Chapter Fifty-Six - Sasha
Present Day
Some people look peaceful when they sleep.
James Fenici is not one of them.
He doesn’t talk, or thrash wildly from nightmares. Only stupid people do that. Weak people.
James Fenici is not weak. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not weak.
No. James has this little twitch. It’s almost not noticeable, and it only affects the one eye. But it’s there. I’ve been watching him for about an hour. I’ve been on a private plane twice now—once on my way to Vegas, and this time, on my way home from California. But let me tell you something. They are pretty fucking boring.
Fracking. Fudging. Flucking. I should not swear in my thoughts. James hates it when I swear and if I swear in my thoughts, I’ll swear in real life.
But fuck it. This plane ride sucks. There are no drinks because Harrison was too busy fishing me out of the ocean after James shot me to stock up the cooler.
Yeah. This stupid plane has a cooler. Like something you put ice in. Not like a refrigerator that even our stupid nineteen seventy-eight RV had back when I was a kid. A cooler. I’m not impressed.
So no soda. Not even a fracking, fudging, flucking bag of pretzels.
God, I’m so hungry.
“James?”
He’s across the aisle from me, but that’s like two feet away tops. I kick him when he doesn’t answer.
“James?”
“Kick me again, and I’ll break all your toes,” he says without opening his eyes.
“I’m so hungry.”
He cracks one eye open. “Do I look like a vending machine? I told you, we’ll stop in Burlington after we get the truck.” He closes the one eye like this matter is settled.
“How far away is Burlington?”
“Go ask Harrison.”
And that’s it. I watch him for a few minutes to see if he’ll apologize for not having food. But he doesn’t. He’s asleep again because there’s that twitch.
I don’t want to ask Harrison. He’ll say something with coordinates that make no sense without a map. If it was light I could look out the window and at least see if we passed the mountains yet. Burlington is on the prairie.
I slump down in my seat and pout. I know that’s very childish and I should man up and stop doing it. But I’m not a man and I’m still a child. So hey, might as well enjoy it while I can.
I think of Nick instead.
I can’t believe he never told Harper about me. Is that weird? She didn’t even know I was his promise. That’s not weird. I don’t think, anyway. Promises are supposed to be secret. I shouldn’t know Nick and I are promised. But he told me last year when he started coming to see me in Wyoming.
Well, he came to see my dad. But he took an interest in me and it was very hard for me not to take an interest back because Nick Tate is what girls call hot.
He and Harper have some similarities, obviously, since they are twins. But Nick is taller than Harper. He’s got nice muscles for a boy of only eighteen. Not like James. James has man muscles. He’s a big guy compared to Nick. But Nick is quicker than James. Harper is quicker than James too. I saw her fight a little while we were together.
Nick is smart too. He knows so many things. He knows secrets for one. Secrets that even James doesn’t know.
Hell, even I know secrets that James doesn’t know.
But if I thought that gave me an advantage, I’d be wrong because there’s more to James than just… James.
Of course, there’s the little matter of Number One too. He tried to kill Harper. And I don’t know what to make of all this. Or of James’ sister, Nicola. Or the Admiral. Or Nick for that matter.
Who should I trust?
So far it’s just James. But once I see Nick, I’ll have to make a choice. Because you can’t be loyal to two people at once.
Can you?
Harrison yells from the cockpit. “We’re getting ready to land, you guys. Buckle up.”
James lowers his feet off the seat across from him and sits up straight. Has he been awake this whole time? Shit, I stopped watching him. Did he see me thinking?
I don’t like to think about secrets in front of James. It’s not like he reads minds or anything, but he’s got instincts. He reads faces. And body language. And even voices.
I know because my father taught me how to do it too. But the thing about instincts is that you have to use them in real life to make them second nature.
I have never done a job. Aside from killing those four men who came to blow up my grandparents’ ranch, I’ve never done anything exciting. All the teaching in the world is useless without experience.
James has experience. James has killed hundreds of people. He’s overthrown governments. He’s worked in conditions I can’t even imagine. And he was a prisoner of war down in Honduras once.
I’ve heard that story enough times to recite it in my sleep from people more important than him. Back in the desert he told Harper and me that he was running a shadow government down in San Pedro Sula, but that wasn’t his first time in Honduras. No. The first time was when he was captured.
I know what happened to him down there. Both times. I chance a look over at my new partner and smile.
“What’s on your mind, Smurf?”
Shit.
“I’m so, so, so, so hungry.” He stares at me and I can’t help myself. I squirm.
“Burlington has a McDonalds. We’ll get some breakfast there.”
I would die for McDonalds right now. “And then what are we gonna do?”
The plane drops the landing gear with a thud and this gives James the opportunity to ignore my question.
I don’t like when he ignores my questions. Because that means I won’t like the answer he’s not giving me.
“We’re partners, right?” I ask him, suddenly feeling needy.
He turns back to me with a smile. I love it when he smiles. Because as far as I can tell, the smiles are never fake. “Till death do us part, midget.”
I smile back. I really do like James. I’m just not sure I can trust James.
Because as far as I’ve been able to tell, Tet is in charge in all the situations that count. The most notable was back at Merc’s house in the desert when he told me he might have a plan. The second time was after Harper was drugged by One. I’m still not one hundred percent sure of who was actually in charge that first time. But the guy who told me he was going to shoot me in the chest was definitely Tet.
And even though I think James is on the up and up, I have a hard time understanding how he can live two lives at the same time.
Everyone in the Company—and I do mean everyone—knows that James Fenici is a twisted dude. You need him to kill his brother? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to kill a trainer’s kid? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to trail your daughter and lead everyone on a wild chase to take the heat off your son? No problem. Just tell Tet.
But the problem with James and Tet doubles when you realize you can’t have one without the other. They are not two separate personalities.
They really are the same guy.
I think that makes James/Tet more insane than if he was one of those crazy people with split personality disorder. Because at least if they were two people you could sorta count on them.
For instance, when the Admiral texted James and told him to come out to Colorado and “pick me up” what he really expected was for Tet to come out to Colorado to “pick me off”.
Nick told me the night before James showed up. He said, If you see him first, he’s James and you should give him a chance. If he shows up as Tet, you’ll never know he was there.
Is it fucked up that Nick didn’t just tell me to get the hell out of there?
I’m not sure.
But Tet wasn’t around when that text from the Admiral to come “pick me up” came in. James was. And James was busy with Harper, so he didn’t need Tet.
See, the Admiral, for all his uppity smugness, really has no clue how James/Tet operates. I suppose that’s why he instructed me to kill James that day. It was a two birds kind of thing.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts when the plane touches down, bounces once, then again, and we roll the rest of the way towards the small airport surrounded by cornfields on three sides.
When we come to a stop James stands up and stretches his arms above his head and touches the top of the cabin, pressing his hands flat against the curved plastic. “I’m starved too, McSmurf. And I need coffee.” He says that with a smile.
God, I love that smile. I might not like Tet all that much, and James is not one of those nurturing people like my dad was. But when he smiles at me like that, I absolutely love him.