by JA Huss
I’ll have to remember to do something nice for him.
“Aces,” I say, and smile.
He scowls at me, furrows his brow, and says, “Let’s go work out a proper fuckin’ plan.” And he marches off into the house, his brothers in tow. I step to watch him leave, and when I turn back, I see that Eliza is still here, standing by the stairs. She is to my right, Christine is to my left, and Danny stands across from me.
That this quadrilateral formation is the one we inadvertently find ourselves in should be observably absurd, but I am beyond the point of surprise anymore.
“How did you know where to find us?” Christine asks her after a moment.
“I assumed you’d still be in London, and if you’re in London there’s only one place you’d be.”
“Why?” Christine asks.
It’s unclear what the ‘why’ refers to, but Eliza chooses a very particular answer. One designed to achieve some type of objective. I’m just not clear exactly what.
She responds, “Because, whether I like it or not, in this particular instance, Alec is the one person in the world best situated to protect his daughter.”
And now, Christine’s breathing is all I can hear.
I glance at Danny. He tilts his head at me.
How does life get so complicated so easily, man? How does it happen?
I don’t know. But I do know it doesn’t have to be.
I step over and stand beside Christine. Danny steps to the other side and joins us. I allow my finger to graze her hand.
And as we reconnect, Eliza regards us with an unknowable expression. Then she takes in a deep breath, pulls her shoulders back, exhales, and after a moment, says, “Indeed,” before she walks away, leaving the three of us alone.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - CHRISTINE
So here we stand. Just the three of us. And that’s just fine with me.
“OK then,” Danny says, following the Watsons into the other room.
And now it is two.
“Christine—”
“I know,” I say, more anger and resentment in my voice than I’d like. So I take a deep breath and turn to face him. “I got it.”
I turn to follow Danny but Alec grabs my hand. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No,” I say, exasperated. Because I kinda am. And I kinda have reason to be. But I do understand I don’t have reason to be as well. So I say… “It’s just our new reality, that’s all.”
He nods. Continues to hold my hand but says nothing. This is all me.
“I’ll get used to the idea, OK?” And in this moment, I feel that is a very generous offer.
But Alec shakes his head.
“Fine, I like her, is that good enough?”
He offers me a smile. Like I’m close, but not there yet.
So I huff out a resigned sigh and say, “She’s perfect. Is that what you want to hear? She will be very easy to love. Hell, I’m already in love with her. It’s not Andra’s fault I have… issues. And I know better. I would never, ever take it out on her.”
The smile grows. “I know that,” he says. “I never had any doubts and neither did you. I just think it’s good to say things like this out loud so they become our truth. Our team got a little bigger while we weren’t looking. I’m sorry you weren’t consulted—”
“Alec—”
“—I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know that you weren’t the one who gave us our addition—”
“Alec, please—”
“But we’re here now and I need you to know… nothing has changed.”
Everything has changed.
“Not between us,” he says, shaking his head like he’s reading my mind. “We are stronger, better, and more in love than ever. She is ours, Christine. Ours.”
“I don’t think Eliza will see it that way.”
“Eliza will have to find her own way forward. She is not our concern. You,” he says, his thumb stroking my hand. “And Danny. And me. We are the ones who count.”
“OK, so let’s stop fucking talking about it and go make a plan to kill your brother.”
He just stares at me and I wilt.
God, what is wrong with me? Why do I let Eliza Watson turn me into this… this… petty, sad little girl? Why do I give her power like that? Surely I can adult my way through this? Right? I can be the better person. Not stoop and all that nonsense?
But Eliza has always made me feel small. And I am small next to her. I am young, and small, and weak and…
Alec reaches out with his other hand and places his palm against my cheek. He gazes down at me like I’m the most important thing in the world.
Not Eliza. Not even Andra, though we’re probably tied for first place at this point and she will most likely overtake me soon. She will overtake everything. Because that’s what children do. They upend your life. They pull it apart until there’s nothing left but little pieces. But then you put all those pieces back together in a new way and you move on with a new center of light.
That’s how it should be. That’s all I ever wanted from the people who brought me into this world. That’s all I wanted to give our child and never got the chance.
But I do have the chance to do that for someone else.
So I owe it to Andra to grow up and deal.
I am not that little girl anymore. I am strong, and bold, and capable. And Alec helped make me that way.
I owe him too. So much. But that’s not why I give it one more try.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m being a childish bitch.”
“I’m not looking for another apology. We both said them. We both accepted them. Now we rise above it and get the job done. And you’re not being a childish bitch. You’re acting like any normal person forced into this situation. I just want you to understand you were my first choice then and you’re my first choice now. And I’m sorry as well. I’m sorry that our painful past has to be part of our present. I’m on your side. I truly am.”
And that, for whatever reason, feels like what I needed to hear. It feels like enough.
It shouldn’t be good enough. Not after I took up with Lars and helped him. After I betrayed Alec in such a nefarious, backstabbing way. Not after the hurt I felt after losing the baby and discovering I—we—had been replaced.
But it is.
Because I didn’t mean to betray him, and he didn’t mean to betray me.
And even if I did mean to betray him, and him to betray me, we still didn’t mean it. Our choices were unconscious actions that grew out of pain, and guilt, and past experiences that were never dealt with.
So I say, “I’m on your side too. Forever.”
Alec strokes my cheek and squeezes my hand. “Good. Then let’s go take care of business.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - DANNY
The Watsons lead me into the back room of the cottage, which is a large eat-in kitchen with a cozy living room. There’s even a fireplace and large floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the entire back wall that look out into yet another perfect backyard.
This one isn’t a garden. It’s a lawn coming to life in the spring. And in the center is a pavilion that covers a playground.
Only this playground is a foam pit and little Andra is climbing up a stack of large foam blocks. She spies me through the window and waves, shouting, “Come play jumps with me, Danny!” in her weird, little-kid accent that still makes her sound like she’s from Brooklyn.
“Does she need speech therapy?” I wonder aloud.
“The fuck you on about?” Charlie says.
“She talks weird.”
“She’s two,” Eliza snaps.
“Yeah,” I say, still watching Andra as she jumps down into the pit filled with bits of cut-up foam. “Makes sense I guess.”
“You ready to focus?” Russell asks, bringing up a satellite view of the estate we broke Alec out of… yesterday. Jesus. Life sure can turn on a dime, can’t it?
&n
bsp; I nod and pretend to pay attention. Christine and Alec are still in the other room and I can hear them murmuring quietly. Having some kind of personal discussion.
They need that discussion and I knew it was coming, so that’s why I gave them some alone time. But when I glance at Eliza, she’s chewing her thumb, nervously glancing in the direction of the murmuring.
They’re talking about her and she knows this. Probably Andra too.
Does Eliza love him?
Yes. For sure. And every one of her brothers knows this. Which is why they made a big deal with all the alpha-male posturing.
They hate Alec. And half of them probably hate me too. But Russell doesn’t. I don’t know why Russell and I get along like long-lost cousins, we just do.
Russell slaps me upside the head. “You here with us, mate?”
“Standing right here,” I say.
“Yeah?” he says. “Cause you look about a million kilometers away.”
I am a million kilometers away. For good reason. These Watsons can make all the plans they want and I’m happy to pretend I’m cool with it. But Alec is calling the shots for this little operation. So I give no shits what Russell is going on about.
“No, I’m listening,” I say, looking at the satellite map, then snap my attention back at the door when Alec and Christine appear holding hands.
I glance at Eliza out of instinct. She lets out a long breath. Then I glance at Alec and Christine, both of whom are watching Andra play outside.
I nod my head at Christine and without even looking in my direction she nods back.
That’s our little secret language for:
Me: You OK with it?
Her: We worked it out.
Me: Good, because you know this kid is cool as fuck, right?
Her: Shut up, Danny.
Just like that. Goes exactly like that.
“Do you three mind if we stop all these secret looks and mental fuckin’ conversations and get back to the job at hand?” Russell asks, directing that comment to Alec.
And now we can. Because Alec is here.
There’s the usual production of going over the perimeter of the map. We collect all the intel we got from yesterday’s venture and collate it into something cohesive. And there’s a lot of talk about sneaking and stealth. We’ll have weapons, of course. But this time there’ll be no distraction. We are going in quietly, completing the mission now called Kill Lars, and exiting without fanfare.
“And then Bob’s your uncle,” says Russell, “that’ll be that.”
Of course, it’ll never happen that way. Too many variables, too many people, too much acreage on that fucking plot of land.
But we all feel better once it’s decided.
Two teams. There’s a fair bit of loud protests and arguing over this part but in the end it will be me, Charlie, and Brenden on Team Danny and Eliza, Russell, Alec, and Christine on Team Alec.
Russell tried to stick Christine with me but Alec squashed that idea before it even fully materialized.
“I need Christine with me,” Alec said. And his tone left no more room for discussion.
And for a split second I wonder… does he want to confront them both together? Get some answers from Lars and Christine before he takes his brother’s life for betraying him?
Because that would be counterproductive in my opinion.
But Alec hears my question, even though I never said it out loud, and looks at Christine to shake his head.
That’s our little secret language for:
Alec: It’s over now, Christine. I just need you by my side when the shit goes down.
Christine: I know that, asshole. It was Danny’s stupid question, not mine.
Eliza sighs in the wake of this and Russell says, “Stop fuckin’ doing that.”
And then everyone, including us, looks at him like he’s lost his mind.
I think that’s why Russell and I get along. He hears my secret language. Not Alec’s or Christine’s. Just mine, for some reason.
This is what links us. Like it or not, the Watsons are here to stay. It just took us all the better part of five years to understand that point.
We spend the next several hours preparing and then, just a few minutes past midnight, we get in two separate vehicles and make the long drive up to complete Mission: Kill Lars.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - ALEC
In private moments, I have sometimes mused over what it might be like to be the type of person who doesn’t think so much. The type of oke who doesn’t spend half of his day considering angles and wondering how to manipulate circumstances. Would it be nice, I wonder? Would it make my life easier? Would it, at the least, cause it to feel easier?
I don’t know. I do know that it would probably cause me to be less suspicious. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing. Bad, of course, insofar as my suspicious nature has kept me alive. Good, less obviously, in that right now I likely wouldn’t be wondering over the particulars of this engagement with the Watsons.
I have multiple thoughts, colliding in no real order.
- Somehow the Watsons are involved. Somehow this excursion we’re on is in some way orchestrated to wipe me, Christine, and Danny off the face of the earth.
Which is ridiculous and even in a world of senselessness makes no sense.
- Eliza is in the process of cultivating some plot to bring me back into her life. Because now that she’s seen me again, she is desperate for my love.
That idea is even more senseless than my previous one.
... In private moments, I have sometimes mused over what it might be like to be the type of person who doesn’t think so much ...
I’d probably not miss the obvious truths staring me right in the face. Like Lars. Like, I neglected to care for Lars, to see after Lars, to notice Lars, for years. And the one person I should have been considering got overlooked. And now this, here, is the price I have to pay.
I’ve no clue what is going to happen when we get there, but I won’t have to wait much longer to find out because we are here. We’ve arrived.
Danny, Brenden and Charlie should be in place on one side of the grounds. Russell, Eliza, Christine and I are making our approach from the other side. There had been some discussion about possibly trying to gain access from within the tunnels out of which I emerged yesterday, but it was deemed ill-advised as those are now likely guarded more strenuously, and we would be cut off from radio and satellite contact.
We’re operating under the presumption that, assuming the force that was here previously is still here, they’ll not be expecting us to return. Or, alternatively, that they’re one hundred percent expecting us to return and we’re about to enter into a woefully mismatched battle that we really shouldn’t even be considering taking on.
There is a not insignificant part of my mind that wonders if perhaps we all missed this. By “this,” I mean this one-upmanship. This continuing game of “who can steal it better.” I wonder if we are all just addicts. Addicted to the thrill. Addicted to the intrigue. Addicted to the risk. Addicted to each other in one way or another.
No matter how one examines it, and as much as any of us may wish it not to be so, the Watson clan and the triangle that is me and my family are now bound. Inexorably linked. It could be ignored before, but now that we have all seen each other again and seen the child called Andra, I wonder if we are going to be a unit for more of our lives than we previously planned.
I wonder.
“Theo?” Russell whispers into his microphone from where we’re crouched in the woods. “How we looking, mate?” He nods. Then his eyes narrow and he says, “What?”
“What? What is it?” Eliza asks.
“He says there’s no movement.”
“What do you mean, there’s no movement?”
“He says there are no heat signatures, no images on the satty, nothing.”
“No guards?” Christine asks.
“Not so far as he can see,” Russell says.
- They’ve gone to find us before we can find them. If I know what Lars might do, he must know what I might consider.
- They are, in fact, hiding in the underground tunnels. They know we’re coming and they’re waiting to ambush us.
- None of any of this has happened, it is all still a dream, and I’m going to wake up in bed with Danny and Christine again, and won’t that be fokken better?
“Is the gate up, Theo? The electrified fence?” Russell looks us all in the eyes and shakes his head ‘no.’
“This suddenly seems like a bad idea,” Christine says. “Nobody’s here? The fence is down? What the fuck?”
“Well,” I offer, “perhaps it’s as simple as… if the Crown Jewels have already been stolen, there’s no longer any need to protect the tower.”
“So, in this scenario, that makes you the Crown Jewels?” Eliza asks.
“In all scenarios, I am the Crown Jewels, love.” I wink. I do it just to be cheeky and to try to gin myself up the way a fighter will do before a bout when he wonders if he is outmatched, but looking at Christine’s reaction, I realize that cheek is perhaps best stored elsewhere when Eliza is involved.
“Well, what the fuck do we want to do?” Christine asks
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we drew up a plan based on a certain situation and that situation looks quite a bit different than we prepared for.” She is right. And as I think about that, I can’t help but smile. “Why are you smiling?” I don’t answer, directly, just continue grinning. “No,” she says. “Alec, no. We already—”
“Danny, bru?” I say into my radio.
“Yeah?”
“Are you all in position?”
“Yep. Charlie and Brenden are playing rock, paper, scissors for who gets to fire the .50 cal if it comes to that, but we’re here.”