Not For The Weak

Getting a Move On

When he’d first seen her, he was shocked to the core when he took a close look at her face.

She looked like a fragile woman, a porcelain doll on the edge of a cliff, inches away from toppling over and shattering.

And when he heard her story, he put the name to the face.

Roanna Davencourt, the Amazon Murderess. 

For years, her story had taken over America, shocking all of the good, Christian folk to the core. Nearly all of them cringed at the thought that someone like that could exist in their world, and even worse: their country.

He wondered what it was like for her to have done so. 

At sixteen, a girl should be driving around in the summer, thinking about her boyfriend and her tan; not saving twenty-something tourists from being chased down and slaughtered in the Amazon. And if that weren’t enough; the stories said that the tourists she’d saved had ostracized her.

Jack had once heard that her younger sister had even cut herself off from Roanna, claiming that she was no kin to the devil’s child. 

 He looked at her now, mesmerized by her face.

She wasn’t beautiful; but she was striking. She had such an amazing determination written all over her face that it was hard to look away.

She had beautiful features; big, green eyes and a cute little nose, with a wide mouth, set in a straight line. 

Jack had the oddest feeling that he would do something, anything to make that mouth smile more, and that concerned him. It wasn’t part of his routine with women; it wasn’t something that would fit into his life. 

But he looked at her, and saw the sorrow in her face as she spoke of people. He saw the distrust of the human race, all of it reasonable and based on experience.

He saw her face when she spoke of the Amazon and knew that there was something there, something different; that nobody could ever change.

Least of all him.

The flight from Chicago to Port Isabel wasn’t surprising, about the twelve hour journey they’d been expecting.

Roanna was unwillingly dragged into the gift shop during their layover, looking generally pissed off while Brianna oohed and ahhed over everything. 

“What is wrong with you?” Roanna snapped irritably as she watched Brianna look at the tacky key chains hanging on the wall.

“This is so cool!” Brianna exclaimed, sounding like a little kid instead of a twenty six year old with several billion in the bank.

“Haven’t you ever been in an airport before?” Roanna asked.  

There was a silence and Roanna turned back to face Brianna.

“You’ve never been out of Chicago…have you?” Roanna asked with sudden understanding, looking at Brianna’s suddenly withdrawn face.

“No. Father wasn’t much on me traveling. He said that I should focus on business and studies, because if I was only a girl I had to work harder to maintain his legacy.” Brianna said the words in a tone that told Roanna that her father had said the same words to her.

“I’m sorry,” Roanna said, eyeing her critically as she picked through a rack of royal purple t-shirts.

“It’s not your fault,” Brianna said reasonably as she looked at a shelf of knick-knacks.

“So why didn’t he make Jack study?” Roanna asked.

Brianna shook her head.

“Jack is my half brother. He was four when I was born, and Father never would have left him the business. He formally adopted him, sure, and left him a good amount of cash when he died, but the Brennan Empire must be headed by Brennan blood,” Brianna said, her mind obviously wandering to times long gone past.