by J. A. Huss
He sets me back down on the counter but my arms are wrapped around his neck and I can’t make myself let go. “I know you said you’d come back for me, James. But I can’t do it. Please don’t leave me. Please, please, please.”
He frowns down at me, unable to give in to my request and unable to lie. “Ten days, Harper. I’ll never be gone longer than ten days.”
“I can’t live ten days, James. I won’t make it ten days without you. I swear, I won’t. So much can happen in ten days.”
“You will, baby. I promise. I’ll make sure of it. But just relax. I’m not going anywhere. That’s just a what if. It’s not real.”
“It’s not real?” I’m desperate for anything so I latch on to this.
He shakes his head. “Just a what if.”
But this what if just makes me think of all the other what ifs that might happen.
What if those files are really gone?
What if Nick is dead?
What if James really does leave?
And the worst what if of all. What if he doesn’t come back for me?
Chapter Twenty-Six - James
Harper is breathing deeply, completely exhausted.
I’m exhausted too, but sleep seems to be very far away right now. What a motherfucking day. How does all this shit happen in one day? That kidnapping was this morning. That murder was this morning. I still don’t know what that was about. One thing is clear about that—it wasn’t us. It wasn’t us as in the job the Admiral has me doing. And it wasn’t us as in the job I have going with Merc. And it wasn’t us as in the job I have keeping Harper safe.
So Jesus Christ, James, Tet says in my head. What other job do you have going?
It’s a good question.
You know what would be cool? If fucking Tet would take over when those blackouts occurred. Right? That’d be awesome, even if it meant I was certifiable. Because at least I’d have answers.
But reality, James, I tell myself. Stick to reality. Who else is involved?
Sasha, obviously. A lot of this shit today was about Sasha. And just what the fuck? It’s like this kid was dropped in my lap to…
No. That can’t be it.
I laugh to myself. But how fucking perfect would it be to send her? Especially after that meeting with the Admiral. Eliminate her, he said.
What if he told Sasha the same thing?
I mean, it’s crazy. That little Smurf against me? I laugh. She’s good, for a kid. But not good enough. Not even close. Harper is pretty good too. But she can’t shoot. Hell, she can’t even drive.
I sit up in bed and look over at her. Sleeping so soundly, oblivious to all that’s happening behind the scenes. Must be nice.
I get up out of bed and pull out a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt I brought in from the Hummer after our shower, and then I grab my gun and go looking for my new target.
I’m barefoot, so I stalk down the hallway and out into the living room. It’s totally quiet. The moon lights up the room well enough to see, but not much more than that. There are way too many shadows in here for my comfort level. Any one of them could be the kid. I stalk down the hallway and check the first room. Nothing. The door is closed to the second room at the end of the hall. I walk quietly up to the door, lean in to listen, then knock softly. “Sasha?” I turn the handle and peek in. “Sasha?”
There’s a strong breeze coming in from somewhere, like the window is wide open, but all the windows in this house are long and skinny, up near the ceiling. Or skylights. I look up, and for half a second I think this is it, the little fucking Smurf is hiding up on the ceiling like some Company version of Spiderman.
She’s not up there.
But there is a skylight up there. And it’s open. That’s where the breeze is coming from. There’s a ladder leaning up against the wall, slanted at a severe angle. I stand underneath the skylight and call up. “Sasha! You up there?”
A shadow appears over the entrance to the roof. “Yes.”
“Can I come up?”
She peeks cautiously over the side. “I guess.”
I stuff my gun in my pants and climb. She’s on the other side of the roof when I step out of the hole. “What are you doing?” I ask, walking over towards her. She’s got a hand behind her back so I figure she’s been having the same doubts about me as I’ve been having about her.
“Looking for something.”
“Oh.” Hmmm. “Like what?” I sorta laugh. “It’s a roof.”
She nods up at the sky with her head, never taking her eyes off me. “Did you know today is the summer solstice? The longest day of the year.”
“Fuck, well, it certainly felt like the longest day of my life.”
“Right?” she asks, smiling a little. And then her smile drops into a frown so fast my heart skips.
“What?” That question is all it takes for her tears to start. “What? What’s wrong?”
She walks over to the short adobe ledge around the roof and takes a seat. Her gun comes out from behind her back and she wipes her face with the back of her other hand. “We had plans today.”
“Who?” Fuck, what’s she talking about? Plans? To kill me? Does she have a partner? Who is her partner? All this shoots through my mind as she pulls herself together.
“My dad and me,” she finally manages through her tears. “We had plans to go to some secret place where ancient Indians marked the solstices using stones lined up like a wheel on the ground. And I used to know the name of it, but…” She sniffs and shakes her head. “I’ve forgotten what it’s called. And you know what?” Her eyes are all teary with sadness as she looks over at me.
I kneel down where I am so even though we are a good twenty feet apart, we’re at least eye level. “What?”
“I forgot about him too. I forgot all about him until I went to bed and then saw the date on the digital clock on the nightstand.”
Fuck. She’s thinking about her father.
“And I know you said to try not to think about things, but it’s really hard.” She lets a little sob loose. “And my body hurts from this morning. I’m not a complainer, James, I swear. But I don’t feel so good.” She drops the gun on the ground now and then wipes both hands across her face. “My head hurts. And my shoulder hurts. I don’t even think I can shoot that gun. You were right earlier. It’s got a lot of kick to it.”
I don’t know what to say. Is she playing me? Is she really sad? Is she really hurt? What the fuck am I supposed to say?
The silence goes on for too long and she takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Merc was right, I guess. I’m a crybaby. And you hate me, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate you,” I reply, a little defensively, blowing out my own long breath. “I just don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know why you’re here.”
She shrugs, then winces as her hand goes to her shoulder.
Well, pain I can deal with. So I start there. “I have a med kit in the pull-out drawers in the back of the Hummer. Take one of the tablets called Motrin before you hit the sack.” I don’t know what to say about the father thing. I’m no good at this shit. I’m the last guy to look to for sympathy. All I know is business. Death is my business. I walk over to her and kneel down so I can see her Glock. And then I pull out my Five-SeveN, pop out the magazine, pull the barrel back, and empty the chamber, letting the cartridge fall out into my palm. “Here,” I say, handing it over to her grip first. “You wanna trade guns, Smurf? This thing’s nice and light. Almost no kick at all. Just a .22 round, but you know, the shape of the bullet gives it velocity.”
She takes the gun, then the mag. Every few seconds she sniffs as quietly as she can, trying not to call attention to the fact that she’s crying. “Cop killer,” she says as she pops the magazine in.
“Yup, that’s what they call them. Cop killers. You know why, right?”
She nods. “Because the cartridge goes through Kevlar.”
“Yeah, that’s why.” She knows her shit. “Load it up.
You wanna shoot it?”
She sniffs again. “Where?”
I smile and pan my arms wide. “Here. There’s no houses for miles. No one’s gonna care. Pick a target. Shoot something.”
She scans the area, making a little circle as she does it. Then she points off in the distance. “How about that sign at the edge of the property?”
“Wow. You’re cocky, huh?” She smiles at me and I smile back. “I tell you what. If you hit that target in this light, I’ll let you keep that gun forever. We can trade, huh? I’ll take that Glock off your hands and you can have this Five-SeveN.”
She gets a wide grin but tries to hide it. “I can hit that target.”
“Show me. Pretend your dad is watching you. Right now. He’s looking down on you and he sees you with me, and maybe he’s a little worried.” My voice drops and she looks up at me, her face a mess of grief, but at the same time I know she’s listening. She wants to hear something real from me. She needs something real from me. “He’s probably a little suspicious of my motives. And maybe he’s worried that I’m a bad guy. So show your dad you can handle me just fine. Shoot that target and take my gun.”
She stares at me for a moment. “Are you a bad guy, James?”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“I’m a bad guy too.”
“So I guess we’re even,” I say back.
“Maybe,” she says as she takes aim. She draws in a long steadying breath, then breathes out and squeezes the trigger. The Five-SeveN is loud, but the ping of a bullet going through a metal sign echoes for a second after the gun blast dies away. That’s all we need to confirm her aim was true. “If we’re even,” she says, turning back to me, “then what do we do?”
“Well”—I reach down and pick up her Glock, check the magazine, finger the thread on the barrel where a suppressor would fit, then stuff it in my pants—“I guess we need a plan.”
“I guess we do.”
I nod as I stand. “I’ll let you know when I get one.”
And then I walk back over to the open skylight, half expecting to hear the crack of a high-velocity round being fired before crashing straight through my head.
But I hear a long, sad sigh instead.
I guess her trust—even if it’s conditional, temporary, and precarious—is the best I can hope for at the moment.
Chapter Twenty-Seven - James
I go back inside, walk straight through the house, go out to the Hummer, open the door, sit inside, and slam it shut.
Fuck.
What the fuck am I doing?
I weigh my options in my head. I imagine all the ways in which each path could make life better. Then worse. Every decision has a consequence. Every moment in my life accumulates to this moment. And this moment will determine my next moment.
Life is a tower. A very tall tower. Decisions lead to actions, and action stack up—one on top of another, on top of another. And sometimes you know why you’re clawing your way up that tower, but most of the time, it’s just pulling yourself up, hand over hand. Finding each foothold one crevice at a time.
And every now and then, as you climb your tower, there’s a bridge. And you stand there looking across that bridge, but you know that’s too fucking easy. There’s no other side. If there was another side, you’d hop off the fucked-up tower you’re climbing and try something new.
But there’s no other side in sight. Just a bridge.
So it’s a risk. Do you keep climbing? Do you use all your stacked moments to lift you up towards the ending you’ve been envisioning since you started this journey?
Or do you step onto the bridge and cross over into the unknown?
I guess it comes down to regrets. Not things like, Did I kill the right people? Or, Did I do my job the best way I know how?
No. Life is not about work, it’s about… love.
Unless, of course, your work is what you love.
Do I love my work?
I pull out my phone and call the number from memory. It rings and rings and then finally goes to voice mail. “Harrison,” I say in a low voice. “Call me back, I need a big.”
I end the call, go back inside, find the smokes I bought at the bar, and then walk out the back door so I can enjoy them. I flick the lighter and take a deep drag, then let it out and a little bit of comfort and relief floods into my bloodstream. I walk out towards the sign Sasha just shot and when I get there, I turn and look up to the roof. She’s gone now. Maybe back to bed. Maybe she’s pacing inside, weighing up her stacked moments too. Considering her options as she decides whether or not to step out on to that bridge.
I flick the lighter on the sign since the half-moon has dipped behind some clouds and it’s darker now.
It’s just silver, but then I realize I’m looking at it backwards and walk around the other side of the post. There’s no fence. It’s just a post in the ground facing the empty desert.
But it does have a message on this side. It says, I shoot everyone, and there’s a bullet hole smack in the middle of the sign.
Sasha is a damn good shot.
My phone buzzes in my pants and I let my cigarette dangle as I fish it out and press the green tab. “Yeah,” I say.
“What kind of favor do you need?” Harrison asks.
“You still in Vegas?”
“Yeah, till tomorrow, why?”
“I need you to pick something up in Colombia.”
His laugh is so loud I have to pull the phone away. “I’m not doing drug runs, asshole.”
I take a drag on my cigarette and let it out. “Not drugs, you freak. I’m gonna place an order for you to pick up, but I need it tomorrow night. Can you do it or not?”
“Dude,” he says, laughing. “That’s a three-leg journey at least. It’s gonna cost you a ton of dough.”
“Money is not a problem. I just need this package. Tomorrow night. Delivered to Orange County.”
“I can, but you will owe me more than money.”
“I’d expect nothing less. Look for deets soon. Later.”
I press end and immediately key in another number. It reroutes several times, making loud clicking noises that would usually have me on high alert for wiretapping. But this is just how it is when you want to talk to Roberto.
“Hola,” a woman’s voice says. “Roberto Moreno Diseñador.”
“This is Tet. I have an order and I am sending someone to pick it up tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, switching from Spanish to English effortlessly. “How can I help you?”
I give her my request. It’s nothing special, at least for Roberto. But they don’t sell them here in the States. At least not of this caliber. And I need the best for this job. I end the call, text Harrison the details, and go find Sasha.
“Come in,” she says softly after I knock on her door. I open it up and she’s curled up in a chair on the far side of the room, still holding the gun I gave her. “That was fast,” she says through a yawn. “I hope it’s not some crackpot idea that will get me killed.”
“Well, you can let me know afterward, OK?”
She stares at me for a few seconds and I can almost see her mind spinning with questions. Will she ask them? Will I answer them?
I don’t think I can, not yet anyway.
“Medicine Wheel or something like that.”
“What?” I shake my head at her randomness.
“That place my dad was gonna take me today. Something about a medicine wheel. And he had special permission to go up with some Native American friends because normally it’s closed to the public on the summer solstice.”
“Sorry, kid. I have no idea.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her expression blank. “Who cares about stupid stuff like that anyway.” She turns away from me, curling her little body up in the chair like she’s cold. But this is the desert. It’s still almost eighty degrees out in the dead of night. Her posture is just another defense mechanism to protect herself from all the hurt. And
not the physical kind. She’s got plenty of that tonight too. But missing that trip with her dad, that’s the kind of pain that can’t be fixed with a pill.
Not easily, anyway.
“Hey,” I say after her eyes have been closed for a few minutes. “Stupid medicine wheels are the only things that count, Sasha. How about… how about I make you a promise. For when this is all over.”
“What kind of promise?” She asks the question out of duty, it seems. Because she doesn’t even bother to open her eyes.
“I’ll take you to that place. We’ll find it and I’ll take you there.”
The tears start to fall down her face. “It’s too late. The solstice is today. I missed it and I don’t want to go anymore.”
I have nothing to say to that. Do you convince them? Kids, I mean. Is that what parents do? Convince them that they really do want to go, they’re just acting like… well, kids?
Or do you take them at their word?
I’m not sure. So I just get up and walk out. It seems like a cowardly move on my part, but fuck it. I’m not her father. She’s not my kid. She’s not my problem.
She’s my solution and nothing more.
Chapter Twenty-Eight - James
“We should’ve left last night,” Sasha whines.
I swear to God, if this kid complains all the way to Huntington Beach, I will not be held responsible. Already this morning she’s complained about the lack of breakfast, her lack of clean clothes, and her sore body.
“It’s soooo hot.”
The air-conditioning is on full blast, but even though the sun just came up a half hour ago, it’s almost a hundred degrees outside.
“I’m hungry.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, do you ever shut up? I’m ready to drop your ass off on the side of the road.”
Sasha lets out a big sigh and I glance over at Harper. She’s been quiet the entire ride. I reach across the center console and tap her on the shoulder. She pulls her distracted gaze away from the window and smiles half-heartedly at me. “You OK? You haven’t said much since we left.”