The Devil You Know

by Sam Sisavath

  “Quinn,” Sarah said. “Who is it? Who is the shooter?”

  “It’s Porter,” Quinn said. “It’s John Porter.”

  Chapter 19

  Xiao

  She woke up to silk bedsheets, sunlight in her face, and a bed that was softer than anything she had lain down on in some time. And it wasn’t the “This is impossible; metal chairs shouldn’t feel this heavenly” type of soft, either, but real soft. She was sitting up on a real bed.

  Wasn’t she?

  And more importantly, he was there.

  He sat on an armchair across the room from her, one leg draped over the other, the fingers of one hand pressed against his cheek as if he were lost in thought. He wore black slacks, a white shirt, and a blazer, as if he’d just come home from the office.

  Home.

  She was in someone’s bedroom, lying in someone’s bed. The walls were white with flowery décor. The furniture was sparse but elegant, every inch of the place kept in pristine condition. It was a big room with arching ceilings; some kind of mansion, maybe. The windows to her right looked out into a clear, cloudless sky, and she thought she could hear birds chirping somewhere out there.

  It’s a trick. I’m still in the chair.

  So why did he look so real sitting across from her?

  They stared at each other in silence, and she forgot that someone had put her in a silver lace nightgown and that one of the straps had fallen off her shoulder, partially revealing a breast. But Xiao hadn’t felt flustered about nudity in a long time and didn’t now.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” she said finally.

  “You recognize me,” he said. She thought he sounded pleased.

  “You got a new face.”

  He stood up and walked over to one of the windows, where he pulled back more of the curtains. She blinked against the extra harsh sunlight and pushed the duvet cover away so her legs were free in case she needed to jump out of bed at a moment’s notice.

  “They thought it would be a good idea,” he said.

  And yes, it was him. She had no doubts about that. It was going to take more than a different face to hide that fact after everything they had been through. All those cold nights, the years of hiding, and the near misses.

  It was him. It was Porter.

  “I’m supposed to be dead, after all,” he continued. “Can’t have the world knowing people don’t actually stay dead anymore.”

  “We told Trevor you were too mean to die.”

  “Trevor?”

  “Right. You never met him, did you?”

  “He was one of them? An SOP?” Porter sat down on the windowsill. “We lost a lot of people that day at the Wilshire. Mack, Kyle… I don’t even remember the rest.”

  “Why is that?”

  He shook his head and gazed off at nothing in particular. She recognized the look: It was Porter (It’s him. The face is different, but it’s him) trying to remember something and failing. She had seen that expression often during the years they were out in the wild together. All those days, those long nights…

  “Things…got lost along the way,” he finally said. “It was a long process.”

  “Was that when they changed your face?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened, Porter?”

  He smiled at her. It was earnest, gentle. “I saw the light, Xiao. That’s why they gave me to you. They want me to help you see it, too.”

  “Gave me to you?” Xiao swung her legs off the side of the bed and pulled the loose nightgown strap over her shoulder. “I don’t like the sound of that, Porter.”

  “You wouldn’t have liked the alternative.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide that.”

  “I’ve been through it, Xiao. Trust me, you wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience.”

  “Like I said—why don’t you let me decide that.”

  He folded his hands in front of him, as if he were about to pray. It was a strange move, something she’d never seen Porter do.

  Is it really you, Porter? Is it really you?

  “I didn’t want them to hurt you, Xiao,” he said. “That was all I cared about.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. The man she knew was always difficult to understand, even harder to read. But this one was an open book, like she could see through his eyes into his very soul if she stared hard enough.

  What did they do to you, Porter?

  “So you saved me,” she said.

  He nodded. “You’re important to me.”

  “You mean I’m a potential resource for them.”

  “No, Xiao. I mean what I said. You’re important to me.”

  He walked over, and Xiao fought the instinct to stand up from the bed and get ready for a battle. There was no one else in the room with them, but she had no doubts there was someone (or someones) outside the door, ready to rush in. They weren’t going to let her out of this place—wherever the hell “this” was—without a fight.

  Not yet. Not yet…

  Porter sat down on the bed next to her before reaching over and taking her hand and squeezing it. His touch was warm and comforting, and the feel of their fingers pressed against one another was so natural that she wondered again if she was still in the chair, that all of this was some kind of trick.

  No. This is real.

  Isn’t it?

  Porter smiled again.

  God, why was he smiling so much? And why did it seem so…natural on that new face of his?

  But it was him. If she had any shred of doubts before, she didn’t anymore after staring at him up close. They could change his face all they wanted, but they couldn’t replace the soul behind his eyes.

  Porter…

  “Do I really look that different?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you recognized me immediately.”

  “After everything we’ve been through, it’s going to take more than a new face.”

  He looked even more pleased by that. “I think I’m going to need another new face after yesterday.”

  “What happened yesterday?”

  “I tried to kill a presidential candidate.”

  “Now why the hell would you do that?”

  “He was in our way.”

  “Our” way? Right. Our way. He’s talking about them. The Rhim.

  Xiao glanced around the large room, wondering again if all of this was just in her head, a manifestation provided by the chair to convince her of…what? What was it Hofheinz was trying to do to her now? And how long ago had this started? A day? Two days ago? A week? You could never tell when you were in the chair.

  “Who was it?” she asked, looking back at him.

  “Robert Taylor.”

  “The billionaire?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said ‘tried.’ You’re telling me the great John Porter missed?”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t miss. The first shot should have killed him. I aimed for the heart.”

  “Where did you hit him?”

  “The heart.”

  “And yet he’s still alive.”

  “He was wearing a reinforced bulletproof vest, and I was, unfortunately, using regular ammo so no red flags would go up during the autopsy.”

  “You said ‘first shot.’ How many did you get off?”

  “Just two. I hit him again with the second one, here—” He lifted his hand, with hers still in it, and pressed her palm against her shoulder. “It was the next best target while he was falling. Even then, I had to shoot through the lectern.”

  “So he’s still alive.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Why did they want you to kill him?”

  Porter grinned. “You know I can’t tell you that. At least, not yet.”

  “‘Not yet?’”

  “Not until they decide you’re no longer a threat.”

  “So never, then.”

  “Never say never, Xiao.”

  He kissed the back of her
hand. She hadn’t expected it, but she also didn’t feel any instinctive need to pull away when she saw him about to do it.

  Did I want him to do it? Do I want this?

  What is “this?”

  “What are you doing?” she asked instead.

  “This was always going to happen.”

  “Maybe in your dreams.”

  “In yours, too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Is it?”

  He kissed her. She saw it coming, and every instinct in her screamed to Get away, get away from him! except she didn’t. Instead, she opened her mouth in anticipation.

  What is happening here?

  Like his presence on the bed next to her, Porter’s kiss was natural. She might have even whimpered (Oh God, what are you, in school again all of a sudden?) when his hands touched her shoulders before sliding up the length of her neck until they were pressing against her cheeks. He pulled her to him, his mouth growing more insistent, his lips so goddamn wet and sweet, and she didn’t know whether to push him away or moan.

  This is wrong. This is so, so wrong.

  Except it didn’t feel wrong. It felt right. Very, very right, and his words, “You’re important to me,” echoed in her head, and she wanted to believe it.

  She wanted desperately.

  Somehow, though, she managed to push him away, if just slightly. He relented, letting go of her mouth, but didn’t retreat too far. They were still close enough he could have kissed the tip of her nose without any effort at all.

  “Porter,” she whispered.

  “Don’t,” he whispered back.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t say no.”

  “But you’re not you. Not really.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve always wanted you. Always.”

  She looked into his eyes. God, they were so earnest, as if they were incapable of telling even the littlest white lies.

  In so many ways he was the complete opposite of the Porter she knew, but everything else about him—his body, his touch, his voice, but especially his eyes—all belonged to the man she knew and lived with and fought with and, though she never told him, longed for.

  How long have I wanted this? Wanted him?

  Too long…

  “Porter,” she whispered.

  “Xiao,” he whispered back.

  “Porter…”

  “Xiao…”

  She smiled. “Stop doing that.”

  He smiled back. “You first.”

  He brushed some strands of hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. Then the tip of her nose. Then her upper lip.

  “It’s me, Xiao,” he whispered. “It’s just me.”

  She sighed and leaned into his hands as they cupped her face. “This isn’t real.”

  “This is as real as it gets.”

  “I’m still in the chair, aren’t I?”

  “No. You’re with me.”

  She looked up and into his eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. This is very real.”

  He kissed her again, and again she moaned against his mouth. Then his hands were back on her shoulders and the nightgown straps were falling, and then she was lying down, and all the while she told herself, This isn’t right. You know this isn’t right. So stop it now before it’s too late.

  Except she couldn’t, because she didn’t want to.

  What’s wrong with you? A guy puts his hands on you, and suddenly you turn to jelly and “Oh, my dearest Rhett, I love you. I always have!”

  Ugh.

  It was the chair. She blamed it on the chair. Either she was still sitting in it right now and all of this was just a figment of her imagination, or she was still suffering from having been exposed to the device earlier. Which explanation made her feel better about what had just happened?

  But it had felt real. Porter had felt real.

  His touch, his kiss, his…

  She listened to him snoring lightly behind her, his arms wrapped around her body. They might have changed his face and done something to his mind (What did they do to you, Porter?), but it hadn’t made him less…desirable.

  You know you wanted this. You’ve always wanted this.

  Didn’t she?

  Maybe…

  If this was the chair screwing (Haha, talk about “screwing”) with her, then she must have revealed more than she had wanted to. Telling Hofheinz about Aaron’s location hadn’t been difficult. In fact, she had only put up a token resistance because there was nothing to tell—she didn’t know where to find Aaron after the school.

  But this, with Porter…

  It was different. Because he was different.

  (If he was real. If she wasn’t still in the chair.)

  Like every man she had ever met, and likely existed since the dawn of time, Porter had gone right to sleep after sex. That was…thirty minutes ago? An hour? It was hard to keep track of time, which only added to her paranoia that she was still in the chair, that all of this wasn’t real.

  The question was: Did she want it to be real?

  Porter had certainly felt real, then and now. Was there a way to fake the sound of his calm, satisfied breathing next to her? His warm breath against the back of her neck, the soothing touch of his hands around her waist? He had to be real, which meant so was what had just happened.

  So was this room. This house.

  Are you sure? Can you be sure of anything right now?

  She put her hand over his and squeezed, then waited for some kind of response. When she didn’t get any, she slowly—cautiously—lifted one hand, then the other off her body and slid out of his embrace and off the bed.

  She stood looking down at his unmoving form for a moment, at the blissful expression on his face as he lightly snored. The sight of him, so serene, brought a smile to her lips, and Xiao couldn’t remember when Porter looked so at peace.

  What did they do to you, Porter?

  They changed you, I can see that. What else did they do to you?

  “I tried to kill a presidential candidate,” he had said. “He was in our way.”

  “Tried” being the operative word, but the man had survived anyway.

  Lucky bastard.

  Most people didn’t survive Porter, and she wasn’t even just thinking about his enemies. His friends, too, had a bad habit of dying on him.

  She tiptoed away from the bed and around it. The bright sunlight pouring in through the windows called to her, and Xiao went. She dreaded what she would see outside but couldn’t stop. She had to know.

  There was green everywhere, with a giant lawn—maybe five acres in all—with a wall of trees on the other side. She was looking at the back of an estate somewhere in the countryside, but where? There were no obvious signs of anyone else in the area—no highways or houses or anything that would confirm she and Porter weren’t the only ones here. There was a fountain in the middle of the manicured lawn—a woman holding a jar that water poured out of and into a circular pool that had become a home to birds.

  She expected to see men with guns, but there was no one down there. A pair of walkways wound their way through the grounds, connecting and then separating at planned intervals. There were no clear markers or signs to indicate where she was. They could have dumped her in another country, for all she knew, depending on how long it had been since the school.

  The school…

  Xiao looked down at her side where she had been shot. It hadn’t occurred to her to check before because there hadn’t been any pain. Now she knew why that was the case—because there was just a scar down there but nothing that resembled a bullet hole. No wonder she hadn’t felt any lingering effects of being shot.

  She glanced over at Porter. Without her to hold onto, he had turned over onto his back, his arms slightly splayed at his sides.

  She knew about the spew, how it could heal Rhim operatives from just about anything as long as the brain remained intact. That would have also been how they had changed his f
ace. Like the chair, the things the spew could do defied science, and in many ways, logic itself.

  Was that what had happened? Had they put her into one of those vats? But why had they spared her? Why “cure” her of her wound?

  Unless the voice nagging at the back of her head was right, that none of this was real, that she was still in the chair...

  But it feels real. Why does it feel so real?

  She walked back to the bed and picked up the nightgown from the floor and slipped it on. Xiao crouched and went through Porter’s clothes. There was a money clip with almost two thousand dollars—all hundred-dollar bills—in one pants pocket but no wallet, and nothing else. Not even a car key.

  There was also no gun or weapon of any kind.

  Of course not. Then this would be too easy, and who wants that? Easy is boring.

  Xiao tiptoed over to the door. She briefly considered grabbing Porter’s socks and shoes, but it looked too big and would have made retaining her stealth difficult. Barefoot meant she didn’t make a lot of noise, which was preferable when the entire house—if she was actually in a house—was so empty, where even her breathing sounded much too loud to her own ears.

  She expected alarms to go off as soon as she put her hand on the doorknob, but nothing of the sort happened. There was also no one outside the hallway when she pulled the door open and looked out, and no one on the first floor living room when she stepped over to the railing and peered down.

  What the hell?

  Questions swirled inside her head, and she had no answers for any of them. There was just an overwhelming sense of confusion as she tried to wrap her mind around what was happening, where she was, and more importantly, why.

  What had Porter said?

  “I saw the light, Xiao. That’s why they gave you to me. They want me to help you see it, too.”

  She still bristled at the idea of being “given” to someone, even if it was Porter. (Assuming that was Porter. Are you still sure?) But she pushed through it and concentrated on the rest of what he had said.