Thin Skinned, Margo Collins [recommended reading TXT] 📗

used my tail to reach inside the casket, wrap around the package, and pull it back to me, even as I slammed myself up against the bulkhead door.

Phil finally noticed the package moving toward me. As I took it into my hands, he said, “I don’t know where you think you can put that. Taking it out of the casket doesn’t matter as long as it’s back in there when we land.” I stared at him briefly, then let a long, slow smile spread across my face. As he watched, I focused on shifting just a little—and only my mouth.

Tearing open the top of the package, I pulled out a velvet bag. The brown-paper packaging dropped to the ground. I peered into the small bag.

Diamonds. Of course. What else would a true villain trade in?

I almost laughed. Instead, though, I unhinged my jaw, opening my mouth wider and wider, until I heard gasps from the other people on the plane—and I opened it even wider still, just because I could.

I tilted my head back, held the bag above my distended jaw, and dropped it in. Then I let my shifted internal organs muscle it along, down toward the lower half of my body.

That was going to be miserable and uncomfortable later. But it was absolutely worth it for the look on Phil’s face.

His shock dissolved in seconds. “Cut her open and get it out,” he demanded, flicking a wrist my direction as he pointed at me. Nobody moved, and he spoke again, this time in Spanish—I presume to repeat the order.

When no one moved still, Phil’s face began to turn red and his eyes squinted. “I said, cut those diamonds out of the bitch.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m sorry boss, but did you see what she just did? I’m not getting anywhere close to her. She’s fast and she’s a fucking snake.”

The emphasis he put on those last two words nearly made me laugh—as if he wanted to point out exactly how insane Phil was for not taking my serpentine form into consideration.

He wasn’t wrong, of course. Phil was being exceptionally stupid. After all, he had no way of knowing that I didn’t particularly want to kill anyone.

“Ron,” I said, keeping my voice as pleasant as possible, “find a way to please remove the cash from Abuela.”

Phil’s second-in-command stared at me for a long moment. “There’s cash in there?” he asked, his tone deceptively mild.

“Sure is,” I said. “Maybe in her chest cavity? I’m not sure. You might have to search a little bit. Sorry about that.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d stumbled into with the cash in Abuela’s chest, but they didn’t need to know that whatever was going on between them was confusing the hell out of me.

“Boss?” Ron asked, still in that same mild tone. “Want to explain why there’s more cash in the body?”

Phil’s jaw went hard, and he glared at me. “Extra insurance,” he said with a snarl.

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Ron said.

“Whatever this is, it can wait,” I said. Both men whipped around to look at me, maybe having forgotten that I was there in the intensity of their conversation.

I reinforced my presence by tapping the end of my tail hard against the carpet on the floor close to Ron’s feet. He jerked, and his face went pale.

“Get the money out and bring it to me,” I said again.

Ron swallowed hard, but he turned toward the casket.

“Also, you might want to get that knife off the chair,” I suggested.

I glanced over at Lori and Hale, who were now holding hands and huddling together.

I had to get a handle on the situation. With every move I made, it spiraled further out of control.

Also, I needed to remember that I had relatively few goals. I wanted to get me and Baby Paige out of there alive and get us back home.

That was it.

I had wanted everyone else to make it out alive, too, but these were drug-runners. I had to remember that they generally did not hold life in the same esteem I did, so everyone surviving might not happen.

I just had to keep frightening them into believing that I was as willing to hurt them as they were to hurt me.

And I needed to get the clear upper hand before we landed.

I had no doubt that had we been on the ground, they wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot me.

Money first, then I’ll gather up all the guns.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with all those guns once I had them, though.

After all, I couldn’t simply swallow everything that I wanted to get out of the way.

Chapter 10

My mind was spinning a million miles an hour. How was I going to get myself and Baby Paige out of here? Maybe if I got the money and the baby, I could wait until the plane landed and use the money to buy our way back home?

The image of me getting shot in the back while fleeing the airplane with the baby in hand flickered across my mind.

Shit. No. That’s not going to work.

While I was thinking, Phil was watching me, a sneer on his face.

“You really think you can get out of here? There’s no place for you to go.” He gestured around “You’re trapped in here.”

I let my lip curled up on one side. “You really think so?” I flicked the bottom of my tail hard and wrapped it around a nearby seat. I’d realized that everyone else watched my tail in absolute fascination. When it started moving, Lori whimpered and clutched Baby Paige tighter. Baby Paige reached out her little grabbing hands as if to touch it. The guy who’d fallen to his knees before looked like he wanted to do so again, and even Phil couldn’t help staring at it.

“The deal is, Phil, I can take the form of a constrictor. I can hold on to anything with my body. And I can