throw, he chose the ring in the upper-right corner. The ball went in with a satisfying thunk.

Next to him, Anna completed her final throw and stood up straight with a grin on her face. “Well,” she said. “I guess you can choose any prize you want.”

“You both can,” the young woman muttered. She reached for the huge panda – the most expensive prize she had to offer – but Anna forestalled. “No, he's cute, but I want something a little smaller. That one.”

She pointed to a modestly-sized, brown teddy bear with a blue bow-tie. A cutie to be sure. The instant Anna got her hands on him, she squeezed him tight as if he were a treasured childhood toy. “I love him!” she exclaimed.

Jack's bear was black with a brown snout and a cream-coloured bow-tie. He knew right away that he would keep the little guy forever as a reminder of this night. “Come on,” Anna said, leading toward the rides.

Fifteen minutes later, they were climbing into the car of a Ferris wheel and waiting patiently as the attendant fastened the safety bar. They began to rise, the city lights coming into view bit by bit.

Anna was next to him with hands folded in her lap, smiling lovingly at him. “I'm really glad we came here tonight,” she murmured. “You're such a romantic.”

Jack slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she cuddled up with her head on his chest. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Because I had a silly fantasy about taking a girl to the fair when I was in high school?”

“It's adorable.”

They were partway up when the wheel stopped to load people into the next car. Not high enough to get a good view, but he did see lights reflected over the dark waters of the Red River. It was a beautiful night. Warm but not painfully so. For a moment, he almost thought that Anna would fall asleep in his arms. And he was okay with that.

At the apex of their climb, he had a lovely view of the city under a starry sky with only a few clouds drifting across the heavens. He never really thought that he would miss this place – when he was a kid, he had wanted to see the world – but having been all over the galaxy, he had to admit that there were days when he longed for the familiar. Only a few, but it did happen.

Anna sat up, and the wind teased her hair. Her impish smile returned. “You know, I have seen a lot of Earth media,” she began. “And I have it on good authority that there's another carnival tradition we're forgetting.”

“What's that?”

Gently, she laid a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward her. Then she was kissing him. It was a chaste kiss, tender and sweet, one that soothed away his worries and left him with a warm glow.

It was almost midnight when they left the fair. Jack found himself driving down a narrow street that ran parallel to the river, a street lined with tall maple trees that stood like shadows, their dark branches reaching over the road. He was about to turn onto the Provencher Bridge when Anna put a hand on his thigh. “No, stay on Tache,” she said.

Gripping the steering wheel hard, Jack squinted through the windshield. He shook his head slowly. “Stay on Tache?” he muttered. “Why? There's nothing on Tache.”

Anna was reclining in the front seat with her hands folded behind her head, and her soft laughter made him wonder exactly what she had in store for him. She could be quite devious when she wanted to be. “Just trust me.”

They continued on, passing a library, a park and several small apartment buildings. When they passed under a set of train tracks, Jack became even more confused. What on Earth were they doing all the way out here? He saw nothing but tiny houses.

“Just past the pumping station,” Anna said. “Now, left.”

Her directions led them to a short dirt road surrounded by trees, a secluded little hidey-hole on the bank of the river. He looked around, trying to figure out why Anna had chosen this place, and then it hit him. “This is a make-out spot! You want to go to a make-out spot?”

Anna sat with her arms crossed, her lips pursed as she stared indignantly through the window. “I don't know what you're talking about!” she insisted. “That you could even think such a thing about a woman of my breeding!”

“Um…”

Leaning over the gearshift, Anna seized a fistful of his shirt and pulled him close. Every last trace of reluctance fled from Jack's mind when her soft lips found the side of his neck.

Anna practically climbed on top of him, holding him pinned with her hands on his shoulders. Her hot breath on his ear made him shudder. “The theme of this evening,” she whispered, “is doing all the things you didn't get to do when you were younger.”

“Mm-hmm…”

She sat up, and even though she was just a shadow in the darkness, Jack could feel the intensity of her gaze. “So,” she cooed. “Do you wanna make out with a hottie?”

Jack tossed her down into the front seat, and then he was on top of her, nipping at her neck, her collarbone, the soft skin of her shoulder. The scent of her was intoxicating. Like strawberries.

Her mouth found his, and this kiss was anything but chaste. No, not chaste at all. It was ragged desperation. For a very long while – like an hour, at least – it really was just making out, but then Anna peeled his t-shirt off and flung it into the backseat. Her flannel sweater went next, and then one thing led to another…

Some men described s*x as a haze in which their conscious minds retreated and they acted on instinct, but Jack was intimately aware of everything. He felt it every time Anna's fingernails left scratches in his back. He heard every sigh, reveled in the softness of her skin. He was aware of everything.

Well…Everything that mattered.

And the only thing that mattered was the goddess in his arms. Everything else was just a distraction. Anna was the only thing in his universe. He listened for the pace of her breathing. He focused on the slight sting of her nails digging into his shoulder. He mixed it all together into a sparkling cocktail of information with only one purpose. Not just to give her pleasure; that was easy. Jack had discovered what she liked on their first night together. No, the real challenge was to leave her teetering on the brink for a little while, to tease her to the point of desperation. That way, it would be so much sweeter when he finally did take her over the edge.

At one point, he paused just to admire her face. There was no light, but Jack didn't need it; he could sense every inch of her, every perfect inch. Anna was smiling up at him. “I love you,” she whispered.

He smoothed a lock of damp hair off her forehead, kissed her softly on the nose and whispered. “I love you too…”

“Really?”

“More than anything in this universe.”

Once wasn't enough for either of them, but when they were finally satisfied, when they were catching their breath and basking in the afterglow, Jack found the presence of mind to check the clock on his multi-tool. He blinked at what he saw. It was almost three a.m.! “Wow…”

He was lying in the front seat, staring lazily at the interior of the car's roof. Anna was curled up on top of him with her head on his chest. “The blanket…” she mumbled. “In the back…”

He reached behind the driver's seat and found a thin blanket there. Odd. He hadn't put it there, and he had been out all day with Rajel and Cassi. Which meant that Anna must have hidden it in the backseat last night at the very latest. Which meant that she had been planning this date for a while.

Jack took the blanket and settled it over her. It was big enough to cover her from feet to shoulders but thin enough to be cool on this hot summer night. Anna sighed as she nuzzled his chest. “I know we have to go back soon,” she murmured. “But can we just stay here for a while? Can you just hold me?”

Jack closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the seat cushion. He breathed deeply through his nose. “Sure,” he whispered. “For as long as you like.”

He found himself trailing his fingertips up and down her back, gently caressing her. Thoughts drifted through his mind. Things that had occurred to him earlier that afternoon, things he wanted to tell Anna. He half thought about mentioning them, but he was just so mellow. He didn't want to move…or talk…

He just wanted to enjoy the feeling of his girlfriend's warm body, listen to the soothing sound of her breathing as she fell asleep…

Knock, knock, knock.

Jack woke up to realize that it was morning. The sun was shining bright over the Red River; the trees were standing tall with green leaves fluttering in the wind. And there was a cop outside his car.

A tall and broad-shouldered man with fair skin and gray stubble along his jawline, he leaned forward to peer through the window. It was open just a crack; so Jack could hear the man just fine when he said, “Okay, lovebirds, time to go home.”

Rolling onto her back, Anna stretched languidly and sighed with contentment. Her eyes popped open. She was covered to her shoulders, but for half a second, Jack thought she would be mortified and clutch the blankets to her chest. That was what happened in the movies. Instead, she just smiled and said, “Good morning, Officer. Is there something we can do for you?”

“You can get dressed and go home.”

Stifling a yawn with her fist, Anna nodded. “Sure,” she said in a sleepy voice. “If you'll just give us a moment, we'll be on our way.”

The man backed away from the car with his hands on his hips, but his gaze never wavered. Not for an instant. Jack wasn't quite sure what to do. He couldn't start putting on his own clothes until Anna climbed off of him, and he was pretty sure she wouldn't do that with the cop outside. Oh, this should be fun. I can't wait to explain to Mom why we have to pay a fine.

Anna sat up, holding the blankets in place to keep herself covered. Glancing out the window, she raised a thin eyebrow. “Were you planning to watch?” she asked. “Because, honestly, that might get me a little excited. And then Jack and I would have to have s*x again; it's not smart to drive when you're distracted by lustful thoughts. So, if you plan on watching, I'm going to have to insist that you stay for the entire show.”

The cop was blushing so hard you might have thought that he was some sheltered, home-schooled kid. He averted his eyes for a brief moment and then regained some of his backbone. “Who the hell are you, lady?”

“The woman who saved your planet…what? Three times now?”

“Yeah,” the cop snarled. “And I'm Anna Lenai.”

“Well, actually…”

Crossing his arms, the cop tossed his head back and stared up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. “Look, I don't have time for stupid college kids,” he growled. “Get dressed, go home and don't let me ever catch you out here again.”

He stalked off toward his cruiser, which was parked a little ways up the road.

Anna flung the blanket aside without a care in the world and began retrieving her clothes from under the seat. “You heard him, sweetie,” she said, patting Jack's thigh. “Oh, and can we stop at that Canadian coffee place you like so much? I think your mom would appreciate it, and I want to get one of those maple donuts before we get back to Leyria.”