The Pleasure of Panic

by JA Huss

  And in my head I’m thinking, No. And then I’m screaming it. “No! No! No!”

  Because the gun goes off. The bullet hits her, blood splattering in all directions. And then I’ve got that gun in my hand, the old man not quick enough to take a second shot.

  But Caleb is back, sucking in air like it’s a precious commodity. On his feet, crossing the short distance between us, reaching for me as I pivot and shoot. Hitting him dead center of the chest.

  He slams against the wall—eyes open, hands still outstretched—and blood gurgles up and out of his mouth as he crumples to the floor.

  I swing the gun back to the senator, hear the door open out in the main room of the safe house, voices shouting—“FBI! FBI!”—while I force myself not to look at Issy lying in a silent heap near his feet.

  It’s typical shit after that.

  “Drop your weapon! Hands in the air! Drop your weapon!”

  But I don’t drop it. I point it right at the senator.

  I have never wanted to kill someone so much in my entire fucking life.

  So I shake my head and say, “There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile.” Because it’s the only thing that makes any sense at the moment.

  My finger presses against the trigger, squeezing.

  “Finn!” a voice calls from behind me. “Don’t do it, son.” The voice is low now. Somber. Almost soft. “He’s not worth it.”

  And then a hand reaches for my gun as I turn to find my father staring back at me.

  “She’s still alive.” He nods his head to Issy, where two people are already bent over her body, asking her questions and shining lights into her eyes. “Don’t let one bad decision take away your entire life, Finn. I already made that mistake enough for both of us.”

  I watch, feeling helpless, as my father takes the gun from me and hands it over to someone else.

  I feel insignificant and small as a medical kit is opened and they lean in closer, blocking Issy from my view, and I wait. I wait for her to say something. Shoot off some smartass remark. Some Zig Ziglar quote like, Success isn’t a destination, it’s a journey.

  But she doesn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - ISSY

  Some people have out-of-body experiences when they’re hanging on to life by a thread.

  I’m not one of those hippy fuckers. I didn’t see a bright light. There was no tunnel to walk through. And there sure as fuck was no sense of peace and wellbeing.

  I am in pain.

  That’s all I think about. The impact of the bullet. The hot blood that splattered across my face as I was thrown backward. Someone slapped me and asked me if I knew my name.

  I tried to tell them to go fuck themselves too, but I don’t remember actually getting those words out, so… no fun.

  Waking up with ceiling lights passing by above in a rush was not what I’d call a welcome interlude, either. Doctors, nurses, all kinds of faces hovering over me.

  But one was missing.

  Finn.

  I’m pretty sure I got that word out, because one nurse, the one holding an IV bag as she jogged alongside the gurney, looked me in the eyes and started to say something, but right now I can’t remember any of it.

  It could be noon or it could be midnight. I’m not sure. I just know that when I open my eyes, Suzanne is slumped down in a chair at the side of my bed.

  There’s a lot of beeping machines and lots of plastic tubes. I can’t move my right arm because it’s secured to my body somehow, and I’m dying of thirst.

  “Suzanne,” I croak out past cracked lips. But it’s barely a whisper and she doesn’t wake up. I try again, but breathing hurts right now, and I don’t seem to have any extra air to make sounds.

  The next time I wake up, she’s staring down at me, eyes wide, mouth open as she says my name.

  My eyelids flutter. They don’t want to stay open, but dropping back into the darkness seems like a bad idea, so I raise my eyebrows as I blink rapidly, hoping that my eyelids will follow the same trajectory, and succeed for about two seconds.

  “She’s awake!” Suzanne yells.

  Which is not quite true, but I think she can tell I’m going the extra mile on that empty highway and optimism is in order.

  Then there’s nurses—lots of nurses. Lots of questions. A doctor who talks mostly to the nurses, and then everything calms down and they all just look at me.

  “Water,” I say. Which is probably bad manners because these people did just save my life. But I’m thirsty.

  They don’t let me drink. There’s just a whole lot of medical talk and then I’m pronounced “stable”.

  Suzanne sighs out a long breath of relief. She holds my hand, the one that’s not all bound up in some kind of sling or bandage and won’t move, no matter how hard I try.

  I’m not in pain and I don’t think this is normal, but when I ask, Suzanne points to a bag of liquid attached to a pump, that’s feeding me morphine in little drips.

  And then exhaustion from looking around the room and trying to make sense of what is actually happening takes over and I fade away, wondering what the hell happened to Finn Murphy.

  The next time I wake up I’m in a different room. There’s only a few tubes running through my body now, a few beeping noises coming from the machines, and I’m still thirsty.

  I’m also alone. Which you wouldn’t think would be the one thing I’d fixate on after being shot in the—I look down at my body—upper right chest, but it is.

  I think it’s night now. The room is dark, my door is open, and there’s not much noise in the hallway.

  I feel the urge to move, or sit up, or something, and immediately regret my slight position change because the pain… holy fucking shit, the pain is overwhelming. I think I might actually pass out for a little bit because when I open my eyes again, there’s a nurse in the room with me.

  “Good morning,” she says brightly. “Are you hungry?”

  “Water,” I croak.

  She holds a cup with one of those bendy straws in it. The straw is yellow and the cup is pink, and I’m thinking this is a nice combination, and that’s when I realize I’m fuckin’ high as a kite.

  But the pain’s gone, so I just sip my water and be happy.

  “You’re not on the TV,” the nurse says. Like I should know what this means. She must read the expression on my face as confusion, because once she sets the water down on the little table beside my bed, she clicks a remote and the flatscreen on the wall lights up. “We’ve all been checking. Mr. Wells asked us to keep an eye on it and so far, so good.”

  I don’t know what that means either. But I don’t really care. “Finn?” I ask, my voice stronger now that I’ve had some water.

  She frowns at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, my God. Is he dead?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “No. But the news is saying he was arrested. And now no one is talking about him at all. Well, except for the newscasters.”

  “Arrested,” I repeat. “But what about—”

  “Just rest,” the nurse says, cutting me off. “There’s time to figure everything out later. We’re holding all your visitors until you’re ready.”

  “Even Suzanne?”

  “Is she the pushy one who keeps telling me about Go Fuck Yourself classes?”

  Gotta love Suzanne. “That would be her.”

  “She stepped out for lunch, but she should be back soon. Would you like to try to use the bathroom?”

  I would, so I do. She helps me and then turns her back while I pee with the door open because I might fall over and knock myself out on the sink.

  After that I shuffle myself and the IV pole the ten steps back to the bed and decide… I’m not really in the mood to go that extra mile today. But I do need to know what the fuck is happening.

  “What happened to me?” I ask.

  “You were shot in the chest. Bullet passed right through your upper right quadrant, luckily. There was a lot of blood loss, but the interna
l damage, while bad, could’ve been a lot worse. You got really, really lucky, Miss Grey.”

  I sigh and sink back into the pillows, wincing at the pain leaking past the drugs. “Do I still have a phone?”

  “Sorry,” she says. “Everything you came in with has already been confiscated as evidence. The FBI is still here. They’ve been waiting for you to be well enough to talk to them.” She eyes me for a moment. “Do you want to talk to them?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I ask.

  “I can probably buy you another few hours, but after the shift change everyone will know you’re awake and they have a court order, so…” She shrugs.

  I don’t like the sound of this. But I’ve spent a lot of years hiding from my past and all I want now is the truth. No matter what it is.

  So I say, “Yes. Send them in.”

  There’s more to Finn Murphy than he let on. That second phone just confirms the nagging thought in the back of my head the whole time we were together.

  The throes of chaos might bring two people closer—the pleasure of panic is real when you’re forced to live through something life-altering with a stranger.

  But that doesn’t mean you know each other.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - FINN

  “She’s awake,” the man says as I walk into the small room deep underground at FBI headquarters in DC. He’s sitting casually at the solitary table, one foot propped up on one knee, staring at a tablet.

  I’m wearing black scrubs, handcuffs, slip-on shoes, and shackles. Before I have a chance to ask anything in return, the man points to the guard—who is built like a tank and towers over my six-foot-three frame by what feels like miles—and says, “Take those off.”

  The guard complies and I rub my wrists as he deals with the shackles.

  “Issy?” I say.

  “Take a seat, Murphy.” The man eyes me as he points to the only other chair in the room. I know he’s FBI, not a lawyer, because he just looks FBI. Dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, dark shoes. He’s maybe a little older than me. Dark hair, eye color indistinguishable from this distance, nice haircut if you like the messy look, and stubble casting a shadow across his jawline.

  I walk forward and take a seat. “You said she’s awake. Does that mean she’s out of danger now?” They’ve given me few updates since I was taken into custody back in Colorado. Issy was put into an ambulance, then Life Flighted down to Denver, and I was put into an unmarked federal car and driven to a private airstrip.

  I haven’t seen her since. And the last thing I heard she was out of surgery, but that was days ago now.

  “Do you know who I am?” the man asks.

  “No,” I say. “No fuckin’ clue.”

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “Here, as in in custody?” I snort. “Well, I can take a good guess.”

  “Take a guess,” the guy says.

  I draw in a deep breath, searching for the words, then let it out and begin. “I shot and killed someone out in Colorado. An exonerated felon who, it turns out, shouldn’t have been exonerated.”

  “Close,” the guy says.

  He looks familiar but I have no idea why. My head is a cloud of confusion right now. I keep replaying that moment back in my head. When she was shot. The look on her face. The blood, the ambulance… Issy says you don’t get a rewind, but that’s only in real life. Your brain does rewinds quite well, it turns out. “Why don’t you tell me which part I got wrong? And while you’re at it, how about a name?”

  He reaches into his suit coat pocket, pulls out a badge holder, much like the one I have—had, since they took it away—and flips it open.

  “Special Agent Darrel Jameson,” I say, squinting as I read his ID.

  “That’s me. But I’m retired. This,” he says, flipping his wallet closed, “is just the one they let me carry when I’m on special assignment. You were my special assignment.”

  “Me?”

  “We’re not gonna charge you. In fact, the whole report has been rewritten and your name has now been excluded. You were never there, Agent Murphy. Do you understand?”

  “Uh… I mean, I get it. But no. I don’t understand any of this. I thought I killed my father last fall. I saw him take that bullet. And he didn’t have a fuckin’ vest on, I checked. I was hoping. And—”

  “You’re getting waaaaay ahead of yourself here, Murphy. So just take a breath, sit back, get comfortable, and let me start from the beginning.”

  So I do.

  I listen as he tells his story.

  My story, actually.

  Except I’m not the one who wrote it.

  CHAPTER FORTY - ISSY

  Go F*ck Yourself is where I find myself over the next few weeks. The online class was a hit, but the phone was ringing off the hook looking for the classes. “People want you,” Suzanne said. “Not just the information you have.”

  The FBI interview was as mysterious as the game that precluded it.

  Was it a game?

  And more importantly, did I win? Or lose?

  I can’t tell. I have no idea. All I know is that Finn is coming back today. It’s been almost five weeks since that night up in the mountains.

  Caleb is dead. Sometimes a gunshot wound to the chest kills you, I guess.

  Apparently Finn is just a better shot than Senator Walcott.

  Speaking of the senator, his name never came up in my interview. Even when I brought it up, it didn’t come up. They just moved past it like they had no clue what I was talking about.

  Normally I’d be feeling pretty cynical about that, but apparently Senator Walcott is missing. Presumed dead after he went on a hunting trip up in the mountains almost five weeks ago. They think he was either eaten by a mountain lion or mauled by a bear. They’re hoping they’ll find his body in the spring when the snow melts.

  If Chella knows anything about her father’s disappearance, she doesn’t let on. If she knows it was part of my game, she doesn’t say anything. She did look appropriately sad when all the local TV stations were camped outside her tea shop the day after his disappearance. She cried in the interview. Asked people—like hunters and outdoor people and shit—to please be on the lookout for him so she could get closure. If he was dead, she just wanted to know for sure.

  But after that… she was just Chella. I don’t know her story and I’m not going to ask, because she doesn’t know my story and she never asked me either.

  Secrets, right? Sometimes you just wanna keep that shit to yourself.

  She came over to my hospital room the day I was released, helped me carry all the flowers and stuffed animals out to her car, and then she drove me home, made me tea, and said to call her if I needed anything.

  Jordan showed up next. He knocked on my door, then let himself in my house like he belongs there. I think he just came over to feel me out because the conversation went something like this:

  ME: Did you fuckin’ plan all this?

  HIM: Plan all what?

  ME: The game.

  HIM: What game?

  ME: Fuckin’ forget it.

  HIM: Cool, forgotten.

  And then he told me that Finn was fine and handed me a cheap phone. The kind you can buy in the checkout line at Walmart. Told me to keep it charged and someone would be in touch.

  Someone was Finn. And that first conversation went like this:

  ME: Were you in on it from the beginning?

  HIM: In on what?

  ME: The game.

  HIM: What game?

  ME: Fuckin’ forget it.

  HIM: Cool. I’m gonna be home next week. I’ll see ya then.

  So I really have no clue what happened last month. The only things I do know are this:

  Caleb Kelly might have been unjustly exonerated, but no one in Hell cares.

  I met a new man, whom I might be in love with and one day we still might run away to Kansas together.

  Izett Gery is gone and Issy Grey isn’t.

  Was all this my g
ame?

  No, I decide.

  This was definitely a game, it just wasn’t my game.

  Did Jordan Wells set all this up? Does he have that kind of power?

  And what the fuck happened to Senator Walcott? Did Chella know what kind of man he was? Did she set all this up?

  And why was Finn taken back to DC, only to be let go five weeks later, his name scrubbed clean from all reports? Did he set all this up?

  I have decided to walk away from it. All of it. Zig says, “Regardless of your past, your tomorrow is a clean slate.”

  So… bygones, I guess.

  Letting it go, I guess.

  Oh, no. Not them. Not these people who played the game right along with me.

  Not Jordan. Not Chella. Not Finn.

  These people are dark.

  These people are diabolical.

  These people are keepers.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - FINN

  “You look good, man.”

  That’s Darrel. He glances over at me from behind his sunglasses when I slip into the passenger seat of his BMW in the arrivals lane at Denver International Airport.

  “Thanks,” I say, shutting the door, and look around at the wide-open sky of Colorado as we pull away and head to the airport exit. “So you’re what? Retired again?”

  Darrel just nods his head. He’s not wearing a suit today. Dark slacks, white button-down—untucked and sleeves rolled up to his elbows—and more than a few days’ growth on his face. But the guy still looks official somehow. Like you can just tell you don’t fuck with him.

  And after the story he told me back in DC… I have to admit, I’m glad we’re on the same side.

  But all that’s yesterday’s news. Today is new. A fresh start. I’m not an FBI agent anymore, but let’s face it. I fucked that shit up a long time ago.

  “You decide what to do next?” Darrel asks me. Fuckin’ mind-reader too, I guess.

  “Maybe,” I say. “Sorta? Nah,” I finally admit. “I’m just gonna patch things up with Issy and worry about all that other stuff tomorrow.”