Chapter Thirty - James
“What did you mean back there?” Harper asks once there’s nothing to look at on this drive but Joshua trees and the occasional flattened snake in the road. “When you said, ‘Someone who should be dead.’”
I glance over my shoulder to see if the Smurf wants in on this conversation, but she’s sprawled out across the central console, sleeping. “Check Sasha’s pulse for me, will you? That opiate antagonist I gave her wears off, and if they dosed her too high, she’ll be all drugged up again.”
Harper leans into the backseat with a loud, annoyed sigh as she grabs the kid’s wrist and a half a minute later she says, “Sixty-eight.”
“OK, she’s pretty good.”
“Well, I’m not, James. I need some answers. Nothing about you makes any sense and I want to know why all this is happening.”
“I could say the same thing about you, Harper.” I give her a sideways glance, then take my attention back to the rough desert terrain. I consider how to fill her in without fucking things up too bad and come up with evasion. “Back when I was just some teenage punk who thought being an assassin would turn me into a better, stronger, faster killer version of Boba Fett, I asked why a lot too. But I learned pretty fast that why was a dangerous question. Why are people after Sasha? Why are you and I together? Why is Sasha with us? I mean, really, besides being Company kids, what do we have in common?”
She’s silent. Maybe thinking, maybe avoiding.
I make it easy for her. “Killing, Harper. That’s what we have in common. Do you know who was at your birthday dinner that day on the boat?”
I glance over and she shakes her head at me.
“You poisoned everyone by lacing the water, some,” I stress, “more than others. But of those thirteen who died, nine of them were section leaders. All ranking officials. Do you know what that means as far as Company organization goes?” She knows. But she’s quiet so I fill it in for her. “Restructuring. Promotions, new ranks, new leaders. Now ask yourself, who benefits the most by restructuring?”
Her silence is starting to piss me off, and I’m tired of babying her. “Your father, Harper. He’s the head guy, he calls the shots, he has enemies, maybe some who think they can run the Company better than he does. He takes them all out in one act. Only he never gets his hands dirty.”
“So he used me to do his killing?” She lets off a snort. “Right.”
“That surprises you? I mean the man was gonna give you away to me when you were six years old—”
“James,” she snarls. “That’s highly unlikely.”
“I agree, it was unlikely he was serious, but he made the offer just the same. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t it enough to use you in that way enough to make you believe he could use you in other ways? Did you hear the offer?” I ask her. “Do you want me to repeat it word for word so you can decide what his intentions were?”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, he might’ve said that to you, but he didn’t really mean it. You said yourself, it was a test. He would never give me to you.”
“Why, because you’re so out of my league, you can’t imagine your father deeming me worthy?”
“I’m not answering that. It’s stupid. You already said you knew that the offer was not real, so why this resistance to admit what you already know?”
“Because you’re missing the point, Harper. The point is that he’s capable, regardless of his intentions.”
“He has nothing to do with my actions on the ship that night. It was—”
She stops short and this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. “It was who, Harper? You and Nick?”
She shakes her head at me. “How would my father know?”
“How would he know, Harper? Come on, who gave you that plan? Who told you to use Visine?”
“It’s just something we had on board.” She shrugs. “Visine and ocean swimming go together.”
“It was a good plan.” I let out a sarcastic chuckle. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic plan. But don’t you think it’s a little convenient that a bunch of old cronies got offed by a poison that points right to Assassin Number Six?”
“I didn’t know anything about that Tet stuff, James.”
“No.” I look at her. Stare at her. “No, you didn’t. But Nick did because he was one of us. And if he wanted your father dead, well, then your father absolutely would be dead. And since thirteen Company cronies are dead and your father is not, he was obviously in on the plan. So what’s his endgame? What’s your endgame?”
I look over at her as she squares her shoulders and tilts her chin up, then looks back to the road. “Freedom, James. All I want is my freedom.”
“And you need your father alive for that? The person who was gonna enslave you in the first place?”
Harper huffs out a breath and starts shaking her head. “You sure do ask a lot of why questions. I mean, for someone who was taught to shut his face and do what he’s told. And that answer is God’s honest truth. So now it’s my turn. Why was that guy back there someone who should be dead?”
I give Harper a quick glance, then deflect the question for a few more seconds as I swerve to miss a tortoise crossing the highway. Her bare feet are propped up on the dash and she’s leaning back against the door so she can get a straight view of me. “One of my recent jobs, that’s all.”
“So what did he do? To deserve an assassination by you?”
“I have no clue, it was just an order.”
“But you failed. So…”
“I thought he was dead,” I growl at her. “I didn’t fail. Something else happened.”
“Oh.” She sighs, and then mutters, “OK,” at me, tiring of my evasive answers quickly, and for that I’m grateful. I’m not in the mood to talk about what I’ve been doing the past two years.
“So how come you haven’t killed Merc?” Sasha, that little faker, asks from the back.
“Why would I kill Merc?”
“You killed all the rest. So how come not Merc?”
I scowl at her in the rear view.
“You killed all the other what?” Harper asks now.
Fuck.
“Assassins.” Sasha again. “He’s supposed to be the only one left besides Merc. So I’m just curious, why Merc? Because he’s not a nice guy. He’s not a good guy. He’s not a Company guy either. He’s nasty and mean and since I knew all those other assassins you took out, even if it was just casually, I just don’t get it.”
I say nothing. Because this is yet another puzzle piece that requires some thinking. How the fuck does this kid know so much about my business? And who the fuck is setting me up? And if Sasha and I are actually working for the same person, that’s one thing. But I’m not getting the impression that’s the case. In fact, all my previous loyalties are coming into question at the moment. Who do I trust? Whose plan is this?
“There’s more, you know,” Sasha continues in the wake of my silence.
“More what?” I laugh out the words in an attempt to feign amusement.
“More assassins. More than you know of. Lots more.”
I am not amused. “I don’t want to talk about it, OK? Just a couple more hours and we’ll be in Palm Springs. Until then, shut the fuck up.”
“James,” Harper says in a calm voice. “It’s better if we all know what’s going on.”
“The Smurf back there is the only one who knows what’s going on, why not ask her.”
“He’s crazy,” Sasha says as Harper turns back to her. “They’re all crazy. You had to have seen them growing up, right? Even if it was just briefly, you had to have seen them. It’s not easy to miss the fact that you have to be psychotic to do a job like this.”
“Sasha, I’m not gonna say it again. Shut the fuck up. I’m not the crazy one here, OK?” I look over at Harper and she’s got that look in her eyes again. That same look she had back in Huntington when she was trying to figure out if she was my target. And she has no fucking right. No fucking right. “I’m not the one who just jumped off the roof of a moving vehicle to tackle a dirt bike. I’m not the one who just snapped a man’s neck like it was nothing. I’m not the one who’s been living in the middle of nowhere for three months. You two”—I point to Harper and then jerk my thumb in the direction of the back seat—“you fucking girls are the crazy ones.”
“Hmmm,” is all Harper says.
Sasha keeps her mouth shut for once.
And that’s how they leave it. With me being a dick.
I try to forget about the question and just drive. I don’t want to fight with Harper. She’s the only fucking reason I’m doing any of this. Fighting with her defeats every objective I have. I just want to get out of this goddamned sun, close the curtains, make everything dark, and—
“I think I know why he didn’t kill Merc.”
“Why?” Harper asks quickly, turning around to see Sasha.
“Because Merc is gonna kill him.”
“That’s fucking it!” I swerve the Hummer over to the almost nonexistent shoulder, and slam on the brakes. “You shut your fucking mouth, kid. Or I swear to fucking God, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Harper asks, her eyebrows raised up to the ceiling. “She’s got legitimate questions, James. And to be honest, I’m interested in the answers. Who was the guy who took her? And why was he sending me messages?”
“Harper, use your fucking brain. Why do you think he was sending you messages?”
“Why? If he knew where to find me, then why didn’t he just take me? Why play this game? I’m sure my father has a reward out. Or a hit.”
“Oh, is that where we’re at again? You think I’m here to kill you? Did you know the Smurf is a killer too? Or did you not put that two plus two together yet?”
“Don’t insult me, Tet. I figured that out, thanks.”
“Then maybe you’re her target and not mine? How about that?”
“So why hasn’t she killed me?”
“I haven’t killed you either, but you still think that’s my job. And while we’re all playing let’s-confess-to-shit-we’re-not-doing, what’s your job, Harper? Who the fuck are you and your brother after?”
“Oh, snap!” Sasha says.
“Shut up!” Harp and I yell together.
“She’s playing us, you do realize that, right? I mean, you can see that now, right? She’s egging us on, making us fight.”
“I’m just trying to tell you something,” Sasha squeals. “Something you don’t know but I do. And you know what? Forget it. You don’t deserve my help if you’re gonna treat me like a traitor! I was kidnapped for her!” She shoves Harper on the shoulder and Harp slaps her hand off, turning around like she’s gonna dive back there and start a real fight.
“Sit back, Harper,” I growl as I yank her by the arm and push her against the door. I pull back onto the road before one of these girls decides to get out of the car. I am not in the mood to chase them down in this heat.
“I don’t want to travel with you anymore,” Harper says as she crosses her arms and turns her back to me. “I’m leaving when we get back to civilization.”
“I’m leaving too. I’d rather die than go back to Merc. I’ll find Ford on my own.”
Called that one.
Fuck. Thirty minutes ago I was having warm fuzzies for that little brat and dreaming about Harper’s lips wrapped around my cock. And now this.
I drive in silence as the anger and resentment lingers in the air like a cloud of dust. I roll over all the possibilities in my head, replay the conversation to figure out where it all went wrong. And then make a decision to take one for the team. “OK,” I say.
“OK, what?” Harper asks without looking at me.
“Two years ago,” I start. “Two years ago I had a meeting about my brother.” I check Harper in my peripheral vision, then the rear view. Both girls are listening, I know that much.
“Lots of people wanted him dead and I can’t say I disagreed. He was one fucked-up individual. I admit, I am one fucked-up individual. But Tony… Tony was the worst of all of us. He was too young when he started doing jobs. Three years younger than me, and I was only sixteen. I was sent away, learned my trade and completed my contracts in faraway places, filled with faces I never cared about. Entire populations of people who meant nothing to me. It was a movie. A video game. A book. It was not me killing and they were not real people. But Tony did jobs in fucking San Diego on the weekends and went to school on Monday like he was just another kid. He never had the chance to dissociate.”
“Dissociate?” Sasha asks, leaning forward into the front seat. “What’s that mean?”
“They tell me,” I continue, irritated with her, “they being the Company shrinks—that the dissociation from society is normal. Key, really. It’s the only way to kill people for a living and not go off the rails. Of course, we all go off the rails. That’s why there’s only two of us left. And I’m the only one still here.”
“You really killed them all?” Harper asks, appalled.
“I really did.”
“But,” Sasha interrupts, “there’s more than ten assassins, James.”
“Thank you, Sasha. I’m so fucking glad you’re here to school me.” I catch her rolling her eyes in the rear-view. “I know there’s more than ten fucking assassins.”
“Who gave you those jobs?” Harper asks.
I don’t look at her as the words come out. I just stare straight ahead. “Your father.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. I just do what I’m told.”
“You’re lying,” Harper says. Her anger is almost dripping off her, that’s how hot she is right now. “You’re lying and I’m sick of it. Just tell me what the hell is going on before you get us all killed!”
“Harper, believe me, if I fucking knew, I would. But I don’t know what’s going on.”
“What if more assassins show up?” Sasha asks. “What do we do then?”
“You don’t do anything. You let me handle them.”
“Pow,” Sasha says quietly as she shoots her finger at the windshield, her arm extending between Harper and me. “They’ll be dead with a shot to the head.” She laughs a little and sits back. “He’s probably gonna kill Nick, Harper. Just like you killed your brother, huh, Tet?”
I don’t take her bait. I let it ride. Because if I stop right now, I’ll snap her little Smurf neck and leave her body in the desert.