You Don't Know My Name

by Kristen Orlando

  When we moved from Philadelphia, every car I didn’t recognize on our street, every person who walked onto our property who I didn’t know, even someone who just looked at me too long would send my heart racing or close up my throat. I was convinced the hitman was still going to find us and that we’d never be safe. But every car, person, or look could be explained away. My brain—I couldn’t trust it. It played tricks on me. I’ve done my best to hide the paranoia and anxiety. My parents think it was just a fluke. A rough patch after the hitman. They don’t know I’m still struggling. That it’s escalated.

  This spring, I noticed someone following me. Or at least, I thought he was following me. This was after two false alarms, so I kept it to myself. I put the fear and anxiety in my little box, pushing it into the numbest part of my body. But when Mom and Dad were on a mission, I was mid-makeup routine and suddenly couldn’t breathe. I started sweating and my chest was pounding so hard, I could have sworn you could see it beating through my shirt. I grabbed the cold granite countertop with my clammy hands, my arms and legs trembling. I thought I was having a heart attack or dying or something. I lowered myself down to the icy tiled floor, my back up against my wood cabinets, and sat there, begging my throat to open back up so I could suck in a full breath. Aunt Samantha found me, curled up on the ground, a few minutes later. She laid me down on the floor and put a cold washcloth on my burning forehead, asking me to describe my symptoms.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I asked, staring up into her warm blue eyes.

  “You’re having a panic attack,” she answered very quietly. She sat on the floor next to me, stroking back my dark hair, telling me it would pass and I was going to be okay. Once my legs stopped trembling, she helped me off the floor and insisted I lie in bed.

  After two hours of lying side by side, watching over-caffeinated anchors on morning talk shows, I was finally feeling better. I could breathe again.

  “What was that all about?” I asked, turning my head to face Sam. She twisted her strong, lean body to face mine, settling her head back down on my extra-fluffy pillows.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, shaking her head slowly. “I’ve never had one but I know they can be really scary.”

  “It was,” I replied, my voice quiet. We stared at each other for a few seconds, waiting for the other to speak.

  “I know what happened in Philadelphia is weighing on you,” she said, grabbing my arm, rubbing the fabric of my blue shirt between her thumb and index finger. “But you’re safe here.”

  “I know,” I replied, even though I didn’t believe her. Not for a single second.

  “I don’t want to put pressure on you, my love,” Sam said, picking at the errant fuzzies on my bedspread. “But if you suffer from panic attacks, we’ll need to tell your parents and they may want to stop your training. Or at least think about not having you train for rescues and take-downs.”

  Sam explained that panic attacks and anxiety would cloud my brain and alter my judgment, making it unsafe for my teammates and me in the field. She never said it out loud, but I could read between the lines. Have another panic attack and I’d be out of the Black Angels.

  “Please,” I said, grabbing Sam’s hand. “Don’t tell them. Not yet.”

  She didn’t. And I learned to bury the fear.

  That panic attack was my first and only. But what’s taken its place are the daymares. They creep into my brain, sometimes without warning or even a trigger. I’ve coined them daymares because they’re like the vivid nightmares that startle you straight up in bed, panting and sweating, except I’m awake. I haven’t said a word about the daymares to anyone. Perhaps it’s normal. Perhaps everyone has these worst-case scenarios play out in their minds. Just not as vivid and violent as mine. I could ask, but I don’t think I want to know the answer. Because then it’s just one more thing on a very long list that makes me abnormal.

  We’ve been perfectly safe in New Albany for over a year now. So what would I even tell them? A janitor looked at me funny today? A van pulled down the main street slowly? People do that all the time, gawking at the million-dollar homes. No. I won’t say a word. It’s all in my head. Again.

  “Mom, Dad?” I call out. Nothing. I walk down the hardwood hallway. The heavy strike of my heel is the only sound. My natural walk (or as natural as a walk can be when you’ve been trained to walk a certain way since practically your first step) is silent. I’m a sidler. I scare the shit out of people when I show up at their side in stealthy silence. So to alert Mom and Dad to where I am in the house, I walk hard. Like hear-you-two-stories-and-five-rooms-away hard. When I walk hard, Dad likes to call me Elefante, the Spanish word for elephant. When he hears me coming down the hallway, the bone of my heel slamming into the floors, he sings out “Elefanteeee.” It always makes me laugh.

  I stick my head inside the kitchen, then inside the family room. The only two rooms they’re ever really in. I swear I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve stepped foot in the living and dining rooms. I stop and listen again for the hum of a TV or the shuffling of feet somewhere in the house. It’s silent.

  The garage door opens with a whiny creak. I walk down three concrete steps and stand in front of locked steel cabinet doors. I flip open the keypad and enter in our six-digit code. I hear the steel beams unlock. I pull hard on both of the metal handles, separating the heavy cabinet doors and revealing wooden steps. We’ve had a secret door in every house we’ve ever lived in. CORE always finds us a house with an unfinished basement so they can transform it into our gun range, weapons room, martial arts studio, and, of course, panic room.

  “Hello?” I yell down the stairs, and the sound of gunfire answers me. I close the secret door behind me and bounce down the steps. I stand on the last step and smile as I watch my parents in their Ralph Lauren knit sweaters and jeans. They look like just your average mom and dad except for the pistols they hold in both hands. My mom’s blond hair is bobbed. Not a soccer mom haircut or anything, but an I’m-totally-in-my-forties-and-too-busy-for-anything-high-maintenance haircut. She’s thin and tall like me, but that’s really the only thing that we physically have in common. I don’t really look like my dad either. He has chestnut hair and big, light brown eyes while mine are deep brown and more almond-shaped. Our family pictures are always funny because I look like I don’t really belong. I’d swear I was adopted if it wasn’t for the family photos of me actually coming out of my mother. Gross.

  Bang. Their shots rip through the paper target. Right to the heart and head.

  “Nice shot,” I say loudly as they go to reload. They both turn around and smile when they see me.

  “Hi, Reagan,” my mom says and takes off her protective headphones. “When did you get home?”

  “Just walked in,” I say, crossing the room to get to work. There’s no such thing as idle time in the basement. When I’m down here, I should always be training. I grab my M4 carbine off the counter that holds my weapons and kiss Mom’s waiting cheek. “Harper and I went to Starbs after school and she just dropped me off.”

  “What’s Starbs?” my father asks, wrinkling his brow. “I don’t speak teenager.”

  “Starbucks,” I say and smile.

  “Hey, no coffee for us?” he asks.

  “Sorry, Dad,” I reply, sitting down at the weapons assembly table behind them. I look the assault rifle over and begin the process of stripping it to clean it, a weekly must-do to avoid jams and misfires. “I didn’t think vanilla lattes would pair well with gunpowder.”

  “Good point,” Dad says, looking down at his phone. He’s always on that thing. I’ve even seen him checking it while brushing his teeth. He’s constantly connected to CORE.

  “So, how was school today?” Mom asks.

  “Took a calculus test, got an A on my AP modern European paper,” I say, popping out the assault rifle’s magazine with a loud crack. “Threatened to break the arm of a girl who was bullying Claire. You know, the usual.”

  “Y
ou da woman, Rea Rea,” Dad says, giving me a thumbs-up with one hand and picking up his Glock 27 pistol with the other. I swear I could tell my dad that I discovered the cure for cancer and he’d give me the same response. You da woman. It’s his little annoying but sort of adorable way of showing pride.

  “You weren’t using Krav Maga in school, now, were you?” Mom asks and crosses her arms, not exactly excited that I almost snapped a girl’s bone in two.

  “I mean, nothing ridiculous,” I say, visually inspecting the M4’s upper receiver and chamber for any ammunition.

  “Reagan…” she starts.

  “Just one move, Mom. She was going to punch me in the face. And besides, I’m not going to let people mess with Claire.”

  “Well, good for you,” Mom says with a small smile, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “You’re a natural rescuer. I’ve been telling you that for years. Black Angel is in your blood.” Of course. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. They always have to slip that in.

  “I got an email from the Templeton admissions guy about my interview Saturday. What time are we leaving?” I ask, pushing the upper portion of the M4’s bolt catch, sliding the bolt forward. “My interview’s at two but I’d like to make sure we’re there by one so we can walk around the campus.”

  “Sorry, hon, but you’ll have to go without us,” Dad announces casually, crossing the room and grabbing another clip for his pistol off the shelf. “Mom and I have to leave for DC tonight.”

  “What? But I’ve had this interview planned for months,” I say, looking up from my weapon.

  “You know how missions are,” Mom says with a small shrug. “We can get called to headquarters at any moment.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Dad asks, reloading his magazine with a sharp click. “It’s not like you’re going to college anyways.”

  My breath catches, sharp and jagged, in my chest. Of course he’d say that. They’ve never even bothered to ask if this is the life I want. I was told casually over dinner at thirteen that when I turned eighteen, it would be my choice. But it’s never been brought up again. The path they’ve chosen for me is rammed down my throat at every opportunity. I’m not asking for much. I’d take even a flicker of concern over what I want for my future.

  “I know. I just wanted you guys to see the campus with me,” I say, lowering my weapon and my voice, trying not to get upset. I know it won’t do any good so what’s the point? The anger I want to feel is already replaced by defeat. I pick up my M4 and cross the room to the weapons shelf. God, I freaking hate this. It’s more than Dad’s dismissal. It’s the fact they can’t show up for anything. Why even make plans? We almost always have to cancel them. Family vacations, Christmas, Thanksgiving, it doesn’t matter. The Black Angels come first and always will.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Reagan,” Mom says, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. I turn to look at her; the corners of her mouth are pointed down and her eyes are heavy. I shake my head, press my lips together, and look away. I’ve been hearing “sorry” my whole life. Sorry for missing your birthday, sorry for leaving you on Christmas Eve, sorry for missing your play. But there are some pains they’ve never even acknowledged. Sorry you’ve basically been raised by Aunt Sam, sorry you’re always in danger, sorry for forcing you to lie every single day of your life, sorry for making you choose between this life and a normal one, sorry you don’t even know what normal is. I’m sick of their sorrys. The ones they say and the ones they never will.

  Bang. My father is shooting at a fresh dummy target. Clearly, he cannot feel my disappointment like my mother can. She is still looking at me, her gaze heavy, willing me to look at her. I place the M4 on my shelf and walk toward the martial arts room.

  “Reagan,” my mother says in between gunfire as I walk away, but I pretend I don’t hear her. I don’t want to turn around and have her see the broken look I can feel on my face.

  I pull on my training gloves and stare at the quote that’s been painted, thick and black, on the wall of every martial arts room we’ve ever had:

  “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

  It’s become the Black Angels’ unofficial mantra. We are given so much. The best of the best training. Beautiful homes. Envious paychecks. But more than that, genetically inherited abilities and the power to do so much good. For the last decade, the quote empowered me. It was something I told myself proudly. But lately, it’s felt more like a loose, guilt-inducing knot around my wrists.

  I turn to face the dummy, but Mom is standing in the center of the mats, her green eyes wide and fixed on my face. She opens her mouth to speak, the words rolling around her head but not off her tongue. She presses her lips together. Her face changes, her eyes narrow, and her body hardens. She tries again.

  “Take-downs from a choke hold,” Mom says as she moves toward me. She puts her fingers tight around my neck and pushes me hard against the wall, the quote centered above our heads. “Let’s go.”

  I look into her eyes for a beat. But she tightens her grip on me. I guess there’s nothing more to say. I push down hard on her arms to my right then slam her head to the left. I lift my knees to hit her in the groin and stomach over and over again until her hold on me slips and I can push her away.

  “Good. Again,” Mom commands, wrapping her strong hands around my throat from the side. I’ve done this so many times, the synapses in my brain don’t even fire. My body knows what to do. With one hand, I pull at the fingers around my neck while with my other I simulate slamming into her groin then elbowing her in the chin to get away. Three seconds and I’m out.

  “Good. Again.” Mom runs at me from the side, pulling me into a choke hold. I don’t resist. I let her body and gravity pull us closer together. I punch one hand against her groin and reach around with the other to pull her head back, slamming her onto the mat. The echo of her back crashing against the plastic pad bounces off the cinder-block walls and polished concrete floors. Mom struggles to pull in the last wisps of air that I forced from her body.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say and extend my hand down to her as she catches her breath.

  “Don’t be sorry. That was perfect.” Mom’s rosebud lips break into a smile. She reaches up and takes my hand. “Again.”

  SIX

  Buzz. My phone vibrates on the cream-and-black granite sink top next to me. I touch the screen to read a text from Harper.

  Leaving my house in a few. Just flipping through Instagram. Zedd posted a couple amazing videos. Must watch before studying. PS GET ON INSTAGRAM!

  I’m not on a single social media channel. Can’t be. It’s one of the Black Angels’ strictest policies. I’d be way too traceable if I was. The last thing I need is for someone in my new life to find a picture of me from an old life with a different last name. It’s hard to keep track of all the lies as it is. So I just pretend that I’m completely too cool for social media and that I hate having my picture taken. People buy it.

  I pick up my phone and text her back.

  Harper! No Instagram. No Vines. No Snapchat. No Pinterest. No Twitter. Biology!

  I stare at my phone and wait for her reply.

  I love messing with you. xo

  I smile and delete the message like always. I’m paranoid my parents check my texts. In fact, I know they do. We are three trained killers, but three natural-born snoopers.

  I look back at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I’ve struggled to give my long dark hair a little bit of body and pinned a few pieces back with bobby pins. But it just won’t sit right. I’d normally put it up in a bun or a ponytail and call it a day but Luke loves my hair down. He also likes it when I …

  Stop it. I look at myself in the mirror and shake my head, slapping my forehead with the palm of my hand. I have to stop thinking about him like that. I have to stop hoping for something. For his sake and mine.

  “Stop sabotaging yourself,” I say in a singsong voice to my reflection as I turn out the light. I shake out my a
rm, trying to crush the butterflies in my stomach. I never understood that phrase until I met Luke. I always thought it was an eye-rollingly annoying way of saying you like someone. But the first time he touched me, I felt them. All he did was pull me in for a half hug after we beat some neighbors in a game of soccer. He ran the tips of his fingers up and down my arm. Up and down. Slowly. My stomach tied into a million little knots. My heart pounded hard and fast in my ears. I had to remind myself to breathe. And a year later, that’s still the feeling I get every time we touch.

  Clunk, clunk, my boots hit the hardwood floors.

  “Reagan,” Mom calls out and I immediately regret not doing my Black Angel walk.

  “Crap,” I say under my breath. I can tell by the way she says my name that she’s going to want to talk about missing the trip to Templeton and I just don’t feel like it. I don’t have the energy to “talk it through.” She always wants to “talk it through” so she can feel like she’s doing her job as a mother, but really I think she just wants me to tell her it’s all right and that I’ll be just fine without them. And so I do it. Every time I follow the script and tell her what she wants to hear so she can bury the guilt and sleep at night.

  “Reagan, can you come here, please?” she calls out again. I sigh, dig my heel into the floor, and turn around. I walk toward the opposite end of the hallway, following the light that pours out of her open bedroom door and onto the dark wood floors.

  She looks up when I enter the room. She is so pretty, my mother, with her ivory skin and wide-set eyes. Her makeup is off and a plush cream robe is pulled tight around her thin frame. A small black suitcase is open on their dark gray linen bedspread. My mother is neatly folding articles of clothing and placing them inside. It’s a mixture of normal clothes—jeans, sweaters, T-shirts—and black clothes, or what I like to call their “kick-ass gear.”