by JA Huss
When I look back to James he’s got a gun out. It’s a big gun with a silencer thing on the end of it. He points it at Sasha, just as she stands up on her cushion and turns to smile and wave at me.
James shoots her in the chest, the fluff from her life vest flies up in the air, and then her body falls overboard.
All I hear is my scream and then I’m being hauled out of the boat and into the garage. Four men are holding me by my limbs. I’m not even allowed to walk, I’m carried. I squirm, elbowing one in the neck as he loses his hold, my feet get free, and then James is in front of me. I lift both legs and give him a two-footed kick to the chest. He stumbles backwards, the breath knocked out of him. But he never stops looking at me.
His eyes are saying something, but it’s not anything I want to hear.
“You’re a traitor,” I spit at him. “You are a traitor!” I scream it this time.
He says nothing. My father walks up to him and claps him on the back. “Well done, James. And the card? Did you find the card?”
James shakes his head. “No, sir. But I know where it is. I’m going there next.” He drags his eyes from me and stares at my father. I’m being carried away, my arms and legs again captured by the security guards, and some of his words get lost in the bustle.
But then I hear it.
“Ten days,” he says. “I’ll have your son and the card in ten days.”
He looks straight at me and lowers his sunglasses.
And that’s the last I see of James Fenici as I’m dragged into the interior of the ship.
Chapter Fifty-Four - Sasha
Don’t let anyone tell you getting shot is a piece of cake. I’m looking at you, James Fenici.
Of course, he’s not here. So I’m really just talking shit in my head.
I shiver as Harrison pilots the sailboat back to shore. My custom made-in-Colombia-for-drug-dealers’-kids bulletproof life vest is gone. Ceramic panels and layers of Kevlar tucked inside some Disney cartoon fabric is not exactly the best flotation device. I had to slip that thing off as soon as I hit the water or I’d sink straight to the bottom. So I’m pretty cold right now.
“You OK, kid?” Harrison asks.
“Do I look OK?” I ask back.
He shrugs. “You could be worse, I think.”
“I’m freezing. How much longer?”
“Well, we’re sailing, so the wind is our engine. We have a motor too, and we could speed off like we’re getting away from something, but it’s better to play it cool.”
He’s right. We came this far. I got shot, Harper is back on her fancy yacht, out of the way. And James is probably on his way to the meeting place. “Play it cool then,” I sigh.
It takes us another half an hour to get to shore, and by this time the sun is going down, the sailboat races are over, and the harbor is clearing out. I can still see Harper’s ship. It’s very hard to miss since that thing is as big as an apartment building, and I have to admit, I’d sorta like to be her right now.
I’d sorta like to be anyone but me.
We get to shore and Harrison ties up the boat and points to a rental car in the parking lot. “Go sit in there. Your gun’s under the passenger seat in the front.”
I do as I’m told. What choice do I have?
I wait for about ten minutes before Harrison comes back. He smiles at me as he starts the car and then we are on our way. The drive back out to Fullerton airport takes almost an hour. Accident on Harbor Boulevard. But when we get there and I see James leaning against the side of the building smoking a cigarette, my sadness melts away.
He grins and then holds up a stuffed dinosaur and shakes it at me.
Oh, James. You are such a surprise.
I get out as soon as the car stops and walk over to him. I do my best not to run, but I admit, I skip those last few yards. I hug him around the waist and start to cry.
“I’m so sorry, Smurf. Look, I got you a dinosaur, to make up for shooting you in the chest.”
I sniff and wipe my eyes as I pull away. I take the pink T-Rex toy and hug it close. “That’s not why I’m crying.”
“Does it hurt?” he asks, kneeling down to look me in the eye.
I nod, why lie. “It does,” I whine. “I feel like someone hit me with a baseball bat.”
Harrison whistles. “Let’s fucking go!”
James scoops me up in his arms and carries me over to the plane. “Fuck, kid. I’m really sorry you had to be part of this. I am. And Harper is never gonna forgive me. Even if we set things right. But I told Nick I’d keep her safe and this is the only way to do that while we take care of business. No one can get to her on the ship.”
He sets me down at the stairs to the plane and then takes my hand as we climb. “She will, James. She’ll forgive you. You know how I know?”
“How?” he asks as we enter the plane and take our seats across from each other.
“Because I’ve decided you were right. Ford is just like you.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, we’re both killers. I’m glad you finally got that straight.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not what I mean. I mean you are just like Ford.”
He tilts his head and gives me a funny look.
“Nice,” I say with a sigh. And even though he tries to pull it off. He tries to pretend my words don’t mean anything to him. I know they do.
He’s a killer, he’s an asshole, and he’s one of the most dangerous guys on the planet. But he’s my partner now. And we’re gonna go kick some serious ass and save the world.
Coming For You - Part One
Chapter Fifty-Five - Sasha
Last Christmas Eve
I see him, but he doesn’t see me.
I’m practicing for the future. That’s how hunters work. You gotta be sneaky.
His friend, who I have seen before—but who ignores me like I’m dust—goes into the back room to meet my dad. It’s a gun run, so I don’t pay any attention to him. But this guy, the guy who looks like he could be a hunter, but whom I’ve never seen before, which makes it unlikely (though not impossible), that he is a hunter, stops to look at stuff after his friend tells him to wait.
He picks up a knife.
“That knife sucks,” I say from my seat across the aisle. “I wouldn’t buy that one.”
He checks the brand, then the blade. “Yeah, this is crap.” He puts it in the basket and I make my move.
I set my Little House book down and walk over to him. “Wanna see the good ones?” I ask. He turns and looks surprised that I got so close without him hearing me.
I’m good at being sneaky.
I show him the good knives and he looks at me like I’m weird. They all look at me like that once I let them into my world. They know I’m different. This guy—Ford, he says his name is—he knows I’m different. He jokes with me about grownup stuff. He laughs and listens to me when I help him shop for his mom and girl-who-is-a-friend. I gift-wrap his two presents, and while I do that, I realize something.
I’ve known almost from the moment he walked in that he’s a good guy.
His friend peeks out of the back room and tells Ford to leave. Things are getting complicated. My stomach does a little turn at that word. I don’t like it. I like things to be simple. Complicated is bad. I switch my frown to a smile before Ford catches it. “You have time for me to gift-wrap your knife.”
“It’s for me, Sasha. It doesn’t need to be gift-wrapped.”
“It’s like a present to yourself, Ford. Just go with it.”
He laughs. I keep my back to him and concentrate on my gift-wrapping as he asks why I’m working today.
Why am I working today?
Buddy, I think to myself, you would not believe me if I told you. I reach in my pocket and palm the little hard drive I took from my dad last night. He was drunk. My dad hardly ever gets drunk. And as much as I’d like to believe my Christmas Eve is going to end up with me sleeping soundly at my grandparents’ ranch tonight, I’m prett
y sure that’s not what’s happening today.
When the hunters show up, bad things happen.
I pull the flash drive out of my pocket and slip it inside Ford’s knife box. When he opens this tomorrow, he’ll find an old battered piece of plastic covered in stickers. If he plugs the drive into his computer, he’ll see photographs. All my best moments in my short life.
And maybe that’s the end of it. Maybe he tucks it inside a drawer somewhere, laughing at the little girl up in Wyoming who got attached. Maybe he never thinks of it, or me, again.
I can only hope.
But I don’t think that’s what’s gonna happen.
I think that by the time this is all over, he might wish he never met me.
Chapter Fifty-Six - Sasha
Present Day
Some people look peaceful when they sleep.
James Fenici is not one of them.
He doesn’t talk, or thrash wildly from nightmares. Only stupid people do that. Weak people.
James Fenici is not weak. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not weak.
No. James has this little twitch. It’s almost not noticeable, and it only affects the one eye. But it’s there. I’ve been watching him for about an hour. I’ve been on a private plane twice now—once on my way to Vegas, and this time, on my way home from California. But let me tell you something. They are pretty fucking boring.
Fracking. Fudging. Flucking. I should not swear in my thoughts. James hates it when I swear and if I swear in my thoughts, I’ll swear in real life.
But fuck it. This plane ride sucks. There are no drinks because Harrison was too busy fishing me out of the ocean after James shot me to stock up the cooler.
Yeah. This stupid plane has a cooler. Like something you put ice in. Not like a refrigerator that even our stupid nineteen seventy-eight RV had back when I was a kid. A cooler. I’m not impressed.
So no soda. Not even a fracking, fudging, flucking bag of pretzels.
God, I’m so hungry.
“James?”
He’s across the aisle from me, but that’s like two feet away tops. I kick him when he doesn’t answer.
“James?”
“Kick me again, and I’ll break all your toes,” he says without opening his eyes.
“I’m so hungry.”
He cracks one eye open. “Do I look like a vending machine? I told you, we’ll stop in Burlington after we get the truck.” He closes the one eye like this matter is settled.
“How far away is Burlington?”
“Go ask Harrison.”
And that’s it. I watch him for a few minutes to see if he’ll apologize for not having food. But he doesn’t. He’s asleep again because there’s that twitch.
I don’t want to ask Harrison. He’ll say something with coordinates that make no sense without a map. If it was light I could look out the window and at least see if we passed the mountains yet. Burlington is on the prairie.
I slump down in my seat and pout. I know that’s very childish and I should man up and stop doing it. But I’m not a man and I’m still a child. So hey, might as well enjoy it while I can.
I think of Nick instead.
I can’t believe he never told Harper about me. Is that weird? She didn’t even know I was his promise. That’s not weird. I don’t think, anyway. Promises are supposed to be secret. I shouldn’t know Nick and I are promised. But he told me last year when he started coming to see me in Wyoming.
Well, he came to see my dad. But he took an interest in me and it was very hard for me not to take an interest back because Nick Tate is what girls call hot.
He and Harper have some similarities, obviously, since they are twins. But Nick is taller than Harper. He’s got nice muscles for a boy of only eighteen. Not like James. James has man muscles. He’s a big guy compared to Nick. But Nick is quicker than James. Harper is quicker than James too. I saw her fight a little while we were together.
Nick is smart too. He knows so many things. He knows secrets for one. Secrets that even James doesn’t know.
Hell, even I know secrets that James doesn’t know.
But if I thought that gave me an advantage, I’d be wrong because there’s more to James than just… James.
Of course, there’s the little matter of Number One too. He tried to kill Harper. And I don’t know what to make of all this. Or of James’ sister, Nicola. Or the Admiral. Or Nick for that matter.
Who should I trust?
So far it’s just James. But once I see Nick, I’ll have to make a choice. Because you can’t be loyal to two people at once.
Can you?
Harrison yells from the cockpit. “We’re getting ready to land, you guys. Buckle up.”
James lowers his feet off the seat across from him and sits up straight. Has he been awake this whole time? Shit, I stopped watching him. Did he see me thinking?
I don’t like to think about secrets in front of James. It’s not like he reads minds or anything, but he’s got instincts. He reads faces. And body language. And even voices.
I know because my father taught me how to do it too. But the thing about instincts is that you have to use them in real life to make them second nature.
I have never done a job. Aside from killing those four men who came to blow up my grandparents’ ranch, I’ve never done anything exciting. All the teaching in the world is useless without experience.
James has experience. James has killed hundreds of people. He’s overthrown governments. He’s worked in conditions I can’t even imagine. And he was a prisoner of war down in Honduras once.
I’ve heard that story enough times to recite it in my sleep from people more important than him. Back in the desert he told Harper and me that he was running a shadow government down in San Pedro Sula, but that wasn’t his first time in Honduras. No. The first time was when he was captured.
I know what happened to him down there. Both times. I chance a look over at my new partner and smile.
“What’s on your mind, Smurf?”
Shit.
“I’m so, so, so, so hungry.” He stares at me and I can’t help myself. I squirm.
“Burlington has a McDonalds. We’ll get some breakfast there.”
I would die for McDonalds right now. “And then what are we gonna do?”
The plane drops the landing gear with a thud and this gives James the opportunity to ignore my question.
I don’t like when he ignores my questions. Because that means I won’t like the answer he’s not giving me.
“We’re partners, right?” I ask him, suddenly feeling needy.
He turns back to me with a smile. I love it when he smiles. Because as far as I can tell, the smiles are never fake. “Till death do us part, midget.”
I smile back. I really do like James. I’m just not sure I can trust James.
Because as far as I’ve been able to tell, Tet is in charge in all the situations that count. The most notable was back at Merc’s house in the desert when he told me he might have a plan. The second time was after Harper was drugged by One. I’m still not one hundred percent sure of who was actually in charge that first time. But the guy who told me he was going to shoot me in the chest was definitely Tet.
And even though I think James is on the up and up, I have a hard time understanding how he can live two lives at the same time.
Everyone in the Company—and I do mean everyone—knows that James Fenici is a twisted dude. You need him to kill his brother? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to kill a trainer’s kid? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to trail your daughter and lead everyone on a wild chase to take the heat off your son? No problem. Just tell Tet.
But the problem with James and Tet doubles when you realize you can’t have one without the other. They are not two separate personalities.
They really are the same guy.
I think that makes James/Tet more insane than if he was one of those crazy people with split personality disorder. Because at
least if they were two people you could sorta count on them.
For instance, when the Admiral texted James and told him to come out to Colorado and “pick me up” what he really expected was for Tet to come out to Colorado to “pick me off”.
Nick told me the night before James showed up. He said, If you see him first, he’s James and you should give him a chance. If he shows up as Tet, you’ll never know he was there.
Is it fucked up that Nick didn’t just tell me to get the hell out of there?
I’m not sure.
But Tet wasn’t around when that text from the Admiral to come “pick me up” came in. James was. And James was busy with Harper, so he didn’t need Tet.
See, the Admiral, for all his uppity smugness, really has no clue how James/Tet operates. I suppose that’s why he instructed me to kill James that day. It was a two birds kind of thing.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts when the plane touches down, bounces once, then again, and we roll the rest of the way towards the small airport surrounded by cornfields on three sides.
When we come to a stop James stands up and stretches his arms above his head and touches the top of the cabin, pressing his hands flat against the curved plastic. “I’m starved too, McSmurf. And I need coffee.” He says that with a smile.
God, I love that smile. I might not like Tet all that much, and James is not one of those nurturing people like my dad was. But when he smiles at me like that, I absolutely love him.
Chapter Fifty-Seven - James
I watch the Smurf watch me through the smallest crack of an eye during our plane ride.
She’s making me nervous. She’s not asleep, but she thinks I am. She’s watching me, but she has no idea I’m watching her.
Jesus fucking Christ. I have no idea what I’m doing. I know things they don’t think I know. But I’m not even sure what to do with some of that information.
And I have no idea what Sasha is doing. I know she’s operating on someone’s orders. I’m just not sure who’s orders they are. The Admiral? She definitely was. But now? Not sure. Nick? Don’t know about that either.