Hello! Before we get to the story I have to thank my amazing Beta HerebeHobbits for all her help. She keeps everyone in character, the emotions in their right dosage and corrects my grammar, among another bunch of things.

Finally, thank you again for your patience. I am very happy to present you the rewritten version of The Consulting Planner.

Talent in a Unique Package

February 2010

The girl's hand was shaking as she handed the red flash drive to the man in the expensive suit standing in the private airport hangar in Argentina. He twirled the little plastic device between his fingers before passing it to another man waiting with a laptop next to him.

She felt his dark eyes scanning her. A smirk broke the slight frown of his face as he saw her struggling not to cower under his gaze. He was cutting a red apple with a Swiss knife. The blade moved smoothly, slicing from the polished skin to the core with a satisfactory sound and causing big drops of juice to slide between his fingers. He trapped the freshly cut piece between his thumb and the sharp blade to place it in his mouth. She tried to remember the last time she ate anything more substantial than a lollipop.

"How much is he paying you?" His casual tone contradicted the tense atmosphere.

"Who, sir?" She frowned.

"The coward that sends little girls to face me in his stead. Does he not consider his work good enough to deliver it himself?" He radiated boredom– chewing slowly and staring at her under heavy lids.

"I am responsible for everything in that flash drive, sir." Her stare jumped from man's dark eyes to the half-eaten apple in his hand. She hadn't realized how desperately hungry she felt until now. Her stomach grumbled loudly and her pale cheeks reddened.

"It's good." The other man's baritone confirmed the quality of the flash drive's contents.

"Great!" The man in front of her swallowed the last piece of apple. "Seb, go ahead and tell the pilot we're ready to go as soon as I arrange this little girl's payment."

The sitting man, Seb, nodded and pulled out the flash drive. He closed the laptop and ascended the stairs of the private jet. When he stood, she saw he was taller than the man with the apple.

"It is fortunate you delivered what you promised little girl. The first man cleaned the blade of his knife with a handkerchief in a motion that made it easy to imagine it was her blood instead of the apple's. "And I hate wasting my time." He tossed the apple core away and watched her eyes follow it's trajectory to the rubbish bin.

He put away the handkerchief and knife and searched the inside pocket of his tailored jacket for his phone. "Back to business, then." He typed his password on the screen with one hand and extended the other in her direction. "Your bank account, little miss."

She took four steps forward and deposited a slip of paper in his hand before stepping back to her original position. As she waited for the man to complete the transaction, she looked discretely at her old wrist watch.

'9:32pm'

She cringed at the time and at the thought of what was to come later that night. If she wanted to sleep on a bed tonight she would have to face Madame Gloria's scolding and leather belt. As the owner and manager of 'La Rosa de Seda,' the grumpy woman took her business seriously. The sight of a child entering the establishment during business hours made the clients uneasy. Her achy back and legs still served as a reminder of her last encounter with Madame Gloria's belt, but her back always hurt worse if she chose to sleep on a cold bench in the park.

"So tell me– what is the first thing you'll buy with the three grand you just earned? Something to eat, maybe?" His voice interrupted her thoughts.

With her gaze fixed on her old shoes she confessed, "I haven't thought about it."

"No complaints then?" The man's stare was still fixed on his phone's screen.

"I'm not doing this for the money," she said.

"If not money, then what?" The transaction now complete, the man put his phone away and stood there with his hands in his pockets, observing her. She had big blue-green eyes framed by dark bags, black curly long hair that hasn't been washed recently, and pale skin.

The girl took a deep breath but after a few attempts at coming up with a sentence she just shrugged. Nobody ever understood her motive when she explained it. They all thought she was just seeking attention.

"And what is it that you say you do? Are you a hacker or something?"

"No." She wrapped her arms around herself, her worn-out sweater offered little protection from the wind. "I like to plan. I observe and gather information." She became excited as she explained, "Nothing is impossible, you just need to really think about how to get it done -that's what I do- I think about how to get things done-"

"You're a Planner, then."

She sent him a puzzled look. "Planner?" She took a deep breath and ruffled her curls with her right hand. She tested the word a few times before nodding slowly. "I guess I'm a Planner."

The man raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side. "How old are you?"

"13." For a brief moment she made eye contact, then shrank under his gaze.

"13, what a promising age." He stood there, unmoving, for a long moment.

She kept her fidgeting to small twitches of her fingers against the fabric of her sweater for fear anymore movement would interrupt him.

"Show me." He advanced towards her with long steps and gleaming black eyes.

"What?" She barely stopped herself from stepping backwards. She could feel her heart pounding faster the closer he came.

"Show me one of your plans." He was in front of her now, his dark eyes staring deeply into her clear ones, searching for that spark of intelligence ordinary people lack.

She reached down with shaking hands to a battered green backpack resting on the floor by her feet and handed him a black notebook.

"Let's say I want to rob a bank and I ask you to help me, what would you do?" He said as he opened it.

"Here in Buenos Aires? I-I already prepared the plans to rob every bank in this city." Her stutter made her accent thicker. "It's the first thing I do when I move to another city."

The man couldn't help but let out a little smile that slowly widened into a smirk. He liked what he was seeing in the notebook, pages and pages of plans written in black ink in small, neat handwriting. "Have you tested any of these before?"

She looked down and shook her head. "When I write them I don't mean to execute any." She wrapped her arms around herself again to shake off the goose bumps. "They just keep me from being bored."

His humming stopped as he snapped the notebook closed.

She jumped.

He unbuttoned his jacket and leaned forward to reach her eye level. She caught a glimpse of the silver gun by his waist and saw her wide-eyed reflection in his black irises. But even when everything about him screamed dangerous she didn't try to retreat, something else ordered her to stay.

"You and I have the same problem ordinary people don't understand." He spoke in a hushed tone, moving slowly closer until he was whispering in her ear. "I want to share with you the solution to our problem, what I have been searching for all my life. Distractions."

He was so close she could smell his expensive cologne and see the skull motif on the silver pin holding the blue silk tie. The rush of new sensory information was so overwhelming she didn't notice his right hand on her wrist, softly taking her pulse.

"What problem?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the conversation instead of the puffs of breath tickling her neck.

"Staying alive." He had found that familiar look in her eyes. She was tired of living in an ordinary and so very boring world, a world that doesn't change, static and so very stupid and normal. He knew that look and he knew the consequences of not satisfying that thirst for excitement and challenge. It was like an intense itching she didn't know how to scratch.

Her pulse spiked and her breathing sped up. She always knew her boredom was suffocating and sometimes even hoped that one night it would, out of mercy, finally finish the job and she wouldn't wake up again. This man seemed to understand her daily struggle. He was the first person she'd met with the same flaw as her.

"I am offering you the chance to see your plans to fruition. I want to set you free." He promised with so much passion that she could almost feel the earth rumble. His tone suddenly changed to a soothing one just as he reached to move a stray dark curl behind her ear, his hand caressing her cheek softly in its retreat. "I guarantee that not a second of this new life will be dull, you will never feel so empty and desperate ever again."

She trembled at the new and exhilarating feeling as she imagined such a future. "What do you want in return– " She hesitated for a second. "In return for saving me?" Her eyes scanned for emotions and intentions in his eyes. She needed to be sure he was being sincere, afraid of the disappointment she would face if he wasn't.

He was very lucky to find someone like her. She didn't have much confidence in herself, and even though she wasn't naïve to the harshness of the world, she was ignorant of ways to handle her fast-paced mind. He recognized her as a survivor, the fact that her accent was not Argentinean along with the lack of personal items on her told him she was not attached to a place, family, or a moral guide. She would be easy to mold and shape as he pleased.

"I want to coach you. In exchange, you will use your talents for me." He stood straight again and extended his right hand in her direction. He knew she would take his offer long before she did. He could see her thirst for a distraction and her deadly fear of being bored.

She took deep breaths, trying to focus on analyzing his offer but her mind kept drifting in different directions. Frustrated, she ruffled her curls with both hands and clenched her eyes closed. She forced her thoughts back on track, sorted out the useful information, and reached a conclusion. He might want to help her or he might want to kill her, but either would be better than her current miserable life.

She moved fast to grab his offered hand and held it tightly, afraid he would withdraw it. Her heart beat spiked when his soft but cold hand only tighten its grip, he wasn't letting her go now.

He guided her up the stairs to the private jet with one arm around her shoulders. As she took in the luxurious interior she missed his look of mild disgust when he handed her backpack to the stewardesses.

"Oh! So forgetful of me. What is your name, darling?" He asked in a cloying tone as he sat her down in the comfortable seat facing the man from earlier. A small table separated them. Other than a quick glance he did not react to her presence.

"Alice, sir."

He took a seat next to her, he didn't seem to mind the proximity and even began to run his thumb across the back of her hand. He understood her nervousness– all puppies are scared when meeting their new master for the first time, they just need a bit of reassurance and a bowl of food.

He quickly dismissed the stewardess that informed him that they were ready to take off. "I am intrigued about how you heard about the job." He pointed towards the red flash drive on the table.

"Oh..." She was afraid to say that the stern looking man in front of her had been a client in La Rosa de Seda, and that she had overheard the conversation he was having over the phone while he waited in his designated room for the girls he had requested. Alice had been polishing a large vase in the hall when the girls arrived in their silk robes and high heels. No one had noticed her.

She looked at the man in front of her, his muscular frame and long legs that looked too big for the seat were frightening. Most men preferred to have their activities with sex workers kept secret. She bit her lip. "I pick up a lot of conversation on the streets." She complemented her white lie with a shrug and a change of subject. "You didn't tell me your names." Her voice shook when she felt the plane moving.

"That's Sebastian. Don't let that stern look scare you, honey. He only bites when I order him to."

Sebastian acknowledged them with a slight nod in their direction, one that Alice didn't notice as she clenched her eyes shut when she felt the plane beginning its ascent. She only took a deep breath when the plane stabilized in the air.

The blond stewardess appeared with a rolling cart. She served a scotch on the rocks to Sebastian and handed the other man a steamy plate of risotto. He placed it on the table before Alice.

"Here, darling. Eat. You are far too skinny, we have to fix that." His puppy looked like a common street dog with her disheveled hair and old, ill-fitting clothes.

"Thank you," Alice said as she hesitantly picked up her fork. She would rather have a spoon so she could eat faster but none were offered. "You haven't told me your name yet, sir."

He waited with an avid gaze and a cold smile until the girl took her first mouthful of the risotto before finally delivering his answer. His hand returned the same stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Puppy, you can call me Jim."

So? What did you think? Can I have review with your honest opinion?