Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance (3 page)

“Wait! You can’t do this!”

“Hey!” Hudson rushed to my side and gave the handcuff attached to the trailer a quick yank. It held firm.

Jenny peeked around the back of the trailer. “It’s only for a few days. I need to get organized.” Pieces of black and white sheets like mutated Scantron forms coated her shirt. “It’s imperative you keep Kyoko’s existence a secret, for her and you. If you go to the police, I go to the papers, Eva. And don’t bother with the feds. The government can’t help you, and they’ll— Listen: Don’t trust the government and don’t tell them about Kyoko. If you do, we’ll all be dead.” Jenny ducked out of sight.

“Are you crazy!” I shouted.

The baby elephant trumpeted. I jumped. The handcuff snapped against my wrist.

“Ow!”

“What the hell?” Hudson asked.

“Stop her!”

With eyes as round as saucers, Hudson leapt after Jenny. I stretched to look out the side of the trailer. He sprinted down the sidewalk, only to slow a few car lengths later. He pushed his hands through his thick hair and jogged back to me.

“She got away,” he said.

Peachy. Jenny was on the loose with my secret and I was shackled in a trailer with a baby elephant.

I examined my imprisoned wrist, then the illegal, endangered animal. The elephant wasn’t tethered to anything. It snaked its trunk back and forth, a savage gleam in its eye.

“Easy there, little elepha—”

It charged.

CHAPTER TWO

The trailer rocked, the heavy metal frame groaning in protest. The trailer wasn’t wide, and before the elephant could stampede more than four steps, it mashed against me, pinning me to the wall. I scrunched my toes in my open sandals and braced for a mauling. The elephant flapped her ears and the hem of my skirt fluttered. My eyes popped open.

“Good elephant, you don’t want to hurt me,” I said, wriggling to the side. “Please don’t eat me.”

“I think elephants are vegetarians,” Hudson said, coming into view at the open back of the trailer. He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him.

“It looks hungry. Maybe it’s starved beyond reason. And look at those feet. It could cripple me with a single step. Oh God, what are you doing?”

The elephant snuffled me with her trunk. I backed up as far as my bound arm would allow. She followed. The moist tip of the trunk prodded my knee below the line of my skirt and beelined for third base. Dirty sandpaper skin scraped up my naked thigh.

“No! No, no, no, no. Bad elephant!” I twisted and thrust my butt away from the elephant, the tendons in my shackled arm radiating fiery pain from my bruised wrist to my shoulder. Doubled over as I was, if the wild elephant charged, she’d slam into my solar plexus and rip my arm clean off.

The elephant’s trunk reversed direction and constricted around my ankle. I squeaked. Bright brown eyes lifted to my face. The trunk tip released me to molest the straps of my sandals. I shimmied to the side, easing the pressure on my arm.

“That’s a good elephant. Keep your trunk to yourself and I’ll—eep!”

The elephant swung her head to look at Hudson, pivoting on a back foot, rocking the trailer. It took me a moment to recognize the incongruous sound.

“You’re laughing? Now?” With my ass in the air and my body contorted painfully around an unpredictable killing machine, he had the audacity to laugh? Shooting Hudson a glare, I squeezed between the elephant and the wall of the trailer and straightened, sidling closer to the bar I was handcuffed to. The man had great crow’s-feet when he grinned, the bastard.

Hudson stifled his laughter down to a smile. “She’s just checking you out.”

“This isn’t funny. I’m trapped”—I rattled my handcuff—“in a death box with a wild animal who could crush me with its head.”

“She hardly seems wild. Just curious.”

“Then it can be curious somewhere else.” I fluttered my free hand at the elephant. “Shoo. Attack him.”

The elephant tilted her head to look at me, then turned her attention to my satchel.

“Oh no, you don’t.” I couldn’t stop her from crushing me, or eating me, but that didn’t mean I had to let her rifle through my oversize purse. I twisted my bag behind me and used my thumb and forefinger to tug the questing trunk away from the top flap. It was like trying to lift an anaconda with my pinky. The elephant’s trunk disappeared into my bag.

“Out,” I said without an ounce of authority. The trunk slid deeper. “No. Bad elephant. Out.” I tugged on the trunk with three fingers. The elephant shifted closer and pulled the satchel toward her mouth. Her large round teeth looked like they could crush my forearm. I stepped back. The elephant followed.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the trunk and pulled it free of my bag. I released it immediately and waited for the elephant to flatten me, curling my toes up again for good measure. The trunk slid around my free arm, hot but not as rough as it had felt against my inner thigh. It flexed and I froze, bombarded by visions of being dismembered. The elephant released me and veered toward the bag again. I took a deep breath.

“A little help?” I asked Hudson.

“Do you have food in there?”

“Uh, some crackers, I think. And carrots.”

“Maybe Kyoko wants them.”

“I am
not
letting an elephant rummage through my bag!” I took a firm grip on the trunk and lifted it free of the bag. Again.

“Give it here.” Hudson held out his hand.

I slid the shoulder strap over my head, thankful Jenny hadn’t cuffed my other hand, and held my precious satchel out to a perfect stranger. Hudson took it and the elephant pivoted toward him. He took a step back, and the elephant followed him.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, who’s laughing now?”

Hudson darted out of the trailer and banged the latch home. Trumpeting, Kyoko body-slammed the back door. The whole trailer’s frame shrieked in protest, and the elephant trumpeted again. I staggered into the wall, clutching one ear with my free hand.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap,” I chanted. I was going to die.
Killed by Elephant Tantrum
, my headstone would read. Future generations would assume I was a circus performer.
Oh, hell no.

I slid the handcuff up the metal pole for a closer look. It was the real deal—solid metal with a single keyhole at each loop. I squeezed my thumb to my palm and made a point with my fingers, but my hand was still too thick to escape the steel band. The other cuff circled a bar welded at both ends to the trailer’s wall. I swiped at sweat on my forehead.

The trailer bounced, and I spun to check the elephant. She prodded the seam of the door with her trunk.

“You want out of there?”

I jumped at Hudson’s voice and banged my head against the side of the trailer. I jerked my hand to rub my head, wincing when the handcuff snapped my wrist. Snarling, I turned toward the sound of his voice.

Hudson stood on the outside ledge of the trailer, peering in.

“What do you think?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to help.”

“Do you happen to have a handcuff key on you?”

“Nope.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. A yes would have been creepy, but it would have meant I was free. A no was less creepy but unhelpful.

I eyed the elephant again. She didn’t look perturbed anymore. She looked relaxed. She looked . . .

“Don’t you dare. Not with me right he—”

The elephant lifted her tail and pooped. Noxious fumes blasted me, searing my nostrils.

“Oh God!” I gagged and covered my mouth with my free hand.

“Whew,” Hudson said, his voice muffled as he dropped back from the trailer.

The elephant turned large liquid eyes toward me and batted long eyelashes. She stepped back, landing a foot square in the pile, then started for me.

“Hudson. Hudson!”

“Right here. Oh, man, it’s making my eyes water.”

“Get me out of here!” The elephant stopped next to me, and I clamped my hand tighter over my nose and mouth, but it didn’t stop tears from forming. The elephant nudged my knee with her trunk, then dropped it to lay curled atop my foot. When I shifted my blurred vision, those large eyes stared at me.

Nothing malicious gleamed in the elephant’s gaze. The way she pressed against me seemed almost like she was comforting me. Or herself. Trying not to breathe, I lowered my hand and reached for her head. The elephant didn’t move when I ran light fingers across the grooved crown of her skull. Leather and wiry hair stretched across a cast-iron forehead. I slid my hand over the divot in the middle, and one of her ears flapped.

“Hang on. I’ll be right back,” Hudson said.

I wanted to give him a snarky response—shackled as I was, I wasn’t going anywhere—but that would have meant opening my mouth.

It took an hour for Hudson to return. Or maybe it was only minutes. The lack of oxygen made the passage of time foggy. He was on the phone. Miraculously, the tiny gadget had withstood being brushed up against me.

“You’ll have to send Matvei.” Hudson paused, then said, “Wade, I wouldn’t be calling if it were anything other than an emergency.” Pause. “Yes.” Pause. “Of course. I’ll let you— Hello? Wade?” This time the pause was followed by cussing.

Ah, the familiar sound of someone too long in my company. The phone had died. It had been inevitable, especially since Hudson had stopped just outside the trailer.

“I’m coming in,” Hudson announced.

Kyoko perked up and trotted toward the back door.

“Wait!” I yelled over the cacophony of the abused trailer. Hudson popped up beside me. “I think she’s planning on making a break for it.”

“Nah. I think I know what she wants. I hope you don’t mind I went through your bag. Damn, it’s
stinky
in there.”

Hell, yes, I minded. “You went through my—”

Hudson thrust his hand through the slats. He dropped a cracker to the floor. Kyoko eyed it, then turned back to the door.

“You could have asked first, you know,” I said.

“Would you have said no?”

“That’s not the point.”

Hudson barked a laugh and stuck his other hand through the slats. This one held carrots. When he dropped one of them, Kyoko ambled over to investigate. Hudson disappeared, then the latch creaked before he slipped inside. Kyoko turned eagerly to him, and he tossed the remaining carrots to the front of the trailer. The baby elephant dashed after them. Hudson grabbed the side of the trailer and I braced my feet wide in the ensuing earthquake.

“Now what?” I asked.

Hudson approached, covering his nose in the crook of his elbow. I was ninety-nine percent sure that the hilt of a broadsword clearing his shoulder was an apparition. He wiped his palm on his pants, then pulled a slender packet from his back pocket. “Now we see if I can pick a cuff lock.” His voice was muffled behind his arm.

“You’re serious?”

“You have a better idea?”

I shifted to give him access to the handcuff.

“Hold your hand out. No, the free one.”

I held out my free hand, palm up. He rested the open packet on it and selected a slender tool from a dozen similar-looking flat instruments. Bending close, he began to prod the lock. I stared at the top of his head. Yep, the broadsword was an apparition. The hilt was silver and black, with an engraving of a running horse. Rust covered the scabbard, doing little to bolster my confidence.

I went over what I knew of my would-be rescuer. Name: Hudson Keyes. Profession: security installation. Drove a company van; masqueraded as the boyfriend of women he just met; carried picklock tools; was unfazed by a baby elephant; went through women’s purses without asking. It wasn’t much to go on.

“Uh, thank you for your help,” I said.

He looked up, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. I added
sexy as hell
to my list. The scales tipped in his favor.

“You’re welcome.” He wiggled the tool in the handcuff hole. “You’ve got some strange friends.”

“Jenny is
not
my friend. I’m not even sure we really did go to school together.”

“Yet she left you an elephant.”

“I don’t think she’s sane.”

Hudson snorted. The lock clicked and the handcuff dropped away.

“Holy crap, it feels good to be free. Thank you.” I shook my wrist, then impulsively kissed his cheek, barely registering his stubble before pulling back. He smiled, the tips of his lips curling up and a flush staining his cheeks as he put away the picklock tool. The rust disappeared from the scabbard. The moment he took the tool set back, I rubbed my bruised wrist.

“What now?” he asked.

“Now I get out of here.”

We slipped out the back before Kyoko noticed, but when the elephant heard the latch click, she bugled her displeasure and the trailer bounced against the curb. I didn’t stop moving until I was across the sidewalk and leaning against a storefront, breathing fresh air. I flapped my dress’s bodice to dry my sweat. Dirt streaked across the hem of the purple skirt, and my legs were smeared with trunk trails. My hand smelled like elephant.