Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

  She could say she was too tired now, which wasn’t far from the truth. But it had only been forty minutes since she’d texted Paul, and if anything, she had more energy now than she’d had then.

  Besides … a little celebrating might be nice.

  Yes, if you don’t mind me in my PJs - See you soon!

  Twenty minutes later, Casey was deep into the third volume of True Men Will Rise. By now the heroes—the “True Men”—had been assembled from their various walks of life: an unemployed factory worker, a policeman, an Army vet, a farmer. The list went on. Mostly men, mostly white. There were some wives and girlfriends—the farmer’s wife depicted as a crack shot with a rifle, the policeman’s girlfriend raped and killed by a gang of Mexican thugs, and one or two people of color among the True Men. Just not very many.

  As for the True Men themselves, they rose to take back America from the grasp of the oligarchs, from terrorists, illegals, and criminals. To return America to its core values and rescue it from social decay and decadence, back to a time when an honest man could earn enough with his two hands to provide for his family. The villains who opposed them lurked in dark and dangerous cities, in the halls of power, in guarded, gated compounds: a scheming woman senator, a gay man who molested teenaged boys, a cowardly black police chief. It was the farmer who started the uprising, when his farm was foreclosed on by an uncaring and corrupt bank, and in an act of desperation, he retaliated by shooting at the officers who’d come to serve the foreclosure notice (only to frighten, not to kill). He and his wife held off an increasing number of sheriffs and deputies until he was wounded and she was finally shot dead by a sniper.

  Women did not fare well in these comics, Casey noted.

  He was rescued from the hospital where he was under police guard by a mysterious man named Slade, who turns out to be a former Army ranger who had lost his squad in a busted mission, betrayed by a conniving, cowardly State Department official under orders from higher up.

  Betrayal. Almost all the heroes were betrayed in some way. And the revenge they took in response was righteous and just.

  The doorbell rang. It took her a minute to get to her feet. Her legs, her back, were stiff, and the spasms that hit when she straightened up made her gasp.

  You overdid it today, she told herself. But you’re still getting better.

  By the time she reached the door, the spasms had eased up. Good, she thought. Maybe she could manage a smile for Paul.

  She was looking forward to seeing him, she realized, feeling a flush of anticipation she hadn’t felt in a while. Not since the first few months they’d dated. She’d really enjoyed going out with him before the arguments about priorities and not taking the relationship seriously. Before The Event.

  And anyway, she’d had about enough True Men for one night.

  Paul stood there, holding a flat blue and gold box. “Hey,” he said. He smiled, but there was something tentative about it. He stepped inside, and she closed the door.

  After a moment, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She could taste a hint of peppermint.

  It felt good. Better than she’d expected.

  “Ooooh,” she said, looking at the box. “Is that chocolate?”

  “It is.”

  “And I have red wine open. Perfect!” She gestured toward the couch and hobbled over to the kitchen to get a clean glass for him.

  “It’s what I could get at the airport,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “But they tell me it’s local.” He took her hand and stiffened his arm as she lowered herself to the couch; he was strong enough that she could use him for support.

  He sat next to her. She poured the wine. They clinked glasses and sipped. He leaned in and kissed her again. This time she kissed him back, and at first it was gentle but she could feel the teeth beneath his lips, and as their tongues touched she felt a rush of pleasure spreading in little warm waves through her body.

  It had been a while.

  They broke apart. “Shit, I think I spilled some wine,” Paul said.

  “Well, don’t worry about the couch.” It was an old wood and cowhide thing she’d found at a secondhand store; she just threw Mexican beach blankets over the more battered spots.

  “I’d better get a paper towel or something.” He got up and went into the kitchen.

  “If I open the chocolates without you, does that make me a bad person?” They’d had bagels and burritos at work, but it had been a long day.

  “Go for it.” He came back with a wad of wet paper towels, rubbing a patch on his suit pants and then wiping a section of leather cushion.

  “What’s this?” He’d picked up the volume of True Men she’d been reading. “You studying up for Comic-Con?”

  Now the wave she felt was irritation. “I guess you missed the news.”

  “I was in meetings all day about the latest round of funding, so yeah, not a lot of time for news.”

  “You didn’t get an alert about Matt Cason?”

  He frowned. “The congressman? Yeah, but … what does that have to do with anything?”

  Don’t be a bitch, she told herself. If he’d been in meetings and on planes all day, he most likely wouldn’t know anything beyond that someone took shots at a congressman. He wouldn’t know about a special report on a local news program that talked about a comic book.

  “He’s okay, right? I did hear that much.”

  Five people weren’t okay, she thought. Two were dead, three were injured, two critically.

  “Yeah. He’s still in the hospital, but the doctor said it was primarily to monitor for concussion. They might even discharge him tonight.”

  Saying that, she felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. I should be there, she thought. Maybe she could get a quote from him.

  “Somebody said he took down the shooter himself, is that true?”

  She nodded. “It looks that way. We have witnesses and photos. No statement from him yet.”

  “We? Were you working on this story?” He sounded almost incredulous.

  “Well, yes. Because of my series on the Morena shootings. I met the shooter a couple of days ago. He’s a friend of Alan Jay Chastain. Or said he was. We still don’t have confirmation of that.”

  “Wait. You met the shooter?”

  Try to keep up, she felt like saying. But that wasn’t fair, and she knew it. They hadn’t really spoken in weeks. Just a few texts that had dwindled to none.

  “It’s a crazy story,” she said. “Just crazy.” She hesitated. She knew what he’d thought of her work before: Trivial. Not real news. Surfing bulldogs.

  And this? If it was real news, would that even make a difference? Her work would never be as important as what he did, would it?

  “I have the segment and footage from the park on the DVR. Do you want to see it?”

  “Sure,” he said, his eyebrows pinched, his mouth set in a straight line.

  Not exactly a show of enthusiasm, but she’d take it.

  When they finished watching, Paul didn’t say anything. He sipped his wine, still frowning.

  “So?” Casey asked. She knew she sounded a little anxious. Eager. Wondering what he thought about what he’d seen. What he thought about her work. About her. Today had been so strange. She suddenly wanted to talk to him about it, to tell him what her day had been like, and to have him listen.

  “That’s … some crazy stuff,” he finally said.

  “Yes, isn’t it? I mean, the comic book! Of course maybe there’s no direct connection, but what a weird coincidence, and it makes for a great … I don’t want to say hook, because it’s not strong enough for that, not yet, but as another way to tie the story together, it really works.”

  She stopped talking. Paul was staring at her. She thought his expression might be disbelief.

  “He could have killed you.” He sounded angry.


  “Yeah. I know,” she said. Because she did know. She’d thought about it ever since the park. Even before that, when she saw the memorial in the barbecue pit at the apartment complex, she’d thought about it. It was why she’d agreed they should call the police. Not just because she was convinced Lucas had killed those two young men.

  Because he could have killed me.

  She shrugged a little. “Apparently he had bigger targets to shoot.”

  “I don’t get it, Casey. I don’t get it. You … you almost died. And you’re acting like … like this is no big deal.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “I get it, okay? I just can’t spend too much time dwelling on it, that’s all.”

  “You need to be more careful.”

  “How? I was just doing my job. I had no idea it was going to be dangerous for me to walk to my car after shooting interviews at a giant thrift store.”

  That shut him up.

  “All my life I’ve been hearing people tell me how everything I want to do is dangerous. And it’s shit like this! Walking down a street by myself. Going out on my own at night. What if I told you I wanted to be a foreign correspondent? Cover stories in conflict zones. I shouldn’t do that?”

  “It’s more dangerous for you. That’s just reality.”

  She laughed. “Really? A man with a gun can kill you as easily as he can kill me.”

  Paul closed his eyes for a moment. “I worry about you,” he said.

  Why am I so angry at him? she thought. She shouldn’t be. But she couldn’t seem to help it.

  “I care about you, Casey. Or I’d like to, anyway. I’m just not sure if you even want that.”

  Well, did she? It was a good question, she realized.

  Why had she been so obsessed with this man before? She thought about it. He was attractive. Okay, sexy. He was smart, successful, and driven.

  Paul checks all the boxes, Casey thought. Was that enough? What did they really have in common?

  “To be honest with you? I don’t know. I’m … in a place where I’m trying to figure out a lot of things. I understand if you don’t want to wait for me to do that.”

  He sat on the couch, jaw working.

  “I’m going to go,” he said abruptly, standing up.

  “You don’t want to talk about this?”

  “Why? It’s not like anything I say is going to change your mind.”

  What just happened? she thought, watching the door close behind him.

  24

  Fifty days ago today we lost #AlanJay. Let’s

  celebrate his memory with a day of action. Tell us how you’re celebrating #AJLAActionDay #AJLA #TrueMen

  Followed girl thru TJ’s. When she stopped I stopped. When she moved I moved. Stood behind her in line & rubbed against her ass. Scared her shitless LOL! #AJLAActionDay

  Dirty-dicked the office bitch’s lunch and watched her eat it #AJLAActionDay #AJLA

  My goal: Doxx that slut from Cason’s office

  #AJLAActionDay #AJLA #CasonShooting

  #TrueMen

  “I’m sorry to leave you here like this.” Jane wore one of her serious outfits, the one she used for pressers, a black suit with a black blouse and a single strand of oddly-shaped pearls. “I have to get back to the hospital for Matt’s statement.”

  “That’s okay,” Sarah said. “I’ll be fine.”

  She’d slept well, which surprised her, only waking up when she heard Jane and Charlotte’s voices in the hall. By the time she’d pulled on her borrowed sweats, Charlotte had left for a morning class at the university and Jane was on her way out the door.

  “Coffee’s on the counter,” Jane said. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge. I’m told you can’t go wrong with cold pizza.”

  “Thanks for having me here,” Sarah said. “I really appreciate it.”

  Jane grabbed a small travel Thermos she’d filled with coffee. “You don’t have to thank me. This whole situation … ” She shook her head a few times. “Anyway, please stay here as long as you’d like today. As mentioned, there’s pizza, and I’m sure we have some beer.”

  “Thanks, but … I should get home. And change. So I can come into the office. I mean … ” She hesitated. She knew how it might sound. Like her question about whether Lindsey liked baseball. “There must be a lot of work to do. With Ben in the hospital.”

  Jane’s expression shifted, her eyes narrowing. Sarah couldn’t read the emotion behind it.

  Maybe she’d said the wrong thing.

  “There is.” Jane gestured toward the barstools, pulling one out for herself. Sarah sat across from her.

  “I’ve got about three minutes before I have to leave, and that’s not nearly enough time to discuss this. But yes. There’s a lot of work to do, and no Ben to do it. I just don’t want you to feel obligated.” She sighed. “Sarah, you’ve been through a horrible experience. I meant what I said about getting you some counseling. If you need to … regroup and heal, go home and spend some time with your family … ”

  “You want me to leave,” Sarah said.

  “No.” Jane sounded surprised. “No, not at all. With Ben out of commission for the time being, we’ve got a big hole to fill. But you don’t need to try to power through this like nothing happened.”

  “I know. I’m not. I just … ”

  She knew she wasn’t okay, not really. Not just because of what she saw yesterday, not just because of that awful feeling of pushing down on Ben’s leg, of feeling his flesh and bone and the blood all over her hands, her shirt.

  It was the rest of it. That tweet. Her photo all over social media. What that meant.

  But if she didn’t work, what then? Would they fire her? Then what would she do? Go home? And do what?

  No, she thought, I can’t. I can’t go back to who I was.

  But she couldn’t tell Jane any of that.

  “I’d … I’d feel better being there. With all of you.”

  “Okay.” Jane was giving her that look. Studying her. “Just realize … the likelihood is, there will be media at headquarters. We’re a national story right now, and it’s something we’re going to have to deal with for a while. I know you don’t want to talk to the press, but they will be hard to avoid. Especially if you’re filling in for Ben. He handles some of those calls.”

  “I’ll talk to Casey Cheng.”

  If News 9 were the ones most determined to track her down, maybe it made sense to try to control their narrative, as Jane had advised. To give them what they wanted, so they wouldn’t have a reason to keep digging.

  “Are you sure about that, Sarah? You don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Jane said all the right things, and maybe she even meant them, but there was something she wasn’t saying too, Sarah thought.

  There was work to be done, and she was the best person to do it. But she needed to show she could handle the pressure. That she could handle the press. And at least Casey Cheng knew what it was like to be a target.

  “All right,” Jane said. “Angus will put the two of you together. Let me know what she has in mind. I doubt if it’s anything complicated, just the usual eyewitness statement: what did you see, what did you do, how did you feel. We can do a little role-playing at the office, if you think that would help.” She rose. “Sorry, I’ve got to get to the hospital. Take your time coming in. There’s no need for you to rush.”

  After Jane left, Sarah poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the counter. It felt strange being in Jane and Charlotte’s house without either of them here, like she was spying on them without meaning to. I’ll wait for Angus to call, she thought, and then I’ll get a Lyft and go home. It was too bad she couldn’t just go straight to the office, where she’d left her car, but she couldn’t go to work in borr
owed sweats and a Padres T-shirt, could she?

  The house was feeling stuffy, and it looked like a beautiful day outside, the sky a deep, cloudless blue. She opened the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard. There was a newspaper on the counter—an actual, physical newspaper—and she grabbed that to read. Maybe it would be nice to catch up on the news without worrying about the next alert, the next trending story. The next threat on Twitter.

  She sat down on the couch to read. She was finishing a story about the art scene in Tijuana when she heard the voices.

  Young. Male. Speaking in low voices. Coming from the backyard.

  She stood, heart slamming against her ribs. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. There’s no one in the backyard. She could see the yard clearly.

  She heard the voices again. Whispers. Laughter. From the house next door, maybe? She couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought the sounds came from behind the house, not next to it. Was there a house behind this one?

  She moved quietly outside.

  The backyard had a cement patio and narrow crescent-shaped yard spooning it, box planters with tomato plants growing on tower trellises, big clay pots holding flowers and succulents.

  And no, there wasn’t a house directly behind this one. Instead, there was a chain-link fence marking the rim of a canyon. The canyon dropped steeply down, the slopes covered with sage and grasses and scrubby trees. The fences to either side were solid wood and tall, for privacy. But there wasn’t anyone to see you straight ahead, unless people were out in the backyard on the other side, and they would be pretty far away.

  Laughter again, abruptly cut off. A rustling in the bushes. She stared down the slope but didn’t see anyone. Just a rabbit, bursting out into the open for a moment before it scrambled into a clump of sunflowers.

  There were coyotes in the canyons, people said.

  She stood there for a minute and listened. Heard only the faint rush of traffic coming from a busy street somewhere that was out of her sight.

  25

  Matt Cason would make a brief statement in front of the hospital some time late this morning.