“You’re right. He is an asshole but I’m still hoping he leaves us something in his will. Why should it go to total strangers?” Bat huffed. “You say I’m the negative, jaded one. You have more compassion for strangers than you do for your own family. He was our mother’s father.”
“He’s an asshole who had plenty of money but didn’t step in when we needed help. We had to sell the home we lived in with our parents, Bat! We survived on peanut butter sandwiches a lot of times and lived in hellholes just to have a roof over our heads. What kind of jerk lets that happen?”
“Blame me,” Bat whispered. “I probably made bad decisions. Maybe there was another way to get by that I couldn’t think of at the time.” Tears filled her eyes. “I should have sent you to college first at least. I would have made it easier on you if I had just let go of my dream.”
“You earned those scholarships, Bat. I wasn’t letting you waste the help they offered.” Dusti looked away, hating to hear Bat’s guilt one more time. There was no reason for it. “Just stop. We’ve had this argument a thousand times. I’m not mad at you. You’re an awesome attorney, even if I think you’re working on the wrong side of the law. You’re doing what you love. I’m just pissed that our grandfather could have sent money to help us out. He’s rich enough that it wouldn’t have been any skin off his nose. He didn’t.”
She looked back at her sister. “He deserves to die alone and miserable. We shouldn’t even be here because neither one of us owes him a second of our time.” She curled her hands in her lap. “I don’t give a shit about the money. I like my life just fine the way it is. I’m used to struggling. It builds character.”
Bat smiled. “You remember me saying that, huh?”
“All the time, usually when I was bitching about whatever lame job I had to deal with in high school.” Dusti smiled back. “We don’t need anything from him.”
“It’s just a few days of our time. We go, see what he wants, and leave. Perhaps he regrets his actions, or lack thereof.”
“Fat chance. He’s a dick, Bat.” Dusti addressed Drantos once more. “He doesn’t care about us. Do you understand what I’m saying? It would be a mistake if someone were to think otherwise. We’re nobody to him and not worth anyone’s time if they have a grudge against that bastard. I could totally relate to it if someone did. The only reason I’m here is to spend time with my sister, since she doesn’t take vacations. This is the first one she’s had in five years. Plus, I don’t want her alone with that asshole. I never liked him as a kid and I still don’t. I believe he tried to molest our mother, or something equally terrible. She told us to stay away from him, to tell her if he ever contacted us, and you don’t do that with a loving grandparent.”
“I’ll kick his ass if he’s some kind of pervert,” her sister muttered. “I’m the meaner of the two of us.”
Drantos silently watched Dusti. She held his gaze. In the firelight his dark blue stare had taken on golden flecks that she hadn’t noticed before. He had gorgeous eyes, framed with thick, long black eyelashes. Even their shape was attractive, kind of exotic looking. He’d be extremely handsome if his bone structure wasn’t so severe.
“I understand,” he acknowledged softly.
Dusti relaxed slightly and turned her attention to the other passengers who had survived the crash. Most of them were sleeping but a few remained sitting upright. They huddled together in small groups, talking. A couple of them had been severely injured but were hanging in there.
Bat fiddled with her clothes, which drew Dusti’s attention.
“Your suit is ruined. You can try to smooth out that skirt until your hands fall off but it’s toast. Were you able to find our suitcases?”
“No. The belly of the plane ripped open so the bags were scattered all over the place. It was getting too dark to widen the search. We only brought back those few suitcases so people could use whatever clothes were in them to help keep warm tonight. I’ll look again in the morning. Until then, I’m stuck wearing this. I refuse to put on some stranger’s outfits.” Bat tried to button her jacket.
“Give it up,” Dusti urged.
“I’m trying to do something, anything. I’m not used to just sitting around, and I’m hungry.”
Drantos stood. “Kraven forgot to pass out the food you salvaged from the plane before he went hunting. I’ll do that now so you can eat something while we wait. Just say my name if you need anything. I have very good hearing.” He shot Dusti another warning look before moving away.
“Weird guys, huh?” Bat watched him walk to the pile of stuff on the ground. “I’m totally getting ‘future client’ vibes off both of them but they don’t have dead eyes, so I think we’re safe.”
“It scares me that you can say shit like that. Dead eyes?”
“You’d know if you saw them. Trust me.”
Dusti lowered her voice. “Bat, we need to get out of here and away from them.”
“Fuck that! Those guys were raised in Alaska, and look at what they’ve done so far. They handled setting up a camp and built a fire. There’s no way I’m going to go walking into the woods to get lost searching for a cabin or a house that might have a working phone. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Our best hope of being rescued is to stay beside the crash site. I’m sure there’re plenty of signs from above that we went down, where the plane took out those trees. It will probably resemble a path from way up there when the search planes fly over. Like it or not, we’re stuck with these guys, and trust me, I’m not happy with that concept. Kraven is a lunatic.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But he’s hot.”