My house is a couple blocks off campus, less than a five-minute walk to the Museum of Natural History where I have an office on the top floor, and big enough to house a family of six. I get a small stipend from the program, but I’ve had my own money since I was thirteen years old.
We stole that. It’s enough to last… well, hell. Longer than I have in this life, I’m sure.
So when I announced that I was gonna take this offer here at KU, my whole family came out here to find me a suitable place. I went to undergrad at The School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. It’s a great school if you’re a nerd—and I am. Plus I wanted to stay close to home.
Just in case.
I shove my key in the locked box that sits eye-level to the right of the front door and then open the flap that hides the security keypad so I can punch in the code. A high-pitched alarm sounds. Someone yells, “Sasha!” from a few porches down and I look over and wave at Mr. Banjengi. “You’re home!”
“I’m home,” I yell back, nodding at him since my hands are full right now.
All the overprotective men in my life thought this house was perfect. There are more lifetime residents on this street than on any other street near school. They are all older, nosy, and not afraid to shake a fist at someone.
I smile as I pull open the screen door and hold it with my hip as I key in another code to gain access to the real door. Another alarm sounds and then I pull all my luggage in and close it behind me so I can make the fifteen-second delay on the real alarm. I key in the final code you must have to enter my home and not have phones ringing all across the world. And believe me, you do not want their attention. James is on a yacht in the middle of the ocean, Merc is at home in the Mojave Desert, and Ford is in New Zealand—but if those phones ring, the shit hits the fan.
It freaks me out, but this is what it takes to keep me safe, I guess. I’ve learned to live with it.
After all that stress is over, I look around my house.
I’ve been gone for months and it smells dusty and stale. But other than that, it looks unchanged. I press another code on the keypad and the metal security shutters begin to lift up from the windows, finally letting in the sunshine. They are mounted on the interior of the house instead of the outside, and my adopted uncle, Spencer, painted the outside-facing panels to look like they are white plantation shutters. You really cannot tell they are sheets of metal. He even painted fake cracks with a view inside, in case anyone got close enough to try to peek in the window.
I press another button and each window in the house slides open six inches. That’s the default setting, just in case I lose power and can’t get them down without attending to each one manually.
I’m used to this by now. They’ve been freakishly overprotective since I was thirteen. Add in a successful kidnapping two years ago, just before I bought this place, and yeah. It just got worse. I’m locked up tight in here, that’s for sure.
My bedroom is on the first floor, even though I have two more floors above me where I keep all my stuff. It’s easier to escape the house from the first floor. But there’s a planned escape route from every room in the house. I have a basement too, a really old, creepy one that no one in their right mind would use. But it’s fitted with access to a storm door that leads outside.
It’s overkill. I know that. And I resented all the security insisted on all through my teen years, but that last incident really shook me up.
It still does.
I drag my suitcase to the laundry room and stuff all the clothes into the hamper, and then put the suitcase away on a top shelf. The rest of my baggage is all little things. Trinkets I collected from the village near the dig site while I was in Peru. Little souvenirs I kept.
Twenty minutes after I arrive home, I’m done. And after an entire summer of meticulous, backbreaking work, I’ve got nothing to do… except think about what just happened.
Nick.
My promise who left me behind. To give me a chance at a regular life, he said back then when I was thirteen. But I didn’t believe that then and I don’t believe it now. In fact, this visit today from that Jax guy is my long-awaited proof.
Because if Nick did leave to give me a new chance, then why is he back? Why come looking for me ten years later when my life is on track, when the stark reality of who I am has faded, when the sting of his rejection is finally dying away to nothing… why come back and open all that stuff up again?
There is only one reason to do that.
He lied. Nick Tate is a liar.
He lied back on that beach in Santa Barbara when he said was there was no us. He said we had no future, even though he and I were promised. In Company terms, that promise is law. I was destined to marry Nick Tate. We were friends—even though he was several years older than me. And we had even talked about it a few times when he first found me back when I was an innocent eleven-year-old with braces.
And I don’t know if that was all a lie to get me to go along with his plan to end the Company and free himself and his sister, but I was a little girl and I took that shit seriously.
Maybe it was just as hard for him to walk away from me that night as it was for me to watch him do it?
Or he was telling the truth back then and now he needs me for something. Some job, probably. He wants me to watch his back as he does something dangerous.
Ford would flip his lid and insist I join him in New Zealand if he knew this was happening.
James would probably just kill Agent Jax, no questions asked.
Merc would kill Nick. And everyone else who stood in front of him. He was never happy about how that ended.
But they see this through the eyes of men. And while I’m quite capable of seeing things that way too, when it comes to Nick, I see what my heart feels.
My phone starts buzzing in my purse, reminding me where I should be right now instead of home.
But she would not call me. She knows better than most that this secret we have cannot leak. We’re on our own.
I grab my purse and fish the phone out, tabbing the lock off with a swipe. It’s a text message from that asshole, Agent Jax.
Wanna get some dinner? We can talk.
I text back, Fuck you.
He does not reply. Wise man. And I don’t need to leave the house for food, anyway. It’s called a freezer. I don’t have anything fresh, but hell, I drank plenty of powdered milk in my day.
I laugh at that as I plop down on the couch. Gross. Some things you just never go back to. And powdered milk is one of them. But I’ve eaten all kinds of shit.
Growing up with my dad—my real dad, not Ford—was an experience like no other. We spent a lot of time just rolling around the West in an RV selling guns at gun shows and supplying weapons to Company men. I learned to camp, shoot, and survive. Once we settled down from the nomadic life, my dad opened up a surplus supply store in an old antiques mall in Cheyenne. I ran a booth there across from his. My booth didn’t have secret weapons for Company assassins though. I sold used books, figurines, jewelry, and various other small things that kids think are valuable.
I didn’t make much money, but it kept me out of trouble and gave me a routine. I liked it there. It’s a time filled with good memories. Reading Little House books and playing dress-up with the lady who sold vintage clothing in the booth near mine. Those antiques people were almost like family. Of course, everything that came out of my mouth was a lie. But I liked those lies. Liked that pretend life I was living. It was fun before Nick showed up and everything started to change.
I never went to school. Not until Ford got a hold of me and put me in Saint Joseph’s in Fort Collins for eighth grade. But I’m not stupid, obviously. My real dad did OK with me. I’m not wild anymore. I’ve been living a very civilized life for ten years now. And maybe it took me a while to get the hang of things like boys, and hair, and clothes, but I came around.
I graduated from a private Jesuit high school down in Denver—the same one Ford went to—and studied geological engineering at The School of Mines for my undergrad. So those things aren’t exactly typical. But eventually I fit in. In a grad school kind of way. I mean, people who go into research aren’t normal anyway. They live in the lab or on the dig site. They get excited over data and results. They have little time for socializing.
I spend my time teaching undergrads, studying fossils, and running experiments. So maybe I planned it this way? Maybe I chose this field not because I was a dinosaur freak when I was growing up with my real dad, but to isolate myself from the rest of the world?
It works, that’s for sure. Because while I know all my fellow research freaks here at KU, and I know plenty of undergrads from the classes I teach, I have no real friends.
I had Jimmy up until last summer. I look at the only photograph I have on display in my home and smile. I miss that stupid dog. He was just too old to stay here at home by himself while I worked. And even though he has a service vest that will get him into any place in the US, my department here at school made it clear they did not want one of my dad’s face-eaters trailing me around everywhere. So I took him home to Fort Collins.
And now I live in this secure house alone.
That’s exactly how I feel right now. Alone.
I had that side project planned before school started and now that’s all fucked up too. And even though no one in their right mind would consider that a social activity, I was looking forward to it.
Fucking Jax ruined it by showing up at the airport.
And Nick. I do want to see him. I’d like to know why he left. I’d like to know if he ever loved me or if he was just using me to take people down in the Company.
I want to punch him in the face and fall into his arms at the same time. I feel like he is the last piece of the puzzle that is me. The one thing in my past that is unresolved.
I lie down on the couch holding my phone. Maybe he will call? Maybe he’s watching me right now?
I don’t close the windows or the shutters. I’m hoping that he will slip into my house and wake me up with some declaration of his undying love. Apologize for leaving behind the only girl he ever loved. Insist that he did it all for me. To give me a chance, and make my life good, and get me away from the death and destruction that we grew up with as Company kids.
But I don’t even get that in a dream. I wake up the next morning cold, and just as alone as I was the night before.