Chapter Text
He’s older. Of course. His hairline, what there is of the shorn, brown, buzz-cut-scalp-stubble, has receded. He isn’t as rail-thin as he used to be, but he’s still skinny. The eyes though. His eyes are a giveaway.
They’re like a glowing, flashing, throbbing warning signal. The shrieking smoke alarm of her dorm building. His eyes are like that central blue of a flame. So fucking blue it almost hurts.
Except Holly should be used to it by now. Feeling like she’s on fucking fire that is. Because according to everything she’s read, her life’s been in a combustive, fiery state as soon as she was in the womb.
“Look, Daddy. A red fox!”
A little girl with blonde pigtails runs past Holly, dragging along an older man in snow pants and a heavy coat. This entire barn smells like shit. But Holly loves animals. It's why she’s majoring in Zoology for fuck’s sake.
She just didn’t think she’d find him here of all places. Because spotting her father’s ex-meth-cook-partner in an animal sanctuary in bumfuck nowhere Alaska felt like spotting a shard of crystal meth in an incinerated underground lab. Or an intact cell phone in a skeevy lawyer’s office. Maybe even a shred of sympathy for her dead dick of a dad.
Holly grits her teeth. “Pinkman.”
Jesse. Jesse Bruce fucking Pinkman apparently works at Hope’s Wildlife Conservation Center. The inside of this place has a couple of animal paddocks for some of the rescued native species of Alaska, like foxes and owls. There’s even a snoozing owl on the branch of a tree that juts out from a hole in the ceiling. It’s like walking through the National Museum of History in D.C. but more open and airy, and everything looks more alive. Part of Holly sort of assumed Jesse would have overdosed at this point.
But he’s very alive and well. It’s weird, but it’s not even like spotting a ghost. He looks like he belongs here amid the fresh, freezing air and scampering woodland creatures ready to help the next Disney princess. That aforementioned red fox is literally eating berries right out of Jesse’s hand. He’s got a smile about as big as his enthralled audience, all tourists just brimming with oohs and questions and aahs . She hates herself for it, but he’s actually kind of hot. Okay, really hot. Even more attractive than his bleary-eyed, bed-head-like mug shot from when he was somewhere vaguely in his early twenties.
And yeah, in a very abstract way she’s thought about hunting him down. But she’d also thought about piercing her own belly button in high school. She tried to quit vaping about every time she bought a new cartridge, or at least try to switch to cigarettes. Even just last week, she considered trying mushrooms. But it didn’t mean she’d followed through with any of that.
Still, how in the hell had Holly managed to do something that the entire Albuquerque police force, the FBI, and who knows who else had completely failed at for nearly two decades? How had Holly found Jesse on her fucking sophomore year of college spring break?
“Excuse me, Miss?” There was some middle-aged lady with a bob in front of Holly. “Do you know where they’re selling the pellet feed for the reindeer?”
Holly shook her head with a tight, small sort of smile that she hoped read “Go fuck off.” Holly didn’t take a solo, week-long trip to Alaska to make friends.
She has friends. Not a ton or anything. But her roommate, Krystal, is pretty cool. Krystal the Chemistry major from fucking Sante Fe. Holly had fled to Carroll University, a tiny private school in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and has a fucking Chem major for a roommate with a name that matched the illegal substance her dad had manufactured around the time Holly had been born. They’ve lived together for two years now but aren’t tight or anything, rarely talk, but that’s fine with Holly.
Thankfully, Krystal isn’t a true crime buff, doesn’t listen to any of the podcasts speculating things like her dad was still alive somewhere in Mexico or that Holly was going to take up the reins to the business like she was Al Pacino in The Godfather or that her dad once had a torrid, twisted, sexual thing with his cooking partner.
Holly watches Jesse pat his little fox friend on the head and wonders if there had been anything between them. It’s 2029 and she isn’t a judgmental bitch. Her dad was a meth cook. Hell, maybe he’d been a gay meth cook. If she had to make drugs out in a cramped RV in the middle of the desert, she might as well do it with someone who looked like Jesse.
Waiting for a new batch of meth to cook in your meth oven? Go and play some tonsil-hockey with your young, hot meth partner. Seemed like a reasonable way to kill time. Maybe that wasn’t all that normal of her to think.
While Holly had been called many things growing up, normal had never been one of them. That probably extends to how almost everyone else at Carroll other than Holly had either gone home for spring break or somewhere like Cancun or Key West or wherever else they held wet t-shirt contests on the beach. Holly didn’t like beaches. Too much sand. Reminded her of home.
No, she’d been saving up at her Starbucks part-time job for the last two years and had thanked her generous big brother about a million times for his contribution as well. Flynn was making bank at his bougie IT gig in Palo Alto. He’s been rolling in the dough for as long as she can remember because of how good his tech and hacking skills are. His sophomore year of college, he got recruited by some bigshot company from the big apple to do, among other things she never understands, planned security breaches. The position was remote and full-time so he dropped out of school and moved back home, which soon was a nicer house he bought for the two of them and their mom: a two-story house with her very own room. No more shitty apartments. She remembers how it was almost unreal how fast the money was coming in. Their mom had even been suspicious for a while, though Holly couldn’t understand about what. To her it meant having her own yard for the first time when she was about five, getting more toys and whatever new Disney movie she wanted. It also meant he was around for a lot more of her childhood than he would have been otherwise.
Flynn moved out to California just five years ago. He liked the ocean and sunshine. Holly wanted to bury herself in the cold and snow until she felt like there was a fucking polar bear on her chest, like she couldn’t breath anymore.
She saw an actual polar bear that morning. She took it as a good omen for the start of her twentieth birthday. She’s not too sure now.
The conflicting sensation of wanting to talk to him and run the fuck out of here at the same time is nearly paralyzing. But the crowd around Jesse has wandered outside to gaze at the frosty fields of elk and bison.
He’s alone in his paddock. Well, not his paddock. But after seeing all those newspaper articles and all the hacker shit Flynn dug up for them growing up with Jesse’s face on it, part of her is a little too used to staring at him like some sort of bug behind a glass.
Staring like a dumb ass isn’t doing her any favors right now. She needs to move.
Holly hiked ten fucking miles yesterday with nothing but some heat packs, a pair of walking sticks, and a couple of cranberry-chocolate Kind Bars. She can sure as shit walk another ten or so feet across this smelly-ass barn.
She attempts a confident stride before she leans against the low fence in front of him.
“What’s his story?” she says.
He looks up from the baby owl resting on the knee of his dark jeans. It’s about as tiny as a can of Red Bull.
“This is Jane,” he says. “A couple of hikers found her on a trail with a fractured wing. Maybe a gunshot. She’s young. We think she’s about--”
“Four months old?” Holly says. “From the amount of down she still has on her chest, I’d say three or four. Most Great-Horned owls develop a thinner coat with more color variation once they get older.”
He grins. “Wow, you know a lot about owls. Guessing you’re not with the uh…missionary group from Kansas? This one lady didn’t know the difference between a grizzly and a black bear.”
“Sounds like somebody who wants to die,” Holly says. She’s trying to get him to laugh, but that smile of his drops like she fucking cocked her gun and poached it. “Sorry. I’m not being serious. But yeah, I’m also not a fucking missionary.”
“Yo, if you want to join them anyway, they’re all out there watching the elk. It’s mating season. It can get pretty…intense.”
“As hot as that sounds, I think I’ll pass. In case all those pheromones or whatever have some sort of placebo effect,” Holly says. “I’d rather be in here.”
She leans against the fence a little more, plays with her hair, looks at his lips. She does the shit guys usually like. He doesn’t seem turned off for sure.
It’s almost endearing watching someone with his rap sheet self-consciously glance away, maybe even blush. Holly is flattered to be able to flatter him. Out of all the shit she probably inherited, she’s not mad about the big jugs and shiny, blonde hair. She hopes she’s mostly her mom.
“If you’re not…like converting souls and shit, what uh…brings you to Alaska?”
Baby, little Jane on his lap does a sassy head swivel-move and they both chuckle.
“I’m just...traveling for work. I have a food blog and I heard you guys have some awesome king crab and oysters.”
Holly isn’t sure where that came from. But, she’s pretty sure both of her parents were practically professional liars. Apple from the tree. All that fuckery.
“Yo, that’s cool. You’re...like that dude from ‘Ratatouille.’”
“Yeah.” Holly laughs. He’s funny. “Well I’m like just a little less heartless.”
“You’re also not some old, weird-looking French dude,” he says.
She fans herself jokingly even though it’s only about twenty-something degrees. “You really know how to flatter a girl.”
He does that glance-away thing again, and Holly feels pretty dumb still fanning herself like she’s doing some bit from an old Marilyn Monroe movie. Some people say she looks like her. Old people do. Those films are ancient.
Holly stops fanning herself and extends her arm instead, positions it like a falconer beckoning a bird. She’s seen Scott, her RA who also happens to be a falconer, do this exact same thing about a million times in the quad from her third-floor, dorm-room window. She’d be studying for a Bio exam and see James, Scott’s falcon, soar across the sky and land on his arm.
And sure enough, it only takes a couple of seconds before Jane coos and flutters over to perch on Holly’s forearm. Her talons feel sharp even through Holly’s down jacket.
Jesse looks stunned. “Yo, I’ve never seen her…warm up to anybody that fast.”
Holly shrugs. “I tend to attract wild things.”
His smile feels almost sensual. “Oh yeah? Well, I guess you can’t be all that heartless.”
“Maybe not heartless. But, I’m not helpless either.” Holly tilts her head, locking friendly eyes with Jane who mirrors her. “I’m in Alaska on my own is what I mean. Doing this trip solo. Kind of like Reese Witherspoon vibes. Except without all the backpacking and gross foot blisters.”
“Yeah, I hope not living off of oatmeal or whatever everyday either.”
“Now that you mention it,” Holly says. “I don’t have anyone to go out with tonight. Want to grab a drink with me?”
Jesse stands up and brushes his hands off on his pants. “Seriously? You’re what…twenty-three?”
Having a Fake ID seems like a waste of plastic when Holly almost never gets carded. Yet another upside of having big boobs and perfecting her winged liner back in eleventh grade.
She has to give credit to the way she carries herself too. It was a kind of fake-it-until-you-make-it thing when she was younger and kids talked shit about her family behind her back. She found a way to walk, square her shoulders, look straight ahead. It shut the kids up on the playground. And even now it got her attention from older guys on campus, made adults listen to her, pay attention.
Well, maybe everyone but her mom. Holly used to talk herself blue in the face asking about her dad and got a stone fucking wall. Her mom isn’t cruel but her and Holly have never been all that close. It wasn’t until she was seven or eight that she realized if she wanted any warmth or answers, it was going to be from Flynn and his computer wizardry. They’re still as thick as thieves, and he’d opened her world to everything they’d been able to dig up. Holly knows about Los Pollos and Madrigal and the fucking neo-Nazis. Still though, Jesse could tell her a whole lot more than even that encrypted shit straight from the Pentagon.
“So you really do know how to flatter a girl? Today’s my birthday actually. The big, dirty-thirty. It’s sort of another reason I made the excursion out to Alaska. And you, you can’t be over thirty-five. I’m freshly thirty. It’s my birthday. Don’t make it weird. Get a drink with me.”
She knows she’s being pushy, but Flynn’s told her that their dad had been like that too. Maybe that’s what he responds to. If it had kept Jesse under her dad’s thumb for two or so years, maybe she could get him under her for the night.
Jane doesn’t seem to enjoy the energy coming off of Holly. She flies over to the fence, head swerving back and forth between them.
“I get off at eight. I can meet you at Connolly's at like eight-thirty. It’s on the corner of Pine and Spruce. All brick. Small place.”
“Sounds awesome,” Holly says. “I’d love to go out for drinks at an Irish-sounding bar in Alaska on the corner of two streets, both named after trees for some reason with…”
She motions to him with a hand because she’s realizing he hasn’t given her whatever bullshit name he’s going by now.
He reaches his own hand out. “Peter.”
Holly’s surprised he didn’t go balls-out and just call himself Peter fucking Pan. It would make sense. Taking his hand, feeling all the calluses there, she’s pretty sure it’s the only place on him that’s aged all that much. She was hardly talking out of her ass when she said he didn’t look over thirty-five. Though she knows from her research that he’ll be forty-five in September.
Sometimes when Holly was little, her and Aunt Marie would play very elaborate games of make-believe like they were in ‘Peter Pan.’ Once Aunt Marie pretended to be a secret agent paid to poison an evil international mastermind who was the best blackjack player in the world and kicked puppies. Holly was her sidekick who tap danced as a distraction while Marie slipped poison in Black-Jack Jackass’s “soda.” Holly’s mom had put a stop to that particular one.
But this has a similar vibe; pretending.
It takes her a second or two to realize his hand is still wrapped around hers and he’s looking at her expectantly. She figures she’s got nothing to lose. Fuck it.
“Holly,” she says.
He shakes her hand, and he doesn’t seem like anything’s been exchanged between them other than their names and a little body heat. She guesses that Holly isn’t that uncommon of a name so why would he be suspicious?
He just smiles and keeps shaking her hand. “Holly. Nice to meet you.”