by Derek Milman
“I’m so flattered—”
“Aidan, please, let’s discuss this later—”
“They for sure know you’re a mole now… both of us.”
He nods. “I figured.”
“They saw the Kevlar on the floor.”
He glances at the floor. “You took it off?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m new at this. We have to call the police.”
“I’m cut off,” says Shiloh. “No cell. There’s no working landline here, either. Do you have your phone on you?”
“It’s dead. But the FBI put an implant in my molar.” It’s only now I notice blood on his hands and arms. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Obstacles,” he repeats. “I’m sorry I had to shoot you.”
“Twice.”
“Twice, yes. I had to make it look real. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. That was an uncomfortable moment in our relationship. Among several so far.”
“If the FBI allowed you to get taken by them, I knew they’d put a vest on you.”
“WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU JUST SHOOT SCOTTY?”
“The rest of them would have killed me immediately! And you, too. I had to protect my cover as long as I could. The feds want him alive; they know so little about any of the Swans’ future attacks.” Blood is dripping down the side of his face. Now that I look closer, it looks like the upper tip of his left ear is missing.
“Dude,” I say, pointing at his ear.
Shiloh touches the blood with the tips of his fingers. “I know.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. What about you?”
“It hurts when I breathe,” I say, with an accompanying wince to drive the point home.
“You may have a cracked rib. That’s common.”
“COMMON FOR WHAT?”
“Getting shot.” Shiloh gives me this very sorry, pleading look, which is adorable.
But, n-o-o-o, I’m still not won over. “You led me into a trap.”
He sighs. “Well, really you led yourself into a trap. More than one. First at the Mandarin Oriental, which wasn’t quite your fault, but then at Mohawk, which was.”
“Are you serious, dude? You sent me to Mohawk.”
“Aidan, I had to keep my cover. I needed to find out their plans. I didn’t know they were going to try to kill you. Please believe that.”
“What did you think they’d do?”
“Recruit you. That was the original plan before Scotty changed his mind, which he does constantly. And then I could have taken it from there.”
“But Scotty knew I was a decoy.”
“I didn’t know he’d figured that out. And Scotty was already a little bit in love with the idea of you.”
I snort. The idea of me. Tom probably fell in love with the idea of me as well. The reality of me is a little bit more of a handful.
“Scotty goes ballistic sometimes. He plans, he organizes, and then he goes off the rails, with no rational thought behind his actions. He’s always vacillating. It’s impossible to keep up with him. He’s a psychopath, Aidan.”
By steering me toward the Adirondacks, Shiloh had to know there was at least a risk I would be killed. And his mission came first.
I’m always the collateral damage.
“When I found out, I went up there to try to save you,” says Shiloh. “But it was too late. Scotty likes making theater. I couldn’t get to you in time.”
“You had my phone on you. I had the iPad! You could have just texted me to tell me what was going on.”
“Everything was being monitored. I’m sorry, Aidan, they hacked into your devices a while back. We need to get out of here.”
“What did they want to spray in my mouth? Heaven-Ender?”
“Probably liquid molly. The Swans traffic in these designer drugs. Not just MDMA. Stuff that’s so experimental it hasn’t even hit the black market yet. That’s partially how they fund this organization.” He takes a breath. “Which is why… I’m going to lead you out of the house now and I’m going to ask you not to look, okay?”
“What?”
“Keep your eyes closed.”
“I’m not a little kid. Seriously. You keep treating me like—”
“Trust me! Stand behind me. Okay?”
“Okay, okay.”
I stand behind Shiloh as he leads me out of the room. We tiptoe around a corner, then out into that long hallway with those tall windows facing the pool. I try not to look. I really do. But I hear these loud slurping sounds coming from the open glass doors, over the sound of a forgotten record-player needle scratching the inner rim of vinyl, through speakers that were never turned off. That’s when I can’t help myself. I peek outside.
There’s blood everywhere.
The pool is hissing, sparking, and I see at least five rabbit-masked bodies floating facedown in the sludgy water, electricity coursing through them, causing these horrific twitching tremors I’ll never forget as long as I live.
Other bodies are splayed around the pool, covered in blood. The slurping sound is coming from a corner of the pool. A rabbit-masked boy, his blood-smeared back to us, is crouched over one of the bodies. He’s making sharp, unnatural pulling motions with his head.
“Shiloh. What the fuck is happening?”
“I told you not to look!”
“I looked.”
“Told you, they’re all on these crazy drugs. Stay behind me.”
Just as we near the wooden gate that leads out of the backyard pool area, a blood-splattered boy in a rabbit mask, totally naked otherwise, confronts us, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. He has a bloodstained kitchen knife, and he slices the air with it so violently you can hear the whoosh.
Shiloh pushes me back and holds out his hand in a calming manner. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says soothingly, keeping the gun low, by his hip. “Hey, hey, it’s okay…”
The boy, teeth bared, knife raised, lunges.
BANG BANG BANG.
Shiloh shoots the kid. He goes flying back, while I clap my hands over my ears. “Jesus! Oh, my God!”
I guess these are the obstacles Shiloh was referring to. Got it. Okay.
“Keep moving!” says Shiloh, pushing me past the kid’s body and out the wooden gate leading to the front of the house.
We reach the driveway. I notice Shiloh is limping. He fumbles with a set of car keys. “What happened to your leg?” I ask him.
“I got attacked by one of them while chasing Scotty. And the drugs… my head isn’t one hundred percent clear yet, but I’m getting there. Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
He tosses me the keys and we get into one of the black Chevy Tahoes parked in the driveway. Another Rabbit-Swan-Splicer-Boy comes at us, pressing his frothing horrible face against the car window as I screech out of the driveway and down the street, whispering: Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I make a quick hairpin turn in case we’re being followed.
The sun is up. And, according to the weather report displayed digitally on the dash, it’s going to be a warm, sunny day, in the eighties. It might even get up to ninety.
So basically a perfect day for an amusement-park trip.
As I barrel through suburbia, I realize Scotty did an incredible job of infiltrating this lovely little bedroom community. That was a pretty badass and subversive move. People just waking up to their cappuccinos and the morning news, casually deleting morning spam e-mails on their smartphones while breaking apart multigrain muffins, have no freakin’ clue what’s going on down the street from them—that the Creepiest Terror Cell of All Time is right next door.
“I’m taking you to the train station,” says Shiloh, wincing as he holds his leg.
“What? Why?”
“I want to get you to safety. Call the police from the station. They’ll direct you to the feds. Keep using your audio link in case it’s working. Narrate your actions.”
“Do we have time?”
Shi
loh checks his watch. “The park opens in about two hours.”
“How far away is it from here?”
He sighs. “About two hours.”
“Then no, no way. We need to get there.”
“Aidan. I don’t want to put you in any more danger.”
“Says the man who just shot me! Twice!”
“I had to! You know that.”
“Plus, you can’t drive.”
Shiloh sighs.
“I’m not stopping this car until we’re at Quest Gardens,” I inform him.
Shiloh curses to himself, puts his head in his hands. “Then take the next left here, onto the highway. Stay at sixty, sixty-five, but don’t go over; don’t speed.”
I turn onto the highway. “And what happens once we get there?”
“Either the authorities will already be there, which is what I’m hoping, or I’ll have to flag down the park staff, make sure they don’t let anyone inside. We should stop at a gas station and call 911 from a pay phone, or borrow someone’s—”
“Uh. I don’t think we can stop.”
Loud engines have pierced the usual morning highway din. Shiloh whirls around to look out the rear window. There are two motorcycles coming up behind us; two green visors sparkling in the morning sun.
“Shit,” he says under his breath, “they followed us.”
The two bikes fan out, surrounding our car.
“Their movements are synchronized,” I say, frowning.
“Sena Bluetooth,” says Shiloh. “They can talk to each other.”
A third bike comes up from behind, then speeds ahead of us with a deep throttling roar, going at least ninety, clearly on its way to fun and magical memories at Quest Gardens.
I take a breath. “What if they start shooting at us?”
“They won’t start shooting at us.”
“What if they do?”
“They won’t.”
They start shooting at us.
The first shot takes out my side-view mirror. It just plinks away like it was never there.
“Fuuuuuck.” I instinctively slam on the brakes, but thankfully the highway isn’t jam-packed so I don’t get rear-ended. Then I floor it and swerve into the motorcycle on my left, where the helmeted asshole is aiming a gun right at my face. I bump up right against him and he nearly tips over, then veers ahead, speeding up to avoid being sideswiped again.
Shiloh grabs the wheel. “Aidan! You’re drifting! Stay in your lane!”
I fight him off. “Do not grab the wheel when I’m driving!”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re not helping, you’re throwing me off, I’m doing fine!”
“I’m just trying—”
“LET ME DO IT.”
The second shot pops out the rear window with a tremendous explosion and makes a neat round hole in my windshield. They shot clean through the car.
“Jesus!” I scream. “This is so scary. Holy shit…”
“Okay, speed up!” says Shiloh.
“You don’t have to keep telling me what to—”
Gunshots cut me off.
But they’re Shiloh’s—firing out the broken rear window at the motorcycle quickly gaining on us. I can see it swerving, but then the Swan biker speeds up again, sidling up on the passenger side, his mirrored insectoid helmet staring us down.
He aims his gun.
“DUCK!” we both shout.
I duck my head down but manage to keep my grip on the wheel.
The third shot takes out the passenger window and the driver window simultaneously, crystallizing my field of vision with a mist of broken glass.
I spring back up and step on the gas.
The motorcycles keep pace, flanking us.
Shiloh fires out both windows, making my ears ring. Both motorcycles swerve, slow down, hang back.
“Speed up,” says Shiloh.
I do, and the motorcycles slowly disappear behind us.
“Did we lose them?” I ask, going about ninety now. I hear distant sirens.
Shiloh looks out both broken side windows, looks behind him, then at me. “For now, yeah. They did not expect me to have that gun. I think I got that guy in the shoulder. Keep your eyes on the road.”
“I’m going ninety.”
“Go eighty.”
I slow down to eighty. “I’m bleeding.” I raise my arm up.
“Okay, keep your hands on the wheel.” Shiloh produces a towel—why does this boy always have a towel?—and wipes my arm down, then picks lightly at my skin. “They’re not serious cuts, just little shards of glass embedded in your skin. I got most of them out. You’ll be okay.”
“They can come back, right? Shoot out our tires?”
“We’ll get there soon,” he says, uneasily. “Just keep your eyes on the road and stay focused. I think we scared them off. Good work.”
I can’t help fighting off a grin, and slap the wheel. “I’m a freakin’ superhero! Okay, maybe both of us, but I’m driving, so I win.”
Shiloh gives me a half-smile. “Look, after our meeting at the motel, I finally had a chance to read over your Digital Dust file. I hadn’t previously.”
I stop grinning. I suddenly feel extremely naked and exposed.
I can only say, “Huh.”
“Well, you mentioned your brother’s death and I wanted to get the whole story.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that. That’s not really fair.”
“Maybe. But I’m glad I did. Because there was some stuff I wanted to tell you.”
“What stuff?”
“Look, I was part of Digital Dust myself. They found me in a similar way, except they trained me to become a field agent. I had some serious issues in my own life. I had substance-abuse problems. I was heading down the wrong path.”
“Looks like the government Philip K. Dicked us both over.”
“They actually saved me in a way,” he says. “I never had purpose before. My parents died when I was very young. There was an… accident.”
Avalanches… death rays…
“I was bouncing around the foster care system for years. I started drinking myself to blackouts at twelve.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I buckled down, got myself into college, but I still struggled with depression and anxiety, feelings of worthlessness. I got into some trouble. But the feds, with this program, gave me a chance to make something of myself—to make my life matter in a way that it never would’ve otherwise. I could save lives.”
“What kind of trouble? Was it some sort of plea deal?”
“Not exactly,” he replies.
“Well, I never asked for any of this. I’m just a normal kid.”
“Normal? You’ve had serious stuff happen. We both know that.”
I shake my head, stare ahead at the road, clutching the wheel.
“The thing I wanted to tell you,” he says, “is that I understand you were involved… romantically with this older man… the father of a school friend, right? I think I get why and how it happened.”
“You wouldn’t, because you don’t know me, and I didn’t tell you about it. Reading about my data in a manila folder doesn’t count. It doesn’t tell you who I am as a real person.”
“You’re right, but it tells me something.”
“This is bullshit,” I mutter.
“Your brother dying, an older sister out of the house already, your parents basically rejecting you—”
“Shut the fuck up, man—”
“I get it, I’m just saying I get it. But the thing I wanted to tell you… is that none of it was your fault.”
Scotty’s been saying something similar to me this whole time, but it feels different coming from Shiloh. It hits hard. Tears blur my vision. This is bad, since I’m driving very fast on a busy highway where armed terrorists on motorcycles could reappear at any time. “You don’t know.”
“You were a minor. I do know.”
“I don’t
want to go into this right now—”
“What was his name?”
“Tom,” I say under my breath.
“Tom was in the wrong. Not you. You were the child. He was the adult.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Yes, you did. And you know better. You can’t keep going down this path—the meaningless hookups, getting attached to much older men when you’re not a legal adult yet. Just like I couldn’t keep going down the path I was headed down. You don’t feel like you’re a child, but in some ways you still are. You can’t emotionally process certain things that you could with a little bit more maturity.”
Now he’s Confucius all of a sudden.
“I just want someone to love me,” I say, reciting a future Adele song title as the crying finally begins. Snot and tears start leaking out of my face at the worst possible time. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone…”
“I know,” he says, placing his hand lightly on my wrist. “It’s okay.”
God, I’ve been crushing on him so hard ever since our first train ride, and now he’s seeing me like this. I hate it. “I like you, Shiloh, a lot, which doesn’t even make total sense. It’s been scary for me ’cause I don’t know you at all. And it’s even scarier now because I guess I really don’t know you.”
How much has been a game, a manipulation?
“You do know me, Aidan. My name really is Shiloh. I am—or was—attending Duke. That stuff is real. And I am a snappy dresser—can’t help that. I’m just an undercover agent for the FBI on an interim basis, so they can capture the Swans. I’m one of the good guys. And so are you.”
“Part of why I agreed to infiltrate the Swans was because of you,” I tell him. “Just thought you should know that. I know I get attached too easily—dude, I know. But I just… think there’s something good about you. Complicated and kind. Killer combination.”
Several emotions crisscross his face, too fast for me to read. But then he seems to push them all away. “Thank you.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve battled my own kind of loneliness too, Aidan. And guilt. Everyone does, to an extent. Doing something I cared about helped.” He smiles at me. “And I like you, too.”
I flick my eyes over to him, smile through my tears, then turn my attention back to the road. “What’s next for you after all this?” I ask him. “Assuming we survive.”