by JA Huss
She’s lying. I can feel it. I stand up and walk over to the window. It’s a beautiful day out and now that it’s light, I can see the Pacific Ocean. There’s a community of neighboring homes surrounding the woods that line this property. Mansions, just not as big as this one. I can see the anchored boats from this window too. They call to me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I love this view. “I don’t believe you.”
“What’s not to believe? He lives from moment to moment.” Nicola stands next to me now. She’s silent and quick. As most assassins are, I’m sure. “I mean, which part are you having problems with? Maybe I can clear things up.”
James’ words in the desert after he fucked me in the bathroom come to mind. I just never know which moments will count, so I treat them all the same.
That sounds like James.
“I loved him too, Harper Tate. I loved him very much. He was a good brother when I was small. He taught me how to ride a bike. And swim. And tell time. I used to call him Tock-Tock—”
That message on the phone back in the desert. Tock-Tock. The message sent to the phone I found in James’ little green house. Tock-Tock. It was her. Nicola. She sent that message.
We’ll talk soon. Don’t forget why this is happening.
What’s happening? Obviously Nicola was not Sasha’s kidnapper, because I killed that guy when I twisted his neck. But Nicola sent that person because she sent that message.
“—you know, Harper, that all of this is true. You know deep down that what we’re saying is true.”
She’s right. None of what they are saying is surprising. Is he insane? Maybe. Probably a little, at least. He’s done some horrific things. And I really don’t have any problem imagining him doing the things they say he’s done.
Except when it comes to me.
Am I delusional? Am I in that fairyland where women delude themselves into believing their captor is the good guy? What do they call that again? Stockholm Syndrome. Do I have that? Did James abduct me without knowing and then brainwash me with sex so I’d be compliant?
That was the very first thing he did. He kissed me. Under the pier. Like he was claiming me. Hell, he might even have used that word a time or two.
I turn and walk quickly over to the bed and sit down before I pass out.
“Nicola,” Vincent says. “Can you please leave us alone for a while?”
I look up to see a sympathetic look on her face as she faces her brother, and then she gives him a nod and walks out.
“Harper.” Vincent sounds tired. I wonder if he got any sleep at all last night. “I’m sorry. OK? For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you have to hear this. I know you think you love him, but he’s been using you. From the moment he saw you on that beach, he was plotting. Ask yourself, Harper. Why did he take you back to your father if he loves you and wanted to keep you? Why?”
I don’t think that’s a real question, so I say nothing.
“He took you back because the Admiral hired him to do that. You’re a job to him. The Admiral wanted you left alone at the beach. Everyone knew where you were, Harper. How stupid do you think we are? But the standing order was to watch and not approach. And then Tet went crazy and killed Cy—”
“Who’s Cy?”
“Tony, I mean. Our brother, Tony. Number Five. We all have nicknames that relate to a method of killing. Tony was Cy for cyanide. That’s his calling card if he needs to kill people on the fly. Like, not authorized. He poisons them with cyanide.”
Sick. And James said his poison was something with tet in it. Tetro something. Pufferfish poison. “Wait. You said you’re not an assassin.”
“I’m not.”
“But you said we all have nicknames. And I asked you what your code was and you acted like I was stupid.”
He raises his hands. “I lied, OK? We’re not allowed to talk about it. Not even to you.”
“So you are an assassin?”
“No. I told you, I’m the control.”
“So Control is your code name?”
“I can’t say, Harper. I can’t say.”
“So do you know what my code is?”
“You don’t have a code. You’re a girl.”
“Nicola is a girl too, and she obviously has a code. What’s her number?”
“Two. She’s Number Two.”
“So if she’s a girl, and she’s an assassin, and she has a code, then why don’t you think I have a code?”
He eyes me sadly. It makes my heart skip, this look. It says so much without words, I have to gulp down some air before I forget to breathe. “Because if you do have a code, Harper, then you’re part of the game too. And that means we’re all in a lot more danger than I originally thought.”
Chapter Seventy-Five - Harper
I stay in my room all day thinking about what Vincent said. Is it really true girls don’t have codes? I have to be honest, I’ve never thought about it before. I’ve always had a code. It’s not something Nick and I made up. My father told me. He warned me about divulging names. He said the code is the most meaningful thing about me. Which is just—what the fuck? Who says something like that to a little kid?
I was never to tell anyone. Of course, I told Nick. And he told me his. But he’s been an assassin all his life. He was Eleven. That was always him. We used to joke that someday he’d knock off the first digit and just be One. He always wanted to be One.
And I was Come.
James is Six. And Tet.
Sasha was… she never told me. Hmmm. Maybe she didn’t have a code then? Maybe it’s true and girls don’t have codes.
Come.
Come here. Come back. Come to me. Coming. There’s a lot of ways to give that word meaning. But just Come? I dunno. I don’t get it.
Come… it has to mean something.
A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts. “Come in,” I say and then shake my head. See? It’s got a lot of possibilities.
“Sorry,” Vincent says. “I’m just going down to the beach and wanted to see if you’d like to join me.”
“The beach. Ummm…” It’s very hard to say no to the beach. And I’ve been cooped up in this guest room all day. Vincent is a man of his word. He had someone fix me a room down the hall. My new clothes are even hanging in the closet. I did see the servants this time, but they were not friendly. In fact, I don’t think any of them speak English. “Sure.”
His face lights up at my decision. “Great. I’ll pack us some food so we can eat dinner down there. Come downstairs when you’re ready.”
I smile as he leaves. Come downstairs.
The word itself implies movement towards something. Or… perhaps back to something. I shake my head and get up to find a bathing suit in my closet, putting it out of my mind. From what I know, the codes don’t have meaning specifically. It’s only the form of the word that counts. Verb. You’re nobody. Noun, you’re a little more than nobody. Ranks, you’re somebody. And numbers mean you’re a cold-blooded killer.
James.
Nick.
And that makes me pause as I rummage through drawers looking for a one-piece so I don’t feel too exposed in front of Vincent. How is Nick any different than James?
He’s not. Except he’s my brother. My twin.
But… I look over at the door. Vincent is James’ twin. And clearly they are not on the same side. And I don’t think it’s really about who gets me. I’m not so full of myself to make this all about me.
I think they were born for different reasons.
Just like Nick and I.
I was born to be a bargaining chip. To make allies for the Company. Like a princess in Old World Europe. To cement relationships. Which is why I never completely bought the fact that James was my promise. It never made sense. But Vincent? That does make sense. He’s the kind of man my father would want me to marry. He’s rich, and refined, and he seems to live in the real world as opposed to the secret one James lives in.
I guess we have something in co
mmon after all.
I change into my one-piece suit and pull a tank top and shorts over it, then slip my feet into some sandals. When I make my way downstairs I find Vincent outside drinking a beer and reading a newspaper. “Ready?” he asks, folding his paper and setting it down.
“My code is Come. I need to know yours.”
He stares at me for a moment. We’re not supposed to talk about this stuff but I don’t care.
“Harper,” he says, shaking his head. “You know I can’t tell you that. And you should not have told me yours.”
“What’s it mean? Come? I know they’re not supposed to have much meaning. But I feel like it does. What’s it mean?” I ask this in a rhetorical way. Almost thinking out loud. So when Vincent opens his mouth, I’m a little taken aback.
“It’s the call to action that should’ve happened on your eighteenth birthday.”
“What?” I just stare at him like an idiot.
“Come. It’s a directive, right? Come see my daughter. Come see her contribute to the society. Come see me put my allegiance above my family. Come see my sacrifice.”
“You made that up.”
He shrugs as he stands. “Some of it. I don’t recall the exact words on the invitation.”
“What?” I have to put a hand to my heart.
Vincent crosses the few steps between us and takes my hand. “The party invitation last year. It was on the directive. I mean, I had no idea it was your code, so take this for what it’s worth. But I did receive an invitation that night. But I was told to wait until the next day. Good thing, huh?” He laughs. “I’d be dead right now if I had gone.”
And then my words flash back to me. When I told James if I had known he was my promise I’d have done it all differently. Not killed anyone.
I look up at Vincent and wonder… would I have been so desperate to leave if I had seen him that day? If I had known I’d be leaving that night with him, going back to his home, or yacht, or wherever? “I would not have gone through with it if I saw you there, Vincent.”
“No?” He smiles big and takes my hand. “That’s good to know.”
And then we walk in silence down the path that leads to the beach.
But I can’t help thinking about what James said. That my father used me to kill all those important people that day. That Nick gave me that Visine idea to kill them, and yet my father never drank the water.
James said Nick warned him.
And I thought that was absurd, since the Admiral was our enemy at the time. We were trying to get away from him.
Weren’t we?
I’m still thinking about this when we make it to the stairs that lead down to the beach.
I scan the horizon, but it’s obscured on both sides by the cliffs. It’s like we’re inside a little cove that shelters this beach and the marina from the strong current of the Pacific a quarter mile out. “Where’s your yacht?”
“Anchored just out of sight that way,” he replies, pointing south. “This marina is only for small boats.”
“Oh. Maybe we can take the tender out there and hang out?”
“Not today, darling. We’ll have to settle for a picnic on the beach, if that’s OK.”
Darling? I frown. We continue down the stairs until we finally reach the sand.
I take my sandals off immediately and strip off my clothes, the wild girl of my younger years taking over as I relish the sand between my toes. When I look up at Vincent, he’s smiling.
“I’ve heard the rumors.”
“What rumors?” I ask, dropping to the ground and stretching my legs out in the late day sun.
“About your wild nature on the beach.”
I chuckle at that characterization as Vincent takes off his shirt.
Holy God. I can’t stop staring at him. He’s exactly like James in the muscular chest department. He catches me staring but I don’t look away and neither does he. “I’m not bad, eh? You’re not so hard to look at yourself. But”—he eyes my body in the one-piece suit—“I’d rather you wore the bikinis when we’re on our private beach.”
“Our beach?” I smirk at him. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, don’t you think?”
And then he’s on top of me, forcing my body back into the hot sand, his chest pushing against my breasts, his mouth dipping closer and closer to mine as each second passes. “This is your beach, Harper. This is your home. I am your future, not James. And all you’d need to see this is to allow me one night. Tonight. Just give me one night to show you I’m the perfect man for you.”
I can only stare at him. He’s not pressing down hard enough to affect my breathing, but he’s affecting my breathing all the same. “I can’t,” I finally manage.
“You can,” he whispers back. His legs part so he can straddle my thighs. “You can, Harper. All you have to do is give me permission.”
“Permission for what?”
“To kiss you for one.”
“You’ve already kissed me.”
“I stole those. The next one needs to be a gift. Because I want to kiss you like I mean it. And I can’t steal one of those. I don’t want it to be a surprise or something that catches you off guard. I want it to be purposeful, and welcomed, and returned.” We stare at each other for a few more seconds and then he rolls off me and sits up and stretches his legs out on the hot sand now. He leans back on his arms and looks up at the sky. “Take your time, though. I can wait.”
And then he jumps up to his feet and runs down the beach and dives into the waves. I sit up so I can see him. So I can watch that beautifully athletic body as he dips under a wave and disappears.
He is so much like James. He’s nicer than James, in fact. He’s patient and he wants permission.
James took. He took me the way he wanted and never asked me anything. He just assumed I was his because… because he thought my father gave me away to him as a little girl.
Vincent pops up out of the waves and starts swimming out to sea. He’s a strong swimmer, I decide. He’s strong because open sea swimming is not something everyone can do and James does it—
Wait. Not James. Vincent. Vincent does it effortlessly. Good God, I’m starting to mix them up.
I watch him swim and when he comes back there is no more mention of kissing. We eat the picnic food he packed and watch the sun set on the ocean. Vincent chats through it and thinking back on it now, sitting in bed trying to remember the things that make me belong to James and not Vincent, that’s one of them.
The sunsets.
James owns my sunsets.
Chapter Seventy-Six - Harper
I go to the beach alone the next day. Vincent is busy with… whatever. I’m not really sure what he does, but he left a note on the bedside table saying he would not be around and I should feel free to amuse myself today.
No restrictions. No guidelines. No rules.
Weird.
So I’m at the marina staring out at the sea. There’s a boat way out there, but from experience, I know what it is. A megayacht. I can tell by the top side that there’s a helipad, so I’m guessing that’s the yacht we came in on.
I look over at the boats docked in neat little rows. There are not a lot of them, it’s a small marina. Before I know it, I’m on my feet walking. The dock is metal and my feet pound as I walk the length of it looking at each boat. I know what a tender looks like. I mean, they come in all shapes and sizes, but I do remember what the tender looked like that we took from my father’s yacht to Vincent’s. It was large. One that held a lot of people. And it had a cabin for the helmsman.
My eyes scan the available boats until they rest on one at the end of the dock. I walk up to it and read the name. Illegal Tender. Cute. But very telling. It’s a tender boat all right. And that means it belongs to the yacht anchored offshore. I step inside and take it in. My eyes immediately go to the control panel. To the ignition. To the lockbox built into the side of the boat. I open it and there’s the key. Or at least, one key. That’s whe
re we keep our keys when we’re docked somewhere private. So I guess whoever this person is out on that ship has something in common with my own family.
Besides me, of course.
I look back at the beach and then up to the tip of the mansion’s roof that is just barely visible from this low angle. I sit in the helmsman’s chair and start the boat.
She purrs.
I smile.
God, I have missed the water. The beach is not the same. I jump up, untie the boat, and then take my seat and ease her away from the dock. The Pacific is strong and the waves are looming, but I’m not in a rush. So I take it slow. Just casually meander my way towards the yacht. It takes a good while for me to get close enough to see her name—Barely Legal, another very telling sign that these are Company people—and then a few minutes later I can see a crew member waiting for me in the garage.
Megayachts always have a tender boat. It’s a limousine used to shuttle passengers to the shore. Our yachts actually have two, but the sailing ship, the one I escaped from last year, only had one. A quick look inside the garage tells me this one has space for two, but none are here at the moment.
The crewman says nothing to me as he secures the vessel, and I ignore him as well. I’ve grown up around servants and I learned to ignore most of them very early. Not because I was snooty, just because it was a rule. I was not allowed to talk to people, status in life notwithstanding, and that was something I took very seriously. James didn’t even know my name until I told him that morning under the pier. He asked me on the beach back when we become Six, but I kept that secret like I was supposed to.
Actually—my mind wanders as I make my way through the garage and towards the entrance into the main part of the ship—Nick saw me drawing pictures in the sand. I was trying to give James a hint so I drew all the instruments I could remember from an orchestra. The last one was a harp and I had been hoping he would guess my name when he looked down at it.
But Nick came, calling me sister, which meant he was mad. And then he ushered me away from James and back to the ship.